by Edie Ramer
Isabel empathized with Cassie, though she fought it. She knew what it felt like being unpopular. Thomas’s friends snubbing her because she wasn’t one of the elite of Bliss. As if she didn’t know the truth. They wanted him for their sisters, their daughters or their selves.
A plunking sound distracted her, the guitar. Glancing at Luke, she saw him looking at her. She moved to the side...and his eyes followed.
Peering down, she saw her body, almost solid. Opaque.
Oh noooooooo! Oh nooooooooooo! Oh noooooooo! It was happening again. Changing without choice or control. In another second, she might disappear again.
She waited, not daring to think beyond the string of “Oh noooooooos!” screaming in her mind. But nothing happened. Just a heightened sense of fear.
“Do you have proof that I was killed?” she asked, curiosity driving her along with a need to keep her mind busy.
Cassie shook her head, the sadness not lifting. “Not a clue.”
“If this were a game show, you’d have gotten the gong by now.”
“This isn’t a TV show, it’s life.” Cassie pushed up from the couch, standing slowly. “Or death. No one’s going to vote me out of here, but someone voted you off the old-fashioned way. Murder.”
An idea came to Isabel. “Prove it.”
Cassie blinked. “What?”
Luke smirked at Cassie, and Isabel paid attention. She’d thought there was something between them. Like a fighting couple on TV, attracted to each other but refusing to admit it.
“Remember when you said you weren’t Nancy Drew?” Luke asked Cassie. “Looks like that’s going to change.”
Ignoring him, she lifted her chin, her mouth firm and her eyes steady. “If I prove it, you’ll go?”
“Prove it and I’ll listen to you.”
“That’s not a promise.”
“I don’t have to promise anything.” Isabel felt herself puffing up, floating a foot above the floor, her anxiety replaced by pleasure. Talking to Cassie like this, having the upper hand, was more fun than breaking things.
“It’s a lousy offer.”
“Take it or leave it.”
Cassie stared a long moment before she nodded, her mouth set more firmly, her tone harsh. “I’ll take it.”
It worked! It worked!
Her excitement sputtered, like a warped firecracker, and she felt weak, dizzy, her ectoplasm fizzing out.
“Come back when you know more.” Isabel let go of the ectoplasm and immediately felt stronger. Still weak but no longer in the danger area.
Her almost-body vanished and she floated toward the door. Two feet from the hallway, an energy touched hers. She twitched sideways, as though she’d been shocked by a bare electrical wire.
“Who are you?” she asked, her voice so low it could’ve been taken for a puff of air.
No one answered, but she sensed the other presence close to her. Someone like her but with a difference. Thicker. Denser. Stronger.
Anger flared up inside her, the desire to confront this presence, kick it out of her house. She couldn’t stop the people, but she could surely stop this...intruder.
Then fear overrode her anger.
With a burst of power, she whipped through the door and flew up to the next floor. She hurtled into the closet, her safe place. Huddling there, she wrapped her arms around her almost-body to keep it from flickering.
She had to watch her temper, she had to stay calm and cool. Otherwise she’d disappear again.
And next time she might not come back.
***
“She’s gone.” Cassie glanced at her watch, sturdy silver with big numbers. “It’s after midnight. I have the feeling she won’t be back.”
Without waiting for a reply, she crossed to the table by the door, grabbed her jacket and slipped it on, then slung her purse over her shoulder. Something cold brushed against her, and she shivered. Looking up, she didn’t see anything.
She remained staring at the emptiness, concentrating. It hadn’t felt like Isabel. Isabel had an unsteady energy about her. This felt more like...Joe.
“You’re going?” Luke asked. “Is your fairy godmother waiting?”
She opened the door and stepped into the hallway. “I fired that bitch ten years ago. She did a damn sorry job.”
“I haven’t met a good one yet.” Luke followed her into the hall, catching up and walking next to her.
She glanced sideways at his hands stuck into his pockets, no guitar. Did he feel naked without it?
