The Exorcist Who Loved Me

by Jennifer Savalli

  Either not noticing her mini-breakdown or trying to distract her from it, Jake switched topics. “By the way, have you heard about the Scotts?”

  He launched into a story about their mutual acquaintances buying a house and having a baby. From there, he segued into a story about different friends. He pitched all his chatter to her, ignoring Lawe. Lawe didn’t seem to mind, just sipped water and studied Jake.

  The food arrived, they ate, and all the while Jake went on and on until Holly’s eyes glazed over. Her fear and distress melted under a lava flow of social chitchat. Even Lawe lost his predatory attitude. Whenever she could get a word in edgewise, she tried to steer the conversation to Paul and his mysterious stash of cash, but each time, Jake deflected her.

  In the middle of a story about someone’s trip to Costa Rica, Lawe bumped her leg under the table. Time for phase two of their plan.

  “I’m sorry to interrupt.” She stood and Jake’s torrent of words halted. “I should call my sister and check on the kids.”

  Jake rose. For a potential murderer, he had flawless manners. “Of course. Give my best to your sister.”

  With a last look at Lawe, she retreated to a relatively quiet place near the entrance, one that afforded her a view of the table. She pulled her cell phone from her purse and began an imaginary conversation with Janey.

  Lawe flagged down the waitress. “Bourbon on the rocks, sweetheart.”

  The waitress shot him the look of contempt he deserved for the “sweetheart” crack, but the more he acted like an ass, the more Jake relaxed. They ate in silence until the waitress returned with his drink.

  Sitting back in his chair, he took a sip of bourbon. “Hope you don’t mind me saying, but you’ve got some negative energy clouding your aura.”

  Jake finished the bite of steak he was chewing. “Cut the crap, Callahan. You may have suckered Holly, but I’m not falling for your bullshit.”

  Ice cubes clinked as Lawe swirled his drink. He let the silence stretch out. “We’ve got a lot in common, you and me.”

  “I sincerely doubt that.”

  “I used to dabble in real estate myself. Not here. Seattle.”

  “Fake exorcisms proved more profitable, did they?”

  “I’m not gonna lie. There’s a lot of money to be had from the grieving, especially the old ones. Real estate’s not a bad game, though.” He paused, wanting to be sure Jake absorbed his next statement. He’d told Holly he wouldn’t take any risks, simply let Jake talk if he was so inclined. But that would get them exactly nowhere. With Holly safely out of earshot, he was free to push Jake’s buttons. See what kind of reaction he got. “Holly told me all about how you and her husband sold high-end real estate. Funny thing is, I’ve gotten a good look at the lovely Mrs. Archer’s assets. Paul didn’t make that kind of money on real estate commissions.”

  Jake looked up from the steak he was cutting. “And your point is?”

  Lawe put his drink down and folded his elbows on the table, the universal posture of getting down to business. “Before he died, Paul told Holly he had some big deal going, something that would solve their money problems forever.”

  Something flickered in Jake’s eyes. “Paul would never have said that.”

  Lawe shrugged. “You guys had something going. I want in. Say the word, I’ll give you the name of someone in Seattle who’ll vouch for me.”

  Jake dabbed his lips with his napkin, folded it, placed it neatly across his plate. But a slight tremor shook his hands. “You’re wasting your time, Callahan. And you’re putting Holly at risk.”

  His blood iced. “Is that a threat?”

  “It’s a friendly warning. Fuck off to Seattle before someone gets hurt.”

  Chapter Eight

  “Dinner got us a big, fat nothing. And he stuck us with the check.” Holly slumped in the passenger seat of the station wagon, arms crossed.

  “What’s this we? I’m the one who paid.”

  “Only because you wouldn’t let me. Just so you know, I’m adding that on to your fee and paying you back. You shouldn’t have to buy Jake a steak dinner and four whiskeys.” She blew out a breath. “Now that I’ve spent time with Jake again, I’m less sure Celia’s murder theory is true. I can’t see Jake killing someone. It’d wrinkle one of his designer suits.”

