Dead to the World (Cold Case Psychic Book 10) Read online

  DEAD TO THE WORLD

  By

  Pandora Pine

  Dead to the World

  Copyright © Pandora Pine 2019

  All Rights Reserved

  This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the copyright owner except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons, places, events, business establishments or locales is entirely coincidental.

  First Digital Edition: February 2019

  FOR DAD:

  You never batted an eye.

  PROLOGUE

  Ronan

  November…

  Cold Case Detective Ronan O’Mara was laughing. His head was tossed back and the full, rich sound of his laughter joined with everyone else’s in the room. His lap was full of Carson Craig and Truman Wesley’s triplets, who were still sticky from eating pecan pie with their bare hands. Velociraptors, was what Carson called them, although Ronan didn’t recall the Jurassic Park dinosaurs eating with their claws.

  Everyone was sitting in Carson’s cramped living room watching home movies that Ghost Detective, Jude Byrne, and his new partner, Copeland Forbes, had gathered from everyone and painstakingly put together to show after dessert on Thanksgiving Day.

  The eighteen-month-old triplets laughed the hardest when videos of themselves popped up on the screen. They pointed to the television and shouted, “ME!” before quieting back down to watch the snippet of film. They also seemed to enjoy videos of Ronan doing ridiculous things. A chorus of “Ro!” would go through them, reminding Ronan of the squawking gulls from Finding Nemo who shouted “Mine!”

  Ronan had spent the morning peeling what had to be fifteen pounds of potatoes. Having Thanksgiving dinner for twenty-five people wasn’t an easy meal to throw together. It had taken a team effort. This was Ronan’s second year in a row of being on potato duty. He had a feeling he’d be Spuds O’Mara from here on out. The tradition had been set.

  Also carrying over from last year was several types of turkey being served. Greeley was spatchcocking it again, since his bird had won the taste-testing contest the previous year. This time around, Jude and Copeland tried a Cajun-spiced rotisserie bird and there was oven roasted, brined, and deep-fried entries. The Cajun bird had won the day this year.

  Copeland, being from New Orleans, also made a cornbread dressing that had Ronan going back for seconds and then thirds. He almost hadn’t had room for dessert. Almost.

  What had shocked and amazed him the most was how much their family had grown in the last year. Fourteen people had been sitting at the table last year. This time around they’d added ten new members to their growing family, including Emilyn, his and Tennyson’s surrogate, who was carrying Everly Erin, due to be born on Valentine’s Day. So, there were almost eleven new members of their family celebrating with them today.

  As much as that many new family members thrilled Ronan to his toes, there was one member of the family who wasn’t here today. By not here, Ronan didn’t mean not here in Carson’s house or not here in Salem, or not here in Massachusetts. Ronan meant not here, as in spending the holiday in heaven.

  Not a day went by that Ronan didn’t think about Tony Abruzzi, his fallen brother, former partner, and best friend. To be more accurate, not an hour went by that Ronan didn’t think about him. He supposed it was better than it was back in August when not a second went by and then in September when not a minute went by. His therapist said grief was a process. It sure the fuck was.

  Ronan wasn’t a stranger to therapy. He’d been through it a few times before. The Boston Police Department mandated it when he’d been embroiled in officer-involved shootings. To date, that had happened three times. He’d also been for counselling when his boss, Cold Case Captain Kevin Fitzgibbon, had been shot in the line of duty and when Ronan’s now-husband, Tennyson Grimm, had been kidnapped by a child rapist and murder. Then there was his stint in a South Florida rehab for a drinking problem two years ago. There had been plenty of counselling there, of the solo and group variety.

  Nope, Ronan was no stranger to therapy. This was the first time, however, that Ronan was seeing a grief counsellor. Tennyson had suggested they both go see someone about three weeks after Tony died. Ronan had insisted, during a Full House marathon, that there was no need to go anywhere.

  That was half the problem right there. Since the day of the funeral, complete with a twenty-one-gun salute and a folded American flag presented to Tony’s widow, Carlie, Ronan had barely gotten off the couch. He only watched Netflix and HBO so that he wouldn’t hear any news stories about Tony or the man who gunned him down in cold blood.

