Ghost Hunter Read online

  She swallowed hard and steeled herself. She was about to piss off the most dangerous man in Aurora Springs. Maybe she should have given herself twenty-four hours to cool down after she heard the gossip this morning.

  Then again, an extra day of brooding would have changed nothing. Might as well get it over with and get on with your life, she told herself.

  “There is talk going around the campus that a couple of months ago, shortly after you and I met, just before you were offered the position as head of the Guild, you challenged Palmer Frazier to a ghost-hunter duel down in the catacombs.” She took a deep breath. “Is that true?”

  Out of the corner of her eye she saw her father stiffen. His reaction told her everything she needed to know. The rumor was true. Her heart sank. For the first time she acknowledged to herself that she had been hoping against hope that Cooper would deny the story.

  Cooper’s expression, unlike John’s, never altered. “Who told you that tale?”

  “Oh, no you don’t,” she said swiftly. “I’m not about to give you the name of the person who repeated the story to me. Who knows what you might decide to do in retaliation.”

  “I’m only interested in plugging a possible security leak,” Cooper said mildly.

  “Got news for you, you’re way too late to plug any leaks in this case. It took a while for the word to get out, but it is definitely in the public domain now. My informant was only relaying gossip that everyone on campus has already heard.” She swept her arms out wide. “In fact, I think I’m probably the last one in town to find out about it. Talk about adding insult to injury.”

  John scowled. “What do you mean by that?”

  “Let’s just say this incident isn’t one of the Guild’s better kept secrets, Dad. I’m amazed you managed to hush it up this long.” She turned back to Cooper. “But now that everybody’s talking, I wouldn’t be surprised if the story hits the tabloids this afternoon or tomorrow. Better warn that nice little man in that broom closet downstairs that you like to call your public relations department to brace himself. He’s going to be a little overwhelmed when the local media starts calling.”

  “What, exactly, did you hear?” Cooper asked. His voice didn’t sharpen, but his eyes did.

  I definitely have his attention, Elly thought. But it didn’t take parapsych senses to figure out that this was probably one of those be-careful-what-you-wish-for situations.

  She was committed now, though. There was no turning back.

  “Everyone is saying that the reason Palmer Frazier disappeared for several days a while back was because he needed time to recover from the psychic injuries he received in a duel with another hunter. They’re also saying that’s why he resigned from the Guild Council to—How did your PR department put it? Oh, yes, to pursue other interests in Frequency City.”

  “I see.” Cooper looked thoughtful.

  She wanted to scream, but she clamped her back teeth together, instead. She would not lose it here in front of this overcontrolled man. She had her pride.

  “They say that you were his opponent, Cooper, and that you won.”

  Cooper continued to look meditative.

  “This is most unfortunate,” John murmured.

  “Certainly struck me that way, Dad,” she said. “According to the gossip that’s going around, the only witnesses allowed were the other members of the Guild Council. That means you were there.”

  John winced uneasily. “Now, see here, my dear—”

  She switched her attention back to Cooper. “Guess what, Cooper. Gossip flows through the Guild Hall as quickly as it goes across the campus. In fact, the news is all over town. And this is a small town, in case you’ve forgotten. Do you know what that means? It means I can’t even go grocery shopping without people talking about me behind my back.”

  “This will all blow over in a month or two,” John announced in forceful tones. “Frazier is fine. It was his decision to leave town and move to Frequency City.”

  “He would hardly want to hang around Aurora Springs after he’d been humiliated by losing a duel and being forced off the Council,” she shot back.

  Cooper studied her with a considering expression. She knew that he was trying to decide just how much of the truth to reveal.

  “I regret that there has been gossip and that it got back to you,” he said slowly.

  “For heaven’s sake, you could have been seriously injured or even been killed.”

  Cooper’s brows drew together above the rims of his glasses in a slightly baffled expression. “There was no danger of anyone getting killed.”

  “A sanctioned ghost-hunter duel is a formal ritual,” John said quickly. “It’s used only as a last resort to deal with challenges to the existing power structure of the organization. The strongest hunter wins. The members of the Council witness the results, and that’s the end of the matter.”

  “You make it sound so simple,” she retorted, thoroughly exasperated. “But everyone knows ghosts are terribly, terribly dangerous. Sure, hunters have some immunity, but one miscalculation, and we’re talking a major disaster. When you’re dealing with high-energy ghosts, there’s always the possibility of serious psychic trauma.”

  “Nothing went wrong,” Cooper said quietly. “The issue that had arisen was formally settled according to Guild Law. There should have been no gossip.”

  “Well, there is gossip, Mr. Guild Boss.”

  “It doesn’t involve you,” he said quietly.

  “I have another news bulletin for you. Everyone is saying that I was the reason the duel was fought.”

  He frowned. “Who said that?”

  “Everyone. Aren’t you listening? My colleagues in the Department of Botany stared and whispered when I walked through the faculty lounge. You should have heard the giggling when I went into the women’s restroom.”

  There was a short, heavily weighted silence at that news. The discussion was going downhill fast, and her heart was breaking into smaller and smaller pieces. She only had one last, frail hope to cling to.

