JanesPrize

by Margrett Dawson

  As she switched off the engine, a door swung open near the base of the dome and a figure appeared.

  Forget the handwoven shawls, Jane said to herself. This woman was dressed in an elegant silk gown of dark metallic gray with a high collar that framed her face and clung to her long limbs. Jane heard Pierce suck in an appreciative breath and she gave him a nudge.

  She stepped forward, her hand outstretched. “I’m Jane Chartraine. This is my friend Pierce Newland.”

  “Selma Thaddeus. Please come in.” She stood to one side and Jane saw more of her features as she came into the light. The youthful figure contrasted with Selma’s silver-gray hair, piled on her head, showing her classic bone structure. Her eyes were a very dark blue, her skin fair and virtually unlined.

  “I think you were surprised by my house.”

  “It is very unusual.” Jane looked around. They were obviously in the living area of the dome. Scattered rugs in muted colors lay haphazardly on the wooden floor and two or three groupings of comfortable chairs filled the space. Every flat surface seemed to carry a vase of flowers. Their scents wafted gently into the cool air.

  “I love the light,” said their hostess and she motioned them to take seats. Jane settled next to Pierce on a wide couch. Selma took a single chair opposite and sat perfectly still, waiting.

  Jane cleared her throat. “I’m not sure where to begin.”

  “At the beginning and go to the end.” Selma’s mouth curved in a gentle smile. “I will offer you some refreshment after we have talked. I don’t want anything to distract your concentration or mine. Please,” she gestured for Jane to continue. A diamond ring gleamed on her right hand.

  Jane took a deep breath. Heaven knows she had gone over the scenario enough times in her mind. “I have a friend, “she began, “who has come across some strange phenomena. He was told that a ghost can be brought back into the world of the living by a touch from a person.” She hesitated.

  “Go on.”

  “So what we—he—is wondering is if someone brought back this way will live a normal lifespan, and if he or she can be sent back in any way to the dead.” She swallowed.

  “Does this ghost want to go back?”

  Jane pleated the hem of her shirt. “No, not at all. But we think this ghost was murdered in his first life and that the murderer might be able to follow him into the present day. If that can happen, could the murderer kill him again?”

  She sat back against the soft cushions. She felt lighter, somehow, as if a burden had been lifted.

  Selma remained silent, her brow furrowed. “Well,” she said at last, “this is quite unusual.” She shook her head and the heavy weight descended again on Jane’s shoulders. Beside her, she could feel the tension in Pierce’s body.

  “I had a feeling this was too strange to be documented anywhere…” she began and prepared to rise.

  “No, no. Please stay where you are. I didn’t say it was unheard of, just unusual. I think I remember a case rather like that. Excuse me a moment.” Selma rose to her feet in a graceful gesture. “I have to check something in my library. There is herbal tea in the Thermos on the table. I’m afraid I don’t have black tea or coffee. Please help yourselves, I won’t be long.” With that she glided out of the living area and seemed to be heading for somewhere on the other side of the house.

  Pierce got to his feet and paced to the window. “Do you think she really knows something that will help?”

  Jane nodded and moved toward the small oak table where a stainless steel container sat next to delicate bone china cups. “I do. I think she knows what she’s doing. I have that impression anyway. Do you want tea?”

  “Sure. Anything.”

  Pierce paced again between the couch and the window. Jane poured two cups of fragrant tea and handed him one. She remained beside him staring out at the bushes that surrounded the property.

  “An amazing house,” she said after taking a sip of tea.

  Pierce only grunted in reply.

  “What’s wrong?”

  Pierce shook his head. “Nothing. I guess it’s just the whole atmosphere here.” He gestured to the wall of windows and the chrome and steel fittings. “I’ve never seen anything quite like it. I feel even more a fish out of water than usual.”

  Jane laughed. “Well, it’s certainly a goldfish bowl. There don’t seem to be any neighbors.” She bent forward slightly to peer into the darkness outside. “You know,” she said. “Somehow I expected this meeting to creep me out but only because I thought we might be somewhere spooky. But all this light is somehow more—”

  They both turned as Selma spoke from behind them. “I think I’ve found something.” She held a piece of paper in one hand.

  How long had she been there? What did it matter anyway if she’d heard what Jane had said?

  “Can I give you a refill on your tea?”

  “No, thank you.” Jane replied quickly while Pierce just shook his head in refusal.

  “Then let’s sit down again.” Selma glided to the seat she had chosen before, leaving Jane and Pierce on the couch once more.

  Selma smoothed her silk skirt over her legs and glanced at the document she held. “I printed this from an old account I came across a few years ago,” she began. “It seems to support what you are saying about a ghost being able to return to the world by touching someone.”

  “My goodness. My friend will be amazed.” Jane smiled. “But why don’t most people know this?”

  Selma shot her a quick glance. “Most people don’t believe in ghosts in the first place, my dear. It would not occur to them that it’s a possibility.”

  She stood and moved toward the window. The lamps cast a bright halo around her dress and her hair so she shone like a silver figurine.

