“Rosie,” I started, keeping my voice soft and calm. “We don’t know any of that. I don’t think she was ever with Calvin.”
“Don’t speak his name to me!” she snapped.
Just like that, her pendulum swung the other way, from soft-spoken, almost sedated, to hateful. I took a half step back and held up my hands.
“Scarlet?” Lucas said, coming closer.
Rosie swirled around to face me, her expression twisted tight again. “I told you that I’d leave those TV people alone. I didn’t say anything about Wendy.”
I lunged for her, reaching for her wrist, only for my fingers to pass right through her. A cold rush swallowed me whole and I gasped. It was like a full-body brain freeze.
An unexpected second wave hit me just as I started to recover and the blast sent me reeling. Then my legs started moving, marching me forward. I tried to stop, only to realize a heartbeat too late what had happened.
Rosie had taken control of my body.
Chapter 13
“Rosie! Stop—this right—now!” The words tore from me, each one taking a considerable amount of energy and concentration.
“Scarlet? What’s happening?” Lucas said, immediately at my side.
Rosie was marching me up to the front door of the house. She had control of my body but it seemed that, at least for the time being, I retained a sliver of control over my brain. I tried to speak, to cry out to Lucas, but Rosie cinched her control on me like a leash tightening around my neck.
My thoughts scrambled as panic took hold. I tried to speak but the words came out as sputters and nonsense.
Alarm bells clanged, snuffing out the last embers of rational thought. I drew in a shuddering breath.
It was so cold. My limbs were stiff and tingling.
“She’s manifesting,” I bit out, my teeth starting to chatter. “Rosie, please—”
“Shut up!” Her voice roared inside my head.
I winced and continued to struggle in silence.
“What can I do?” Lucas asked. He managed to keep his voice calm and commanding, even as he was probably witnessing one of the strangest spectacles he’d ever seen. “Scarlet, tell me what to do.”
Rosie propelled me forward again. It was slow. My will battled against hers, making her fight hard for every inch. If I had no idea what was happening to me, I’d likely have been much more pliable. There was no telling how much control she would have. My eyes flew to Lucas and my heart rate skyrocketed; if Rosie realized that he would be easier to maneuver, there was a good chance she’d jump from me to him. I couldn’t let that happen.
I looked back up at Rosie’s mother’s house. It was still several yards away.
Think, Scarlet. Think!
What did she want me to do? Was she going to use my body to attack Wendy? I shuddered at the mental image of me standing before a judge, pleading not guilty due to a hostile ghost take over. Yeah. That’d totally work. Panic welled up higher. Each breath took conscious thought.
Maybe she just wanted me to talk to Wendy.
Closing my eyes, I tried to tap into Rosie’s energy. I forced myself to push past the cold, numb feeling, then dug deeper. My eyes flew open again, jolted by the rage I brushed up against.
No, Rosie wasn’t planning on using my body just to sit down and have a cup of tea with the woman.
She was past the point of wanting answers. She wanted revenge.
Lucas moved into my path. He planted his boot-clad feet wide on the small walkway and folded his well-defined arms over his broad chest, forming an impressive wall between me and the three concrete steps that rose above the sidewalk and would set me on the path to the home’s front door. “Stop!” he barked, his harsh tone matched the stony expression on his face. “Rosie, stop this right now.”
I blinked, surprised. He couldn’t see Rosie, couldn’t hear her even if she replied, but he spoke to her as though she were standing right in front of him. Which, to a point, she was.
“Who is this?” Rosie demanded, her voice echoing through my head. “Get him out of the way or I’ll use you to hurt him.”
An idea sparked. I looked up at Lucas, silently pleading with him to understand.
“I’m not letting you get one step closer,” he continued.
“Oh, yeah?” Rosie cackled. “We’ll see about that. You should tell your boyfriend he doesn’t know what he’s dealing with, Scarlet. He’s out of his depth. Those muscles aren’t going to help him against me.”
I closed my eyes and hoped she was wrong.
