"Right."
His voice dripped disbelief, and I set my mug down. "Marshal is not my boyfriend. We just do stuff together so no one hits on either of us. It's nice and comfortable, and I'm not going to let you turn it into anything more with your psychobabble bull."
Ford placidly arched his eyebrows at me, and I stiffened when Jenks zipped in and said, "You musta hit pretty close to the mark there, sheriff, to get her riled up like that."
"He's just a friend!" I protested.
Relenting, Ford dropped his eyes and shook his head. "That's how good relationships start, Rachel," he said fondly. "Look at you and Ivy."
I felt the muscles in my face go slack and I blinked. "Excuse me?"
"You've got a great relationship there," he said, busying himself with his coffee again. "Better than a lot of married couples I see. Sex ruins it for some people. I'm glad you're learning that you can love someone without having to prove it with sex."
"Uh, yeah," I said uneasily. "Hey, let me top your coffee off there."
I could hear him shift as I turned my back on him and went to get the carafe. And he wanted to put me under hypnosis? No freaking way. He knew too much about me already.
"Ford," Jenks said gruffly, "your spider sense is whacked. All my kids are accounted for. Maybe it's Bis." He looked at the corners. "Bis, you in here?"
I smiled as I poured half a cup into Ford's mug. "Not while the sun is up, he's not. I saw him on the front eave when I went out for the paper this afternoon."
Taking a sip of coffee, Ford smiled. "There are three emotion sets in this room other than mine. Someone's nose got counted twice. Look, it's okay," he added when Jenks started dripping green sparkles. "Forget about it."
The soft strains of ZZ Top's "Sharp Dressed Man" drifted into existence, muffled but annoying. It was Ford's phone, and I eyed him with interest, thinking it an odd sort of tune for the straitlaced guy, but then my lips parted when I realized it was coming from my bag. My phone? But I knew I'd had it on "vibrate." At the very least, it wouldn't be playing that song. "Cripes, Jenks," I said, scrambling for my bag. "Will you leave my phone alone!"
"I haven't touched your phone," he said belligerently. "And don't be blaming it on my kids either. I bent their wings back last time, and they all said it wasn't them."
I frowned, wanting to believe him. Unless it was general nuisance, Jenks's kids usually didn't make the same mischief twice. Dropping my bag on my lap, I pulled out my phone, finding the call to be from an unlisted number. "Then why does it keep going off 'vibrate'? I almost died of embarrassment the night I tagged Trent." Flipping it open, I managed a courteous, "Hello?"
Jenks landed on Ford's shoulder, smiling. "It started playing 'White Wedding.'"
Ford laughed, and I pulled the phone from my ear. There was no one there. Clicking through the menu, I put it on "vibrate." "Leave it alone," I growled, and it went off again.
"Jenks!" I exclaimed, and the pixy flew up to the ceiling, grinning from ear to ear.
"It's not me!" he chimed out, but he was having too much fun for me to believe him.
It wasn't worth trying to catch him, so I dropped the phone in my bag and let it ring. Ford was very still, and a wave of apprehension swept me at the look in his eyes. Scared, almost.
"Someone else is in this room," he said softly, and Jenks's laughter cut off. I watched as Ford pulled out his amulet. It was a swirl of emotions, confusing and chaotic. No wonder he liked to work one on one. "Both of you, go back by the fridge," he said, and it was as if the warmth left my body. Shit, what in hell is going on?
"Go," he said, waving, and I stood up, totally creeped out. Maybe it's a demon, I thought. Not really here, but here on the other side of the ever-after, looking at us with his second sight. The sun wasn't down yet, but it was close.
Jenks silently landed on my shoulder, and we backed up until the amulet shifted to a frustrated black.
"And he or she is extremely frustrated," Ford said mildly. "He, I think."
I didn't believe this. How could he be so calm? "You sure it isn't a pixy?" I almost whined, and when Ford shook his head, I asked, "Is it a demon?"
Ford's amulet flashed a confused orange. "Maybe?" Ford offered, and when the amulet turned the purple of anger, he shook his head. "Not a demon. I think you have a ghost."
"What?" Jenks yelped, the burst of yellow pixy dust settling onto the floor to slowly fade. "How come we didn't know before? We've been here a year!"
"We do live next to a graveyard." I looked over my kitchen, feeling it was alien suddenly. Damn it, I should have gone with my first gut feelings when I saw the tombstones. This wasn't right, and my knees weren't feeling all that sturdy. "A ghost?" I stammered. "In my kitchen?" Then my heart did a flip-flop, and my gaze shot to my demon library, down from the belfry. "Is it my dad?" I shouted.
Ford put a hand to his head. "Back up. Back up!" he cried. "You're too close."
Heart pounding, I looked at the eight feet between us and pressed into the fridge.
"I think he meant for the ghost to back up," Jenks said dryly.
My knees started to shake. "This is freaking me out, Jenks. I don't like it."
"Yeah," Jenks said. "Like I'm all peach fuzz and nectar here?"
Ford's expression eased, and the amulet around his neck went a sorrowful brown tinged with the red of embarrassment. "He's sorry," Ford said, gaze unfocused as he concentrated. "He didn't mean to scare you." A smile came over him, unusually soft. "He likes you."
I blinked, and Jenks started to swear in one-syllable sentences in a way that only a pixy can manage. "Likes me?" I stammered, then got the willies. "Oh God," I moaned. "I've got a peeping Tom of a ghost. Who is it?"
The amulet went entirely red. Ford looked down at it as if needing confirmation. "I'd say not a peeping Tom. I'm getting that he's frustrated, benevolent, and he's starting to feel better now that you know he's here." Ford's eyes slid to my bag. "Ten to one he's the person who has been changing your ring tones."