“Write a song about it,” she said. To her own ears, it sounded like flirting. Write a song about it. Oh God, she may as well say, Screw me, you hot guitar-playing stud.
But he was sending seduction vibes right back at her. She didn’t read him as easily as Joe, but they weren’t saying no.
The door was a few steps away. A portal to safety. To normality. She’d be glad to get back to her room at the motel, away from the emotions swirling between them.
She felt revved up, like a race car ready to speed away.
“Maybe I will,” he said. “Her fairy godmother was a bitch, she only wanted to work for the rich.”
“So she told the fairy to go to hell,” Cassie said, “I’ll do without you very well.” She closed her mouth. What possessed her to add to his song?
Hormones again. More flirting.
“With her parting words, she wished the bitch an itch,” he said, his voice soft and smooth.
He stood too close to her, and she grabbed the door handle. Out. Now. Fast.
“So you’re going to play girl detective.” His volume was normal, no softness in sight. Good. He realized that anything between them would be a gigantic mistake bigger than the Grand Canyon. “You realize if someone did kill Isabel and you found out who it was, you could be in danger.”
“No danger. I’m not solving a murder, all I need to do is prove there was one.” She opened the door, but his hand slapped the wood above her head.
Her heart stopped. So did her breath.
“I want you,” he said, his voice harsh, thickened, a fire burning in his eyes, his skin emitting heat and desire. “You know that. But I can’t do anything. I have to think of Erin.”
Her heart started again. She exhaled shakily. Everything inside her was shaky, but she twisted her lips and shrugged. As if she didn’t care.
“You’ll get over it. Most men don’t find it hard to do.”
His hand dropped and he stepped back. She opened the door and turned away from him. The lights flipped on outside and she saw her car parked in the driveway. Despite the chill wind, she felt heated from the inside out as she hurried away without another word.
She wasn’t sure of a lot, but she was sure of one thing. This—whatever it was between them—wasn’t over.
Chapter Sixteen
The gray-haired librarian narrowed her eyes and categorized Cassie from the waves in her hair to her shoes chosen for comfort instead of style. Cassie knew by evening the 2,027 population in the town of Bliss—and a goodly number outside of the town limits—would have the scoop on what exactly she was looking for in the three-year old Bliss Chronicles the librarian handed her.
Feeling the librarian’s gaze on her, Cassie headed to a round maple table on the side of the reading area. She sat and opened the newspaper. The above-the-fold front page story announced a new dollar store. Below the fold a young woman posed with a tiara and a smile, the black-and-white photo grainy. Probably the local Homecoming Queen.
Cassie flipped through the twenty-page paper but couldn’t find the obituaries. Frowning, she turned back to the front page again. She stared at the black-and-white photos of the Dollar Store and the Homecoming Queen. The librarian didn’t seem the type to make mistakes. She should go over it again and—
The header below the Homecoming Queen photo caught her eye. Former Homecoming Queen and Socialite Will be Missed. Cassie peered closer. Isabel? Yes, that was her name.
No wonder she’d miss
ed the connection. The photo was of a young girl brimming with vitality, so pretty half the girls at her high school probably envied her and half the boys fantasized about her when they were alone in their bedrooms.
What happened? What turned Isabel into an unhappy, bitter ghost?
Cassie read the article three times. It was as innocuous as the header. The words esteemed widow figured three times. According to the gushing writer, Isabel had left the University of Wisconsin in her junior year to marry entrepreneur Thomas Shay. Members of the Garden Club would miss her yearly tea parties. Her late husband’s nephew and niece were listed as her survivors. Dr. Diane Rudolf reported the cause of death as a massive coronary.
Cassie dug out a pen and small notepad from her purse and scribbled the names mentioned. Two minutes later, she put the newspaper on the check-out counter and gave the librarian her help-me-I’m-nice smile. “I’d like to see the following week’s papers.”
“That won’t be possible. It’s a bi-weekly.”
“The next edition, please?”