  Vito “The Dragon” Dragonni was a mob boss who, it turned out, unbeknownst to Ronan, Tony was embedded with as an undercover agent before the two of them had been partnered together in Homicide. Tony hadn’t told anyone, including his wife, that he’d worked for The Dragon running guns in exchange for a hefty pay day.

  Dragonni had been arrested by Ronan and Tony nine years ago on charges of triple homicide for murders that took place at a car dealership in Malden, Massachusetts, a suburb of Boston. The killings had been caught on surveillance video and Dragonni had been convicted and sentenced to life in prison. A technicality had set him free a few months back and prominent people who’d been involved with the trial had started dying, most notably the judge and the prosecutor. Ronan later found out his and Tony’s names were at the top of a hit list Vito Dragonni had complied making them dead men walking.

  As it turned out, the list was merely a ruse to hide Dragonni’s true motivation which had been going after Tony for being a “motherfucking rat.” Dragonni’s words, not Ronan’s. The mobster had shot Tony right in front of Ronan and there hadn’t been a damn thing he could do to stop it from happening.

  Making matters worse was that Ronan had been so busy trying to apprehend The Dragon after the shooting that he hadn’t been at the hospital for Tony and his wife in the aftermath. Tennyson had been there, along with their friends. He’d shown up later, not needing to be told the outcome when he’d seen BPD officers lining the hallway leading to the waiting room with his friends and family. Ronan had known it signaled end of watch.

  Ronan couldn’t really say the grief counselling was helping. Tony was still dead. Nothing would change that. All the other times he’d gone to therapy there had been something tangible to solve, a drinking problem, or his mental fitness to return to the line of duty after an officer-involved shooting. No matter how many hours or how many hundreds of dollars he spent on this particular therapist, the outcome would never change. Tony Abruzzi would still be dead. All Ronan could do now was find ways to keep that loss from being front and center in his mind.

  “Mo, Ro!” Baby Bertha smiled at him. Moments later, the toddler’s plea for “more” was echoed by her brother, Brian, and sister, Stephanie.

  It was almost as if someone had prompted the little cherub to ask him for more dessert. “Is your Mimi here, pretty girl?” Ronan whispered to Baby Bertha. Mimi was Bertha Craig, Carson’s deceased mother and matriarch of this huge extended family. All three of the toddlers could see and communicate with Bertha’s spirit.

  “Mimi!” Bertha giggled.

  “Just as I thought. Thanks, Bertha.” Ronan shook his head. It was time to pull himself back into the present. “Who wants more dessert?”

  1

  Ronan

  January…

  Ronan was staring at the Duncan case, which was spread out before him on the conference room table. Romeo Duncan, thirty-five years old, found dead in
a snowbank on New Year’s Day 2002. He’d been hit by a snow plow, but that was after he’d been stabbed in the chest multiple times by a person or persons unknown. His spirit was not cooperating.

  “I understand that you don’t want to be a snitch, Romeo, but your mother is heartbroken here. This case is seventeen years cold. Don’t you want her to have some closure?” Tennyson sounded like he was at the end of his rope.

  They’d been shut up in the conference room with Romeo for the last ninety minutes. It had taken nearly half an hour for Tennyson to get the unwilling spirit to show up. What had finally done the trick was a picture of the dead man’s then infant daughter and Ronan’s desperate cry of “Wherefore art thou, Romeo?” for the stubborn bastard to show up. Now, Ronan was wishing he hadn’t.

  “Well?” Ronan asked Ten. Some days it really sucked not being able to hear the answers the spirits were giving Tennyson. Other days, Ronan was glad not to have the burden of Ten’s gift.

  “He’s shaking his head no like a toddler.” Ten slapped his pen down on his legal pad. “That’s it for me. I’m out. Why the hell should I try to solve this case for your daughter if you couldn’t care less?” Ten got up from the table, striding for the door like he was making a break for it. He had turned the handle and was half a step into the hall before he stopped. He wasn’t moving at all.

