Unseen Voices

Chapter 1

Chapter 1

Rosemary McGuire trundled a cart laden with book boxes down the narrow aisle, pausing every foot or so to dig out the titles that needed to be shelved in each section where she stopped. Restocking was probably her least favorite part of her job here at the bookstore she owned with her two sisters, but the work had to be done. Of course, she found it just a wee bit convenient that Cecily had to take her son Tyler to a pediatrician’s appointment and Isabel had a meeting with her financial planner on the very afternoon when their new shipment from Llewellyn Press — one of their biggest suppliers — was due, but whatever. It was a Tuesday, and those middle-of-the-week days tended to be dead in Glendora’s sleepy historic downtown.

Still, Rosemary could think of about fifty other things she’d rather be doing right at that particular moment, none of which involved meticulously placing each new title in its designated section, whether the category in question was Tarot or folk healing or meditation or astrology. But since the books wouldn’t put themselves away, she kept doggedly at the task, thinking that after she got off work, she’d reward herself with a glass of pinot at the wine bar just across the street and half a block up from where Sisters We was located.

The string of Tibetan brass bells that hung from the front door of the shop jingled, and she straightened up from the lower shelf where she’d been shelving a book about Reiki. Not that she really needed to keep too close an eye on things; the shop’s security cameras would have caught whoever had just entered the store. Besides, it was too early for the local high school to have let out yet. Not that she had anything against high school kids, per se, only that some of them tended to be a little light-fingered around the boxes of incense that were stacked neatly on a table not too far from the cash register. Probably, the kids took the incense to cover up the smell of pot; m*******a was legal for recreational use in California, but not if you were under eighteen.

Then a man’s voice, nice and low, but sounding a little hesitant. “Rosemary McGuire?”

She swiveled and saw a male model standing at the end of the aisle where she’d been working. All right, maybe not exactly a male model, but definitely someone who wasn’t exactly the type you’d usually see wander into a metaphysical bookstore. The stranger was probably around six feet tall and had sandy blond hair, regular features just strong enough to avoid being downright pretty, and brown eyes under slightly arched brows several shades darker than his hair.

“Um…yes?” she replied in response, not sure exactly what this apparition could want with her. At the same time, she was very glad that she always made sure her hair and makeup looked decent when she came into work — and was also secretly glad that today she wore a new sequin-accented skirt she’d just bought, which wasn’t an ankle-sweeper like most of her skirts but only barely covered her knees. The weather had been pretty hot for early October, so she figured she could get away with something that short, as well as the black tank top and black platform sandals she wore with it.

If the stranger had noticed her ensemble, however, he didn’t give much evidence of it. His gaze was fixed on her face, and she hoped she hadn’t blushed. Hard to say, since she already felt a little overheated from all the shelving she’d been doing.

“Hi, I’m Caleb Dixon,” he said, and extended a hand. Although she wasn’t used to her customers offering to shake hands, Rosemary put out her own hand and exchanged an awkward pump before she wrapped her fingers around the handle of the cart next to her, hoping the sensation of the cool metal against her skin might steady her a bit. “I hope you don’t mind me coming to see you here at work like this.”

She shook her head, even as she replied, “Sorry, do I know you?” Dumb question, she thought. I’d definitely remember you if we’d ever met before this….

He grinned, showing off teeth that were as perfect as the rest of him. “No, sorry if I gave the wrong impression. I guess that sounded kind of weird. You’re a friend of Audrey Barrett’s, right?”

Immediately, Rosemary could feel herself tense. Of course, she was a friend of Audrey’s — and of Michael Covenant, Audrey’s significant other — but, considering some of the stuff the two of them had been involved with, it wasn’t exactly the sort of connection Rosemary liked to acknowledge to a complete stranger.

“I know her,” she said cautiously. “Why?”

Caleb’s smile slipped a little but managed to remain in place. “It’s all right,” he told her. “I knew Colin.”

That remark made Rosemary’s eyebrows lift a fraction. She definitely hadn’t been a fan of the acerbic producer of Project Demon Hunters, but just because Colin could be a prize jackass when he wanted to, that didn’t mean she thought he deserved to be murdered by demons. Sure, everyone thought his killer must have been an intruder in his rented Los Feliz home, but Audrey and Michael — and Rosemary by extension — knew better. Anyway, a friendship with Colin Turner wasn’t exactly the most fortuitous connection to claim, considering what had happened to him.

But even though her spider sense was tingling all over the place, she made herself reply calmly, “Oh, did you work on one of his shows?”

Because Caleb definitely had the sort of face that should be in front of a camera.

However, he immediately said, “No. I’m a filmmaker, too — or at least, I want to be. I met Colin at a couple of local conventions, and we interacted online a few times.”

