by Vivi Andrews
But when he glanced at the caller ID, the name Lucas had him scrambling to connect the call before he lost it. One of his frat brothers who had become a coroner and recently settled down to pop out a few kids, Lucas was his source for all medical queries. “Yo, Doc.”
“Hey, Ellison. I had a chance to look at those reports you sent me.” Typical Lucas, jumping right to the heart of the matter. No nonsense.
“And?” Mark had sent him copies of the autopsy reports from Biz’s three victims to look for not-so-accidental causes. He’d been so sure at the time that things couldn’t be that pat, but now he hung on Lucas’s words, hoping he’d been wrong.
“And unless the files are doctored, you’re looking at three accidental fatalities.”
Relief shot through his chest, startling in its intensity. Biz wasn’t a murderess after all. “You’re sure?”
“’Bout as sure as I can be without the bodies. You could make an argument for suicide, I guess, if you think it’s insurance fraud—”
“No. She wouldn’t do that.” Mark winced. He was losing it. Five minutes ago he’d seriously considered the possibility that Biz was a Black Widow, and now he was defending her in a knee-jerk reflex. “Why suicide?” They had everything to live for. They had Biz.
“Euthanasia. I’d leave it alone if I were you. Man’s got a right to choose how he goes in those circumstances.”
He was missing something. “What circumstances?”
“They were all terminal,” Lucas explained, and Mark’s breath stopped as his brain kicked into high gear. Lucas continued, oblivious to the bomb he’d just dropped inside Mark’s preconceived notions about Biz’s love life. He heard papers rustling as Lucas flipped through the files. “Paul Lundgren—Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. More common in men twice his age, but he was diagnosed four and a half weeks prior to his death. Coordination problems and temporary blindness are among the symptoms—so not a good disease to have when you’re jumping out of a plane.”
Papers rustled again. “Gabriel Fox—ALS. Lou Gehrig’s. Again, the onset of the disease presented unusually early. He probably had two to three years of degeneration before his death, but they wouldn’t have been pleasant years. Paralysis, loss of speech, complete dependence. And Anthony Gable—glioblastoma multiforme. A particularly aggressive inoperable brain tumor. He was diagnosed nearly eight months before his death and probably had a maximum of six months to live.”
“They went to her because they were dying.”
“What?”
“Nothing. Thanks, Lucas. I owe you one.”
“You owe me eight, but favors for you sure keep life interesting. Later, Ellison.”
Mark said goodbye and thumbed off the phone, staring at his bulging suitcase. So it had been a coincidence after all. Or at its most sinister, an insurance scheme of some kind.
What had Biz been doing with three men on the verge of death? Was that why she was fixated on ghosts? Was she one of those people who went to mediums to commune with her dead lovers? Was she somehow attracted to their looming mortality?
That didn’t seem like her. Too dark and macabre. Even when she was trying to repress her inner fire she wasn’t morbid.
Was their appeal that she could keep them at a safe distance, knowing it wouldn’t last? More charity kindness than passionate love. He remembered what she’d said about leaps of faith and taking risks. She’d seemed to be scolding him about missed romantic opportunities, but had she been speaking to her own fears?
There was still a story. The one he had originally been sent to write—about love and tragedy and overcoming fate. And Biz was still at the center of it all.
He recalled the curve of her lips and the sparkle in her eyes as she challenged him. Then the panic and agitation as she bolted out the door. If it wasn’t guilt behind that sudden reversal, what was it?
The story was quickly becoming an obsession. Biz was becoming an obsession. What had she said? About going after love the same way he went after a story?
He’d ask her about that. Tomorrow. He was getting that interview.
Chapter Eleven—Head Over Hecate
“Biz Marks. You stood me up.”
Biz yelped and the ladder she was perched on swayed. She grabbed for the nearest swath of crimson fabric, but unfortunately it was one of the ones she’d already partially unhooked in preparation to dismantle Gillian’s gaudy Valentine’s display. The material moved under her hands, the ladder rocked under her feet, and Biz felt disaster approaching like a freight train with an OCD conductor—always precisely on schedule.
