Giving Up the Ghost Page 15

  John took the time to think about that. “I’ve been better, but I’m fine now you’re back with me. When I couldn’t make you hear me…” He sighed, pressing a kiss against Nick’s still-damp hair. “That wasn’t so nice.”

  “I wanted to hear you.” Nick murmured the words sleepily. “You were the only one I wanted to hear.”

  “Could you?” John asked curiously, keeping his voice casual and low. “Could you hear me at all?”

  Nick was quiet, but his thumb rubbed back and forth over the skin of John’s rib cage, letting John know he was still awake. “I’m not sure,” he said. “I think so. It was like you were really far away, and I couldn’t really, but I knew it was you. I knew you were there.”

  “I wasn’t going anywhere,” John assured him. “Not without you.” He hesitated, bringing his hand up to capture Nick’s and squeezing it in a gesture meant to comfort himself as much as Nick. “Do you want to talk about it? Because you don’t have to. It can wait.”

  “About having them all in my head at the same time?” Nick sounded just about done in, but that didn’t seem to be enough to keep him from talking. “It’s…like being in the middle of a hurricane. Or maybe a tornado. Trying to tell one thing from another, trying to concentrate on one voice over another, but there’s no way to do it, not when they’re all so loud.”

  “You said some things that might be useful…” John sighed, suddenly overwhelmed by it all. His life was usually so damn quiet…“Tomorrow. The hell with them. The hell with everything. You’re here with me and you’re safe. The rest can bloody well keep. Go to sleep, now, Nick.”

  He shifted position until he could find Nick’s mouth with his for one clumsy, sleepy kiss, and then closed his eyes.

  Chapter Eleven

  When he opened them again, the room had gone from dark to lit with filtered sunlight and he was alone in the bed. John rolled over and blinked sleepily toward the door, where Nick was collecting a wheeled room service cart from one of the hotel employees. “Thanks,” Nick said, in a hushed voice, clearly not realizing that John was awake, but when he turned to push the cart into the room his eyes met John’s. “Shit,” Nick said, at normal volume. “I didn’t mean to wake you up. If I’m quiet will you go back to sleep?”

  John sniffed at the welcome smell of food and coffee, his stomach giving a plaintive growl. “Not a chance. I’m starving.” He gave Nick a stern look. “And shouldn’t that be me saying that to you? What’re you doing up and about?”

  “Like you said ‑‑ starving. My stomach was growling so much I’m surprised it didn’t wake you up.” Nick moved carefully, as if his head ached, but his color was much improved and the way he transferred an enormous bite of what looked like fried potato and sausage into his mouth before he’d even sat down made it clear that he was feeling better. “Come on; if you don’t, I might eat everything.”

  “You’d not take pity on me and save me a mouthful?” John shook his head sadly, getting out of bed and heading for the small bathroom. “If my share’s gone by the time I get back, there’ll be trouble.”

  He emerged a few minutes later, wearing one of the hotel’s robes, and found a full plate of food waiting for him ‑‑ and Nick in the process of stealing a luscious chunk of melon from a small bowl beside it.

  “Eat your own!” John snapped, trying to hold back his grin at Nick’s unrepentant smirk. “God, you’re as bad as the gannets down at the dock.” He picked up a strawberry so big it’d been quartered, and walked around to Nick, holding it in front of Nick’s mouth. “Here.”

  Nick’s lips parted expectantly, and John bent down, kissed him hard, and then popped the strawberry in his own mouth. “Mine,” he said, relishing the sweet tanginess of the ripe fruit. “And so is the strawberry.”

  “Tease.” Nick smiled and went back to eating his own meal, thick toast spread with dark jam disappearing in a very few bites. “I forgot how much a really bad night like that takes out of me. I’m always really hungry after.”

  John sat and reached for his coffee. “That’s interesting, when you think about it,” he said thoughtfully. “As if you’d been using up a lot of energy.” He’d never really questioned what Nick did from a practical point of view before, but it was occurring to him that the more they knew about it, the more chance there was of being able to come up with ways to make this easier on Nick.

