He glanced at the people seated around us. “I’ll say. From the looks we got when you pointed your fork at me, I think they were a little worried that you were going to lunge across the table and attack me.”
“Not them.” I spared hardly a look at the dozen or so occupied tables around us before I pointed at the ghost. “Him.”
“The ghost who doesn’t want us to find out who killed him?”
“Because he knows already,” I reminded Quinn. “But that still leaves a big question.” I turned to the ghost. “What do you want?”
“Hmhm Mmm. Mmmmnm,” he replied.
Thinking, I got to work on the asparagus. “You want me to right a wrong?” I asked the ghost.
This time, he didn’t shake or nod. Instead, he sort of tilted his head from side to side—right ear to shoulder, left ear to shoulder.
“So what you’re telling me is you’re not sure? You don’t know if what you want me to do is going to right a wrong?”
The ghost hopped up and down.
“So whatever it is you want me to do…” I was at the end of the logic train here, and I cut into the chicken breast, dunked it in the blue cheese sauce, and chewed thoughtfully. “It’s not exactly righting a wrong.”
The ghost nodded.
“But it’s not exactly not righting a wrong, either.” Even I knew I was in danger of muddying the waters way too much, so I waved away the question. Manny showed up with more iced tea and while he was there, I asked to see a menu again.
“We don’t have time for dessert,” Quinn said.
“Not dessert.” I opened the menu. “Information.” I held the menu so that the ghost could see it. “Maybe there are some words you can point out,” I told him. “You know, to tell me what you want from me.”
He nodded and read over the day’s specials and when one caught his eye, he did a little shuffle step toward me and tipped his head.
“What you want me to do involves tuna in citrus sauce?” I said, and when the ghost shook his head, I tried again.
Drip, drip, drip.
The water droplets plunked down on one word.
Cooked.
Both Quinn and I thought it over.
“He’s hungry,” Quinn said.
Considering it, I wrinkled my nose. “I don’t think ghosts get hungry.”
The ghost confirmed this by nodding.
“He wants to learn to cook,” I said, grabbing at straws and thinking out loud.
“He wants you to learn to cook.”
I gave Quinn’s comment the glare it deserved.
“Maybe he was killed by a cook,” I suggested, to which the ghost indicated that I was way off base.
“Cooked.” Quinn repeated the word. “Cooked as in dead?”
The ghosts eyes lit. At least I think they did. It was kind of hard to tell since they were so swollen. He looked toward Quinn and nodded.
“He says you’re right,” I reported. “Cooked meaning dead. But we already know you’re dead.”
The ghost waggled his head.
“So it’s not you we’re talking about.”
Nod, nod.
“That means it’s…?” I did my best to encourage him.
To which the ghost responded by looking all around the room.
“It means everybody here is going to die?” This sounded pretty strange, and my disbelief rang through my words.
The ghost gave me a look that said it was a pretty pathetic guess. Again, he looked around the room.
“He’s looking at everybody here,” I told Quinn.
“Everybody.” Quinn shook his head just like the ghost had been doing. “That doesn’t seem likely. Unless the place is going to explode or something.”
The ghost said no, then took another look around the room and when I still drew a blank, he dragged himself and that cinder block attached to his legs over to the table closest to ours.
He looked down at a woman eating her salad, then over at her companion, a middle-aged man who was sipping a martini.
The ghost raised his eyebrows in question.
He did the same at the next table, and the one after that.
“Everybody,” I mumbled. “You’re saying everybody here…But no, that’s not what you mean,” I added because I knew the ghost would only tell me I was wrong. “You don’t mean everybody. You mean that lady, and that man and that lady…”
The ghost leaned forward and bobbled his head.
I was getting close, the look said. Warmer and warmer.
I leaned forward in my seat. “So if you don’t mean that lady or that man specifically—”
Warmer.
“Then maybe what you’re saying isn’t everybody. It’s anybody.”
Hot!
“Somebody.”
He jumped up and down.
“Somebody and cooked.” The truth hit. “What you’re saying is that you need my help or somebody else is going to die!”
I hadn’t even realized I’d jumped out of my seat and yelled the words until I saw every mouth in the room drop open.
No worries, when the hostess hurried over, Quinn took care of things by flashing his badge along with his credit card, telling the woman he had everything under control, and waiting barely long enough to sign his name to the bill before he dragged me out the door.
I didn’t manage to untangle myself from him until we were almost out to the car. “You could have given me a chance to ask for a doggie bag,” I said. “That chicken was fabulous.”
“This is what you do?” I guess it was a good thing he wasn’t holding on to me anymore. It gave Quinn a chance to throw his hands in the air. “This is how you communicate with the dead?”
“Well, they’re not usually bound and gagged,” I said.
“And you expect me to take you seriously?” He unlocked the car, got in, and slammed the door.
I considered walking away, but the prospect of public transportation back to the cemetery was not a pretty one. I got in the car and slammed the other door.
“It’s plenty serious. Weren’t you listening? Or do you just not get it? They want to cross over to the Other Side. Ghosts, I mean. It’s always what they want. And they can’t because they have some sort of unfinished business. My guess is that’s why this one is talking about somebody else who’s going to die. We’re going to have to save that person. You know, so this ghost can accomplish his good deed and cross over.”
