Lost Souls (A Caitlyn O’Connell Novel) Read online

  “Shouldn’t take more than a few hours for the dogs to make their way through. Depends, I guess, on what they find. You’ve been here a while, Mr. Lewis?”

  He nodded. “Started as a busboy in the restaurant when the hotel first opened.”

  “Ever notice anything odd?”

  “The Deluxe used to be a respectable place.” He shook his head, his faded blue eyes staring owlishly through his thick black frames. “Nice clientele. Pilots and stewardesses. Businessmen. But then more and more hotels sprung up, closer to the city center. Nicer. Now, it’s blue-collar workers and the usual one-nighters,” he said, giving her an apologetic smile. “We cut a break to keep some longtime residents filling the rooms.”

  “We’ll need a list of those long-term guests.”

  He gave her a small smile. “I’ll go put that together for you. Shouldn’t take me long.”

  Cait smiled her thanks. As soon as he was out of earshot, she cut a glance at Jason.

  “Yeah, adding him to the list too.” His chin dipped. “And any other older employees.”

  Cait sighed. “We’re assuming the demon has kept the same persona all these years.”

  “We have to start somewhere.”

  They strode down another hallway to the dining room. A corkboard beside the entrance listed the limited menu and various event posters—the one for the AA meeting being prominent among the bunch.

  After a quick scan, she wrinkled her nose at it and stuck her head into the room. Faded multicolored carpet in wine and green. Mismatched dark furniture. Framed prints that looked as dingy as the rest of the decor. Still, the food smelled good. Her stomach rumbled.

  “Have you eaten?” Jason asked, as though reading her mind.

  “I could do with a breakfast biscuit. Want to grab something for me while I check out the bar?”

  His eyebrow rose, but he gave her a nod and headed toward the cashier’s desk.

  Cait took a deep breath and turned on her heel. The bar was right next to the restaurant, and she wondered if the alcoholics stopped in for a quick drink after their meetings.

  Inside, the bar was cozy, as it should be, with rich old leather booths, smooth, heavy wooden chairs. A large glass mirror at the back of the bar reflected the comfy golden glow of recessed lighting and highlighted the lovely hues of the bottles lined along two sturdy shelves in front of it.

  “Thought I might find you here today.”

  She jerked and glanced over her shoulder at Eddie Bradley, the EMT who’d transported her to the hospital the day before. “What are you doing here?”

  His smile was warm. His gaze swept over her, lingering on her face. “Just curious. I’m off today. But I have an emergency bag in my car just in case. I got the impression yesterday that you’re accident-prone. The emergency staff at the hospital knows you by name.”

  She gave him a steady look. “It’s kind of you to worry, Eddie, but as you’ve probably seen, we have tons of people on the premises.”

  “Okay, you have me.” He lifted his hands. “I was hoping to see you. To make sure you were all right. You did leave before the doctors checked you out.”

  “I’m right as rain.” She waved her hands down her front and held them at her sides.

  “Yes, you are.”

  His smile was slow, his sleepy eyes the kind that invited a woman’s confidence. A subtle come-on. Luckily, she was immune to his charm. “It’s a little early for me to buy you that drink.”

  He flashed a sheepish grin. “That was just an excuse. And I’ll stay out of your hair. I just dropped by.”

  “Yeah, to check on me.” She narrowed her eyes as she continued to study him. “You should probably know that drink won’t ever come. I’m a recovering alcoholic.”

  “You attending meetings?”

  “Haven’t found one yet,” she said, omitting the fact she hadn’t really been looking.

  “I could introduce you to the guy who runs the meetings here. They meet tonight.”

  “How convenient,” she muttered. “But I’ll be working.”

  He shrugged and held out his hand. “Well, when you’re ready then.”

  She gave him hers, a little reluctantly because he was a very yummy guy and his smile was killer. The moment their hands touched, she felt warmth flood her body, flush her cheeks. A moment passed before she pulled away and wiped her hand against the side of her jeans.

  “Hope you find what you’re looking for, Caitlyn.”