“Tony, help!”
She tumbled toward the ground, clinging to the swag of red cloth in an attempt to slow her impact—then suddenly strong arms closed around her as she and the fabric landed against a solid chest with a soft, “Umph.”
Strong, solid, real arms.
She looked up into the extremely close—and extremely intent—blue eyes of Mark Ellison, Reporter of Doom. How had he gotten in here? Why had the ladder fallen? Was it the ghosts? The curse? Or was she just a clumsy idiot who’d forgotten to lock the door?
“We’re closed.”
His gaze drifted over her face, lingering on her lips. “Are we?”
Biz squirmed in his arms, but he held her easily. Damn his Atlas muscles. “I’m closed. Very closed. Go away.”
His lips quirked into a sexy little smile. Damn his dimples. “But then who will catch you when you fall?”
“My ghosts will catch me,” she snapped without thinking. “And I wouldn’t have fallen in the first place if you hadn’t startled me.”
Instead of dropping her and backing away from her craziness, he quirked one eyebrow and something serious entered his eyes. “You really believe in ghosts?”
Biz gave an exasperated huff. She hadn’t been able to avoid him, maybe she could scare him off with weird. Time for the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but. “Yes, I have ghosts living with me. Three of them. And I’m a witch, you know. Double, double, toil and the whole nine yards. I bet I can even find a broom around here somewhere.” Which was true, though she’d only ever used it to sweep. Her family line had never been in the flying business. Love was more their thing. “Now put me down or I’ll be forced to turn you into a toad.”
He laughed and his arms tightened around her. For a moment, she didn’t think he was going to oblige her. Then he shifted his grip and let her feet slide toward the ground, while keeping one arm wrapped firmly around her ribs, pressing her torso against his chest.
As soon as her feet touched the floor, she shoved away and hurriedly put the ladder between them. He just grinned—did nothing offend the man?
“Is this the thanks I get for saving you from a broken neck?”
He had a point. That was pretty bad form. “Thank you for catching me. Now go away.”
“Or you’ll turn me into a toad?”
“With warts. Lots of warts.” Even if they were making a joke of it, it was oddly freeing to talk about her witchitude with someone. She had a sudden understanding why killers in mysteries always confessed, spilling way more than they ought to because they just couldn’t stop themselves once the floodgates opened.
Mark’s dimples flashed as he circled the ladder. “Go ahead. As long as you’re prepared to kiss me back into my prince-charming form.”
“I’m not in the habit of making out with reptiles—no matter what form they take.” Biz backed away, playing ring around the ladder.
“Amphibians.”
“Excuse me?” She continued her retreat, weaving a path through the hot pink obstacle course her shop had become.
“Frogs are amphibians.” Mark stopped stalking her, leaning against the papier-mâché bedecked counter.
Biz folded her arms, safe with the breadth of the counter between them. “Fine. Frogs are amphibians and you’re a snake. I’m still not going to kiss you. Could you please go now?”
“You owe me an interview, and I’m not leaving until we
settle the score.”
That sounded ominous. “We don’t have a score. We don’t have anything. There is no we.” Please God, let there be no we. The curse specialized in we’s.
“I do believe you agreed to an interview then stood me up. I’m just trying to do my job and ask you some perfectly innocent questions. I think the least you owe me is an explanation.”
“You shouldn’t be here.”
“Because you’re closed.”
“No. Yes.” She could close the shop until Valentine’s Day. Would that work? Or was he already in too deep? Whether it was lack of sleep or stress or the dizzying pheromones he projected, she couldn’t seem to think straight anymore. How was she going to beat the curse if her brain kept turning off at random intervals? And wasn’t he supposed to be long gone? Whisked away on yesterday’s five o’clock ferry? “I thought you were gone.”
