Parker And The Gypsy

by Susan Carroll

With a wicked grin at her, Mike continued to coax. “C’mon, Mamie. Not all of us have eternity to wait around. I could die of old age and turn into a spook myself while you keep me standing here.”

  Sara sucked in her breath. The man was asking for it. And he got it. An icy wind swept through the room and the chandelier began to shake violently.

  “What th—” Mike exclaimed. The next instant he went stumbling forward toward the stairs. He was thrown to his knees and would have sprawled flat on his face if he hadn’t grabbed the newel post to break his fall.

  Sara winced, prepared to duck behind the front desk if paint cans and other stray objects started to fly. But the chandelier gave one more ominous rattle, then all was silent

  Clutching the stair post, Mike slowly regained his footing. Swearing fluently under his breath, he bent down, rubbing his right leg. Sara rushed toward him.

  “Michael, are you all right?”

  “Yeah, sure.” He grimaced. “I just banged my knee up against that blasted post and aw—hell, look at this.” He gestured with disgust to where a loose nail had torn a perfect vee in his pant’s leg. “Those were my best jeans, dammit!”

  “I’m sorry,” Sara murmured. “I tried to warn you. You’re lucky it wasn’t worse.”

  “What wasn’t worse?” he said testily. “I tripped over a loose board or something. That’s all.”

  Sara stared at him incredulous. “You didn’t notice that chilling blast of air or the chandelier rattling?”

  Mike paused to cast an uneasy scowl up at the light fixture and then shrugged. “It’s an old house. There’s bound to be plenty of creaks and rattles. That chandelier looks loose. No wonder it shakes when there’s a cold draft.”

  “It’s almost ninety degrees outside,” Sara pointed out.

  “So what? You’re trying to tell me a ghost just waltzed through here?”

  “I’m not trying, I am saying it! Didn’t you feel her push you?”

  “Oh, for the love of—” Mike broke off his muttered exclamation, then continued in a tone of strained patience. “Sara, I had my eyes open the whole time. If anyone or anything had pushed me, I’d have seen them.”

  “You can’t see Mamie.”

  “Invisible, is she? No bed sheets or chains?”

  “Well, not all the time.”

  “Ohh. You mean sometimes she does wear chains?”

  “No!” Sara snapped, feeling her own temper start to fray. “I mean that sometimes you can catch just a glimpse of Mamie in the window or a mirror.”

  “And that’s how you communicate with her? Mirror, mirror, on the wall, show me the biggest spook of all?”

  “No!”

  “Then how’d you ever find out about the existence of John Patrick? About him being missing and Mamie wanting to find him.”

  “It’s—it’s hard to explain,” Sara said. Especially to a skeptic like Mike. “I’ve never been exactly sure how Mamie speaks to me. But I actually hear her voice in my ear.”

  “Ah. You hear voices.” Mike nodded as if to say he wasn’t at all surprised. He was giving her that hateful patronizing look she’d been seeing on people’s faces ever since she was three years old.

  “Never mind,” she choked out. “I should have known better than to ever bring you out here.”

  “Maybe you should have.” Mike stopped rubbing his knee long enough to eye her with sudden suspicion. “What was the big idea, Sara? You didn’t lure me to this inn because you were hoping to get me believing all this supernatural junk, did you? Because if that’s what this is all about—”

  “No, of course it isn’t,” she denied hotly, but his charge had just enough truth in it to mortify her. She realized that she had been hoping to prove to Mike that Mamie did exist. That Sara wasn’t just imagining things or worse still, ready for a padded cell.

  But why should she care about proving anything to the arrogant Mike Parker? Almost everyone else thought she was crazy. What did it matter if he did, too?

  That was just the trouble. On some level, it did matter. It mattered a lot.

  Concealing her dismay, she said, “We came out here to get Mamie’s old photographs, remember?”

  “Then maybe we better just get them.” He sneered. “That is unless your ghost lady has decided she doesn’t like me and I can’t have them.”

  Sara glared at him. “No, you can have them. For some reason I can’t begin to guess, she likes you well enough.”

  “How the hell do you know that?”