Which basically meant Caleb must have known Colin in roughly the same way a bunch of people who went to the local psychic fairs could claim to know Rosemary. None of those people were friends, only clients who’d gotten a Tarot reading or had their palms read, but they knew her name, knew she was associated with the Sisters We bookstore in Glendora.

“Ah.” That was about the only response she felt willing to give right then.

It seemed to be enough for the man who stood before her, though, because he went on, “I just wanted you to know that I was familiar with his work, that I knew about his connection to Michael and Audrey.” Voice lowering slightly, Caleb added, “And I know about Project Demon Hunters.”

Rosemary’s fingers tightened on the handle of the book cart. “A lot of people know about Project Demon Hunters,” she returned, hoping she sounded casual and not like her heart had suddenly started beating a little faster than it had been a few seconds earlier. “I mean, it was announced on the cable network’s website, even if they did end up pulling the show. It’s not like it was a state secret or something.”

“True,” Caleb allowed. He didn’t seem too put off by her comment, because he went on, “But that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about how I know that Colin and Michael and Audrey managed to get footage of phenomena no one else has ever seen.”

Once again, Rosemary could feel her brows lift. As far as she knew, no one working on the show had openly discussed any of the things they’d seen or experienced. At least, that was what Audrey had made it sound like, although Rosemary could tell that her friend pretty much wanted to leave the whole mess behind her. Who could blame her? Fending off demons in the basement of a haunted mansion or being an eyewitness to an actual exorcism had to be pretty traumatic. And that didn’t even take into account having to face down and then vanquish an actual lord of Hell on the grounds of an isolated manor house in the Connecticut countryside….

“I wouldn’t know anything about that,” she said carefully. While she hated to give someone so gorgeous the brush-off, she also knew that Audrey and Michael had talked to her in confidence, and she wasn’t about to betray their secrets to the first stranger who dropped into her shop, no matter how good-looking he might be. “And I really need to get back to work — ”

She took hold of the book cart with both hands and acted as if she was going to push it a little farther along the aisle. However, Caleb stood in her way, effectively blocking her progress.

“I think you know something,” he said.

“I really don’t.”

He smiled again. It was the smile of a guy who was used to getting what he wanted, and irritation stirred within her. All right, someone like Caleb Dixon probably did have people bending over backwards to help him out, just because the world wasn’t full of insanely good-looking men, no matter what the movies and romance novels might want you to believe. However, that realization made her even less inclined to help the guy out. People who traded on their looks annoyed the crap out of her.

“Do you really think Colin would have wanted his work to just disappear into the ether and never be seen by anyone?”

Damn it. Rosemary wished she could retort that she hadn’t known Colin very well and therefore couldn’t possibly have any idea what he would or wouldn’t have wanted. Problem was, while such an assertion might be partially true, she’d heard enough from Audrey to know the producer definitely had wanted to make sure everyone saw the unbelievable footage he’d captured for Project Demon Hunters. In fact, Michael and Colin had been plotting to release some it anonymously — heavily edited, of course — but had never managed to accomplish their goal…mostly because someone or something had killed Colin before he could upload the videos to YouTube or Vimeo or wherever he’d planned to distribute them. The hard drive on his computer had been erased, and, as far as Rosemary knew, Michael had never been able to determine whether Colin had made any backup copies.

Of course, the footage wasn’t gone entirely. One copy had been uploaded to the servers of the cable network that had ordered the show in the first place, where it was locked up tight. Maybe a really good hacker could have found the footage, but she wasn’t entirely sure about that. She assumed the network must have some pretty strong cyber security.

About all she could do was shrug. “Like I said, I hardly knew Colin. I won’t presume to guess what he might have wanted.”

That remark sounded so prim, so officious. Rosemary hated the words as soon as they left her mouth, but she couldn’t take them back now. However, her reply didn’t seem to have dissuaded Caleb. He hooked his thumbs in the belt loops of his jeans and only lifted his shoulders slightly.

“Well, I knew him. The day before he died, he was on the filmmakers’ forum where he hung out sometimes. He was talking about how he had something really big, really exciting…and that we’d all get to see it very soon.”

She wished she could shake her head and say no, of course Colin wouldn’t be blabbing about his footage on some random forum where anyone could be hanging out and reading his posts. Problem was, she had a feeling that was exactly the sort of thing the producer might have done. From some of the comments Audrey had made, he seemed like the type of person who needed to inflate his accomplishments in order to feel better about himself.

