I lifted Nygard to the armchair seat and shrugged out of my coat, dropping it over the end post to the stairs. “Thanks for watching the fur guy. I really appreciate it.” I pulled a wrapped bag out of the side pocket of my overnighter and stepped closer to him. “I brought you something...”
I held the package out.
Looking up, his eyes roved across the hopeful expression on my face then down to the extended bag. Curiosity won, and he took the bag, opening it, and a small smile worked its way onto mouth.
“It’s a homemade meat pie with potatoes and a delicious gravy. You can warm it or eat it cold.”
He nodded. “Thanks. Did you guys have a good time?”
“We did.” I paused, took a deep breath and said, “Can we talk?”
“I thought we were,” he said in a nonchalant tone, but he set the phone down and stared at me.
I eased down into the stuffed chair next to the sofa, close, but not too close. “I mean about what happened.”
“There’s not much to say,” he said, a hint of hurt still in his voice.
“Can I at least try to explain?”
“Can you?” he asked, his eyes locking on mine.
“I don’t know. But I want to try. Ferris, I honestly don’t know where that came from. Gavin is a friend and I had a crush on him years ago, but there’s nothing going on between us.” My voice cracked as I spoke, emotions threatening to turn it to a pathetic sob.
He studied me a moment and I shrank in under that gaze. “Maybe you want there to be something. I know how that feels. If you felt strongly back then, it’s probably still in the back of your mind.”
“Maybe. But I wanted to be with you. When something happens, I turn to you. When there’s something good, I want to share it with you. You’re such a close friend and I...” I paused to swallow the tightness building up in my throat. “I don’t want to lose you. I don’t want to lose what we have. I need you, Ferris.”
“Well, I cat-sat for you, didn’t I?” he said flippantly.
“I don’t mean in that way. I mean, I need you in my life. I want to explore the renewed feelings I have for you and see if our relationship will grow. At the same time, I’m worried it will all vanish and I’ll be left without you... with nothing. For now, I need you to forgive me.”
He turned his eyes to the coffee table, staring at it as if it held all the answers. At least, I didn’t think he was glancing at the ball game. After a few long moments, he looked back at me.
“I can forgive you, Gillian. But I don’t know that I’ll forget. It’s there. It’s been said and I knew that you had a thing for him. But do you have any of those feelings for me?”
“I do love you, but this aspect of it is new to me. We’d written it off years ago. I didn’t expect to feel this way about you again. So, I’m torn between a crush I had once on a man I couldn’t have and a crush I had with a guy that didn’t work out. Now, either one suddenly seems possible and I don’t know which way to turn.”
The tears did start them, rolling down my cheeks. That wasn’t what I’d wanted to say, but it was the truth.
Bless him, Ferris leaned across and brushed the tears off my left cheek with his thumb. His eyes softened, melting my heart and making me feel even worse. “We will always be friends, Gillian Foster. We’re bandmates and co-conspirators. You’re a part of my life. Sometimes we hurt each other whether we want to or not. Maybe, when you know what you want, there might be something else for us. Until then, you still have me as a friend and cat-sitter. Okay?”
Tears still spilling down my face, I nodded. Ferris pulled me to my feet and into his arms. “It’s fine, babe. You’re under a lot of pressure and you’re confused. I’m still your anchor, okay?”
Then he kissed my forehead and stepped back from me. Picking up his jacket, phone, and the bag with the pie, he went out the door, closing it gently behind him.
I collapsed on the couch and let the tears continue to roll down. Nygard jumped up next to me, and butted his head against my arm, wanting to let me know he was there and he loved me. He slapped his paw at my hand, a gesture for me to cuddle with him. I pulled him in close and he curled into a ball in my lap, purring and licking my hand.
At least, he still loved me.
