Dancing with a Ghost

by Angela Pepper

  “Payroll,” Clive said, out of the blue. “The problem with this operation is our high overhead, including payroll.”

  Holly dropped the tray on the coffee table with a clatter. “Me?” She looked around wildly, whipping her head hard enough to shake loose more stray dark-blond hairs. “What?”

  “Never mind,” Clive said. “Holly, you're not even on the payroll, technically. I log your expenses under charitable donations.” He leaned forward with a groan and poured himself more brandy.

  Tilda snapped her book shut with a firm clap. “That's enough, Clive.” She got up from the sofa, grabbed the glass of brandy from his hand, and walked over to where Katie sat by the roaring fire.

  Without comment, Tilda tossed the contents of the glass onto the burning logs. The brandy fizzled and gave the air a sweet scent.

  “Clive, you've had enough to drink,” Tilda said. “We can barely stand you when you're sober.”

  Holly began to laugh. She took the empty brandy glass from Tilda, gave her boss and friend an appreciative look, and began clearing up the rest of the room.

  Clive got up abruptly and left, stomping and muttering, “To hell with all of you. I'm going for a walk.” From down the hallway, he called back loudly, “Alone!”

  Tilda looked at Katie and rolled her eyes. “Sorry you had to endure that. Clive Kingfisher is not entirely bad.” She yawned. “I think I'll turn in for the night.”

  Marco also yawned and stretched. “Contagious yawns!”

  Lee yawned as well, though there was a falseness to it, like he just wanted to fit in.

  Holly didn't yawn. She stood stiffly, the tray in her hands. “If that's all for tonight, I'll turn in as well,” she said.

  Tilda smiled and patted the housekeeper's shoulder. “You could always join Clive for his moonlight walk, if you're not tired yet.”

  Holly wrinkled her nose. “You couldn't pay me enough.”

  Marco began chuckling. “Rest up, folks, because we're going to start those early Christmas celebrations tomorrow.”

  His mother replied, “I thought that was what we were doing tonight, with the brandy?”

  “A little brandy?” Marco's laughter grew in scale. “That was nothing compared to what's to come. The ol' Spirit Ranch is going to turn into Christmas-palooza. We're going to show these out-of-towners how we celebrate the season, New Mexico style.”

  “Sounds like you have devious plans for all of us,” Tilda said.

  He made a cryptic noise.

  Chapter 10

  Katie got ready for bed Monday night with a noisy, gurgling stomach. It might have been the spicy chile stew that Holly served for dinner, or excitement about celebrating an early Christmas at Spirit Ranch.

  She unbuttoned the denim dress that belonged to someone else. She folded the dress into a neat square on her bed and stared at it for several minutes. The missing girl's dress hadn't been returned to her parents with the rest of her stuff because it had been mixed in with some of Katie's dirty laundry. She'd planned to toss it into a charity box. She'd even put it into a bag with some other old clothes, and then taken the bag to a charity box, but the dress somehow found its way out of the bag and back into her drawer.

  And then it got into her suitcase.

  As she ran her fingers over the denim fabric, she heard Darlene's voice in her head. “Are you coming out with me tonight? We can tell guys we're sisters. That'll drive them crazy. Come out with me, you little shy weirdo! Don't just stay home in the room with those judging eyes of yours.”

  Darlene was always accusing her of having judging eyes. And maybe she was right. Katie did have good judgment, which wasn't a bad thing. Maybe Darlene should have had a little more judgment of her own. She might not have gotten into whatever trouble she did. The trouble she probably brought upon herself. The little slut.

  Katie clenched her eyes shut and tried to quiet her mind. She didn't mean to think such awful thoughts about Darlene. It was a woman's right to do what she wanted with her body, even if it was with half the guys on campus and happening a mere ten feet away from where Katie was trying to sleep.

  Pipes somewhere in the old adobe ranch house groaned, and it sounded to Katie like the moaning she used to hear in the dorm room.

