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The ghost blinked at me.“I-I,”he hesitated.“I was driving home from work. I called my mom because I hadn’t talked to her in a couple weeks. I-I might have been going a bit fast. I don’t really remember. But then there was a siren and lights. S-so I pulled over.”
“Did you stay on the phone with your mom?” Raj asked, although his gold-brown eyes were still a little big.
“N-no. I-I hung up as I pulled over. I didn’t—I didn’t want to get ticketed for being on the phone, too.”
Raj nodded, his fingers tapping on the laptop keyboard on his lap.
“I-I. The officer told me to get out of the car,”the ghost said.“I did. He made me walk around behind the car. P-put my hands on the trunk.”He stared down at his semi-translucent hands.“He h-hit me. I p-passed out.”
Raj took a photograph out of the folder on the table in front of him and put it in front of the ghost, careful not to brush the summoning sigils chalked on the table. “Is this the officer?”
The ghost leaned forward.“N-no. Sorry.”
“How about this?” Raj set out a second photo.
“Y-yes!”
I looked down. The second photo was Shelby. The first, although partly covered by Shelby’s headshot, looked similar, but wasn’t him. I wondered if he was also a suspect, or if Raj had intentionally brought a decoy to strengthen an actual identification.
“What happened next, Mr. Park?” Raj asked.
“I-I woke up when they pulled me out of the back of… maybe a truck? I had a h-hood on my head. They dragged me through some… woods, maybe? I couldn’t see. But it smelled like dirt.”
“Like dirt?”
The ghost nodded.“Like it had been raining and the earth was still wet.”
Raj noted this on his laptop. “And then?”
“They—they brought me to somewhere. I could smell old blood and—and feces. And…”If he’d been alive I’d have expected him to swallow. But he wasn’t.“And death and fear.”
He was a shifter. Of course he could have smelled all that. I couldn’t imagine knowing that you were in a place where other people had bled and died, blindfolded.
“They pushed me d-down. On a stone. And then…”he trailed off.
“I’m sorry,” Ward said softly, his voice kind. “But they need you to be specific. In order to make sure your story matches others’ stories.”
Daniel Park nodded.“I knew they were going to k-kill me,”he whispered.“Just not—not how.”He looked directly at Raj, who met and held his gaze, although I could see the muscles of Raj’s shoulders tense.“Have you ever b-been stabbed?”the ghost asked.
Raj nodded. I hadn’t known that.
“Then you know. Like h-hot and cold at the s-same time. It doesn’t hurt at first, then it d-does. Sharp and dull at once.”
Raj nodded again.
“I s-stopped counting at six,”the ghost murmured.“I d-didn’t want to know anymore.”
“Fuck,” Ezra breathed.
I happened to agree, but I had the feeling I was a lot more used to hearing the stories of how people died than most. I wondered what the fuck Ezra Getz did for the FBI as a medium if not get people’s statements about their deaths. But now wasn’t the time to ask.
“Thank you, Mr. Park,” Raj said softly, his voice low and strained.
The ghost nodded, looking nervous.
“Do you need anything else, Agent Parikh?” Ward asked.
“No, thank you.”