  “You’re still here, aren’t you?” Sara said with acid sweetness. Brushing past him, she stormed up the stairs, not bothering to look back to see if he followed.

  Five

  Mike watched in frustration as Sara disappeared into the shadows of the upper hall. Then he sank down on the steps, dangling his hands in front of him, his knee still throbbing.

  “Great! Just great,” he muttered as he massaged it. Not only had he wrecked his knee and torn his pants, but now he had Sara mad at him.

  Well, he’d had a juvenile correction officer once who told him he was enough to try the patience of a saint. Or—Mike glanced ruefully up the stairs at the spot where Sara had vanished—or in this case, an angel.

  Mike expelled his breath in a gusty sigh. He hadn’t meant to torment Sara about her belief in ghosts. It was just this damned old inn, he thought casting an uneasy glance around the silent, brooding walls.

  Much as he hated to admit it, the place had been giving him the creeps ever since he’d set foot inside. Oh, not that he bought into this haunted house stuff or anything like that. Not for a minute. Although there had been a fleeting second when his imagination had worked overtime, when he almost had believed he’d felt a pair of icy hands shoving—

  Mike was quick to dismiss the notion. It wasn’t Mamie Patrick’s spirit bugging him, only the ghosts of his own devising. The ones he carried with him all the time.

  Truth was, this damned inn gave him a stupid sense of déjà vu, reminding him too much of the shabby, down-at-the-heels joints he’d been dragged to by his old man. Grand Hotels that weren’t quite so grand anymore.

  “Someday, Mikey,” Robert Parker had always boasted. “Someday it’ll be nothing but the Hilton and the Claridge Arms for us.”

  Mike pulled a wry face, wondering if Mamie Patrick had ever promised her kid stuff like that. If so, she hadn’t been able to keep her vows any better than Mike’s old man.

  She was dead.

  And Robert Parker’s Hilton had turned out to be Trenton State.

  Mike’s thoughts shifted grimly to the letter lying on the floorboard of his car. Too bad he hadn’t checked his mail more carefully and realized the letter was there before Sara ever saw it, before he had a chance to dwell on it himself. He could have pounced on it, ripped it to shreds, tossed it in the garbage like he always did.

  But he’d been reluctant to do that in front of Sara. It might have been far too revealing, and he had a disquieting feeling that his gypsy lady had already seen a whole lot more than he wanted her to.

  Holding on to the stair rail, Mike forced himself painfully to his feet. All in all, this case was turning out to be less than comfortable. Now, on top of everything else, he had a streak of dust across the sleeve of his jacket.

  Mike slapped at it in disgust, beginning to wonder if all this was worth it, just to get at Xavier Storm.

  An image of Storm’s arrogant mocking face swam before Mike’s eyes.

  Yeah, it was, Mike decided with a thin smile.

  Turning around, he hobbled stiffly up the stairs to go in search of Sara. He’d have to apologize for being a jerk. Again. But that was okay. He was good at it. He’d spent most of his miserable life being sorry....

  Reaching the upper landing, Mike was confronted by a formidable row of doors. But it wasn’t too difficult to figure out where Sara had gone. The one at the end stood ajar and he could hear her rustling around.

  Limping down the corridor, he peered across the thres
hold. After the time Darcy had bounced a CD player off his head, Mike had learned to be cautious while entering a room that contained an angry woman.

  Sara stood by the windows in the small, stuffy bedroom, trying to throw open one of the casements. Her back was to Mike, but he was certain she was aware of him hovering in the doorway. She stiffened and he could almost swear the hairs at the nape of her neck prickled. But she didn’t look ready to bash his head in, so Mike risked coming closer.

  Skirting around the end of a cannonball-post bed, he said, “Here. Let me get that.”

  “No, thank you. I can manage.”

  Brr! The chill in her voice was colder than the draft that had rocked the chandelier. Mike watched her struggle stubbornly with the window for a moment more before thrusting her impatiently aside.

  Tensing his muscles, he forced the casement open with one mighty shove. A breeze filtered in from the direction of the distant lake, making the room a little more bearable.

  His macho display obviously made no impression on Sara, but she said stiffly, “Thank you.”

