The Good Girl

by Barritt, Christy

  I wanted to argue with her. I really did. But how could I? What other explanation was there? The blood on that knife was obviously old, so someone couldn’t have planted it recently...I didn’t think.

  Cooper came back into the living room, screwdriver and wires in hand. “Where did you say you heard that guitar music, Tara?”

  “Coming from the guitar in Lana’s closet. I threw the guitar away, though, and I haven’t heard it since then.”

  “When did you throw it away?” Candy asked, her voice strangely brittle.

  “A couple of days ago. Why?”

  She shook her head. “Because I saw that guitar in the closet last night.”

  Chapter 28

  I stared at the guitar as it rested like a corpse on the coffee table. Sure enough, somehow the instrument had ended up back in the closet of the spare bedroom. Cooper inspected it now as my chills deepened.

  “This looks like a starter guitar. Probably cost a hundred or so.” He looked up at me. “What do you think about me destroying it?”

  Would that stop the guitar music or the ghost?

  My confusion must have registered on my face because Cooper explained, “I want to see if there’s a music player somewhere in the body. I have to take it a part to check, though. Even with a flashlight, I can’t see anything.”

  That explanation sounded more like Cooper. I nodded, not having any special fondness for the instrument. “Of course. Feel free.”

  He went outside and, a moment later, returned shaking his head. “There’s nothing inside.”

  Why did that not surprise me?

  Candy patted my shoulder. “I think you need to get out of this house and relax some. Unfortunately, I have to go to work.” She looked at Cooper. “Someone else needs to be charged with that task.”

  Cooper’s hands were on his hips as he looked over at me. His eyes held...what was it? Fondness? Concern? “I’m sure I can think of something to distract you.”

  “I don’t want to be a burden.” I meant it. Cooper had gone out of his way time and time again. When would that get old?

  “Friends are never burdens.”

  Cooper’s comment made me feel both warm and secure—because he thought of me as a friend—but also rejected in the romance department. Why did I do this to myself? Why did I let my heart go to unwelcome places?

  We ended up helping Winnie with some yard projects. I found out that Cooper cut her grass every week and helped her whenever she needed a handyman. It felt so good to get out of the house, to feel like a normal human for once. Out here there was no worrying about creaky houses.

  As I pulled a weed from her flowerbed, I looked toward the sky where the sun began to set. That’s when I noticed the broken streetlight. I remembered the scowl I’d seen on the wall, the one that had mysteriously disappeared. I had a feeling that streetlight hadn’t broken on its own or even by accident. I had a feeling that someone had broken it.

  I shuddered and continued to work. The sun began setting, and Winnie offered to bring us some lemonade. As we waited, both Cooper and I plopped onto the grass and stretched out our legs.

  “You making out okay without Austin?” I brushed some grass from my leg.

  Cooper’s muscles rippled as he leaned back on his palms. The edge of his eagle tattoo peeked out, and the fading sunlight bathed his face in an orange glow.

  “I’m ready for him to be home. He’s been my whole world for the past five years.”

  “You’re doing a great job with him, you know.” In the short amount of time since I’d known Cooper, I’d realized what a good father he was. Firm but patient. Kind but assertive. That described Cooper as a person, as well.

  “I call every day like some neurotic father. I know he’s okay and that his grandparents are taking good care of him. It’s just hard to be so far away.”

  My heart ached for a moment. That was really all I’d wanted as a teenager when I thought about growing up. I imagined myself married to a wonderful man who provided for the family while I stayed home and cooked dinner and had play dates at the park and chased my kids. Occasionally, I’d like my husband to chase me around, too.

  What if my life continued on this path it was on now? What if I remained single until well beyond my childbearing years? Could I even adopt or were the allegations against me enough to have me rejected?

  “I think it’s sweet.”

  I imagined myself for a moment with a daughter. I imagined meeting someone, falling in love, and then discovering that the man I was with had been accused of being a child molester. It didn’t matter how much he claimed his innocence or how much I loved him. I’d probably never trust him with my daughter alone.

