A Gift of Thought Read online

  He stroked his hand up her arm, and even through her suit jacket, she shivered at his touch.

  She could hear the regret in his voice as he said, “I know.”

  She frowned. What was that about?

  “She’s going to be pissed,” Lucas said, conversationally, as he pulled his phone out and looked at it. Sylvie’s frown deepened. She? Who was Lucas talking to? Her?

  He turned the phone to her. The text read, Tell her.

  Sylvie scowled. “Tell who?”

  “You.”

  “What?” she snapped. Damn it, Lucas was confusing her. Again.

  “Dillon,” Lucas answered.

  Sylvie had no place left to retreat. The wood of the planter was solid against the back of her legs. But she straightened her back automatically, chin firming. “What are you talking about?”

  “Dillon,” he repeated.

  “What about him?”

  “He’s a ghost.”

  Chapter Six

  His mom laughed.

  His dad didn’t.

  “Lucas, have you gone insane? First you think Chesney—Raymond Chesney—is dealing with the drug cartels and now you think Dillon is a ghost?”

  Dillon made a face. His dad had warned him that his mom would be difficult. Lucas smiled though, as if Sylvie had said something encouraging instead of dismissive.

  “I know it sounds unlikely.”

  “Unlikely? It sounds certifiable.”

  “I understand how you feel. I wasn’t too happy when Max started claiming that Dillon was haunting his car. But he was right.” Lucas sounded more amused than convincing and Dillon scowled.

  He wanted his mom to know that he was here, that he was thinking of her, that he was interested. He wanted to talk to her, and he wanted her to believe his messages when he sent them. His dad needed to help him make that happen, which meant persuading her that ghosts were real, not letting her think he was crazy.

  “Your father thinks he can see the future. He’s not exactly a voice of sanity,” Sylvie snapped, and then her tone softened and she put her hand on Lucas’s sleeve. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I know a therapist. She’s good at her job. She can get you help.”

  Lucas laughed and put his hand over Sylvie’s, stroking her fingers as she continued. “I’m serious, Lucas. Paranoia and delusions are dangerous. You need real help. Probably, I don’t know, medication. Something!”

  “I’m touched by your concern,” Lucas answered, his voice husky, before running his hand all the way up Sylvie’s arm and over her shoulder until he cupped her cheek. “If our ghostly son wasn’t watching, I’d—oh, hell, I will anyway.” Bending his head, he started kissing her again.

  “Damn it. That is so not cool, Dad.” Dillon turned his back to them. He didn’t mind if his parents got together. In fact, haunting them would be a lot more convenient if they’d spend more time in the same place. But they were his parents. He shouldn’t have to watch them fool around.

  He concentrated hard, closing his eyes. When he’d first started manipulating energy to send messages, he’d had to touch the device as if he was using static energy discharge to make a connection, but his technique had gotten better with practice. Now his energy made him more like a walking cell phone himself, one that could send a message to any nearby phone. He heard the sound of his father’s phone buzzing and then Lucas’s low chuckle.

  “How are you doing that?” Sylvie asked. “Do you have someone watching us?”

  “Yes, Mom,” Dillon said. “I’m watching you.” He turned back. She’d taken a step away from Lucas, moving her hand from his sleeve to his chest, as if to hold him off.

  Lucas was smiling at the phone, where Dillon’s text said, STOP THAT, in all caps.

  “I know perfectly well that your grandparents used to kiss in front of you,” Lucas responded to Dillon’s text before saying to Sylvie, “Not unless you count Dillon. He’s here.”

  Sylvie opened her mouth as if to say something and then closed it before she let the words out. Then she opened it again. Then she sighed and closed it. She sat down, hard, on the edge of the planter at her back and put her hands up over her eyes as Dillon finished sending another text to Lucas.

  As Lucas’s phone buzzed again, Sylvie put her hand out. “Let me see that,” she ordered.

  Lucas handed her the phone and she read the text aloud. Not the same. She looked around the garden’s shadowy corners, as if searching for a hidden watcher, but between the twinkling holiday decorations, the heat lamps and the light spilling out from the glass hotel windows, the garden wasn’t truly dark.

