Fade (Paxton Locke Book 1) Read online

  Ever since this whole thing started, I’ve hated to travel at night. The world isn’t awash with ghosts, but there are plenty if you look in the right place. There are way too many ghosts standing on the side of the road, glaring at traffic. I suspect, though I’ve never seen it, that they’re responsible for those mysterious pieces of rock that tended to hit you out of nowhere when you’re driving along. They can’t all be from dump trucks.

  I habitually strap on a helmet for the same reason. When you’ve seen as many dead motorcyclists as I have, it isn’t optional equipment. I shifted into gear, checked my mirrors, and made a tight turn to head back. Shirley Jackson’s subdivision sat on top of a low hill. I coasted down to the stop sign at the intersection. The evening rush hour was over. After looking both ways I gave the bike some gas and passed through the empty intersection.

  My phone vibrated in my jacket pocket, but I ignored it for the moment. I had a pretty good hunch what the message was going to be, so for the moment, I just zoned out and enjoyed the ride while I could.

  This only felt easy because it wasn’t over and until I figure out who — or what — Edie is, it wouldn’t be.

  Chapter 3

  One of the best things about RV parks is their decided lack of ghosts. It makes sense, really. For the most part, no one actually lives in one long enough to die there. And given the demographics of the people who hang around them, on the rare occasion when someone does die, it’s from natural causes.

  You can't say the same for a real house. Even in the newest neighborhoods, there's always someone choking to death on a chicken bone, drowning in their pool, or dying at the hands of an abusive spouse. Then, like clockwork, their spiritual revenant — or their harried family — shows up and wants me to do something about it. Don’t get me wrong, I love the Internet, but it’s forever. Shirley Jackson recognized me from TV, and I could probably guess what type of channel she’d been watching. A decade ago my life was torn apart, and the ensuing courtroom drama made for good ratings even in reruns. That would be bad enough, if it weren’t for the conspiracy websites and the obsessed vultures who run them. The dead just seem to home in like bloodhounds if they don’t attach themselves to a person or place. It’s debatable which group is more annoying.

  One way or another, living or dead — they always find me. The people like Ms. Jackson aren’t so bad, but there’s an entitlement mentality to so many of the living that seek me out that drives me batty. Look, I get the whole Spider-man creed — great power, great responsibility, all that jazz. But where I come from, just because someone is capable of doing something for you doesn’t mean they’re obligated to do so. Particularly if you’re rude and condescending about it.

  Those factors, along with my own innate desire to ramble and inability to relax in one place, determine my nomadic lifestyle.

  The Itasca motor coach, like my Kawasaki, looks like crap on the outside. The engine and interior — again, like the motorcycle — are immaculate and in perfect working order. That’s more difficult to pull off than you’d think, but the camouflage is worth it. I get into some pretty shady areas, and the RV can’t get into the same tight spaces as the bike. I can afford better, but I’d rather not leave a shiny, tempting target lying around to pique the interest of would-be thieves. Your typical RV park resident trends elderly and cares more about the weather than burgling the contents of someone else’s home on wheels, but there are exceptions to every rule. You can always depend on touristus Americanus to haul around an obnoxious kid or two.

  Besides serving up the comforts of home, the RV eliminates any need for me stay in hotels or motels during my travels. The amount of people who die in rented rooms, for whatever reason, is quite shocking. That’s not something they talk about in the commercials, of course. Considering how infrequently they wash the bedding, who wants to lay down where a guy just died? Especially if he’s glowering while you sleep and making the air conditioning alternate from blistering heat to Arctic cold.

  As I pulled into the campground, the elderly couple sitting under the awning of their own motor coach near the entrance gave me a friendly wave. I returned it automatically. I’ve been staying at the place for just over two days and the local denizens have already accepted me.

  Unless I missed my guess, the senior citizens probably prowled around my parked RV before they came to any conclusions. They wouldn’t break in, but they’d certainly inspect for odd odors or faded blood stains.

