Talking Bones Page 5

  “Nobody here has really heard about my abilities,” she stated, with a shadowed gaze. “I don’t advertise anything that I can do.”

  “All the more reason for me to be extremely grateful that you took a moment to step out of your comfort zone to help me.”

  “Whatever.” She turned back to the door.

  “Wait,” he cried out.

  She froze at the door, then pivoted and looked at him, her glare unmistakable. For some reason it struck him on the funny side.

  “I’m really not trying to hold you captive, and I really am grateful. Please just let me take you out for dinner.” He hesitated. “I’m feeling a little odd, and I guess just a little uncertain about being alone right now.”

  He could see her starting to relent, her shoulders easing back, as if all he were looking for was maybe a babysitter and not answers. His curiosity was well and truly piqued at somebody who could be so prickly and yet who could deal with the public so well. However, as soon as anything happened along the line of her abilities, she became incredibly defensive and immediately started putting up walls.

  She finally spoke. “Fine. But only if you’re capable of walking because I’m definitely not carrying you back up here.”

  He burst out laughing at that. “Nope, not unless I get another exhausted session, and I’m hoping not to experience that again.”

  “Did you feel anything?” she asked curiously.

  “Not until I woke up. It’s just like I’d been asleep, only to find your hand on my chest. Not that it was a terrible feeling, by the way,” he teased, trying for more levity. “I mean, a beautiful woman in my bedroom is not necessarily to be taken as a bad sign.”

  “And yet you’re still very cold,” she stated, ignoring his remarks, yet witnessing his shaky hands that he rubbed together continuously.

  He looked down at his hands and nodded. “That’s another one of the reasons I’m hoping to go out for food and to walk around a bit—to get my circulation going. I feel odd.” And the truth was, he did feel a strange hollowness inside.

  She studied his energy—at least he presumed that’s what she was doing—because she was walking around the room, staring at him.

  “Can you see anything? What did you see when you arrived?”

  “Same as now. Just a very pale, pale energy,” she noted, “but that’s the thing about these abilities. They aren’t always there when you need them.”

  “Can you tell me exactly what your abilities are?”

  She shook her head. “No, I sure can’t because they keep changing. Just when I think I know what I’m doing, something else happens. And they’re just different enough all the time that I can’t ever count on them.”

  “I’m sorry. That’s got to be frustrating.”

  “You don’t know what half of it.” She snorted. “Come on then. Let’s go get some food. I don’t know about you, but I’m starving.”

  “And none of what you just did to help me out wore you down, huh?”

  She shot him another look.

  He shrugged. “I’m just worried that maybe you’ll collapse or something.”

  “I doubt it,” she replied, her tone turning distant almost. “At least that’s never happened yet.”

  “Well, it’s never happened to me either.” He reached up, scrubbed at his face, checked that he had his keys with him and said, “Okay, let’s go.”

  As they headed downstairs and outside, he asked, “Do you have a place to recommend?”

  “Sure. A couple really good places are nearby.”

  “Good, you lead the way.”

  “They’re expensive,” she stated, as she pointed down the street.

  “That’s fine. I can afford it.” And he walked beside her, enjoying getting out with her.

  “Not if you crash that deal.”

  “I don’t even want to think about that,” he admitted. “After what you warned me about earlier, my stomach has already been churning steadily.”

  She nodded. “You should be worried.”

  “You can’t tell me who the traitor is though?”

  “Nope, I don’t see any of those details. And I’m not looking either.”

  “Meaning that you could, but you just choose not to?” He hesitated.

  She shook her head, looking around to see if anybody was close enough to overhear them. “No, it’s like you have a great big black door, which means I can’t go in there.”

  “Could that potentially be something I’m putting up?” he murmured, trying to find his way through how this all worked.

  “Maybe,” she agreed, “but it’s just as likely that somebody close to you has put up that door instead. Particularly if they had any idea that I’d be looking.” They had reached the street corner, and she waited on the traffic light to turn to Walk.

  He frowned and nodded. “So mysterious.”

  “I don’t like the idea of being mysterious either,” she replied in a blunt tone.

  He laughed. “I don’t even know how to take you. You don’t fit the norm of anything. I find that I’m on shifting grounds just trying to understand who you are.”

  “Why would you even bother?” she asked. “You’re leaving here in a couple days and won’t have anything more to do with me after that, so why waste the time and energy?”

  He didn’t even know what to say to that. “Haven’t you ever met somebody who fascinated you so much that you had to learn more?”

  “Yes, and I think I’ve cured myself of that by now though.”

  On that note, he had nothing to add. After all, what was there to say?

  She motioned up ahead. “Let’s go up this way.”

  “Fine, sounds good to me.”

  She led him in the direction of a restaurant with a large outdoor pub area, then looked at him and said, “They have the best po’boys here.”

  “I’m game,” he replied immediately, and just then his stomach started to growl.

  She smiled. “Now that’s a good sign.”

  “What? That my stomach is crying out like it’s afraid my throat’s been cut?”