  Dillon looked around too, following her gaze. No one seemed to be watching them. “It’s just me, Mom,” he said, feeling more cheerful. Maybe between them, he and his dad would convince her after all.

  Sylvie looked up at Lucas. “You’re saying that ghosts are real?”

  He nodded. “As real as telepathy, precognition, finding, and whatever you’re calling your gift these days.”

  Sylvie shook her head in seeming disbelief. “Please tell me that crazy lady with the auras wasn’t telling the truth.”

  “Mrs. Swanson?” Lucas chuckled. “No idea. Not sure there’s a way to prove auras.”

  “But you’ve proved—to your satisfaction—that ghosts exist?” Sylvie’s eyes were intent upon Lucas.

  “Yep.”

  “And that Dillon is a ghost?”

  “Yep.” Lucas nodded, still smiling.

  “And it’s not a fake? It’s not some spiritualist conning you?”

  “Conning me how? You see the message. It’s coming from my phone. But I didn’t type it in. I was busy.”

  Sylvie looked skeptical. “A bug? Like the listening device kind of bug? And then some kind of cell phone virus, like those thingamies that take over your computer remotely, only for a phone instead?”

  Lucas’s smile grew wider. “That sounds plausible,” he said. “I bet someone could do that. But no. Dillon is a ghost and he’s with us now.”

  “Then why haven’t you helped him?” Sylvie demanded, abruptly standing up again. “What are you thinking? You’re just letting him follow you around and send you text messages? What kind of existence is that?”

  “Ah, help him how?” Lucas asked, taking a seemingly involuntary step back as his smile disappeared. Sylvie looked irate, Dillon noticed. Ha. It was fun to see his dad—his always confident, always in charge, always certain dad—looking abashed.

  “Help him move on, of course. Find a white light, go into it, do what spirits do. Don’t you ever watch television?” Sylvie’s fair cheeks were flushing with vehemence.

  “We tried something like that this summer,” Lucas told her. “He doesn’t want to move on.”

  Dillon frowned. That wasn’t exactly right. It was true that he hadn’t gone with his gran when she disappeared into a ghostly passageway, but he’d never seen a door of his own. Unlike other ghosts he’d met, no passageway had opened up for him. Rose said that meant it wasn’t time yet. And since Rose was the only ghost he’d ever met who’d moved on and then come back, he was taking her word for it.

  “He’s a child,” Sylvie protested. “Why are you giving him a choice?”

  “Child?” Dillon objected. “I am not.” He wasn’t even a typical teenager, he knew. If he’d been alive, he’d be twenty by now. Okay, so maybe he was stuck in the form of a fifteen-year old, but he’d still existed those entire twenty years. And maybe his last five had been less stimulating than those of the average teenager—being trapped in a car meant a lot of time spent staring at garage walls and parking lots, and not a lot of time going to school or parties—but he’d had plenty of hours to think.

  Plus, no body meant no hormones. He still had feelings—he could be happy, sad, interested, excited, afraid, all of the repertoire that he’d had while alive—but the weird surges of anger and irritability and frustration that had been plaguing him in life stopped the day he died.

  “He’
s a ghost,” Lucas answered. “What do you want me to do, ground him? Send him to his room without any dinner?”

  “Nice, Dad. Thanks,” Dillon said dryly.

  “Help him,” Sylvie said. “What does he need?” Then she turned away from Lucas and for the first time addressed Dillon directly, talking to the space around her as she looked from side to side. “What do you need?”

  Aw. Dillon felt touched. With the exception of his Uncle Zane, who had always talked as if he could see Dillon, most people took a while to get used to the idea. But unfortunately, he had no idea what to tell her. What did he need?

  He wouldn’t mind answers to his questions.

  After he’d met up with his dad again, Lucas told him the story of how he’d found Sylvie after she’d run away. She’d been gone three years. He’d been eighteen, about to go to college, and Zane had just discovered his ability to find missing objects. Lucas made Zane look at Sylvie’s picture every day to see if he could find her, but with no luck. Then one day, Zane said yes, that she was somewhere to the north. They’d told their parents they were going on a brother-bonding camping trip and then drove north until Zane found her.

