This one does not need your help, Enzo said, leaning against her a little. He brought cool relief.

The man smiled, shook his head, and said, The timing is wrong for me.

Clare jerked at the deep masculine voice resounding in her mind that ramped up her anxiety at the visions. She started walking again.

He raised a dark brow and fell into step with her. You don’t know much about us, do you?

Juggling the box and her purse, Clare grabbed her cell from the outside pocket of her bag, checked a text. Yes! Her new psychologist had a free hour and was only a couple of blocks away.

It is not polite to ignore us, young lady, the imaginary guy said, then repeated, You don’t know much about us.

Addressing the phone, ignoring the prickles on her skin that announced strange-stuff-happening, she muttered, “No. And I don’t want to learn.”

She could have sworn she saw amusement on the pale face.

I hope to see you later.

Not if she could help it. She disregarded the gray illusions, stuck her box in the car, and hurried away—not nearly as hot now. This had been a real mistake. She should have damn well hired a car and driver.

Enzo passed through her as he barked and greeted a transparent woman. Clare flinched. The ghost dog ran off to chase real squirrels in Civic Center Park. They squealed and skittered away from him, and Enzo’s barks echoed eerily and triumphantly through the hot yellow summer sunshine.

She also ignored the huge and beautiful Denver Public Library, which had a special section on Western history. She was sure she’d find the guy who’d visited her in there, if she bothered.

And as she walked, nearly ran, filmy people gathered around her as if she were a magnet.

Terrible.

Panting, she entered the building where the psychologist’s office was, and a few minutes later, the office itself, a pale, sterile place.

After her appointment, she stomped away. She didn’t like the office. She didn’t like Dr. Barclay. She really didn’t like his questions and had crossed her arms and couldn’t open up to him, even as he donned a soothing manner.

She’d paid an outrageous amount for nothing.

And despairingly made another appointment for a couple of days later.

When she and Enzo returned to her hot little starter house, she took one look at the pile of paper on the dining room table pertaining to Aunt Sandra’s estate and walked right past it.

For the first time since she’d been an adult, she didn’t buckle down and do her duty. Instead she collapsed on the bed with a headache. She hadn’t gotten all the results in from her physical yet. Maybe she had a brain tumor. That would be easier to deal with.

Maybe the ghosts would leave her alone.

Enzo hopped onto her bed, settled at the end, and said, We have to help the man who comes at night before those we met today. It’s his time.

Clare was afraid to ask what that meant. She pulled a pillow over her face and curled up, hoping everything would go away.

BOULDER, COLORADO

Zach rolled his shoulders to relieve the tension after visiting his mother in the way-too-serene mental health facility.

He couldn’t get out of the place soon enough. The smells reminded him all too closely of the hospital he’d just been released from. Hell, all of his muscles were tense.

Before . . . before, he’d have hit the gym a few blocks away and worked out the anger and pity and guilt. But though the shooting had made news in Montana, he didn’t think it would have traveled down here two states away. He wasn’t in any sort of emotional shape to explain his disability to others who’d only pity him.

He’d spent an agonizing two hours with his mother, sitting with her, taking a small walk around the grounds. She’d retreated to a time before his brother Jim had died and didn’t seem to know Zach.

A lovely, sparkling woman who broke his heart. At least he’d aged enough that she didn’t call him “James” and ask him to take her away from the place. No, she didn’t think he was his brother anymore. Thankfully, his features were a combination of hers and the General’s, so she didn’t believe he was his father. She’d come to accept he was her younger son.

The visit had been as wrenching as ever. None of them would get over Jim’s senseless death.

Time to tuck that away again, get back on the road. His father’s family home was here, but neither the General nor Zach could handle the New Age ambiance of Boulder, so the place was rented out to a prof who taught at the university. The Slades did better in the more conservative Colorado Springs.

And he wasn’t going all the way into Denver, even though his mind played with the idea of giving that private investigator his former boss had mentioned a call. What kind of justice or closure could be found from someone you paid?

Zach’s lip curled. And the thought chomped hard that he might not even be adequate for a PI job.

He left rubber on the street as he got out of Boulder.

DENVER, THAT AFTERNOON

Clare’s teleconferencing program on her laptop rang with an insistent, asymmetrical buzzing beat that got her groggily out of bed. She staggered to the little back bedroom and opened the top of her computer, saw the icon of her brother, Tucker. He was taking care of closing up Aunt Sandra’s house, dividing up the furniture and shipping it off to three places.

No way was she letting her handsome big brother see her all pale and sleep-wrinkly. She zoomed to the bathroom sink and scrubbed her face with tepid water, letting it run over her hair well enough for him to think she’d just gotten out of the shower instead of having a midday nap.

Hurrying back to her small office, she hit the icon. “Hi, Tuck—”

“Hey, Auntie Clare!” Dora, nine years old, grinned out at Clare.

“Hi, Dora.”

“Dad wants to talk to you. He’s here somewhere.” Dora glanced around.

“How’s it going?” Clare asked.

“Good.” Dora’s expression turned serious. “It’s an a-mazing house. We’re sad and missing weird G.G. Aunt Sandra, but it’s good to see the house one last time.” For an instant Clare strained to look beyond Dora to the house itself.

The house was the one thing Tucker had asked to help out with the estate, and Clare had taken him up on the offer.

Dora hefted a sigh. “I’ll miss it.”

“Hey, pumpkin.” Tucker swept his daughter up in his arms, hooked his ankle around a chair and slid it over, and sat. “Hey, Clare.”

“Hi, Tucker.”

Stroking Dora’s head, Tucker said, “I know that the estate and house are yours since you didn’t take any payout from G.G. Uncle Amos’s trust, but is there any way we can keep it?”

Clare tried to keep her clenched jaw from showing. She’d sold the house, had a contract and a closing, and would take a substantial penalty for withdrawing. “Sure, we can keep it. I can deed it over to you.”

Tucker’s mouth turned down. “Not the folks?”

“Sure, if I knew they’d take care of it.” They wouldn’t. Tucker was ten times the father her own was, and Beth, Tucker’s wife, was a great mother. Dora was growing up knowing she was the center of their lives, and very loved.

Smiling with a hint of teeth, Clare said, “You get Mom and Dad to give me a call today or tomorrow and I’ll cancel the contract. Where are they now? I haven’t heard from them in a year.” They sure hadn’t come to Great-Aunt Sandra’s memorial, months ago. Too busy playing on the coast of Italy, or maybe France, or perhaps in the Greek islands.

Tucker’s square face took on color. “I haven’t heard from them, either.”

“Where are you sending their portion of the furniture?”

A sigh from her brother, and then he said, “I’ve been dealing with Terrence, G.G. Uncle Amos’s trust’s attorney. He’s found a storage unit in White Plains, New York, for the parents’ share of the furniture, and his office will handle the transfer on their end.”