  Cooper was probably the same way, and I couldn’t blame him. The moment I told him the truth, he’d run far away. Isn’t that what a good father would do?

  The thought weighed heavy on my heart.

  “Everything okay?” Cooper asked.

  I nodded. What would it be like to shake my head and tell him the truth instead? I’d pondered that question a million times, but I couldn’t bring myself to actually take action. Here in Minnesota, no one knew who I was, and that felt nice. I didn’t want people to know who I was. I wanted a new beginning. But were new beginnings even possible? Fear seemed the predominate emotion in my life.

  There was a difference between feeling fear and having a spirit of fear. I’d developed a spirit of fear—about living in Lana’s house, about falling in love, about letting people down. I had to figure out how to change that into having a spirit of power and love and self-control.

  Cooper’s voice pulled me from my thoughts. “You’re going to church with me tomorrow still?”

  Church. I’d forgotten. Going one Sunday wouldn’t hurt anything. Besides, I was feeling better about God. I wasn’t ready to jump into anything, but my gut told me that he was real. Even if I felt like I’d failed him and he failed me, I still couldn’t shake my belief that he existed. I simply had to come to terms with how I felt about his work in my life. I had to accept that following the rules could ultimately just lead to heartache. Ask Jesus. He’d followed the rules and ended up dying on the cross.

  “Yeah.”

  Winnie brought some lemonade outside. We chatted with her for a few minutes until she yawned and we realized we should leave. As we stepped onto the porch, Cooper stopped me. “Hey, Tara.”

  I looked up, absorbing the glorious features called Cooper’s face. All perfect lines and melt-worthy eyes and...my gaze stopped at his lips. Kissable lips. Why bother denying it?

  All of those realizations collided with my earlier realizations that something long-term between us wouldn’t work.

  “That day we ran into each other at the ice cream truck—”

  “After I got mad at you?” I remembered my immaturity clearly.

  He smiled. “After you got mad at me. The first time.”

  “That’s a big step for me, you know.”

  “Getting mad?”

  “I usually stuff those negative emotions down deep inside me instead of addressing them.” Pretty much I’d done that all of my life.

  “I’m flattered, then.”

  Our gazes locked. What was he getting at exactly? I raised my face. “You were saying?”

  “When I got home and I saw you standing in the rain—”

  A car horn sounded, and I jerked my head toward the street. As I did so, I glanced at Lana’s house and realized I’d left the lights on. My windows lit up like eyes, like the house had taken on a mind of its own.

  Crazy thoughts. Houses didn’t take on minds of their own.

  But a ghostly looking woman wearing all white and staring at me out my window might.

  Chapter 29

  Cooper took off across the lawn just as the wispy woman disappeared from the window.

  A ghost? My hand remained over my mouth in shock and horror. Had I been seeing things? I had to have been. What other explanation was there?

 
; Except that Cooper had seen her too.

  I snapped back to my senses and crossed the street. With trembling fingers, I opened the front door and slipped inside. Cooper was nowhere to be found. I remained in the entryway, waiting to hear something, to see something.

  Finally Cooper emerged from the kitchen. He paused in the doorway, his hands resting on his hips and a new heaviness in his eyes. “Nothing.”

  My lips parted in surprise. “You saw her, too, didn’t you?”

  He nodded. “Yeah, I saw her.” He stormed toward the computer. “Time to use those security cameras I had installed.”

  He sat at the desk and pulled up a website. A moment later, video feed filled the screen. I pulled up a chair, afraid I might not be able to stand. My hands trembled as the image of the woman haunted my mind. She’d looked so eerie, so still.

  So ghostly.

  A woman appeared on the camera in the basement. I gasped in disbelief. There she was. In my basement. Where had she come from? No one could fit into the basement windows. They were too narrow.

  The woman looked like a ghost. She walked like a ghost.

