A Ghost of the Past

by Mary Goldberger

  After hanging up, Shay dialed Cordial’s cell number as she headed up to her room for her jean jacket and her wallet just in case.

  Cordial felt his phone vibrate in his pocket and he pulled it out as Todd said, “Susie again?”

  Cordial flinched as he said, “I really hope not.”

  He looked at the caller ID and not noticing the number, he answered it cautiously, “Hello.”

  He heard Shay’s laughter before she said, “Hello. Were you expecting another voice because if you were I can always hang up and try again?”

  Cordial smiled and Todd noticed that his eyes flashed with pleasure as he replied, “Now, your voice is exactly what I have been waiting to hear.”

  “I bet you say that to all the women that you carry into your house,” Shay teased, and Cordial could not help laughing.

  “You would be surprised, sweetheart,” he answered.

  “Really,” Shay said to him as she came back downstairs slipping on her jacket.

  “Really,” he affirmed. “So what is the reason for your call although I must admit I really like being distracted by you?”

  Shay giggled before she explained to him what her and Ray were going to do, and Cordial frowned.

  “I really would you like for you wait for me, but I also know that we need answers so just do me a favor and please be careful,” he said with a hint of frustration.

  Shay felt pleasure go through her at the tone of his voice, “Cordial I appreciate the fact that you worry about me, but I promise you I can take care of myself, and I am sure Ray can handle herself to if the need calls for it.”

  “Okay,” he admitted softly. “Shay, just make sure that you come back home.”

  Shay was lost for words for a few seconds and then she said softly, “If you want me, than yes I will.”

  Cordial heard her words, but he had to ask her again, “What did you say, Shay?”

  He felt her hesitation as she replied, “If you want me, Cordial.”

  Then he heard Ray’s voice in the background, and Shay said, “We are leaving now so I will talk to you later.”

  “Take care,” Cordial said and he heard, “count on it” before she hung up.

  He flipped his phone closed as he banged his hand on the desk.

  “Cordial, they will be fine,” Todd said coming into the room and Cordial was shocked to realize that he was so focused on talking to Shay that he did not realize that his best friend left the room.

  Todd smiled at the look on Cordial’s face, “I like the fact that you are starting to move on with your life. Both Ray and I thought that you would never let Charity go, but it looks as if maybe you are finally.”

  Cordial sent him a glare, which Todd just ignored, but Cordial could see the worry in Todd’s eyes.

  “You are worried, too,” Cordial stated rather than asked.

  “Yeah, because we really do not know if Charity was killed by one her lovers, or if it was a random thing,” he said running a hand through his hair.

  “You do not believe it was a random thing no more than I do,” Cordial said, and Todd just nodded his head.

  They both worried about their women, but they had to trust them to take care of themselves so Cordial said, “Let’s get our work done so that we can be home before they do.” Todd liked the sound of that as they leaned over the blueprint and the changes that needed to be made in order to finish the building.

  Almost three hours later, Todd and Cordial left work heading to Cordial’s house considering that Ray had to drop Shay off there. Todd and Cordial figured that they could make dinner for them tonight. Cordial saw the car parked a little down the road and he frowned for he knew that car did not belong there. He parked in his driveway and he looked at his house. Todd strolled over to the truck and looked at him as he sat there.

  “Something wrong,” he asked and Cordial nodded his head.

  “See that green car there,” Cordial asked and Todd nodded before he continued, “It does not belong to anyone in this neighborhood.”

  “Do you think someone is visiting Shay?” Todd asked then he frowned.

  “Wait a minute, Shay is not even here.”

  “Exactly,” Cordial said as he got out of his truck. They entered the house quietly to see someone lying on the couch with their clothes have undone.

  “What is the meaning of this?” Cordial asked in a cold voice, and the figure jumped off the couch to look towards them.

  Cordial looked at his cousin, Dillon, in astonishment as he hurriedly tried to fix his clothes.

  “I was waiting for Shay,” he uttered with the right touch of embarrassment. “She even gave me the code for the alarm just in case she was not here when I arrived.”

  He looked up at Cordial with regret in his eyes, “I am sorry, Cordial, but she was the one who invited me over for a little ‘pleasure time’ as she called it.”

  Cordial looked at him with hardening eyes, and Dillon mentally smiled as he realized his plan was working until Cordial said with a touch of frost in his voice, “Bullshit.”

  Chapter 23

  Dillon looked at him in surprise, and stammered, “What?”

  Before Cordial could tell him, the front door opened as Shay and Ray entered the house.

  Shay looked at Cordial and she smiled as her green eyes lit up, “Hi, Cordial.” Then on a second breath she said, “Hi Todd.”

  Todd laughed as he replied, “Hi Shay. So did you have a good time, baby?” speaking to Ray as she walked in behind her.

  Ray laughed as they walked farther into the living room stopping when they saw Dillon.

  Shay and Ray looked at each other in confusion before they looked back at him.

  “Hi Dillon,” Shay said turning to Cordial with a question in her eyes.

  “He said that you called him,” Cordial said crossing his arms over his chest.

  Ray snorted as Shay asked slowly, “I called him?”