  She clicked off the light and climbed into bed quickly. Blue sparks crackled along the woolen covers. The air was dry inside the house. Her lower lip was slightly chapped.

  If only I had some lip balm, she thought with a rueful laugh.

  Shame and guilt rose up from the shadows. “You're not perfect,” Darlene said during one of their arguments. “You're all bunched up like a ball of over-tightened springs. One of these days I'm going to snap you out of it. You're going to wake up, and you'll have me to thank. Your paintings will be a lot better, too, once you stop living like a nun.”

  Katie clenched her eyes shut and counted backward from one hundred.

  The bed was soft and warm, yet she couldn't find comfort. She couldn't find relief from the guilt she felt as she replayed old conversations, old bad habits. She saw Darlene coming home from a party, giddy, with a smile on her face. A smile that disappeared when Katie talked to her, told her what she thought about the hickies on Darlene's neck, and the soft knocking at the door of their room from that night's male company.

  The blankets were suffocating. She drifted, waking with a start from a dream of hands around her throat. She tossed and turned, unable to get comfortable.

  The closet in the corner kept scaring her. The shape of the dark wood door, combined with its placement in the room, made it seem to her sleepy eyes that a rectangular-shaped figure stood at the foot of her bed, watching her.

  But on the positive side—as if there was a positive side to being terrified—it wasn't the eerie glowing figure of Darlene that haunted their dorm room.

  As she tossed and turned, Katie wondered, had the housekeeper really seen a ghost? Was it possible the ghost of Darlene was real, and not a projection of her imagination? Her doctor felt it was a manifestation of anxiety and nothing more. But if the ghost could be seen by others, that would mean Katie wasn't crazy. Didn't need medicine.

  Around midnight, she heard hushed voices in the hallway, outside her closed door. Two people were arguing. A man and a woman. Their voices were muffled, and Katie could only make out a few words. She pulled her pillow up around her ears, trying to block the conversation entirely. If they were talking about her again, she didn't want to hear it.

  The man's voice rose in volume, reaching her covered ears. “I told you to get rid of them.”

  The voice was hard, untinged by levity. It wasn't Marco or Lee, so it had to be Clive. So much for his moonlight walk he'd been threatening to go on.

  “Get rid of them now,” Clive said.

  “No, I can't,” the woman—who had to be Tilda—said. “I love them. They're perfect. Don't be paranoid.”

  “Get rid of them,” he repeated. “For your own good.”

  Katie sat upright. The bed springs creaked from the sudden movement.

  Get rid of them?

  Was Clive telling Tilda to send the two students away? And had Tilda actually declared them to be perfect? That was high praise from a woman of her talent and taste.

  Katie waited for more conversation, but there was none. They must have heard the springs of her bed and realized someone was listening. They'd walked away silently on the solid rammed earth floors, no wooden boards to creak underfoot.

  After a few fruitless minutes, Katie switched on her bedside lamp. She poured a glass of water from the pitcher on the small wooden table. Had she taken her pills at the correct times today? She couldn't remember. An extra one now wouldn't kill her, and it would help her sleep. She laughed ruefully to herself. If the ghost was real, maybe it could haunt the housekeeper for a change and give Katie a break.

  Katie found the bottle in her purse and took another pill with the remainder of the water.

  A door somewhere in the house slammed.
Was it the front door?

  She didn't care. She drifted off, and then she slept.

  Chapter 11

  CLIVE KINGFISHER

  TWO HOURS EARLIER

  Clive Kingfisher knew what he had to do. Protecting Tilda was his top priority. Everything he did was for her, even the terrible things.

  After dinner, Clive went into the kitchen, looking for antacid. They kept such things in the kitchen, since there was only one kitchen in the house. That way, a person could actually find a bandage or Pepto-Bismol if they needed it, rather than go hunting around the compound's five or six bathrooms.

  Holly gave him a crooked, dead-eyed look. “I knew it was too spicy,” she said.

  He grunted a response and chugged the pink liquid straight from the bottle, daring her to say something about his germs. That would be the pot calling the kettle black.