And all right, that sort of description probably could be applied to at least half the people working in Hollywood, but in this case, Rosemary guessed it was probably pretty accurate. As far as she could tell, Colin Turner had operated on the fringes. He’d never had a hit show or even a regular gig. His producing jobs came along often enough that he could talk a good game and get funding for his projects, but Stephen Spielberg, he wasn’t. She could easily imagine him hanging out in a forum where his minor accomplishments would still be enough to make him seem like a rock star. From there, it wasn’t too big a leap to guess that he’d been talking about things he probably shouldn’t, just to get some buzz going.

She let out a breath — not exactly a sigh, but something close to it — and said, “Maybe. I don’t know. I probably exchanged fifteen words with the guy, if even that much.”

“But you talked to Audrey.”

“Some,” Rosemary admitted. “Honestly, we didn’t discuss Colin all that much. I could tell Audrey was pretty shaken up by the whole thing, so I really tried to avoid the subject.”

“Understandable.” The half-smile Caleb had been wearing disappeared completely then, as if he’d been forced to remember exactly how the Project Demon Hunters producer had died. Or at least, something of the manner of his death. None of the exact details had been released, probably because the LAPD still considered the murder an active case. They hadn’t found any leads, though, and never would. It was pretty hard to connect a demon to a homicide. “Still, I have to wonder what happened to the footage.”

Well, there was one thing Rosemary felt okay with telling Caleb, mostly because she hoped it would convince him that he was following a dead end…so to speak. “The network has it,” she said.

He didn’t even blink. “Everyone knows that.”

“‘Everyone’?” she repeated.

“Basically. That is, the show might have been canceled, but I assume Colin was still required to hand over any footage he shot.”

“He was,” she allowed, although she didn’t trust herself to say much more than that.

“But Colin Turner was the kind of guy who would’ve kept a copy for himself.”

There wasn’t much point in arguing with that assertion, mostly because Caleb Dixon was exactly right. However, Rosemary didn’t know for sure whether she should let him know that his assumption was correct.

Her silence seemed to be all the answer he needed, because he said, “What happened to Colin’s copy of those files?”

“I don’t know,” she replied, which was the truth. That is, she knew the files in question weren’t on the hard drive of Colin’s iMac when Michael went looking for them, but she had no idea what had actually happened to the footage. Had the demon who’d murdered him wiped the hard drive? Maybe. Demons weren’t exactly known for being computer-savvy, and yet she had a feeling that anyone — or anything — who could kill a human being so casually could probably summon the skills necessary to make sure no incriminating evidence was left behind…including footage that pretty much definitely proved demons were real. Since she didn’t see much harm in providing Caleb with one small piece of information, she added, “The footage wasn’t on his computer. Michael couldn’t find any trace of it, and neither could the police. I don’t know anything more than that.”

Although most people might have found her words discouraging — to say the least — Caleb didn’t seem at all put off. “I guessed as much. I mean, if Michael had actually found something, he probably would have gone ahead and released the footage, just the way Colin wanted. But just because those files weren’t on Colin’s computer doesn’t mean other copies don’t exist out there somewhere.”

Rosemary didn’t bother to hide the skepticism in her voice. “What, you think Colin uploaded it all to Dropbox or something?”

“No,” Caleb said. He didn’t sound offended by her dubious tone. In fact, even though she didn’t know him at all, she thought he seemed almost encouraged by the absence of those files, which didn’t make much sense. “I don’t think he’d do anything that obvious. But I’d be really surprised if he hadn’t squirreled away a backup copy of everything someplace else.”

Maybe. She supposed Colin Turner had hit enough ups and downs in his career that he’d decided to provide himself with a cheap piece of insurance. But if he’d done such a thing, he’d taken the secret with him to his grave. Rosemary didn’t pretend to be privy to all of Audrey and Michael’s private affairs, but she guessed that if they’d been able to find the missing footage, Audrey would have said something. She hadn’t, though. She and Michael had packed up their lives and moved to Tucson so she could finally get her Ph.D. in parapsychology, a dream she’d put away years earlier but would finally get to realize in the not-too-distant future.

And now Rosemary was living in the big, beautiful Craftsman house they’d vacated, ostensibly to act as its caretaker in their absence, but mostly because the house next to her much more modest home here in Glendora was being torn down to the studs and remodeled, and having to put up with the resulting construction noise for the next eighteen months was not something she’d looked forward to with any enthusiasm. Going to stay in Audrey and Michael’s place had seemed like the perfect solution. True, she had only half the garage for her use because Michael was still storing a bunch of stuff in there, but —

Her thoughts skidded to a stop. At the time, she hadn’t given the matter much thought, except to nod when Michael told her he was hanging on to some of the things that had been cleared out of Colin Turner’s rented house, mostly because the cost of shipping all that miscellaneous leftover crap to Colin’s sister in England would have been prohibitive. In fact, over the past few months, Rosemary had gotten so used to walking past those boxes when she parked her own little pistachio-green Fiat in the garage, she hardly paid them any attention at all.