  Dillon smirked, “Now come on Shay, do not be all modest. You called about an hour ago, and asked me to come over, said you wanted to see me.”

  Shay just looked at him with flashing green eyes as everyone else stared at Shay.

  “Interesting,” Shay said. She tilted her head as she asked him bluntly, “Now why would I call you an hour ago when I knew that the chances of me being back before Cordial were slim to none? I mean, if I wanted to have sex with you, Cordial would not have much say because unfortunately we are not in that kind of relationship although I wish it was, but that is another story.”

  Dillon looked at her with his mouth open as he stammered, “You gave me the code to the security alarm.”

  Shay shrugged her shoulders, “I did not turn on the alarm when I left, and besides no offense to Cordial, but anyone who knows him probably can figure out the code before the Sheriff got here.”

  Dillon was getting upset for she was not reacting in the way that Charity had acted.

  “Oh,” Shay said as she studied him. Then she said clearly, “As I told Cordial a few months back, I am not Charity.”

  “You did call me,” Dillon said through clenched teeth.

  “Then I called you,” she said walking into the kitchen. Then her head popped back around the door, “Hey, by the way, can I have your number again so I can put it in my phone?”

  Frustrated, he started giving her the number not realizing that she had a smug smile on her face.

  “Thank you,” she said before going back into the kitchen.

  Dillon looked at Cordial with a smirk until he realized that Ray and Todd where laughing their asses off.

  He frowned at them until Cordial called out, “Shay.”

  “Yes,” she replied from the kitchen.

  “Come here, please,” he asked Shay. She walked back into the living room with a question in her eyes although there was humor there too as she looked at him.

  “What is the café number?” Cordial asked and Shay looked at him in disbelief as she recited the number to him.


  “What is Ray’s cell number?” he asked her again.

  She glared at him as she recited Ray’s number, and then she asked, “What in the hell are you doing?”

  Cordial smiled at her, “Now, sweetheart, do not get all upset.” He walked over to her and pulled her into a tight hug, and she froze before relaxing in his embrace.

  Cordial looked over at Dillon as he hugged Shay to him, “Cousin, Shay remembers almost every number that she has been given so if you gave her your number, she would not have asked you for it again. Second thing, she could not have given you the code to the alarm because I changed it early this morning and left before I could give her the new one.”

  Ray said, “Besides, I believe, cousin, that she told you when you asked her out last time, that she was not interested.”

  “What?” Cordial asked looking at Ray who grimaced.

  “The day we had the get together here, he asked her to go out with him and she told him no, but thanks,” Ray explained.

  “Really,” Cordial said turning narrowed eyes to Dillon.

  “Now, Cordial,” Dillon said smiling at him. “It is not every day that one meets a very beautiful woman and one should always tell her so every day because it shows how much one cares.”

  Shay was listening to him speak when all of sudden, she focused on a certain phrase of his words and she gasped as she looked over at Ray. Ray’s eyes widened and she looked at Shay as they recalled the words in Charity’s diary about the man who told her every day that she was beautiful.

  Cordial looked down at Shay when he felt her gasp and he noticed that her eyes were wide looking at Dillon.

  “Dillon, thank you for stopping by, but we have plans for tonight,” Cordial said not taking his eyes off of Shay who finally looked up at him and he saw tears fill her eyes along with a shutter of pain…for him.

  Dillon merely snorted as he headed for the door throwing behind him, “When you are ready for a real man, give me a call.”

  Shay was still looking at Cordial, but she answered him, “You are not my idea of a real man.” He did not hear her for he was already out the door and closing it behind him.

  “Okay, he is gone, now what was with the face?” Cordial said raising a hand to her cheek, but Shay pulled away from him. She ran upstairs to her room and came back down with Charity’s diary in her hand. She walked in front of him before she opened it up and flipped through the pages finding the one she was looking for. She looked up at him and whispered, “I am sorry, Cordial” before leaning up to kiss him as sweetly and slowly as possible. She handed him the book and whispered, “The page on the left.”

  Then she walked into the kitchen, and Ray walked over to him to give him a hug before grabbing Todd’s arm and pulling him into the kitchen.

  Cordial swallowed before he looked down at the page Shay told him to read, and he started to read it. As he read, his hands clenched on the book as the words Charity wrote burned into his brain. As he finished reading, he dropped the book where he stood and strolled out slamming the door behind him.

  In the kitchen, Ray and Todd flinched at the slamming door as Shay leaned her head against the refrigerator and tears ran down her face as she closed her eyes.

  “Shay, he is hurting but he will be back,” Ray said softly.

  “Yes, he will for this is his house,” Shay admitted. Then she opened green pain filled eyes, “But will he want me here when he does return, the woman who looks like his dead fiancée.”

  Ray opened her mouth, but then closed it for she had no answer to Shay’s question, and she grabbed Todd’s hand as he just looked at Shay with eyes filled with remorse at what she was going through.

