“I’d like to believe that.”
Without a word, Max started floating down the hallway toward the master suite, Granny following him like a lovesick puppy. It reminded Emma of Summer. The girl hadn’t come out yet. “Summer’s taking a long time.”
Keith turned and glanced down the hall. “She’s probably showering first.”
“Or,” Phil added, “stalling to make a point.”
Emma made a sour face, then stopped when Phil caught her in the act. He merely grinned at the childish behavior and patted her arm. “Patience.”
After taking a deep breath, Emma said, “Keith, I’m inviting Lainey to my home in Julian next weekend. Would you like to drive down and see her? It’s not here and it’s not Serenity. Think of it as someplace neutral where you two can talk out your problems.”
“She might not want to see me.”
Phil considered the invitation. “I think that’s a great idea, Emma. And if it’s uncomfortable for them, Keith can stay at the ranch instead of under the same roof.”
He turned to Keith. “My ranch is just across the way from Emma’s cabin. It will give you two space when you need it.”
Before Keith could answer, Granny popped into view. “Come quick!” she told Emma. “It’s the girl.”
Without explanation, Emma dashed around the sofa and sprinted down the hallway toward the master bedroom. Phil, realizing something was wrong, was right behind her. Bringing up the rear was a surprised Keith.
When she got to the double doors, Emma grabbed the knob and started twisting and turning while shoving on the door.
“Something’s wrong with Summer,” she told the men.
“Out of the way, Emma.” Phil slammed his sturdy shoulder against the door. It shook but didn’t give. Keith, still stunned, watched. “Come on, son,” Phil shouted. “Give me a hand here.”
Keith lined himself up with Phil, and the two of them hit the door with their shoulders like side-by-side battering rams. The thick, expensive door buckled but didn’t give.
“What’s going on?” asked Keith between grunts and slams.
Emma shook with impatience to get inside the room. “I think Summer’s in trouble.”
“One more time,” said Phil. “One, two, three.” On three, the two men hit the door, breaking it open. They spilled into the room like floodwaters, with Emma wading through them.
eleven
“Summer, no.” Emma wanted to shout the words, but she didn’t dare in case the sound startled the girl any more than breaking down the door had. Instead, they squeaked out of her in a soft plea as she stepped past the men and cautiously made her way to the open door to the balcony.
Summer was partially dressed, wearing only skinny leggings and her lacy pink bra. On her feet were her high heels. Her hair was a tangle of golden vines spilling down her shoulders and across her face and neck. She looked like an exotic wild animal. Teetering precariously, one foot on a patio table, the other on the railing of the balcony, she peered over the edge to the ground twelve floors below. Standing next to her, his eyes glued to her face, his arms outspread as if to catch her, was the ghost of Max Naiman.
“Summer!” Keith called and started for her.
Grabbing his arm, Phil held him back. “Careful. You don’t want to spook her.”
At her name, Summer turned around and pushed hair from her face. She saw them, but it was clear the image wasn’t registering. Her eyes were glazed and unfixed.
“What’s she on?” Emma whispered to Keith.
“Nothing that I know of,” he whispered back. “I’ve never even seen her smoke dope.”
“Help her, Emma,” pleaded Max, not taking his eyes off of Summer.
“There’s something not natural about that girl,” Granny said to Emma.
“Granny’s right,” added Max. “It was the same with Lainey.”
Motioning for the men to stay behind, Emma took another step toward the balcony. “Summer, come here, dear. I have something for you.” She kept her voice light and inviting, forcing the fright out of it for the sake of the girl.
Summer looked at Emma, and for a brief moment happy recognition sparked her eyes. “You’re Kelly’s mom.” Her tone was totally devoid of the earlier insolence.
“That’s right, Summer, I am.” Another careful step. “Remember when you girls used to stay at our house?”
The girl on the balcony nodded slowly.
“You and Lainey and Kelly. Paula and Charlotte, too. You’d go to the dances at school, then to our house for a sleepover.”
“Mr. Whitecastle would make us blueberry pancakes.”
