Lawe sighed. “At least you’ve got control of your momentum. That’s something.”
On one of their early attempts, she’d shot herself straight into the house foundation. His eardrums still rang from her supersonic screams.
Now she flopped onto the carpet in defeat, her iridescent arms and legs spread-eagled.
Dec shivered and ran his hands down his face. Groaning, he snatched a chenille throw blanket from the back of the couch and wrapped it around his shoulders. “Tell me again why this is necessary.”
“We’re researching whether an entity who has possessed one sensitive can possess another at will.”
Dec tightened the blanket. His lips looked a little blue. “Holly’s a sensitive?”
Lawe smiled. “Little bit.”
“Must be nice to have a girlfriend who believes in what you do.”
“She’s not my girlfriend,” Lawe said automatically. “And what are you talking about?”
“Nothing.”
A high-pitched giggle came from behind him and Lawe whipped around. Holly’s son and daughter stood at the base of the stairs, holding hands. With their curly mops of blond hair, big brown eyes, and wide grins, they looked like naughty cherubs.
“Mommy went potty,” Sadie said. “What’cha doing?”
Dec hunted through the wet bar, grabbed a bottle of scotch. “Grown-up stuff, kid.” He took a closer look at the label. “Johnny Walker Blue. This guy didn’t stint on the booze.”
“Tell him to pour me one,” Celia said from the ground next to Dec. “I love the smell of good scotch.”
“Celia wants one.”
“Isn’t she underage?” Dec reached up and snagged a tumbler from the glass-front cabinet.
“I’m dead!”
Theo pulled his thumb out of his mouth with an audible pop and waved in Dec’s direction. “See-ya.”
Seemed more like Theo should be saying hello, but what did he know about kids? Even without a good grasp of the English language, the little munchkin was cute as a bug.
“Hey there.” Lawe crouched until he was eye level with the kiddos. “I don’t think your mom wants you down here.”
Footsteps pounded on the stairs and Holly swung around the corner into the room, a little out of breath. Her frantic gaze zeroed in on the twins. “There you are. Which one of you figured out how to take the childproof cover off the doorknob?”
Sadie giggled. Holly planted a kiss on the little girl’s head. “Rascal. Come on. Let’s leave the, uh, exterminators to their job.”
“Oh, that’s nice,” Celia said from the ground.
Theo’s eyes tracked to the ghost, almost as if he’d heard her. But then he popped his thumb back in his mouth and buried his face against his mother’s leg, so probably the boy had been looking at Dec. Holly had told him Theo was cautious around strange men.
“Don’t go.” Dec knocked back his Johnny Walker. He closed his eyes, some color returning to his pale face. “Stay and save me from your man’s experiment. We haven’t talked about Celia’s tether yet. Have you found it?”
“Not yet.” Holly glanced nervously at Celia and grabbed each twin by a pudgy hand.
She was backing up toward the stairs when Dec interrupted her. “Wait. The tether could be important.”
Holly shot another glance at Celia and shook her head. “This isn’t a good time.”
“Oh, for Pete’s sake, I’m not going to hurt them.” Celia’s sulky voice floated up from the floor.
Lawe put a hand on Holly’s shoulder. He understood her concern about having a ghost near her kids, but he no longer worried about this particular spirit. “It’ll be okay. She seems…tame.”
Holly met his gaze for a long moment, then blew out a puff of air. “Okay.”
Sensing freedom, Sadie grabbed her brother’s hand and toddled to the couch. Holly followed the kids, steadying them as they climbed up and started jumping. “We’re not sure what the tether is. Lawe told me she could be tied to my house.”
Dec shot Lawe a pitying look. “This is why you need me. A house is not a tether. A tether is a small object that belonged to the ghost when he or she was alive. Something personal. Meaningful.”
Holly’s eyes widened. She glanced at Celia, then quickly away. “No idea what that would be.”
Celia floated to a standing position, hands planted on her hips. She fixed her gaze on Holly, then jerked her head toward Paul’s office.
Holly scowled and shook her head, her glossy blond hair flying.
