Ghostly Endeavor (A Harper Harlow Mystery Book 19)

by Lily Harper Hart

  “I don’t know. I don’t always doubt it. Sometimes, though, when Jared and I are laughing I have this flash. I wonder what would happen if I lost him.”

  “You won’t lose him.”

  “I know but ... .”

  “You seemingly lost Quinn,” Zander surmised. “I get it. The Quinn situation was different. He turned out to be a world-class jerk and you never truly loved him. The scar of what happened with him remains, though. You don’t have to be afraid. Jared is not Quinn. He will never leave you. He’s far too loyal ... and in love.”

  “Oh, you really do love Jared.”

  Zander flicked her ear. “If you need to hear it, I’ll say it … again. Just one more time, though.” He took a bracing breath. “I love Jared. It’s not just that I love what he’s done for you, or how safe he’s made you feel, but I also love him. He’s brave ... and handsome ... and one of the best people I’ve ever met.”

  Harper was flabbergasted. “Seriously?”

  Zander nodded. “I also like messing with him. Believe it or not, he likes it when I mess with him. You have got to let this thing go where you worry about that stuff. That’s simply how we communicate.”

  Harper pursed her lips and then nodded. “Okay, but you still should be nice to him at least once a week.”

  “How do you know I’m not nice to him?”

  “He would tell me.”

  “He doesn’t tell you everything. The big things he tells you. The little things, like how I bought him a coffee and delivered it to him on the scene of an accident four months ago, he doesn’t mention.”

  Harper shifted quickly. “Did you really do that?”

  Zander grinned. “Just because I like to be me, that doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate him. Or you.” He tugged on a strand of her hair. “As for those women inside, they’re not you. I love you. I get you. You love and accept the real me in return. They don’t like the real me. They don’t even want to get to know the real me. They just like the idea of me.”

  Harper nodded her head in understanding. “Only someone like me can truly get you. Oh, and Shawn.”

  Zander nodded as he stroked his hand over her hair. “I have two soulmates in this world. You were the first. Nothing can ever replace you in my life.”

  “You still need to be nicer to Jared sometimes.”

  “I’ll take it under consideration.” Zander stood there a beat and then shook his head, as if dislodging himself from a fog. “So ... are we taking ice cream home or not? If so, I think you should get those colored chocolate chips for Jared’s ice cream. They look sort of like nipples and I have some new jokes I’ve been working on.”

  Harper’s eyes narrowed. “Will you stop with the nipples? His nipples are perfectly normal.”

  “No. I can’t stop now that I’ve started. It’s become something of a game between us.”

  “It doesn’t feel like a game.”

  “Well, it is.” Zander pressed a kiss to her forehead and then stepped back. “Ice cream, right? You promised before we left.”

  “We have to go right now,” Harper argued, inclining her head toward the ice cream shop. “They literally close in five minutes.”

  “Then we should go right now. I ... .” Zander froze when he saw the way Harper’s expression shifted. For a moment, he thought her eyes were going to roll back in her head and he instinctively extended his arms and grabbed her by the shoulders. “What is it?”

  “Home.” It was the only word Harper could manage thanks to the overwhelming fear that was suddenly crashing down around her. “We have to go home.”

  “What is it?” Zander demanded.

  “Jared. There’s something happening at home. He ... needs me.”

  Zander didn’t need to be told twice. “I’ll drive.”

  THE HOUSE WAS DARK WHEN HARPER and Zander arrived. Too dark. The porch light, which Jared left on all night (every night), was out. The faint illumination from the television that always emanated from the living room late at night was also missing.

  “What’s happening?” Zander shifted his eyes across the road, to his house. The porch light shone bright there. “Is the power out?”

  “I don’t know.” Harper strode toward the front door with determination, slapping away Zander’s hands when they shot out to catch her around the waist. “Stop it! Jared needs me.”

  Zander wanted to point out that Jared would be furious if she purposely walked into danger, but he didn’t get a chance because the front door flew open at that moment and Jared and Shawn rushed out.

