“Why not?”
“My daughter and grandson were also ill with yellow fever. I knew they would be joining me soon, so I waited, watching over them. I thought we could all cross over to the next plane together. I’d always been the one to lead the way and I thought, in death, it would be no different.”
My stomach sank. “What happened?”
Gayle fell silent, her lips pressed into a thin line as her eyes wandered the hall. “I went to check on my husband. In his grief, he’d turned to the drink and I was worried for him. By the time I left him and went back to my daughter’s room, I was too late. She was already gone.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry, Gayle.”
“My grandson, by some miracle, survived the fever. He lived a full life and only passed away himself a few years ago. His children live here in New Orleans. I visit them often.”
I offered a wistful smile, wondering what it would be like to watch your own grandson grow into old age and have his own lineage. “I’m sure you’ll see your daughter again someday.”
Gayle shook her head, a shimmer coating her eyes. “I’m afraid that’s not possible.”
“Why not?”
“I am bound here. There will be no crossing over for me.”
She said it in such a matter-of-fact way that I struggled to find an argument. My mouth hung open, flailing for a response.
“No one stays here for more than a year, sometimes two. I use some simple tricks to keep anyone from getting too comfortable. Flickering the lights, messing with the plumbing, making strange moaning sounds in the night. It can get lonely, ambling around this big house all by myself, but it’s for the best. It keeps people safe.” She frowned. “I’m not sure it will work this time. All I can do is hope no one gets hurt.”
“What happened in there?” I asked, gesturing at the door she was still blocking. “You said you’ve kept it sealed.”
“If I’m on this floor of the house, I can channel energy into keeping that handle stuck. But lately, it’s been more draining than before and there’s been so much commotion, I haven’t been able to stand guard as much as I ought.” Gayle’s face flickered, fading from sight for a split second before returning.
“But why?”
“An evil spirit is contained inside. Forever trapped in the library where he took his last victim.”
My fingertips slipped from the knob.
“Years ago, a boy was killed. His name was Conner. A precious cherub of a boy. He was only eight.”
I sucked in a breath, not wanting to know the rest of the story but unable to find the words to stop her from telling it.
“He loved to play in the library with all the books. He’d spend hours in there, sometimes reading, but most of the time climbing the ladder and playing with his collection of toy airplanes. One day, his airplane got stuck on a high shelf. He used the ladder to reach it, but then he was pushed by the spirit of unrest that has plagued this house for a century. Conner fell and hit his head. And he … well, he never recovered.”
She fell silent, staring down at her feet.
“What a horrible tragedy,” I said gently. “But, tell me, how can you be sure it wasn’t anything more than an accidental slip? Maybe he climbed too high and lost his balance.”
“I saw it myself!” Gayle snapped. “The spirit made him fall.”
“Okay, okay.” I held up my hands and looked sidelong down the hallway. If anyone came around the corner, they’d think I’d lost my mind, standing there arguing with a pair of doors. I needed to wrap it up, but on the off chance there actually was some kind of evil trickster lurking in the library, it would be better if I was the one who found out about it first.
“Do you have any idea who this spirit is? Or, rather, used to be?” I asked.
She shook her head. “It doesn’t have a face. It takes on many forms.”
A faceless ghost? That was a new one.
“All right. Well, can it speak? Where did it come from?”
“No one knows where it came from originally, but everyone could agree that it was indeed here, within these walls.”
“Was?” I repeated. “I thought you said he—or it—was still here. In there.”
“Yes and no,” Gayle said. “After Connor’s death, I told the story to every self-proclaimed spiritualist in this town. Finally, someone believed me and banished the evil spirit. There’s a mirror in the library. That’s what binds him. It’s also the reason why I don’t go in the library anymore. Whenever I did, he’d curse and howl and raise all manner of unholy noise,” Gayle replied, shuddering.