  For two weeks, Cordial did not come back to his house. He went to work and he ate at the café as Ray kept in contact with Shay to let her know how he was doing. Shay cried every night and the dreams came back in full force, but she finally decided that the only way he would come back to his house was if she were gone. Therefore, after two weeks and three days of waiting, Shay packed up her belongings and left Cordial’s home. She had tried to call Nettie, but she was not back yet so Shay did what she should have done from the beginning instead of being mixed up in the life of her twin and her fiancée, she called Amanda. Amanda immediately got her on plane heading to where she lived in three hours. All Shay had to do was get to the airport, and she called the cab waiting for it to arrive. The taxi had just pulled into the driveway when a shot went off. The cab driver got out as he saw his passenger fall to the ground.

  “Oh, my god,” he said as he reached into his pocket to call an ambulance as he looked down at the young woman who was bleeding on the driveway and Shay moaned as one name came to her “Cordial” before the blackness took her.

  Ray dialed the number of her brother as she sat in the hospital waiting room.

  “Hello,” he said irritable.

  “Cordial,” she said shakily.

  “Ray, what is wrong? It is late,” Cordial said with a sigh.

  “Cordial, you need to come to the hospital,” Ray said as tears fell down her face and Todd pulled her into his arms as he rushed into the waiting room.

  “Did something happen to Dad?” Cordial asked in hurry as he rushed out of the office he had been using as a place to sleep, but Ray’s next words had him dropping to his knees.

  “Dad is fine, Cordial, but,” Ray said choking on her tears, “Shay has been shot.”

  Cordial heard it in her voice, this time it was more serious.

  Chapter 24

  Cordial ran into the hospital stopping in front of the reception desk breathing heavily.

  “May I help you, sir?” the older woman said who was sitting behind the desk.

  “I am here to see Shay Montgomery,” he said through clenched teeth and the woman looked at him for a second before she turned to her computer.

  “She is in the intensive care unit, third floor,” she said softly watching him run to the elevator. Normally they were not supposed to give information out about patients unless it was family, but the look in his eyes convinced her that the young woman was somebody special to him. The doors opened and she turned her attention to the people that were walking up to the desk.

  Cordial waited for the elevator to stop at the third floor and he cursed how slow it was going as he ran his shaky hand through his hair. He kept hearing Ray’s last words to him before he dropped his phone, “Shay has been shot.” It was the way she said it that had freaked him out, and he automatically picked up his phone telling her that he would be there in five minutes. Now, here he was and he was scared he was going to lose the one person that had captured his heart completely, and he never got the chance to tell her. The doors opened and he rushed out looking around until he saw the sign for the Intensive Care Unit (ICU). He rushed forward into the waiting room where he saw his sister and Todd sitting in the hard plastic chairs.

  “Ray,” he said walking over to her, and Ray’s head snapped up as she jumped out of the chair. She walked towards him and then she started hitting him on the chest.

  “Why couldn’t you have just gone back to the house? She was leaving when she got shot and the doctor will not tell us anything,” she sobbed as she finally collapsed against him. He wrapped his arms around his baby sister as her words run through his mind.

  “What do you mean she was leaving?” he said through the lump in his throat.

  Todd looked at him before he explained, “She decided that leaving would be the best thing so that you could come back to your house. She assumed that the reason you had not come back was because she was there.”

  Cordial groaned loudly as he placed his head on his sister’s shoulder, and Ray could feel his tears as they fell on her shoulder.

  “I wanted her there, but I needed some time to come to terms with the fact that Charity had sex with Dillon,” he said not realizing that he was crying. “Charity knew that I tolerated Dillon, but I did not truly like him although he is our cousin. I did not
want to put Shay through my own rages, but I never expected she would think it was because of her.”

  Ray leaned back and looked at her brother, and she could see the misery in his eyes.

  “You really do care for her, Cordial,” she said softly.

  He nodded his head as the doors opened and a doctor walked out.

  “Family of Shay Montgomery,” he asked, and Cordial swallowed before he said hoarsely, “We are friends of Shay Montgomery.” The doctor frowned but before he could say anything, Ray spoke up, “Actually, my brother here is her fiancé.” She knew that the doctor was not going to tell them anything but he may tell them something if they think that Cordial and Shay were engaged.

  The doctor face still held a touch of suspicion, but he decided to tell them for it seemed like that they were the only ones to be there for the young woman.

  “Miss Montgomery was shot in her abdomen, but the problem we are having is the fact that the bullet nicked her spleen,” the doctor said running a hand through his hair, “We have her on medication to keep her sedated, but I need to have someone sign permission for me to do the surgery.”

  “Can I sign it?” Cordial asked immediately letting go of Ray to take a step towards the doctor. He frowned as he said, “Considering the fact that you are suppose to be her fiancé then yes, your signature will be taken as permission.” Telling them to give him one moment, he went back into the ICU.

  Ray watched him go with narrowed eyes, “Why in the hell are they waiting for a permission slip to be signed when her life is in danger?”

  The same questions were running through Cordial’s mind but he pushed it to the side when a nurse came out of the door heading towards them.

  She handed him some papers as she informed them, “The doctor asked that you signed this while they begin preparing Miss Montgomery for surgery.”

  Cordial began signing the forms as Ray asked the nurse, “How long with it take?”