Clare didn’t have the energy to contradict him. Tomorrow morning she’d go to the library by hired car for more research, but she wanted to drive herself to Mrs. Flinton’s, just to prove to herself that she could do it . . . even though she might have to map a way around town to avoid shades.

One particular shade bowed to her. Thank you, Clare Cermak, for retrieving the box and the ear for me. The worst thing I did in my life was to cut the ears off Jules Beni, and now I must make amends before I am allowed to leave this place.

No one really knew if Jack had cut off one or two of Beni’s ears—until Clare had learned it straight from the ghost’s mouth. Nor had anyone known for sure what had happened to the ears. The last report of one of them had been in a glass case in the Virginia Dale Station, but that information was hearsay, too.

Halfheartedly, she said, “You’re welcome.”

Enzo leapt from the couch and rubbed against the man, who petted him. Clare is a very good woman, the dog said.

Yes, she is.

I must return the ears to the place Jules Beni died and give them to him, as if I never cut them off, Jack Slade said.

Clare didn’t know what that entailed and didn’t want to ask. She sighed, then slipped from the chair arm to the corner of the couch, huddled in her blanket. “Where’s the other ear?”

Lost near my headquarters, Virginia Dale stage station.

At least that building was still standing; Clare had a sneaking suspicion that the station at Cold Springs, where Slade had cut off Beni’s ears, wasn’t around since she hadn’t been able to locate it on her computer. Which reminded her that she’d wanted to look up Zach’s story on her tablet, but her bag in the tiny room she used as a home office was too far away to get right now, and she was too tired. She closed her eyes to sleep, though she suspected she’d already fallen into a nightmare.

 • • •

When Zach stopped at Mrs. Flinton’s house, he fished his old laptop out from under the driver’s seat and limped to the side entrance to his apartment. Tomorrow he’d have to go back up to the motel in Northglenn and get the rest of his stuff. Man, his whole body ached. He set his jaw and hobbled to the side door. The guy who’d brought him his car had given him a set of keys for the apartment. Zach already had the alarm code.

He opened the fancy and heavy iron security door with a grunt, then the thick door of solid oak, which swung silently inward. As he closed the door behind him, his nose twitched. He smelled pie. So he set his laptop on the bar counter and took a tall stool. Yep, under a ceramic cover was a piece of pecan pie. His mouth watered. A note written in nice cursive said, Milk is in the refrigerator—Bekka.

Zach was so damn achy he didn’t want to move off the round-cushioned stool; instead he fumbled at the silverware drawer just within reach, yanked it open enough to get a fork, and plunged it into the pie.

Homemade, oh yeah! Really rich on his tongue, a lot of calories, fattening. Eh, he could afford to put on some weight. Still, he took each bite slowly, turning on his computer and checking his e-mail account in between bites. The first one he saw was an announcement of the date and time of a funeral for two deputy sheriffs. Tongue sour, he sent that message to archives, didn’t quite delete it.

What would be his welcome if he showed up? Looks from the rest of his department as black as a crow’s wing, and low voices muttering about him. Nah, he sure didn’t need that. He was done with that; this very full day had proven so.

The next message was from Rickman, brief and to the point. Aunt Barbara praised your actions tonight. Good job. Show up at 11:00 A.M. for consultation with T.R. in re: tracing Flinton antiques. Zach made a mental note of that, figured now he was in a big city he’d have to break down and buy a smart phone. He was ready to click the e-mail closed when he saw an attachment labeled Clare Cermak.

He stared. Mrs. Flinton must have given Clare’s name to Rickman. No doubt at all that the old lady had already burbled about the whole evening to the man . . . even regarding the invisible dog? Zach winced. But he hovered his cursor over the attachment . . . and opened it.

He skimmed the information. He already knew her address; he memorized her landline phone and cell numbers. Background of Gypsy extraction. He grinned at that. She did have fire under those prim clothes. Her parents were still living but world travelers, “employment unknown.” Sounded like flakes. Might be why she’d been so focused on business. Zach could only agree with her need to contribute.

She had an older brother who was a golf pro in Williamsburg, Virginia; the guy was married with a nine-year-old daughter.

Seemed to be family money.

And Clare’s Aunt Sandra Cermak had died a few months previously; Clare had been named the executor and sole heiress. That would bring problems, Zach figured. She’d inherited . . . millions, eight figures’ worth of millions. Seriously wealthy.

Didn’t stop his dick from rising as he looked at a gallery of photos. Beautiful woman.

A big paragraph in bolded type. Sandra Cermak had inherited the base of her fortune from her uncle, invested it well, but had made a lot more through her consulting services as a psychic.

A medium, a woman who saw and spoke with ghosts.

Bullshit, and no wonder Clare might be conflicted about her aunt and the woman’s money. Clare didn’t strike Zach as a woman who tolerated woo-woo. Just like him.

The memory of what Mrs. Flinton had said earlier at the auction house plucked at Zach’s mind: The ghost dog accompanying Clare. Ghost. Dog.

But Clare hadn’t said anything about a ghost dog.

Zach snorted, stood up from the stool, put the pie plate in the sink, and ran water in it to soak.

Just before he punched the button to turn off his machine, he saw the last paragraph, a comment by Rickman: Aunt Barbara approves of Clare Cermak and says she can see and interact with ghosts.

Zach winced.

Aunt Barbara also thinks that you have “the sight.”

No, he damn well didn’t.

But Aunt Barbara has informed me several times that she prefers to associate with people who have a touch of psi power.

Zach rolled his eyes and turned off his computer. His stomach squeezed and rumbled as if his juices didn’t like what he’d read. As he limped to bed, he wondered what “Aunt Barbara” saw in Tony Rickman.

Didn’t matter. None of them—Rickman, Zach, or Clare—believed in psychic gifts.

Zach slid into sheets softer than any he’d slept in since his grandmother had died. Luxurious sheets. The kind of quality of sheets that he believed Clare would have on her new bed. He couldn’t wait to try them out with her.

And he would.

 • • •

Clare gritted her teeth as she wrote another check to Dr. Barclay. She’d taken his first session the next morning to get the appointment over with.

He’d asked if she’d resolved her issues with her aunt before Sandra had died. No. Clare hadn’t told him there was no resolving clashing points of view on the reality of ghosts.

Then the doctor had led Clare to realize with a thunking in her mind that not only hadn’t she resolved her issues with Aunt Sandra, but she’d been handling the full burden of that estate, and the money from that estate had drastically changed Clare’s life. And Clare had quit her job. Not to mention that she’d decided to move.

Death, job loss, and moving. Three huge stress factors in her life.

Still . . . all she wanted to do was to talk about whether she was going crazy because she was seeing ghosts; just fix that one problem.

Dr. Barclay thought Enzo was a manifestation of a need she had for friendship and fun. The gunfighter—for some reason she hadn’t informed the psychologist that she’d discovered who he was—symbolized her rebellion against her careless parents and their stupid lifestyle, or heavy unresolved issues with Aunt Sandra herself, a psychic medium.