“Put on your seat belt,” Quinn rumbled.
In fact, it was the only thing he said all the way back to Garden View.
All right, so Ella wasn’t far off when she said Milo Blackburne was a moderately attractive man. Nice hair. Decent features. Great suit.
None of that meant I was thinking about anything other than fund-raising as we sat across the table from each other at Johnny’s Downtown, one of those unassuming little restaurants that Cleveland is famous for. Fabulous food. Service that’s way above and beyond. Prices…well, let’s just say that if Milo hadn’t insisted on treating we (a) wouldn’t be there or (b) would be eating only the bread our attentive waitress brought to our table.
“Wine?” Milo asked me before the waitress could walk away.
I was tempted. But. “I’ve got a tour coming to Garden View at two,” I told him, leaving out the not-so-inconsequential fact that it was one of the reasons I’d chosen that afternoon for our lunch. Quinn had accused me of having an overactive imagination and maybe he was right, because every time Milo Blackburne looked at me, I could have sworn his eyes glazed over like a Krispy Kreme doughnut. Honest, if we were two characters in a cartoon, I was pretty sure I’d see his heart thump, thump, thumping its way right out of his chest and little Xs and Os floating around his head.
I shifted uneasily in my chair at the same time I told myself to get a grip. It was business, I reminded myself, and so what if the guy was attracted to me? He wasn’t the first, and he wouldn’t be the last. Guys, I knew how to handle.
Except f
or one.
“You’re lost in thought.” I snapped out of my daydream to find Milo with one elbow on the table and his chin on his fist, all moon-eyed like some sappy hero in a romance novel. “No doubt, you’re occupied with all the details for that tour.”
“The tour. Yes, of course.” It was a better answer than telling him my mind was playing over my last encounter with Quinn. Damn the man for being so stubborn! Quinn claimed to be all about wanting the truth, didn’t he? And yet when I gave it to him and admitted that the wet, murdered ghost was hanging around because he needed my help…
Well, there was no use stirring up the ugly emotions all over again.
Suffice it to say I hadn’t seen or heard from Quinn since our lunch at Heck’s.
Which was fine by me, I reminded myself, since I was still mad about the no-doggie-bag thing, not to mention the way he’d minimized my Gift and my talent for helping ghosts make it safely to the Other Side.
Then again, I hadn’t seen the wet ghost since that afternoon almost a week earlier, either.
Just to make sure I wasn’t saying too much too soon, I checked the spotless floor of the restaurant. Spotless being the operative word. As in no puddles. This, too, was fine with me since I didn’t relish the thought of another round of charades. Especially since I was in no position to explain what was going on to Milo.
Who, I realized, was still staring at me from behind those tortoiseshell-rimmed glasses of his so intently, I wouldn’t have been at all surprised if they started to steam.
“I’m glad you’re considering a donation to Garden View,” I said, hoping to get him to keep his thoughts on money, not on me. “Our donors are the lifeblood of the cemetery. Without them, we wouldn’t be able to effectively get our message to the community through our tours, or our speakers’ bureau, or—”
“You don’t have to give me the spiel.” Milo sat back and laughed. “I’m going to give, and generously, I promise. After my visit to the cemetery last week, I realized there are many wonderful and valuable and beautiful things there. They need to be preserved. And nurtured.”
If we were talking about headstones, I wouldn’t have felt so queasy. The way Milo’s gaze ranged over me and the too-prim-for-my-liking black pantsuit I’d bought especially for the occasion sent a clear message: he wasn’t as concerned with the dead as he was with the living. Provided the living we were talking about was me.
I pretended not to catch on. Years of dating, and nobody could play the game like I could.
“Garden View is an amazing place,” I said, my smile bright. “But then, you know that. You visit Gladys regularly.”
“Who?” No sooner was the question out of his mouth than Milo remembered. His cheeks darkened. “I’m afraid I haven’t been to pay my respects to Lois…er, that is, to Gladys lately. You see, I realized something very important the night of the sponsorship event. About Lois. And Lana.”
He’d tossed around both those names before, but at least this time, I knew who Lois was. Before I could ask about Lana, though, our waitress arrived with our entrees and for a few minutes, I was so busy tucking into my Caesar salad with grilled shrimp, I didn’t worry about conversation.
That is, until Milo hit me with, “So, are you seeing anyone?”
There is no tightrope quite as narrow, taut, or wobbly as the one walked by a community relations manager with her hand out and her boss’s job on the line.
“I’m sorry,” Milo said before I could even think of the best way to handle the situation. “I know I’m being forward. It’s just…” He gave me another one of those sappy looks. “You look so much like Lana.”
“Which doesn’t mean I am Lana.” I shouldn’t have had to point this out, but when guys get this way, sometimes it’s best just to lay things on the line. “And who is this Lana chick, anyway?”
“Lana!” Milo’s sigh was pure seventh heaven. “Lana Lang. She was Superman’s girlfriend. You know, back when he was a teenager and lived in Smallville with his adoptive parents, the Kents.”
