The Exorcist Who Loved Me
Page 2
He abandoned the materials set out on the table and cautiously approached Holly and her inner plus-one. Too late for the basic ritual. He should have prepped before getting Holly to talk, but he’d thought this would be easy. Declan had vetted the case before referring it to him, and he hadn’t found any trace of a hostile entity. All evidence pointed to a simple making amends scenario.
Lawe had figured he’d be done in twenty minutes tops. Plenty of time to break his ironclad rule against dating clients and invite the sexy widow to have dinner with him. It would have been nice, for once, to have some alive company before he headed back to the crappy motel near the highway.
He’d let his mind wander, maybe tried to show off, gotten careless. Exactly why mixing business and pleasure was a bad idea. He never should have made that crack about banishing Paul. Whatever entity was hanging around Holly had heard and moved to protect itself.
Damn, he hated when the spirit world got complicated.
He crept closer to the thing at the mirror. “I don’t suppose you’ll leave if I ask nicely?”
The thing turned, surveying him with amusement. “Forget it, Exorcist. You’re not gonna get rid of me until I’m finished here.”
“Oh, you’re finished all right.”
He grabbed her, going for a chokehold, but she flailed her arms, screeching, and whacked him in the face. Losing patience, he yanked her arm, pulling her roughly against him and hoping he didn’t leave bruises. Poor Holly.
“Well, well.” The thing’s voice was soft and dark as velvet. “I can see why Holly likes you.”
“That’s enough from you.” He swept his leg out, knocking her off balance, and they tumbled together to the floor. He landed on top and straddled her, pinning her wrists above her head with one hand. He had the completely inappropriate thought that this position would have been a lot more fun if it really were Holly underneath him.
The thing laughed in his face. “A little pervy, aren’t we?”
She struggled, but whatever was possessing Holly didn’t have superhuman strength. At last, something was going his way tonight.
He yanked the leather pouch off his neck and forced it over Holly’s head.
The thing thrashed and spit flew at him. “Oh my God, what is that? It stinks!”
Lawe paused. The thing had invoked God, so it wasn’t a demon. Good news all around. Maybe he could fix this fast and still have time to take Holly to dinner. Assuming she wanted to go anywhere with him after this screw-up.
He tightened his grip on Holly’s wrists and forced his mind to focus, to slip into that otherworld connection he’d discovered as a kid. He spoke the familiar Latin incantation, keeping his voice low and steady. The thing’s blue eyes bugged out, and he felt a stab of satisfaction.
“Discede.” His shout bounced off the walls and high ceiling, and the thing in Holly hissed.
The lights went out, plunging the room into darkness. A second later, a roaring fire burst to life in the massive stone fireplace.
Now what?
Beneath him, Holly stirred. She blinked, firelight reflecting in her eyes. Amber. Thank God.
She tilted her head up, her eyes on his hand pinning her wrists to the carpet. Her body went very still and she returned her gaze to his face. “What the hell is going on?”
He rolled off her, and she sat up, rubbing her wrists.
“How do you feel?” he asked.
“I’ve got a monster headache.” Her gaze dropped to her chest, and she lifted the herb pouch on its leather strap. “This is your necklace.” She brought it to her nose, sniffed. “Smells good.”
“A mix of herbs. Lilac, sandalwood, blackthorn, yarrow. A little peppermint.” She moved to slip the necklace off and he reached out a hand to stop her. “Keep it on. The herbs will protect you from possession.”
She let the pouch fall back against her chest. “It happened again, didn’t it?” Her voice shook. “I was possessed.”
Lawe glanced around the room, his eyes adjusting to the dark. A phosphorescent blob floated in front of the fire. He stood, pulled Holly to her feet, kept an arm around her for support.
“Good news is you’re not possessed anymore. I think you had a hitchhiker. A spirit tagging along in your body. I ejected it.”
Her eyes widened, getting that glazed, shocky look that meant her mind wanted to shut down the freaky shit invading its protective shell. “If that’s the good news, what’s the bad news?”