“And yet, here I am.”
“I mean I thought you’d left. The ferry…”
“News travels fast on Parish, I see. You’re right. I left. Now I’m back. I had to go up to the city to get a change of clothes. And my tools. If I had to stare at your broken awning for one more second, I was going to gouge out my eyes.”
“There’s nothing wrong with my awning.”
“It’s bowing. It’s a hazard.”
“It’s fine. I don’t need or want your help.”
“Don’t you?” He arched a brow.
“I don’t. I’m fine on my own.” Fine wasn’t a lie. Fine wasn’t happy or even content. Fine was holding it together. She refused to fall apart.
“Why is the shop closed? Are you redecorating?” He frowned at the crimson drape puddled at his feet. “Was it this red in here yesterday?”
“I’m…” She waved a hand helplessly at the red floral explosion. “It’s Valentine’s.”
He grinned—and there were those dimples again. “I can see that. Tell you what. I’ll make you a deal. I’ll hold the ladder for you and you’ll tell me about your ghosts.”
She narrowed her eyes, suspicious. “I thought you were doing a piece on Valentine’s Day.”
“I was, but you’re more interesting.”
Biz was not consoled by the change in direction. It was still too close to the curse for comfort. And he was still in her shop, in her presence, falling even deeper under the influence of her accidental death magic.
“I thought you didn’t believe in ghosts.”
“It isn’t about what I believe. It’s about the story. You’re the story.”
“I don’t want to be the story.”
“Then we’ll do it anonymously. No one has to know it’s you.”
“Why are you so interested in this?” she asked, even though she knew the answer—the curse. She just wanted to find out why he thought he was here.
“You fascinate me, Biz.” His expression was so sincere, so terrifyingly earnest. “You’ve had three years of Valentine’s tragedy and you’re still decorating your shop for the holiday. That kind of resilience is awe-inspiring.”
Biz studied the grain in the floor again, fighting her disappointment that she couldn’t be the awe-inspiring woman he thought he saw. “Gillian did it. To surprise me. I was taking it down.”
He just nodded, demonstrating again his inexplicable ability to adapt to whatever she threw at him. He was such an odd blend of closed and open-minded. He extended his hand, palm up. “I’ll help you.”
He didn’t smile. No smarmy tell-me-all-your-dirty-secrets look. But she wanted to tell him every dirty secret she had. She was so tired of keeping everything in. She had the boys for company, but the fact of the ghosts had driven a wedge into all of her relationships with the living. And here was Mark, asking for all the crazy she could give him. He wasn’t judging. Probably with a boatload of ulterior motives, but she couldn’t make herself care.
This time, she couldn’t say no.
Mark stood at the base of the ladder and looked up at the curve of Biz’s calf disappearing into her snug brown boots, forcing himself not to look at any higher curves. The single frosted window let a dribble of light into the shop, but it was more than enough to appreciate the charms of Miss Elizabeth Marks.
“So how many ghosts do you have?” he asked, as much to distract himself as to interview her.
“Three.” She jerked on a snagged strand of hot-pink heart-shaped lights, and the curves he was most definitely not looking at jiggled interestingly.
“How do you know you have three? Couldn’t it be just one really active one?” Though three made sense if she was imagining them as her dear departed boyfriends.
“They arrived at different times. And they manifest differently.” She gave another yank, another section of the strand came loose suddenly, and she swayed backwards on the ladder.
Mark reached up instinctively to steady her, realizing when she stilled that he was palming the sweet round curve of her ass. They both froze as he silently commanded his hand not to squeeze, no matter how tempting the impulse was.
When she was stable on the ladder again, he cleared his throat harshly and moved his hand back to brace the ladder. “How do they manifest?” he asked, his roughened voice the only sign that he’d just gone to half-mast copping a feel.
“Paul appears visually—very look at me, look at me. Like a big toddler.”
“Does anyone else see him?”
