Ghost Haste

by ReGina Welling

  And she was the one calling my mood dark?

  “Something happened last night.” I gave her the short version of events.

  “That’s the same Albert who quit or got fired after you did?” Amber zipped back and forth, her feet hovering inches above the floor. The ghostly version of pacing a room, I guessed. “Do you think there’s a connection?”

  “To what?” My brain still felt sludgy from two short nights of sleep in a row. “The office closed down, and Paul probably hired someone willing to take less money. I can’t see how that had anything to do with me.”

  “No, you idiot, the accident, or mugging, or whatever. Maybe he knew something your ex-husband wouldn’t want made public. Tell me everything about the last time you saw the man. Maybe there’s a clue.”

  Amber stopped zipping back and forth and settled in one spot to listen.

  “You’re going to hurt yourself with these wild leaps of logic.” My tone was dryer than a forgotten house plant, but Amber merely circled a hand to indicate I should start talking.

  “There’s not a lot to tell. I went to work, he stopped me before I could get on the elevator and told me he couldn’t let me go up.”

  “But what did he say? What did you say to him? Give me a visual.”

  Pausing, I let the scene replay in my head. “I walked in and asked about his daughter. Alicia had taken her SATs, and I asked how she did. If he answered, I can’t remember. Then he told me he couldn’t let me go up to my office and very gently said I’d been fired. He was sorry, and I could tell he didn’t like being the bearer of bad news.”

  Now that I’d dredged up pieces of the worst day of my life, more bits and pieces surfaced.

  “He gave me a box of my things and there was a weird moment.”

  “Now we’re getting somewhere.” Amber leaned forward. “What happened?”

  Risking her ire, I paused again to bring the moment clear. “It wasn’t what he said so much as the way he said it. ‘I got them to let me collect your things.’ His eyes went all intense or something. I was so blindsided, I just let him carry the box to my car, and I drove away. But it occurs to me now that it was odd.”

  “Well?”

  I’d apparently paused again because Amber seemed impatient.

  “Well what?”

  “What was in the box? You really are worthless in the morning.”

  Amber earned herself a glare. “Nothing much. A house plant, the photos from my desk.” I frowned trying to picture it. “My mother unpacked it, I think … wait.” I closed my eyes. “There was an envelope. One of those yellow ones.”

  “Okay,” Amber drew the word out long. “What was in the envelope? I swear it’s like trying to drag a mule over a mud puddle to get any information out of you.”

  Now I felt like the idiot she thought I was. “I didn’t open it.”

  She let out a pained sigh. “Why on earth not?”

  “Look,” I snapped, my blood pressure kicked up a notch. “I had just been dumped, fired, found a dead body, become haunted, bought this house practically sight-unseen, and was moving in. All in the course of a week. Excuse me if one or two minor details fell through the cracks.”

  When I didn’t jump right up, she said in a long-suffering tone, “Don’t you think maybe you should take a look at it now?”

  You can’t burn a ghost with a look. I know, because I tried. Amber folded her arms and tapped her toes with a hollow, almost echo of sound.

  “I would, but I don’t know where it is.” There, I admitted it. And I pinched the bridge of my nose to stave off the beginning of a tension headache. “The last time—the only time, really—I remember seeing it, it was on the counter with the plant and the nameplate from my desk.”

  Even though I knew the envelope hadn’t been lying on my countertop for six months, my gaze still strayed in that direction.

  “I have no idea what happened to it after that.”

  Still looking annoyed, Amber speculated. “It was probably your severance package. There might have even been a check in there.”

  That one made me snort and dispelled the tension around my eyes. “Can’t sever what never existed. It was an unpaid position. Paul said taking the job was a good way to do my part for the family. The way he treated me during the divorce,” I shook my head. “Let’s put it this way, if there was a check in that envelope, I'd eat it on toast.”

  My phone rang before she could start in on me about finding the envelope, but I made a mental note to ask Jacy if she’d seen it while we were unpacking. Failing that, my mother might have put it away, and she’d remember where it was for sure. Kitty Dupree had a mind like a steel trap.