I fumbled for a chair, yanked it to the fridge, and sat down. "But my phone has been doing this since the fall," I said, looking at Jenks for confirmation. "Months." Anger started trickling in. "He's been here all that time? Spying on me?"
Again, the amulet went an embarrassed red. "He's been trying to get your attention," Ford said gently, as if the ghost needed an advocate.
I put my elbows on my knees and dropped my head into my hands. Swell.
Clearly frustrated, Jenks landed on the sill beside his brine shrimp tank. "Who is it?" he demanded. "Ask him his name."
"Emotions, Jenks," Ford said. "Not words."
Taking a calming breath, I looked up. "Well, if it's not my dad..." I went cold. "Kisten?" I warbled, feeling my entire world take a hit. God, if it was Kisten. There was a spell to talk to the dead who were stuck in purgatory, but Kisten's soul was gone. Or was it?
Ford seemed to waver, and I held my breath. "No," he finally said, and the amulet swirled with black and purple. "I, ah, don't think he liked Kisten."
Jenks and I exhaled together, and Ford straightened in his chair. I didn't know what I was feeling. Relief? Disappointment?
"Sir," Ford said to a corner in the kitchen, and my skin crawled. "Think about your contact to this plane. Ah, that would be Rachel, probably."
Again I held my breath. Jenks was shedding gold sparkles. Colors shifted across Ford's amulet, but I didn't know enough to interpret them when they were all mixed up like that.
"I'm feeling the excitement of a past danger shared," Ford said softly. "Of fondness, gratitude. Heavy gratitude to you." His eyes opened, and I stifled a shiver at the alien look in them. They were his, but they carried the shadow of the soul of the person he was picking up on.
"Have any of your clients died?" Ford asked. "Someone you were trying to help?"
"Brett," Jenks said.
"Peter?" I blurted out.
But the amulet went a negative gray.
"Nick," Jenks said nastily, and the color on the metal disk became a violent shade of purple.
Ford blinked, trying to divorce himself from the hate. "I'd say no," he whispered.
This was really weird. Whoever it was knew my old boyfriends. My eyes closed in a wash of guilt. I had known a lot of people who were now dead. I was a freaking albatross.
"Rachel."
It was gentle and caring, and I opened my eyes to find Ford looking at me with compassion. "You are worthy of accepting love," he said, and I flushed.
"Stop eavesdropping on me," I mumbled, and Jenks's wings hummed an agitated whisper.
"The ghost thinks so, too," Ford added.
I swallowed a lump. "Are you sure it isn't my dad?"
Ford's smile turned benevolent. "It's not your dad, but he does want to protect you. He's frustrated, watching you these past...months? And being unable to help."
I let out my breath in a huff. Jenks's wings hit a higher pitch, and he took to the air. Great. I really needed another white knight. Not. "Who is it?" Jenks said, almost angry. Then, in a burst of sparkles that rivaled the lights, he shouted, "Rache, where's your Ouija board?"
I stared at the wildly darting pixy, then, understanding what he wanted to do, I shuffled through Ivy's papers for the back of one she wouldn't miss. "I don't have one," I said, turning over a hand-drawn map of the conservatory and writing out the alphabet in big, bold letters. "They give me the creeps."
Feeling light-headed, I pushed the hand-drawn alphabet in front of Ford and backed up. Ford gave me a wondering look, and I said, "Run your finger under the letters. When you feel a positive emotion, that's the first letter of his name." I looked at the empty-seeming kitchen. "Okay?"
The amulet went gold in affirmation, and I sat down to hide my shaking knees. This was really, really weird.
"I'd say he's okay with that." But Ford looked uneasy for the first time. With a single finger, he began at A, running over them with a deliberate slowness. I watched as he paused at one, then backed up. "P," Ford said.
My thoughts flashed to Peter, then Piscary. One dead, the other really dead. Both impossible. But what if it was Peter? He was living as an undead, but if his soul was in purgatory, and I could get it into his body, would he be whole? Was this Ivy's answer?
I licked my lips and watched Ford reach the end of the alphabet and start over. "I," he said, then hesitated. "Yes, I."
My exhale was long. Not Peter, then. But Piscary? Ford had said the ghost was benevolent, and the vampire hadn't been. Unless it was a trick. Or Piscary had been a good man before he'd become a vampire. Did their souls renew themselves at death, not disintegrate? Revert to a state before everything went wrong?
Ford reached the end and started again. "E," he said, looking as if he was more relaxed. Not Piscary, then, and I felt better.
"Pie," Jenks said snidely. "Did you kill a baker we don't know about, Rachel?"
I leaned forward, breathless. "Shut up, Jenks."
Ford's finger stopped again, almost immediately. "R," he said, and I felt myself go cold, then hot. No freaking way...
"Oh my God!" I shouted, jumping to my feet. Jenks hit the ceiling at my outburst, and Ford covered his ears, eyes closed in pain. "I know who it is!" I exclaimed, eyes wide and my heart pounding. I could not believe it. I could not freaking believe it. But it had to be him!
"Rachel!" Jenks was in my face, shedding gold sparkles. "Stop! You're killing Ford! Knock it off!"
His hand to his head, Ford smiled. "It's okay," he said, grinning. "This is good stuff. From both of you."
Wonder filled me, and I shook my head as I looked around my kitchen. "Unbelievable," I whispered, then more loudly said, "Where are you? I thought you were at peace." I stopped, hands falling to my side, disappointed somehow. "Wasn't saving Sarah enough?"
Ford was leaning back in his chair, grinning as if he was witnessing a family reunion, but Jenks was pissed. "Who the hell are you talking to, Rache? Tell me or I'm going to pix you, so help me Tink."
Hand gesturing at nothing, I stood in the middle of my kitchen, still not believing it. "Pierce," I said, and Ford's amulet glowed. "It's Pierce."