  “But if a ghost comes back,” she continued in her soft, deep voice, “it’s mostly deliberate and, if they are successful, they would not want to be known.”

  “You mean they have a compelling reason to want to return and then hide who they are?”

  “Oh, yes.” Selma turned to face them, the silk of her robe making a soft whisper as it settled again around her legs. “There is always a compelling reason. And they always hide.”

  Jane swallowed against a dry throat. “A reason like wanting to kill someone again?”

  “Maybe. Revenge is a powerful motive. Just because someone is dead, doesn’t mean they lose the impulses that drove them in life.”

  Jane wanted to be sure she understood. “So maybe my friend has seen the ghost of a murdered person and the murderer could come back and kill again?”

  Selma resumed her seat. “It’s possible. But there are many reasons why one might want to return. Love is as powerful as hate you know.”

  “But if this is true then all kinds of ghosts might have returned and be living among us.”

  “There might indeed, but as far as my research and experience has shown there has to be a bond of some kind, either present or future, between the ghost and the person who releases him. Or her.”

  “A bond?”

  “Some link that forms a continuity.”

  “So if my friend were to help the first ghost hide his identity to be able to live in this world, a friend of his might provide a link for the murderer to return?”

  “Hmm. It’s possible. If there were a close friendship.”

  Annice was her good friend. She may have brought back the stepmother.

  “But that makes it difficult to protect yourself. The murderer might appear at any moment.”

  “Yes indeed. But why don’t you confront the supposed murderer and find out what he or she wants?”

  “Isn’t that dangerous?”

  “Maybe. But so is doing nothing.”

  “Is it possible to send the murderer back to the dead?”

  “Only by killing them again.”

  Pierce stirred on the couch and spoke for the first time. “When did you come back?” he said.

  Chapter Seventeen


  Selma fixed Pierce with a thoughtful gaze. The silence lasted a long heartbeat. “You are the friend in question?” Selma asked.

  Before Pierce could answer, Jane replied. “Yes.” She wasn’t sure what exactly was going on but she had the sense that Selma would see through any prevarication.

  “And he has come back to the living world?”

  “I touched him when he appeared in his old house. It’s a long story.”

  “It usually is.” Selma gave her a knowing, secretive smile. She looked at Pierce. “How did you know about me? Was it a lucky guess?”

  “Call it extra sensory perception.” Jane was startled by the harsh note of his voice.

  “Oh dear. You’re angry.”

  “I’m pissed off. Maybe this, maybe that. Maybe a murderer could come back, maybe there’s bond strong enough to do it. Give us some answers goddammit. You’ve been through it.”

  “I have.” Selma took the few steps to the table with the tea and poured herself a cup. She returned to her seat and settled against the cushions. “Since we are members of the same club, so to speak, let me tell you my story.”

  She took a sip from her steaming cup. Jane and Pierce waited.

  “My husband and I were very much in love,” she began after a long pause. “It was one of those whirlwind romances that sweep you away in a frenzy of passion. We met and married within a few weeks.”

  Another example, Jane thought.

  “We had twenty years together, but unfortunately no children.” Selma said, “Then I was drowned in a boating accident.” An expression of sadness clouded her features for a brief moment. “I could only stay around the area where I died so I had to wait for my poor John to find the courage to come back there. After a few years he did, and I was waiting for him.”

  Jane stared at Selma, fascinated, trying to picture the events she was describing. Her husband would have known his wife, of course, so they had a better start than she and Pierce. “Go on,” she breathed.

  Selma shrugged. “There’s not much more to tell, except that we had ten more happy years until my dear love died of cancer. It was fast, like everything else in our lives. You see, when I died I was whole. That is, I had no debilitating disease. Those who die from a physical ailment that destroys organs can’t come back or they would resume their suffering and die again. So I will meet up with John again on the other side in the spirit world.” She paused. “You are probably wondering why more people don’t do this?”

  Jane nodded.

  “There may be many more than we believe.” Selma finished her tea and placed the cup on a side table. “But just think. Someone dies. There is mourning, a funeral, maybe even a new marriage in the case of a husband and wife. Children remember the death and the funeral. Then how could the dead person reintegrate into their old life? John and I were lucky. We had plenty of money, few other family ties. We were able to move right across the country. Start again in fact. We built this house because I hated the darkness. I’d existed in it for too long. So there you have it.” Her hands moved in one of her graceful gestures. “Now tell me yours.”

  It took less than five minutes to fill in the details of their meeting and subsequent difficulties in bringing Pierce fully into the modern world, although leaving out most of the intensely sexual episodes. Jane had the feeling Selma knew about them anyway.

  Selma listened intently until the end.

  “So the woman who poisoned you has come back?” she said.

  Jane and Pierce spoke together. “Yes, I think so.” “No, I’m not sure.”

  “Well, Pierce would be the one who could say for sure if she is the one who killed him. Let’s think about this. Why would she come back to kill you again?”

  “Because she’s jealous and spiteful and hated me when she was alive.” Pierce was bitter.

  “Maybe so, but why would she want to kill you again?” Selma repeated. “There would be no advantage to her.”