  I can respect that level of paranoia — trust but verify. Of course, if they had any inkling of what I had stashed under my bed, they’d justifiably freak out.

  I got the Kawasaki up on the rear rack and chained it in place. My headache was coming on strong despite the caffeine. I rubbed absently at my forehead as I dug the RV keys out of my jacket. My phone buzzed again and I muttered, “Yeah, yeah. Hold your horses.”

  The Itasca is old enough that it doesn’t have any of the modern bells and whistles like sliders or the awning my neighbors are chilling under. Despite that, it’s more than roomy for my needs, but that’s mainly because I stripped a lot of the excess out.

  When I bought it, there was a sofa bed behind the passenger seat and a third captain’s seat on the driver’s side. A folding dinette sat between the seats and could serve them all when they turned to face it. I had everything removed behind the front seats back to the small kitchen area. I’m the only person who’s ever slept inside, so the sofa bed and the lofts over the front seats and the queen bed in the rear were extraneous. I pulled the loft over the bed to get more headroom and I've re-purposed the space up front as storage for clothing and other essentials. I never know what kind of weather and terrain I’m going to be dealing with. A broad wardrobe selection is a must. The narrow closet in the rear just doesn’t cut it in terms of storage space.

  I installed a folding workbench in place of the sofa bed. This serves me as both desk and dinner table and strikes me as a far more efficient use of space than the prior configuration. Of course, I’m doing a lot more than camping.

  I pulled the door shut behind me and locked it. Even though I’ve upgraded it from stock, the door itself is flimsier than I’d like. For a little peace of mind, I installed board hangars on either side of the door as well as the frame around it. A short piece of two-by-four braces the outward-opening door against the frame of the wall itself. It’s not impervious, but it’s sturdy enough that any serious attempt to breach the door should wake me up.

  You’d think I’d have a hard time sleeping, but I have the opposite problem. On nights like these, once my headache fades it’s all I can do to keep my eyes open. It’s not quite a physical fatigue but the push takes it out of me.

  My bed beckoned, but I had work I needed to do first. I booted up my laptop while I assembled a sandwich from the supplies in my fridge. In the time that it took to wheel the padded office chair over to the computer and sit down, it was up and ready for me. The RV park’s WiFi was slow but serviceable.

  By the time that I pushed the computer away in frustration, I’ve reduced the sandwich to crumbs and exhausted every ounce of Google-fu in my arsenal. No matter what spelling I use, I can find no reported death for a Bobby — or Robert — Gennaro. It’s like the kid didn’t even exist.

  With all the crazy stuff I’ve seen, it wouldn’t shock me to have finally slipped a gear upstairs, but I know Bobby — or his ghost, at least — was real. The drag of exhaustion is something I can’t deny. Maybe I imagined the house I went to, and maybe I imagined the client, but I can’t deny that the ghost was real. Ergo, the rest of it was real, too.

  Whatever the case, I’m not doing myself any favors keeping myself awake. I took a few minutes to compose e-mails and text messages to see if any of my other sources could find some information that isn’t freely available on the Internet. By the time that I woke up in the morning, those inquiries would hopefully have borne fruit.

  My exhaustion has grown to the point that just getting undressed seems a
Herculean labor. I discarded my clothes on the floor and crawled under the covers. Mystery or not, sleep calls. I’ve put it off as long as I can.

  A kernel of a thought surfaced as my head struck the pillow, but it disappeared just as quickly. Like Bobby, I faded away.

  The sunlight slanted through the window and cut through the haze of sleep. I scrubbed my eyes with the back of my hand and grunted in annoyance. Without checking my watch or phone, I could tell that I’d slept for a good while. The only problem was, it had been one of those sleeps that left you feeling not quite fulfilled when you woke. I can’t complain, though — the first time I used the push, I was in a coma for almost three weeks. Thankfully, the use of it had put an end to a life-threatening situation, or it would have been a fatal and final use of the ability on my part.

