Twisted Echoes

by Sheri Lewis Wohl

  It was all pretty out there in his opinion, and at the same time, felt pretty darned real. He’d never much thought about anything supernatural before. Just wasn’t his thing. Still, he had to wonder if something was happening here. Never before had he been in a place that felt like this. It was as if they weren’t alone.

  The story of the house and the untimely death of the original owner’s daughter sure had the feel of an unresolved tragedy. Maybe she was still hanging around waiting for something…or someone…to set her free. If the reality ghost shows were to be believed, it wouldn’t be the first spirit to hang around a house.

  Lorna seemed an unlikely savior. She was strong and wonderful and grounded in the here and now. The stoic realism that was so Lorna was, in his opinion, one of the things that came between her and Anna. He believed that Anna ultimately realized she needed a woman more spontaneous and open. Lorna hadn’t been able to give that to her, and so Anna, in an age-old story, turned to another. That really sucked. Lorna didn’t deserve to be dumped like she didn’t matter. Nobody did. He hated to see his sister in pain, particularly when he knew there was little he could do to help her. It was horrible to be that powerless to ease a loved one’s suffering.

  When she’d decided to move all the way over here, he’d been incredibly sad. Now that he was here too, he understood the potential it had to help heal her heart. This was a special place, potential ghost and all. The moment he drove up, he felt it. He’d probably sensed it even as a kid. Her decision to come here was the right one, and well, Renee’s presence certainly didn’t hurt either. He had a good feeling about her. He hoped Lorna did too.

  The only thing that would make things better was Merry. He wished she were here. Jeremy stood staring out at the ocean and sipping his quickly cooling coffee. The sound of the ocean in the distance, the faint smell of the water in the air, made him smile. Last night’s storm clouds were fading, and the sun was beginning to peak through. It was going to be a beautiful day. He’d have to tell Lorna he was going back to Spokane. She wasn’t going to be happy with his quick turnaround. He didn’t see that he had a choice. He had to get back to Merry. Besides, with Renee here, now it wasn’t like he’d be leaving her alone.

  He was lost in his thoughts when the sound of an approaching vehicle made him turn around. The car looked familiar, though it was too far away to make out clearly. As it grew closer, his heart began to beat, and he smiled.

  Merry.

  He had no clue why she was here, not that it mattered. He didn’t care why. That she was here made his heart light. He wasn’t going to have to wait another six hours or so while he drove across state to see her. She had come to him. Everything was right with his world.

  Well, almost everything. Despite the joy seeing Merry gave him, it didn’t change the fact that something funky was going on with Lorna. She wasn’t the kind of person who was inclined to see things, and yet he was convinced that she was. No question she was understandably upset over her breakup; anyone with half a heart would be. That didn’t mean she was slipping into the world of hallucinations. If anything, she seemed more grounded and like herself than he’d seen since it all went down. That her spirit was coming back made him smile. This place was good for her.

  And maybe a little bad.

  If she was a bit psychic how, bad could it be? As long as she didn’t run around telling people it was bound to be okay. He believed her, and obviously Renee did too. Others might not be so understanding or kind.

  Still, in the big picture, good was winning out, and the bad, well, they’d figure that out together. After all, isn’t that what families do? Now they were about to have a bigger family—his baby, and if Merry would have him, a wife. It had been a long time since he’d felt this fine. He wanted to hold on to the feeling.

  Merry got out of the car, and his good spirits fell, replaced by cold fear. She was pale, and beneath her eyes the skin looked as though it had been dusted with ash. Pregnant women glowed; he’d heart it a hundred times if he’d heard it once. She wasn’t glowing, far from it. The sight sent a knot of dread into the pit of his stomach.

  Jeremy sprinted over to her and laid a hand gently on her arm. Just the simple act of touching her made him feel at least a little better. “What’s wrong?”

