Nightwalker (Harrison Investigation #8)

Nightwalker (Harrison Investigation #8) Page 10

At the Big Easy the problem had been solved by offering an afternoon of pirate-themed entertainment, food and drink for the younger crowd.

It was glorified babysitting.

But Jessy had never minded that. She liked kids. Sure, every once in a while they wound up with an obnoxious little twerp who wouldn’t stop tugging on beards, dumping the treasure chest or trying to look up the skirts of the pirate “queens” or the servers. But all in all, it wasn’t a bad gig. It was actually a lot better than performing at a bachelor party for a bunch of drunks who seemed to think that anyone under thirty and wearing a skimpy costume was for sale.

In contrast, working the babysitting detail was usually fun, and that day it was going very well.

They had almost three hundred kids, some of them there gratis for guests of the casino, others had been enrolled at a steep price tag by parents staying elsewhere, though compared to the hundreds—even thousands—that could be dropped at one of the gaming tables or in slot machines in a matter of minutes, it was still small change.

The audience ranged from age two up to twenty-one. The older kids were usually there because they had younger siblings—and because eighteen-to twenty-one-year-olds still couldn’t legally step out onto on the casino floor or drink.

The show itself was mostly improvisational banter punctuated by carefully choreographed dance numbers. The cast played pirates who had somehow wound up stuck on Lake Mead, and they sang traditional pirate songs as they searched for treasure.

It was when the kids were shouting, trying to point out to her rather ditsy pirate queen that the treasure chest was right beneath her nose, and she was spinning around searching, that she saw him.

He was standing just outside the room, leaning against a wall painted with a mural of the high seas and pirate ships flying the Jolly Roger, and he was staring through the glass wall that surrounded the theater space, watching her. He was wearing a suit, and he somehow managed to look both real and not real…

He wasn’t even a foot away from Grant Willow, one of the four security men—all of them highly skilled but able to relate to the kids without intimidating them—who took turns standing watch in the vestibule, and he seemed totally oblivious to the other man.

She knew the watcher’s face. She had stared at that face in the most uncomfortable circumstances imaginable. He couldn’t possibly be there—and yet he was.

She blinked.

And then he wasn’t.

She must have come to a dead halt, stunned, because Aaron Beaton, playing the role of Captain Gray-specked Blackbeard, started prompting her. “Bonny Anne, Bonny Anne, have ye found it? Have ye found me treasure?”

She stared at him without any idea how to respond as her blood grew cold.

He hadn’t been real.

She had simply conjured him up in her mind’s eye.

Or he had been real, just someone else. Someone who only looked like a dead man.

After all, a man had died on top of her last night; she had a right to be traumatized. To be seeing things. There was nothing odd about it at all.

“Bonny Anne?” Aaron said sharply.

“Your treasure? My treasure!” she insisted, dragging herself back into character.

Her declaration started a mock battle that was really a carefully choreographed dance piece. She battled gamely, whirled and jumped, then looked back to the doorway and almost missed a beat.

He was back.

And he was watching her with huge eyes and an expression filled with both tragedy and remorse.

Since the promo poster Dillon had seen the night before pictured Jessy Sparhawk, it was a reasonable assumption that if he headed to the Big Easy she was likely to be working.

She was.

The pirate party was scheduled daily from one to six, giving the parents a full afternoon of worry-free gambling. Dillon wondered how many of them forgot to come back at closing time, but he assumed the casino had a plan for dealing with that.

The theater was surrounded by glass walls, and the outer vestibule was decorated with pirate paraphernalia and wall paintings. Inside the room, the stage held an impressive pirate ship that seemed to float above shimmering blue water, an effect caused by lighting under a glass stage floor. There were interactive areas for the kids, and each seating section sported a different-colored pirate flag, dividing the kids into teams so they could root for their color-matched “champions” onstage. There were huge treasure chests around the room that held soda, candy and chips, along with healthier soy snacks and natural iced teas. It was a top-quality production, designed to appeal to kids of all ages—along with the occasional adult he saw in the audience. He noted that the smaller children were together in one area, and there seemed to be at least three employees wearing pirate-themed casino uniforms to attend to every nine or ten children.

Onstage, the pirates were going at it.

He recognized Jessy right away, despite her wig and makeup and pirate attire. The kids were shouting to her, laughing, and even the almost adults in the room were having fun and shouting right along with everyone else for her to find the treasure.

