by Maria Geraci
Allie tried not to stare, but it was impossible. This certainly was not the Tom Donalan of her fantasies. The ones she had (only occasionally) after eating too much Ben and Jerry’s Chunky Monkey. In that world Tom Donalan had a beer belly, was bald, and missing a couple of front teeth. A lot of deterioration for only twelve years, but, hey, a girl could dream, right?
This Tom Donalan, on the other hand, had far superseded the promise made by his high school boyish good looks. Tall. Broad shouldered. With a full head of dark blonde hair and piercing blue eyes. He stood there staring at her with his arms crossed over his chest like he was Captain Friggin’ America in charge of the planet.
He looked angry, which didn’t make sense. She was the wronged party here! He’d practically attacked her, for Pete’s sake.
She took a deep breath and tried to act as if running into her ex was an everyday occurrence. “Well, well, well, if it isn’t Tom Donalan. I see you still have all your teeth.”
He blinked and shook his head. “What?”
I see you still have all your teeth.
Argh!
Of all the Tom Donalan scenarios she’d played in her head over all the years, this was not what she was supposed to say to him. She was supposed to be witty. Charming. He was supposed to be dumbstruck by her brilliance. He was at a loss for words, all right.
Allie pasted a smile to her face and tried again. “You need to be more specific. What, as in, what’s my favorite color, or what do I have programmed on my DVR for tomorrow night, or what—”
“What, as in, what are you doing inside this building?”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “I could ask you the exact same question. Where’d you come from anyway?”
“I was driving by and I saw a car in the parking lot. So I stopped to investigate. Now it’s your turn. What are you doing back in town? I thought you lived in Tampa.”
He knew where she lived? “I don’t need a reason to come back home. Certainly not one I need to run by you, anyway. And I thought you lived in Atlanta.”
“Things change,” he said.
“Right. Things change.”
“So are you going to answer me or not?”
The way he stared at her made Allie squirm. Instinctively, she went to run a hand through her hair, then remembered that she’d pulled it back in a ponytail. She didn’t need a mirror to know exactly what she looked like. Ratty shorts, skinned up knee, no makeup. Her When-I See-Tom-Donalan-Again-Revenge-Fantasy was officially zero-for-two now.
“I don’t have to explain myself to you,” she said.
He shrugged in a way that made her want to punch him. How could she have ever thought the two of them were kindred spirits?
“Suit yourself,” Tom said. “But you have about three minutes before the cops show up, and if you don’t want me to press charges you better have a damn good reason for breaking into my building.”
Of all the abandoned buildings in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine. Tom Donalan knew when he moved back to Whispering Bay it would only be a matter of time before he eventually ran into Allie Grant. He just hadn’t expected it to be tonight. Or to be so damn unprepared.
Kismet was truly a bitch.
Allie’s brown eyes sizzled. Which wasn’t the only thing hot about her. Those legs that had nearly caused him to flunk AP chemistry were still going strong.
“Your building?” she said. “I thought this was public property.”
“Public property that’s about to come down to make way for progress. And I’m the guy in charge.” He sounded like an asshole, but he couldn’t seem to help himself.
What was she doing here?
His gaze cut to the broken glass on the ground, leading him to the metallic screen on the floor beneath an open window. “You broke in through the window?”
“I can explain—”
“The place is practically falling down on its own. You get hurt in here, it’s my responsibility.”
“And we all know how big you are on responsibility.” Her eyes went wide, like she hadn’t planned on saying that out loud.
Leave it to Allie Grant. The girl had no filter. Together less than five minutes and she’d already thrown down the gauntlet.
A blue police light flashed through the window.
“Captain Crunch,” she muttered. “You really did call the cops, didn’t you?”