  It gets easier to use every time, but I’m not sure if that’s entirely a good thing. That, though, is a worry for another time. I decided that another hour or so wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world. I measured the angle of the light then scooted marginally over, out of the direct sunlight. I settled back into my pillow with a contented sigh. Hopefully by the time the sun reached my new position I’ll be feeling more rested.

  After a few minutes, I realized that it was a pointless effort. My mind was already in motion in an attempt to plot my next move. I could push that aside and force myself to rest, but no matter how hard I think, I need more information before I can make a reasoned decision. The lack of hard answers, in my experience, is a better wake-up call than coffee. I’m in no mood to lie there and speculate.

  With an annoyed sigh, I grabbed my phone and pulled up my text messages to see if any of last night’s inquiries have borne fruit.

  It looks like there will be no more sleep for me this morning. Detective Kent Sikora — the most legitimate of my friends — has already gotten back to me, with the painfully short reply of “CALL ME ASAP.” For a Luddite cop on the cusp of retirement, that’s the digital equivalent of a long speech.

  Sikora and I go way back. Before he moved to warmer climes, he was a Sheriff’s deputy in Kenosha County, Wisconsin. Before we met Kent had gotten an unfortunate assignment to the investigation of a heinous set of crimes that went down in a little place called Pleasant Prairie. My hometown.

  A lot of cops would have shuffled a kid like me off to the loony bin, but Kent had, and still has, a gut instinct about the truth. He believed me when many others did not. The concrete proof that he saw later only cemented his trust in what I had to say, even without the push. Not that I’d ever use it on Kent, or any of my friends. I feel guilty enough about using it to smooth things over with clients — using it on friends seems tactless.

  In a way, he reminds me of my dad. His presence is a salve on the wound of that loss. It’s only six in the morning in Phoenix, but Kent’s an early riser. I punched the callback button. He picked up on the second ring.

  “What are you up to this time?” he growled. “You better not need me to vouch for you with any local yokels.” He held the silence for a moment, then chuckled when I refused to rise to the bait. “Hey, kid.”

  “Hey, Kent,” I said, failing to keep the smile from my face and my voice. “How’s your golf game?”

  “It was a hundred degrees yesterday. In October, for God’s sake. I didn’t move more than six inches from an air conditioning vent all day long.”

  When Kent lived in Wisconsin, all he did was complain about the cold. All his career and location change has done is flip-flop his complaining, but there’s no malice to the carousing — it’s just an aspect of his character. When I first met him, it was off-putting, until I got a glimpse of the clever mind hiding behind the facade.

  One of his fellow deputies told me that Kent could sit down with a suspect and jovially grumble them into a confession within an hour. I half wonder what sort of confession he wants out of me, but I disregard that line of thinking almost immediately. He’s not probing for an admission — he’s just making sure I’m okay, ‘keeping my mind right’, as he puts it.

  “Yeah, I’d pass on the golf too, if I sucked as bad as you do.”

  Kent snorted laughter. “I’m actually glad you reached out, kid. I got some weirdness going on out here.”

  “My kind of weirdness?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe not exactly. But I could use your input, if you’ve got the time.” He huffed. “I know you’re some big-time Internet thing now. I can’t make a promise but I can probably squeeze a consulting fee out of the department. You wouldn’t believe some of the weird shit we’ve paid for.”

  “When I’m done with this, I’m headed that way. Maybe we’ll make a day trip to Four Bees and talk it over.” The restaurant north of Phoenix is a hole-in-the-wall of the first order, but they serve biscuits and gravy in a canoe and pancakes the size of a manhole cover. Between that and the taco trucks, if I stayed out there for long, I’d get too fat to get into the RV. It would be a lousy way to end up, but the trip getting there would be a blast. “You buy me breakfast and we’ll call it square.”

  “That’s a deal. So — this Gennaro kid. Bobby, right?”

  “Right.”

  He sighed, “Huh. I got nothing. Checked every database we got, nationwide, and nobody with that name has died in at least the last couple of years. A few older guys, but natural causes. This was a kid, you say?”