  At the moment, he was like a man fighting a fire by spitting on it. Be nice to give him at least a bucket of water…

  “You were tired last night and you haven’t been eating properly since we got here; do you think that made a difference, then? If you’re rested, you can cope better when they come at you like that?”

  “I don’t know.” Nick shrugged, but he seemed willing enough to talk about it now that it was daylight and they were safe in the room ‑‑ or maybe it was just John thinking those things. “Maybe. It couldn’t hurt. I don’t think I’ve ever had that many come at me at the same time before. Three or four, a couple of times, but I think that was the most, and this was…well, pretty intense.” He ate the rest of his toast, then used a dampened fingertip to pick up the crumbs left on the plate. “I think you were right, though, about trying to find some way to deal with it when it’s like that. Someone brought it up one time, when I was with Matthew, but…he didn’t think it was a good idea.”

  The “bloody typical” that rose to John’s lips got swallowed along with a mouthful of ice-cool fresh orange juice. “Why was that, then?” he asked in as carefully neutral a tone as possible. Privately, he could come up with several ideas why a man hell-bent on his partner getting rich and famous off a gift he didn’t really believe in, but could see the potential of, would resist anything that might block the spirits getting through, but Nick didn’t need to hear them.

  “He said he thought it wouldn’t be fair. You know, to the ghosts. When they needed me.” Nick sounded doubtful, and it was a relief to know he was capable of doubting Matthew’s sincerity even though the man was long dead and couldn’t use him anymore.

  “Oh, and you don’t count? What about being fair to you?” John shook his head. “Never mind. After last night, it’s pretty clear that none of them are going to get helped unless there’s some way of making them behave.” He gave Nick a hopeful look, trying to remember himself. “You didn’t get enough to work out what any of them wanted? There was something about a leather jacket…”

  “Was there?” Nick rubbed his forehead, looking confused. “Hm. I guess. Wait. Could you hear them?”

  John snorted. “Not likely. No; you were talking to yourself. I was supposed to be writing it down, but…” He wasn’t sure what had happened to the pen and the paper had blown away. “I was too worried about you to be paying much attention, though, to be honest. Just the jacket stuck in my head, the way things do.”

  “Yeah, I kind of remember that. And something about something that was under a bed. And a combination.” Nick shook his head. “Maybe later I can try to figure some of it out. If things are quiet.” Which they didn’t seem likely to be as long as they were in America, John thought.

  “So what was this idea to keep the ghosts away? The one Matthew didn’t like?” John wasn’t going to keep harping on it if it bothered Nick to remember Matthew, but if it was something that could help, well, it was worth a few sad memories.

  “I don’t know.” Nick seemed to have lost interest in his food, but he’d certainly eaten enough already. “Once Matthew said no…I didn’t really pay that much attention. I didn’t even think about it. I guess that’s pretty stupid, considering.”

  “No, not stupid.” John reached across the table and patted Nick’s hand. “You can usually cope just fine, after all. It’s just ‑‑ well, I can’t see you being able to do it here. Too much going on; your own dad being involved, and all the other stuff…” He felt tired just thinking about the avalanche of problems that had hit them in the past few weeks. “You need a wee bit of help.” He considered it for a mome
nt and then asked tentatively. “You don’t have any contacts? Anyone like you that you could call?”

  Nick leaned back in his chair, looking thoughtful. “I guess I do. I mean, not here, not close by, but there’s a whole network. I think. There’s this woman in Virginia ‑‑ Isabel. She might know what to try. You think I should call her?” He clearly wanted reassurance that John was all right with the idea.

  “If you want to help those people, I don’t see that you have much choice,” John replied. “And I know you; you’ll try going back, and I don’t think ‑‑ Nick, I’m not wanting to interfere, but seeing you like that…” He took a deep breath, trying to push away the images of Nick hurting, lost to him. “If there’s something that can help, I want you to get it, okay? Call her.”

  “Okay.” Nick got up and came over, leaning down to kiss John with a mouth that tasted of coffee and melon.