  Jared pulled up short when he saw his wife. “Run.” He grabbed her around the waist and tried to carry her to the car. “We need to get out of here right now.”

  “What’s happening?” Zander demanded of his future husband, who was paler than he’d ever seen him. “What’s going on?”

  “Ghost.” Shawn could barely get the word out he was so flummoxed. “There’s a ghost in the house.”

  Zander tilted his head and studied the quiet house. “I don’t think so.”

  “There is,” Jared insisted. He was still fighting with a squirmy Harper. “That thing is window hopping, rattling the glass. She’s angry.”

  “She?” Harper snapped up her head. “How do you know it’s a she?”

  “Because we’ve seen her,” Shawn shot back. “If this is what you see whenever you deal with a ghost, then I don’t know how you do it. It’s horrible ... and I think I might crap my pants if we don’t get out of here right now.”

  “You’ll do no such thing,” Zander insisted, his eyes flashing with determination. “Don’t be gross.”

  “I’m not being gross.” Shawn gripped the front of Zander’s shirt so tightly his knuckles turned white. “I cannot stay here. We have to go right now. I swear to you that house is turning into The Amityville Horror and we do not want to be present for that.”

  Perplexed, Harper drew her eyebrows together, briefly meeting Zander’s concerned gaze before looking back at the house. She couldn’t decide what to do, which was a rarity for her.

  “Maybe it’s the thing from the lighthouse,” Zander suggested. “Maybe it followed us.”

  “Maybe.” Harper wasn’t convinced. “That presence felt male to me, though. They said they saw a female.”

  “It was definitely a female,” Shawn agreed.

  “It was Cassie,” Jared said in a low voice. He watched the shadows for hints of movement, his body braced for imminent attack.

  “Are you sure?” Harper couldn’t believe it. “I saw her this afternoon and she was fine. Well, she was angry, but she was mostly fine. You didn’t see her this afternoon, right?”

  Jared shook his head, silently reminding himself that she was the expert on this subject. If anybody could figure a way out, it was her. “The power went out. We were just sitting around talking, comparing notes on you guys, and then there was no power. She was in the window, moving from room to room. She’s angry, Harper. I swear she acted like she wanted to hurt us.”

  Rather than climb in the car and take off as Jared and Shawn would’ve preferred, Harper calmly walked to the back of her car and popped the trunk. She rummaged around inside until she came up with multiple dreamcatchers. “Take these.” She doled them out to the others.

  “What are these?” Shawn seemed confused as he held one up so he could study it under the streetlight. “You don’t honestly think we’re going to use these things to catch an evil ghost, do you?”

  “I don’t see where we have another choice.” Harper refused to acknowledge Shawn’s fear because she was afraid it would send him over the edge. They all needed their wits about them for this. “You guys say there’s a ghost in there. We have to trap her.”

  “I think we should wait for the experts,” Shawn argued.

  Harper shot him a rueful smile. “We are the experts.”

  “Oh, right.” He rubbed his forehead. “I seriously don’t like this. I thought seeing ghosts would be fun. This is not fun.�
�

  “I don’t think she’s a normal ghost.” Harper flicked her eyes to Jared, debating, and then pushed forward. “What did you see on her face when she showed up in the window?”

  “Um ... I don’t know.” Jared did his best to hide his fear. “She was paler than the pictures I’ve seen. There were shadows under her eyes.”

  “Were her eyes red?”

  “Yeah. Is that important?”

  “She’s a poltergeist.” Harper absently moved two dreamcatchers to her back, to the spot where she would’ve shoved them if she’d been wearing jeans, and then frowned when she remembered the dress. “Of course.”

  Jared took the dreamcatchers from her. “What’s the plan here?” He might’ve been frightened beyond all reason, but there was no way he would abandon his wife. Nothing scared him more than the thought of losing her. “What do you want us to do?”

  “We need to draw her out,” Harper replied. “When I give the signal, throw a dreamcatcher directly in front of me. I’ll engage it and capture her.”