  Her pale face tipped up to his, and her smile thawed the ice in his veins. “Not a thing now that I see your mug.” She got up on her toes and kissed him. “God, I’ve missed you.”

  The feel of her warm lips against his sent any lingering worrisome thoughts fleeing. Bottom line, she was here, she was his, and they were having a baby. Whatever else was happening around them was background noise. As long as they were together, everything was perfect. Corny but true.

  “You’re awfully pale,” he said when they drew apart at last. He held her face between his hands. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

  She nodded and took one of his hands to hold in hers. She leaned close into him. “A bit of nausea now and again. That’s all. The doctor says it should pass sometime between now and the end of the first trimester. I hope it’s sooner than that, but even if it lasts that long, I’m still going to be fine. It’s just part of the deal.”

  Despite the sound of conviction in her voice, he wasn’t convinced. The paleness to her skin really bothered him. “And the baby?”

  She hugged him even tighter and laughed lightly. “Our baby is fine too. Trust me, big boy, we’re both just dandy.” Her gaze swung past his face and to the house. “This is Lorna’s new digs? Wow. Talk about stepping up her game.”

  “Yeah, pretty smoking, isn’t it? Aunt Bea really knew how to live.”

  “If the inside is anything close to the outside, it’s got to be magnificent. She hit the jackpot here. Must be nice to be the favorite niece. I’m pretty sure none of my family likes me this much! And apparently, Aunt Bea didn’t like you that much.”

  He laughed. “Apparently not, but hey, who says we can’t mooch off my sister?”

  The house and grounds really were something It was all magnificent in more ways than one. A million-dollar view…literally, an incredible old house, and he was beginning to believe, a century-old murder mystery.

  That was all stuff he could share with her later. Right now, what he really wanted to know was why she’d driven all the way across the state—by herself—to come here. She insisted nothing was wrong, but he wasn’t sure she was coming clean with him.

  Again, he asked, “What’s wrong?” He looked down into her eyes.

  The look on her face was a little sheepish. “Physically, I’m feeling not too bad, considering.”

  “I get that. What’s the but you’re not telling me?”

  She took in a big breath and let it out slowly. “But, the thing is…I sort of quit my job.”

  Of all the things he expected to come out of her mouth that was about the last thing he thought he’d hear. She had worked long and hard to put herself through law school, and then after clerking for a federal judge for two years, landed an associate position at one of oldest firms in the city. She was on the fast track for becoming its latest young partner. Merry was a bright star in the Spokane legal community. He always thought that one day she’d be sitting on the federal bench. Maybe that was his vision more than hers.

  The news took him so much by surprise the only thing he could think to ask was, “Why?”

  The sheepish look on her face grew even deeper. Her smile was rueful, her pale cheeks taking on a tinge of pink. “As it turns out, I hate practicing law.”

  For a second, he was so stunned he did and said nothing. Then he burst out laughing. “Oh Lord,” he sputtered. “This is truly priceless.”

  Now hurt clouded her face. Her lips pulled down into a frown. “It’s not funny. It’s horrible really. My parents are going to kill me. I’m going to be the black sheep of the family. All their big dreams about a barrister daughter just went up in smoke and I don’t have a clue how to tell them.”

  Her timing w
as perfect, not to mention funny, even if she didn’t realize it yet. She was in for a surprise too. “Oh, baby, we are a pair to draw to.” He kissed the top of her head.

  Her eyes narrowed. “Really? Why?”

  He pulled her close and wrapped his arms around her, loving the way she felt pressed tight against his body. “You aren’t going to be the only one your parents kill. You see, beautiful, our bouncing baby girl or boy currently has two unemployed parents because I quit my job too.”

  At first, her reaction seemed to be stunned silence, and then she burst out laughing. “Good grief, Jeremy, we are seriously messed up, you know that, right?”

  “Maybe so, but I happen to think it’s messed up in a really great way. So what do you say we go break this news to the others?”