Surrendering to her control, I took two steps closer. Lucas swept into action. He hauled me up off the sidewalk, threw me effortlessly over one of his shoulders, and charged down the sidewalk.
A flare of heat surged through me, driving out the creepy cold. Anger flooded my veins, filling the hollow spaces that Rosie’s control had created.
“Put me down!” The demand came out in my voice but the words were all Rosie’s. She screamed and I retreated deeper within myself.
My arms flailed and my hands balled into tight fists, slamming repeatedly into Lucas’s back. He didn’t flinch or curse. He hurried down the sidewalk, barely seeming to notice my frantic attempts to get free.
Rosie raged, screaming inside my head.
Then, she was gone.
My body went limp, like a wet rag that had been completely wrung out.
“Scarlet?” Lucas said. He paused and carefully set me down. He kept his hands on my arms to steady me. “Scarlet? Is it … you?”
I groaned, too tired to speak. It was a struggle to keep my eyes open; the sheer exhaustion was overwhelming me, dragging me under. I watched Lucas, waiting for a sign that Rosie had left me only to jump into him, but he seemed unaffected.
After a moment, he wrapped an arm around my waist and helped me to the truck. He boosted me into the passenger seat and then leaned in, re-examining me, his eyes brimming with concern. “Scarlet? Say something. Tell me you’re okay.”
I managed a small nod.
His tense expression relaxed. “Is she gone?”
“I—I don’t know.” I tried to lift my head, but my muscles refused to respond. “I think so.”
I couldn’t feel Rosie’s wrathful presence anymore but that didn’t mean she wasn’t lurking nearby, waiting for a second chance. I shuddered; I couldn’t imagine her taking hold of me a second time. There was no way I’d have even an ounce of energy to fight back.
Was that what she was counting on?
I bolted upright and scanned back and forth around the truck, looking for her. “We need to go!”
Lucas nodded. “Can you get your buckle?”
“Yeah.”
Satisfied, he closed the door and raced around to the driver’s side. By the time he jumped in and got the engine going, I’d managed to get my safety belt latched.
He looked over at me and I gave a tiny nod. “Go. Go, go.”
The truck peeled away from the curb. There was no sign of Rosie. Was it possible the manifesting had left her weak as well?
One could only hope.
He pointed the truck toward my place and when we turned onto the main road through town, glanced over at me. Worry lines were etched around his mouth. “I know you don’t want to resort to extreme methods, but Scarlet, this is getting out of control.”
“I know.” I gave a weak nod. “Rosie is the most unstable ghost I’ve ever met.”
“What do you think would have happened if …” he let his words trail off, but my mind instantly filled in the rest of his question. If Rosie’s hold on me hadn’t been broken.
“She was so angry,” I said quietly. “I’ve never felt white-hot rage like that before.”
Lucas glanced at me, his expression troubled.
“I think she wanted me to hurt Wendy. She told me that Wendy had moved in with her mother. She’s convinced that she was a backstabbing friend and now feels helpless as Wendy cozies up to her mother.”
“I wouldn
’t say helpless,” Lucas scoffed.
I shrugged, not willing to debate the semantics with him. Even after what she’d done, I couldn’t fully give up on her or dismiss her so easily.
Lucas, on the other hand, had no qualms about it. “What are the options for getting rid of her?” he asked when I didn’t respond.
The finality in his voice sent a shiver down my back. She was no longer a lost, wandering soul. She was being reduced to a problem, a pest to exterminate. Even after the stunt she’d pulled, I couldn’t bring myself to say it out loud. It was too terrible.
I dragged in a shuddering breath. “I need some time to figure it out.”
Lucas didn’t say anything, but the way he tightened his jaw spoke volumes. He disapproved. What did he expect? It wasn’t like I could wave a magic wand and banish Rosie to the Otherworld with a few ancient curses. Holly’s face swam to the front of my mind. I quickly dismissed the whisper of an idea. Holly wouldn’t be able to help. Witches magic didn’t work against the spirit world. They existed on a different plane.
I was on my own.
Well, almost.
My head lolled against the back of the seat. “You okay over there?” I asked.
