Ghost Gone Wild (A Bailey Ruth Ghost Novel)

by Hart, Carolyn

  Nick’s face had a decided prunelike stiffness, but he muttered, “Yeah. I think Lisa”—pause—“well, she wasn’t interested in me”—pause—“she kind of seemed to want to kick up her heels”—pause—“like”—He looked at me. A moment of shock rippled across his face as he realized he couldn’t bring up my name, because he didn’t know my name—“like the lady”—I detected a touch of malice in his voice—“says, Lisa’s kind of messed up thinking about you and her.”

  Oddly, I was impressed with his honesty. He wouldn’t lie, even though his rangy frame didn’t appear to be a match for Lisa’s muscular, aggrieved husband.

  “Yeah. Well, gee, I guess you meant well. I got it all wrong. So”—Brian’s voice was gruff—“sorry I busted up your evening.” He gave me a shy nod. “Glad you and him are an item.” He swung around and moved swiftly across the room. He banged through the door. In a moment, we heard the roar of his truck.

  I gave a whoosh of relief.

  Nick glared at me. “It will be all over town that I’ve got a redheaded girlfriend. Jan will never talk to me again.”

  For a man whose sorry ass had not been kicked to Dallas, he was exceedingly ungrateful. “We can deal with that.”

  “We”—his voice was deep in his throat—“are not going to deal with anything. You need to go home.”

  Home.

  “I don’t have a home.” My voice was shaky. Tears burned my eyes. I was half-scared, half-mad, and feeling way too much in the world. “It’s all the fault of that woman on the horse. I should have demanded to talk to Wiggins, but she looked so grand in her riding habit. She had such an aristocratic face and the most vivid blue eyes. She looked as if she could see right through me. She said you were such a fool, but there were those who loved you.”

  Nick reached out, grabbed the back of a straight chair. He appeared to be struggling for breath. His voice was strangled. “What color was the horse?”

  “Black. Black as a chunk of coal. He glistened. A gorgeous creature.” My tone wasn’t admiring. If I ever found the horse and its rider, I’d demand an accounting. But if I couldn’t disappear from the present, I couldn’t count on climbing aboard the Rescue Express to return to Heaven.

  “All black?” There was faint hope in his voice.

  I pictured the horse and its rider. “Except for a big white splotch on his forehead shaped like a crescent.”

  “Oh God.” Nick looked haunted. “That’s McCoy. Her horse, The Real McCoy.” He swung around and headed for the stairs, took the treads two at a time.

  “Nick!” Where was he going? He and I had to talk. I was here on his behalf, and I needed help in return. I hurried to the base of the stairs and folded my arms. If he didn’t come down again quickly, I would pursue him.

  The stairs reverberated as he thudded back down the steps, again two at a time. He clutched in one hand a silver photograph frame. He skidded to a stop in front of me, took a deep breath, thrust out the frame.

  I studied the photograph with widening eyes. The woman pictured on the jumping horse was older than the rider who had directed me to catch the Express. The woman in the photograph had silver hair and a thinner face, but there was no mistaking the cool blue eyes, pointed chin with a distinctive cleft, and long, thin nose. She and the horse had melded into one, moving together as the horse rose in the air to jump.

  I was excited. “That’s she.”

  “You mean it’s her.” He sounded glum.

  I almost corrected him, but decided grammar wasn’t important at this point. I tapped the glass. “Who is she?”

  Nick managed a sickly smile. “Come on. Explain the joke. Did you know her a long time ago? Did she leave a bequest asking you to come here and shake me up?”

  Bequest. I sighed. “She’s dead, of course.”

  He looked relieved. “So you did know her. Did you ride together? Or travel or something?”

  “I never saw her in my life or in Heaven until she came thundering up to me on that beast and sent me down here to help you.”

  “Heaven.” He offered the word experimentally. “You really mean”—there was a trace of a gulp—“Heaven?”

  “I mean Heaven.”

  He turned away, walked unsteadily across an oval braided rug, and flung himself onto a plaid sofa.

  I pattered after him, settled at the opposite end, and, just for fun, sang “My Blue Heaven.” “Bobby Mac and I used to do a great duet.”

  He drew himself up in a defensive posture, gazed at me as if I might suddenly produce a Heavenly choir.