The shape grew, took form, morphing into a tall blond knockout with big blue eyes, a sultry smile, and rock star legs.
“Bad news is you’ve got a ghost,” he said as the lights flickered on.
Holly’s whole body went rigid against him.
“You!” She stared dead at the ghost, which wasn’t possible.
Lawe saw dead people all the time. No one else ever did.
But Holly glared at the ghost, fists clenched at her side. She was seeing the ghost.
That was crazy.
That was impossible.
That was fucking awesome. He knew he liked this woman.
“Recognize your ghost?” Lawe asked.
“Yeah.” Holly turned to him with an I-don’t-effing-believe-it look on her face. “That’s my husband’s mistress.”
Chapter Two
The ghost of Paul’s former secretary stretched her arms over her head and rolled her shoulders as though working out the kinks from her coffin. Flames leapt in the fireplace behind her, tingeing her translucent body with hellfire orange.
Holly believed in the afterlife. She believed she’d experienced the paranormal a couple of times. And she’d spent the past few weeks beginning to believe that her dead husband’s spirit was possessing her.
She’d been wrong. Paul’s girlfriend had been possessing her.
“Celia.” Heat radiated from Holly’s stomach to her bloodstream as if she’d slammed back a double shot of adrenaline and anger. “You’re the one who’s been possessing me? Haven’t you done enough?”
“Oh, don’t start blaming me for being a homewrecker.” Death hadn’t changed the perpetual pout in Celia’s voice. “You know as well I do your marriage was over long before I came along.”
The ghost stretched her arms again and the movement hiked up her already short dress, one Holly had last seen at Celia’s funeral. The mortician had done a good job hiding the damage from the car wreck. Someone, maybe Celia’s grief-stricken mother, had dressed her in a thigh-skimming flowered dress and knee-high leather boots for her eternal rest. She’d looked forever frozen between girlish innocence and reckless sexuality. Young and beautiful and dead at twenty.
Celia wore the same gauzy dress and high-heeled boots as she strode across the family room like a runway model, settled herself in an armchair, and crossed her long legs. The sunburst pattern of the throw pillows showed through her transparent body. She cast a calculating glance over Lawe.
“Looks like you’ve done better for yourself than Paul.” Celia’s voice was lush with amusement. “A hottie exorcist. Who’d have thunk?”
Another shot of anger exploded through Holly’s system, but Lawe squeezed her arm in warning. He angled his body protectively in front of hers. “Seems Paul Archer’s cup runneth’d over.”
Celia chuckled, the sound vibrating deep on the seductive scale. Even dead, the woman was catnip for the opposite sex. How was that fair?
“Like a lot of men,” Celia said, “Paul didn’t know what to do with his good fortune other than roll in it like a pig in shit.”
Sexy and trampy, but not dumb. Holly would give her that much.
Lawe glanced over his shoulder, eyebrows raised. “Did anybody like this guy?”
Holly shrugged. Was she actually having this conversation with her husband’s dead girlfriend?
Celia met Holly’s stare dead-on
. “Everyone loves Paul, at first. Until you realize he’s screwing you in more ways than one.”
“About that.” Lawe tucked Holly further behind his body, as though sensing some threat that eluded Holly. “Seen Paul lately?”
Celia dipped her chin. “You mean on the other side?” Her whisper was full of dark portents, the voice of a carnival fortune-teller.
Life after death. The proof was right in front of her.
“Tell us.” Avid curiosity pulled Holly a step closer, but Lawe held her back.
“Nope!” The word cracked sharply in the silence and Holly jumped back. Celia cackled. “Haven’t seen him. My guess is he went toward the light first thing. Paul wasn’t one to question his choices, not even at the end.”
The nerve of this woman. Ghost. Whatever. “And you did? Little late, don’t you think?”