  While John finished his breakfast, Nick sat on the edge of the bed and talked on the phone. He made more than one call, his voice soft and tentative in a way John hadn’t heard it for a long time, and by the time John had finished eating, Nick hung up the phone and turned to him. “There’s a place nearby; Isabel thought the woman there could help us, and she’ll be in the shop in about an hour. So if you want to go…”

  “I want to go.” John decided that telling Nick he didn’t plan on letting him out of his sight for the rest of the trip might not go down well, but it was how he felt. Back on the island he was fine with them spending hours apart if only for the pleasure of having Nick walk in, hair ruffled by the wind, full of what he’d seen, a smile on his face that he saved for John. Here, in a foreign country, surrounded by so many damn people, John wanted Nick near him.

  “Oh, by the way…Last night…did he come up with anything useful? That reporter?” John tried for a casual tone and failed miserably.

  Nick gave him a funny look. “He got that woman’s information for me ‑‑ her phone number and stuff. Selena. I’ll have to call her later.” He glanced down at his hands. “You were right about him.”

  “Which part?” John sat down on the opposite side of the bed, moved until he was kneeling behind Nick, and put his hands on Nick’s shoulders, working the tense muscles slowly. “The part where he had his eye on you? Aye, I was.” He put his mouth on the one place on Nick’s neck that always made the man shiver and bit down. “But he didn’t see you do that, now, did he?”

  “No,” Nick said, shuddering in just the way John had known he would. “And he never will. Never.”

  John kissed where’d he’d bitten, feeling a sudden pang of arousal, sweet and fierce. Nick always did this to him, always. Under his mouth he felt Nick’s skin give up a taste and smell that was enough to have him hard just from that, but he eased back a little, thinking of how shaky Nick still looked.

  “I love you,” he said, speaking the words against Nick’s shoulder as he took one last kiss, his lips brushing over the smooth, warm skin. “And no, he won’t. But if he helped you, I’m glad of that.”

  “It doesn’t mean I think I owe him anything.” Nick turned and looked at him. “He didn’t want ‑‑ anyway, I don’t know what’s going to happen. I mean, I don’t know if he’ll actually use the interview, or what. I tried to explain why I was doing it, but he’s sort of like Matthew ‑‑ not wanting to believe.”

  Nick couldn’t have said anything more reassuring. John knew ‑‑ now ‑‑ why it’d never worked out between Nick and Matthew and that had been the reason right there; Nick couldn’t love anyone wholeheartedly who thought that he was deluded or a liar.

  And why the hell should he?

  John couldn’t take much credit for his instant, complete belief in Nick; he’d felt the ghost in the room himself, after all. But mostly, it’d just been that looking into Nick’s face he’d seen nothing but sincerity and a deep weariness, and felt an urge to protect Nick that had left him unable to do anything but believe, because anything else would have hurt Nick.

  Simple as that.

  “He is, is he? Oh, well. Do you want to call this Selena? Or maybe leave it until after we’ve been to the shop?”

  “I think I’ll leave it for now,” Nick said. “Focus on one thing at a time. I have directions ‑‑” he gestured toward the single piece of hotel writing paper on the bedside table “-- and I don’t think the shop will be too hard to find. I hope.”

  * * * * *

  It wasn’t. John half expected a shop dealing, he assumed, in mystical stuff ‑‑ his mind conjured up crystals, incense, Tarot cards and maybe the odd skull ‑‑ to be tucked away down a small, dark alley, but it was part of a plaza with a courtyard, set between a clothes shop on one side and a video rental store on the other. The place seemed exotic to John’s eyes, with lush palms around a central fountain, splashing into a large pool, and an intricately laid sidewalk of white and blue-gray stone, but he supposed for here, it was normal.

  Pretty, though. He glanced into the fountain and saw a flicker of fin as a fish swam by, noting the sign telling people not to throw coins into the water. Aye. Pretty.

  “Looks like it’s open,” he said, seeing that the lights were on inside the store. A display in the window echoed the theme of water and vegetation, with fabric in all shades of blue and green hanging down, draped and twisted, forming a background for the crystals John had expected. The display was lit so that some of the crystals radiated rainbows; others were tucked away, drawing the eye subtly.