  She watched him move away and decided to add him to her list. Out of self-preservation, maybe, because her hand still tingled and her heart had sped up while he’d tried flirting. She had a man. A damn good one. One she meant to keep, although she suspected Eddie would be an easier partner, less in her face about her mistakes and weaknesses.

  A comfortable kind of man to be with.

  She shook her head. Yeah, Eddie Bradley was going to the top of the list of possible incubi for the simple fact she found him tempting.

  By noon, four more female bodies had been found inside the third-floor walls.

  All dried husks with missing organs. All doused in scented oils to cure and mask the odor of rotting flesh.

  As they were all nude and no identifying items were found with them, Sam held out little hope they’d get IDs for weeks as they waited on DNA testing. If they or someone in their family were even in the system.

  Darkness was falling as the last of the little army of crime scene techs finished up with the final rooms. Entering the room the Reel PIs crew had been assigned to set up their equipment, Sam found Cait, hands fisted on her hips. Besides Booger, Mina, and Clayton, another woman stood in the row with the wannabe film crew facing Cait.

  At his approach, Cait glanced over her shoulder. “We have a psychic,” she said, her voice deadpanned.

  Sam’s lips tightened in irritation. The investigation was already a circus.

  “Madame Xavier is here to walk the hall and pick up any bad vibes.”

  The portly woman straightened her shoulders and lifted her double chins. “I’m here to communicate with the dead.”

  Cait rolled her eyes.

  “She’s got loads of experience with police investigations,” Clayton said, his words tumbling in an excited rush. “We’re lucky she was free to help on such short notice.”

  Cait’s thin smile didn’t reach her eyes. “Yes, we’re so lucky,” she said, her tone remarkably even. “However, I would recommend you not enter the last hallway.”

  “The point of conflux?” Madame Xavier nodded. “Being wary is wise when there’s the possibility of a demonic possession. So much more powerful than any ordinary ghost.”

  Cait’s eyes widened.

  The woman whose shoulders would have looked good on a linebacker returned Cait’s thin smile, a hint of challenge in her bright hazel gaze.

  Cait returned her stare, then murmured, “Maybe we can use you after all.”

  The woman nodded, her teased-high, carrot-red hair bouncing. “Perhaps we should talk privately.”

  “Let me grab my handheld camera,” Mina said quickly.

  Cait speared the younger woman with a glare. “Ground rules, Mina. When I need to talk to someone about confidential details of the investigation, you have to let us speak alone. I promise there will be plenty to film later.”

  Mina’s lips pressed into a straight line. “Fine. We have to tune our equipment anyway.”

  As Cait led the way, Sam stood aside. He gave Clayton a warning glare to stay in place and then followed the two women into the hallway.

  Cait eyed the woman curiously. “You said demonic possession.”

  The older woman gave a dramatic shiver. “I felt it. Smelled the vague scent of sulfur when I walked through the front door. Didn’t you?”

  Cait didn’t seem surprised that the woman addressed her as an equal. “Not until I was poking my head into the wall where the first body was found.”

  “I’ve had experience with spirits and demons.
Not all the cases I help the police with have involved human monsters.” Madame Xavier’s gaze studied Cait, her eyes squinting a bit as she did so. “So many dark colors around you, dear.”

  “You reading my aura?” Her body stiffened.

  Sam pressed his lips together at the note of affront in Cait’s voice. She acted as though the woman had lifted her skirt to peek at her underwear.

  The psychic’s expression softened. “You’re not very accepting of anything metaphysical, are you?”

  “I’m not… I don’t have a problem…” She finished sputtering, then simply scowled. “No.”

  “And yet you have powers I’d give anything to possess.” She raised a penciled eyebrow and stared as though trying to see inside Cait. “I’m just a psychic, not a witch.”

  Cait’s face tightened. “I’m just a PI.”

  “So you say. But so many violent colors surround you. Dull red and orange, edged with black. I’d worry more about your nature, but there is blue as well.” Her gaze narrowed. “You are searching for truths. Perhaps for answers?”