“And you think I—”
“Well, it’s only natural,” Milo said. “Like you, Lana is a beautiful redhead.”
I didn’t mind being called beautiful. Especially by a man who was never going to get the chance to lambaste me about my Gift because I was never going to tell him about it.
But I didn’t want to give Milo the wrong impression.
That would explain why I didn’t so much change the subject as I bumped it in a slightly different direction.
“There’s a comic book convention coming to town,” I said. “I bet they’ll have Superman stuff there.”
“Who told you?” At least Milo wasn’t giving me moon-eyed looks anymore. In fact, he leaned forward and studied me, so intent, his eyes were closed nearly to slits. “What do you know about the convention?”
Since I didn’t know what I’d said wrong, it was kind of hard to figure out how to fix it, but I knew instinctively that mentioning Quinn and my connection with him and with the police wasn’t going to help. “I…I read about it. In the newspaper. I just thought—”
“Of course. Yes, of course you did.” His smile shimmied at the edges and he concentrated on his veal ravioli for a few minutes before he dared to look my way again. “I have a modest collection,” he said. “Of Superman memorabilia. I’m afraid when I hear people talk about things like comic book conventions—”
“I get it. You’re not into that goofy stuff.”
“Quite the contrary. I find it all fascinating. But some people belittle my interest, and I’m afraid I get defensive when that happens. I thought you might—”
“Never!” It was true. I’d never call Milo a comic book geek. At least not in front of him. “I think it’s interesting.”
“Really?”
Damn! We were back to moon-eyed.
“Just thinking about Superman and his marvelous powers…” Again, Milo’s cheeks darkened and I think this time, maybe he realized he was sounding a little too much like the crazed fanboy he expected me to make fun of, because he bit back his words and looked down at the ravioli on his plate. “I must confess, I sometimes wish I could be just like him.”
“Him? As in Superman? But he’s—”
“I know. It’s just a pipe dream.”
I was going to say make-believe so I bit my tongue.
Milo shifted his gaze to his sterling and lapis cuff links. “I’ve never confessed that before.” He lifted his head to look into my eyes. “Not to anyone.”
“Wow, look at the time!” Lame, yes. It was incredibly lame. But for the first time, I think I understood how Quinn felt when I started carrying on about ghosts. Like I didn’t know where to look. Or what to say. In my experience, when that happens, pulling back is the best course of action. I pushed my chair away from the table and thank goodness I had the smarts to meet Milo at the restaurant. That meant my car was in the parking lot right around the corner. “I’m afraid I’m going to have to be getting back to Garden View,” I told Milo. “You know, for that tour.”
I thanked him, told him we’d talk again soon (I figured I had to say that and besides, I still needed to collect a check from him), and got the hell out of there.
This time, I was so busy beating a hasty retreat, I never even thought about a doggie bag.
I should have been relieved to make a clean break from Milo Blackburne and those telling looks of his. I should have been grateful, and proud of myself for not being too obvious. I hope.
Instead, all I was by the time I got back to the office was pissed.
Pissed at men in general, a couple specifically, and one in particular.
And since I wasn’t particular about which particular one it was, the first thing I did when I got back to Garden View was get rid of both those vases of flowers on my desk. They were well past their prime, anyway, and dropping petals in musky little piles that I’d been ignoring for the last few days and were now officially getting on my nerves.
/> It wasn’t until after I’d deposited both bouquets in the flower room where someone would reuse the vases for some cemetery event or another and got back to my office that I saw the ghost sitting behind my desk.
Not the wet ghost. Or Chet, either.
This was a woman, neat, petite, wearing a gray suit and a white business-y type shirt that was buttoned all the way to up her throat. Her hair was dark and pulled back, the top teased into a poofy round beehive and hairsprayed to within an inch of its life. No way one hair on that head was going to move. Ever. Her shoulders were rigid, and she was shuffling the papers on my desk.
“Excuse me?”
No, I am not particularly territorial when it comes to my workspace, but reread the above sentence. Shuffling. The ghost was shuffling papers.
I pointed a finger her way. “You shouldn’t be able to—”
“You’re forgetting.” She tapped the papers into a neat little pile, set them down exactly in the center of the desk, and sat back, her hands folded on her lap. “In the first days after a person passes away—”
“They can touch things. Until the first full moon after they die!” I’d learned that lesson back in Chicago when a bitch of a ghost stole my body and I was invisible myself for a while and way more than grateful that I could still touch and feel things so I could get myself out of that jam. “So you just recently—”
“Expired. Yes.” Her expression was serene. “Just this morning. It’s quite a unique experience, and there’s so much to learn! I’m afraid it will take me a while to get up to speed, but of course, I will do my best. In the meantime, though, word on the Other Side travels fast, and they talk about you, Miss Martin. Oh yes, they do talk about you.”
I hoped my shoulders didn’t sag too much when I realized the subtext of what she was saying. I already had a murdered ghost on my hands, someone else who was going to die if I didn’t help, and no idea whatsoever of how I was going to figure out where to begin my investigation.
Supernatural Born Killers Page 7