“I see,” I said, nodding. Though, I wasn’t sure I did. My knowledge of the supernatural world had certainly expanded over the past few months, but I wasn’t sure it had gone so far as to allow for psychotic ghosts that took sick delight in pushing children off tall ladders. Occasionally, ghosts could manifest and move small objects. If they were really powerful—and fueled by a ton of anger—they could even take over someone’s corporeal form for limited amounts of time. But I’d never heard of a ghost that could touch, let alone shove, a human.
Footsteps sounded from around the corner and Gayle stiffened. “Here to slap on another coat of paint, no doubt,” she grumbled, fussing with the lace collar of her nightgown. “They carry on at all hours. Never a moment’s peace.”
Lucas stepped into view. He tried to smile when he saw me, but it was masked by the stress lines showing at either side of his mouth. “There you are.”
“Everything okay?” I asked.
He shrugged, his shoulders heavy looking. “We’ll find out. I swapped some sensors out, tested all the batteries, and ran a couple simulations. It’s all I can really do. Sam’s going to stay overnight to keep an eye on things.”
I glanced at Gayle out of the corner of my eye, wondering if she’d had something to do with the broken surveillance equipment. She’d made it clear that minor disturbances were her go-to method for scaring off potential inhabitants of the home. I almost told her to knock it off but thought better of it. Lucas didn’t need to know I’d spent the majority of my tour chatting it up with a paranoid ghost.
“So, does that mean we can go?” I asked him.
“Yeah. Let’s get out of here. I’ll call in the morning and check in.”
He held out a hand and I took it, letting him lead the way back through the house toward the front door. Before we turned a corner, I glanced over my shoulder. Gayle stood guard in front of the library doors and raised a hand before she melted into thin air.
The temperature felt like it had dropped several degrees since we’d stepped off the streetcar. Lucas caught me shiver and wrapped an arm around me as we headed back to the sidewalk. “I called for a ride,” he said. “They’ll be here any minute. I would say we could wait in the security trailer, but I’d rather not. Sam’s in a piss poor mood and I’d rather not listen to him complain.”
I cringed. “Can’t say that I blame you. Who was that guy screaming at you?”
“Bart Christiansen,” Lucas said. “He’s one of the executive producers on the show. He normally doesn’t come to the set, but he has a second home here in New Orleans and has been staying there during this renovation.”
“How come?” I asked.
“The show is getting more popular, and an unfortunate side effect is that there are all kinds of rumors and lies being fed to the press, mostly about the Carters. Every other tabloid headline is some nonsense about a secret baby, divorce rumors. This time it’s some made-up drug scandal.” Lucas paused and raked a hand over his jaw. “Bart has taken it upon himself to come and patrol the front lines, so to speak. He’s rabid about keeping the paparazzi off the property and making sure no one brings cameras or recording devices to the set. It’s been a nightmare.”
“I’m really sorry, Lucas.”
He sighed. “It’ll blow over. But, the sooner this job is done, the better.”
A black SUV pulled up at the curb, and the driver rolled down t
he passenger window. “Lucas Greene?”
“That’s us,” Lucas said. He stepped forward and opened the back door to let me in before sliding in beside me. We made small talk with the driver as we set off across town to our hotel. I hoped Gayle wasn’t the one behind the finicky security equipment. As beautiful as the home on Saint Charles Avenue was, I had no desire to revisit it. All I wanted to do was sleep and start fresh the next day.
Lucas settled a hand on my leg and I pushed Gayle out of my mind, along with her ramblings about the murderous ghost, and relaxed against his shoulder.
It was all going to be just fine. No ghosts, no spooky monsters, no problems.
Chapter 5
The next morning, I woke up to an empty bed. For a moment, I marveled at the silence. Back home, it was never quiet. Between Flapjack, Hayward, and Gwen, I rarely even had an unaccompanied moment. Despite my boundary-setting rules, the ghosts managed to invade most of my waking moments and were usually the last voices I heard before going to sleep, too. Gwen and Hayward were spending more and more time together, and luckily, Gwen had an active social life in town, which meant Hayward often spent time accompanying her on her gossip-gathering missions. But even when they were gone, Flapjack somehow made up the difference and then some.
