Jayne Castle: Ghost Hunter

"Realizing there was an outside chance that he might someday need an alibi, he slipped out through my little hole-in-the-wall down in the basement." Ripley lounged back in his executive chair and steepled his fingers. "He no doubt planned to return the same way. If anyone questioned him later, he could say he was here at work the whole time."

"But he wasn't able to return because he melted amber creating the massive blue ghost vortex that he used to trap Newell in the catacombs."

"He would have plunged into a bad afterburn," Ripley concluded. "There would have been no time to come back here and act normal for a couple of hours. He had to go somewhere to crash."

"But first he would have wanted a woman," Cooper said softly.

Ripley tapped his fingertips together. "He would have wanted one very, very badly."

"The hooker who was found dead three blocks from Ruin Lane the next morning." Cooper walked slowly across the room, thinking. "The papers said it was a chant overdose. But the woman's roommate told the reporters that it looked like her friend had been roughed up by her last client. She called it murder."

"She may have been right." Ripley leaned forward and checked a printout. "According to my human resources department, Palmer Frazier, aka Jake Monroe, was hired three months ago. Been a model employee."

"Got a hunch he'd been planning to set you up for that raid for a long time," Cooper said.

"Question is, why?"

"He's a hunter who can work blue ghost light." Cooper shrugged. "They tend to be long-range planners."

"Yeah, I've heard that. The plan seems to have gone along very smoothly until you arrived on the scene. You have screwed things up for him since you hit town."

"Not me." Cooper headed for the door. "I think he was setting me up, too, which is kind of embarrassing for a Guild boss to have to admit."

"If you weren't the one messing with his plan, who was?"

Cooper paused, his hand on the doorknob. "My fiancée." He smiled slightly. "He made the mistake of underestimating her right from the start."

"Fiancée? Didn't know you were still engaged. Thought the wedding had been called off."

"Just postponed."

"Yeah? Well, when you set a new date, be sure to send me an invitation."

"I'll do that."

"HE'S NOT DEAD OR ANYTHING, IS HE?" DOREEN ASKED. She looked uneasily at Grayson DeWitt, who was stretched out flat on the kitchen floor, snoring gently. "Killing cops is generally considered a no-no."

"Don't worry." Elly finished de-rezzing the handcuff that bound Doreen to the kitchen chair. "Just asleep. But he won't wake up for a few hours. The dose of red moonseed that I put in the tea was pretty strong."

"I don't get it." Doreen stood, gently rubbing her chafed wrist. "I saw you make the tea. All three of us drank it. Why aren't you and I snoozing away on the kitchen floor?"

"It's true, we all drank the same tea, and I did slip a heavy dose of moonseed into it when DeWitt was busy checking the alley." Elly went to the window, put her back to the wall, and peered behind the shade. "But the additional herbs that I put into the tea that you and I drank were an antidote to moonseed. In fact, when you combine those two herbs you get a brew that is actually a high-energy stimulant."

"Huh. Guess that explains why I'm feeling like I could go to the gym and work out."

"My compliments on the great acting job, by the way. I thought you really were about to throw up all over DeWitt's nice shoes."

"Frankly, it wasn't too far a stretch for me. I wasn't feeling very good at the time. But I'm much better now." Doreen moved around the table. "See anything?"

"A couple of guys on the rooftop across the way. Looks like DeWitt wasn't kidding when he said he had men watching the street and the alley."

"Oh, jeez. That means we don't dare leave."

"Not via the alley or the street, that's for sure." Elly reached for the wall phone. "I've got to warn Cooper."

"Wait." Doreen's eyes widened. "Not that phone. It might be tapped. Remember what you said about cops and bugs."

Elly stared at the phone in her hand as though it had become a chroma-snake. "You're right." She slammed the instrument back into the receiver. "I'll use my personal phone. I left it in my tote."

"Do you think the cops can bug personal phones, too?"

Elly halted in the doorway, appalled. "I don't know."

They looked at each other for a long moment.

Doreen turned to stare at Grayson DeWitt. "Why not use his phone?"

"Good thinking." Elly rushed back to crouch beside Grayson. She patted his pockets and found a small phone inside one of them. It was a very attractive and expensive brand, she noticed.

She rezzed the phone and punched in Cooper's private number. He answered on the first ring.

"Cooper, where are you?"

"Just left The Road. What's wrong?"

He spoke in the flat, cold voice she had only heard him use when he dealt with emergencies or major Guild politics.

She gave him a quick rundown of events.

"And now DeWitt's passed out cold on the kitchen floor," she concluded. "You can't come back here, Cooper. There are men on the rooftops waiting to arrest you."

"Frazier is a bigger problem at the moment. I don't know where he is. You and Doreen have to get out of that apartment."

"There's only one way out that probably isn't being watched," she said, meeting Doreen's anxious eyes.

"Your little hole-in-the-wall?" Cooper asked.

"Yes." Elly scooped up Rose and signaled to Doreen to follow her toward the stairs. "We're on our way downstairs now."

"Any chance Frazier knows about it?"

Elly looked at Doreen. "Did you tell your ex-boyfriend about my private little bolt-hole?"

"No. Subject never came up." Doreen made a face. "And even if it had, I wouldn't have told him. Frazier and I had some fun together, but it wasn't like I was in love with the bastard."

"Spoken like a true ruin rat," Elly said wryly. "Okay, that answers that question," she said into the phone. "He probably doesn't know about my secret tunnel entrance."

"I still don't like the idea of you going down there," Cooper said.

Elly, with Doreen behind her, reached the bottom of the staircase and hurried across the space to open the cellar door.

"We'll be okay," she assured him. "Doreen is a very good tangler. She can handle any illusion traps we might come across. Rose will give the alarm if there are any stray ghosts drifting around that section of the tunnels. We'll steer clear of them."

"What about an exit strategy?"

"I've got the coordinates for Bertha's hole-in-the-wall. We'll head for it. There's no reason DeWitt's men would be watching her shop."

"You've got plenty of tuned amber?" Cooper asked.

She glanced at the amber locket around Doreen's neck. "Doreen has hers." She touched her earrings. "And I've got mine."

"Give me both frequencies."

She rattled off her own and then held the phone away from her mouth. "Doreen? What's your freq?"

Doreen gave it to her. Elly repeated it into the phone.

"Got 'em," Cooper said.

"We're heading into the cellar now." Elly led the way down the steps into the pool of darkness below. "We won't be able to keep this phone connection much longer."

"Be careful, both of you," he said. "I'll pick you up at the exit point in about twenty minutes. I want you and Doreen in safekeeping at Guild headquarters before I go after Frazier."

Elly knelt down to open the concealed trapdoor in the floor of the cellar.

"Yes, sir, Mr. Guild Boss," she said. "See you soon."

A wave of psi power wafted up through the opening in the floor.

She cut the connection and dropped the phone into her pocket.

"I'm the tangler here," Doreen said. "Stand back; I'll go first."