  I could hardly breathe as I watched her climb the steps. Her steps were light. She wore all white and even her face was pasty.

  Was that Danielle Miller? I couldn’t be sure. Aspects seemed the same, but the feed was too fuzzy for me to get a handle on the woman’s age.

  The woman in the video appeared in the kitchen. She nearly floated across the floor and into the living room.

  It was like she knew I was across the street and she’d purposely gone to the window so I’d see her.

  “I’ve never seen anything like this before, Tara.” Cooper’s voice held disbelief.

  The woman on screen turned and moved quickly back toward the basement. That must have been when Cooper started toward the house.

  “People can’t walk through walls,” I mumbled. “Where did she go?”

  Cooper shook his head, still staring at the screen and rewinding the video. “I have no idea, Tara. Not a single clue.”

  “Should we call the police?”

  “At this point, I’m not sure it would do much good, to be honest.”

  His words caused a chill to breeze over me. Just what was going on here?

  ~*~

  Candy had shown up at Cooper’s place last night, heard about the ghost, and asked if she could crash at Cooper’s. I was glad that she was there because guilt pounded at me at the thought of staying at Cooper’s alone. I knew I was overthinking things, but me staying there looked so bad. At least with Candy present...well, it still seemed weird, but a little more excusable.

  I hadn’t been able to get the ghost out of my mind all night. The next morning, Candy and I went back to Lana’s place to get dressed, and I shuddered as I stepped inside. I was never going to stay here again, and that was all there was to it.

  Nothing seemed disturbed, so we let Gaga outside and got dressed for church.

  “I don’t have anything to wear,” Candy moaned.

  I could tell she didn’t want to go. I didn’t want to go either, so I understood completely. However, I decided to be an adult about it and, instead of whining, I’d try and convince her that going would be fun. “It’s more of a come as you are type of place. What you have on is fine.” Skinny jeans, black boots, and a black T-shirt.

  I, on the other hand, had white linen pants and a turquoise top.

  Cooper picked me up. Candy decided to ride her motorcycle, and I wondered if she would actually show up at church or use this as an excuse to run the opposite way. Surprisingly enough, she pulled in beside us, pulled off her helmet, and stared at the building.

  “Fancy,” she mumbled.

  Sweat covered my brow as we started toward the door. I didn’t care how laid back this place was. Church was no longer a place where I felt loved and accepted. Flashes from my last several Sundays back in Miami began assaulting my brain. The stares, the whispers, the head shakes. Some people had actually jerked their children away from me as I walked toward my seat.

  I rubbed my neck and took a deep breath as we stepped inside. I didn’t stop to talk to anyone but went straight to the back row of seats. At least I could make a quick getaway here. Candy sat on one side of me and Cooper on the other.

  I soaked in the crowds of people. There were more than I’d imagined. Cooper had explained earlier that there was a core group of around twenty people, and everyone else looked what might be considered “rough.” There were bikers and homeless and women who dressed more provocatively than Candy.

  Candy seemed to approve. If Candy was going to go to church, this seemed like a good one to visit.

  A college-aged girl stopped by our chairs and extended her hand. “I’m Tonya.”

  Cooper introduced us but the girl’s gaze remained on me until I squirmed.

  “Tara? You look familiar.” She tapped her chin, and I realized that in the brief moments since we began chatting that Tonya reminded me an awful lot of me. Clean cut, preppy, innocent.

  I shrugged, trying took casual. “I’m new in town, so I’m not sure why.”

  “Tara Lancaster. Your name is even familiar.” She squinted.

  Panic began to lace itself up my spine. “Must just be the name.”

  She snapped her fingers. “Oh my goodness! You’re Tara Lancaster. The Tara Lancaster. I used to read your blog religiously! I loved it. The Good Girl Chronicles? You’re practically my hero.”

  Her voice rose with each sentence until several people stared at me. I wanted to sink and continue sinking until I was under the chairs. I couldn’t deny her claim. But how much else did she know?