  He hadn’t told her about Jake’s threat because he didn’t want to scare her all over again. And he had a simple solution to the Jake problem. He wasn’t leaving Holly’s side until the bastard was locked up.

  He hadn’t told her that yet, either.

  “Jake didn’t give us a clue to anything he and Paul were up to, and I had to listen to him talk my ear off about everyone we know,” she was saying. “Why did I used to think all that gossip was entertaining?”

  “No idea.” He let her rant. Maybe his presence tonight had prevented Jake from pursuing his real agenda, whatever it was. Good.

  “What are we going to do now? We’re no closer to figuring this thing out.”

  “There’s still my friend in San Francisco. Give him time to dig.”

  She lapsed into silence for a moment. “We should have stayed for dessert. They do this amazing lemon tart with raspberries. My recipe. One I invented while I worked there.”

  He slowed the car as they approached her driveway. “We can have a private dessert at your place.”

  A charged silence filled the dark car. Somehow his words had carried a double meaning, though he hadn’t meant to imply anything other than dessert of the food variety. Or maybe he had.

  At the edge of her driveway, he slowed the station wagon to a stop.

  “Why are you stopping?” Her voice came out strangled.

  “We’re about to get a visitor.”

  “Finally.” Celia popped into the front seat of the station wagon, smack between him and Holly. “I thought you two were never coming home.”

  Holly gasped, her hand flying to her heart. “Stop doing that.”

  Lawe shifted into park and turned to face the ghost wedged between himself and everything he wanted. “If this is about dinner with Jake, we’ll fill you in later.”

  “Whatever. We’ve got a more important problem. Two guys broke into the house and tossed the place. They’re waiting behind the door to jump you when you get home.”

  Adrenaline surged through his body. He scanned the darkened house windows and empty yard, searching for a threat.

  “Did you call 911?” Panic edged Holly’s voice. “Why didn’t you stop them?”

  Celia snorted. “Can’t use the phone, remember? I tried beaning one of them with a lipstick like I did to you, but all I managed was knocking the tube off your dresser. I think I was too nervous. I don’t perform well under pressure.”

  Startled, Lawe turned his attention to a suddenly quiet Holly. “She beaned you with a lipstick? She moved something and you didn’t mention it to me?”

  His anger was completely out of proportion. It wasn’t as though his girlfriend had been keeping crucial information from him.

  Nothing in that thought settled him down.

  “Sorry.” Holly twisted her hands in her lap. “I kind of forgot.”

  “Oops,” Celia said cheerfully. “Lovers’ spat. Concentrate, people. More important issues right now.”

  Holly darted a nervous glance at him, then turned back to Celia. “Why didn’t you possess them?”

  Celia’s shoulder slumped. “Tried. It was a no-go. I don’t understand why I could possess that hottie ghost hunter and not those two thugs.”

  Grim, Lawe pushed the gearshift into reverse and did a three-point turn in the road. “Dec was distracted when you popped into him. The guys in the house are probably pretty focused right now.”

  He parked at the curb on the neighbor’s side of the property line, close enough to have a good view of the front of t
he house but far enough not to raise suspicions if either thug looked out the window. “How did they get in?”

  “Broke a basement window and climbed in. Scared the crap out of me. I was upstairs practicing moving that lipstick like Holly told me to.”

  “I told you that yesterday.”

  Celia shrugged. “I only got around to it today.”

  Lawe cut a glance at Holly’s face. His anger evaporated when he saw how scared she was. He put an arm around her and pulled her close, right through Celia. The ghost squawked and zipped into the backseat.

  “Jeez. Don’t mind me. I’m just the ghost who saved both your asses.”

  “For which I am incredibly grateful,” Lawe said. “So the guys came in through the basement. Then what?”

  “They went right for Paul’s desk, pulled out the drawers, threw papers everywhere. One of them put my bracelet in his pocket. I don’t want to be tethered to that creep. What if he escapes and you can’t find him? What if he goes to jail and I’m stuck in some smelly cell?”

  “Celia, focus,” Holly said sharply.

