When the Dead Speak, Bailey Bradford [new ebook reader .TXT] 📗

Nixon had been the only other person called to the scene at Laine’s house, and Laine doubted Nixon would talk, word would get around. It always did, as if it were carried in the wind to the biggest and most vindictive of gossips. He would deal with it, if need be, after he made another call to Detective Montoya.

Doreen was at her desk and greeted Laine with her usual enthusiasm. She handed Laine a stack of messages as he walked by on the way to his office and promised to bring him his morning coffee. He’d learned there was no use protesting it. Doreen would snap his head off if he dared to get his own coffee. Laine sat at his desk and found the paper with Detective Montoya’s number on it fluttering across his desk. He snatched it up and felt an absurd urge to grin.

“Yeah, yeah, I was doing that right now.”

Doreen walked into his office with his cup of coffee in her hand and looked around. “Who are you talking to and what were you going to do?”

“Myself, obviously. Nobody else is here, now, are they?” Laine gestured for his coffee and Doreen stepped up to his desk, placing the cup in front of him.

“Well, I was going to ask if you were okay, what with the big hullabaloo at your place yesterday, but you seem just fine to—” Doreen’s eyes shot wide open as Laine’s tin star popped off and landed on the desk, spinning like a dervish. Laine was a bit surprised himself—the star had always landed on the floor despite his best efforts to stop it. If he had to guess, he’d say someone was sending him a message to make the call, especially since Detective Montoya’s message was now spinning around on his desk, too.

“What…what?” Doreen’s mouth was doing a fine imitation of a goldfish, and Laine knew if he let out so much as a snicker she would lay into him once she recovered herself. He wasn’t going to be able to hold out much longer though, not with her arms flapping in the air and that look on her face. Laine reached out and snagged the paper, surprised that, for once, the object he was trying to grab didn’t spin away. Maybe he could grab the star, too… It skidded off the desk and resumed spinning on the floor.

“Damn.” Laine bit his lip hard enough that he tasted blood, but it stopped him from laughing. “Doreen, I really need to make a phone call or I’ll never get that back.” He gestured to the silver blur on the floor. “If you’ll excuse me?”

Doreen’s mouth snapped shut and she went from being astounded to sarcastic just as quickly. “Well, if you ask me, you need to call an exorcist or those guys who hunt down ghosts on TV.” She nodded once then turned smartly on her heel and left.

“You about done now that you freaked out Doreen?” The star stopped spinning immediately. “Cute. Conner…” Laine closed his eyes and tried to picture the man he’d loved. “I am sorry. And I hope it’s, that you… I guess I’m wanting to say that I hope it’s okay with you, about Severo, because I think that—” Was it stupid to admit such a thing to your former lover? No, to your deceased lover’s ghost? Probably, Laine decided, but what the hell. This whole thing was crazy. “I think that I can love the guy, you know? Maybe I’ve already started to. You and me, we tried to keep it quiet. We couldn’t, or wouldn’t, risk stepping out of the closet for each other, but we should have. We should have loved each other that much, right?”

What felt like the brush of a hand across his cheek, followed by the lightest touch of lips was the response. Laine kept his eyes closed, thinking over what those two things meant and decided it had to be good. Then his hat was tipped back on his head and Laine got the message. Enough mushy crap, make the damn call. Laine opened his eyes and picked up the phone.

“Gotcha, buddy, doing it right now.”

Montoya didn’t answer his work phone so Laine tried his cell, unsurprised when the detective answered on the second ring, still as annoyingly perky in the morning as he had been when Laine was partnered with him.

“Hey, Laine, how’s everything going?”

“Well, to tell you—”

“Must be going to shit since this is the third call from you in about as many days, right? After not hearing from you for a couple of years?”

“Shit.” Which was pretty much how Laine felt. He closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. And the man still sounded perky. “Rich, I couldn’t stay there after… It was just too…”

“Too much to find your lover dead?” That comment got Laine’s eyes opened back up. He shouldn’t have been surprised that his former partner knew, but Montoya had never said a word—and Laine had left without explaining, unable to pretend Conner hadn’t been more than a friend, and unable, or unwilling, to step up and say just what Conner had been to him.

Whatever it was that had kept Laine silent years ago no longer bound him. “Yes. Too much, and I think…I think it may be happening again.”

At first, he thought Montoya had hung up on him, but Laine began hearing background noises, the sound of a car door slamming shut, then a slow exhalation from his former partner. “You’re going to have to explain that to me, Laine. We need to sit down and have a serious talk.”

“Rich, I know I should have—” Laine stopped as an obnoxious beeping sounded in his ear. Did Rich hang up, or had he hit a spot where he got bad reception? Laine started to call him back but stopped when someone knocked on his door. “Come in.”

Deputy Matt Nixon opened the door and stepped in, pushing the