Once Upon A Ghost: Murder By Design (Book 3)

by Erin McCarthy

  “What are you doing?” Alyssa asked.

  “I feel like that guy is following us,” I whispered.

  She leaned around and checked him out. “Why would he follow us? Though I have to admit he does look like a hit man. That seems too obvious though. A hit man wouldn’t dress like a hit man, would he?”

  “Why would a hit man be following us?” Though at her words my heartrate increased about fifty percent.

  “He wouldn’t.” Alyssa rolled her eyes. “Unless he’s been sent by the fashion police to ding you for wearing sensible shoes today.”

  “Hater.” She was being ridiculous about my outfit. But she did make me realize I was being paranoid. The guy wasn’t following us.

  Except that he was also in the popcorn shop when we were. And the antique furniture store. Along with the clothing boutique. He was conspicuous ambling behind us, overdressed. I felt like a celebrity with her discreet bodyguard tailing her. Except I wasn’t famous and I didn’t hire staff. Alyssa honestly didn’t seem to notice, so I had to assume I was paranoid. We were moving down the street in an orderly manner. It was entirely possible he was just on the same trajectory, going in each shop a few minutes after us.

  I was willing to buy that theory until he took his sunglasses off and I realized where I recognized him from. The Schvitz. It was the man with thick lips who had eyed me with equal parts lust and disdain. Which could only mean that this was either Big Eddie or Sammy the Salami. I wasn’t sure which one was worse.

  Then I had a thought. Whoever had called that burner phone at Cezar’s house had known I was there. They must have been following me already. I debated strolling up to him and confronting him. Given that we were in public, he couldn’t possibly attack me or shoot me in cold blood. But did I really want to tick him off?

  His crack about me being a lousy waitress still chapped my ass. What, did he think it was easy to be thrown into a roomful of suspicious men on your first night on the job?

  Then I remembered I hadn’t been trained because I had never been hired.

  Alyssa was buying a ring in the woman’s boutique and I was debating trying on the world’s greatest pair of booties when the mental debate I was having was no longer an issue. The man in the suit approached me. He picked up a scarf, his sunglasses perched on his head. “Think my wife would like this?” he asked.

  Yep. Same voice as the one on the phone. A chill rolled up my spine. “I couldn’t say,” I said. “Does she like florals?”

  “She likes when I bring her flowers.” He held it up. “What do you do with this?”

  He sounded so casual. Like any other clueless husband on the hunt for a gift for his wife. I swallowed hard. “Does she wear scarves?” I kept my voice light.

  “Got me.” He tossed it back down.

  I could hear the clerk finishing up with Alyssa’s purchase. She would most likely be bee-lining over to help him in a minute, sniffing an up-sale. This was my only opportunity to say something if I wanted to. I wasn’t sure I did, but curiosity got the best of me. “So what does Mrs. Big Eddie like?”

  He glanced over at me and smiled. “She likes to mind her own business. Like a good woman should.”

  Gross. I couldn’t stop myself. I rolled my eyes.

  “You’re in way over your head, little girl. I wouldn’t roll your eyes at me.” His voice was low, steely.

  To the casual observation, it was nothing more than a few words exchanged between strangers. But I could hear the threat. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I took a step and moved around to the other side of the table so I could see him head on. My heart was racing and I was sweating that horrible stress sweat. Grateful I was wearing material designed to wick away moisture, I rubbed the palms of my hands on my leggings.

  Then I asked him point blank, “You being here is no coincidence, is it?”

  He fingered around scarf. “This one is ugly as hell.” Then he glanced up and met my gaze. “That’s a stupid question. Of course not. I’m giving you the world’s biggest hint that you need to back off. I don’t like to hurt pretty girls, but I will.”

  “I’m no threat.”

  I wasn’t. I didn’t know jack squat.

  “No. But I believe in preventive medicine. You’re no threat, but you might cause a disruption in the process. And I don’t like disruptions.”

  Alyssa was walking toward me. I wanted to know if he knew Cezar was dead so I said, “Like Cezar’s vacation at his lake house?”