  Celia sucked in a breath, a weird echo of life. “They went through the house. Searched each room, yakking away while they worked, arguing about how to make it look like a burglary, the way the guy who hired them said. But what they really want is Paul’s secret bankbook. Boy, were they pissed when they didn’t find it. I was right, wasn’t I? Jake and Paul were totally up to something bad, Jake killed us, and now he’s covering his tracks. He had to be the one who hired them.”

  They’d hidden the bankbook in Holly’s fifty-pound sack of flour. Guess the two assholes hadn’t thought to look for it there.

  “That makes sense,” Holly said slowly. “It explains Jake asking me out to dinner and running his mouth about nothing for two hours. He wanted me out of the house. That sneaky bastard.”

  “Later.” Lawe tossed his cell phone at Holly. “Call 911. Tell them you just got home and saw lights on in your house, someone moving around inside. You think you’ve got an intruder.”

  When Holly hung up, Celia asked, “Now what?”

  Settling lower in his seat, Lawe fixed his gaze on the house. “Now we wait.”

  Ten minutes later, a siren wailed in the distance and abruptly cut off. Not long after that, flashing red-and-white lights appeared downhill. And a minute later, two figures emerged from the rear of the house and sprinted diagonally across the lawn toward the neighbor’s back fence.

  Lawe pushed open the car door. Cold air rushed in, working with the adrenaline to bring him to full alert. “These assholes always have the best instincts. Stay here.”

  “No!” Holly lunged across the seat, clung to his arm. “No, let them go.”

  “They might be our best chance of figuring out what’s going on.”

  “It’s not worth it. I don’t want you hurt.”

  “She’s right.” Celia floated out the back windshield, glittery bright against the dark sky. “This is no job for an exorcist.”

  Winking, she disappeared.

  “What did that mean?” Holly didn’t release her death-grip on his arm.

  One of the running men stumbled. He fell face-first into the grass as a shimmer undulated around his body. Two heartbeats later, Celia popped into existence on his other side, flat on the ground.

  “She must have tried to possess him,” Lawe said. “She’s not getting any better.”

  The other guy slowed, looked over his shoulder and shouted something at his partner.

  The flashing lights grew brighter. Not long until the police arrived. The guy still on his feet whipped around and sprinted toward the neighbor’s yard, leaving his fallen companion behind.

  Lawe tried to break Holly’s grip, but she had both her arms wrapped around his.

  “No,” she whispered furiously.

  The running man scaled the neighbor’s fence with the ease of a parkour master. Too bad Jake hadn’t hired a pair of out-of-shape criminals. Holly tightened her grip on him. He patted her arm. “I’m not going anywhere.”

  A powerful engine revved, and an old Mustang roared past them.

  “They parked around the curve.” Holly shuddered. “Without Celia, we would’ve walked right in on them.”

  The thug on the ground rose heavily to his feet. Celia zipped through him and he fell again. She couldn’t possess people at will, but she’d apparently figured out she could disorient them.

  He shook his arm. Holly clung more tightly.

  “It’s probably safe to let me go now.”

  She shook her head without a word, pulling him back into the warm confines of the station wagon. They stayed that way, her head on his shoulder, his arm tight around her waist, until a police car blazed past them into the driveway.

  The beam of Holly’s flashlight caught the glint of rubies and gold. “Found it.”

  She rushed forward, plucked the bracelet from the grass. Celia hadn’t been able to possess her target, but she’d managed to extract the bracelet from his pocket and flip it to the ground. “I used my Jedi mind lipstick trick,” she’d said. Lawe had praised her quick thinking and Celia beamed like a proud kid.

  Holly sensed Lawe behind her. A pinpoint of light shone on the bracelet she held in the palm of her hand.

  “Pretty,” he said.

  “Paul had great taste in jewelry for his mistress.”

  Lawe tucked the flashlight under his arm, freeing his hands to clasp the bracelet on her. He lifted her hand and kissed the sensitive inner skin of her wrist. She shivered.

  “Paul had great taste period.” Lawe’s voice was low and husky and another shiver ran through Holly. “Lucky bastard didn’t appreciate what he had.”