If you’ve ever wished your pet could talk to you, let me warn that it’s far better in theory than reality.
He didn’t usually have anything interesting to say. Most of it was unabashed complaining. From the weather—which seemed like it should be irrelevant to a ghost but apparently wasn’t—to the new construction they were putting up in place of the abandoned fish shacks down along the water, Flapjack had an opinion about anything and everything.
Yet, somehow, laying there alone, drinking in the silence, I felt a nagging little pang in the pit of my stomach. Guilt.
Swell. Just swell.
I reached for my phone and squinted against the glare from the screen. It was only eight-fifteen, but that was technically six-fifteen, as I was still running on Washington time. I was surprised I’d woken up on my own. Granted, I’d hit the pillows a little after ten the night before, which was far earlier than my usual bedtime.
Where was Lucas? He was an insufferable morning person and I decided he’d probably gone for a jog or hit the hotel gym. Crazy man. I was about to get up and look for a note when I heard the door of the suite open. I sat up in bed and gathered the sheets around me.
“Morning, baby,” Lucas said, appearing at the doorway of the bedroom. He held two stacked coffee cups in one hand and a grease-splotched white paper bag in the other.
I smiled. “Morning.”
“Hungry?”
My stomach rumbled.
He laughed and handed over a cup of coffee. “I know you don’t usually do sugar in the morning, but I’m telling you, you’ve got to try these things.”
“Beignet?” I asked, smiling at him as he hurried to open the bag.
“Even better.” He grinned.
I raised a brow. “I’m pretty sure that’s considered blasphemy around these parts.”
He pulled a pastry from the bag and held it up with reverence, as though he’d discovered the contents of the Ark of the Covenant. “This is a cronut!”
I laughed. “A cronut?”
“It’s like if a donut and a croissant had a secret love child,” he explained, handing it to me gently. “This bakery down the street just started making them. I’m telling you, baby, it’s a game-changer.”
“Oh, yeah? And what game is it that we’re playing?” I asked, eyeballing the powder sugar-coated creation. “Who has to go up a pant size first?”
Lucas laughed. “Just take a bite.”
“Pretty sure even a morsel of this still contains roughly a thousand calories, but I’m on vacation, so I’ll indulge you.”
My mouth was already watering at an alarming level, just smelling the darn thing. There was no way I was tossing it back into the bag.
Lucas watched eagerly as I took a bite and burst out laughing when an involuntary moan came from my lips. “Told you!”
I savored a second melt-on-my-tongue bite and then smiled up at him. “Why couldn’t you have waited until my last day here to introduce me to these things?”
He laughed and reached back into the bag to get one for himself.
“These are pure bliss.” I licked the powdered sugar from my fingers, savoring every molecule. “Remind me to take a box back to give to Penny over at the bakery to see if she can crack the code in time for tourist season.”
“That would make my next visit twice as sweet,” Lucas said, giving me a sugary kiss.
“That was pretty sappy for a big, tough Navy guy,” I teased.
He shrugged. “Eh, I have my moments.”
“I like your moments,” I confessed, leaning into him. He bent down for a kiss. I faked right and stole a bite from the cronut in his hand.
“Oh! I see how it is!” he laughed, holding the pasty up above my head. “Can’t take my eyes off you for a second.”
Sill chuckling, he produced another pastry from the bag and handed it to me. “Here, you little pastry piranha!”
With a victorious grin, I sagged back against the pillows and took a sip of coffee. “So, what’s the plan for the day?”
“I have day passes for the Museum of Art. I doubt we’ll need a whole day, but I thought we’d start there and see where the afternoon takes us.”
“Works for me.”
We lingered over our coffee and pastries, until the bag was empty and our fingertips were hopelessly covered in powdered sugar. Afterward, Lucas took the bag and coffee cups and deposited them in the trash before coming back to lean against the doorframe that separated the living space from the bedroom.
