Free Waking the Dead by Jane Davitt, Alexa Snow Page B

It’s just that there are so few opportunities for us to observe someone as sensitive as yourself. This is the chance of a lifetime, really.”
    “We appreciate this so much,” Bonnie added.
    Nick contemplated telling them his usual rates, just to see the look on their faces, but decided against it. He had taken money for what he did in the past -- his former partner, Matthew, had insisted on it, and they’d had to live on something -- but since he was certain this was legend, not fact, it wouldn’t be fair.
    He pulled out his cell phone. “Just let me make a quick call.”
    * * * * *
    The caves were all caves should be; dark, dank. The rocks that made up the floor were slippery with seaweed draped over barnacles. Nick had already lost his footing once and gotten a scraped palm, the abraded skin stinging from the salt water he’d washed it in.
    This was the third and largest cave, and like the others it was empty in every way.
    He shook his head. “Nothing.”
    “That can’t be right,” Bonnie said, her face tight with disappointment. “This is the last cave; it has to be this one.”
    “I don’t understand how you can tell just like that,” Fred said, a slight edge to his voice. “Shouldn’t you be, I don’t know, meditating first or something?”
    “I thought you’d read my books,” Nick said, shivering in the damp, cool air. “Tell me the page where I ever do anything like that and I’ll give you a signed copy. I don’t need to meditate; if there’s a spirit here, I’d know, the same way I’d know someone had been cooking if I walked into a house and smelled barbecue.”
    “But there has to be something.” Bonnie was frowning and rubbing her upper arms in a way Nick was pretty sure was unconscious.
    “Not really,” Nick said. “It could be that there’s no truth to the story at all. Or maybe it did happen, but on another island, or maybe there was another cave on a different part of Traighshee and it collapsed ages ago. Maybe the men that were killed never did haunt anyone, and it was just guilt that made the villagers think they were seeing things.”
    Fred looked around. “You’re sure? There’s nothing at all?”
    “Nothing. I’m sorry.” Nick wasn’t, of course; he wasn’t a bit sorry.
    “Then let’s go,” Bonnie said abruptly. “I’m freezing.” She gave Nick a look that said she blamed him for that, and he met it with a bland smile.

Chapter Seven
     
    “They’re mad,” John said with conviction after Nick finished telling him about the caves. “Why would you lie?”
    “I don’t know.” Nick was frowning, which wasn’t a look John liked seeing on him. “Maybe they think I want to keep any discovery to myself?”
    “It’s a ghost, not buried treasure. And if you found a ghost, they’d have known about it. You’d have had to talk to it; they don’t take kindly to being ignored.” John stared out of the window, watching Caitrin and Josh walk away, their heads together and, unless he was mistaken, holding hands. Well, one of them was a fast mover, and knowing his niece as he did, he’d put money on her being the one. He trusted them both not to let things go too far; Josh would be gone soon enough, and a lovesick Caitrin didn’t bear thinking about.
    “They don’t,” Nick agreed. He shivered. “God, I’m freezing.”
    John turned away from the window. “Aye? Well, I’m thinking I know a way to warm you up, seeing as we’re going to be alone for an hour or two.”
    “Do you? Why am I not surprised?” Nick was trying to sound lighthearted, but John could tell it was nothing but an act. He slid into an embrace willingly enough, though, and his lips met John’s as eagerly as ever.
    “Your nose is cold,” John told him a few moments later.
    “It always feels cold down by the sea.” Nick clung to John; his mouth had tasted faintly of salt, and the Band-Aid on his scraped hand was rough against the small of John’s back, underneath his shirt.
    “I