  It was nice, for once, to feel treasured.

  They’d agreed she’d wear the bracelet, essentially tethering her to Celia. That way, if Jake or one of his thugs threatened Holly, Celia could try to possess him. She probably wouldn’t succeed, but the sensation of cold and wrongness seemed to disorient her victim for a few crucial seconds, which would be long enough for Holly to escape. Making Celia a kind of guardian ghost had been Lawe’s idea. Celia had taken to it with surprising enthusiasm. She was patrolling the exterior of the house right now, her bright shimmer disappearing around a corner. She’d stand guard all night.

  The police had spent hours taking statements and collecting evidence. She’d told them about the secret bank account and the mortgage documents and her suspicions. One of the officers promised to check out Jake, but she could tell he found her story far-fetched. Afterward, Holly and Lawe cleaned up the worst of the mess. Janey would keep the twins overnight. Two sleepovers in one week had triggered her mommy guilt, and she missed her children with a suffocating urgency. But they were safe, and that was the important thing.

  Lawe had pulled some strings and an alarm tech would arrive in the morning. They’d have regular security in addition to the ghostly kind. And she was seriously considering adopting a very big dog. Sadie would be thrilled.

  “Do you think Jake’s thugs will talk?” she asked Lawe.

  A second squad car had nabbed the guy in the Mustang during his tire-squealing attempt to flee. The first officers followed the trail of barking dogs and motion-triggered house lights to catch the other guy. Mrs. Chen had been especially helpful by screaming her head off when the man cut through her yard and startled her Pomeranian.

  “Depends on whether they’re scared to rat out Jake. We’ll know in the morning.” He was only inches away, looking yummy in the shadows in his suit pants and untucked shirt.

  She still wore her sleeveless dress, but Lawe had given her his suit jacket to ward off the chilly night. His scent surrounded her, working better than baking a triple-layer cheesecake to soothe her nerves. And make her restless for other things.

  “Thanks for staying with me.”

&nb
sp; Technically, he hadn’t given her a choice. He’d simply announced he was moving in until Jake was locked up. She was good with him staying. The only question was whether to make up the guest room bed or invite him into hers.

  Neither of them had mentioned their plans for…dessert, but her body hadn’t forgotten. Tingles skittered across her skin and she yearned to close the few inches between them and lose herself in his warmth and strength.

  Something in Lawe’s face changed—maybe he’d read the sex-drenched thoughts racing through her head—and he slipped an arm around her waist, pulling her to him. Her pulse kicked up as he bent his head, touched his lips to hers.

  Now, his kiss seemed to say. No more interruptions, no kids to care for. We’ve got all night.

  She clenched his starched shirt, crushing the material between her fingers, hanging on as twin bolts of lust and apprehension made her tremble. Did she have the courage to bare body and soul for this man?

  “All clear at the back of the house,” Celia chirped.

  Holly sprang back, bumping her head against Lawe.

  “Ow.” He rubbed his nose.

  “Good God, you two, get a room.” Celia gestured behind her. “There’s like six bedrooms in the house.”

  “Good idea.” Lawe nudged Holly toward the front door. “If you see anything suspicious, lipstick-trick a rock at the window.”

  “Aye-aye, Captain.” Celia gave a mock salute before floating off again.

  Holly opened the front door. Nerves played an Olympic game of Ping-Pong in her stomach. She was acutely aware of Lawe behind her. He shut the door, closing them in the quiet house.

  Her back still to him, he kneaded her shoulders, his hands hot through the fabric of his suit jacket she still wore, then slipped the jacket off her arms and hung it on a hook by the door. Moment of truth time. Direct him to the guest bedroom or invite him into hers. Only her lips had forgotten how to form words.

  Nerves didn’t seem to be a problem for Lawe. He brushed her hair over one shoulder and lowered his head to nibble and suck a slow trail from behind her ear to her collarbone. Her muscles loosened and she sagged backward, expecting to bump against Lawe’s hard chest, but one high heel slipped on the marble. Her heart plummeted to her stomach as her leg shot out from under her.