Dancing with a Ghost (Restless Spirits Cozy Ghost Mysteries Book 3)

by Angela Pepper

  “It's no secret I wasn't a fan of Clive,” Marco said. “He's been part of my life as long as I can remember.”

  “I noticed he called you son a few times. Did he try to be like a father to you?” She bit her lower lip as she considered telling him about finding Tilda's long red hairs on Clive's pillows. He'd suspected something was going on, and even mentioned it to Katie, but did he really want to know?

  “Clive was the stepfather I never wanted. You know that expression, about beating someone like a redheaded stepson? That's exactly how he treated me.”

  “That must have been tough,” Katie said. She thought again of the black hairs and red hairs on the pillow. “Were they ever together? Your mother and Clive?”

  “No way.” He shook his head, bouncing the red unicorn curl on his forehead.

  “But, the other night, you asked me if I thought there was something going on.”

  Marco laughed bitterly. “That was pure paranoia,” he said. “Might have been a bad reaction to something I smoked.”

  “Maybe they had feelings for each other after all.”

  He kept his eyes on the straight road ahead as he shook his head, swinging the red unicorn curl. “She would never let him into her heart. It was already enough that he controlled the business. She would never relinquish control of her entire life. After my father burned her, she swore off relationships.”

  “Relationships are tough,” she said.

  “They sure are.”

  The conversation tapered off, and they continued driving along the straight road, a red line stitching through snow-pocked sandy terrain, in silence.

  After a few minutes, Marco said, “I do wonder, sometimes, if they were, uh, friends with benefits. Like, not in love or anything, but something physical. It would explain a lot.”

  “Lee found something,” she blurted out.

  “What?” He jerked his head and gave her a horrified look, the whites visible all around his irises.

  “Never mind,” she said. “It's just gossip. I'm sorry I mentioned it. Lee is a nosy troublemaker.” But he's a good kisser, she finished silently.

  Marco slammed on the brakes and pulled the Jeep off the road. It bumped up and down over the rough terrain.

  “You have to tell me now,” he said, chuckling. “Spit it out or I'm going to drive until I find a big cactus, and I'll throw you on it.”

  She squealed as they bumped over a rough patch of rocks.

  “I don't know anything!”

  He gave her a look of malevolent glee. “I see a cactus up ahead.”

  She grabbed an overhead handle and held tight to the rocking Jeep. “It was just red hair,” she said. “Lee Elliot found some strands of red hair on Clive's pillow. He said either Tilda had been in the same bed with Clive, or Holly's not a good housekeeper.”

  The Jeep rolled to a stop.

  “It was in the guest cottage,” she explained. “Lee went in there last night because he was, um, curious about what Tilda's art studio looked like. He let himself into the wrong building by accident.”

  “The little house to the north of the main building?”

  “That's what I heard,” she lied. “Is there a chance it was your hair on the pillow? Lee thought maybe that was what happened. Just some bad housekeeping.”

  “I don't ever sleep in that guest house,” Marco said.

  “Do you hang out in there? Maybe that was how Clive got your hiking boots. It's a cozy little place.” She bit her lip. “According to Lee Elliot.”

  Marco stared out the front window.

  He didn't speak for a long time. Katie imagined how she'd feel if she were in his shoes. She'd be upset if her happily married parents weren't together, and even more so if she found out her mother had been sleeping with another man, let alone a man she despised. One who treated Katie poorly. If that happened to her, she'd want to push the guy out of their lives. Push him all the way off a cliff, even.

  Finally, Marco said, “Okay.”

  He put the Jeep in reverse and started backing up toward the road.

  “No point denying the facts,” Marco said. “And it's a moot point now that Clive's gone, anyway.”

  “I'm sorry you had to find out this way,” Katie said.

  He shrugged. “All's well that ends well.”

  “And it might not be true. It was just a crazy theory that Lee Elliot came up with.”

  Marco shot her a wounded look as he turned the vehicle back onto the dirt road and headed toward town again. “What's the deal with that guy?”

