Page 23 of Equalizer
But even as the ghost reacted in confusion, Owen could see the spirit starting to realize what had happened.
“I thought it was some sort of delirium. I saw myself lying in my bed, but I was standing next to the cot. I couldn’t touch my body, and nothing woke me up. I thought maybe I had a fever dream. And then a man came in and picked me up and carried my body out. I tried to follow, and I couldn’t,”Drew’s ghost said.
“Did you recognize who stole your body?”
The ghost nodded. “Frank. One of the stablehands. I didn’t have any beef with him. I don’t know why he’d do such a thing. But he came in the middle of the night and then…I was stuck here.”
Owen’s heart went out to the ghost.“Would you like to pass over? I can help.”The ghost couldn’t testify and keeping him here would be cruel if Owen could give him peace.
“Can you do that? Please, mister. I want to go to heaven.”
Owen couldn’t give him any assurances about the afterlife, but he could help him make the passage. He shut his eyes and recited a short incantation, and when he looked again, Drew’s ghost was gone.
“What just happened?” Steven stared at Owen as if he had never seen him before.
“What did you see or sense?” Owen couldn’t help being curious. Sometimes people who weren’t usually sensitive to the supernatural still picked up a glimpse of a ghost or the frisson of energy from a spirit passing nearby.
“I suddenly got cold to the marrow, and I thought I heard Drew’s voice, but I couldn’t catch what he said.” Steven looked shaken. “You talked to him? You’re the real deal?”
Owen nodded. “Yes to both. If you’ve got some whiskey stashed away, you look like you could use a slug.”
Steven removed a flask from the inside pocket of his jacket and downed a gulp. He held it out to Owen, who shook his head.
“Just another day at the office for me,” Owen said.
“What did…Drew…tell you?” Steven asked.
Owen recounted his conversation with the ghost and his accusation that Frank had taken the body.
Steven thought for a moment. “Frank’s new with the show, just hired on here in Chicago. He’s a stablehand, so he didn’t need to know anything special except how to muck out a stall and not get trampled by the horses. We always hire extra hands when we get to town. They don’t usually travel with us unless they have special skills.”
“Frank might have applied, knowing that with all the dangerous stunts, it was possible someone would die, or maybe he just happened to know people, and when Drew got killed, he saw a chance to make a quick buck,” Owen said. “Let’s go find Frank.”
Steven put a hand on Owen’s arm to stop him from leaving. “Wait. I have questions. You could see ghosts back then?”
Owen knew he meant in the Army when they were close. “Yes, but I couldn’t hold the connection as well or hear them as clearly.”
“So when we were in battle?—”
“It was rough,” Owen admitted. “I drank a lot those nights.”
“I remember. I just thought it was nerves, like the rest of us.” Steven licked his lips nervously. “Did Drew go to heaven? Could you see what happens after?”
Owen shook his head. “No. I’m sorry. I just know that ghosts go on. Where is above my paygrade.”
“The Church?—”
“Has plenty of theories that don’t really work in real life,” Owen snapped, sounding sharper than he intended. “I don’t do black magic, and most of the incantations came from the Church in the first place. If I didn’t lose my chance at the afterlife by shooting men on the battlefield, I don’t think having a chat with ghosts will doom me now.”
“I hadn’t thought of it that way,” Steven said. “I guess I thought there would be a lot more fussy stuff.”
“Fussy?” Owen raised an eyebrow.
Steven waved his hand in a vague way. “Singing. Dancing. Woo-woo.”
Owen snickered. “Definitely no singing and dancing.”
They reached the sea of tents that worked as a bunkhouse. Steven asked for Frank, and several of the crew pointed toward a particular location. When they opened the tent flap, the space was completely empty.