Only Allie Grant would think the name of a kids’ breakfast cereal constituted some kind of cuss word. The first time he’d heard her say it was after she’d botched a chemistry experiment. Almost immediately she’d turned beet red. Her grandmother, she explained, had encouraged her to use the expression to replace saying something not as nice. It had been cute at the time. He remembered the last time he heard her say it. It hadn’t been so cute then.
“I thought you were the same kids who’ve been sneaking around here all week.” He shrugged, and added, “Sorry.” Only he wasn’t sorry he’d called the cops because this building was turning into a real pain in the ass. He was only sorry that… What? That it was Allie Grant he’d found inside?
The door burst open. “Hands in the air!” shouted a uniformed officer. It was Rusty Newton, a member of Whispering Bay’s finest and he was waving a gun like he’d just stepped into a real live version of Die Hard.
Tom put his hands up in the air. “Whoa. Take it easy, Rusty. No one here is armed.”
Other than the Bruce Willis routine, Tom had to admit he was awful glad it was Rusty who’d answered the call. He wasn’t the brightest bulb on the Whispering Bay Police force but he was a good ol’ boy and could be reasoned with.
Rusty holstered his weapon. “What’s going on, Tom? You call in a B&E?”
Allie waved her arm in the air to get the deputy’s attention. “Hey, Rusty. What’s shakin’?”
Rusty did a double take. “Allie? Damn, girl, what are you doing here? Does Zeke know you’re in town?”
“I’m hoping to surprise him,” she said.
“By getting yourself thrown in jail?” Tom asked. There he was, being an asshole again. He should shut his trap, lock up the place, and let Rusty deal with her. God knew he needed to get at least a few hours’ sleep. He doubted that was possible, though. At least not until he found out what Allie Grant was doing inside his building.
She ignored his sarcasm and gave Rusty a sweet smile. A smile Tom instinctively knew was fake. “Actually, I’m here following a lead for a story,” she said.
Rusty frowned. “What’s that got to do with the old senior center?”
“Have you heard any rumors about a ghost haunting this place?” Allie asked.
Rusty’s eyes popped wide. “A ghost? Here? Golly, Allie, no way.”
“Yep. That’s what I’m here to investigate. A real honest-to-life ghost.”
Rusty glanced nervously around the room. “But…if it’s a ghost, then it isn’t alive. Right?”
Allie’s gaze met Tom’s. Just for a second. But long enough for him to know exactly what she was thinking, because he was thinking it, too. Somehow he managed to keep a straight face.
“I was just using a figure of speech, Rusty,” Allie said smoothly.
“Oh, yeah. Sure, sure. So…” Rusty lowered his voice to a near whisper. “Did you see or hear anything…weird in here?”
“Well, I did get a sort of warm and fuzzy feeling, but it disappeared the minute Dirty Harry here came charging in.”
Rusty looked momentarily confused, until he realized Dirty Harry was none other than Tom. “Oh. Just took for granted you two knew one another. Allie, this here is Tom Donalan, he’s the site foreman for Pappas-Hernandez Construction. He’s in charge of taking down the building and putting up the new town rec center.”
“Allie and I already know each other,” Tom said. “We—”
“Went to high school together,” she quickly clarified.
They knew each other a lot better than that, but Tom let it slide.
“High sc
hool, huh? Go Wolverines!” Rusty thrust three fingers in the air to form the letter W. He waved the symbol above his head just like all the kids did during high school football games. Only for Rusty, that must have been at least twenty-five years ago.
Once again, Tom caught Allie’s gaze. This time, she held it a little longer and for an instant it was as if they’d been transported back to their first shared smile, back to the first day of senior year AP Chemistry. As small as Whispering Bay High was, it had been the first time in their entire four year high school career they’d shared a class. Not that Tom hadn’t always been aware of her. At five foot ten with a set of legs that went on forever, a teenage boy would have to be dead not to have noticed Allison Grant.
She turned and gave Tom an appraising look that bordered on the hostile. “You’re really the person in charge, huh?”
“You better believe it.”
