Page 93 of Spark
When the three of them entered the building, Annika was seated at her desk.
The wolf shifter deputy was deep in conversation with her long-time police partner and mate Roy Bagweshi, a tall Shoshoni eagle shifter who had killer cheekbones and long, shining black hair worn in a neat braid.
Annika looked up, and waved at them.
“They’re here to see Silvio’s ghost,” she told her mate.
His dark brows shot up, and he gave Sophie a piercing glance. “Youreallycan see and speak to the spirits?”
She nodded warily.
“Hm, interesting,” he said. “My grandmother could see spirits. She said that it was occasionally useful but mostly annoying.”
Sophie laughed. “That pretty much describes it. You just learn to ignore the weird stuff happening in the background.”
Annika rose and came towards them. “Ready?”
Honestly, Sophie was surprised that Annika was still speaking to her at all, after all the trouble she’d stirred up in the course of investigating the hauntings of the Bearpaw Springs Resort and the jail.
Mary Jacobsen and her mate Tyler Swanson had both been at Elle’s Sunday dinner yesterday, where the news of the attack on Sophie, followed by the arrests of Sven, Molly, and Astrid Tringstad and lots of subsequent uproar in the Bearpaw Ridge Pack, had eclipsed the family’s astonishment at the announcement that Sophie, Matt, and Chris were now mated as a triad.
One faction of the town's shifters had praised Mary and the Bearpaw Ridge Pack's alpha Bill Jacobsen, for not protecting the trio of murderers like the late Kenneth Jacobsen apparently had.
But others, mostly the Tringstads and their friends, had been outraged at the public airing of their family’s dirty laundry and the stirring up of old resentments between them and the Ornelas clan.
Sven and his daughters had been formally exiled from the pack, making them “lone wolves,” without protection or the right to seek the pack’s aid.
In addition to being charged for the attack on Sophie, Mary planned to press charges for the murder of Laura Tringstad. Although it had been over fifty years, there was no statute of limitations on murder. And in an interesting development, Astrid Tringstad was in the process of cutting a deal to testify against her sister Molly and father Sven.
She had confessed to everything, and the account matched what Silvio had told Sophie about the wedding and reception. While Sven had kept Silvio away from his bride and their hotel room, Molly and Astrid snuck up to the honeymoon suite and ambushed Laura in the bathroom, disabling her sense of smell with a skunk bomb and blinding her with a bag over her head before they killed her for dishonoring their family by mating a jaguar shifter.
Now, Sophie planned to tell Silvio everything that she had discovered, in hopes that the ghost could find some rest.
She and her two mates followed Annika down to the basement cell block, where the deputy unlocked the cell where Silvio had killed himself.
Sophie stepped inside, and immediately felt the now-familiar deep chill of a ghostly presence.
“Silvio Ornelas,” she called. “I’m back. And I have news about Laura, and what happened on the night of your wedding.”
Just like before, Silvio’s ghost materialized from glowing mist. He was once more clad in his Maya regalia, with the jaguar skin cloak.
Annika, who was standing just outside the cell, gasped.
“I—I didn’t really believe it,” she breathed. “But there reallyisa ghost!”
Sophie faced Silvio. “You were right. Sven Tringstad and his daughters Molly and Astrid were responsible for killing Laura. I don’t know if you noticed that they were locked up in here, but they were arrested after they tried to kill me, and Astrid confessed to everything. She’s going to testify at the trial.”
Silvio laughed, a low, creepy sound. “Oh, I noticed, all right. I did my best to convince her and the others that they would never have another night’s peace unless they came clean about the murder. Nice to hear that it worked on one of them, at least.”
“There are a few other things you should know,” Sophie said. “For one thing, Laura’s been haunting the Bearpaw Springs Resort since her death…” She continued, telling him everything that she had discovered.
“Thank you,” the ghost said, when Sophie had finished speaking. “But how can I go to my rest when my mate is still trapped at the hotel, and seeking vengeance on the people that she believes responsible for her murder?”
“Maybe I can help with that,” Sophie said. “I could try to talk to her and tell her the truth like I told you.”
“What if she doesn’t believe you?” Silvio asked. “She was always stubborn, my Laura. If she doesn’t let go, she’ll be trapped in that hotel forever, just like my anger and grief trapped mehere.”
Sophie sighed. “I don’t know a better way to do it, especially if I’m the only one who can actually talk to her.”