  “Elly,” John said, placating. “You’re the daughter of a Guild family. You know how important our traditions are.”

  “For heaven’s sake, Dad, I’ve got nothing against a few institutional traditions. But we’re talking about a full-blown duel.” She flicked a glance at Cooper. “In case neither one of you has heard, that sort of thing is considered archaic, primitive, uncivilized, and way over the top by modern, educated, sophisticated people such as my colleagues.”

  “Your father’s right; the gossip will die down,” Cooper promised.

  “That remark only goes to show how out of touch you both are with mainstream society.” She started to pace. “It’s all very well for you not to worry, but let me tell you a few facts of academic life. This may come as a stunning shock, but it turns out that figuring at the center of a stupid, mega-macho duel between a couple of hunters—one of whom happens to be a Guild boss—is not the kind of thing that will help me get promoted to assistant professor.”

  “Calm down,” Cooper said, his voice gentling.

  “Calm down?” She stopped and swung around to face him again. “If you don’t care about the risk you took with your own life or your parapsych profile, how about considering the damage that you did to my career?”

  Cooper’s mouth thinned. “What occurred was Guild business. It will not affect your career. I give you my word on that.”

  She resumed pacing. The only other alternative was to pick up a few of the smaller alien artifacts that decorated the chamber and start hurling them around the room. That would be undignified.

  “Guild business,” she repeated coldly. “You know, somehow I just knew you were going to say that.”

  “The incident will not affect your career at the college.”

  “Pay attention, Mr. Guild Boss. Members of the faculty have been dismissed from Aurora Springs College for less than this.”

  John’s snowy brows bunched. “No one is goin
g to fire you because of this.”

  “Don’t bet on it, Dad.” She stalked past the full-length portrait of her several times great-grandfather, John Sander St. Clair, the first chief of the Aurora Springs Guild. “The Academic Council has a very strict Code of Conduct. Article One, Section a, Paragraph 1a, forbids every member of the staff from, and I quote, ‘engaging in any type of behavior that might embarrass the college or reflect badly upon this institution. Such behavior shall be grounds for a formal reprimand, or, in the most serious cases, dismissal.’ ”

  For the first time, Cooper showed an expression other than cool patience. It wasn’t much of a show of emotion, to be sure, only a slight increase in the intensity of his unusual blue eyes, but she had been around him enough in the past two months to sense that he was starting to get irritated.

  “Your father is right,” he said very evenly. “There’s no way the Academic Council can blame you for an incident that involved only the Guild Council.”

  She came to a halt in front of another large portrait of a former Aurora Springs Guild boss. Albert Roy St. Clair was a great-uncle on her mother’s side.

  “You’re missing the big picture here,” she said. “I don’t have to be guilty of anything. All I have to do is embarrass the college. In academic politics, perception is everything. Good grief. When I think of how hard I’ve worked to convince my colleagues that the Guild has changed over the years, that it isn’t really an organization that is only half a step above a criminal mob, I could just spit. Talk about a complete waste of time and energy.”

  “You won’t lose your position at the college,” Cooper said without inflection. “Don’t worry about it.”

  It was her turn to raise her brows. “Why? Because you’ll make a few phone calls and intimidate the Academic Council?”

  “If there’s a problem, I’ll take care of it,” he said.

  “Don’t even think about trying to do any such thing, Cooper Boone. I will not tolerate you using your position to interfere in my career.”

  “I think you’re overreacting here,” Cooper said quietly.

  “I’m furious. If you want to label that an overreaction, you’re welcome to your point of view. Forget my little problem with the Academic Council. I’ll handle my professional life my way. Let’s get back to a more important issue.”

  His brows came together in a small frown of surprise. “There’s a more important issue?”

  “Yes.” She braced herself. “You’ve as much as admitted that there was a duel. Let’s move on to my second question. People are saying that I was the cause of that ghost-fight between you and Palmer Frazier. Is that true?”

  Cooper exchanged a look with her father. She knew that he was making his decision, deciding how much of the truth to tell her. Did he realize that their entire future together hinged on what he said next? Probably not. He was a Guild boss. It wouldn’t occur to him that this situation had escaped his control.

  Cooper unfolded his hands. He took off his glasses with a deliberate air and set them down on the desk.

  Slowly he walked across the room to stand at one of the tall windows. For a moment or two he studied the view of the ruins of the ancient alien town site that had been deserted thousands of years before humans had arrived on the planet.

  “Frazier is a very ambitious man, Elly,” he said quietly. “He was attempting to use you.”

  “We dated for a while,” she said icily. “We had some fun together. He did not use me.”

  “He intended to marry you. He was going on the assumption that once you were his wife, he would be able to forge a natural alliance with your father. That would have given him a critical edge on the Council.”

  She felt the floor start to dissolve under her feet. So much for the one frail thread of hope that she had been clinging to so tightly for the past few hours.

  “I see,” she managed in a voice that was no more than a whisper. “This was all about the Guild.”