Her right eyelid twitched. “So,” she said, ignoring him to address Rusty, “back to the Ghost of Whispering Bay. Haunting the old senior center at night, roaming the halls of the abandoned building searching for the people he or she once loved in life. What can you tell me about that?”
“Unbelievable,” Tom said. “Please don’t tell me you actually believe that malarkey.”
“Malarkey?” She fisted her hands on her hips. “Do people still use that word?”
“What word would you like me to use?”
Rusty glanced between the two of them. “Um, Tom, Allie, we’re all friends here, right?”
“Sure, Tom and I are great friends,” Allie said.
Rusty still looked confused. Not that Tom blamed him. You’d have to be an idiot to not pick up the tension between them.
“Look, Donalan, I take it from your attitude that you don’t believe in ghosts, but I have proof that someone does,” Allie said.
“Oh yeah? What kind of proof?” Cause he’d love to see that.
She reached inside the pockets of her tight little shorts to produce a folded up sheet of paper. “Go ahead and see for yourself,” she urged. “It’s a copy of an email I received six hours ago.”
Tom unfolded the paper and began reading while Rusty hung over his shoulder.
To: EmmaFrazier@Florida!magazine.com
From: [email protected]
Dear Ms. Frazier,
I am writing to tell you how much I enjoy your magazine and the many entertaining articles I’ve had the privilege to read over the years. My particular favorite is the one about Perky the duck, who was shot by a hunter, presumed dead, and then later “came to life” and ended up being adopted by the wildlife people. What a heartwarming story! The author of the article seemed to have such empathy for her subject matter and, after giving this some deliberation, I decided she was the perfect person to write about the current situation plaguing us here in Whispering Bay. In case you’ve never heard of it, it’s a small town located on the panhandle between Panama City and Destin. I will be blunt, Ms. Frazier, there is a ghost haunting the old Whispering Bay Senior Center. I think this would be a perfect story for your magazine, but please hurry. The senior center is scheduled to be torn down any day now and it would be a shame if the story disintegrated into the ashes along with it.
Sincerely,
A Concerned Citizen
PS I’ve tried contacting the author of the Perky the Duck story directly, but all my correspondence has gone unanswered. Perhaps you could forward this to her?
“Let me guess,” Tom said. “You’re this infamous author. The one who wrote about a duck coming back to life? Why didn’t you get in touch with this Concerned Citizen yourself?”
She snatched the paper from his hands. “I’ll have you know that story was picked up by the Associated Press. And as for why I didn’t contact Concerned Citizen, that’s…none of your business.”
“I love that duck story,” Rusty said. “Made me look at huntin’ a whole different way. To tell the truth, almost made me quit altogether.” His voice cracked. “Sorry, Allie, I tried, but I just couldn’t give it up.”
“That’s okay, Rusty. I understand.”
“Yeah, well, I’ll have to read it sometime, but for now, let me get this straight,” Tom said. “You received a tip from someone you don’t know telling you the building is haunted. And you just, what? Jumped in your car and raced up here? Did it ever occur to you the whole thing might be some kind of hoax?”
“Why does everyone keep asking me that? I didn’t just jump in my car on some whim. And in case you’ve forgotten, the letter was addressed to my editor. I’m here at her request on official Florida! magazine business, pal.”
So now he was pal. He wasn’t sure but it sounded a step down from being called Donalan.
“Naturally,” she continued, “I called my brother to try to validate the story but he didn’t pick up.”
“That’s probably because he’s at the big police convention in Tallahassee,” Rusty said.
Allie nodded like this was information she already knew. “So when I didn’t hear back from Zeke, I called Mimi and she filled me in. She hadn’t heard anything about a ghost but she told me the building was scheduled for demolition. I had no choice, really. It was either come investigate now or lose the story.”
