CHAPTER 9

It hurt to hear my dad described as a womanizing murderer. Even if I suspected he might be responsible for Christelle’s death—and with her ghost wandering the remnants of the office, there was no doubt in my mind that she was dead—it didn’t feel good to hear someone else say it. I decided to pretend that it really was not my father and Christelle she I was talking about, but some nameless doctor and his nameless nurse. That I could talk about without feeling queasy.

I swallowed some water before speaking. “So he killed himself?” I asked. “It wasn’t his wife, or the girl, or her boyfriend who shot him?”

Lila shook her head. “Not the way I heard it.”

“Interesting. Do people see his ghost there? Or the nurse’s?”

“Well, like I said, my chiropractor has that office now. I’ve never seen anything weird there, but. it’s funny how the room is always too warm.”

“Too warm? Most people say ghosts are cold.”

“Yeah, well, you’d think so. But this one’s warm. And there are noises at night.”

“I couldn’t hear anything over the music in the studio,” I said. I hadn’t heard anything at all, not even the sound of Christelle opening the door, now that I thought about it. Usually the Grey is full of sourceless muttering and the singing of the grid, but except for Christelle’s voice, the general Grey buzz, and the zing of the flying energy balls, there’d been no sounds in the ghostly office. I’d have to take another look, but this time I’d try to get into the right layer of time and see if that made a difference.

“Do you think your chiropractor would let me look around his office? After dark, that is. When the ghosts are more active.”

“Oh, I think so. He’s a nice kid. Paul Arkmanian, that’s him.”

I raised my brows. “Kid?”

She turned her head and blushed. “Well, not really a kid you understand: He’s Sandros Arkmanian’s son,” she said, as if that not only made sense, but made him perfectly safe. On the sense side, I wasn’t so sure, but considering how tight-knit the neighborhood looked, maybe “safe” wasn’t so far out. Everyone knew everyone and everyone’s children, and they probably knew who was having an affair with whom, who was drinking too much, and who was dying of which tragic disease without their selfish kids ever coming around to visit. They’d all know who was “good folks” and who wasn’t. I’d bet the neighborhood ladies brought casseroles and baked goods around for christenings and funerals, too.

Lila was glancing around the room again, her face lighting up as she waved a hand at someone, beckoning the person closer to our table. A burly, square-shouldered man got up from his own table and strolled over to us. He looked to be about six feet tall, mid-sixties, and prosperous without being full of himself over it. He gave Lila a kiss on the cheek when he reached her side.

“What can I do for you, Lila?”

“Sandy, this nice woman wants to meet Paul. She works for that ghost hunter show and they want to talk to him about the office ghost.”

Sandy looked a little less excited at the prospect than Lila had. “That’s just a story, Lila. Paul’s office isn’t haunted.” He turned his attention to me and gave me a hard, evaluating stare. “You sure it’s the place you want?”

“Suite 204,” I replied. “I just want to take a look.”

He shrugged his eyebrows and sighed. “Well. I suppose that’s OK. Really, I don’t think it’s haunted.” He looked at his watch. “You want to come over, have some coffee? We can talk it over, see if Paul’s all right with the idea.”

“Now?” That startled me. Even Seattle’s notoriously friendly residents don’t issue invitations with such alacrity.

“Of course now. What’s the point in waiting?” He turned toward the table he’d come from and waved. The three other men sitting there waved back. “I’m taking this pretty girl home to meet my son!” he called.

They laughed and flapped their hands at him, waving him away. “Good luck, Sandros!” one of them called back.

I finished off my sandwich in a couple of huge bites and left money on the table for Lila. I had a bad feeling about Paul Arkmanian as I followed his father down the street. Was he gay? A misogynist? What was the big deal with going out with a female? But I wanted into that office without having to do another Grey version of a B and E, so I was willing to try anything.

We went down Brand and turned onto a much smaller side street. In a few blocks, all signs of business had vanished and single-family houses in neat little yards appeared. It was like something from a fifties sitcom, and I recognized the houses as the sort I’d walked past every day as a child. The nostalgia was thick enough to choke on and my eyes watered a bit.

Arkmanian stopped and unlatched the gate of a pink house on the right. “This is it.” He glanced toward a side window that flickered with television light. He sighed. “And Paul’s home. Let’s see what he says. ”

We went up the flagstone walk and into the house, which wasn’t locked. The flickering blue light from a computer monitor turned the room the harsh metallic color of dance clubs. Sandros Arkmanian turned on the overhead lamp, killing the shadows that held sway in the living room and driving the rest back into the dining room.

The dining table was probably an antique, given the heavily carved legs that I spied under the mass of books and computer equipment. It was like a microcosm of Quinton’s lair crushed into the ten-foot-square room. A man I guessed to be Paul Arkmanian sat behind the table. He was in his late twenties, tall like his father but rangier, judging by his arms and shoulders. He wore a pair of expensive headphones and was deeply immersed in whatever was displayed on his computer screen, twitching his mouse and keyboard and staring without blinking while he grimaced at something.

Suddenly he reared back, pounding the table and shouting, “Damn it! Damn, damn, damn! Stinking orc!”

I glanced at Sandros. “Computer games,” he explained. “From the moment he gets home until he goes to bed. I tell you, I don’t understand it. He’d rather play with imaginary monsters than have a date.”

Better imaginary monsters than the real thing, I thought, but still, I didn’t think I’d ever met an adult man who’d rather romp with pixels than with women. He wasn’t bad looking, and he was plainly not stupid, judging by his reading material, so. where was the problem?

Sandros walked around and tapped Paul on the shoulder. The younger man jerked, blinked up at his father, and shoved the headphones down onto his neck.

“Oh. Hi, Dad. Am I making too much noise? Did you want to watch TV or something?”

“No, Paul. I brought this young lady to meet you. She’s interested in your office.”

Paul Arkmanian frowned at me. “My office? It’s not for rent.” His eyes flickered back to his screen for a moment. He wanted to get back to his game.

I’d have to be more interesting than a computer game, and I knew that wasn’t as easy as it sounds. “I don’t want to rent it,” I said. “I want to talk to your ghost.”

Paul pulled the headphones off his neck, setting them on the table. Behind him I could see Sandros raise his eyebrows at me, surprised that I’d managed to snare his son’s attention from the realm of computerized mayhem.

“Who said there was a ghost in my office?”

“It’s pretty common knowledge. Lila was filling me in, but I had already heard it before.”

“She works for the ghost buster show—you know the one,” the elder Arkmanian said.

“Ghost Hunters? Yeah, I’ve heard of that. You guys really think the place is haunted?”

“Do you?” I asked. “After all, a previous tenant did die there.” My voice didn’t shake, though I’d feared it would.

Paul bit his lip in thought and glanced down at his keyboard. “I don’t know. Oh, hang on.” He made a few motions with his mouse and keyboard. Then he reached up and turned his monitor off, leaning back in his chair to get a better look at me. His father stared at the back of Paul’s head with his mouth agape. “OK, now that I’m not going to get killed by the first NPC that comes by, let’s talk.” He stood up and went into the living room, expecting us both to follow.