Mortal Ties Read Free Page B

“I’m supposed to be your partner.”
    It was so ludicrous she had to laugh. “Yeah, that’ll happen.” She collected Scott
     with a glance and started for the road. Drummond tried to grab her arm. His hand passed
     right through her, of course, so after a disgusted grimace he kept pace beside her.
     At least that’s what it looked like—as if he were walking, his feet pushing against
     the ground the way hers did.
    “Look, I get that you don’t like me,” he said. “So what? I’ve worked with a lot of
     assholes. If it gets the job done, you live with it.”
    “You’re a little limited in what you can do right now.”
    “Maybe, but I can do things you can’t. Anywhere within about three hundred feet of
     you, I can check things out. Check things out on either side. For example, there are
     three ghosts here—pretty tattered, not much for conversation, but they’re here. And
     on your side of things, I know where your wolf man is. He’s hunkered down right over
     there.” He stretched out an arm to point at a dip in the ground.
    One finger on that hand glowed faintly from the wedding ring he still wore. It caught
     her attention, that ring. Unconsciously she rubbed her thumb over the ring she wore—an
     engagement ring, not a wedding ring, but the same sort of token. Rule’s ring.
    She looked away. “His name is Mike.”
    “Whatever. The point is, I can help.”
    They’d reached the narrow road that wound among the graves. She stopped. “And you
     think I should trust you.”
    “I dealt straight with you. Once I saw what they were doing, I dealt straight with
     you.”
    True. He’d risked his life to rescue twenty-two homeless people, then given it to
     save a friend. And after he died, he’d found the death-magic amulet so they could
     destroy it.
    But first he’d betrayed the Bureau, nearly killed Lily’s boss, conspired in the murder
     of a U.S. senator, and damn near ended Lily’s career along the way.
    Lily studied him a moment, then took out her phone.
    He frowned. “Who are you calling?”
    “A friend. She hears dead people all the time.” Lily had only chatted with one dead
     guy. This one. As for the big, fat “why” of this screwed-up situation…well, the expert
     she was about to consult used the analogy of a house. Most people didn’t see or hear
     the dead because their houses lacked windows and had only one door—a tightly locked,
     one-way affair. That door didn’t open until the person died. Because Lily had died
     once, her door didn’t lock anymore. It was a tiny bit ajar. Mostly that didn’t matter,
     but she’d been present at Drummond’s death, and somehow that had allowed their energies
     to get tangled up together.
    At least that was the theory. It didn’t explain everything. Lily had been present
     when a lot of people died that day, including the man she’d shot. None of the rest
     of them had taken to tagging along with her.
    She scrolled down to “Etorri” in her contacts list and selected “Rhej.”
    The Rhejes were the clans’ wise women, or maybe historians or quasi-priestesses. They
     were all Gifted…and the Etorri Rhej’s Gift was mediumship. Lily had never heard the
     woman’s name because the Rhejes weren’t called by their names, but last month she’d
     given in to curiosity. Rhejes didn’t actually hide their names and Lily had the woman’s
     phone number, so it hadn’t been hard. The name of the Etorri Rhej was Anne. Anne Murdock.
    Anne answered right away. Lily apologized for disturbing her, then said, “He’s back.”
    “That ghost?” Anne was clearly surprised. “What was his name—Hammond?”
    “Drummond. He just showed up again. He’s glaring at me right now.”
    “He still seems coherent?”
    “In the sense you used the word, yeah.”
    Anne made a little huff of frustration. “I wish I could talk to him. I haven’t met
     a fully coherent ghost since I was seven, and she left soon after my mother spoke
     with