Mimi was Allie’s sister-in-law. Tom had run into her at the Piggly Wiggly just last week. His son Henry and Allie’s nephew Cameron were becoming fast friends. No doubt about it. Moving back to Whispering Bay meant his life and Allie’s would eventually intersect. Was she married? He didn’t think so or he would have heard about it. But she had to be seeing someone.
“You know, Tom, maybe Allie’s onto something,” Rusty said. “We’ve gotten a few calls reporting some strange noises here late at night. Never occurred to me it might be a ghost.”
“Christ,” Tom muttered. “Rusty, there’s no ghost. It’s just some local kids breaking in looking for a place to get drunk. Here, let me show you.”
They followed him outside the building to a dumpster located at the edge of the parking lot. Tom stuck his hand in the garbage to fish out a grocery bag filled with empty beer bottles. “I drove by last night and chased some teenagers off the premises. Confiscated a couple of six packs and told them if I ever caught them here again I’d call the cops.” He shrugged. “Sorry, but there’s your ghost, Allie.”
She looked back to study the building, a glimmer of disappointment shadowed her eyes. He could almost feel sorry for her. If he weren’t so tired. He should have hired a security guard, but Tom had tried to keep the budget for this project as lean as possible, so instead, he’d personally spent the past four nights patrolling the building to keep out trespassers. At the moment it was damn near impossible to feel sorry for anyone except himself.
“Look,” Tom said, “it’s late. Let’s just call this a big misunderstanding.”
“Does that mean you’re not pressing charges?” Rusty asked.
“Sure. No charges. Let’s all go home and get a good night’s sleep and forget this ever happened.”
Rusty looked relieved. “Good idea.”
“But I still need to do my investigation,” Allie said. “According to the sign in front, the building is scheduled to be torn down tomorrow. Which means tonight is all the time I have left to—”
“To what?” Tom said. “Make contact with a ghost that doesn’t exist?”
She took a deep breath like she was struggling to keep her cool. “So you’re a non-believer. I get that. But what would it hurt to let me spend the night? I’m thinking I could write an expose,” her voice rose with excitement. “My own personal experience of a night spent in a haunted building a la American Horror Story. The readers will eat it up.”
Rusty’s eyes grew impossibly large. “That’s real brave of you, Allie. Real brave.”
Allie gave Rusty another sweet smile. Only this time, the smile was for real and Tom couldn’t help but feel envious. Once, he’d been the recipient of those smiles. He doubted she would ever smile at hi
m like that again. At least not in this lifetime.
His gaze drifted back to those legs he’d been trying not to stare at. A thin trickle of blood ran down Allie’s right shin. He pointed to her skinned up knee. “That happen on your way inside?”
“It’s just a scratch.” But her voice sounded hollow.
“That could have just as easily been a cut requiring stitches or a broken skull. The fact is that if you stay the night, then I have to stay, and that’s not going to happen. It’s already close to midnight and I have to be back here in less than nine hours to supervise the demolition.”
“But once this building gets torn down, it will be impossible to ascertain the validity of the ghost. Can’t you delay things? Just for one day?” she asked.
He wanted to say yes. Partly for old time’s sake, and partly for…shit. He didn’t know what for, except when she looked at him like that it was hard not to give her whatever she wanted. But he wasn’t eighteen anymore. And she’d been right earlier. Except for the one time he’d screwed up, he’d always been the responsible one. Twelve years hadn’t changed that. If anything, the years had reinforced it.
“Sorry, but postponing the demolition means going off schedule, which means going off budget.” And going off budget meant no bonus, and he wasn’t about to let that happen.
“Maybe the ghost will relocate somewhere else?” Rusty suggested. “There’s lots of old buildings in this town.”
“Don’t encourage her, Rusty,” Tom said.
“He can encourage me all he wants,” Allie shot back.
They stared at one another, neither of them backing down at first, then after a few long seconds she began to shift from leg to leg, like she was nervous. “Okay, buddy, obviously, I need to go above your head on this. Maybe your boss will be a little more accommodating.”