  “Bobby Mac’s my husband.”

  “I didn’t know ghosts were married.”

  I smiled brightly. “I’ve probably told you too much. But that’s the situation. I’m a ghost.”

  His chin jutted out. “I don’t believe in ghosts.”

  “You will.” My tone was mild. “I am here because you are in danger.” I pointed at the bullet hole in the wall. “Now, who was the woman on the horse?”

  He gazed down at the photograph. “Delilah Delahunt Duvall. She lived in Adelaide when she was a kid, but moved to California after college. She died last year. In an accident climbing Liberty Ridge on Mount Rainier.”

  “Mountain climbing? She did that as well as ride?”

  “Aunt Dee rode, climbed, white-water rafted, caved, scuba dived, gambled, and wrote thrillers, and along the way she collected lovers on five continents. Aunt Dee never took no for an answer and always said yes to a challenge.” Nick sounded weary.

  “I see.” I was afraid I was beginning to understand. The telegram from Wiggins had been counterfeit. Nick’s aunt Dee had nosed about the department and found my name. Any thriller writer would consider it child’s play to purloin information from Wiggins’s old-fashioned paper files, which were kept in accomodating unlocked wooden filing cabinets. It was possible she sometimes served as an emissary. However, Wiggins was always insistent that emissaries not contact family members who knew them. In my first adventure, I’d aided a great-niece, but I had never met her previously. Possibly Aunt Dee was simply aware of the department’s activities. In any event, if she’d wanted to send help to Nick, obviously she would have hunted about in the files for someone connected to Adelaide, and so she had sent the spurious telegram and waylaid me as I was en route.

  I felt chilled to the bone. Wiggins had no notion I was here. None. Even worse, assuming she cared, Aunt Dee had no way of knowing that I was marooned, unable to disappear, and adrift in a world where each person needed a proven identity to function. Oh, woe.

  “If anybody could hijack somebody from Heaven, it would be Aunt Dee. That’s for sure. But look, you’re kidding me, aren’t you? You knew her, and that’s why you’re here. You can’t be a ghost.” But he edged farther away from me.

  I squeezed my face in concentration. Perhaps the incidents of the evening had only temporarily derailed my ability to appear and disappear. I took a deep breath, and thought, Gone. My elegant rose leather loafers remained firmly planted on the floor and in full view.

  I tried again. This time I spoke aloud, forcefully. “Gone.”

  The stylish loafers were fully visible on the floor.

  I sighed. I was an emissary without a link to the department. “Like it or not, and I definitely don’t, your aunt Dee bamboozled me. Hijacked sums up my situation very well indeed.” An untethered astronaut in space could not have felt more adrift than I.

  What was worse, I had no idea in this world—and obviously not in the next—how to reconnect. I’d been in tight spots on my previous missions, but I’d always had my ace in the hole, the ability to appear and disappear at will.

  Now . . .

  I popped up from the sofa and stared at my image in the mirror behind the wet bar. I looked good. This was no time for false modesty. My morale needed every morsel of affirmation I could manage. I smoothed back a coppery red curl. My eyes looked a trifle strained, but the lavender-colored sweater, rose blouse, and charcoal gray slacks were qu
ite flattering. I especially admired the scalloped collar of my blouse. I lifted my chin. I was Bailey Ruth Raeburn and, whether Wiggins realized my plight or not, I would do my best for Nick.

  “All right. We play the hand we’re dealt.” I spoke decisively.

  Nick looked alarmed. And worried. Very worried.

  “Since I don’t have any money or transportation, I’ll have to stay here—”

  He began to back away. “No way. I can’t explain to Jan why the shag dancer started living with me. Nuh-uh. You have to go someplace.”

  I folded my arms in exasperation. “Let me put it in words of one syllable: I have no cash. I have no car. I have no identification. I have nothing.”

  He fumbled with his back pocket. “Money is no problem. Lady, I’ll give you money.” His face brightened. “How about a plane ticket? And cash. Tomorrow I’ll get you ten thousand dollars and you can fly away. Have you ever been to Tahiti? You’d—” His face fell. “No ID. Yeah. Scratch a plane. No passport, I guess.”