The librarian whipped the newspaper from the counter and wheeled around. In her absence, Cassie checked out an oil painting of a middle-aged man and his younger wife on the wall, obviously big-buck library patrons. Was that...?
Cassie leaned closer. Uh-huh, Isabel again, a brunette, her tiara traded for pearls and the vibrant smile for a polite, lifeless one. Although handsome with his blond hair and regular features, Thomas Shay looked stuffy in his shirt and tie, his expression stern.
The librarian slapped the newspaper on the counter. “The details of the will are in here, if that’s what you’re looking for. I thought you talked to ghosts. Why don’t you ask Isabel about her will?”
Cassie gave her a tight smile. “It’s an odd thing about dead people, but they don’t care about money.”
“Not like us live folk, that’s for sure. God doesn’t charge rent in heaven. God doesn’t have to argue with Medicare either.”
Unable to argue with either of her points, Cassie took the newspaper back to the table and found a two-column article stating the heirs of Mrs. Shay put the house up for sale and planned to hold an estate sale within the next few weeks. The paper named the heirs, the children of her husband’s sister, the niece from Dallas and a nephew in Toronto. Cassie wrote down the cities where they lived, then returned the newspaper to the counter.
She drove in the dark to her motel room. Inside, she got out her laptop and Googled the niece. Her name came up in the Dallas school system, a second grade teacher. Next she typed the nephew’s name. Nothing. She shortened his first name, Robert, to Bob.
A list of soccer games came up. She looked for the dates and compared them to the date of Isabel’s death. His team played another team that same night. She looked at the Dallas school system and typed in the date. School that day and the two days previously
She turned off her laptop.
That wasn’t foolproof. The niece could have called in sick, flown in from Dallas, hopped on the plane and flown back. Ditto with the nephew. But if there were strangers in town, she bet someone in the small town of Bliss would have noticed. It seemed unlikely.
As unlikely as a wealthy rock God being interested in her.
She shook off that thought. That was chemistry. Estrogen and testosterone and hormones, one big mix of scary juju that made people do crazy things they regretted later. She didn’t even like him much. Well, a little bit. She admired his desire to be a good father.
And his sense of humor sometimes peeked out.
Okay, he was talented too. She liked his guitar playing. And his songs.
And, okay, his body. She liked that.
But that was it. Nothing more.
Grabbing the notebook, she stared down at the names. Forced herself to think about Isabel’s heirs, the niece and nephew who had gained the most from her death and who apparently were busy the day of Isabel’s murder.
If they didn’t kill Isabel, who did?
How was she going to find the person responsible? It seemed an impossible task.
***
Tricia thrashed her arms and cried out. The men! They surrounded her. The producer who’d brought her into the club’s back room and his six friends. Their faces evil. Cold. Brutal. Cruel. They looked at her like she was a steak they wanted to chew up and swallow. Raw and bloody.
She wanted to leave and they wouldn’t let her. One of them held her down while the others touched her, hurting her. She was begging them to let her go. Begging the producer.
“Don’t leave bruises,” he told the others. “Nothing for her to take to the police.”
“Please,” she kept saying. “Please, please.”
Then they were all on top of her, touching, grabbing, poking. Two at a time, three at a time. She cried out, and they laughed. When she tried to bite one of them, he—
“It’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay.” Someone was patting Tricia’s back and she choked on her tears, swimming out of the nightmare. It was a man’s voice, but not one of their hateful voices. She was lying on a man’s chest, holding onto him instead of trying to push away.
“It’s okay.” Gentle hands smoothed up and down her naked back. “It’s okay.”
Kurt. She was in his room, shuddering while he did his best to calm her, not caring that her skin was slicked with sweat and she was leaking tears and snot on his chest.
“Shh,” he said, almost like a father, and her trembles weakened, like earthquakes getting smaller and weaker, until only a few tremors remained.
“The nightmare again?” he asked.