  She stood on her tip toes and kissed him on the cheek. “Which news do you mean? That we’re having a baby or we’re both unemployed?”

  Chapter Twelve

  Renee couldn’t believe how fast the day went. She and Lorna had left Jeremy and his girlfriend, Merry, at the house to discuss the details of their impending life changes while they took a drive to Seattle. First, because she had a meeting with the insurance agent at the store, and second, so they could go to the Seattle Public Library. Places to go. People to see.

  Stop number one was her depressingly smoke-infused building. If Lorna hadn’t been along, she’d have been terribly sad at the sight of the boarded up windows and the yellow caution tape. Throw in the strong lingering scent of smoke, and it was enough to make her want to throw up. Her life was in front of her all broken and burned. It was not a pretty sight.

  The charred exterior bricks that just days ago were a beautiful shade of red were now blackened. The place had been her anchor since she declared her independence, and now her anchor was gone, or if not gone, seriously crippled.

  But there was Lorna, and the fact was, she liked her a lot. Just being around her made Renee feel lighter and happier. Not just her either. The draw to Lorna appeared to be contagious because Clancy seemed to adore her too. Renee had one truism that stood her well through the years: if all else fails, trust the dog. And Clancy hadn’t steered her wrong yet. If he loved Lorna, then her trust in Lorna was not misplaced.

  Fortified by Lorna’s company, they parked at the rear of the building and walked around front to meet with the adjuster from the insurance company. He turned out to be a serious young man with short hair and a neatly trimmed beard named Stan Snowden. He had all her pertinent policy information on the newest version of a popular tablet that fascinated Lorna. Once she was able to tear Stan away from showing the intrigued Lorna all the tricks of the tablet, they quickly reviewed the policy highlights. Next was the hard part: a tour of the mess that had once comprised her home and business.

  It was a mess too. Between the fire, the firefighters, and the arson investigators, it was a ghost of what it once was. It was hard to envision that a resurrection could even become a possibility.

  Stan said little as they picked their way through the odorous stew of charred wood, broken glass, and melted plastic. She followed his lead and said nothing. What was there to say? It was all gone, and she was left with a pile of damp ash. So much for the life adventure she’d so carefully carved out for herself after the divorce. Best laid plans and all that.

  After Stan looked things over, asked a few more pointed questions, and wrapped up all his notes, he politely told her the insurance company would be in touch soon.

  Soon, of course, being relative and contingent upon the final story from the fire investigator’s report. It was a polite way of saying they had to first figure out if she torched her own building. If there was no finding of arson, the insurance company would finish up the claim and pay out the policy limits. That little tidbit meant what she already knew in her heart. Her home and place of business were a total loss.

  Once that determination came down, she’d have a difficult decision to make. Either rebuild everything or sell the ruins to a developer and move on. Either way she went, it wasn’t going to be easy. It was a decision to be made in the not too distant future but not today. Far too many variables involved for her to make any kind of decision right now. There was time to weigh out the good, the bad, and undoubtedly, the ugly.

  She let out a sigh when Stan drove away through congested Seattle traffic. Not getting how difficult this visit would be was a little naïve on her part. She felt drained and had no problem letting Lorna drive them away from the ruins.

  Now she leaned back in the chair and stretched her arms over her head. After leaving her burned out shell of a life, they’d settled in at the Seattle Public Library. It did wonders for her sour mood. Amazing what hours in comfortable silence and poring over books and historical records could do for a person. Sometimes it was the simple things that made life pleasant. Simple things and an intriguing companion, that is.

  It had taken them a while to locate what they needed, but once they did, it was like winning a jackpot in Vegas. Not that she’d actually ever won a jackpot…or been to Vegas.

  The history of the house and its inhabitants began to unfold for them like a really good movie. A mystery movie that is, because in some areas they were able to uncover a great deal of detail. Yet, in others, it was strangely silent. She was dying to know why. She loved mysteries.