  “Yeah. The real deal, all the way. So, natural causes are out. I’m guessing it would have been pretty bad. I didn’t get any details, just that sense.” I thought it over, then said, “I’m guessing recent, too. So maybe no one has found a body yet. Is that going to be a problem?”

  Kent made a grumbling noise in the back of his throat as he considered it. “If anyone asks, I can chalk it up to an anonymous tip. It would be out of left field, but not too out of the ordinary. I’ll keep my eyes open and see if anything rolls across the wire. It’s a big nothing burger right now. What’s your next move?”

  “I’ve got a couple of other irons in the fire. I’ll see how they pan out and go from there. Worst case scenario, I go to Rockville.”

  Kent was silent for a moment as he considered that. Finally, he said, “Avoid that if you can. But if you do, hurry your ass down here and we’ll sit you out by the pool and bake that witch out of you.” His tone turned serious. “But if you do go, don’t let her get into your head, kid.”

  We exchanged the quick goodbyes of longtime friends. As I lowered the phone from my ear, I couldn’t help but cough a strained laugh.

  Witch.

  He’s more right than he knows.

  Chapter 4

  The target of my next call was in the next time zone over from Kent and more than likely to bring me to physical harm if I called this early. While I waited until a more polite hour, I cracked my laptop open and tried looking for Bobby again. My searches bore no more fruit than they had the night before, so I settled for watching FailArmy YouTube videos and reminiscing about the past.

  The case that brought Kent Sikora into my life was not only heinous but as the investigation proceeded, he discovered other crimes related to stolen property across state lines. To aid in the widening investigation and coordinate the effort between jurisdictions, the higher-ups assigned another detective, this one from the Illinois State Police. At some point some guys from the FBI were involved, as well, but I never met them. They had bigger fish to fry than talking to a freaked-out teenager.

  From a police perspective, the crimes in Illinois paled in comparison to the blood-soaked scene at my childhood home. Of course, in a very real sense, the stolen items that Mother brought into our house were the root cause of everything that happened.

  As such, ISP sent Detective Esteban De La Rosa to join the growing task force and aid in the coordination. Like Sikora, De La Rosa was a tenured investigator, but where Sikora was gruff and tended toward shabbiness, De La Rosa was smooth, polite, and wore a different tailored suit every time I saw him. You’d think that the two men would but
t heads, but they hit it off famously.

  Like Sikora, Esteban changed careers after Pleasant Prairie. Where Sikora was still an active member of a police department, his counterpart shifted to the private sector. He had a large extended family in the San Diego area, where his brother and several of his nephews ran a private investigation firm. He ‘pulled the pin’ with ISP, packed up his own branch of the family, and joined them.

  I feel safe to say that it’s more than coincidence that both men moved to warmer climes at the conclusion of the case. The events that destroyed my world occurred in early spring, but it was uncommonly cold that year. The weather seemed all the more biting for me, given what happened. I can hardly imagine what it must have been like for Sikora and De La Rosa as they sorted through reams and stacks of eldritch material no respectable museum would ever have exhibited. That’s not even considering the crime scene photos and physical evidence. As bad as my own experiences were, theirs must have been worse, though in a less personal way.

  I spent some time with Esteban’s family not long after. To my surprise, they accepted me almost as if I were one of their own. While I know that I wasn’t personally responsible for anything that happened to my own family, I am often reluctant to let anyone else in. I got others hurt once — I don’t want it to happen again. Those months with the De La Rosas was the only time I’ve let myself get close to anyone since the incident. Even then, when it seemed I was becoming too content — dare I say happy — with my lot in life, a tight, crawling sensation would rise up my back. I don’t know if it’s some residual guilt or the universe’s way of telling me I don’t deserve to be happy, but it’s unsettling.

  Maybe that’s why I roam the way I do, though I know that I at least have touchstones in the southwest, should I ever need anything. It’s an ersatz extended family to be sure, but the friendships are true enough.