  “And your father is Henry Lancaster. He wrote all of those parenting books. He’s a pastor, right?”

  My throat burned as I nodded. Yeah, he’d written the books on parenting back when Lana and I had been sweet and innocent. Then Lana hit puberty and went wild. He wrote The Wayward Daughter, and that was his last book. My fiasco had further called into question his parenting skills. He’d never told me he resented me for it, but I always wondered.

  “I wish I’d have known you were going to be in town. I would have totally had you come out to my college ministry group and speak. Your posts on purity were some of the best I’d ever read.” She held up her hand and wiggled her fingers. “Purity ring!”

  I’d talked about waiting for the right one. And I had waited, and I’d waxed on and on about how glad I was that I had. I was glad, but, despite my efforts, things had still turned rotten.

  “Is your husband here?” She glanced around. “Peter, right?”

  My cheeks burned. Here was the moment of truth...at least, some truth. I thought about skirting the issue, but I couldn’t. “I’m divorced, actually.”

  The smile slipped from her face. “Divorced? No.” Her hand went over her heart.

  I guessed she hadn’t read the “Saint Turned Sinner” headlines. I could hear the disappointment in her voice nonetheless. I’d heard it so much before that I’d become an expert at identifying the fallen look in people’s eyes.

  “It’s a long story. It didn’t end the way I wanted it to. Your story can have a happier ending, Tonya. You should follow your heart and stick to your guns. Despite my marriage, I still believe that you’ll never regret holding firm to your standards.” Had I just said that? Did I really mean it? I wasn’t sure, which wasn’t surprising lately.

  “Thanks, Tara. I’m...I’m sorry to hear things didn’t work out for you.”

  “They didn’t. But they will.” Again, where did the confidence in my voice come from? I’d been in denial for months, but suddenly I sounded really convincing, like I believed those words myself.

  Thankfully, the music started. Candy gave me a quick glance, wagging her eyebrows up and down. “I’m impressed. You’re practically a celebrity yourself.”

  I ignored her. I ignored Cooper’s gaze. What was he thinking? I’d told him parts of my story, but never about The Good Girl
Chronicles.

  I could barely pay attention to either the music or the sermon. I heard the preacher talking about making a difference with our time here on earth and not living just to meet our own selfish ambitions.

  At some point, Cooper’s arm had slipped around my shoulders, and he squeezed my bicep. I couldn’t even imagine what he was thinking. He knew some of my story, but he didn’t know all of that. He didn’t know that some people had classified me as some kind of superstar Christian and modeled their lives after mine.

  Church ended, and I prepared myself to face questions from Cooper and Candy. Instead, Candy turned to me with wide, dancing eyes. “I have the perfect idea.”

  I blinked, having no idea where to expect this conversation to go. “Okay.”

  “That pastor was right. Everything I do is for me. I want to do something that really makes an impact.”

  Satisfaction spread through me. Good. Life-changing realizations weren’t overrated. Even with everything I’d been through and this weird place I was in, a small part of me still clung to hope. “That’s great, Candy. You should do that.”

  “I’m going to start a new program.”

  “What kind of program?” I braced myself for her response.

  She clapped her hands. “I’m going to call it ‘Hugs for the Homeless.’ Did you know that in order to maintain a healthy life, people need an average of five hugs a day? I bet homeless people don’t even get one. I’m going to start a campaign to help them feel some love.”

  A million scenarios raced through my mind. Most of what I pictured ended with Candy being hurt. In the very least, it ended with her getting lice. Hugs for the Homeless was not a good idea. I didn’t want to dim her enthusiasm, though.

  “How about ‘Haircuts for the Homeless,’ since that’s your thing and all? Even the homeless need haircuts.” But that still didn’t eliminate the lice problem...I’d think about that later. Better alive with lice than dead.

  Her eyes got bigger. “That will be step two of my plan. Then I’ll do H2O for the Homeless. Hummus for the Homeless? So many ideas are floating around in my head right now.” Her hands flew through the air with each word.