  Lucas wouldn’t tell him what had happened then, but he admitted that he’d seen her twice since. Once as he was graduating from college, the second time in Milan a few years later. He’d refused to talk about why she’d left and why she’d never come back. Those answers were hers, he’d said, looking grim.

  Still, Dillon didn’t think knowing the details would open a door to a different type of afterlife.

  “It’s more complicated than that,” Lucas said. “He can’t move on.”

  Dillon glanced over his shoulder, just to check. Yep, no cloudy passageway waiting behind him.

  “Why not?”

  Lucas raised his eyebrows. “Maybe he has something left to do?” he offered, sounding doubtful. “But I don’t think it’s that easy.”

  “Lucas . . .” Sylvie paused and rubbed her forehead, then said, in a tone that started with long-suffering patience and ended with annoyance, “You’re being haunted by our dead son and you’re not putting every possible effort into fixing that?”

  “Ah, no.” Lucas folded his hands together and then seemed to think better of that and stuffed them into his pants pockets.

  “Why not?” Sylvie snapped.

  “I think we’re headed back into Milan territory,” Lucas replied, words sounding almost light. Dillon, who had been watching Sylvie, sent a sharp look his way. What did that mean? There was an undercurrent in his tone that Dillon didn’t understand.

  Sylvie paused. “Let’s not go there, then.”

  “I’d prefer it that way, yeah.”

  His parents had fought in Milan, Dillon knew. Lucas had told him that they’d argued about whether Sylvie should come back and about what was best for Dillon.

  “So this is what you wanted to tell me?” Sylvie asked. “My employer is a criminal and Dillon is haunting you?”

  “Well, ah . . .” Lucas looked reluctant to say any more before he finally added, “More that I think he might be haunting you for a while.”

  “What? What the—” Sylvie’s lips were forming words but no sound was coming out.

  Dillon wasn’t good enough at lip-reading to be sure, but it looked to him like most of the words were bad ones. Well, she’d get used to the idea. It might take a while, but it wasn’t like she could send him home. Or leave him with his grandparents.

  Lucas slid his hands up her arms and rested them on her shoulders. “It’ll be okay.”

  “I’m not a mean ghost,” Dillon offered. “I promise not to do anything creepy.”

  Sylvie shook her head and then tugged away from Lucas. “I need to think about this. I need to—” She turned away from him and started down the path toward the door, then turned and called over her shoulder. “AlecCorp party. Next Friday. I’ll see you then.”

  “Wear the dress,” Lucas replied, his voice light, but his eyes shaded.

  Dillon glanced at him. He hated the look on his dad’s face, the sadness he could see there. But he wanted to learn more about his mom and he couldn’t do that unless he followed her so he hurried after her.

  She might need to think, but he intended to get to know her, whether she was happy about it or not.

  *****

  Sylvie headed straight to the gym.

  Lucas was insane.

  Or Dillon was a ghost and Chesney was a criminal.

  No, no, far more likely that Lucas was insane.

  But somewhere along the way, in their half verbal, half unspoken conversation, he’d denied sending her any texts. And it hadn’t felt as if he were lying.

  So was Lucas so insane that he had delusions, hallucinations, and blackouts where he didn’t remember later what he had done? That seemed pretty damn crazy for a guy who was walking around looking debonair, not to mention doing the type of top-secret government jobs that got the person investigating him dragged out of bed in the middle of the night.

  So Dillon was a ghost. And Chesney a villain.

  No. Lucas was insane. Definitely, Lucas was insane.

  And damn, it was after 9 already, and Sylvie had forgotten how much she hated her gym in the late evening.

  “Jealous boyfriend. Better luck next time,” Sylvie tossed off her standard reply to the third guy to approach her, including a quick smile before turning her head away. The first two had accepted her answer gracefully. Maybe they recognized it for the lie it was, but she found most guys appreciated its face-saving quality. But number three wasn’t as bright.

  “Hey, I’m just being friendly,” he claimed, leaning over the front bar of the elliptical and into her space.