  Cait shook her head. “All I want to know is who to pin the murders on. If you can help with that, I can handle the rest.”

  “Unfortunately, my sight is rarely so clear.” A shoulder shrugged. “I can divine clues. Pick up on energies. But I can be useful.”

  “What do you propose?”

  “I must do a cleansing, then cloak myself and anyone else who accompanies me as I search the floor.”

  “That would be me.”

  Madame Xavier nodded, squinting again and training her gaze along the outer edges of Cait’s frame. “I sense you’ve already worked a little protective shield of your own. That’s good. What I will do won’t be nearly as powerful. There’s white light radiating through all your murky colors.”

  Cait inhaled, and Sam sensed her impatience with the woo-woo language. Despite being the real deal, Cait preferred to keep things ordinary, tangible. Something he appreciated, because all this talk of auras and energies was still a little hard to swallow without his gut churning.

  “The techs should be done shortly,” he said. “As soon as I sign off, we’ll have access to the halls.”

  Just as the words were out of his mouth, a man wearing scrubs and paper booties approached with a clipboard. “Detective, we’ve got everything bagged and tagged. I just need a signature.”

  Sam reached into a pocket of his jacket for a pen and signed off as the officer in charge of the crime scene.

  “Have problems with your plumbing?” the tech asked.

  Sam blinked then looked at his pen.

  Cait smothered a smile, and raised a brow. He’d swiped her Nick the Plumber pen from her kitchen drawer.

  “No, no plumbing problems. Good work.”

  As the tech left, Sam glanced around. The Reel PIs crew was crowded together, looking out the doorway.

  “We on?” asked Clayton.

  Sam nodded. “You can set up the cameras and listening devices, but I’ll want you off the main floor and back in this room as soon as you’re done.”

  The crew darted back into the room, their eager chatter growing loud.

  Madame Xavier touched Cait’s arm. “I’ve already cleansed and sealed the room to the best of my limited abilities. I sensed nothing dark there.”

  “Good,” Cait said, her smile unfeigned this time. “I’ll leave you with Sam,” she said, eyeing him.

  He gave a quick nod, thinking his reputation would be in shreds the moment the rest of his team heard about this surveillance. But somehow, he was relieved Cait wouldn’t be without some backup, however inept.

  Cait angled her body toward his and glanced up. “I have something I have to attend to. But I’ll be back shortly.”

  Sam pulled her a few feet away. “Gonna work that spell?” he asked, dropping his voice.

  She gave him a wink. “Yeah, it’s time to see if Sylvia has anything to say.”

  Jason and Cait sat at a table in the bar, bent over a napkin. The lighting was poor, and her chicken scratch didn’t make it any easier to read the words she’d scribbled.

  “I need something that rhymes with peek,” she muttered.

  “Seek?”

  “Oh, that’s good.” She scratched a couple more lines before pushing the napkin across the table. “What do you think?”

  Jason held it to the light to read the spell she’d worked on and then lifted his face to give her a dubious smile.

  Cait frowned, blushing, because she knew she sucked at poetry. “The Powers know not to expect anything fancy from me,” she said defensively.

  “Maybe they’ve got a sense of humor,” he said, sliding it back.

  Cait wadded the napkin in her hand and shook it. “This will just have to do. I’ve already wasted half an hour. There’s no telling what kind of trouble those Reel PIs have gotten into.”

  They took the elevator. Cait kept her gaze fixed on the digital readout. The elevator was old and slow and tended to shake a bit as it rose.

  When they reached the third floor, Cait flipped the stop switch and waited to see if an alarm rang. When it didn’t, she glanced at Jason. “Good a place as any. Private.” She reached into her pocket and removed the vial of butterfly blood ink, shook it, and then pointed at his chest and twirled her finger.

  Making a face, Jason turned and hunched over.

  She set the napkin against him, uncorked the bottle, and pulled out a quill.

  “That gonna bleed through my shirt?”

  “Probably.”

  “Great. Just what I need.”