  “Exactly.” She smiled. “As long as your body is requiring food, the energy influx didn’t cause any major problems.”

  And that just brought up so many more questions, all that he wanted answers for. But, from the expression on her face, no answers were coming his way, at least not right now. He might only have planned to be here for a couple days, but, if he didn’t get the answers he needed, he could already see extending his trip for a whole lot longer.

  He was fascinated, and she had information he needed, and, if there was anything he could do to help her share that information with him, he had to do it.

  He needed to find the truth.

  Chapter 4

  As Skylar led the way into one of her favorite restaurants, she chose a table on the patio—and off to the side ever-so-slightly so they weren’t in the way of the crowds. She still didn’t know what to think about Gage. The fact that he had something weird going on that she had just barely managed to save him from set her on edge even more.

  He didn’t know this, but by saving him as she had, she had also taken on some of his energy and had gifted him with some of hers. The result of that was a bond, a bond that could go either way. It could strengthen, or it could weaken, but it would be there for decades, unless she could remove her energy from his system somehow.

  As she studied his energy, she realized that hers was intricately woven throughout, and, as a matter of fact, she could see that Thomas had a fair amount of his energy in there as well. She sighed, her fingers thrumming on the table, as she studied the area around her.

  “Now what?”

  Her gaze darted around, at him, and away. Then she shrugged. “I don’t know. I really don’t know what to say about what happened to you.”

  “Is there a weird energy here in New Orleans?”

  “There sure is,” she admitted, smiling, “and many things are acceptable here and even sought out that aren’t found in the rest of the world.”

  “Like the voodoo?”

  She nodded.

  “Is that why you’re here?”

  “Hiding in plain sight works pretty well,” she noted.

  “And people really don’t know what you can do, do they?”

  “Nope.” She shook her head. “It might increase business but would also make my personal life hell.”

  “And you’ve been there before.”

  “I sure have,” she confirmed.

  Just then a waitress walked over toward them. She smiled brightly at Gage, hoping for a bigger tip perhaps, but, as far as Skylar was concerned, it was the age-old game, and she wanted no part of it. It was one of the reasons she tended to do takeout more than eating out, but she would do her best to be friendly and to hope that Gage left a generous tip for the sake of the waitress. Skylar didn’t even want to look at the menu. She ordered her favorite—fried oyster po’boy—and the woman wrote it down.

  Immediately Gage turned to the waitress and nodded. “If she’s having it, I’ll have the same.” And then he added two cold beers to the order. The waitress sent one more beaming smile just to him and sashayed off.

  Skylar ignored the flirting and asked him, “Are both of those beers for you?”

  “Won’t you have one with me?”

  She frowned. “I don’t normally drink.” But she was just unsettled enough that it might not be a bad idea.

  “Well, you can try it, and, if you don’t like it,” he said, “I’ll finish it for you. How is that?”

  “Are you sure you should be drinking?”

  “No, I’m not sure at all,” he admitted, his voice low. “Maybe you should tell me that.”

  “Nope, I ain’t telling you nothing.”

  He nodded. “In that case,” he muttered, “I’m fine. I’ll have a drink. Besides, I could really use one.”

  “I get it. Some of this stuff is a bit of a shock.”

  “A bit of a shock?” he asked. “That may be the understatement of the year.”

  She shrugged. “I forget about that—because it’s something I do and have done for years—so it’s normal for me.”

  “Well, it’s not normal for me,” he stated flatly, “not at all. My accident was nine months ago.”

  Her gaze shot to him. “Right, so you said you had an accident, and this all started happening afterward.”

  “Whatever this is, yes,” he agreed. “I just don’t know what it is.”

  “You started to see apparitions?” she questioned in a low voice.

  “Yes, some I could see clearly, and some I couldn’t.”

  “Some are like that,” she noted in understanding. “Sometimes they’re easy to see, and sometimes they’re not.”

  “Is that their choice, or is it just our abilities?”

  And since it was a reasonable question, she answered this one. “Usually it’s their abilities. Not all ghosts have the same ability to appear as if they’re standing right in front of us.”

  “But some can?”

  “Lots of them can,” she noted.

  “And what about what I was feeling and seeing in your store? I got the sense a lot of apparitions were around there.”

  “They prefer to call themselves ghosts—or actually friends in my case.”

  “So, they really are there?” he asked, his eyebrows shooting up.

  She nodded. “Interesting that you could see them.”

  “Well, I couldn’t, not really,” he muttered, throwing up his hands. “I mean, I saw something but not clearly.”

  “So, you didn’t see Thomas with his black suit and top hat?”

  He looked at her and then slowly shook his head. “I could tell something was there but not clearly.”

  She nodded. “He’s often the one who people will see. He’s fairly advanced, as far as ghosts go.”

  “Is it something they can become more advanced at?” he asked, leaning in and oh so curious.

  “Well, we’d like to think not,” she explained. “I keep telling my group that they should be heading toward the light and leaving, but they won’t. They’re bound and determined to stick around.”