  “Lee? I guess he's kinda snoopy, in addition to being a brown noser.”

  “No, I mean with you two.” He cracked a crooked grin, seemingly happy to be changing the subject. “Are you two crazy college kids hooking up?”

  “Ew.” She wrinkled her nose.

  “Good,” he said. “You deserve better.”

  “Uh, thanks.”

  “If he starts bugging you, just come to me and I'll set him straight. Okay?”

  She fidgeted with her seat belt and looked out the window. They'd driven past the snow line, and now everything was red.

  “Katie,” he said. “Do you hear me? If you need anything, I'm your guy. Anything at all. Help getting Lee to stay away from you, or help with your art, or talking to my mother. I'm your man. Okay?”

  “Sure,” she said.

  “Girls like you need all the protection they can get. There are a lot of creeps out there in the world, once you leave your little town in South Dakota.”

  “I know.” She clenched her teeth together. Had she told everyone she was from South Dakota? She didn't remember telling anyone but Lee Elliot, the night before. Then again, it was the sort of thing that could have come up at one of the dinners. Or, more likely, Marco had done some research into her. A simple computer search would have brought up a vast number of girls named Katie Mills. It was a common enough name, but he would have known she'd attended the same college as Darlene Silva. Had Marco been playing detective last night, at the same time she and Lee had been finding their way into a locked cottage?

  Marco reached over and pressed the buttons on the radio, switching stations. He settled on one playing a rock song with a familiar chorus, and began humming along.

  When they reached town and parked in front of the grocery store, he said, “I'm glad you came along with me today. Even though I'm not sad that Clive is gone, I'm still sad right now, you know?”

  “It's okay to be sad,” she said.

  “Plus this news about my mother and Clive makes me feel like I'm exploding and imploding at the same time, like sculpting material with no form, or a form with no material, two states at once.”

  “I understand,” she said, though she wasn't sure she did.

  Chapter 19

  Tilda was still wearing the dark sunglasses indoors when they returned. She was sitting in the social room, thumbing through a magazine. A small fire was burning in the fireplace.

  Marco dropped a grocery store bag on the sofa next to her.

  She pulled out the carton of cigarettes. “Menthols?”

  “It's all they had,” Marco said. He looked to Katie for corroboration. “Isn't that right?”

  Katie nodded stiffly.

  Tilda snorted.

  Marco stuffed his hands in his pockets and hunched up his shoulders. “I don't know what to tell you, Mom. They must have had supply issues at the store, due to the snowfall.”

  Katie shifted from one foot to the other. Marco had primed her for the conversation during the drive. His mother would still smoke the menthols, according to Marco, but not nearly as many, and it would be easier for her to quit again. Apparently, they'd played this game many times before. Tilda always sent him for cigarettes rather than going on her own, and he always claimed the store was out of her preferred brand. If she really cared that much she'd drive into town herself.

  “Menthols are what your grandfather smoked,” Tilda said. “Or those nasty cigarillos.”
>
  “I could drive back and get you cigarillos,” he said.

  She was already tearing open the plastic package on the carton. “No, no. These will be fine. In fact, it might be refreshing.”

  “Don't smoke them inside, Mom.”

  “I'll sit by the fireplace and blow my smoke up the chimney.”

  “Mom.”

  “The draft will pull the smoke out of the room.”

  “Don't be ridiculous. I'm bigger than you. I can take those away if I want to.”

  She snorted. “You'll do no such thing.” She looked at Katie. “Darling, tell my son to show some respect, will you?”

  Katie excused herself to the washroom rather than weigh in.

  She heard mother and son bickering behind her as she made her escape. By the sound of it, Tilda lit the first cigarette, only to have it thrown into the fireplace by Marco.

  * * *

  When she came out of the washroom, Lee Elliot was waiting in the hallway. He'd showered while she was on her errand into town with Marco, but he hadn't shaved. The brown scruff along his jaw made him look older, more appealing.