  I didn’t bother to answer. Earlier I’d thought he had a core of honesty. Obviously not. Ten thousand dollars! Where would a scruffy young guy like him get ten thousand dollars? He was just trying to get me out of his house. He would have promised the moon if I’d have listened.

  He began to pace. “I’ll buy a car, get you a snazzy one. You can take the car and the money and drive away.”

  My smile was slightly pitying. He was in error if he thought I was naive enough to believe his offers of money. I shook my head, gestured toward the bullet hole. “I’m here. Here I stay.”

  He slammed a hand on the top of the wet bar. “Not here. That sure sounds like a setup to me. You got somebody around taking pix? I’ll bet this is a con, all this stuff about Aunt Dee. For all I know you knew her somewhere and you came here to screw money out of me.”

  I raised a eyebrow. My tone was scathing. “I suppose you are just rolling in money! You don’t look old enough to manage anything better than a lemonade stand. One look at your patchy beard and polo with a ripped pocket and Levi’s with the knees out and it’s obvious you are not a titan of industry.”

  He stared at me. “You think I’m broke.” His voice had an odd tone.

  “I think you’ve got a few years to go before you have an extra ten thousand.” As in never.

  “What did Aunt Dee say about me?”

  I quoted: “He’s always been such a fool . . . but there are those who love him . . . try to save him from himself.”

  He scratched at one cheek. “She didn’t tell you what I’d been doing or why I was back in town?”

  “There wasn’t time.” I’d been swept up by Aunt Dee’s challenge. Next time I would pause and think, as Wiggins always hoped I would. If there were ever to be a next time. . . .

  “So you don’t know that I’m seriously rich.”

  I almost hooted. It was absurd to imagine that this callow, unshaven, sloppily dressed guy had an extra fifty bucks in his pocket. Absurd. . . .

  He leaned casually against the wet bar with a cocky smile.

  Nick had stumbled all over himself in talking to Brian about Lisa, but there had been a core of honesty in his response.

  “You’re rich?” I felt stunned.

  “You got that right, babe.”

  I glanced toward the bullet hole. Money might not be the root of all evil—I’m no authority—but its possession or lack has a mighty effect on the course of human events.

  He looked like a house croupier raking in the chips. “You ever heard of Arachnid’s Revenge: Featherfoots to the Rescue?” He studied my face. “Yeah, well, it’s my video game. Featherfoot spiders on a rampage, and they catch the bad guys, big hairy flies, in their webs, and there are thirty-two radii and twelve concentric spirals. You’ve got to fix the web when it’s broken and catch at least ninety flies to get to the second level—” He broke off, no doubt realizing I hadn’t followed a word. “Anyway, lots of goo oozes out as the flies try to get through the webs, but the Featherfoots are a web ahead.” He stopped to laugh at his own wit. “It’s a hairy, hairy game, and I got bought out for a cool nine million.” He slid onto a bar stool, propped an elbow on the counter.

  I stared. “How old are you?”

  “Twenty-four.”

  “You said you came back to Adelaide. Where were you?”

  “Austin. I went to school there, but I didn’t finish. I was halfway through my junior year when I started working on Featherfoots again. I first had the idea in high school. Everybody laughed at me. Like they always did.” There was a trace of bitterness in his voice. “Because I like spiders. I especially like Featherfoots. They are kind of a woody brown or gray mottled with white. What I really like is they can hang for hours in a web without moving. And the webs”—he sounded triumphant—“are always horizontal.” He spread his arms wide. “Cool, huh?”

  Nine million dollars. Long live Featherfoots.

  “Okay. I get it. You created this game and sold it, and you are rich. Why did you come back to Adelaide?”

  If Bobby Mac and I had ever had nine million, or even one, my destination of choice would have been Paris.

