Free Grave Memory: An Alex Craft Novel by Kalayna Price

plan. But that wasn’t an option. “James, do you remember being on the roof of Motel Styx?”
    “No.”
    “Have you ever been to Motel Styx?”
    “No.” No hesitation. No emotion. It was the type of response I expected. Except it wasn’t true. I knew, without a doubt, that he’d been at that building.
    What the hell?
    “I think the OMIH might have to reevaluate the honesty of shades,” Tamara said, pacing the edge of my circle.
    Maybe, but…
“James, did you jump off the roof of Motel Styx?”
    “No.”
    “Have you had suicidal thoughts in the last six months?”
    “No.”
    “Did you lie to your wife about meeting clients and instead go to an Irish pub?”
    “Yes.”
    “Why?” I hadn’t had a chance to ask James’s ghost that question before his wife returned, but then he’d been dodgy about admitting he’d been at the pub for any reason otherthan what he’d told his wife. I much preferred the shade’s direct, unemotional answers.
    “When Nina got pregnant, we both agreed that since she couldn’t drink, I wouldn’t either. But I needed a beer.”
    Or two, apparently.
“What time did you leave the pub?”
    The shade didn’t answer.
    Tamara stopped pacing and frowned at the shade through the blue haze of my circle. “What is wrong with him, Alex? Doesn’t he have to answer you?”
    He did.
Unless he doesn’t know the answer.
I no longer feared my magic had gone awry. Everything the shade said confirmed what the ghost had told me in my office. But that meant that James Kingly had lost three days of his life, including the moment he’d decided to die.

Chapter 6

     
    I put the shade back in its body because there was nothing more it could tell me, and then I reclaimed my heat and wrapped up the ritual. Tamara wheeled James Kingly’s body back to the cold room as I stood there blinking at the thick gray film coating my vision.
    “How are the eyes?” Tamara asked, and I turned toward the sound of her voice. As she crossed the room, I could track her movement, but as soon as she stopped, she blended into the bleakness. Either my expression or my silence was answer enough because she said, “That bad, huh?”
    I shrugged, hating the pity in her voice nearly as much as I hated the blindness. Times like this were when it was tempting to open my psyche and see across planes. It could be confusing, seeing multiple layers of reality stacked on top of each other, but at least I could see. Of course, that would only exacerbate the problem when I finally locked my shields again. Currently the shadows were gray, not black, and I could make out the outline of the shelves and tables in the room, so hopefully my vision would soon clear enough that I could safely navigate to the elevator. Until then…
    “You want some coffee?” Tamara asked, as if reading my need for a distraction.
    “That would be great.” And warm. I shivered.
I should have brought a jacket.
Except I hadn’t planned on raising a shade when I’d left the house, and September in Nekros was not what you’d describe as cold. Sometimes the nights were chilly, but after the blistering heat of July and August, September was downright comfortable. Of course, that meant I sometimes forgot to carry a jacket.
    Reaching a slightly trembling hand toward what looked like the outline of one of the autopsy tables, I started in the direction of Tamara’s office.
    “You need help?” she asked, and if I’d had any heat left, it would have rushed to my cheeks.
    I hated being treated like an invalid, more so because sometimes it truly was necessary. But not right now. “Just lead the way,” I told her, because as long as she was moving, I could see her.
    I followed her gray shadowlike form, managing to graze only one counter…and slam my shoulder against the doorframe of her office. The small “mmph” that escaped me on impact made her stop, but, thankfully, she didn’t mention the misstep. All and all, not my most successful pathfinding.
    If