  Lee was humming with energy, bouncing from one foot to the other. He grabbed her arm, grinning.

  “There you are,” he said excitedly.

  Without thinking, she leaned in and kissed him. His lips were soft, surprised. His body was warm. She'd gotten chilly on the trip into town. The Jeep had a canvas top, and Marco had kept the heaters blowing on high, but it had never been warm inside the vehicle. She pressed against Lee's heat. He released her arm and stepped backward, bumping into the adobe wall. He recovered quickly, bouncing again on one foot and then the other, and kissed her back.

  After they pulled away, he said, “You missed me.”

  She rolled her eyes. “You and I are the only normal people here, Lee. We have to stick together.”

  “Yes. Let's stick together.” He bounced on his toes as he glanced up and down the hallway.

  “What's going on?”

  He bit down on a smile. “I gotta show you something.”

  She raised her eyebrows. “Again?”

  He grabbed her hand, and tugged for her to follow him. He practically skipped as he guided her toward his bedroom, next door to hers. He closed the door behind them and gave her a wide-eyed look with eyes that seemed to glow from within.

  She looked at the narrow bed. It would be the most comfortable seat in the room, but she chose the ledge instead, bringing her feet up with her and hugging her knees. As much as she'd enjoyed kissing Lee in the hallway, she wanted to keep some distance, some perspective.

  Lee took a seat across from her, on the bed. He sat with his legs splayed out. He leaned back, resting with his hands behind him on the crisply made bed. His shirt lifted, exposing an inch of midriff, including his navel. Her eyes wandered over his body, and she trembled, remembering the previous night in front of the roaring fire.

  Lee asked with a deliberate casualness, “How did your excursion with Marco go?”

  “Fine.”

  He nodded and looked down, tucking his shirt into his jeans. “I heard you guys talking. Was the store really out of everything but menthols?”

  “Of course not,” she said. “According to Marco, they play that game every time.”

  “They lie to each other,” he said.

  “Like I said, it's more like a game.”

  “Right.” He kept bobbing his head.

  “How about you? You said you wanted to show me something?” She hugged her knees tighter.

  His voice got low. “I found something,” he said, looking at his closed but unlocked door.

  She followed his gaze. “You found Tilda's studio?”

  “Something better.” He twitched, rubbing the tip of his nose with one hand and then the other.

  “Drugs?” She turned her head to give him a sidelong look. “You found another one of Marco's stash?”

  “No.” He shot her a wounded look. “And I told you, I'm straight edge. I don't do drugs, prescription or otherwise.”

  Now she gave him a wounded look of her own. “Prescription is not the same as”—she made air quotes—“otherwise.”

  He moved back on the bed, lifted his legs up, and hugged his knees, matching Katie's body position.

  With a serious, soft tone, he said, “Maybe I shouldn't show you. This is serious stuff.”

  She released her knees and took a more relaxed pose on the adobe wall ledge. “Lee, just show me whatever it is you want to show me before I beat it out of you.” She grinned. “I'm the baby sister who learned how to do a head lock on much older brothers.”

  He released his knees and relaxed as well. “You're cute when you talk tough.” He reached into his jeans pocket and pulled out a scrap of something bright. It was small, only an inch across the longest side. The edges were blackened, burned up, but the center was unmistakably yellow.

  She leaned across the space between them, reaching for it. He hesitated, pulling the burned scrap close to his chest before finally handing it over.

  In her hand, the piece of material seemed to glow with importance. This was more than just a bit of garbage. It was something that shouldn't be. The burned edges were curled and hard, but the center was still pliable.

  “Clive's yellow jacket,” she said.

  “Shh.” He had his finger to his lips.

  She examined the inch-long scrap again. It had to be part of the jacket Officer Kendall had been looking for, the one someone had worn on their way down the mountain, past the cameras of the coyote documentary crew.

  She whispered, “Somebody burned it?”

  Lee nodded. He looked proud of himself—more so than usual. “I was helping Holly, scooping the ashes out of the fire, and I found that. Pretty suspicious, don't you think?”