  If Ronan had to guess, he’d say Tennyson was listening. It was a tried and true tactic that Ten had executed with success in the past. When a spirit thought he was truly walking out on them, it usually jumpstarted the confession. Since Ten was still standing in the hall with a hand on the door, he had to wonder what in hell Romeo was saying.

  “I can ask, but I can’t make any promises.” Ten sighed loudly. Dramatically.

  Ronan bit his lip to keep from smiling. His husband had developed a flair for the dramatic with these reluctant spirits.

  Ten poked his head back in the door. “Romeo wants to know if his daughter can be protected if he tells us who killed him.”

  He motioned Ten back inside the room. When the door was closed behind him, Ronan shook his head. “I don’t get that request, Romeo. Your daughter is seventeen years old. She was only a month old when you were murdered, why on earth would she need to be protected?”

  Tennyson’s eyes widened. He sat hard in the closest chair to the conference table. “It was his mother.” Ten’s mouth hung open.

  “Romeo’s own mother killed him?” Ronan couldn’t believe it himself. “That’s one cold woman to stab him seven times and leave him out in a blizzard to bleed to death and get hit by a snow plow.”

  “She wanted the baby, and Romeo had threatened to get his own place since Mommy Dearest was too controlling.” Ten grimaced.

  “Is there any evidence that can prove your mother did this?” Here was the tricky part. It was all well and good for Romeo to tell them who his killer was, but without hard evidence, their case was still dead in the water.

  “Oh, brother. Seriously?” Ten looped his right index finger around next to his head in the universal gesture for crazy. “He says his mother kept the shirt she was wearing since there’s a spot of blood on it. Romeo says to ask her about Lady Macbeth and she’ll confess.”

  Shit… It had been a long time since he’d read “The Scottish Play” back in high school. “You want to refresh my memory there, Ten?”

  “Well, it’s been an equally long time since I’ve read it, Ronan,” Ten raised an eyebrow at his husband, “but, I believe Romeo is referring to when Lady Macbeth is trying to get an invisible spot of her husband’s blood off her hands and she says, ‘Out, damned spot,’ or something like that.” Ten shrugged.

  That line tickled a memory somewhere deep in Ronan’s mind. It was about guilt. Ronan was well acquainted with the plot device known as guilt. “Where’s the bloody shirt, Romeo?”

  “At the back of his mother’s closet in a Ziploc bag.” Ten sighed. “I promise we’ll keep your daughter safe, Romeo.” Ten turned to Ronan. “He’s gone.”

  “All of that to protect his daughter.” Ronan shook his head.

  “Can you think of a better reason to keep a secret?” Ten was scribbling notes on his legal pad.

  “No, I guess not. I’d do anything in my power to keep our baby safe.” Their daughter, Everly Erin, was due on Valentine’s Day. Ronan would defend her with the last breath in his body, no questions asked.

  “Me too, Ronan.” The look in Ten’s eyes was sad. Ronan would almost call it heartbroken.

  To be honest, Tennyson hadn’t been faring too well with Tony’s death either. He’d been there that night on the Boston Common when the fatal shot was fired. When Dragonni’s men had tracked them down at their safe house, it had been Tennyson who had directed them out of the building where Dragonni’s men later found them. Ten had been acting on advice given to him by the spirit of Tony’s dead son, but even so, he was still taking Tony’s death hard.

  “Why don’t we grab tacos on the way home?” That always seemed to cheer Ten up lately. There was this new place on Route 1 with a self-serve taco bar. Ten was nuts for the place. Ronan liked their pulled pork and Spanish rice.

  Ten shrugged. He was cleaning up the Duncan file and stacking everything neatly together.

  Ronan pulled his husband into his arms. “Hey, you okay?” There was decidedly less of Tennyson to hug. A skinny man as it was, Ten was now all skin and bone. He’d guess his husband had lost twenty pounds in the months since Tony’s passing.

  “Just tired. You know that surprise baby shower is this weekend.” Ten rolled his eyes.

