Free Nightwalker by Heather Graham

felt a chill. That was the way it was for most people. They didn’t see the dead, couldn’t communicate with them, but something inside told them that someone was there.
    Dillon smiled at the woman and kept going, hoping Ringo wasn’t feeling mischievous and wouldn’t tease her with a tap on the shoulder or a tug at her skirt. He moved quickly, because if you weren’t looking, Ringo wasn’t as prone to act up.
    Jessy was still onstage, posing with the last of the kids.
    She looked at him over the head of a toddler, and he sensed she wasn’t all that pleased to see him. But she was in performance mode, so she forced a smile to her lips.
    “Very impressive,” he told her, reaching the stage. He saw her fellow cast members glancing his way and whispering to one another. He was being assessed, he knew.
    “What a surprise to see you here,” she said.
    He decided not to mince words. “I need to speak with you.”
    “Oh? This isn’t a great time. I have to get out of costume, check my schedule for the next few days.”
    “I’ll wait.”
    She glanced away, biting her lip. She might be a good performer, but she was a lousy liar. She didn’t have a good excuse for refusing to talk to him, and she wasn’t going to invent one.
    “I’m not having a great day,” she said. “I’m really tired.”
    “I won’t take much of your time. And you have to eat, right? Why not let me take you to the fast-food establishment of your choice, and then I’ll leave you alone, I promise.”
    She let out an uneasy sigh and gave in. “Sure. I need about half an hour.”
    “Thanks. I really appreciate it,” he told her.
    She nodded curtly, and he couldn’t help thinking that she made a gorgeous pirate. Her costume wasn’t risqué, but her breasts rode appealingly in the cotton blouse above the top of a leather corset. Her skirt was long, but slit up one side for dancing. Her stage makeup was heavy and came complete with false eyelashes, but even so, up close, she was stunning.
    And she was afraid.
    He forced himself to take a step back. She was a bit too appealing, and he had to concentrate if he wanted to get to the truth behind Tanner Green’s death. And he just knew she wasn’t going to be receptive to anything he had to say. Most likely, given that he had been there last night, his very presence was probably anathema to her already.
    And things weren’t going to get better.
    “I’ll meet you at Chen’s. It’s just down the Strip,” she said.
    “Thanks,” he told her again. “I’ll see you there.”
    He watched her head backstage. Right before she left, she looked back—and not at him.
    Then she shuddered—as if she’d seen a ghost—and disappeared behind a black velvet drape.

4
    T here was an incredibly simple answer to what was plaguing her, of course. She was simply seeing someone who looked like Tanner Green. It wasn’t as if she actually knew the man and could be sure it was him.
    Bull.
    She knew his face, and that was all that mattered.
    That face was etched in her mind. She would never forget it. She had been looking into his eyes as he died.
    Key words. He had died.
    Maybe she had been listening to Timothy too much, and now she was seeing dead people just as he saw ghost dancers in the sky.
    She winced as she sat down at her dressing table. Why on earth had she agreed to see Dillon Wolf? She didn’t want to, and she didn’t really understand why.The man was attractive, courteous, charming and, well, hot , as Sandra would have put it.
    But…
    He was somehow connected to the extremely odd visions she was having. How or why, she didn’t know. Everything was tied up in feelings of fear and unease, and she didn’t like feeling this way at all. At least the cops were leaving her alone; they evidently knew that she’d had nothing to do with Tanner Green’s death other than being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
    She reached for a makeup-remover pad and set to work. With her makeup gone, she looked