“That’s right.” Emma had forgotten that. Before he was super famous and became so self-centered, Grant had been a gem of a father. “Why don’t you come down from there? We can make blueberry pancakes together. Wouldn’t you like that?”
Again Summer nodded, this time accompanied by a small smile.
“Good job, Emma,” Max encouraged. “I think you’ve got her.”
Granny wasn’t so sure. “Hold on, there’s something wrong here.”
Granny was right. Just as Summer started to take her foot off of the railing, a shimmering haze outlined her body, and Summer retreated back into a stupor, the earlier smile gone.
“What’s going on?” Phil asked in a low voice. Behind him Keith watched, dumbstruck.
“I’m not sure,” Emma responded. “But I think there’s another spirit here. And not a very friendly one.” She glanced back at Phil. “Do you see anything odd about Summer?”
“She just retreated into a trance again.”
“Exactly, and there’s a haze surrounding her.”
“That I can’t see.”
“Granny, Max, do you know who that is with Summer?”
Both ghosts responded in the negative, but Max added, “That’s exactly how Lainey looked each time she tried to kill herself.”
“Whoever you are,” Emma said, speaking at Summer but not to her, “leave the girl alone. She’s innocent.”
Keith moved closer to Phil. “What in the hell is going on?” His voice shook with fear as goose bumps sprouted on his arms like air bubbles on a baking cake.
“I think Summer is being haunted,” Phil told him as quietly as possible.
Keith’s mouth fell open. “What the—”
“Shhh,” Phil cautioned. “Let Emma handle it.”
“Summer, look at me,” ordered Emma, her voice low but stern. “Look at me,” she repeated in a stronger voice.
Summer shook her head slightly and tried to focus, fighting for control of her own body. “What’s happening to me?” She started weeping.
“Stay focused, Summer,” Emma encouraged. “Take your foot off the ledge and stay focused on me.”
The girl latched her eyes onto Emma’s again. “I’m so cold.” She wrapped her arms around herself.
“I know, dear, but you’ll be warm in a minute. Just take your foot off the ledge.”
From far below came the blast of multiple sirens.
“Sounds like the police are here,” Phil said. “Someone must have seen her on the ledge.”
Max glanced over the railing. “Fire and police.”
After relaying the information to Phil and Keith, Emma told Keith, “Go to the front door and wait. They’ll be up here in a minute.”
Keith hesitated, not wanting to leave Summer, but in the end he did as he was told.
Emma returned her attention to the girl. “Help is coming, Summer, but you have to be brave and do as I say. Take your foot off the railing.”
Summer removed her foot from the balcony railing and placed it next to the one on the table. Granny and Max watched, frozen in their tracks.
“Good,” said Emma. “Now come down off the table. Slowly, one foot at a time.”
The frightened girl didn’t move. The haze around her thickened, enveloping her like a cocoon. She put her foot back on the railing. Emma felt sick to her stomach.
; “Whoever you are,” Granny said to the hidden ghost, “show yourself. This child’s done nothing to you.”
While they watched, Summer battled for her life, struggling against the spirit wanting to control her mind and her actions.
Emma moved closer. “Please leave her alone,” she begged of the unknown spirit. “Whatever you want, I can help. This girl cannot.”
“You cannot help,” a feathery female voice answered. “No one can. It is not my destiny in life, or in death, to be happy.”
Summer’s other foot started to move toward the railing. Phil saw it, too, and circled around, trying to edge toward Summer without attracting notice.
It was then Emma noticed the ring on Summer’s hand. It seemed illuminated, but from the inside out, not from catching the sunshine that spilled onto the balcony. “Max,” she said to Lainey’s father, “were you wearing that ring when you died?”
He glanced at the ring. “No, that’s a woman’s engagement ring.”
“The stone. Isn’t that the stone from your ring, the one Joanna gave you?”
He drifted as close to Summer as he dared and tried to get a good look at the ring. “Yes, I believe it is.” He turned to Emma, his ghostly face shocked by understanding. “Lainey was wearing that ring when she tried to kill herself. I’m sure of it.”