Lucas nodded, a faint smile appearing on his lips. “Never a dull moment with you around.”
I barked out a laugh. “I would kill for boredom right about now.”
He laughed. “I don’t know. This is better than the usual dinner-and-a-movie thing.”
Warmth washed over my skin and I flicked my gaze off of his profile right before he turned to look at me. I felt his eyes on me as I stared out the front windshield.
“Scarlet?”
“Hmm?”
“I’m really glad you’re all right.”
There was something in his voice, a thickness, that sent my heart skittering into a frantic pace.
“How much time is left until the renovations are completed?”
“We have another week.”
My heart jumped. “You’ll be gone in a week?”
Lucas looked over at me, the truck slowing as though he’d let go of the gas pedal. “I leave next Friday. Going straight to the next location, in Jacksonville.”
“That’s fast.” I tried to smile, to be happy for him, but a dull ache in my chest set in and suppressed it.
He returned my half-smile before turning onto my street. “The network runs a tight schedule. Crews work around the clock for two, sometimes three weeks. We film as we go, and then shut it down. They have to film fourteen episodes in a nine-month period, so it doesn’t leave a lot of wiggle room.”
Within seconds, he was parked in front of the darkened strip of shops. The feeling was returning to my fingers and toes, almost like the pins-and-needles feeling after a loss of circulation. Lucas slid from the truck and came around to open the door for me. I was grateful when he offered his hand, and I took it before attempting to jump out of the cab.
He released my hand when I was steady on my feet. “You all right?”
“Yeah. Thanks.”
He shut the door and ushered me onto the sidewalk, sticking close to me. The keys were stuffed inside my jacket pocket and it took me a few moments to get them free.
Even though there was a separate entrance around the back of the building, I preferred going through the front, so I unlocked Lily Pond’s front door. Lucas stepped forward to hold it open for me, but I paused and looked up at him. “Thanks for your help tonight. I don’t even want to think about what might have happened if you weren’t there with me.”
He smiled down at me. “Maybe when this is all over, we can go out and do something together that doesn’t involve a ghostly third-wheel.”
“Yeah, maybe.” I tried to smile but it felt strangled. My fingers wound together in front of me. “For now, all I want to do is climb into my bed and sleep for a hundred years.”
Lucas chuckled. “Or at least until you have to get up to open your shop.”
I scowled up at him. “Thanks for the reminder.”
“Anytime.” He took a step back, still grinning at me. “Goodnight, Scarlet.”
Chapter 14
“What are you still doing in bed?”
I didn’t bother to open my eyes. “I live here now.”
“That so?” the purring voice replied.
I rolled my cheek on the pillow, squeezing my eyes closed even tighter against the light filtering through the thin curtains that covered the large window. “I remember a time when you would complain at me for getting out of bed,” I mumbled.
Flapjack rumbled his version of a chuckle—something between a purr and hacking up a hairball. “That’s because you were warm.”
I peeled open my eyes and found the silver cat parked at the end of the bed, his tail swirled around to conceal his paws. “Yeah, well if you’d spent ten minutes as some ghost’s wind-up toy last night, you’d understand why I’m not launching out of bed.”
“Wind-up toy? What are you talking about? Is this some new game you’re playing at that ridiculous weekly side show you conduct?”
“It’s a support group, Flapjack. And thanks for the love.” I groaned as I twisted over. My muscles ached the way they did the day after a hard workout. “Rosie manifested last night and unfortunately, I was her body of choice.”
Flapjack reared back. “Are you serious?”
I raised an eyebrow. “Tell me, am I normally a comedian first thing in the morning?”
“Point taken.” Flapjack’s tail swished.
I gave him the quick rundown and by the time I was done, he was practically hissing his ire. “You want me to see if I can scratch her eyes out?”
“I’m handling it.”
He stared at me for an extra moment, not blinking, but then dismissed it. I could almost see the plotting happening inside his furry little head. “Flapjack?”
“What?” he said, his eyes taking on his cute-kitten look. “I won’t do anything.”