  His forehead wrinkled into deep, glacier-like grooves when he frowned. “What are you getting at?”

  Damn it. I hadn’t worded that right and now it was too late. I couldn’t tell if he knew Cezar was dead or not and Alyssa was breezing past me. “Ready?” she asked.

  She gave Big Eddie (since he hadn’t objected to the name, I had to assume it was him) a curious look, then dismissed him as of no interest to her. “Get that one,” I said, pointing to the watercolor floral scarf. “It will look good on everyone.”

  Then I hotfooted it out of there after Alyssa.

  “Was that the same guy as before?” she asked. “What a creeper. Maybe he is following us.”

  “I think he was flirting with me,” I lied. “He was supposedly asking for advice on buying a scarf for his mother.” More like wife, but that would make my lie ridiculous.

  “His mother?” she asked incredulously. “His mother is still alive? He looks seventy!”

  That made me laugh. Alyssa was fabulous at infusing the inane into any situation. “I don’t think he’s quite that old, but you know, life expectancy for women is quite high these days.”

  “Why can’t we have a girls’ day without men somehow interrupting it?” she asked. “I’m still bitter about that sheriff guy. Lawson Hill. It sounds like the name of a whiskey. A smooth bourbon.” She yanked the door open.

  We stepped out onto the sidewalk. “Are you sure you felt the fizzle? It sounds more like the sizzle to me. Like you’re still into the sheriff.”

  But she just shook her head. “Negative. I’m just getting restless and bored with Michael. I think it’s time to move on. I may have waited a week or two past the expiration date.”

  Cezar fell in step beside us. “That girl doesn’t know what she wants,” he said. “I don’t think she’s the marrying type, you know what I’m saying?”

  I shook my head at him, trying to convey the obvious. That I couldn’t respond to him out loud. I did answer Alyssa. “If you’re not feeling it, there is no point in dragging it out. People get hurt when you do that.”

  “I’m not going to get hurt.”

  “Michael might.” I couldn’t say I had seen the two of them together, because Alyssa didn’t invite men to join her in her friendships and social life. She had a very segmented dating life. But it seemed possible he might not want to end it. They had been dating several months now.

  But Alyssa just snorted. “Doubt it.”

  There was something about her tone though that made me suspect that Alyssa wanted to bolt because she liked Michael more than she had ever intended. “Where to next?” I asked. She wouldn’t give me any more information about her emotions. I knew that from a decade of friendship with her. She kept her feelings close to the cuff, using sarcasm as smoke and mirrors. There was no point in pushing her—she would just resist.

  Unlike me, who verbally vomited all my feelings if someone even so much as hinted they were interested. And don’t ask me how I feel after I’ve had three glasses of wine. You might as well pull up a chair and prepare to wait out the deluge.

  “I’m ready to go if you are, though I’m disappointed in you. I spent like a million dollars today and you bought nothing. What is wrong with you? You’re off your Material Girl game today.”

  “I have to save money for the trip to visit my sister in Texas. Plus, I am distracted. Cezar’s house in stressing me out.”

  Cezar shot me a dirty look. “I stress you out?”

  I gave him a “duh
” look.

  “It will be fine,” Alyssa reassured me. “You can’t do anything about the carpet. That’s not on you.”

  “Everybody hates my carpet? What the hell?”

  “True.” I figured that was answering both of them simultaneously.

  Carrying on two separate conversations was an art form I wasn’t used to yet. Which might have explained why I stepped into the street without really looking and got hit by a car.

  I heard Alyssa scream a split second before impact. I turned my head to the left, startled, and saw the black SUV bearing down on me. I saw Big Eddie behind the wheel. I tried to leap out of the way, but it was too late. With a screech of brakes, he bumped me, sending me flying through the air. I landed in a painful thud on my ass and shoulder, all the air knocked out of my lungs. Stunned, I couldn’t even scramble to safety.