“Summer, look at me,” Emma ordered. When the girl didn’t, Emma snapped her fingers. “Look at me!”
This time Summer turned her eyes to Emma and tried to focus.
“Take the ring off, Summer.”
Summer looked confused. The haze around her grew as heavy as a fog bank. Her second foot finished its journey from table to rail. She bobbled. Emma and Phil gasped.
“The ring,” Emma said again. She took another step forward. “Lainey’s ring, Summer. Take it off.”
Summer raised her left hand and looked at the stunning, light-filled rock. “But it’s so pretty.”
“Take it off,” Emma coaxed. “It belongs to Lainey.”
With her right hand, Summer clutched the ring and started to slip it off slowly, all the while keeping her eyes transfixed on it.
Excited voices drifted in from the other room, and they could hear fast footsteps in the hallway.
“Do it, Summer. Now!”
Mustering the last of her self-control, in one sweeping motion Summer slid the ring off her finger, letting it fly toward Emma. The haze around her remained but was fading rapidly.
As the emergency people entered the room, Summer’s eyes cleared and she became aware of her situation. She screamed.
“You’ll not deny me!” cackled the disembodied voice.
The ghost swirled around the frightened and confused young woman like a swarm of bees. Another bobble, and Summer lost her footing.
Emma’s screams echoed those of the falling girl.
twelve
Emma rocked back and forth on the large leather sofa in the den of her parents’ home. Although it was warm, she couldn’t stop shivering. Her mother placed a heavy afghan across her shoulders and rubbed them, trying to both soothe and warm her daughter.
“There was nothing you could have done, Emma,” said Phil, who sat on her other side. “As soon as she came out of her trance and realized where she was, Summer panicked and fell. And who knows what influence that evil spirit had over her, even after the ring came off.”
Inconsolable, Emma continued to shiver. “I should have worked faster or noticed the ring earlier.”
“The police coming in like they did probably didn’t help either.” He put his strong arms around her and drew her into his warmth. “You did everything you could, Emma. And if we hadn’t been there, Keith might have become a suspect in a murder. Imagine if she’d jumped while the two of them were at the condo alone.”
It was true, and Emma knew it. If the angry ghost did inhabit the ring, it might have enticed Summer to jump, leaving Keith on his own to explain what had happened. As it was, the police weren’t too keen on the explanation that Summer might have been hearing voices. Each of them had been questioned separately. Although they didn’t know what Keith told the authorities, Phil and Emma later compared their own accounts and found them almost exactly the same: Summer had been acting a bit bizarre when they first saw her. When asked to leave, she’d gotten in a snit and locked herself in the bedroom. Emma had a feeling something was wrong, and when they broke down the bedroom door, they had found Summer in a trancelike state, about to jump. Both of them had left out the part about Granny telling Emma about Summer being in danger and about the ring.
The ring.
In the aftermath of Summer’s death, Emma had noticed the ring on the floor and picked it up, hoping the police didn’t see her do it. She slipped it into a pocket of her dress.
When all the questioning was done, Keith packed up some clothes. Emma grabbed the items Lainey had requested, and they all left the condo together, leaving the police to complete their investigation. In the elevator, Emma held the ring out to Keith. He didn’t make a move to touch it, even though he had not been in the room when Summer pulled it off and didn’t know about the ring’s deadly consequences.
“That really belongs to Lainey. The stone was her father’s. Joanna gave it to us to use for the engagement ring.” Keith hesitated but still didn’t take the ring. “Can you give it to her when you see her?”
As much as Emma was afraid of what the ring might hold, she knew that having it in her possession might give her an opportunity to contact the ghost inhabiting the gem. She needed to find out for sure if it was the angry spirit who had made Lainey try to destroy herself and caused both Max’s and Summer’s deaths. She also wanted to know more about the ghost. She knew it was female, but that was it. Hopefully Granny or Max would be able to tell her more. Both of them had disappeared shortly after Summer’s swan dive onto Wilshire Boulevard.