  “Satisfaction in stopping me from inheriting the Newland estate.”

  They then had to explain about the elderly cousin and the meeting with the lawyers in Boston.

  Selma nodded. “It could be a long-standing resentment, as you say. You can’t know until you find her.”

  “I never want to see her again.”

  “I understand, but someone has to.”

  “I’ll do it.” Jane sat straighter and put a hand on Pierce’s arm.

  Pierce sprang to his feet. “Over my dead body!” He paused and grinned despite himself when he realized what he’d said.

  Jane rose to stand beside him and touched him gently. “We’ll talk about it,” she said.

  There didn’t seem to be much more to say.

  Before they left Selma gave them her card. “You can call, fax or email any time,” she said. “I’d be happy to help.” She held out her hand to Pierce who touched it briefly with his fingers. She turned to Jane. On an impulse Jane threw her arms around the older woman. “Thank you for everything,” she said. “I’ll let you know how we do.”

  In the car Jane focused her eyes on the darkness of the road ahead. “How did you know about her?”

  “Pierce shrugged. “Hard to say. I had the feeling that there was something a bit off. You know, she wasn’t quite right in the setting. Once it occurred to me, everything seemed to fit. I guess it was more a flash of intuition than anything.”

  “A good one. Let’s hope you have the same kind of flash when we find the woman again.”

  They drove back to the hotel in silence. Jane drew into the courtyard where guests parked their vehicles and switched off the engine. “We have to do something,” she said at last. “You don’t need to be near her, in case she tries anything again.”

  “If it is her I’m not afraid for myself.” Pierce took her hand. His fingers were icy cold. “But I’m terrified of her harming you.”

  “Let’s take one thing at a time. First the lawyers, second your cousin, third your stepmother. If it is your stepmother I saw.”

  “I guess.”

  They got out of the car and made their way to the main entrance. Pierce slipped his arm around Jane’s waist.

  Once in the hotel room, Pierce took her gently in his arms. “Are you okay?”

  She nodded and then felt the tears coming. She wiped at her eyes with one hand.

  “Hey, no crying allowed.” He stroked the tear from her cheek. “Tell me.”

  Jane pushed away from him. “I guess it’s all coming at me now.” She plunked herself down on the bed. “The nights in the house, breaking the law to get you some ID, keeping it all secret from my mom. And now we have to face a murderer.”

  “We have to face a possible murderer. We don’t know it’s my stepmother. And even if it is we don’t know she wants to kill again.”

  “I know. But I still feel—threatened, besieged.”

  He sat beside her and put his hand on her shoulder. “You wanted to take a hot bath. Let me run the water for you. We’ll soak in it and then you can get a good night’s sleep.”

  She grabbed a tissue from the box on the nightstand and mopped her face. She tried a smile. “Sounds good but—”

  He pushed her hair back from her face and kissed her gently. “If you don’t want to make love, I understand.”

  She hadn’t specifically thought about his promise to drive her wild with a night of uninhibited lovemaking but now that he mentioned it, she felt an enormous relief. Tonight she wanted to snuggle against him, warm and safe, and gather her thoughts. She had to plan her course of action over the next few days, when she would try to find the woman she believed to be a former ghost. But whatever she did she had to keep the mysterious stranger away from Pierce until they could be sure she posed no threat to him.

  “Some people say that danger makes you want sex but in this case…” She let the words trail off as Pierce began to undress her.

  “It might be more than I can stand,” he said, “but tonight we’ll hold each o
ther and gather our strength. All right?”

  “All right.”

  The water in the hot tub was just right. The jets massaged her back and thighs in a gentle rhythm. Pierce turned down the lights and opened the large windows. It was like sitting out in the velvet night. The moon was a thin sliver in the sky, too young to cast any light, but the muted glow from the street lamps allowed her to see the shape of the trees around. A faint breeze made the leaves rustle.

  She leaned back and let out a deep sigh. She could feel the water easing away the kinks and knots in her body. A wave rose against her chest and she opened her eyes as Pierce slid in beside her. She moved her hand over his knee.

  “Seems like a wasted opportunity,” she said.

  “Do you want to?”

  “No. My head’s too full of ghosts and murderers and lawyers’ questions. You too?”

  “I must admit I keep thinking about the interview tomorrow.”

  “Then let’s just enjoy the water and the setting.” She closed her eyes again and let herself drift.

  They settled into bed spooned against each other. One of Pierce’s hands cupped her breast and she could feel the pressure of his penis against her bottom. She closed her eyes. If she could keep him safe they would have many nights together, some to make love, some to cuddle, some maybe even to sleep apart, although she couldn’t imagine that happening, ever.

  From the beginning this had been a topsy-turvy affair. The usual pattern of a relationship was friend, companion, lover, wasn’t it? She had leapt straight to the lover stage and was now learning Pierce could also be her friend and companion. The more she knew him the more she knew she couldn’t bear to lose him.

  As she drifted, half asleep, the image of the woman she believed to be his stepmother floated against her eyelids. She had been a pretty woman, in a Thirties film star kind of way. How dangerous was she under the glamorous outer shell?