Vanished: A Greywalker Novel - Softcover

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Kat Richardson lives on a sailboat in Seattle with her husband, a crotchety old cat, and two ferrets. She rides a motorcycle, shoots target pistol, and does not own a TV.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

When I was a kid, my life seemed to be run by other people's designs and not bymine. Once the time was ripe, I escaped from the life other people pushed me into andmade my own. Or so I thought. Now it appears I was wrong about…well, everything. ButI’ll get to that later.

Two years ago, I died for a couple of minutes. When I woke up, things hadchanged: I could see ghosts and magic and things that go bump in the night. You see,there is a thin space between the normal and the paranormal—the Grey—where thingsthat aren’t quite one or the other roam. It’s not a place most people can visit; evenwitches and psychics only reach into the surging tide of power and the uncanny and haulout what they need. But once in a while there’s someone like me: a Greywalker, with afoot on each side of the line and fully immersed in the weird.

Sounds cool? Not so much. Some of my friends in the know are fascinated by it,but to me it’s more frequently a royal pain in the ass. Because when I can see themonsters, they can see me, and if they have problems, I’m the go-to girl. I’ve been aprofessional private investigator for ten years, and it’s a job I’ve come to practice on bothsides of the veil because ghosts, vampires, and witches just don’t take no for an answer.Since I’d died, I’d made my accommodation with the Grey and I thought I had it prettywell figured, even if some things were still a mystery to me, like, “why me” and “howdoes this stuff work?” It just did, and I did my best to get along. Until May of this year,when things got rather personal, starting with strange dreams and a phone call from thedead.

It started just like it had in real life: The man belts me in the temple and it feelslike my head is caving in. I tumble out of the chair, onto the hardwood floor. In the dreamI can see its pattern of dark and light wood making a ribbon around the edge of the room,like a magic circle to contain the terror.

I grope for my purse, for the gun, for anything that will stop him from beating meto death this time. I am still too slow. He rounds the edge of the desk and comes after me.I roll up onto my knees and try to hit him below the belt.

He dodges, swings, and connects with the back of my head. Then he kicks me inthe ribs as I collapse again. This time I don’t shriek—I don’t have the air—and that’show I know something’s changed. It’s not just a memory; it’s a nightmare.The man’s foot swings for my face and I push it up, over my head, tipping himbackward. As he falls, I scramble for the door into the hall. This time I’ll get out. Thistime I won’t die.…

But he catches up and grabs onto my ponytail—an impossible rope of hair a yard,a mile long and easy to grip. Was it really so long? I can’t even remember it down to myhips like that. But in the dream it’s a lariat that loops around my neck and hauls my headback until I’m looking into the man’s face.

But it’s my father, not the man who beat my head in. Not the square-jawed,furious face of a killer, but the bland, doe-eyed face that winked like the moon when Iwas tucked into my childhood bed. He read me Babar books and kissed my cheek when Iwas young. Now he calls me “little girl,” and slams my skull into the doorpost.I don’t fight back this time. I just wrench loose, leaving my long hair in his hand.He lets me go and I stumble toward the ancient brass elevator, my legs wobbling and mypace ragged. I feel tears flooding down my cheeks, and the world spins into a narrowingtunnel.

I see the elegant old elevator at the end of the tunnel, the gleaming metalgrillwork shuffling itself into shape, as if it is formed from the magical grid of the Grey.

There’s a vague human figure inside, beyond the half-formed doors. There never wasanyone there before.…

I stagger and fall to my knees at the elevator door. The ornate brass gates slideopen and I tumble into the lift, sprawling like a broken toy at someone’s feet.He’s much too tall from my position down on the floor: a giant blue denim treecrowned with silvery hair. My dream vision zooms up and in, and something tightens inmy chest until I can feel it strain to the breaking point.

Will Novak, my ex-boyfriend, looks down at me with a cool glance. “Oh. It’syou,” he says.

The too-tight thing in my chest pings and breaks. Pain lashes through me like theunwinding mainspring of a broken clock.

…

I woke up with a scream in my mouth that twisted into shuddering tears. I huddledinto my bed and cried, feeling that something had been wrecked or wrenched apart in away I didn’t understand. I wished I was cuddled up with Quinton in his safe little holeunder the streets and not alone with the lingering desolation of my nightmare.I’m not much for emotional outbursts. They’re counterproductive and ugly andthey tend to put someone at a disadvantage. Even alone in my condo I felt a littleashamed of weeping like a brat, and I was glad the ferret wasn’t going to tell anyone. ButI still felt bad about it.

The dream was a bad start to a bad day filled with unpaid bills, lying clients,dead-end investigations, and ghosts behaving badly. So with the past and my death on mymind, I guess it wasn’t such a surprise that I got a phone call from a dead boyfriend. Thedead seem to have a thing about phones.

I didn’t recognize the number, but that never stops me. I answered the phone,“Harper Blaine,” like usual.

“Hiya, Slim.”

“I think you have the wrong number.”

“Ahhh…no. I had to whistle pretty hard, but I think I got it right.”

Whistle? What the—?

“Hey,” the voice continued, “you know how to whistle, don’t ya?”v

I couldn’t stop myself from finishing the quote. “You just put your lipstogether…and blow.” That was Slim Browning’s line from To Have and Have Not.

Lauren Bacall to Humphrey Bogart. My favorite film. It was someone else’s favoritefilm, too.…

He laughed. “I knew you wouldn’t forget.”

A chill ran over me. “Who is this?”

“You’re disappointing me, Slim. It’s Cary.”

“Cary…?” I echoed, feeling queasy.

“Malloy. From LA.”

Cary Malloy had mentored me through my first two years as a professionalinvestigator. We’d broken the rules about interoffice romances. Then he’d died in a caraccident on Mulholland Drive. Two fast cars racing on the twisty road with a distractingview across the nighttime basin of lights; a bad curve; Cary’s car parked on the shoulderas he observed a subject’s house, pretending to admire the view; one car swinging a littletoo wide, sliding out the side of the curve…I hadn’t been there, but I always felt as if Ihad, as if I’d heard the sound of the cars colliding, scraping across the road in showers ofsparks and the screech of metal. The two cars had tumbled over the cliff, milling downthe canyon side as the third rushed away into the darkness.

The subject had called it in. After all, it had happened right across the street, andthe small fire started in the dry chaparral by hot metal and spilling gas was a menace. Theentangled state of the burning cars made it plain both drivers were long dead by the timeLA County Fire arrived. The residents of the canyon had simply stood at the edge of theroad and watched. There was nothing else they could do.

My silence gave my thoughts away, I suppose. Cary’s voice said,...