  For a heartbeat, I thought Big Eddie would finish the job. Just run me right over in a horrific display of power, proving his point in the most thorough way possible. I tried to scream, tried to roll, begged God for mercy, and said a prayer of apology for the pain my parents were going to suffer. A Hail Mary was cranking off my lips, dredged from the depths of my Catholic upbringing and I kicked myself for not wearing my Bridgid’s Cross my grandmother had brought me home from her trip to Ireland.

  Then I realized that far too many thoughts had run through my head. I should be dead by now. I pried my eyes open and saw Alyssa and a man and woman I had never seen before staring down at me.

  “Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God.” Alyssa was so pale she looked translucent. Her voice was shaking. “Are you okay?” She swore grotesquely. “I thought you were dead.”

  I tried to sit up but my head swam and my shoulder let me know something was seriously off. The pain was so sharp I sucked in my breath. “I’m okay. My shoulder is messed up, but other than that I think I’m fine. A little dizzy.” My legs felt okay and I credited my gym shoes with sparing me from a broken ankle. “I’m glad I was wearing sensible shoes.”

  Alyssa snorted, then she burst into tears. “Bailey, holy crap. You scared me so bad.”

  I had been a little scared myself, not going to lie. I looked at the concerned faces of the two strangers as I felt around for my purse. “I lost my purse. Do you see it anywhere?”

  “Yeah, it’s over here,” the woman said, scrambling away. “I’ll get it.”

  “Man,” the guy said. “You flew like five feet. You were just totally airborne. I can’t believe you’re okay. I did call 9-1-1 though. You should get checked out, and I’m sure they’ll want to talk to the guy who hit you.”

  Right. Big Eddie. I just nodded. Five feet? That was quite the trip for me.

  Cezar appeared as well, hovering next to everyone else. “I’ll kill that bastard,” he seethed. “How dare he hit you like that? Son of a bitch.”

  I was kind of touched by the anger in Cezar’s voice, and the concern. He was annoying, yet oddly paternal.

  “Can someone help me up?” I asked, because the street was hard and cold.

  “I think you should wait for the ambulance,” the stranger said.

  “I agree,” Alyssa nodded.

  “I’m cold and my shoulder hurts.” The woman came back with my purse and handed it to Alyssa. I reached for it. “Can I have my phone? I want to call Jake and tell him I’m going to be late.”

  But the movement wrenched my shoulder and I leaned over and indelicately lost my lunch with zero warning whatsoever. While I was heaving and coughing, Alyssa started up her “Oh my Gods” again. That was not helping.

  “I’m calling Jake,” she said after I rolled onto my back, exhausted. “He can meet us at the ER.”

  “No,” I protested, embarrassed. “Don’t tell him to come to the ER.” I didn’t want to puke in front of Marner. “I don’t want him to think I can’t make dinner.”

  There were sirens that were getting closer by the second and I didn’t have the energy to shout over them to drive home my point. Alyssa was already on the phone with Marner anyway.

  “She got hit by a car, but she’s okay.”

  I imagined what his reaction to that was going to be.

  The stranger had stood up. “I’m going to talk to the EMTs.” Suddenly Big Eddie appeared in his place.

  He smiled. An evil, smug smirk that made my blood chill. I had assumed it wasn’t an accident, but this proved it. He looked amused. “Glad you’re okay,” he said. “It could have been so much worse.”

  It was a warning. Plain and simple.

  Fear mixed with pain mixed with anger, all churning inside me.

  I threw up again.

  Only this time it was on Big Eddie’s shoes.

  He made a sound of disgust and jumped back.

  I closed my eyes and smiled as the EMTs brushed him aside to get access to me.

  * * *

  Marner had me propped up with seven thousand pillows on his sofa and he was raising a cup of tea to my lips. “I can hold the cup,” I insisted, trying to take it from him with my free hand.

  “Just be quiet and let me help you.” He sounded salty.

  If anyone should be salty, it was me. I was supposed to be eating a massive pasta dinner and having a little after dinner treat, and I don’t mean tiramisu, though I wouldn’t have objected to that either. Instead, I was starving after having spent two hours in the ER having my shoulder popped back into place. That was after x-rays and having a policeman pepper me with questions about the accident.

  Accident, my ass.