  Nick’s young face was abruptly pugnacious. “I had some scores to settle and money”—his tone was arrogant—“makes me a player. See, nobody ever thought I was a player. Well, I’m showing them, one by one. I’m having a hell of a good time. I started with Cole Clanton. He played football.” Years of loathing curdled his voice. “Big Bad Cole.” He drawled the name with venom. “He showed his ass one night on a campout, but he was such a big deal he turned it around and pretty soon everybody was dumping on me. See, we were at church camp and a jumping spider—a Phidippus audax—crawled out of a log Cole was sitting on. He gave a squeal like a girl and bolted like a stuck pig. The guys started laughing at him. His face turned red and he grabbed a stick and headed for the log. He was going to kill the spider. I yelled at him to stop, that it was a Phidippus audax and wouldn’t hurt anybody. I should’ve kept my mouth shut, but I said it was a cool spider with eight blue eyes, four big ones on its face, and it could jump fifty times its body length. He kept on going. I tackled him, and by the time everybody pulled him off of me, the spider was gone. Cole had gotten in some punches, and my right eye was swelling up. He pointed at me and yelled, ‘Look, one blue eye. I got it. You’re a Phidippus audax. I guess you got a whole family out here. Gee, Phidippus, how could I have known?’ Well, the guys all cracked up. That’s what they called me the rest of the way through school. Phidippus.”

  “So you came back and you’re busy getting even.”

  He gave two thumbs-up. “When money flows, anything goes.”

  “I see.” Indeed, I did. No wonder Aunt Dee hoped I could save Nick from himself. “I suppose there are others who have earned your ire?”

  He looked blank.

  He might be in his own way a homespun philosopher, with all due respect to spiders, but his vocabulary lacked muscle. Possibly, if time permitted, I might suggest a reading list, starting with “Babylon Revisited,” though Nick was obviously not a serious drinker even if he was seriously rich. However, efforts to engender a more charitable attitude could await the successful completion of my assignment.

  I felt a little lurch inside.

  I didn’t have an assignment. But Nick was in danger and I was here. I would have to do what I could. I had much yet to learn about Adelaide’s youngest millionaire and who might have wanted him dead, but tomorrow was time enough. For now, I hoped Wiggins would forgive me—Wiggins, are you there? Are you anywhere?—if I sought a place to stay. It would be easiest if I stayed here, though the prospect had moved Nick to ferocious resistance. So that was out for now. The attack still must be reported to the police, and I was in no position to answer official questions.

  I gave a decisive nod. I caught the movement in the mirror. Wiggins would be proud. I appeared as determined, and I hoped as appealing, as Myrna Loy in the paint scene in Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream
House.

  Nick stiffened.

  I reached out to pat his shoulder reassuringly, and he shied like a spooked horse. “Emulate your favorite spider. Be cool. Here’s what we need to do.”

  His rigid face was all angles, mostly jutting cheekbones. He seemed to have an aversion to the plural if it included me.

  I was pleasant, but firm. “You must report the shooting. After the investigation is complete, you can join me. I’ll . . .” I paused, squeezed my face in thought. Where could I go? “It’s such a bother, not being able to be here and there whenever I wish. You must stay here for the moment and I must leave. . . .” Inspiration struck. “I’ll take that little yellow scooter outside. Meet me at Main and Calhoun at midnight. Surely it won’t take any longer than that to see about the shooting. Until we figure out what’s going on, you shouldn’t stay by yourself. We can book a double room somewhere.”

  He looked as horrified as if I’d suggested sharing space with an adder. “Not a chance.”

  “Your virtue is not at risk. I am a happily married woman. You can sleep in your shorts and I suppose you have a T-shirt I can borrow. After all, there are not only coed dorms but coed rooms these days. So what’s the problem?” I smothered a yawn. “On the way, we’ll stop for a hamburger somewhere.”

  Now his face not only jutted, his body locked in a decent imitation of an iron sculpture. “No way.”

  I moved behind the wet bar, opened cupboards. A can of cashews.

  “Come on, Nick, you must call the police. But first, call a motel and make a reservation.”

  “You want me to use my credit card and have a redheaded babe show up and check in? This is a little town. Word would get back to Jan—” He stopped. “Jan. Hey, that’s where I can put you. Jan’s mom has a B and B. I grew up next door.” He looked a trifle defensive. “Arlene—her mom—is kind of frosted at me right now, but I doubt if she’s full, and a body in a bed pays better than a bed without a body. Anyway, Arlene can use the money. Adelaide’s booming because of the Chickasaw Nation, but even so, Jan said the B and B visitors are down this year. The economy keeps a lot of people home. I’ll call and explain I have an employee who needs a place to stay. Jan will think everything’s on the up-and-up if I send you there. Won’t she?” The beseeching tone in his voice was pitiful.