Biz winced. “No one. I know how this sounds…”
“No, I’m sorry. Go on. What do the other two do?”
“I hear Gabriel. He’s the poet, the dark, dramatic one. If there’s an ominous song on the piano or a moaning in the rafters on a stormy night, I know Gabriel is around.”
In a drafty old Victorian, Mark would have been more surprised if there wasn’t moaning in the rafters, but again he kept his mouth shut.
“And Tony. I never see or hear him, but he’s the only one who can move objects around.”
Mark held his tongue, managing not to suggest that a stray breeze could just as easily move things.
“He’s the considerate one,” Biz continued. “Opening doors, handing me things I can’t reach, cooking meals. He takes care of me.”
Mark frowned. “Cooking meals?” That went beyond coincidence to full-on delusion.
“Mm-hmm. Tony was a great cook.”
Was. The change in tense caught his attention. At least she drew a distinction between the living man and the ghost. Mark stared straight up at those curves, but this time didn’t let himself be distracted. “Tony as in Anthony Gable?”
“That’s the one. Tony Gable, restaurateur extraordinaire.” There was a fond catch in her voice that annoyed him on some inexplicable level.
“And the others are Gabriel Fox and Paul Lundgren? Your other boyfriends.”
She freed the last of the heart lights and extended the strand down to him, her face as rosy as the bulbs. She fidgeted on the ladder. “They weren’t my boyfriends. I was sort of dating them, but it wasn’t serious. Not yet. I didn’t really have as much of a claim on them as everyone thinks.”
That went along with his suspicion that she was using terminally ill guys as a buffer from real relationships, but it didn’t explain his possessive surge of pleasure that the ghosts didn’t have a romantic hold on her.
Still, there was one detail that implied things were much more serious.
“You were a major beneficiary in each of their wills and the recipient of at least two life-insurance policies,” Mark said, playing his trump card.
Biz paled. “No one knows that.”
“Did you think I would come all the way out here without doing any research?”
“You think I…I did something to them? For the money?”
Even if he hadn’t already known she wasn’t at fault, the look in her eyes would have convinced him. “I don’t think that at all. But you can’t tell me you didn’t matter to them. And that they didn’t matter to you. People don’t leave that much money to strangers.”
/> “I haven’t touched the money,” Biz whispered.
Mark didn’t bother telling her he’d already known that. After seeing the disrepair her house was in, he’d tried to follow the trail to find out what she’d done with her inheritances, only to learn the entire bulk of her money was just sitting in an account collecting interest and dust.
“It isn’t mine. None of them had any family, but I didn’t deserve… It shouldn’t have been me.”
“They cared for you.” He brushed a curl back from her face, and she shied away, stuffing the stray lock back into her ponytail. “You really believe they haven’t left you? They must still love you if they stay here as ghosts to look after you.”
“If they even have a choice.” She shook her head and the curl fell forward again. “The relationships were all so new. Kernels of potential. Just love that might be.”
He nodded, picking up a discarded light strand and looping it over his forearm. “Which is just as bad in its own way.”
She stilled, her eyes searching his face. “It is?”
“Sure. You’re all twisted up and aren’t quite sure how you’re supposed to feel, so you feel guilty because you mourn the possibility of what might have been more than you actually mourn them.”
Her eyes went round. “How did you know that? No one gets that.”
He shrugged, starting to see a new Biz. One that fit her much more than the Black Widow guise.
When life dealt her loss after loss in a senseless, random stream, she developed a coping mechanism to keep the reality of her situation at bay. Her boyfriends died, but they didn’t leave her. They loved her. They weren’t gone. They were just ghosts.
It was poetic in its emotional simplicity. An optimistic echo of the can’t-let-go suckers who went to mediums to reconnect with lost family members. The ghosts made the loss bearable—and they kept both real, living relationships and loneliness at bay.
But the truly amazing thing was the way the town had adopted her coping mechanism, wrapping her delusion around them all in support.