She nodded. She even knew what the trigger was. Her calling Luke and saying she’d sit with Erin, in case Mrs. Shay went wacko again. And he said “No thanks.” Nothing else. Not even, “Thanks for offering.” He didn’t say goodbye, he just hung up.
Like he didn’t care.
Like her father.
Like those men.
“I want to kill them,” Kurt said in a casual tone.
His words surprised a soggy laugh out of her and she lifted her head. It was too dark to read his expression, the only light the red glow from the LED clock. She inhaled through her nose and smelled herself. She stank of sweat.
“You’re like me,” she said.
“What do you mean?”
She wanted to tell him so badly, but beneath her, his muscles tensed, and she knew—she knew—he was trying to act clueless.
Did he suspect what she did to Mrs. Shay?
The idea excited and scared her. She ached to tell him. But knowledge was power, and she wasn’t giving him that power over her.
“Tricia, what do you mean?” His arms curved around her shoulder, commanding her attention.
“The house. We both want the house.”
“I want it because a haunted hotel will make me a bundle of money. I still don’t get why you want it.”
“Nothing mysterious.” She rolled off of him. The sheet was damp beneath her back. She must’ve been sweating when he pulled her on top of him to hold her, knowing she’d scream and fight if he loomed over her.
“My mother was the housekeeper. When I get the house, I’ll feel like I’ve accomplished something.”
Kurt laughed. “When you get the house? You’re bloody sure of yourself.”
“I won’t accept failure.” She gave him a glare he couldn’t see in the near-inky blackness.
“I like that confidence,” he said, his hand patting her arm. “You can do anything you set your mind to do.”
His words surprised her. Tears burned her eyes. He believed in her.
She could do it, she could do it, she could do it... Like the little engine that could, only instead of climbing the mountain with a carload full of toys, she was embarked on a harder endeavor. To make Luke fall in love with her and ask her to marry him.
Chapter Seventeen
The questions haunted Erin. Where was her mom? Why didn’t she email her? Why didn’t she come and get her?
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br /> Every day for two weeks, it wasn’t the ghost that made Erin’s heart squeeze so tight it hurt when the bus dropped her off from school and she dragged her feet into the house. It was the fear that when she walked inside, her dad would say, “I’m sorry, Erin, but your mother is gone.”
Gone forever. Dead.
And every day for two weeks, Tricia was waiting for her instead of her dad, making Erin almost happy to see her fake smile. But not so happy she didn’t run upstairs and open her laptop, holding her breath as she logged in with her secret password that no one knew.
And every day her breath whooshed out and she felt empty inside. As empty as her email without all the messages from Vantastic. But today she opened it up and saw the one message.
Her throat jumped. She clicked on it, almost afraid to read it. She clenched her teeth so they wouldn’t clatter as she read.
Baby, it’s me, your mommy, who loves you more than anyone in the world. I’ve been bad, and I’m sorry I disappeared. I was at a spa, you know the one Dr. Willis runs.
Erin put her hands to her face. There was only one reason her mom would have been at Dr. Willis’s “spa.” She must have been really, really, really sick. Maybe the mix of drugs were bad. Maybe she’d taken too much. Maybe she’d overdosed because she’d missed Erin.
And Erin wasn’t there to take care of her.
I’m glad you convinced Luke to stay. It’s been two weeks. I wouldn’t know where you’d be living now. Thinking about it, I’m shaking so much I can hardly type.
Why hasn’t the ghost hunter gotten rid of the ghost by now? I can’t believe Luke is letting her con him. He’s the most suspicious man I know.
I’m worried about you in that place. I told my lawyer, but he doesn’t think I can do anything with it. Not now. Maybe later.
Erin scrunched her face. Maybe later when her mom got straight.
If you’re scared, let me know. Maybe it’s better that you go to the foster family instead of staying with Luke.
No! No! No! Erin couldn’t stand going back to the house where she was treated like a poor little orphan girl. She knew what her mother’s biggest worry was. That Erin would love her dad more than her.