“I’m gonna grab a shower,” Lucas said. “You want to go get a proper breakfast afterward?”
“Sure.” I swung my legs over the side of the bed. “I think I’ll call Holly and check in to see how the trio is doing without me.”
Lucas chuckled. “All right. See you in a few.”
He dropped a quick kiss to my forehead and crossed to the bathroom. I grabbed my phone from the bedside table and wiggled my toes along the carpeted floor while Holly’s phone rang. It was nearing nine o’clock in New Orleans, making it close to seven o’clock back in Beechwood Harbor. A little early, but Holly worked in a coffee shop a few times a week and tended to wake up early.
Holly answered with a giggle. “Well, well. You lasted a whole twenty-four hours. I’m impressed.”
“I’m more worried about you than them.” I laughed. “Are they driving you crazy yet?”
“Not yet,” she replied. “Although, I think Flapjack misses you. He did a couple drive-by visits to Siren’s Song yesterday. He thinks it’s hilarious to pop up on top of the espresso machine while I’m steaming milk. Probably because the first time he did it, I got spooked and frothy milk flew everywhere.”
I winced. “I told him to stop doing that.”
“Don’t worry about it. I figured out he doesn’t like lemon. So, I usually squirt a little citrus window cleaner on the front case and he scoots along to torment his next victim.”
I laughed. “Oh, yeah! I should have told you about his whole lemon hang-up.”
“What’s that about, anyway? I asked Posy about it and she’d never heard of a ghost being opposed to certain smells.”
“What can I say? He’s an odd little critter.”
“That’s for sure.”
We laughed together and I pushed off the side of the bed and went to my suitcase to fish out a pair of leggings and a long tunic-style top. A day of sightseeing required two things: comfy clothes and flat shoes. I put the phone on speaker and started to change out of my PJs.
“So, tell me all about your trip so far!” Holly said. “Are you having a good time?”
“Definitely,” I replied before pulling the flowery blouse over my head. “Yesterday was kind of low-key, walking around
the city, eating everything in sight.”
Holly laughed. “Sounds perfect!”
I hesitated, wondering if I should mention the strange story Gayle had relayed at the Saint Charles house. If anyone would know about evil spirits, it was Holly. She’d grown up in the supernatural community known as the haven, and currently lived with a ghost landlady, a shifter, a witch, and a vampire.
I decided against it as I stepped into the soft leggings. Ghost-free trip, Scarlet. How hard is that to remember?
I glanced at the bathroom door. “I probably should get going,” I told Holly, flipping upside down to shake some life back into my hair. “Thanks to his Navy days, Lucas never takes more than five minutes to get ready.”
Holly laughed. “Guys sure have it rough, huh? No makeup, hair, or styling needed. They just roll out of bed, splash some water on their faces, and voila!”
“It’s just the burden they have to bear,” I deadpanned.
“Poor things.”
“The ghosts are really okay though?” I knew how much of a handful they could be, and it would be just like Holly to gloss over minor indiscretions in order to make my vacation good.
“Is that a hint of disappointment I’m hearing?” she asked, a lilt of teasing in her voice.
I chewed on my lower lip for a moment. “Maybe…?”
She laughed softly. “I promise, Scarlet, they’re fine.”
“It’s just, I was kind of … harsh with them, right before I left.”
“Don’t sweat it. Gwen mentioned you all butted heads, but she doesn’t seem upset about it. You can work it out when you get home. I’m sure. A little break from each other is probably the best thing.”
“All right. Thanks. It really—”
Lucas burst from the bathroom, a plush towel cinched around his waist. His cell phone was pressed against one ear and he didn’t look at me as he hurried to his suitcase and dug out a pair of jeans and a t-shirt. He dressed with jerky motions, speaking in clipped words with whoever was on the other line.
“Scarlet?” Holly said. “You still there?”
When Good Ghosts Get the Blues Page 4