Celia rolled her eyes.
Their pantomime was ridiculous since he could see every move. And yet, watching Holly silently communicate with a ghost she should hate but didn’t, something plinked into his heart and stuck.
This was a woman he could love.
“Fine,” Holly exploded, glaring at Celia. “It’s her bracelet. I went to her funeral and stole her bracelet and it’s sitting in the bottom desk drawer and that’s her tether. You happy now?”
“Jeez, you don’t have to be such a drama queen about it.”
Dec’s lips twitched. “Mind if I take a look?”
Holly made a shooing motion with her hands and Dec disappeared into Paul’s office, Celia trailing after him.
Needing to touch her, Lawe crossed the room and put an arm around Holly’s waist as the kids jumped and giggled on the couch. He kissed her temple. “So you’re a kleptomaniac, huh? That’s hot.”
She laughed, rested her head on her shoulder. “My first offense.”
A well of emotion lapped at him, but it was too soon for the words he wanted to say. So he settled for the next best thing.
“Are you busy tomorrow night?”
She raised her eyebrows. “You mean besides dealing with toddler twins, a needy ghost, trying to find out where my husband got two million dollars, and worrying whether he was murdered?”
“Besides that.”
A smile tugged at her lips. “No, I’m not busy.”
“Want to go to a Halloween party?”
“This is the one the Haunted Boulder people are throwing? The party you wanted to leave town to avoid?”
“That’s the one.”
He felt her smile against his chest. “I’d love to.”
Her phone rang and she pulled away. He wondered idly if he could convince her to ditch that half-baked plan to get Jake to talk at dinner tonight. They could put babysitting time to much better use.
“Hi, Dr. McGarry.” Holly pushed her hair off her forehead, shot a guilty look at Lawe. “I know I canceled suddenly yesterday… No, everything’s fine.”
Dec burst out of the office, the shit-I’m-caught plain on his face. “Holly, wait.”
She glanced up. “Oh, Dec says hi. Yeah, he’s right here. Hang on a sec, let me just get the kids settled.” Tucking the phone between her ear and her shoulder, she scooped up Sadie mid-jump and held out the flailing little girl to Lawe.
“What? No.” He stepped back, putting a safe distance between himself and the child. He looked to Dec for help—the guy had a dozen nieces and nephews; he was good with kids—but Dec was pouring himself another scotch. He downed it in one gulp. Celia floated next to him, sniffing his glass.
“Help me out, okay?” Holly said. “I don’t want them running around down here. The basement’s not baby-proofed.” When he didn’t take the child from her, she made an exasperated sound. “She doesn’t bite.”
He wasn’t worried about biting. He worried about the state of her potty training. But Holly wasn’t backing off, so Lawe gingerly put his hands under Sadie’s elbows and lifted her into his arms. She wrapped her little legs around him and patted his hair.
“Pretty,” she said.
“Thanks, kid.”
“You like princesses?”
“Can’t say I’ve ev
er thought about it.”
“I’m going to be a princess.” And she was off, chattering away about princesses and princes and ice castles and what all. He tried to look interested, but he felt trapped under an avalanche of words.
Holly scooped up Theo and retreated to the back of the home theater. “Yes, your friend Dec,” she said into the phone. “What do you mean, ‘How do I know him?’ You sent him here to investigate alternative reasons for my blackouts.”
Dec pressed the empty tumbler to his forehead. “Fuck.”
“You didn’t?” Holly swung around, narrowed her eyes at Dec. “I don’t understand.”
Oblivious to the undercurrent of tension filling the room, Celia planted herself in a ready position more suited to a boxer than a ghost. Dukes up, feet six inches off the ground and dancing side to side. “Let’s go again. I think I’ve got this.”
Dec reached for the scotch bottle. Before Lawe could warn him—or get the video camera ready—Celia sang out, “Ready or not…” and launched herself at Dec.
The ghost disappeared. Dec’s skin rippled, his face caught between pain and shock. His body convulsed, and he dropped to the floor, a yard away from the cushions meant to break his fall. The empty scotch glass rolled across the carpet.