The ghost tilted her head, her translucent red lips tightening. Trust Celia to apply makeup in the afterlife. “Paul was a lousy husband and a lousy father. I probably spent more time with Sadie and Theo than he did, and I babysat them, what? A dozen times? I know Paul left you a life insurance policy that protects your fancy life. The bastard did you a favor by dying.”
Celia’s words slid under her skin like a poisoned knife. Paul hadn’t loved her and he hadn’t loved their kids and that brutal truth had hollowed out her heart a little bit more every day.
It was too much.
“My kids deserved a father!”
“Yeah. And Paul never acted like one, did he?”
That Celia’s thoughts echoed her own enraged her further. She’d only half grieved her husband because she was so damned mad at him. For everything. The need to lash out beat against her chest, choking her breath. Paul was gone, but his dead mistress had possessed her, had hijacked her body, and now sat in her living room smirking at her.
Rage blinded her and she rushed forward. Celia’s eyes went wide and her mouth opened on a scream as she started to scramble out of the chair. Lawe shouted for Holly to stop, but she launched herself at Celia.
Ice arced through her. She gasped in the second before her body hit the chair and knocked it over. She went over with it, falling through the cold shimmer that was Celia screaming like a fourteen-year-old at a boy band concert. The white carpet rushed up to meet her, sporting a big grape jelly smear. She landed half on the floor and half on the overturned chair, the wind knocked painfully out of her.
“For the love of Christ,” Lawe shouted, for once sounding exactly like Holly’s idea of an exorcist.
In the sudden silence that followed, Holly rolled onto her back and groaned. Lawe bent over her, disbelief in his eyes, and she blinked up at him.
The hysteria riding her since Celia showed up burst out in a crazy-sounding laugh. “She’s a ghost. So of course I fell right through her. It’s not like she’s got an actual body. She’s a freaking ghost.”
Lawe shook his head and grabbed her hands, the muscles in his arms flexing as he hauled her to her feet. Wow. Apparently exorcists worked out more than real estate agents.
“Are you okay?” He studied her face and her skin flamed hot under his scrutiny.
She nodded, not trusting herself to speak. After three years in the deep freeze, her sex drive roared to life. All because of an innocent touch and a bit of concern from a man. As if she needed more evidence marriage and motherhood had made her both sleep-deprived and sex-deprived.
“I’m okay,” she forced out.
“Good,” he said. “This isn’t the Jerry Springer ‘My Husband’s Girlfriend Is a Ghost’ episode. Do not attack the dead.”
Celia hovered a few feet away. Actually hovered. Those boots were three inches off the ground. “What’s your major malfunction?” she huffed.
Holly shook off Lawe’s grip and shoved her hair off her hot forehead. “My major malfunction? Paul is dead because his mistress—you—gave him a blow job in a speeding car on a windy mountain road. And then that dead mistress starts possessing me and making dates for me. Of all the whacked-out things to do. And if that wasn’t enough, she—you—dead girl are now standing in my living room wearing fuck-me boots and bitching about my husband.”
The lights flickered and died, and Celia solidified. In the firelight, she looked exactly as she had when she was alive, apart from the white glow surrounding her. Her mouth hardened. “That’s not why we died.”
“Spare me.” Holly advanced, but Lawe yanked her back against his chest, caging her in his strong arms.
“Do. Not. Move.” His breath was hot in her ear.
A bolt of lust weakened her knees.
The timing was awful, but it was nice to know her libido hadn’t left the building forever at age twenty-eight.
Exorcists didn’t have telepathic powers, right?
She got that he wanted her to be cautious and careful about this ghost, but it was Celia. The woman had worked for her husband and babysat her kids and, sure, Holly had missed the fact that Celia had no morals, but she wasn’t scary.
A ripple cascaded across Celia’s skin and suddenly her body showed the lacerations and twisted limbs she must have suffered in the car crash.
Holly pressed herself against Lawe’s chest, and he tightened his arms around her.
“Tell us why you died.” His voice was cool and calm. Just another day in the life of an exorcist. Holly shivered.