  “But ... how?” Jared remained confused. “Why can’t you throw the dreamcatcher out?”

  “Because she’ll be serving as bait,” Zander replied. “That’s how we usually operate.”

  Jared murdered Zander with a glare. “I am not sending my wife out to be bait.”

  “You don’t have a choice,” Harper fired back. “This is my show. I make the rules.”

  “But ... .” Jared pressed his lips together. He recognized the fire in her eyes. “Of course it’s your show. I just ... have never been this frightened in my entire life.”

  “Totally,” Shawn agreed. “This is a freaky, freaky world you guys live in.”

  “It’s not normally like this,” Harper countered. “This is ... different.” And that bothered her on a level she couldn’t quite grasp. “Cassie was just a ghost this afternoon. Somehow that changed. We need to figure out why.”

  “Let’s just trap her and send her on her way,” Jared argued. “I mean ... it’s awful she died. We’ll figure out who did it and punish them. I don’t think we should spend a single second longer with her than we have to, though.”

  “Totally,” Shawn said.

  “I think ... .” The hair on Harper’s neck stood on end before she could finish, and when she slowly turned back toward the house, she found Cassie — or rather, what used to be Cassie — staring at her with furious eyes.

  “I think we should go now,” Shawn said, desperately grabbing for his fiancé’s hand. “Like ... right now. Zander ... .”

  “We can’t leave,” Zander replied. From all outward appearances he was calm. His heart was racing, however, and he wished more than anything that he wasn’t separated from Harper by almost ten feet. He knew she would do something stupid to protect them all if she felt it was necessary. “Harp, I know what to do.”

  Harper nodded as she moved away from Jared and toward Cassie. “Hey.” She tried to keep her frame non-threatening.

  The energy around Cassie rippled black.

  “I see you’ve had an interesting afternoon.” Harper gripped the dreamcatcher she clutched in her hand more tightly. “Can you tell me what happened between the time we talked this afternoon and now? I would really like to know.”

  The rippling black returned with a vengeance, and when Cassie finally spoke, it was in a hateful voice Harper didn’t recognize. “You’re supposed to avenge me,” she hissed.

  “Avenge is a strong word.”

  “She killed me.”

  Harper wasn’t surprised to hear the statement. “Just tell us who and we’ll take it from here.”

  “You have to make her pay. She stole everything!” Cassie’s eyes burned bright red and the atmosphere around her aura switched to an orange color that made Harper incredibly nervous.

  As much as the seasoned ghost hunter wanted to question Cassie until she got the answers she was looking for, she knew better. “We’ll make sure whoever did this pays.” Harper tossed out the dreamcatcher. “I promise. Whatever happened, we’ll figure it out.” As Harper lifted her foot to engage the dreamcatcher, a dark whisper washed over the yard and Cassie’s form grew even bigger than it had been before.

  “I will have my reckoning,” she intoned, freezing Harper in her place. “You won’t stop me.”

  Before Harper could react, engage the dreamcatcher and say goodbye to the woman’s tortured spirit, Cassie disappeared. The second she did, the power flashed back on at the house and the dank atmosphere that had been dragging them all down receded like a gentle wave.

  “What was that?” Jared demanded when he finally found his voice, his hand going to his wife’s back. “What is happening?”

  “She remembered,” Harper replied simply. “She knows who killed her, and whoever it was, the memory enraged her to the point where she’s no longer in control of herself.”

  “So, what do we do?” Jared hated feeling helpless but that was the only emotion running through him now.

  “We throw out all the dreamcatchers we have and go to sleep.” Harper was grim. “Tomorrow is a new day ... and we’re going to have to find her and deal with her then.”

  “That’s it?” Jared knew his voice was squeakier than normal, but he couldn’t help himself. “That’s the plan?”

  “Do you have a better one?”

  He worked his jaw, unconvinced. “I don’t know,” he said finally. “I don’t like the idea of going to sleep when there’s a murderous ghost on the loose, though.”

