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Colt nodded.
“Tell me, how many ghosts do you see around these people?”
Colt pursed his lips. He was annoyed, and with good reason. It was true, the residents of Seawolf Beach had known his secret for months, but the outside world? Strangers?
“Sorry,” Mac said in a lowered voice. “They’ve been hounding Loran for years, accusing her of all kinds of things, making her run from place to place just trying to find a little bit of peace. They don’t understand. You can help them.”
“I’m not a freakin’ ghost therapist,” Colt said, his soft words for Mac and Loran alone. He studied them for a long moment. After a few seconds his expression softened. “Well, shit. Maybe today I am.”
Colt walked around them to face the mob. “First things first,” he said. “I see ghosts. They especially like it here, for some reason I have never been able to explain.” He pointed to one woman, then to an older man. “You are all surrounded by the spirits of lost ones. You… you’ve all but chained them to you when you should be letting them go.”
One angry woman shouted. “This is bullshit! There are no ghosts! That… that woman must’ve had something to do with my son’s death. She killed him, then she painted him just as he was when he walked out the door that day, as a joke…”
Loran had been silent for a while now, but she spoke up. “What I do is not a joke!”
The grieving mother glared at her.
Colt remained calm. “Your son’s name is Jeremy. He’s stuck, you hold him here with your anger. Regret for all he’s done rolls off of him. He loves you, he’s sorry for what he did, he regretted his actions immediately. He jumped in a moment of…”
“He wouldn’t do that to me!” she screamed. “You’re no better than she is, a con man, a huckster. Maybe even a murderer, just like her.”
The entire depot went still, silent.
“Ask me a question only Jeremy can answer,” Colt said in a calm voice.
The woman huffed for a moment, then said, “When he was ten we went to…”
“Panama City Beach,” Colt interrupted before she could finish her question. “That’s where he wanted to go and you took him. Just the two of you. His dad, your husband, had to work, and…”
The angry woman paled and took a step back. A man who stood nearby grabbed her arm in order to steady her.
Everyone here had a story, a loss, a tragedy. They all blamed Loran. Maybe it had been easy for them to make her a patsy, to hound her until all she knew was running, hiding away, denying herself a life. Until now.
The questions started flying. Colt held up a hand to silence them all. “I’ll talk to each of you, I will, even though this is not what I do and I hope I never have to do it again. But first, let me explain why Loran painted those portraits. Your loved ones, your lost ones, made their way to her in order to reach you. They had a message for you. Maybe it was a simple I love you, or a more complicated I’m sorry. The problem is, these unusual abilities don’t come with an instruction manual. I know that all too well. She didn’t know why it was happening.” Colt looked back at Loran. “I suspect in the early days she didn’t even realize she was painting ghosts.”
Loran nodded, once.
Anna finished her walk down the stairs.
Colt looked at his wife and gave her a sad smile. “Make coffee. We’re going to need a lot of it.”
Loran slipped her hand from Mac’s. “I’ll help,” she whispered.
Colt looked up at Mac. “You have your own ghost here, once again.”
“Kylie?”
“Yeah. She’s not going to leave me alone until I talk to you.”
Why now? He had no idea, but he’d take it.
They walked into the back of the depot, which was not Mac’s favorite part of the big building. If that’s where the answers were, he wouldn’t complain.
“As you know, Carrie’s portrait was different,” Colt said. “It was a message meant for you, but Kylie was pretty sure you wouldn’t be moved by her portrait.”
That was the truth. “The painting helped us find Carrie. Her work is done. Kylie can move on, or whatever.”
“She lied,” Colt said.