AFTER A CALMING JACUZZI bath, I settled down in my comfy sweats on my bed and flipped on the television in time to catch the evening news report. In terse, dry terms, the news anchor reported, “A man’s body has been found in the forest surrounding the meadow off Highway 50 at Lake Tahoe. The Sheriff’s Department isn’t releasing any details at this time, but speculation is that a snowmobiler overturned his vehicle and wandered off the wrong direction into the wooded area during a recent snowstorm and become lost.”
That was it. They’d found Roger. Saddened, yet relieved, I figured that would put an end to that drama in my life. While the dream still nagged at me, it could have just been a simple, brief connection with the man, nothing more than that.
Besides that, I was still pondering the dream with Artesmia Mouradian in it from a few nights earlier. She’d come to me in a dream before to essentially tell me that being a spirit escort or funeral singer was a gift given to me and I needed to embrace it. Perhaps this last visit was only to remind me that I had been selected for this job. Too bad I felt so ill-equipped to handle it.
Rousing my energy up, I switched off the TV and moved to my computer to check the blogs I was following for any new messages or hints. My hopes quickened a little when I saw a private message from CaraG and clicked on it. The message confirmed that she thought we should talk. But since she lived in the UK, we needed to find a mutually good time for a face-to-face chat. I sent a note back.
::8 hours time difference. How would 4:30 pm your time be? We could do it Tuesday or Wednesday. Anxious to talk to you. Gillyfish::
That done, I clicked on another message from a man in Japan. He spoke of sometimes communing with the departed when he performed at a service. Performed? In what way, I wondered. It sounded as if he considered this perfectly natural, and perhaps, in his culture, it wasn’t so strange that he could connect to someone beyond this life. Still, he didn’t go into much detail and he didn’t say anything about odd shadows or dark spirits in his post.
Then again, given some of the ridiculing responses some of the people could post, I couldn’t blame him for that. I added a short response to that one.
::Performed. Sounds intriguing. What kind of performance?::
I hoped it wouldn’t lead to some bizarre answer or something sexual. I’d seen a few of those on these blogs already.
My cell rang. I saw Gavin’s name and picked it up. “Hi there.”
“You home now?” he asked. “Did you have a great time?”
“I did. Got a little too toasted on Saturday night, but it was fine. What’s up?”
“Good news. My friend is flying into Reno on Wednesday with some information that might help us. You free on Wednesday evening to meet up?”
A thrill of excitement ran through me at the possibility of finding out more. “Absolutely. What time?”
He gave me the details, adding we’d meet at his house. As I put the phone down, I felt like maybe things were beginning to break for us on learning to defeat the shades, or yiwiana or whatever Gavin had called them.
As I glanced back at the screen, I saw a response on my comment. ::I make poetry for the deceased.::
A poet. Not so different from writing a song. Maybe this man also had a connection. I wasn’t too certain of the best way to approach him. Then, finally, decided. ::I sometimes sing at funerals. I find the poetry an interesting alternative.::
His response came back within five minutes. ::Very similar. Do you have any unusual experiences?::
I switched to a private note. ::Sometimes. Let’s talk privately on this. Do you see the departed?::
::Yes, sometimes. Do you?::
::Often, I do.:: I hesitated, then plunged. ::Are you ever transported?::
::What do you mean?::
::Taken in spirit form to another place.::
There was a long pause and I imagined him considering the question. Would he tell me the truth? Did he think I was strange?
::I go to a peaceful garden in my mind. Is that how you mean?::
::Something like that. Do you see the deceased’s spirit there?::
::Do you?::
Fair enough. You gotta give him something to get something. ::Yes. My spirit goes to a cemetery on the next plane.::
An even longer pause this time, lasting almost a minute.
::And you see deceased at this cemetery? And you are there?::
::My spirit is there. Not my physical body. I am singing when it happens.::
Again, a long pause, then he wrote back. ::Must consider. We talk again later.::
::Agreed.::
I sat back and took a deep breath. Yes! Maybe he was a spirit guide also. Maybe I was finding others.