I frowned. “You do realize that look doesn’t work on me?”
“What look?”
I laughed and pushed up onto my elbows. “That look-at-me-I’m-so-innocent-and-fuzzy look.”
He made a sneezing sound, the ghost-cat equivalent of a proper scoff.
“What time is it?” I asked, reaching out for my phone that was face-down on the night stand.
“Nine-forty.”
My heart jumped into my throat and I threw aside the covers. “Blast!”
Flapjack frowned. “You’ve been hanging around with the Monopoly man too much, Scar.”
I was too panicked to come up with a witty retort. Lily Pond was supposed to be open in less than twenty minutes and I was frozen somewhere between the creature from the black lagoon and a savage zombie. I scooped my hair up into a ponytail, smoothing my hands over my head a few times to tuck away any renegade stragglers, and then looped an elastic around it. There wasn’t time for makeup, so I avoided the mirror as I brushed my teeth. I shimmied into a pair of jeans and threw on a t-shirt, then made my way to the kitchen to turn on the coffee pot.
Makeup was optional. Coffee was not.
The sweet aroma filled the apartment as I found my shoes and slipped them on. One perk of living one flight of stairs away from your work is that you don’t have to worry about being stuck in traffic, so even if you oversleep a bit, you don’t ever have to worry about running late.
Hardly ever, anyway.
Minutes later, coffee mug in hand, I jogged down the stairs, unlocked the metal security door and stepped into my floral studio. I unlocked the front door and had the Open sign on just as the clock hit ten.
The first one through the door was, unfortunately, not a paying customer.
“Good morning, Scarlet,” Gwen said with a cheery smile.
“Morning, Gwen,” I said, my voice thick. I chugged another mouthful of coffee.
“What happened on your date with Sergeant McDreamy?”
I held up one finger. “Hold that thoug
ht. Can you do me a favor?”
“Sure!”
“Watch the front and come get me if someone is headed this way. I overslept and didn’t have time to put on any makeup.”
I’d caught a glance at myself in the reflection off the front door’s shiny new glass and let’s just say that when your own reflection makes you do a double take, it’s time for a little help. Especially when you don’t even notice the shiny new door until you scare yourself in its reflection. True to his word, the landlord had seen to the door, and I’d slept right through it. I wasn’t sure any amount of makeup could tackle the bags under my eyes, but it was worth a shot.
“Late night?” Gwen asked with a giggle. Her eyes sparkled. “Word is buzzing that our new florist is falling head-over-heels for a certain bodyguard after he brought you that basket yesterday.”
I groaned.
Gwen laughed. “What’s wrong with that? He’s quite a catch. Trust me, all the ladies at Lucky Lady are wishing they were in your shoes!”
The Lucky Lady Salon was Gwen’s favorite haunt. It was the well from which all rivers (channels?) of gossip sprung.
“I hate to break it to you, but there is absolutely nothing going on between me and Lucas, all right?”
Gwen floated closer, still wearing a wide grin. “Are you sure?”
I scowled at her. “Very. Now, are you gonna watch the front or not?”
“Fine, fine.” She pouted, but sailed backward and took her post at the front window.
I set down my mug and scampered back upstairs. On my way into the bathroom, I passed Hayward, who tipped his hat. “Good morning, Lady Scarlet.”
“Morning! Can’t talk, Hayward!” I rounded the corner, swung into the bathroom, and started to shut the door—both Flapjack and Hayward were banished from the bathroom. Right before the door slid shut, I called after him, “Gwen’s downstairs.”
I grinned at his excited, “Oh!”
A few surprisingly uninterrupted minutes later, I was feeling slightly more human and went back downstairs to the shop. Gwen and Hayward were speaking together in the front window, Hayward wearing the dreamy smile he always had when Gwen was around. My heart clenched as I watched them, and in that brief, unguarded moment, I wondered what it would be like to have someone around to look at me that way.
The Ghost Hunter Next Door: A Beechwood Harbor Ghost Mystery (Beechwood Harbor Ghost Mysteries Book 1) Page 12