  Sometime during the conversation with Jacy about whether I thought Alicia would prefer a pink or purple throw in her gift box, Amber faded out. I considered that a blessing, and when I pulled my attention back to the conversation, Jacy announced she would pick me up, and we’d go to the shop together to decide.

  “Patrea sent a text earlier saying she has a container of baked goods, but asked if we would wait until late afternoon to go.” While we talked, I headed upstairs and dug out a gift bag from the drawer where Catherine had kept them. Tucking the phone between my shoulder and ear, I went into the next room and began to fill the bag.

  “Afternoon works for me. I don’t have to collect rents until the bank opens on Monday, so I’m on call for emergencies, but otherwise, I’m free. I’m raiding the pack-rat cabinet in the upstairs bathroom for toiletries as we speak. Catherine certainly didn’t skimp when it came to stocking up on toothbrushes and soaps. She had good taste in brands, too.”

  Jacy sighed. “I do wish I’d had a chance to know Mrs. Willowby better before she passed. If I’d known you would end up owning Spooky … her house”—Jacy hastily amended the name we never used for my house anymore—“I’d have made more of an effort.”

  In a very real sense, Catherine Willowby had become my benefactor. I’d found some of her diaries, and having read a bit, knew how lonely she’d been toward the end of her life.

  “She’d have loved you.” Everyone did. Jacy was too sunny not to love.

  Moving back to the original topic, Jacy said, “Neena’s bringing magazines and a selection of books for Alicia to choose from. She has wide tastes, so something ought to suit. I think that should cover all the bases.” I could all but hear the sympathy radiating across the phone. Jacy’s heart was bigger than the sky.

  CHAPTER SIX

  THE BIGGEST THING about being haunted that I will never get used to is ghosts popping in whenever they feel like it. Amber had a habit of picking the worst times, too.

  “I guess I missed moving day, so my services as a spy are no longer needed.”

  On my hands and knees with half my body inside the bathroom cabinet, I banged my head on the shelf above when Amber spoke.

  “Ouch. Is it really necessary to sneak up behind me like that? You could see what I was doing, right? But still, you thought that cleaning cabinets was the perfect time for parsing cryptic comments from a pesky ghost.” I rubbed my head where it had made contact with solid wood.

  “Always with the drama. Your ex has moved,” Amber said slowly as if I wouldn’t understand the words without her drawing them out long. “I was just there two days ago, and there was no sign they were planning to leave. Everything in its place and nary a packed box to be seen.”

  “Nary a one, huh?” I couldn’t help teasing her a little.

  “There’s nothing wrong with having a decent command of language, and that’s not the point. There’s a sold sticker on the sign out front, and they’ve already moved out. I missed it, and you know what that means.”

  I finally caught on. “It means you can’t sneak around and check on Paul and Reva anymore because you haven’t been where they are.”

  Amber grimaced. “I’m not sure you can call it sneaking when I walk right through the door, bold as brass. Just because they can’t see me doesn’t mean anything.”
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  She meant through the door in the most literal sense. I didn’t have the heart to point out she’d learned very little useful information up to now, or that I had no interest in hearing the way Reva cooed and stroked Paul’s ego on a daily basis.

  Or in talking about it anymore. “Nothing to do about it now.”

  “Sure, there is. You find out where they moved and take me there.”

  “Do you even hear what you’re saying? The FBI is watching me, and you want me to stalk my ex-husband so you can do a little ghostly breaking and entering? No, okay? Just no.”

  I pointed to the jumble of items strewn over the bathroom floor. “If you’ll excuse me, I have things to do today.” Now that the cleaning bug had bitten me, I intended to finish with the bathroom and the medium bedroom.

  In a huff, Amber faded out.

  Midway through sorting the contents of yet another of Catherine’s drawers, I heard Molly’s less-than-delicate steps on the stairs. She barreled into the room, saw me, bunched her muscles, and flattened my stack of carefully folded handkerchiefs.