  “I doubt she’ll come back.”

  “That doesn’t make me feel better.”

  “We’ll set traps.” Harper was matter-of-fact. “We’ll make sure there’s no way for her to get in the house. It’s the only thing we can do.”

  Jared studied her face for a long time and then nodded. “Okay, but I’m not going to lie, you’re going to have to hold me all night. Ghosts are freaky.”

  Even though it was a serious situation, Harper’s lips turned up at the corners. “I think I can manage that.”

  “Great.” Jared heaved out a sigh and gripped her shoulder tighter. “When this is over, we’re going to talk about you using yourself as bait.”

  “It’s usually not like this.” And that, Harper realized, was what bothered her most about their situation. “She went from ghost to poltergeist in the matter of a few hours. I’ve never heard of that happening.”

  “So ... what does that mean?” Shawn asked.

  “Whoever killed her, the realization made her crazy. When we get to the end of this, figure it all out, be prepared. It’s going to be bad.”

  “Oh, you’re so full of cheer, Harper.” Jared slid his arm around her waist and anchored her to his side. “We need to figure this out sooner rather than later.”

  “We do,” she agreed. “I have no idea where to start, though.”

  She wasn’t the only one. Jared’s racing heart told him it was time to buckle down, however. Answers had to be found.

  15

  Fifteen

  Harper woke before Jared, which was unusual, and found his head resting on her heart. She’d suggested it when he couldn’t settle, hypervigilance constantly forcing him up to check the windows and doors. Eventually, she couldn’t take it a second longer and adjusted so he could press his ear to her heart. He’d passed out moments later. Since Harper was used to a world with ghosts, she didn’t take nearly as long as him to drift away. She was up way before him, too.

  Most mornings she woke to his hands idly trailing down her back, tracing soothing circles to keep her asleep as long as possible. She tried that technique with him, and it worked for a few minutes. When he finally woke, his eyes were alert.

  “Is she back?”

  Harper shook her head. She was angry on his behalf. This was their home. He deserved to feel safe in it. “She’s not. You’re okay.”

  Jared’s expression was hard to read as he studied her face. Ultimately, he straightened so he could rest his head on his
pillow and pulled her to him, nestling her face in the hollow between his neck and shoulder. “I’m sorry I fell apart last night.”

  Harper immediately started protesting, but he held her close to keep her from pulling away. “You didn’t fall apart,” she insisted. “It was a new experience for you.”

  “It was. I just ... feel like a real idiot. You had a plan. I questioned your plan. That shouldn’t be allowed. I wouldn’t allow you to question me on my crime scene. Of course, you wouldn’t try either.”

  “Yeah, I’ve been on crime scenes with you more times than I can count, and I’ve questioned you each and every time.”

  “No.” He was firm as he moved his hands over her slim back. He loved the way she felt when she was pressed against him. In fact, he wanted to take an entire week of vacation so they could spend the whole time in bed doing exactly this. “You ask questions about what’s happened. You don’t question what I do when I’m on the job or make me think my ideas are somehow wrong. Last night I questioned what your plan was even though you’re the expert.”

  “I don’t really see it that way, but I’m not in the mood to fight.” She propped her chin on his chest. “You know I love you, right?”

  “Of course. You love me best.”

  “I do, and you love me best ... although never tell Zander I said that.”

  Jared let loose a laugh. “I won’t, although I think he knows it deep down.”

  Harper thought back to the conversation she’d had with Zander the night before and nodded. “He knows more than we give him credit for.”

  “He’s wily,” Jared agreed, resting his cheek against her forehead. “I’m afraid for the two of you to be alone today with that ... thing ... out there. I know that makes me an overprotective husband — and I try really hard not to be that person ... and fail a lot — but she was crazed last night.”

  “It’s your first time seeing a ghost.” Harper opted to be rational about it. “You’re allowed a freakout or two.”

  “Yes, but I’m married to the premiere ghost hunter in the Midwest.”

  “World.”