Lawe put Sadie down. “Stay,” he said to the little girl.
“Okay,” she chirped, rocking back and forth on her heels. Maybe he wasn’t so bad with kids.
He checked Dec’s pulse, lifted his eyelids. Ice-blue eyes.
“I’ll be damned. She did it.”
If this followed the same pattern as with Holly, Dec would regain consciousness in a minute or two. Lawe grabbed the video camera and zoomed in on Dec’s face. Sure enough, a few seconds later, his eyelids fluttered and he pushed himself unsteadily to his elbows.
Or Celia did. “Whoa. I, like, totally did it. Get a load of me.”
She stood and Lawe moved back, adjusted the zoom to capture all of Dec-Celia. Ryan was going to laugh his ass off when he saw the video.
Celia flexed Dec’s arm, making his biceps pop. She looked down and her lips formed an interested O. She cupped Dec’s balls. “Well, well. This one’s got a big swinging dick.”
Chapter Seven
Jake hadn’t arrived by the time Holly and Lawe got to the restaurant. The hostess showed them to a white linen–draped table near the center of the room. Nothing much had changed about Bistro Ten Twenty since Holly’s days as pastry chef except the staff. She didn’t recognize anyone. High turnover wasn’t unusual in the restaurant world, especially in a college town.
Lawe took the seat next to her, facing the entrance, and hung his charcoal suit jacket on the back of his chair. He looked like he’d joined the crew of Ocean’s 11. Dispensing with a tie, he wore his shirt collar open to reveal a spray of dark chest hair. But instead of appearing relaxed, something in the set of his jaw cued a threat. She was very glad he was on her side.
“I’m sorry about outing Dec,” she said when the waitress had taken their drink orders and left. A candle glowed in a glass votive in the center of the table, and the chatter of diners and chink of silverware surrounded them, as did the mouthwatering smells of seared meat and roasting vegetables. “I had no idea Dr. McGarry didn’t know he’d contacted me. She sounded furious.”
“She was.”
After that disastrous phone call with Dr. McGarry this morning, Lawe and Dec had disappeared for the afternoon. The despair on Dec’s face had been painful to see.
She fingered the leather packet around her neck. Herbal incense wafted to her nose and she inhaled deeply. The pouch looked odd with her turquoise knit dress, and there was no chance of Celia possessing her here, but the herbal scent had grown so comforting, she didn’t want to take it off. “Should I bring him some soup and one of the cakes I baked this week?”
Lawe reached over and put his warm hand on top of hers. “Don’t feel bad. He brought this on himself. And he can’t say Ryan and I didn’t warn him.” Lawe tilted his head, a question in his eyes. “I figured you’d be mad. He did steal Dr. McGarry’s patient files and contact you under false pretenses. Which, by the way, I didn’t know when I first contacted you.”
“Maybe I should be mad, but I’m not.” She traced his fingers with her free hand. “If Dec hadn’t sent you to me, Celia would still be hijacking my body and doing heaven knows what with it. I’d still be wondering whether I was losing my mind. And I wouldn’t have met you. You’re a very interesting person, Lawe Callahan.”
Someone cleared his throat on her other side and she looked up. Jake had arrived.
She straightened in her chair, her stomach giving a sick lurch.
A scowl flashed across Jake’s handsome face when his gaze landed on Lawe, but his features quickly smoothed into a smile and he bent to drop a kiss on each of her cheeks.
Nerves itched all along her skin, and she forced herself not to recoil. Facing him calmly while believing he had murdered two people was harder than she’d thought.
“You look lovely, as always.” He took a seat and placed his napkin in his lap before acknowledging Lawe. “Callahan, isn’t it? I wasn’t expecting you tonight.”
“Since it’s a business dinner, we figured you wouldn’t mind.” Lawe’s voice was casual, but she caught the alert undercurrent, the false relaxation of a predator.
Despite his annoyance, Jake’s British politeness—along with a touch of curiosity—surfaced. Exactly what Holly had been counting on.