  There had been rumors that Carson and Truman were throwing them and Emilyn a baby shower to celebrate the imminent arrival of their little miss. According to what Ronan had heard, it was supposed to have taken place before Christmas, but it had been pushed off until after New Year in hopes that the fathers-to-be would be in better spirits for a party.

  Ronan wasn’t sure that was the case for either of them, but he was damn sure going to smile his way through a party that was being thrown for his baby. If Tony’s death had taught him nothing else it was that life was precious. “Think about how well-loved our daughter is already. That’s what this party is all about, our friends showering Everly with their love. I don’t want her to look back on those pictures years from now and ask why both of us were so sad.”

  Ten looked up into Ronan’s eyes. “You’re right. I know how excited Carson and Cole are about this party. They’ve been oozing it psychically.”

  “Isn’t there a cream they can rub on it?” Ronan managed a smile. He knew full well that people tended to ooze special news like engagements and babies. It hadn’t surprised him when Ten had come home with news of the surprise shower. What had surprised him initially was that he was too broken up over Tony to want to go.

  Ten laughed too. “Let’s go get your pulled pork and maybe go to bed early. I’m exhausted.”

  Ronan studied his husband’s face. Without being rude, Tennyson always looked exhausted lately. Now was the time when they needed all the sleep they could before the baby came. Once that little girl came home from the hospital, there wasn’t going to be any sleep for either of them. “You bet. Maybe we could cuddle and watch another episode of Haunted on Netflix.” Ronan couldn’t help but think Tennyson was the one who looked haunted.

  2

  Tennyson

  On a scale of one to ten, the tacos had knocked Tennyson’s anxiety back down to a three. Manageable, but not ideal. Ten wasn’t a stranger to anxiety. They’d become acquainted during his teenage years when’d he first discovered his gift.

  Back then, he’d had no idea what was happening to him and why he could all of a sudden communicate with dead people. With the understanding of his gift and the passage of time, the anxiety had lessened and then gone away entirely. When he’d gotten himself settled in The Witch City, Ten thought his days of anxiety attacks were behind him. Then Ronan O’Mara walked into West Side Magick.

  Beco
ming a consultant for the Boston Police Department brought with it a set of unique challenges that had him using every weapon in his arsenal to battle the anxiety that looking for killers raised in him. In the time he’d been working with the department, he’d been kidnapped, shot at, stabbed, and been involved with a serial killer. Twice.

  Then there was Ronan himself. Falling in love with the maddening man had him practicing his deep breathing exercises so often, he was qualified to be a yogi by now. Knowing that the man you loved more than your next breath could be killed just by showing up for work was a continuing struggle, one that Tennyson managed day by day with visualization exercises and deep breathing only.

  None of those things, however, held a candle to the situation with Cruz Clemente and Tony Abruzzi. Ten would never forget that horrible day when Tony had been shot by Vito Dragonni in cold blood. He had spent hours in the hospital waiting room surrounded by his friends and members of the BPD while Ronan, Fitzgibbon, and Jude had been out trying to track down The Dragon before he could flee the country on a private jet.

  It was Major Crimes officer, Faulkner Hayes, who’d worked undercover in the Dragonni crime family, who’d been the one to come into the waiting room to break the news that Tony Abruzzi was dead. At the time, Tennyson hadn’t even seen that as odd. Faulk’s line has been that the doctors’ thought the news would have been easier to bear coming from him rather than a doctor who was a total stranger to them.

  After he’d broken the news, Faulk had asked to speak to Tennyson alone. That little chat had been more of a warning to Tennyson. A warning that what he was about to see and hear could not pass beyond the walls of the room he was being led into. Sitting in the hospital bed of that room was none other than Tony Abruzzi, alive and well, but for the gunshot wound to his left shoulder.

  That was where Tennyson’s path had crossed with FBI Agent Cruz Clemente, the handsome, dick-faced weasel. Ten knew those two characterizations of the man were at complete odds with each other, but Clemente was the reason he was rowing the boat he was in now. Lying to his husband and filled with so much guilt and remorse it was literally eating him alive.