  “You have to call the police.”

  “Do I?”

  They were speaking in whispers already, but Katie crossed the room to sit next to Lee on the bed.

  “Of course you do,” she whispered. “This is evidence. It means someone else was on the mountain on Monday night with Clive.”

  “Or Tuesday morning,” Lee whispered.

  “Yes. And they came back here, and burned the jacket.” She tapped her fingers on her leg. “I guess it wasn't Marco, because he was with me in the Jeep.” She looked into Lee's eyes and saw, for the first time, that they were different colors. One iris was brown and the other was only half brown, the other half green. How had she not noticed his mismatched eyes before?

  “Your eyes,” she said.

  He blinked and looked away from her. “Katie, I'm not going to tell anyone.”

  “You have to tell the police.”

  He kept facing away from her, his eyes fixed on the room's door. “Katie, I'm sure it was an accident.”

  She didn't like him saying her name that way, like she'd done something wrong and was now caught. Her mouth went dry. “What are you talking about?”

  “What you did,” he said. “What you did to Clive.”

  She felt her joints stiffen. She couldn't get enough oxygen into her lungs. The room was turning, whirling. She clenched the yellow scrap in her hand, making a fist. If she squeezed it hard enough, she could make it disappear, make this moment never happen.

  “It was an accident,” Lee said calmly.

  “No,” she said at speaking volume. “Whatever you're thinking, you're wrong.”

  He finally looked at her, his mismatched eyes like overlapping paint spatters. “Are you sure about that? On Monday night, I heard you going back into your room in the morning, around five o'clock. The door on your room squeaks, so I know it was your room. And you weren't using the bathroom, either, because that door squeaks even louder, plus I didn't hear any water running.”

  She tried to recall the events of Monday night. She'd heard Tilda and Clive talking in the hallway, with him telling her to “get rid of them.” And then she'd slept, until she'd been awakened by the presence of som
eone in her room.

  “That wasn't me squeaking my door,” she said slowly and carefully. “I was in my bed the whole time. I swear.”

  He let out an audible breath, grabbed his pillow, and hugged it. He gave her a boyish look. “Don't be mad,” he said. “It's not like we know each other that well. You can't blame me for asking.”

  “I guess not.” She frowned. “But thanks a lot for thinking I went for a midnight hike with Clive, a man I'd barely known for all of a day, and then pushed him into a river. Why would I do that?”

  “I don't know why, but you had enough time.”

  “I suppose I came back after, and made someone else my accomplice? I must have asked either Holly or Tilda to burn the jacket.”

  “You could have.”

  She snorted. “Somehow, I knew about the camera footage, and foresaw the need to burn the jacket. You know, Marco's the only one who's been making fires.” She paused, her heart rate accelerating. “Except for you.”

  He closed the distance between them with surprising speed and kissed her, his hand clasped behind her head. She jerked back in surprise, biting his lip.

  She started to get off the bed, but he had his hand around hers, the yellow plastic scrap still clutched in her fingers. She stood, and he jerked her arm, whipping her right back down on the bed again.

  “Shh,” he said. “I was just testing you.”

  She growled, “No, you weren't. You really thought it was me.”

  His eyes widened. “If it wasn't you, who was it?”

  “It wasn't anyone. It was an accident. The cops were only asking those questions because...”

  Lee raised his eyebrows. “Because it's suspicious.”

  She shook her head, leaning away from him but still seated on the bed next to the young man. “No. Because they wanted to be thorough.”

  He reached up slowly and put his free hand on her chest, above her left breast. “If you think it was just an accident, why is your heart beating so fast?”

  She looked down at the hand on her chest. Her heart was pounding.

  She turned her head and looked at his other hand, the one wrapped around her hand. Lee released his grip, letting her hand go. She allowed her fist unfurl. There it was, on her moist and glistening palm. The burned piece of yellow plastic. The cause of his baseless accusation.