Excited, I glanced to where Nygard sat on the bed watching. “We may not be alone in this battle, kit. There are others.” This poet, the English lady, and who knew how many others? I’d just begun to search.
And Gavin’s friend might help as well. I felt more hopeful than I had for a while. I wasn’t alone.
ELEVEN
“Hello, luv, it’s nice to meet face to face, so to speak,” the woman on my computer screen said, her voice loud enough to hear downstairs. Middle-aged, her curly brown hair frazzled around her plump face as she leaned toward the computer camera. Her accent sounded a bit cockney, but then all I had to compare it to was Dick Van Dyke in “Mary Poppins.” I only knew it didn’t sound like proper English or Scottish.
“Thank you for talking to me. I feel we can talk more freely if we can see each other and not have to skirt around what we might want to say.”
Her eyes narrowed squeezing out most of the blue in them. “Whatcha mean?”
“Well, I want to hear about your experiences with the shadows that seemed to move.” How specific should I be? I didn’t want to put words in her mouth.
“Oh, well, they moved. You know, one of them was outside my house and it was right against the house and there was nothing there that could have made that shadow.”
“Okay. What did it look like?”
She looked a little flustered and I could see she was nervous. “That’s the thing. It almost looked like a human. I looked behind myself to see if there was a man behind me to cast that shadow. But there wasn’t no one there.”
“I see. And what did it do?”
“Nothin’. It just lingered there a couple of minutes, then it moved toward the bushes at the side of the house and vanished. Like magic, it did.”
“Vanished?” I repeated.
She nodded her head vigorously. “Yes, vanished. Went away like it was never there.”
“Is that the only one you’ve seen?” I tried to look reassuring, to let her know I believed her.
She glanced over her shoulder as if she was checking to make sure no one was listening in. “Oh, no. I’ve seen a couple more in the past few months.”
“At your house?”
“No. No, dearie. Can I trust you? You’re not some reporter, are you? And you won’t go publishing anything I tell you?”
“No, Cara. I’m not a reporter, and I’m not a blogger. I’m actually looking for people like you who might have seen something out of the ordinary.”
“Oh. Why is that?” Her eyes narrowed again with suspicion.
I bit the bullet. “Because I have as well.”
Her eyes grew wide. “You’ve seen them, too?”
“I have. More than once.”
She closed her eyes a moment and let out a sigh. “Thank heavens. I worried I was the only one.”
“I understand that feeling. Now, tell me everything you can about them and I’ll share my stories with you.”
She actually leaned in closer to the computer until her eyes and nose filled the screen and lowered her voice a little. “The thing is that I often play music for weddings and funerals at my church, you know for a little extra dosh.”
I blinked and scribbled “dosh” on the notepad next to the computer. I assumed it meant money, but I wanted to look it up.
“Then one day, I’m playing for a funeral and all of sudden, I see the deceased in front of me. Next thing I see is one of these gray-black blobs appear behind him and he leads him away. Well, I did not feel good about it all. I told the priest later and he told me it was just my imagination and not to worry. But I could see there was some concern in his eyes.”
“Hold on a second. You saw it while you were playing for the funeral. Where was it held? In the church?”
“No, it was an outdoor funeral under a canopy. Why? Is that important?”
“I don’t know, but it could be. I thought maybe the shadows couldn’t go into consecrated places, like a church, so I wondered. Do you have any idea what the blob is?”
She shook her head. “No, but I am pretty sure it’s nothing good.”
“You’re right, Cara. Have you had any interaction with these blobs?”
“Interaction? No, I just see them is all. They don’t come near me, but I think they know I see them.”
“Okay. That’s all right. I don’t think they will harm you. But let me tell you my story.”
I gave her a watered-down version of my experiences with the shades, even telling her what I called them and that they were indeed evil spirits. But I didn’t explain too much about why I saw them. Not yet, I decided. It was enough, for now, to know that she at least saw them and had seen them in a church setting. I asked about her church, a Catholic one, and got the priest’s name. I thought it might be worth following up on. She, of course, gave the information reluctantly and asked me not to reveal that she’d told me about the shades. I agreed and we decided we would talk again in a couple of weeks. She promised to let me know if she saw them again.
