“I think we need to keep all our guests under observation until we figure this out,” Walt suggested. He looked at Marie and asked, “Perhaps you might find Eva and see if she can lend us her ears. There is no way you can be in two guest rooms at once.”
“Or maybe tell us where we might find Eva,” Danielle suggested. “I think Marie needs to stay here and keep an eye on at least one room.”
“Oh my, I must say it feels rather good to be needed!” Marie smiled. “As for Claudia and Rachel, Rachel is alone in their room, reading, and Claudia just left to get them takeout. So until she returns, I won’t be hearing anything from them. They’re both tired after that long trip and plan to eat in and go to bed early. As for the Thorpes, when I checked their room, Mrs. Thorpe was in the shower.”
“Then perhaps you can listen in to the Thorpes after his wife gets out of the shower, and see if you can find out why he’s really here,” Walt suggested.
“And we can go find Eva. Any idea where she might be?” Danielle asked.
“I’m fairly certain she’ll be at the museum. She mentioned she was going over there this afternoon. Of course, she might not still be there. Now, what was that other favor you wanted to ask me?”
“You know that marriage license Claudia showed me?” Walt asked.
“Yes. Of course. What about it?”
“We need to take a closer look at it. I was going to ask Claudia if I could see it again, but I’m afraid she won’t let me—especially if it’s fake.”
“I saw it when I was over in their room. It was on Claudia’s bed. It was still sitting there when she left to get food,” Marie told them.
Walt and Danielle exchanged quick glances, and then Danielle said, “Marie, you think you can get the license and take it to my bedroom?”
“Exactly how do I get it out of the room? I can walk through walls, but I certainly can’t move paper through walls, and as long as Rachel is in the room, even if I managed to get the license without her noticing, I think she would notice the door opening to get it out of the room.”
“Slip it under the door,” Walt suggested.
Eighteen
Pulled into Moon Runners’ world, Rachel turned another page. The author had transported her back in time to the 1920s, along the Oregon coast, where prohibition gave birth to a lucrative industry of party boats and moonshine. The meow broke her concentration, and she looked up from where she sat in the chair, wrapped in a blanket. The black cat jumped off the bed and sauntered to the closed door. He began pawing it, as if playing a drum, persistent in his relentless pounding.
“Okay, okay, hold on. I get your message.” Rachel turned down the top corner of the page she was currently reading and stumbled to her feet, tangled in the blanket. Max continued to pound on the door.
“Stop already. Danielle is going to think I’m holding you prisoner,” Rachel said as she tossed the book on the chair and made her way to the door. As soon as she opened it, Max raced from the room, disappearing down the hall. Rachel closed the door and locked it. She made her way back to the chair. But instead of sitting down again, she snatched up the book and blanket and walked to her bed. Climbing under the sheets and adding the blanket atop the bedspread and blankets already on the bed, Rachel cuddled up against the pile of pillows and opened the book. She began to read.
Rachel had been reading for a good fifteen minutes in bed when motion from the empty bed next to her caught her eye. Frozen, she continued to hold the book before her as if reading as she discreetly peered over it. Her eyes widened as she watched the marriage license float up from the empty bed and hover in midair for a moment, as if some invisible force was reading it.
Unable to breathe, Rachel clutched the book tighter as she slunk down deeper into the mattress, her body disappearing beneath the blankets. Caught in her throat was a scream she was too terrified to release. She watched in horror as the paper began to float downward and slide across the wood floor, making its way to the door. Rachel’s teeth began to chatter, and her hands shook, still gripping the book as if it were a lifeline. She heard the doorknob rattle. Someone was unlocking it.
The next moment the door flew open and Claudia stepped into the room carrying two small paper bags of take-out food. Rachel released the scream she had been holding, startling Claudia, who then dropped the sacks. They landed on the floor, atop the marriage license.
“Good lord, Rachel! What is your problem? I imagine the entire house heard you!” Claudia leaned down to pick up the sacks her sister had caused her to drop. In doing so she spied the marriage license and picked it up. Rachel remained huddled in bed, speechless, her complexion white.
“What is this doing on the floor?” Claudia asked as she shut the bedroom door. With her purse hanging from one shoulder, she held the take-out sacks in one hand and the marriage license in the other.
“I think this place is haunted!” Rachel finally squeaked out.
“What are you talking about?” Claudia dropped the sacks and purse on the bed. She then folded the marriage license and shoved it in her purse.
Rachel pointed to the purse. “It floated off the bed!”
Claudia frowned. She picked up one of the sacks, looked inside, and then tossed it to her sister. “What in the world are you talking about?”
“The marriage license, it floated off the bed and it just hung in the air for a moment and then it slid across the floor like it was trying to get out of the room.”
Claudia scowled at her sister. “Have you been smoking some of that Oregon pot?”
“I’m serious! I think this place is haunted! First the cat figurine and now this!” No longer holding the book, Rachel grabbed the top of the blankets and pulled them up under her chin.
“Rachel, you seriously need to get some sleep. This old house is drafty. Obviously a draft blew the license off the bed onto the floor. Ghosts? Phssshh…get real.” Claudia rolled her eyes and plopped down on her bed. She picked up her sack and opened it.