The irony of the situation hit her. It would be pretty funny if the footage Caleb Dixon was looking for turned out to have been lurking in her garage all this time.

But no, she realized almost immediately that couldn’t possibly be right. Michael had already gone through that stuff; he must have, because he was the one who’d packed it all in the first place. If he’d found anything important, he would have told Audrey, and she in turn would probably have said something to Rosemary.

Maybe.

Or maybe not.

It was a very long shot, though.

Obviously, her extended silence had gotten to Caleb, because he lifted an eyebrow and gave her a penetrating look. “What is it?”

Did she dare say anything? Part of her realized the smart thing to do was to continue to stonewall, to tell him she didn’t know anything and that he was barking up the wrong tree. Because if she mentioned the cache of Colin’s belongings in the garage, then Caleb would want to come see it…and that meant he’d be at the house with her. Alone. Was she really willing to let him know where she lived?

Where you’re living temporarily, she reminded herself. It’s not really your house.

True, but since she planned to be there for at least another ten months, if not more, her current living situation might as well be permanent. It wasn’t as if she would be staying someplace else starting the next day or something.

“Well….”

Caleb’s gaze only intensified. Something about that stare made her feel almost breathless, which was just silly. No matter how good-looking a guy was, he shouldn’t be able to have this kind of an effect on her.

“Did you think of something?” he asked.

“Possibly,” she replied, still hedging. “I don’t know for sure.” There, she hesitated, knowing she either had to lie and try to get rid of him, or tell the truth and let the chips fall where they may. She thought of the Fool card from her Tarot deck, that impetuous youth with his foot confidently extended over the edge of the abyss. In that moment, she thought she could sympathize with his precarious position.

Caleb was silent, still watching her. It was as if he knew he couldn’t say anything, didn’t dare interrupt the racing thoughts in her mind.

And what would be the harm, really? She carried pepper spray in her purse, and if he tried anything, he’d get a face full of it. Honestly, though, he seemed pretty harmless. Even now he was looking at her with those puppy-dog brown eyes, and she could feel her will beginning to waver. After all, although she wasn’t a mind reader, her psychic abilities always allowed her to know what kind of person she was dealing with. She certainly didn’t sense anything wrong about Caleb, didn’t get the uneasy feeling that tended to settle in her stomach when she met someone with a dubious past or dark motivations.

Besides, although Michael and Audrey hadn’t talked about it much, Rosemary knew that her friends were still troubled by the conundrum of Colin’s missing footage. If she and Caleb actually managed to find the tapes — or the hard drive, or whatever — she’d be doing them in a favor as well.

That seemed to decide things.

She pulled in a breath. “There might be something,” she said at last, a strange tremor running through her. For better or worse, she was going to cast the dice. “It’s at my place. But it’ll have to wait until after I’m done here.”

“What time?” he asked.

“Six o’clock,” she replied. “Give me your number, and I’ll call you.”

He nodded. “You have something to write this down?”

She nodded and went over to the cash register, which always had a hand-painted mug filled with pens standing by. After extracting one and pulling a pad of sticky notes out of the drawer under the register, she quickly jotted down the number he provided, then said, “My place is over in Pasadena. Do you want to meet me there or follow me from here?” Even as she asked the question, she wondered whether it was a good idea to give him the address before she actually got home. Caleb seemed friendly and harmless enough, but she supposed there was always the chance that he might try to search the garage in her absence.

Well, if he tried a maneuver like that, he wouldn’t get very far. The entire property was guarded by Michael’s highly sophisticated security system. The place wasn’t exactly Fort Knox, but it was protected by motion sensors and hidden cameras, and had an on-call team that would show up if any alarms were tripped. Between all that and the anti-demon wards he’d left in place, she’d always felt close to invulnerable when inside the house.

“I’ll meet you there,” Caleb responded. “You can give me the address when you get home, if that makes you feel better.” A certain glint entered his chocolate-brown eyes, as if he’d guessed at her misgivings about providing him with the address too far in advance of their meeting.

“Sounds good,” she said, hoping she sounded neutral. “Then it’ll probably be closer to six-thirty — I have to close up the store, and I never know when I might get some last-minute shoppers.”

“It’s fine,” he said. The smile was back, probably because, despite her best intentions, it seemed as if he was going to get his way after all. “I’ll see you then.”

And he tilted his head at her by way of farewell, then went back out the door to the shop. The bells hanging from it jingled again, although this time they sounded vaguely accusing, as if trying to let her know that she’d just screwed up in a major fashion.

Maybe so. Or…maybe not.

After all, he was awfully cute….