  So that was it. She wasn’t the sort of woman to throw digital clocks when she was annoyed. She was just going to beat him to death with rigid politeness.

  He’d have preferred the clock. It was strange. He’d endured the worst of Darcy’s temper tantrums with sardonic indifference, only taking care to move out of range. But the quiet stony set of Sara’s profile really bothered him.

  It was like he was already getting too damn used to basking in the sunshine of the woman’s smiles. When she started to move away from him, he caught her by the wrist and said, “Aw, c’mon, angel. There’s no need for you to get your wings this ruffled.”

  “I’m not ruffled,” Sara stated, pulling her hand free.

  “Yeah, you are.” Mike dusted one finger across the bridge of her nose. “When you get annoyed, you get this cute little flush across your cheekbones and the tip of your nose.”

  Sara went cross-eyed, squinting down as though to see if it was true. Then she stopped, scowling at him.

  “I didn’t mean to be so short with you downstairs,” Mike continued. “But you welshed on our bargain, sugar. You promised you wouldn’t try to get me involved with this spook stuff.”

  “And you promised you’d keep your skepticism to yourself.”

  “So I did, and I’m sorry. I guess sometimes my mouth moves a lot faster than my brain.”

  He gave her a coaxing smile. “Friends again?”

  Sara nodded. “All right. But no more ghost jokes. You promise?”

  “Cross my heart and hope to—er—not die.”

  Her lips quivered and then her angel’s smile was back again, making him feel a little giddy and almost absurdly lighthearted. Sara obviously wasn’t the type to hold a grudge. Unlike him. He wondered if she’d ever been able to stay mad at anybody for long.

  She seemed to have a very generous and forgiving spirit, almost too good to be true. He’d seen a lot of women come and go, mostly go. But he’d never known one quite like her.

  Instead of getting down to business as he should have done, he found himself studying her intently. After a brief hesitation, he said, “At the risk of making you mad again, do you mind if I ask you a personal question?”

  “That depends on what it is.” She was still smiling, but a certain wariness crept into her eyes.

  “What’s your angle in all this?”

  “My angle?”

  “Yeah, what are you hoping to get out of all this Patrick business? Proof that ghosts do exist? That you really are a psychic? Your picture on the cover of Supernatural Geographic or something like that?”

  Sara laughed, a sound of genuine amusement, a very kissable dimple hovering at the corner of her mouth. “No, Michael,” she said. “I’m not out to prove anything. I gave up trying to make anyone believe in me a long time ago.”

  “Then what is it?” he persisted. “Why are you taking all these risks, poking around in this decrepit old inn, spending your own money, to find the kid of a woman who died before you were born? Someone you never even knew.”

  “It’s no use me attempting to explain, Michael. You’d never understand.”

  “Try me,” he said, although he wondered himself why he was so interested. Maybe it was because she genuinely baffled him. She was like some bright exotic little bird that had fluttered into the gray pavement of his world, and he really wanted to understand her before she flew off again.

  Sara gave him a doubtful glance and spread her hands in a helpless gesture. “I honestly don’t know, Michael. Something about Mamie Patrick just touched me. I feel a strange sense of kinship with her. Maybe because I’m a bit of a lost soul myself. Maybe because we’re both outsiders here in Aurora Falls.”

  “You? I thought you were born and raised here.”

  “I moved here a year ago when I inherited my aunt’s shop after she died. I explained all that to you yesterday. Don’t you remember?”

  Unfortunately, Mike didn’t.

  “Sorry,” he said. “Guess my mind was on more...” His gaze drifted to the delectable curve of her breasts. “On—on your fairies. You’re not wearing them today.”

  “No, I’m not.” Sara’s hand fluttered self-consciously to the delicate gold chain around her neck that disappeared intriguingly inside her bodice.

  Mike couldn’t restrain his curiosity. Gently nudging her hand aside, he hooked the gold chain with one finger and reeled up the small gemstone at the other end. It looked like a bit of purple-colored crystal cut in the shape of a prism.

  Cupping it in his hand, he asked, “What’s this?”

  “It’s an amethyst. It’s supposed to relieve stress and promote a sense of inner calm.”

  “Does it work?”