  He put the bottle back in the cupboard and went to see how Darlene's roommate was doing with the dishes. So, this was the girl Darlene admired so much? The smart, studious one who was going to be a huge success if she ever broke out of her shell? Somehow, Clive doubted that. The girl standing before him was a shadow. On the positive side, she did know how to scrub a pot.

  He took a soapy dish from her hands and gave her a few words of encouragement. These young girls just wanted someone of substance to notice them.

  She stared back at him with a haunted expression, her eyes darting left and right, passing over his face without making eye contact. She was right there in front of him, yet she wasn't. When she spoke, she sounded like a radio tuned into a station from a neighboring town. Less than clear.

  He gave her one of his charming smiles and insisted she join the group for some adult conversation.

  “I'm tired,” she claimed.

  Clive laughed inside. “Tired? Wait until you're my age. Then you'll know tired.”

  She shrugged.

  “You twenty-somethings,” he said with a head shake. “Especially you girls. You're so in love with the idea of being broken. Is that what you are, Katie Mills? Are you a stunned sparrow with a broken wing?”

  She gave him a flirtatious look and licked her lips.

  He smiled inwardly. His words had gotten through to her. She wanted him. They all did, once they got a taste of how good it felt being bathed in Clive Kingfisher's devoted attention. Perhaps tonight, after he finished his other business? They could make love while the other building burned. How perfect that would be.

  She gave him a come-hither look and said in a sultry voice, “I'm not a sparrow with a broken wing.”

  He murmured his appreciation, and he left to join the others, a skip of sweet anticipation in his step.

  Later in the social room, the fire flickered while the heat built between them. Katie was playing hard to get, choosing to sit near the fire rather than within chatting distance of him. Ah, well. All the better to admire her youthful angles from across the warm room.

  Clive asserted his dominance over the other men in the room easily. The male art student was practically neutering himself, the way he took off his socks and talked about childhood trivialities in front of the juicy peach of a girl.

  “Don't show a woman your toes,” Clive advised Lee with the kind, firm hand of the father figure he was so in need of. “Act like a man,” he suggested.

  Lee put on his sock and went to sulk in the corner like a baby.

  Katie and Clive shared a knowing look. Everyone else except them was ridiculous.

  Tilda looked up from her book and eyed Clive. She saw him looking at Katie. Ah, suddenly she wasn't the only star in the night sky. She arched her back and adjusted her pose on the sofa, desperately trying to get Clive's attention. “Artists must live boring lives so they can produce brilliant work,” she said sensuously.

  “You weren't boring last night,” Clive said.

  Her whole body pulsed visibly with pleasure. “Oh, Clive. Don't be silly.”

  Clive looked directly at Katie and shot her another charming grin. He teased her about how hot she was getting.

  He looked over at the window, and reality came rushing to him. He could have some fun with Katie, but first he had to take care of some business. But did he have to do it tonight? Surely it could wait a few days. He considered putting off the dreaded task before resolving himself to take action. If a snowfall was coming after all, it was best to do the work tonight, when there wasn't any snow to capture tracks.

  He announced his plans to the room.

  Nobody volunteered to go for a moonlight stroll with him.

  He fought the urge to cough. There was a thickness in his throat that wouldn't go away. The Pepto-Bismol he'd taken in the kitchen had calmed some of the fire in his stomach, but something heavy and dark remained.

  He didn't want to climb that red mountain tonight. He didn't want to take care of unfinished business.

  He went around the room, trying to start an interesting conversation or two, trying to stall the inevitable.

  The others met his overtures with nothing but disrespect. He was a joke to them. He was the one who ran the whole operation, yet each of them seemed to think they'd be better off without him.

  How little they knew.

  Suddenly, out of the blue, Tilda snapped her book shut with an angry clap. “That's enough, Clive.” She stormed over to him, took his brandy, and wasted it upon the flames.