  “All right,” she muttered. “I’ll use the floor.”

  Jason straightened and stood back as she knelt and bent over the napkin. As soon as she dipped the quill in the ink and began to write, the paper soaked up the first letter, forming an illegible blob. So she copied the rest of the words in large block letters to the side of the spell she’d written in plain ink.

  When she was done, she straightened, held out the paper, and took a deep breath. “Ready for this?” she asked, looking at Jason for moral support.

  “Am I going to see anything?” He held his body stiffly.

  “Not likely.”

  “You’re the witch. Go for it.”

  A pounding sounded on the elevator door. “Anyone in there?”

  She aimed a glance at Jason for him to handle it while she closed her eyes and tried to clear her mind.

  “No problems here,” he shouted, his words echoing loudly against the metal walls. “We’ll be out in a minute.”

  “Get a damn room!”

  Cait closed her eyes and evened out her breaths. She tried to imagine a riverbank with clear blue water. Sunlight filtering through shade trees. When she had the image locked in her mind, she felt calm envelop her, her thoughts narrowing, all the noise and hurry drifting away.

  In a moment of quiet, she opened her eyes and read from the napkin.

  “Spirits guide me, lift the veil.

  No harm or greed do I entail.”

  She heard a groan, but ignored it.

  “Let me take a tiny peek

  And find the spirit that I seek:

  Sylvia Reyes.”

  She bit her lip. “Think that did it?”

  “That took you half an hour?”

  The lights in the elevator dimmed for a long moment before flickering back on.

  A silvery outline of a woman filled in slowly, like ink spilled into a glass. An echo of a scream started faintly, then grew and grew. Color exploded through the figure: bottle-blonde hair, red Sharpie-outlined lips and thick dark mascara, a shimmery, too-tight top and much-too-short-for-church skirt. Hot pink heels.

  “Holy sheet!” Sylvia Reyes’s hands patted her abdomen, and then she bent over to look at her belly before at last darting a glance up at Cait. “Lady, what the hell did joo do?”

  “Did it work?” Jason whispered beside her.

  Cait didn’t take her gaze off the apparition glari
ng daggers her way. “She’s arrived, all right. Sylvia, I’m Cait. This is Jason. He can’t see you.”

  “You some kinda spirit guide come to tell me joo made a mistake?” Her thick Spanish accent clicked like castanets. Her words were bold, but there was real fear in her eyes.

  “A mistake?”

  “Joo gonna take me down there?” she asked, her nasal tones pinched.

  “Are you talking about Hell? Were you in Heaven?”

  Sylvia lifted her shoulders. “I don’ know. It was nice. Like mi abuela’s house in Meh-hee-ko.” She aimed a leery glance around the elevator car. “Uh-oh. I know what thees place is.”

  “You’re not in Hell,” Cait rushed to reassure her, “but I did bring you back to where you were murdered.”

  “Joo some mean bitch.” She jerked her head. “Thees the las’ place I wanna be. Crazy sheet happened here.”

  Cait offered an apologetic smile. “We know. And it’s going to keep happening unless I can find a way to stop it. That’s why I need you.”

  “Joo don’ understand.” Her hands clenched. “He ain’t human.”

  “Believe me, Sylvia, I’m well aware of that fact.”

  “Send me back,” the woman said, stomping one pink stiletto.

  “I will,” Cait said, ignoring Jason’s raised eyebrows. “As soon as we have what we need. And as soon as I figure out how to do that,” she added under her breath.

  “What?” Sylvia’s dark eyebrows drew together in a ferocious frown. “Joo brought me here and joo don’ know how to send me back?”

  Cait winced at the woman’s shout. “I wasn’t a hundred percent sure this spell would even work,” she said, holding up the napkin, “but if I can summon you, surely I can put you back.”

  Sylvia huffed and folded her arms over her bosomy chest. “I gotta bad feeling about joo, mija. Some bruja joo are.”

  As she blew out a deep breath, Cait’s cheeks billowed. “Just stay close. The guy you were coming to meet, can you tell me anything about him?”