  Sylvie bumped up the resistance level on the keypad before looking back up and responding. “Jealous boyfriend. Lots of guns. Have a nice life.” She stared directly into his eyes, no smile, her gaze steady and unflinching. It took only a few seconds before he backed away, hands up.

  She heard him mutter, “Bitch,” under his breath as he moved off to try his luck elsewhere and she promptly forgot him.

  Lucas: insane. Or Dillon: a ghost. Both choices sucked.

  But that text. “You would have been a good mom.” From Lucas, it would have been callous and mean-spirited. From a fifteen-year old? He might not have understood how his words would affect Sylvie. From him, the words might be sweet.

  So Lucas: insane, callous, and mean.

  Or Dillon: a ghost. A sweet ghost.

  Damn it.

  She pushed the elliptical up to its highest level, pushed her heart rate to its highest level, and tried to stop thinking.

  In the shower, the realization suddenly hit her. The ghost of a teenage boy might be watching her every move as she stretched to shampoo her hair, ran the soap over her body. She froze, instinctively reaching out with her sixth sense to feel the presences in her vicinity. She brushed against the active minds—most distracted, busy, a couple in the mindful flow state of a good workout, one with an unpleasant seething excitement that caused her to recoil. Then she remembered that she wouldn’t be able to feel Dillon even if he was there. She hadn’t felt him before, back at the hotel, so however her sixth sense worked, it didn’t read ghostly emotions.

  Definitely, Lucas was crazy. She liked that option so much better. Except . . . sitting on the bench in the dressing room, pulling on her shoes, Sylvie took a long deep breath before exhaling slowly. Lucas wasn’t insane. He didn’t feel insane. Which meant that she and Dillon needed to have a long talk as soon as possible.

  Lucas might not care if Dillon moved on, but Sylvie had always wanted what was best for Dillon, and being a ghost did not fit that description as far she was concerned. She was going to find out what he needed and get her boy a damn white light.

  On the other hand, it might be nice to have a chance to get to know him a little. As she walked toward the exit, she tried to imagine what it would be like to live with a ghost. He wouldn’t eat much. S
he wondered what he liked to watch on television. Or what music he enjoyed. Would he want to go places with her? DC had lots of museums. She could take him to the Smithsonian. Or maybe the Iwo Jima Marine Corps Memorial. It offered a good view of the city on a clear day, and maybe he’d be interested in the Marine Corps history on the placards.

  Her distraction made her a little slower than usual, but not so slow that she didn’t realize the unpleasant mind she’d felt earlier was waiting for her as she pushed open the door. Ugh. Like she needed this tonight.

  It had to be guy number three.

  Did she care? He'd backed down easily enough and a broken finger might serve to dissuade him. And maybe teach him better manners. She swung her bag lightly by her side, whistling softly between her teeth. She didn't have a gun on her: she didn't trust the fancy digital locks on the lockers at the gym, so she always left her weapon secure in her car. It wasn't as if she expected danger when off-duty.

  The parking lot had cleared out while she was inside. Only a few cars were left, scattered around the rectangular space. Of course, she’d gotten there at exactly the wrong time, right when the gym was busiest, so hers was at the far end of the lot. She glanced over her left shoulder. The front desk, through the glass doors and already twenty paces behind her, was empty. Figured.

  He was on her right, not moving as she left him behind. Maybe she was wrong. Maybe he’d simply been answering a phone call in his car. Maybe that ugly taste was directed at someone else.

  She could feel the adrenaline starting, the tension charging through her muscles, so she slowed her breath, filling her lungs as deeply and patiently as she could as she strode toward her car, head high, letting her body language radiate confidence.

  Or maybe he’d been leaning against the side of the building, watching. She felt the spike in his emotions as if they were her own. Damn. Yeah, he was targeting her and he’d started to move, too quickly, too eagerly.

  Decision time. Could she get to her car and inside before he reached her? Probably not, so she veered to the left, approaching a car that wasn’t hers, and pulling her bag around her as if she were reaching inside it for her keys as she planned her line of attack.