  A gleam of humor shone in Sara’s eyes. “It did until you turned up in my shop.”

  Mike grinned back, but he realized she was only partly kidding. He could sense the beginning of tension in her because he could feel it stealing over him, a heavy awareness of the intimacy of their situation. Alone together in the cramped confines of the bedroom, him standing so close he could breathe in the fresh scent of her golden hair, his hand suspended just above the soft swell of her breast.

  Amusement faded and suddenly they were both staring into each other’s eyes a heartbeat too long for comfort. Sara spooked first. Tugging her pendant free of his hand, she tucked it safely back inside her sundress and then moved away, putting a safe distance between them.

  “Perhaps we’d better look at the photographs now,” she said with a trace of nervousness.

  “The photographs?” Mike’s gaze longingly charted the course her necklace had taken. He gave a sharp jerk, forcing himself to snap out of it. “Oh, yeah. The photographs. Sure. Get them out.”

  While Sara rummaged around in the depths of a deep walk-in closet, Mike paced back to the window. He tried to suck in a deep breath of fresh air, but there just didn’t seem to be enough of it.

  Maybe he didn’t understand Sara, but he understood himself too well. A beautiful woman plus the proximity of a bed. It was a simple equation and made for an embarrassing but totally male reaction. All his stiffness now wasn’t just owing to his bruised knee.

  But it wasn’t owing to any strange mystic attraction between him and Sara, either. Just a little jolt of lust in the afternoon— that’s all it was. And he could fend it off by keeping his mind fixed more on the case and less on her.

  He prowled about the room, trying to make himself look brisk and busy detecting. After all, he hadn’t done much of anything impressive so far besides manage to fall up the stairs. Better convince Sara she’d be getting her money’s worth.

  But there wasn’t a whole lot to inspect. The room was dismally small, almost stark in its furnishings, the bed with its mattress stripped bare, a small dresser and mirror, a rickety bookshelf mounted on the wall, its dusty volumes cracked and yellowed with age.

  And of course there was the requisite
worn carpet and faded wallpaper. All too depressingly familiar. Mike’s urge to play detective left him. All he wanted to do was get the damned pictures and get out of here.

  Sara emerged at last from the closet, looking flushed, a small black-lacquered jewel box in her hands.

  “There aren’t many of Mamie’s things left after all this time,” she said apologetically. “Just this box she kept hidden beneath a loose floorboard in the closet and those books up there that no one ever bothered to move.”

  She set the jewel box down on the bed, but Mike made no move to take it. He averted his gaze to the books on the shelves, finding it easier somehow than focusing on Sara’s shapely form, the bed looming so suggestively between them.

  Not that he expected to gain anything from checking out Mamie’s books. They were an uninspiring lot. He grimaced as he read some of the titles.

  “Plane Geometry, Biology, Senior English. What great bedtime reading. Better than a sleeping pill.”

  “Mamie was studying to get her G.E.D. right up until she...” Sara let the thought trail off, unspoken.

  Mike wasn’t interested in Mamie Patrick as much as he was in the mysterious, missing John and his connection to Storm. But he couldn’t seem to help asking, “So what happened to her?”

  “She was only twenty-four when she discovered she was dying from leukemia,” Sara said softly. “She was planning to put John Patrick up for adoption herself, but she couldn’t bear to part with him. She kept putting off the decision until... until it was too late. She simply collapsed one day and had to be rushed to the hospital. She never regained consciousness. When her spirit was finally able to drift back here to the inn, John was long gone.”

  “The state welfare people probably swooped in on him. Poor kid.” Mike grimaced. When had been the last time he had seen his own mother? Had he been six or seven?

  He wasn’t sure. He couldn’t recall her face, but other unwelcome images remained. The sound of sirens, an ambulance stretcher, her hand reaching out to him, a soft voice assuring him that everything was going to be all right.

  But of course, it hadn’t been. Other memories intruded. He never knew where his father had been during this time, probably off trying to fleece old ladies at bingo or something like that. All Mike recalled was himself, huddled alone on the bed in another hotel room, weeping softly into his pillow. As far as he could remember, it was the last time he’d ever cried....