Acting as if the ring might burn her, Emma cautiously put it back into her pocket. “I’ll make sure it gets returned to Lainey.”
“What are you going to do now?” Phil asked Keith.
The still-shaken young man shrugged and looked away. “I’ll crash with friends until school’s over, then head back up to Seattle for the summer. No sense staying in LA if Lainey doesn’t want me.”
“You are still welcome to come to Julian next weekend,” Emma told him. “At the very least, you need to see Lainey and explain what happened. Even if you go to Serenity to do it.”
Keith took a deep breath and blew out two lungs’ worth of frustrated air. “You’re right. I’m sure she’s going to see this on the news and wonder what was going on.”
“I don’t know how much news they allow in places like that,” Phil told him. “Sometimes facilities like to monitor things that might disturb their patients.”
“Phil’s right, although Lainey will need to be told. Her mother might tell her, or even the police. They did ask me about Lainey.”
“Yeah,” Keith said, running a nervous hand through his hair. “Me too.”
Phil put an encouraging hand on Keith’s shoulder as he handed him more bad news. “And the media is going to have a field day with this. It’s not every day a young woman falls to her death from the twelfth-floor home of Max Naiman’s daughter.”
More deep groans from Keith. “What a nightmare. All because I couldn’t keep my pants on.”
“It wasn’t your fault Summer fell,” Phil told Keith.
Now, in the comfort and security of the Miller home, Phil was saying the same thing to Emma, and like Keith, she wasn’t so sure. Keith wasn’t at fault. He may not have understood what Emma said when she told him Summer was being haunted, but he didn’t put the ring on her finger or set her on the ledge. And Phil was right: neither did she. If Granny hadn’t told her about Summer being in danger, she might never have discovered the dangers of the ring.
Emma started to rise. “What is it, honey?” her father, Paul Miller, asked from his chair across from the sofa. “What do you need?�
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“My purse, Dad. It’s on the table in the foyer.”
Dr. Miller rose and left the room, returning in a minute with Emma’s handbag. He handed it to her. “You know I don’t always understand all this stuff about ghosts and spirits like you and your mother do, but it does seem, from what you’ve told us, that there is something unnatural going on here.”
“I agree, Dad.”
“And it seems to me that unless you get to the bottom of it, more people might be in danger.”
“But why me?” Emma looked up at her father, a retired heart surgeon. She’d gotten her looks from her mother and her tall, slim body from her father.
She looked around the room at each of them—her father and mother and Phil. “Why can’t someone else do this?” She started to cry softly. “Sometimes it’s too much to bear.”
“Because you have the gift, Emma.” The simple response came from Granny, who only Emma and her mother could hear. “You were chosen to be special. We need you.”
Emma looked around the room until her eyes settled on Granny. She was seated on the floor by the fireplace. Next to her, Archie was stretched out, half on his back, as the ghost stroked his belly. When the ghost spoke, the dog thumped his tail.
“Granny’s right,” Elizabeth Miller told her daughter. “You do have a special gift, but I don’t like you getting mixed up in these things.” Elizabeth told the men what the ghost had said. “It worries me to death.”
“I’m with your mother on this, honey.” Dr. Miller sat on the edge of the coffee table and took his daughter’s hands into his own. Emma loved the feeling of her small hands being cradled by her father’s capable ones. “If that ring is a problem, why not have Lainey or her family lock it up in a safe-deposit box or sell it or even have it destroyed?”
Emma dug into her purse and located the ring. She’d stuck it into a small zippered side pocket once she and Phil were on the road back to Pasadena. She pulled it out, careful not to put it on her finger. Her mother let out a slight gasp. Even her father was impressed.
“That’s some stone.” Dr. Miller held out his hand for it. “May I?”
With a bit of hesitation, Emma handed it to him. “Just don’t put it on,” she cautioned. “We don’t know for sure it’s the ring that’s haunted, but I don’t want to take any chances.”
Gem of a Ghost: A Ghost of Granny Apples Mystery Page 9