“I’m delighted you could join us.” Jake flipped open the menu, gave it a quick glance. “Have you and Holly known each other long?”
“Long enough.” Lawe ran a hand down her bare arm, making her shiver, and took her hand in his. All part of the plan to convince Jake she was a lust-struck dupe. The lust-struck part shouldn’t be hard.
“You’ll never believe how we met.” Holly gave a little giggle, hoping she didn’t hit the ditz note too hard. Lawe had warned her not to oversell the act.
Jake accepted a whiskey from the waitress. “Try me.”
“At a séance. Can you believe it? Lawe’s an exorcist.”
“Exorcist?” Jake’s eyebrows hit his hairline. “I didn’t know you and Paul were into that paranormal stuff.”
“Paul wasn’t. I am.” She leaned forward, trying to look earnest. Her hand shook a little under Lawe’s, but hopefully Jake would mistake that for hormones. “Ever since Paul died, I’ve had this feeling he was still with me. Like his spirit was trying to contact me. Turns out, I was right.”
Jake froze with his drink halfway to his mouth, his brow creased as through trying to figure out if she was pulling his leg. “You’ve, um, spoken to Paul since he passed on?”
“I know. It sounds crazy, right? But Lawe channeled Paul’s spirit and delivered a message from the other side.”
Jake’s eyes narrowed. Maybe she was pouring it on too thick.
“That’s quite a talent, Mr. Callahan,” he said.
Lawe inclined his head slightly. “I’ve got a gift that lets people communicate across the veil with their loved ones. Unfinished business prevents some souls from moving on to the next plane of existence. Things like debts to be paid, lost stock certificates, hidden life insurance policies.”
At the mention of money, Jake sat back with a knowing smirk.
“Right.” Jake’s tone said con man on deck. “Holly, you don’t really believe this?”
“I didn’t. Not at first. But after one of my sessions with Lawe, I found a key to a safe-deposit box. Paul had hidden it before he died. That’s what I was doing at the bank yesterday, trying to find the box the key belonged to.”
This breathless lying was getting easier.
Jake placed his drink carefully onto the table. It wasn’t her imagination—there was a new alertness in his bearing. “Did you find what you were looking for?�
��
“I did.” Giving Lawe a fond look, she traced the fingers of the hand he’d rested casually on the table. The smile he gave her was real, and steadied her. She could do this. “Paul stashed a good chunk of money.”
She paused, waiting for Jake’s reaction. His expression didn’t change.
“It’s not enough to retire on.” She’d wanted to dangle the two million in front of Jake, but Lawe had been adamant she not admit to the full amount. Pretend it’s only the fifty grand, he’d said. Two million is enough to kill for twice. “I plan to buy myself some truly spectacular shoes and save the rest for a nest egg. Lawe has great investment ideas.”
Jake made a derisive sound in the back of his throat. “You’re an exorcist and a financial advisor. Convenient.”
Satisfaction pulsed in her chest. He’d fallen for it.
“Works for me,” Lawe said.
With a barely concealed lip curl, Jake turned away from Lawe. “Holly, thanks again for having dinner with me. I hope you’re not distressed about the choice of restaurant. I’d forgotten until now that this is where you first met Paul. Remember how we insisted on seeing the brilliant pastry chef who made our desserts?”
She sat back, startled by the change of subject—and that he’d remembered that night. “You were with him that night. I’d forgotten.”
She’d been torching crème brûlée when one of the waitresses interrupted. The two men at her table wanted to compliment the pastry chef personally on their dessert. Sweaty and in a hurry to finish, she’d gone only because her boss threatened to fire her if she didn’t. Paul had been sitting there, a blond Adonis, his eyes lighting up when he saw her. Jake had been with him, though at first she didn’t notice anything but Paul. He’d been charming and fun and showered her with attention, and in less than a month, she’d believed she was in love.
Emotion choked her as those early days came back, before their relationship soured. Lawe put his hand reassuringly to the small of her back and she blinked away tears.
The Exorcist Who Loved Me Page 8
