“First tell me what they said. The ghosts.”
“You didn’t hear it?” I asked, starting carefully up the steps, trying not to twist my body, move too fast, or bang into the close walls of the stair shaft. Every step jolted a bit and I clenched my teeth, drawing breath in hasty snorts through my nose. I regretted my height that gave me the sensation I was about to bash my skull on the low ceiling and thus compelled me to bend forward even when I knew I shouldn’t.
“I heard something. I prefer to know what you heard before I claim I understood any of it.”
I cleared the stairs and stepped out into the main salon. I drew a careful breath, straining it through my teeth as the rib protested the expansion of my left lung. Not caring how decayed the upholstery was, I sat down on the edge of the nearest chair and worked on catching a proper breath before I replied.
“Does this mean . . . you believe?” I tried to make it light, but it just came out thin.
Solis worked his lips between his teeth a moment before he nodded. “I do.”
“All right, then. They do seem to be the ghosts from Valencia—they brought the set dressing with them.” My words came out in little rushes between flinching and taking small, nibbling breaths. “Lots of them, but kind of one unit. Tied together, I’d say. They said the water hounds told them I could help them . . . and have protected them from seafolk—not sure what they mean there. The water hounds—or one of them—brought them here in the boat. They said ‘otter man’ for that one. They indicated . . . that time is relevant. They said, ‘Now is the time.’ And something about a narrow gap closing—I had the impression . . . they meant both time and space. They said they are fleeing from a witch in a cove and the otter man is involved. They also used the word ‘siren.’ I think they mean . . . like a mermaid? Not sure. They’re very angry and scared. No, they said . . . they helped the one . . . who offended the siren. And now is the time to flee. From the seafolk’s witch. That’s right.” It was harder to keep things straight in my head when I had to breathe so raggedly. Just sucking in air took more concentration than I had imagined it could and broke up my thoughts almost as much as the stabbing feeling from my rib broke up my breathing. “That sounds . . . like total gibberish, doesn’t it?”
Solis was looking at me askance, his head tilted as if he were trying to see me in the Grey. His brows were quirked into uneven Vs and he appeared unnerved. “That is what I thought I heard.”
“Good ears. Now, aspirin? Rib is killing me.”
“Could this cove be the one the logs mentioned? Where Fielding was taking the boat?”
“That would be my guess.”
“I would like to know where that cove is.”
“Me, too. Whatever is going on with the ghosts . . . it’s there.”
“Was Seawitch hidden there all this time?”
“I don’t know but I think we’ll find the answers there, even if it wasn’t. Get Zantree . . .”
“Do you suppose Mr. Zantree might be able to tell us where the cove is?”
“Maybe. I can look up the lat and long online . . . but what we really need is a navigator . . . someone who knows the waters and the lore—I don’t know much about what creatures we’re dealing with. . . . Zantree had a crush on Shelly. He has a stake in finding out what happened to her. He knows the area and he knows the legends. Stories . . .” I squeezed my eyes shut against a sudden welling of nausea tears brought on by talking so much against the prodding pain of my rib.
I could feel sweat break on my face and the world reeled a bit while I tried to swallow down the urge to puke or pass out. “Stories sometimes tell the truth,” I muttered.
Solis dug into his coat pocket and offered me a tube that rattled with ibuprofen capsules.
“You have pockets like Quinton,” I said, accepting the pills with a quivering hand.
“Thank you. I have great respect for Mr. Purlis’s pockets.”
“Quinton,” I corrected without thinking, shaking capsules into my palm.
“Truly?”
“He prefers it.” I swallowed the capsules dry and gagged a little, but held back my lunch.
Solis waited, frustrated at being unable to thump my back with my broken rib, until I stopped choking. “I don’t understand the meaning.”
I gasped a little and handed him the pill tube. “Nickname from his mother’s maiden name.”
Solis frowned.
“Quinn’s son,” I explained. It wasn’t as if he couldn’t look up J. J. Purlis and get that info for himself. If he hadn’t already.
He mulled it for a moment and then he laughed. “I see.”
Had I ever heard Solis laugh before? I wasn’t sure. It was a sharp sound, short and rough, like something rarely used that had rusted and broken along the edges. I smiled back at him and stood up. A plume of mold and dust swelled into the air around me and I gave a sudden, violent sneeze.
Big mistake. The rib stabbed me and the world wavered and went black around the edges for a moment before the darkness closed in entirely. I could feel myself falling even as my sight blanked and then . . . nothing except the sudden fear of hitting my injured rib again before I lost consciousness.
SIXTEEN
Up and down. . . . Were we still on Seawitch? I felt woozy and my chest ached. So did my knees and my back and my butt. . . . “Who hit me?” I mumbled, feeling a stabbing sensation in my back and left side. Broken rib. Right.
“A ghost.”
I made a noise like a whale in heat—or I think that’s what the sound was like because it was loud and terrible and had a lot of moaning in it. I tried to sit up but someone pushed me back down before the busted rib could force the issue. It smelled like Quinton. I pried my eyes open and checked. Yup, Quinton.
He smiled at me from his position on the edge of my rear passenger seat.
“Where am I and how’d I get here?” I asked.
“Well . . . Solis paged me to your phone so I called you, and he answered and told me you were hurt but didn’t want to go to the hospital. Since you were unconscious he figured you didn’t have a say but I might, so I said I’d be right there and here I am.”
“But . . .”
“Hang on. We’re still at the marina, before you ask. We—that is, me and Solis and a guy named Paul Zantree—carried you to the Rover to take you to the hospital. But you woke up. It’s only been a few minutes.” He could see I wasn’t convinced. “I was in the neighborhood,” he concluded, throwing his hands up in a theatrical shrug.
“Liar,” I muttered. His aura was jumping around and flashing a bit of yellow and orange, which was his lying-for-convenience color. I can’t always tell with strangers, but I know Quinton well enough to recognize it with him. I also know cornering him in front of others will not bring answers. I nodded for the sake of onlookers—in this case Solis, who seemed a bit anxious, that rare emotion I’d never caught on him before this adventure began.
Quinton took that as a cue to help me sit up. Even with aid, my breath still caught on the pain in my chest and back as I moved. “I think you now hold the dubious distinction of being the only woman ever to pass out from sneezing,” he said.
“Time in the Grey, being smacked by ghosts . . . may be . . . extenuating circumstances,” I replied between gasps for breath.
“I blame the cracked rib.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. A doctor would be a good idea.”
“No insurance. . . .” They’d canceled my coverage after my last major hospitalization.
“We’ll fake it.”
“Don’t you dare.”
“It’s an outpatient urgent-care thing—not even emergency. It’ll be a couple of grand, max. We’ll find a way to cover it. You can’t finish up this case with a broken rib and no help.”
“Can, too.”
“If you think I know the proper field dressing for a broken rib, guess again. Besides, a few painkillers would be a good idea. You can get some sleep and we’ll tackle the rest of the problem in the morning.”