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Both Raj and the man gaped at me.
“What?” Raj hissed.
I pointed. “Dead woman.”
They both looked, and I felt a surge of gut-deep satisfaction as the blood drained from the man’s face. He slammed the door shut.
“I’m going to guess he’s going to go call his lawyer, but I’m also taking that as permission,” I told Raj. “Now, rather than stand here with my thumb up my ass, I’m going to go follow the dead lady.”
Raj trailed me back to where Sylvia Randolph waited. She smiled at him and nodded.
“She can’t talk,” I told him. “Not without Ward, anyway.”
Raj made a funny noise in the back of his throat.
“Yeah,” I agreed. “Manifested ghosts without Ward around is new to me, too. But we’re gonna go with it because it’s going to get us to the murder site.”
“So we know it’s a murder?”
I sighed. “Sabrina Estevez is dead. And, presumably, is showing Lady Randolph here where to lead us, since Lady Randolph is the special one.”
She sketched a small curtsy.
“Huh,” was all Raj came out with, his gold-brown eyes wide as he stared at Sylvia.
“Come on, Tigger,” I tugged at his arm.
“I’ll bite you if you call me that again,” he grumbled, although I counted it as a win, since it had managed to get him to stop staring at Sylvia.
“Okay, Tony.”
“Fuck you, Keebler,” he snapped, a growl edging his tone.
I flashed a half-smile at him, although, given the circumstances, it was short-lived. But sometimes you have to take the little things.
The ghost gestured at the garden path, her head tilted to the side in a question.
“Let’s go,” I told her.
* * *
Sylvia ledus first to a disturbingly familiar stone—although it wasn’t identical to the one on the Harrod estate, it was similar, a sizeable hunk of sandstone with a flat top. This one was in the middle of a field that had been allowed to go fallow, although a circle had been mowed around the stone. Its surface was covered in fairly fresh blood.
“Bloody monkey-fucking hell,” I hissed.
The blood was clearly still slightly sticky, the dark staining giving it a slight sheen, although I could tell from the discoloration on the stone that this was not the first time blood had soaked into its porous surface.
“Shit,” was Raj’s contribution, running the fingers of one hand through his thick hair, his nostrils flaring.
Even I could smell the sharp coppery tang of blood and death.
We could see indications of foot traffic through the grasses—bent and broken stems, a few smears of blood—and it was unbelievably tempting to start trying to follow. But we both knew that wouldn’t get us much. Raj pulled out his phone to call it in.
I turned to Sylvia. “Is her body nearby?” I asked.
The ghost pointed into the grasses.
“Raj—”