  “Clive, you've had enough to drink,” Tilda said, her eyes like daggers. “We can barely stand you when you're sober.”

  The pain in his chest tightened. Oh, she could be so cruel. But she would get what she had coming to her.

  Clive got up and made a dignified exit.

  He didn't have time for their nonsense. He had business to take care of.

  He just had to wait until everyone was tucked into bed so he could gather a few things. This time, he had a plan.

  Chapter 12

  KATIE MILLS

  TUESDAY MORNING

  At six in the morning, before the winter sun had risen, Katie awoke to the prickling sensation of being watched. She opened her eyes, expecting to find the ghost at the foot of her bed. Her heart began pounding in grim anticipation. It would be Darlene, looking scornful.

  The shape of a person was there, all right, but more solid than usual. It wasn't a trick of the light making the closet door resemble a person, and it wasn't her ghost, either. Was this some new thing cooked up by her anxiety? Some new form of hallucination?

  “Go away,” Katie said groggily. “You're not real,” she said, as instructed by her doctor.

  The shape moved, scuffing the floor as it did.

  Katie sat upright. Hallucinations didn't make noises. There was a real person in her bedroom, a person who'd been doing something. Watching her sleep?

  The shadowy figure retreated, yanked open the door, and stumbled out into the hallway.

  Katie threw back her blankets and switched on the bedside lamp. The light was blindingly bright.

  At least she was alone in the room, or so it appeared. She leaned over and checked the space beneath the narrow bed. There was only her suitcase, turned a different direction from how she'd left it. Had someone been searching through her things? The joke was on them, since there was nothing in the suitcase. She'd unpacked everything into the dresser. Even what she did have was of little value—some old clothes and half-used painting supplies.

  She climbed out of bed and checked the closet, holding her breath as she opened the person-sized wooden door. Empty. She went to the room's door and peered out into the hallway. Also empty. Whoever—or whatever—had been inside her room was long gone.

  Her breathing had almost returned to normal.

  She pulled her suitcase out from under the bed. She flipped the empty case onto its buckle side and positioned it on the floor in front of her door. If someone tried to sneak into her room again, she'd hear something.

  It was nearly time to wake up and start the day. Not enough time to get more sleep, b
ut too soon to take a shower and wake the rest of the household.

  She climbed back into bed and pulled the covers tight around her.

  Each time she rearranged the covers, blue sparks of static electricity blinked in the darkness.

  The air felt different this morning. Was it snowing, as Tilda and Clive had predicted?

  She lay in the darkness, thinking about opening the window shutters to look. Thoughts of snow and a Christmas celebration took her mind off whoever or whatever had been in her room. In a way, it was reassuring for it to have been a person. After being haunted by a ghost for so long, it was a good change. A sane change.

  She was drifting off to sleep again, dreaming of a woman running barefoot through the woods, when an alarm clock on the other side of the wall started beeping. Lee Elliot's clock. Her own alarm joined in seconds later.

  Time for the second day's lessons.

  * * *

  The snow looked incongruous on the adobe roof, like something you'd see on the evening news as dramatic evidence of global climate change. It reminded her of the photos of snow in the Sahara Desert, falling there for the first time in forty years. White on red.

  Katie and Lee stood outside, waiting in front of the house with their gear. Both were clothed in multiple layers and ready to hike with Tilda to the same spot to paint the vista they'd painted the day before. It would look different today, with this fresh dusting of a late November snowfall.

  Tilda was still inside, getting ready. Her two pupils could have waited indoors, but they were eager to get out and experience the wintry scenery. Katie and Lee stood amidst the snow and the sagebrush, looking back at the lodge and taking photos.

  “That's why the roof isn't flat,” Lee said. “It actually snows up here regularly. A flat stucco roof wouldn't hold under the snow load.”

  Katie scooped up a handful of snow and shaped it into an icy ball. She wondered, if she hit Lee with a snowball, would he retaliate? Or would he give her a lecture on the history of snowballs in New Mexico? She hefted the snowball and thought about throwing it to find out.