  John inclined his head in a sage manner. “It’s true, Elly. Frazier was determined to marry you. I warned him off privately, but he ignored me. If he had succeeded in convincing you to contract a formal Covenant Marriage with him, I would have been placed in an untenable situation, forced to choose between supporting my son-in-law for the sake of my daughter and her future offspring, or voting against him and risking an irreparable rift in our clan. It is very likely that, in the end, I would have had to step down from the Council to avoid being caught in the middle.”

  “Which,” Cooper said, turning back to face her, “would have tipped the balance of power on the Council in such a way that it is entirely possible Frazier would have become the new Guild boss. He certainly has the para-rez talent, the ambition, and the connections it takes to get the job. I can promise you, his leadership would not have been good for the future of this organization.”

  “Right,” she said quietly. “Got it. You fought the duel to protect the balance of power on the Council.”

  “That’s what we’ve been trying to explain, dear.” John crossed the room to pat her on the shoulder. “How could you know about the political stakes involved in this affair? As Cooper just told you, it was Guild business.”

  She shook her head, smiling sadly at her own illusions. “Did it ever occur to either one of you to talk to me about the situation before you got involved in something as stupid as a duel?”

  Both men looked taken aback by the question. Neither attempted an answer.

  “I’m not a complete fool,” she said wearily. “Nor am I the naive, sheltered little academic that everyone seems to think I am. Palmer Frazier isn’t the first man who ever tried to get close to me in order to gain access to you, Dad. Let’s get serious here. If I turned down dates from every man who was attracted to me at least in part because of my Guild connections, I’d have no social life at all. This is a small town. Everyone knows who you are and that I’m your daughter.”

  “I understand, dear, but Frazier is different,” John said carefully. “He’s very good at political maneuvering, and he’s got excellent connections because he is descended from one of the founding members of the Frequency Guild. An alliance with our clan would have given him a great deal of power. When the two of you were dating it was obvious that he was trying to charm you. And you seemed to be getting rather serious about him.”

  “Maybe that was because he treated me as an equal,” she said stonily. “He didn’t put me into a little box that he could open or close whenever it was convenient for him. Sure, he was a charmer. But you know what? Palmer and I laughed at a lot of the same things. We liked to dance together. And here’s a real stunner, he always showed up on time for every date. What a concept, hmm?”

  Cooper’s eyes tightened a little at the corners. “Where are you going with this, Elly?”

  “When Palmer and I were dating, I never had to listen to a lot of excuses about how he had to cancel because of some last-minute Guild business,” she said. “He was never late because of a meeting that ran too long. He never disappeared for an entire weekend with no explanation other than ‘Something came up.’ ”

  John was starting to look vaguely alarmed. “Now, see here, Elly—”

  “I understood from the outset that Palmer’s interest in me stemmed from the fact that he thought the two of us made a good match politically, financially, and socially.” She shrugged. “He was right. As we all know, marriages have been arranged between Guild families since the founding of the organization for precisely those reasons.”

  John cleared his throat. “Marriages at the highest levels of the Guild involve a great deal more than just the two people who take the vows. Fortunes and the futures of entire families, not to mention the Guild, itself, are at stake. You know that, Elly.”

  “I sure do,” she said. “But in this particular instance, it is all beside the point, because I never intended to marry Palmer Frazier.” She paused a beat. “And if either of you two hardheaded hunters had bothered to ask me, I
would have gladly told you that.”

  The office filled with a heavy silence.

  “Mind if I ask why you’re so certain that Frazier couldn’t have convinced you to marry him?” Cooper finally asked in an eerily neutral tone. “Given that he was never late for a date and all?”

  Because I had just met you, and after that there was no one else, she thought. But damned if she would say those words aloud now that she knew the truth about the duel.

  “Certainly.” She rezzed her brightest smile. “I’ll be happy to tell you why I never wanted to marry Palmer Frazier. The reason is that I did not love him. What’s more, I was pretty sure I would never be able to learn to love him. And you know what, guys? This may come as something of a surprise, but I wouldn’t think of marrying a man who was only interested in using me to achieve his objectives in Guild politics.”

  Wariness flickered in Cooper’s eyes.

  John stared at her, astonished. “Now, hold on here, what is that supposed to mean?”

  “I think we all know what it means, Dad.” She gave her full attention to Cooper. “Talk about life’s little ironies. I was never at risk of marrying Palmer Frazier, so that duel you two fought was all for nothing. But upon reflection, I realize that I owe you my sincere gratitude for getting involved in that challenge.”

  “Why?” he asked.

  “Because if the duel had not taken place, and if I had not found out about it today, I probably would have continued to allow myself to be convinced that everything that was wrong between us would have been magically fixed after we got married. Talk about naive.”

  Cooper did not move. “What was wrong between us?”

  “You’re serious, aren’t you? You really don’t know how I’ve made excuses for you every time you were late for a date because of Guild business. You want to talk denial? I even went so far as to let Mom convince me that the fact that you’ve never shown any interest in doing anything more than kiss me good night very politely at the door was just your quaint way of demonstrating respect for my clan and the old courtship traditions. But that’s not true, is it?”