  But I couldn’t even tell them I knew who the driver was. I had to play dumb, which wasn’t as hard as expected, given that almost as soon as I was admitted to the ER I was given painkillers. My tongue felt too big and I was a little hazy on the details anyway.

  I was still loopy but I was also hungry and feeling more than a little annoyed that this was how my afternoon had gone down. I felt like there was a general conspiracy by the universe to keep Marner and I from having any fun. So the last thing I wanted to do was argue with him now. I dutifully sipped the tea from the cup he tilted.

  He had me under a blanket, and yet another pillow propped under my crooked arm, contained in a sling. He wiped a droplet off my lip. “I can’t believe you got hit by a car.”

  “Me either. For a second there, I was sure it was curtains for me.” The incident happened so fast though, it was just a blur. “Thanks for picking me up.” I gave a sigh. It was always cozy at Marner’s apartment, and now I felt warm and well-cared for.

  He smoothed my hair back. “I need to put you in a bubble. You’re always getting in to scrapes.”

  I couldn’t even argue with that. “I recognized the guy that hit me, Jake. He had been following me all afternoon. I think he was on my tail right after I left Cezar’s house, but I wouldn’t swear to that. He was also at the Schvitz.”

  Marner swore. He was squatting down next to me, but now he stood up and rubbed his temples. I was fairly certain I had caused more stress for him in two months of dating than he had experienced in five years on the police force. “So this wasn’t an accident, that’s what you’re telling me?”

  “I mean, maybe it was an accident that he hit me, but it wasn’t an accident that he was following me.” I didn’t think that Big Eddie was such a lousy driver he hadn’t seen me in time to prevent tapping me. Besides, he had given me a clear warning. “He did say he was glad I was okay, but that it could have been so much worse.”

  “You think that was a threat?” He was pacing the living room now, sloshing tea onto his hand. He licked his thumb to clean it off. “If he did this on purpose, I swear to God, Bailey, I’m going to kill him.”

  The ferociousness of his words alarmed me. “You can’t kill him! You’re a cop.”

  “I don’t even care.” He set the tea down on the coffee table and came back over to me. He sat on the couch next to me and looked at me in a way that made everything inside me melt like chocolate in the sun. “Do you know how much you mean
to me?”

  There was a massive lump in my throat. My shoulder was throbbing, a dull, chronic ache. And I was slightly high from the pain medication. “I think I do,” I said, because really, what other answer was there to a hugely rhetorical question?

  “I…” His finger drew across my lip and his eyes were searching, seeking. “I…”

  Holy moly, was he going to drop the “L” word on me? My heart almost stopped. My insides went squishy. My brain couldn’t process or comprehend that this was happening. The Big Moment.

  But he just kissed me softly. “You look high as a kite,” he murmured. “How are you feeling?”

  Disappointed. But I questioned how well I would remember this moment later if he had said anything. There had to be a better time for a declaration like that. If that’s what he had even been intending to say. Maybe I was higher than I thought and he’d only been intending to say “I like you.” Or “I think you’re cute.”

  “I feel weird. Hungry. But you do take really good care of me.” He would make a great father someday. I had a vision of us with a baby, and the thought made my insides flutter. Holy smokes, I was high. One step at a time, toots. I needed to check myself.

  “Let me make you something to eat. Why don’t you try to sleep a little?”

  “If I fall asleep are you going to sneak out and murder Big Eddie?” I asked, more than a little worried he might be serious.

  My eyelids felt heavy and sleep did sound like a great alternative to enduring this shoulder pain, but I didn’t want to wake up and find I had a voicemail from Mrs. Marner that Jake was in jail for popping a mobster.

  He gave me a smile and shook his head. “I promise I won’t. But anyone who calls themselves Big Eddie deserves a kick in the nuts at least.”

  “That does sound appealing, but you can’t do that either. You can’t get mixed up with guys like that.”

  His head tilted. “You can’t either. But don’t worry. I’ll do this on the right side of the law. But I’m going to make sure he gets charged with assault and reckless driving. There were witnesses all over that square and he was clearly driving too fast.”