  Like most stories, this one started with a single visionary person. In this case, a man named John McCafferty. A big deal in his day, he was wealthy in a Bill Gates kind of way. The house he built on the shores of the Pacific Ocean was state-of-the-art for its time, and he was understandably proud of it. Numerous articles had been written and grainy black-and-white photographs preserved that depicted a tall, handsome man with serious eyes. The location he chose for his own personal Valhalla might have been isolated, but he certainly wasn’t keeping it to himself.

  He gave lavish parties with notable guests: the governor, senators, entertainers, and the who’s who of the Pacific Northwest. Everyone who was anybody showed up on the doorstep of the house that now belonged to Lorna. It was pretty darned impressive.

  What really caught her interest was that despite the fact he managed to get both himself and his masterpiece mentioned on numerous occasions, only passing mention of his wife and only child, a daughter named Tiana, was found in the mountain of records. Even less was reported on Tiana’s untimely death before her twenty-first birthday. A brief obituary with bare-bones biographical information was all. Nothing extra, no words of sorrow about the loss of a beloved daughter even though she was young and on the verge of a life in society. No follow-on articles detailing the brief life of a tycoon’s only child. Given her father’s standing in the State of Washington, there should have been more. Today, it would have made the front page online and in print. Things had not changed that dramatically in the intervening years.

  “What do you think?” she asked Lorna. “Get the feeling something was rotten in Denmark?”

  Lorna nodded her head slowly as she tapped an open book. “No shit. Daddy sounds like the stereotypical nineteenth century rich guy in a society that worshiped men. It was all about him all day, every day. Did I mention that kind of crap pisses me off?”

  “Indeed. I picked that up too. Could be wrong, but don’t think I’d have cared much for the man. Quite a bit more self-involved than I find attractive, though I suppose it was one of the traits that helped to make him so terribly rich. Things haven’t changed much in that respect. It takes a certain amount of cold-blooded self-interest to climb that far up to the top.”

  “In other words, a nice way of saying he was a narcissist?”

  It was her turn to nod. “I bet a good shrink would confirm that diagnosis in a heartbeat. In the big picture, he doesn’t figure in as much for me. It’s the daughter that has me bothered. Something wasn’t right with Tiana’s death. Too many holes and way too much silence if you catch my drift. These papers—”she tapped the stack of newspaper reproductions spread out on the
table—“don’t tell us much of anything beyond the fact that she was a lovely and available young woman. Why wouldn’t there be more about her death?”

  Lorna raised an eyebrow. “Yeah, I definitely catch your drift. Everything we came across was lightweight. More than a little lacking in substance.”

  True story there, and it wasn’t just lacking in substance; it was more like non-existent information. It wasn’t right on any level as far as she was concerned. “Inquiring minds would like to know what happened to Tiana. How and why did she die? You’d think if she was sick or had some terminal disease that somewhere in the stories about her father there’d be at least a passing mention.”

  Lorna nodded, her lips pressed tight together. “Yeah, you would think that wouldn’t you? From everything I found in the old business journals, he liked to talk about one thing only and that was himself. That obituary he put in the paper for her was pathetic.”

  “It makes me sad,” Renee said.

  Lorna nodded. “Makes me sad too.”

  Renee reached over and covered Lorna’s hand with her own. They might have hit the proverbial brick wall when it came to discovering the secrets of the house, but they were further ahead than they’d been when they left this morning. They had names, they had dates, and they had a little less mystery.

  “At least we have something. It’s got to be Tiana you’re seeing, and now all we have to do is find out who the other woman was. I really think that’s our job. That’s what we’re being told.” It came to her in a flash of understanding. A complicated puzzle that suddenly had the pieces beginning to come together. If they could figure out the who, then they could figure out the why.

  Lorna rubbed her eyes with the heels of her hands and said in a voice that sounded as tired as Renee felt, “You mean I have to find out. I’m the only one seeing this shit.”