  “Molly!” I began to chide her, but then saw her hackles were up, her fur ruffled all along her spine. “What’s—” The doorbell rang. “Ah, someone’s here. You could have just barked, you know. Then I wouldn’t have more work to do.”

  I rose, and, happy that she’d done her job of alerting me, Molly sent the old bedsprings zinging with a second leap to the floor. Plastic eggs that had once contained pantyhose—and don’t get me started on how odd a marketing idea that had been—flew like shrapnel. Two of them cracked open when they hit the floor to disgorge their contents, which were not pantyhose, but money.

  That Catherine had been something of a hidden hoarder, I’d learned within a day of moving into the house. To the untrained eye, every room had looked relatively tidy, with only a few more doodads on the shelves and more furniture than strictly necessary. But every stuffed-to-the-brim drawer, cabinet, and closet told a different tale.

  The doorbell rang again, followed by a hammering knock, and Molly growled.

  “I’m coming!” I called as I headed down the stairs.

  Patrea would have a fit, but I didn’t use the security app to check who was standing on the porch. I merely opened the door and then slammed it shut again wishing I had.

  “Where is he?” Reva, my nemesis. My former friend. The woman who’d broken up my marriage shouted through the door. “Paul! I know you’re in there. At least be man enough to dump me in person.”

  I couldn’t help it, I opened the door again. “Have you lost your mind? Paul isn’t here.”

  “Are you sure?”

  The spot between my eyes began to ache. “Of course, I’m sure. Don’t you think I’d know if there was a lying, cheating weasel in my house? The smell alone would give him away.”

  It felt good to slam the door in her face a second time and would have felt better yet if that had been the end of it, but she rang the bell again.

  “Open up, Everly. Please!”

  “Go away, Reva. I have nothing to say to you.”

  Molly growled again. The dog had excellent taste in people.

  “Please! I don’t know where else to turn.”

  Was she crying? Miss I’m-Made-of-Stone never cried. I didn’t trust it, or her.

  But I opened the door out of morbid curiosity.

  “What do you want? I told you Paul isn’t here, so skedaddle.” Positioning myself dead center of the opening, I left not even a spare inch for her to get past me. Not that she’d try with Molly standing guard.

  Compared to the snotty way she’d acted the last time she’d landed on my doorstep, Reva looked like she hadn’t had a good day. Some little part of me took pleasure in that. The rest of me didn’t seem to mind.

  “I know I don’t deserve a second chance.” She stared at my shoes as if unable to look me in the eye. “But I’m begging you for one anyway. We were friends once, and I need a friend right now. I need my best friend. I need you.”

  “Excuse me while I go find a shovel to clear that load of crap off my porch. What’s your ulterior motive, Reva? Because I know you’ve got one.” I folded my arms across my chest, tilted my head to the side, and glared at her.

  She held up shaking hands. “I don’t. I really don’t. I’m just … I’m sorry. For everything. I’ve wanted to say that for so long.”

  “Well, there, you’ve said it. You can go now and enjoy my ex with a clear conscience.”

  As far as I was concerned, she could have him, and that same little part of me hoped he did to her what he’d done to me. Or worse.

  “No, I can’t because Paul left me. He’s gone, and I have nowhere to go, no money to pay for a place to stay, and no one else to turn to.”

  “So coming here with a lame apology is what, a bid for sympathy because you’ve been dumped by the man who dumped me? Did you think we were going to be solidarity sisters because we shared a crappy experience?” I barked out a short laugh. “You’re out of luck because I have none for you. Not even a shred.”

  “I don’t deserve it. I know that.” Reva shivered dramatically. “Can’t we go inside and talk? It’s freezing out here.”

  I wanted to say no. I wanted to boot her off my porch, but I heard Grammie Dupree’s voice as plain as day.

  Keep your enemies close.

  Good advice, I supposed. What with Paul trying to frame me for his crimes, Reva might know something that would help the feds finally pin him down for good. It wouldn’t hurt my feelings a bit to be the one holding the key to his freedom. I could almost hear the cell door slamming behind him with a satisfying clang.