“What about the cat figurine?”
Claudia pulled a wrapped burger from the bag. “What about it?”
“I saw it fall off the shelf, and then before it hit the floor, it went back up on the shelf. I saw it!”
“Sure you did.” After unwrapping the burger, Claudia took a bite.
“I want to go home.”
Claudia shook her head and took another bite. After she swallowed, she said, “We are not going home until we finish what we came here to do.”
“I don’t want to stay in this room!”
“You’re being silly.”
Rachel jumped up from the bed and grabbed the sack of food. “I’m going to go eat outside.”
“It’s freezing out there.”
“Fine, I’ll take my coat!” Angrily, Rachel dropped the sack back on her bed and grabbed her coat. After she put it on, she picked up her sack of food and the book and stormed out of the room.
Danielle and Walt had decided one of them needed to stay home while the other one went to find Eva. They didn’t feel comfortable leaving their guests alone—considering some were at Marlow House under false pretenses. Even with Marie there, they felt one of them needed to stay.
Danielle insisted she be the one, while Walt went to find Eva. Her reasoning, she didn’t want Walt to have to confront any of them again until after they could find out more about their motives. Walt, however, felt he needed to be the one to stay. While he didn’t believe any of them were a physical threat to Danielle, he did not want to take any chances since they had lied to them. Walt ended up getting his way, and it was Danielle who went off to find Eva.
Walt sat in the side yard on one of the two patio chairs, sitting under a shade tree, intending to read a book. Because of the position of the late afternoon sun, the tree threw no shade, which suited him, considering the nippy weather. While most would probably find it too chilly to be sitting outside, he found the brisk air invigorating, reminding him he was alive—truly alive. He had just o
pened the book when Max came out the pet door from the kitchen. The cat joined him, making himself comfortable on Walt’s lap.
A few minutes earlier Walt had spied Claudia’s car pulling up in front of the house. Glancing up to the second floor, he could see Dirk walking around in the bedroom.
Pearl had just returned the rake to the toolshed when motion from the neighbor’s side yard caught her eye. Curious, she walked over to the property line separating her yard and Marlow House and looked through the wrought-iron fencing, concealing herself behind a large rosebush growing on the Boatman side of the property line. She spied Walt Marlow sitting on a patio chair with the useless black cat in his lap. They still let the thing come and go as it pleased; she often heard the swinging of the metal pet door. It was only a matter of time before it came back over in her yard and started digging up her flower garden and leaving behind disgusting droppings.
But a troublesome feline was not the only thing annoying Pearl these days. Cars had been coming and going all day long next door, and she resented the fact Marlow House had turned her neighborhood into a business district. Pearl had dreamed of owning her home—this particular home—for as long as she could recall. The dream did not include a wannabe motel just next door, in what should be an exclusive residential neighborhood.
The house she had just purchased had originally belonged to her maternal grandmother. Pearl cherished her childhood memories, spending summers with her grandmother in Frederickport. Back then, Marlow House had been vacant, and the house on the other side of the property had been occupied by an elderly couple. When Pearl was a teenager, her grandmother had passed away, and the property was left to her mother and her mother’s only sibling, Aunt Sally. To Pearl’s dismay, her parents could not afford the luxury of a beach house and had sold their share to Aunt Sally and her husband.
Pearl continued to visit the property, yet not as frequently as when her grandmother had been alive. While her aunt and uncle—and later her cousins—invited her to visit them at the beach house, she resented the fact her parents had sold their share of the property.
Her visits to the Frederickport beach house had ended five years earlier, with the death of Aunt Sally’s last living child. The house then went to the grandchildren, who—according to all reports—did not get along. After five years of bickering over the property, they finally decided to sell. Pearl, who had always been open about the fact she would be willing to purchase the beach house if they ever decided to sell, was the first person they contacted.
However, they failed to disclose the changes in the neighborhood since her last visit. Marlow House was not only occupied now; it was an inn. Pearl was not happy with the changes. She wanted it to go back to how she remembered.
Standing on her tiptoes to look over the rosebush to get a better look, her nose practically sticking between two wrought-iron spires, Pearl peered into her neighbor’s side yard. She could hear the breakers beyond the houses across the street, and when Walt Marlow started talking to the cat a moment later, she could hear that too.
Nineteen
Walt could feel the temperature drop. Only about an hour of sunlight was left in the day, and then it would be time to start thinking of dinner. Chilly weather and meals to eat were in the category of shaving for Walt. Those were among the things he hadn’t seriously considered for almost a century.
He glanced down at Max, who curled up on his lap, making himself comfortable. “What have you been up to today? I haven’t seen you all afternoon.” Walt gently stroked the cat’s back.
Max looked up and blinked.
“Really? She took you in her room? Was she nice to you?”
Max rubbed the side of his face against Walt’s left hand and began to purr.
“Did you see Marie when you were up there?”
Max meowed.