  “Why is that?”

  “I don’t know,” she admitted. “I keep asking them that, but they just tell me that they aren’t ready to go to the light yet.”

  “Have you lost any?”

  “When you say lost, what do you mean?” she asked, with a note of humor. “If you mean, have any gone to the light? Then, yes, absolutely. Thomas is just having too much fun, so he doesn’t want to go anywhere and refuses to leave me alone. I think he sees himself as somewhat of a guardian angel, watching over me.”

  “That’s an interesting analogy,” he murmured.

  “Well, it’s his version of it,” she noted. “And he’s fairly adamant about it all. In fact, he can follow me outside of the shop, which is not something the others have done.”

  “And do they do anything to help you?”

  She slowly turned to look at him, checking to make sure that they were alone and that nobody was within hearing distance. “Thomas actually helped you earlier. It was hard for me to find enough energy right there to bring you back, so I enlisted his help.”

  Gage sat back, as if stunned at the idea of enlisting the help of a ghost.

  “I mean, they are there all the time, and they talk to me, so why shouldn’t I reach out and ask them for help when I need it?” she asked in a nonchalant way.

  “Oh, absolutely.” But his sarcasm got her back up, and she glared at him.

  “They are family to me.”

  He raised both hands in frustration. “Sorry. I’m not trying to be difficult, but you caught me off guard.”

  “I don’t think people do that very often,” she noted.

  “No,” he admitted, “but, since the accident, it’s happening more and more. I have to admit I was wondering if I was losing my edge.”

  “I don’t think so. I think it’s become more attuned.”

  “And yet you’re worrying me, with all this talk about a business deal that could go wrong.”

  “It could definitely go wrong if you don’t find out who is the traitor,” she stated. “You wouldn’t have been able to find the energy shift before your accident, but maybe now you can.”

  “How does that even make sense? I suddenly see apparitions, and now I’m supposed to understand if my business partners are lying to me?”

  She smiled. “It’s all about energy. The energy of somebody who is dead and gone looks different than the energy of someone you know very well is alive and healthy. But also the energy of somebody who is telling the truth and the energy of somebody who is lying look very different. The better you become at understanding energy, the better you’ll become at understanding who around you can be trusted and who cannot.”

  “And you can make those kinds of decisions yourself?”

  “Sometimes, though sometimes I get it wrong,” she stated.

  “But you’re not going to give me any more details on that, are you?”

  “No, why should I?” she asked, her tone turning flat. “I don’t trust you.”

  He winced. “And that’s from my energy or whatever? I would have thought I was quite trustworthy.”

  “Maybe to yourself,” she murmured. “But there are people around you I don’t want knowing anything about me.”

  “Well, that makes more sense,” he replied, with a note of humor. “My brother struggles with what I’ve told him, and I know he finds it really difficult to accept.”

  “You’re better off not telling people,” she said abruptly.

  “Then how are you supposed to have anybody to talk to so you can find out whether you’re going insane or not?”

  “Assume that you aren’t going insane because everybody else will assume that you are,” she stated.

  “Yeah, I’ve been there, done that.” He chuckled. “I was trying to avoid anything like that again.”

  “And that’s good because you don’t really want to end up down that crazy path again.”

  “But how does one avoid it?” he murmured.

  “You learn to trust in yourself.” She stood and checked around to see if the waitress was coming their way.

  “Are you always this impatient?”

  He seemed surprised to see her standing and pushing to see just how much longer they would have to wait. She sat down with a thud. “Honestly, something feels off, like wrong. I feel like we need to get going and fast.”

  “We can’t just sit here and eat?”

  She frowned. “I’m not sure that I can, no.” As she started to look around again, the waitress returned with the beers.

  Skylar immediately turned to her and asked, “Can you make those po’boys to-go, please?”

  The waitress nodded and said, “Just give me a minute.” And she took off.

  Skylar snagged one of the beers and took a big long slurp. It helped to steady her, but, at the same time, it also enhanced her edgy feeling, noting something was seriously wrong. She watched as Gage did the same thing, and then he stood and stated, “I gather we’re leaving.”

  “We are.” She stopped and said, “Well, at least I am.”

  “That means we are,” he stated. “Obviously, after what I’ve been through so far, I’m not taking any chances. If you say there’s danger, then I’m not sticking around.”

  “Good.” She sighed. “I’m just not sure that it’s safe for you to even go back to your hotel room right now.”

  At that, he stopped and stared.

  “Think about it. That’s where you were when it happened.”

  “So, I change rooms or hotels or cities or what?” With her shrug, he added, “I’m in Jonesy’s room on purpose, thinking I could find a clue or talk to a ghost or whatever.”

  “Uh-oh.” Surely she was wrong. Could those tarot cards really cause the murders that they then knew about? This didn’t bode well for Jonesy or Gage. She’d have to do some research on this. Right now all she had were rumors and innuendoes.

  “What?” he asked.