I closed the face chat program and wrote out clearer notes than the ones I’d scribbled down as we’d talked. Belatedly, I realized I should have recorded it.
I hurried downstairs and grabbed my coat, ready to leave for work, and yanked the door open. Moss and the Incline deputy, Bancroft, were almost on my doorstep. My stomach lurched at the expressions on their faces, serious and suspicious, respectively.
“Ms. Foster, may we come in?” Moss asked in formal mode; not good.
I glanced from one to the other and dipped my head. “May I call my boss to let her know I’m delayed?”
“Sure, go ahead,” he answered as he and Bancroft walked past me.
I pulled my cell to call Heeni, explaining something had come up. “I don’t know how long it will be,” I told her. “I’ll call you back soon.”
Ending the call, I turned to the officers. “So, what’s up?”
Moss looked over to Bancroft giving him the floor to speak.
“We found the body of Mr. Mitchell,” he started. “He was about a mile from the snowmobile, deeper into the forest. We have some additional suspicions about his death and I’d like to ask you a few questions.”
“Okay, I’ll try to answer.” I glimpsed Nygard’s head peeking around the corner from the kitchen, then he pulled it back and retreated. Smart cat.
“Do you know if Mr. Mitchell used recreational drugs?” Bancroft asked.
“And that’s one I can’t answer. I have no idea. I’ve seen him drunk or drinking a few times. But I never saw him smoke anything or popping pills. If he did, it wasn’t within my sight. But I only saw him whenever my band was performing.”
“Other than the fight you told us about in the park, did you have any other altercation with him?”
“I wouldn’t call that a fight, so much as an argument. But no, that was the only time.” I wasn’t sure I liked the way this was heading.
“Has Mr. Mitchell been in touch with you at all since that altercation?”
“No.”
“What abo
ut your band member, Mr. Halliday? Did he hit Mr. Mitchell at the park?”
“No. He got in his face and he threatened him if he didn’t leave me alone, but he didn’t hit him. He shoved him a little to make him back away.” I felt anger growing. Did they think one of us had something to do with what had happened to Roger?
“How did you know he was buried under the snow, Ms. Foster?” The look he gave me reflected his suspicion.
I shot a glance at Moss, who ducked his head, staring at the floor. He told him?
I dragged in a breath, pulling my thoughts together as I did. “I didn’t know he was. I had a feeling. I sometimes get impressions, but it wasn’t anything certain. I just felt that Roger wasn’t alive and was still out there.”
I felt betrayed. I had trusted Moss to keep my secret.
Bancroft pursed his lip as if he didn’t believe me. “You felt it?”
I nodded. “Call it a woman’s intuition or premonition or whatever you like. I had a feeling...”
“Do you get premonitions often?”
“Not regularly, no,” I shot back. “But sometimes I do get one.”
He tapped his stylus against his pad, scribbled something, then he put it back into its holder, ready to wrap up. He stared at me a second or two, then said, “Initial reports indicate there were drugs in his system and it’s possible he overdosed, but we’re waiting for a full autopsy and analysis. I’ll request that you don’t leave town.”
“Yes, sir. I have no plans to be out of town.” I said through gritted teeth. I was a suspect?!
I ushered them out the door, following to lock up and get to work. Moss lingered a moment, “Sorry, Foster. I hadn’t meant to imply—”
“How could you?” I hissed. “I did it as a favor.”
I slammed past him to get to my Jeep, then backed out in a fury.
By the time I got to work, I’d calmed down and was processing through what the officers had said. It sounded like they suspected Roger was a drug user and had been high when he crashed the snowmobile. But somehow that didn’t seem right to me. Then again, what did I know?
A Song of Forgiveness Page 10
