David Andre was clever.
But he couldn’t be everywhere at the same time.
He knew the ghost of Roger Newsome would still be with Angela, not leaving her side. But even experienced ghosts had difficulty “haunting” people—moving objects, making things rattle.
Adrenalin could give people extra strength. He hoped it could work with ghosts.
*
Ghouls in Shining Armor had been set up with the façade of a castle. Grotesque knights lumbered up steps to save a princess from a wicked witch.
A young prince led the army of ghouls. In the strange mix of the moon’s glow and the night lights, the place was eerie indeed.
A princess stood by a throne. The witch figure had created a swirling black pit—and there were several of the zombie-knights lying dead in the pit, having failed in their quest against the witch to save the princess.
“See—you get to be the princess.” David Andre said, pushing the princess figure into the pit. She crashed down at the bottom. The “pit” was an underground work area, she could see from her place on the steps by the throne.
“Great. But I don’t understand this,” she said. “I’m the princess, but I’m not your work. I put on the costume, and I did my own make-up.”
“At my direction!” he snapped angrily.
“Still, my work.”
They both jumped when one of the zombie-knights crashed to the ground.
David Andre started shooting at the thing—assuming someone else had been playing at costuming. Then he aimed the gun at her as he walked toward that direction. He kicked the metal that had been the zombie-knight, doing so until it fell into the pit. “These things have motion sensors!” he said.
“They might—but I did that!” Roger’s ghost cried proudly.
“These stupid people. Everything here is shoddy work!”
“No, look!”
Angela waved an arm, and it seemed all the knights shifted.
“Everything here is for people to get to enjoy Halloween,” Angela told him.
“But even then, the work should be better! Special effects and make-up are what make movies great. I mean think back about Rick Baker and ‘An American Werewolf in London.’ The hydraulics used! Brilliant. But not enough people get respect.”
“Artists get respect,” she said. “But—art is something you love, too.”
“I do love what I do! And aren’t you lucky—I’m going to get to prove it with you tonight!”
*
Jackson prayed he’d made the right moves.
He knew David Andre would simply shoot Angela in front of him if he was confronted. Or he might pretend he was going to make a trade, get him to relinquish his gun . . .
If he even sensed he was going down, Andre would kill Angela first.
There had to be a way to get close to him.
Ken Kendall had met him at the gate, telling him officers could see David Andre and Angela, but they didn’t have a clear shot. In fact, they didn’t have any shot; Andre knew someone would eventually be coming.
“I know. That’s why I need to move—fast!” Jackson had told him.
He moved fast.
And now . . .
Now he just had to make the right movement at the right time.
*
“It’s now,” David Andre said, looking at Angela and then around the area again. He smiled at Angela. “You have to be real. You know you must be very real. Or not real. I thought that jerk of a husband of yours would be here by now, but . . . well, you win some, and you lose some.”
They heard a subtle sound, metal against metal.
It sounded as if another knight had moved.
“These stupid things must have some kind of motion sensor,” he muttered.
Roger Newsome murmured, “That one wasn’t me.”
“Here!”
To Angela’s surprise, David Andre produced an apple.
“You’ve been carrying that around? I admit, you’re good. You went to the hospital to kill Veronica and Ray—figuring that managing to be a doctor would be a good disguise. You knocked out a cop to steal his uniform and gun—and you had a poisoned apple on you all the time?”
“I’m really good at what I do. And tonight, I am proving it!”
“A poisoned apple?” she asked. “Aren’t you mixing up your fairy-tales, or . . .”
“Take a bite,” he said.
“I can’t.”
“Then you’ll take a bullet,” he said.
“Look, either way, you ruin your whole purpose,” she told him. “A bullet in me, and I can hardly stand here. And if you poison me . . . well, I’ll gasp and gag and vomit all over everything.”
He stared at her frowning. He didn’t realize the zombie-knight that had moved was now almost behind him.
“Ah, that knight is Jackson! I got this, I got it!” Roger Newsome said, hurrying to the group of knights on the steps and pushing with all his power.
Another crashed to the ground.
David Andre turned to shoot at the sound.
And as he did, Angela seized the opportunity, just as Jackson did. He knocked down David Andre’s arm, forcing his bullets to fly into the ground.
And Angela pushed the man.
He screamed as he fell into the pit, landing hard on the ground below, probably breaking several bones.
And it was then police and agents burst out of the surrounding shrubbery from the areas in front of the display.
Jackson looked down into the pit.
“Game over!” he said, lifting the visor on the helmet he wore. He looked at Angela, shaking his head.
“You do make a beautiful zombie princess,” he told her. “I really should have been the prince, but I couldn’t mingle in a prince costume as easily. I had to get up here once you were almost here, and I didn’t have time for make-up and the knight’s . . . well.”
She smiled, listening to David Andre swear and moan below. “Always my prince!” she assured him.
*
They were exhausted, of course. Still, wrap-up, clean-up, and paperwork—they were home by five in the afternoon, not sure how to proceed with their private lives.
They’d discovered, too, David Andre hadn’t really wanted to die. He’d been grateful to the paramedics who had come to get him out of the hole.
He’d admitted to Angela that prison was where he needed to be.
They had been long days, but somehow, the case had ended.
And they still had kids, and it was Halloween.
The baby was too young to care about Halloween. But Corby was ten years old.
Of course, they needed to tell him they’d been able to save other lives because of him—and the ghost of Roger Newsome.
But still, it was Halloween, and he was still ten . . .
“So, Corby,” Angela said cheerfully, sitting with Jackson, the ghost of Roger Newsome, her son, daughter, and Mary Tiger, “There are still some options this year. I mean, we can dress up . . .”
She glanced at Jackson. At that moment, neither of them wanted to dress up. They’d had enough of Halloween costuming.
“What would you like—”
“Beetlejuice,” he said, grinning as he interrupted her.
“Pardon?” Angela said, glancing at Jackson.
“I’d love to stay home—eat some candy—and all of us watch a good movie that is silly and fun and not really spooky at all. Will that be okay?”