Then she froze. Just…froze, staring at the doorway.

It was only for the blink of an eye; then she jerked her gaze away and responded to one of the male actors. A sword battle ensued, then somehow turned into a dance.

Then, once again, Jessy Sparhawk froze.

Dillon felt a tap on his shoulder and thought it might be the big security guard who was keeping an eagle eye on the room.

But it wasn’t. Ringo was at his side.

“Over there,” Ringo said quietly.

Across the lobby, standing near the guard, stood another man. A big man in a suit.

Tanner Green.

Dillon started toward him, moving quickly but casually, keeping his eyes focused on the guard, as if he was just going over to ask him a question about the show.

But Tanner Green sensed him, and he was having none of it. He turned and stared hard at Dillon.

And then he disappeared, fading like mist taken by a sudden wind.

“You scared him!” Ringo said accusingly.

Inwardly, Dillon cursed himself. He should have watched the man a while longer. He should have been patient. But if Tanner Green was walking around in some spiritual limbo, it was imperative for Dillon to reach him. Speak with him.

And he had moved without menace. This was one spooked ghost—no pun intended, he thought with a grin.

The guard looked at him and nodded, mistaking him for a parent. “Kids will be out in a little while, maybe twenty minutes or so. A lot of them hang around to get their pictures taken with the cast.”

“Thanks,” Dillon said, turning away from the guard and putting his hand up to his face as if rubbing his chin, so he could speak softly to Ringo without being overheard.

“Why was he so frightened of me?” he asked.

“Duh. The man was murdered,” Ringo pointed out, as if pointing out the obvious to a three-year-old.

Irritated, Dillon chose not to respond to his ghostly companion’s sarcasm. Ringo might be from the Old West, but he had adopted the modern vernacular with enthusiasm, as if that somehow made him more a part of the earthly world.

“Maybe he was afraid of you, then,” Dillon asked. “You’re the one carrying a gun.”

“That actually makes sense,” Ringo admitted. “He probably hasn’t seen many other ghosts, and, if he has…well, I guess an old gunslinger might be a bit too much for him to handle. And he probably doesn’t want to believe that he’s dead, either. Probably hasn’t accepted it yet.”

Whatever the cause, Tanner Green was scared.

Even so, he had come out in the open to stare at Jessy Sparhawk, the woman he had been lying on top of as he breathed his last.

And she had seen him. Dillon would swear to it.

The play finished and the kids rushed the stage. The performers posed for pictures, laughing, talking, signing miniposters that seemed to come out of nowhere. He watched Jessy pick up a toddler for a photo, then talk to the little girl and sign a poster. She seemed totally at ease—until she glanced back toward the door and an uneasy look crossed her face.

Then she saw Dillon and was visibly startled. After that she looked…frightened, rattled, though she continued to smile as she interacted with the kids.

He waved to her at one point, and she waved back.

The security guard with the broad shoulders and pleasant smile walked over to him. “You a friend of Jessy’s?” the man asked. “Not just a waiting parent?”

“No,” Dillon told him, shaking his head. “And yes, I’m a…friend of Jessy’s.”

“You can go on in if you want,” the guard said.

“Thanks,” Dillon said and headed toward the stage, Ringo still at his side.

He noticed a woman turn around as they passed, a puzzled look on her face. She drew her sweater more closely around her, as if she had suddenly felt a chill. That was the way it was for most people. They didn’t see the dead, couldn’t communicate with them, but something inside told them that someone was there.

Dillon smiled at the woman and kept going, hoping Ringo wasn’t feeling mischievous and wouldn’t tease her with a tap on the shoulder or a tug at her skirt. He moved quickly, because if you weren’t looking, Ringo wasn’t as prone to act up.

Jessy was still onstage, posing with the last of the kids.

She looked at him over the head of a toddler, and he sensed she wasn’t all that pleased to see him. But she was in performance mode, so she forced a smile to her lips.

“Very impressive,” he told her, reaching the stage. He saw her fellow cast members glancing his way and whispering to one another. He was being assessed, he knew.

“What a surprise to see you here,” she said.

He decided not to mince words. “I need to speak with you.”

“Oh? This isn’t a great time. I have to get out of costume, check my schedule for the next few days.”

“I’ll wait.”

She glanced away, biting her lip. She might be a good performer, but she was a lousy liar. She didn’t have a good excuse for refusing to talk to him, and she wasn’t going to invent one.