  “I guess you can come in.” Grudgingly, I stepped back to let her in. “But if you piss me off, I’ll sic Molly on you, and this time, I won’t pull her back.”

  Reva had no way of knowing that Molly was usually the gentlest of dogs. Their first and last experience together had been anything but gentle, but when you slap a dog’s person, they often take great offense.

  Chilled air and too much sickly-sweet perfume followed Reva inside where I didn’t offer her a drink, or to take her coat, or any other pleasantry. She wasn’t welcome, and I wanted her to know it.

  “Okay, you wormed your way in here, so say what you came to say, and then leave,” I ordered.

  “You’ve changed,” was the unexpected comment. “I never thought you’d turn into such a hard case.” Reva’s breath hitched, and her lip trembled. “I’m standing here begging for your forgiveness, and you couldn’t care less. I never meant to hurt you.”

  My eyebrows went up in shock, then down in a frown. “So it was accidental sex you were having with my husband when I walked in on you?” Fingernails dug into my palms when my fists clenched hard.

  “How did that go, exactly?” I didn’t give her time to answer. “Wait, I know. Paul invited you up to admire the new sheets, and you both tripped on your way in, conveniently falling out of your clothing and landing on the bed together at an odd angle that I mistook for sex. Is that your story?”

  “No.” Reva pulled her collar up around her face. “I didn’t say the relationship was an accident, just that I didn’t plan to break up your marriage. It just sort of happened.”

  I shook my head to dislodge the fantasy of lightning striking her down where she stood and remembered another thing my Grammie Dupree used to say. The best way to find out what’s under the hood is to kick the tires.

  Okay, I know that makes no sense to anyone who has ever driven a car, but what she meant was the best way to see what a person is made of is to poke at them a little. Or maybe that wasn’t really what she meant, and I just wanted to poke Reva to get some of my own back. Either way worked for me.

  “Well, it’s not difficult to tell what Paul saw in you. He gets off on knowing he’s the smartest one in a relationship.”

  I left her an opening wide enough to drive a team of bulls through, but instead of taking it, her lip trembled again, and tears gathered. The
kind I wanted to think were fake but seemed genuine enough.

  “He’s gone, and I don’t know where he is. I almost hoped to find him here.”

  “Never!” I swore. “I would rather crawl across broken glass just to bathe in a tub of vinegar than spend five minutes with Paul.”

  There didn’t seem much else to say on the subject, but Reva showed no signs of leaving. Not even when I said, “If you’ve said everything you came to say, I have things to do.”

  Drawers to sort, ghosts to help. You know, the usual.

  “It’s just … I thought … it’s probably stupid to ask, but the house sold faster than we planned, so we were staying at a hotel until we found something else. But Paul took off, I guess, without paying. They asked me to leave, and now I don’t have anywhere else to go. Since we’re in sort of the same boat, I thought maybe you’d let me stay here.”

  “Here?” My eyes went so wide they hurt a little. “You want to stay here.”

  So many emotions, not the least of which was admiration for her having the guts to ask, and pity for her being just that stupid.

  “No,” I said without heat or inflection.

  Keeping your enemies close is one thing, letting them sleep in your house is entirely another.

  “The best I can do is get you a room at the Bide-A-Way for a night or two while you figure out your next move.”

  “Move,” Reva repeated. She snapped her fingers and her face cleared. “That’s it. I know where Paul went. We were talking about moving to Denver. He probably flew out to look at a place and forgot his phone charger. That’s why he’s not answering calls. He’ll come back for me in a day or two.”

  The Paul I knew wouldn’t have moved to Denver, but then, the Paul I thought I knew wouldn’t have hooked up with someone this foolish. And looking at real estate didn’t explain the early checkout, but Reva smiled like she’d been given the world’s largest lollipop.

  “Two days at the most, and he’ll come back for me. Let me stay here and try to make all this up to you. I want my friend back. I’ve missed you so much.”