It wasn’t necessary for Walt to talk out loud when communicating with the cat—it wasn’t the words Max understood, it was the mental telepathy conveyed between the two. However, Walt had grown accustomed to vocalizing his end of the conversation, primarily for the benefit of Danielle or his friends who knew of his background. He, of course, never did this when around those who believed he had once been Clint. But he was alone now, out of earshot from curious listeners, or so he assumed, so he thought nothing of verbally expressing the thoughts he conveyed to the cat.
“Marie had something to lift from one of our troublesome guests. I hope she was able to get it out of the room without anyone seeing.”
Max blinked at Walt.
“Are you sure? If she put it in her purse, it’s going to be harder for Marie to get her hands on it.”
Walt laughed at Max’s reply.
“She told you all that? Where was she? Oh, spying on the other guests. I wonder if she’s hiding in their room now.” Walt laughed again. “Yes, hiding in plain sight.”
Walt heard the kitchen door open and close. He stopped talking and looked toward the house while stroking the length of the cat’s back. It was Rachel—Claudia’s sister. She wore a heavy jacket and knit cap over her spiky hair, carrying a book in one hand and a paper sack in the other. She glanced around as if deciding where to sit. Walt didn’t think she had noticed him yet—sitting under the tree, partially concealed by some shrubbery between him and the house. Her attention was focused on a portable yard swing located on the far side of the yard, near the fencing separating Marlow House from their unfriendly neighbor. It sat in the open sunshine. Rachel started walking for the swing.
“The seat will be wet,” Walt called out just as she started to pass by him.
Jumping at his voice, she turned to face him.
“Sorry if I startled you,” Walt apologized. “But I noticed you were heading to the swing, and I’m afraid its seat is always damp this time of year. I warned Danielle it will probably be moldy come spring.”
“I didn’t see you sitting there,” Rachel stammered. She then noticed the cat sitting on his lap. Hesitantly, she walked toward him.
“You’re welcome to sit here.” Walt nodded to the empty chair next to him. “Non-upholstered chairs tend to be better this time of year unless you want a soaked backside. Plus, the sunshine feels pretty good.”
“I thought you hated cats,” Rachel blurted. She then cringed, regretting her hastily uttered words.
“So you and I knew each other too?” Walt asked in a quiet voice.
Rachel stepped closer and eyed the empty chair before looking back at Walt. “You really do have amnesia?”
“If not knowing anything about Clint’s life before the car accident—aside from what I’ve been told—means I have amnesia, then yes.” He nodded toward the chair again.
Rachel sat down, the book resting on her lap, and the paper sack atop it.
Walt glanced briefly to the book’s spine peeking out from under the sack and then looked up to Rachel’s face. “You’re reading Moon Runners?”
Rachel blushed. “After Claudia told me about it, I was curious. I just started it today.”
Walt smiled. “I hope you enjoy it.”
Rachel clutched the book and looked sheepishly up to Walt. “I really am. Claudia doesn’t think you wrote it.”
“And what do you think?” Walt asked.
Rachel shrugged. “If you didn’t write it, I would think the author would sue you. Especially now since they’re making a movie out of it.”
“Did we know each other well?” Walt asked.
“Not really. I only met you a couple of times.”
Walt studied Rachel’s expression. “According to your sister, she and I are married.”
“That’s between you and Claudia. I don’t want to get involved.” Rachel turned her attention to the sack sitting on her lap atop the book. She opened it and pulled out a wrapped burger.
“Did you go to the wedding?”
Rachel looked down at her food and shook her head. “She showed you the license. It’s from Mexico. I’ve never been to Mexico.”
Rachel took a bite of her burger and sat quietly for a moment. Finally, she said, “You’ll have to ask my sister about that. I really don’t know much more than what she has told you.” She took another bite.
“If you didn’t know me well, why did you say I didn’t like cats?”
Holding her partially eaten burger, she looked over to Walt. “My sister doesn’t care for dogs or cats. I remember once she told me you had that in common. I like animals. I never understood why Claudia didn’t, but I guess she found a soul mate in you in that regard.”
“Interesting. I guess the amnesia made me forget my dislike for animals,” Walt said with a smile, still stroking Max’s back. “I’m rather partial to them now.”
“Can I ask you a question?” Rachel asked.
“Go ahead.”
“Have you told Danielle what Claudia told you today?”
Walt studied Rachel a moment before answering. “No,” he lied.
“Don’t you think she should know? I mean, if you have amnesia, then it really isn’t your fault you don’t remember being married. Doesn’t Danielle deserve to know?”
“Does your sister expect me to tell her?” Walt asked.
Rachel shrugged. “I think she might tell her if you decide to ignore all this and go ahead and get married.”
“If that’s true, why didn’t she tell Stephanie? Surely she knew Stephanie and I were on our way to Europe to get married.”
“I don’t know. Like I said, I really don’t want to get involved. I shouldn’t have asked you the question in the first place.” Rachel shivered and pulled her jacket around her tighter while holding what remained of her burger in the other hand.
“I’m curious, why are you sitting outside in the cold eating, when you could be inside where it’s warm? I believe there’s a fire burning in the living room fireplace,” Walt told her.
The Ghost Who Was Says I Do Page 12