The lights glowed dim again and Celia faded to translucence. Signs of the car crash disappeared. “We were murdered.”
Lawe’s pinch on her arm silenced Holly’s snort of derision.
“Do you have any proof?” His tone stayed neutral, professional, but Holly felt his muscles tense around her.
All of a sudden, Celia’s face crumpled in misery and she sank into the armchair. “No. That’s why I’m here. That’s why I’ve been possessing Holly. I need a living body to figure out why I died.”
“Oh, please.” Holly stepped out of the comforting circle of Lawe’s arms before he could pinch her into silence again. Already, she’d been in his arms twice and been pinioned underneath him while he exorcised Celia. She’d touched this stranger more tonight than she had her husband in the last weeks of his life.
“We all know why you died.” Holly glared at Celia.
Celia glared back. “We were sideswiped by another car. Forced off the road and over the edge of the mountain.” She shivered, as though reliving her final terrified moments. “It wasn’t a random hit-and-run. Paul and I were at a party at an estate in Aspen. Some bigwig client invited us. But we left early because Paul and his partner, Jake, got into a huge fight. They had something big going, maybe something illegal. Paul would drop hints about it, but he’d never tell me exactly what was going on. He kept saying he’d have enough money soon, and he and I could…” Celia’s voice trailed off and she shot a guilty look at Holly.
A halfhearted sense of betrayal washed through her, more a reflex than an emotional reaction. Time had dulled the knife-twist in her heart. Not only had her husband cheated on her and promised to run away with another woman, he’d died leaving a party hosted by a longtime family friend. The “bigwig client” was Anderson Webber, president of a bank in town and golfing buddy of her father’s. He’d been a frequent guest in her parents’ home, had watched Holly and her sisters grow up. Yet, he’d invited Paul’s mistress to his swanky Aspen estate.
Her mother had been incensed when she found out. I swear that third wife is ruining him. That’s what happens when men marry women half their age. Consider Anderson Webber crossed off our Christmas party list forever. Social ostracism, Mom’s weapon of choice.
Celia’s lower lip edged out. She glanced away, exactly like the twins did when they knew they were in trouble.
Instead of outrage, Holly mostly felt pity. “Promising to run away together is the oldest line in the how-to-be-a-cheating-manwhore book.”
Celia crossed her legs, swung one heel back and forth. “I believed him and I’m dead, so you can skip the lecture, daddy-o.”
Holly sighed. “Paul was not the romantic type to run away with his lover to some tropical island. That would mean leaving his ginormous house, his art collection, his home theater with speakers that cost as much as my minivan.” She ticked off the items on her fingers. No ticks for Paul’s wife or kids—he wouldn’t have hesitated to leave them if something better came along. “His Corvette, his new Land Rover, his season tickets to the Broncos…”
Lawe raised his eyebrows. “Guess I went into the wrong line of work. What did your husband do for a living?”
“He sold high-end real estate,” Holly said absently. “He and Jake also did some commercial property management.”
Come to think of it, Paul’s spending had escalated in the past year. They’d argued about it. Holly didn’t understand how they could afford everything, even with the generous commissions he brought home, but Paul had insisted he wasn’t going to justify his spending to her. He supported the family and that was all she damn well needed to know. Hurt, she’d dropped the subject and poured her energy into being the best mom she could to Theo and Sadie.
Shortly after Paul’s death, she’d discovered his secret credit card. Besides his own expensive toys, he’d spent a small fortune on Celia: jewelry, a love nest in the center of town, weekends in Napa and New York he’d told her were business conferences.
And then there was the safe-deposit box key she’d found in his bottom desk drawer.
“How much does a real estate agent make these days?” Lawe sounded as though he were seriously considering a career change.
“Good realtors, especially ones who handle high-end or commercial properties, make a lot. But not enough to afford what Paul was spending.” Celia’s gaze was on Holly. “I’m telling you, he and Jake were up to something. Embezzling maybe.”