headed. “I don’t know why Walters—that’s the bodyguard—was driving her last night. He was taken off that duty after Alexis complained about him. I always figured he would go down in a bar brawl if the coke didn’t rot his brain first.” He glanced at me with chagrin. “Not that I’d wish a bullet on anyone.”
I didn’t think he would. There was iron determination under his surface calm, but no stone-cold killer. And no accusing remnants, either. Whatever haunted him was figurative.
“Any chance Walters was in on it and got double-crossed?” Carson asked. He might not be stone cold, but he was pragmatic.
“No,” I answered. “His surprise was genuine.”
“He couldn’t have been lying? Walters wasn’t exactly a stand-up human being.”
I shook my head, then realized he was looking at the road. “Trust me; deception was not the last thing on his mind.”
And yet I was sure I was missing something really obvious. It nagged at me, and I sifted through all the pieces of the long, confusing day trying to find it.
Think, Daisy. What would Taylor do? The investigators would go through the mountain of paper and avalanche of books in Alexis’s dorm room, looking for clues. They would interview her dorm mates and friends and review video from the security cameras.
What could I do that they couldn’t?
I could talk to the dead.
“I am an idiot,” I said, and reached into my pocket for Mrs. Hardwicke’s pearls.
“Yes, you are,” agreed her shade, from the general vicinity of the backseat. Though she had no physical form, she sat in prim disapproval. “You should never agree to ride in an automobile with a boy you just met.”
Well, she had that right.
“What’s going on?” asked Carson, looking from me to the rearview mirror and relaxing slightly when he saw nothing there. “Is Grandma back?”
“Grandma?” she echoed, and the temperature in the car plummeted. “I beg your pardon?”
“I’ll take that as a yes,” he murmured, turning up the heater.
“Be nice,” I said. “We need her. And the key in your pocket. It is in your pocket, right?”
He took one hand off the wheel and dug into his trousers, pulling out the heavy antique. “Are you finally going to tell me what this is?”
“It’s a clue.” I braced myself before I took it from him. The metal was warm from his body, a living energy that dampened the graveyard’s effect. “I don’t know where Alexis is, but we can go where she’s been.”
Carson glanced at me, the blue glow of the dashboard lights giving him a faux ghostly aura. “And where is that?”
“The Hardwicke mausoleum.” I glanced at the shade in the backseat. “You can give us directions to it, right?”
“Of course I can,” she said. “I visited Spring Creek regularly to pay my respects to Mr. Hardwicke.”
“Is that the name of the town?” I asked. “Spring Creek?”
“I know where Spring Creek is,” Carson told me, checking the rearview mirror again. “But a mausoleum … That’s where they inter the dead. Are you up for that, Sunshine?”
“Don’t call me that.” I was Daisy Goodnight, kick-ass speaker for the dead. I would not be overwhelmed by this situation. “If I’m not up for it, then who is?”
That didn’t sound quite as kick-ass as I would have liked, but the statement stood. Maybe this was what I was meant to do. No one else would have gotten the inside info from Mrs. Hardwicke on what the key unlocked.
I held the key up between us. “Alexis hid this, so it’s important. We should see why. Maybe we’ll find the jackal in the crypt, or some clue to what Alexis was involved in, or why someone would want to kidnap her.”
“Okay, okay.” Carson slowed the car, safely this time. “I’m convinced. Spring Creek, Minnesota, here we come.”
He was serious. Serious enough to execute a tidy U-turn in the middle of the empty highway. “That’s it? No argument why we should continue with the search-the-dorm-again plan?”
“That was a lousy plan. This is better.” He glanced over, letting me see a trace of wry humor. “Besides, you’re the go-to girl when it comes to dead things. I’d be a fool not to take your advice. I’m not a nice guy, but I’m also not a fool.”
Mrs. Hardwicke gave a snort from the backseat, but I didn’t see any reason to spoil the moment by passing that on.
10
I WAS REALLY not dressed for breaking into a graveyard.
Spring Creek, Minnesota, was a small town about an hour from the Twin Cities, and the