  They went inside; the door bumped a small wind chime as it opened, the tinkling sound of metal against metal no doubt signaling to the shop’s employees that customers had entered. There was a girl behind a counter just giving change to a young man who was holding a bag with the shop’s logo printed on it. “Have a nice day,” she said, her eyes lifting from the man’s to meet John’s. “Hi. Is there something I can help you find?”

  Nick stepped forward. “Hi. I called a little while ago; I’m looking for Misty?”

  “Melissa.” Another woman’s voice came from a doorway off to the right that John hadn’t noticed; she was leaning against the doorframe. “You’re Isabel’s friend.”

  “I know her,” Nick said. “Saying that she’s a friend might be stretching it.”

  “If she told you about me, you’re a friend.” Melissa straightened up. She was wearing a long, flowing skirt in darkened hues and a green, gauzy blouse. Her hair was blonde with blonder highlights ‑‑ couldn’t be natural, John thought ‑‑ but her eyes were dark. “Come on back. We’ll have more privacy.”

  More privacy, but precious little space. Melissa sat down in a huge, wide chair, upholstered in dark green velvet, looking like a mermaid floating in the ocean. Which left one wooden chair for Nick after John had taken up a position leaning against the wall and refused to move. Nick still looked tired and he was the one who needed to speak to Melissa after all.

  The small room was shelved, and the shelves were packed; John had the edge of one digging into his shoulder and was trying not to breathe too hard, in case he dislodged a neat stack of joss sticks, the slim packages redolent of patchouli, which brought back a few memories. They’d burned them to cover up the fact that they’d been smoking in Michael’s bedroom…which had just convinced his mother that they were doing drugs. She was a chain smoker herself; she probably wouldn’t have even noticed the smell of tobacco, come to think of it…

  “You’ve come a long way,” Melissa said, her eyes curious as she studied John’s face. “Scotland, right?”

  “That’s right.” John blinked at her. “And you’ll have family there yourself.”

  He wasn’t sure how he knew; she sounded American enough. But there was just something about her that felt familiar.

  She grinned. “My grandfather. Born and bred on the banks of the Clyde. But he emigrated when he turned eighteen and never went back.” Giving him a nod, she turned her attention to Nick. “Now you…you’ve got problems. Your aura’s a mess, for a start, but that’s a side-effe
ct, not the cause. What can I do to help?”

  “I don’t know. Isabel thought there might be something. She mentioned it years ago, but…” Nick seemed unsure how to finish that. “I guess it wasn’t the right time.”

  “And now it is, because you’re falling apart,” Melissa said shrewdly. She gave herself a little shake and stood up, slipping past John to stand behind Nick’s chair. “May I?” She rested a hand on Nick’s shoulder.

  “What are you going to do?” Nick asked.

  “Oh, just a little patching. It won’t hurt, I promise.”

  “Okay.”

  Melissa’s hands stroked lightly over Nick’s hair as if she were trying to get a feel for him. It was odd, watching someone else touch him like that and seeing Nick relax into it; normally he flinched, kept his distance. “Hm, yes,” Melissa said. “You’ve been in over your head, haven’t you?”

  “He’s good,” John said defensively. “Damn good at it. You should see him.” Melissa gave him an amused look and Nick a surprised one. John felt his face flush. “Well, he is…” he mumbled.

  “I wasn’t questioning that,” Melissa said, moving her hands over Nick’s shoulders. “We all get in over our heads sometimes. You came because of the plane crash?”

  “We think my father was on the plane.” Nick looked uncomfortable. “I mean, he was. We don’t have any reason to think he wasn’t.”

  “And you were estranged.” It wasn’t a question.

  “Yeah. Pretty much since I was born.” Nick closed his eyes as if to concentrate. “I’d been dreaming about it. The crash.”

  “Ah…” Melissa’s breath hissed out. “That can’t have been easy, but the reality…so much worse.”

  “It is,” Nick agreed. “I’ve had this problem before ‑‑ too many of them wanting to talk to me at the same time, and I just…can’t handle it. I can’t hear one over the other, and it feels like…well, like my head’s going to explode, pretty much. Isabel thought you might be able to help.”