by L. L. Muir
Martine had already started backing away, so by the time he was finished, there were two-dozen feet between them. The taxi driver came around the front of the car to yell at him. Fisher hadn’t paid the guy, and the smaller man wasn’t going to let up until he did. She clearly understood the word police.
This was her chance to get away. She’d caught her breath again. She could keep going. He obviously couldn’t afford the cab fare to keep up with her.
She turned away. “Martine, no! Please, Martine!”
The cab driver gasped, and it was his reaction that made her turn back.
Fisher was on the ground, on his knees, with his hands together in supplication, begging her at the cost of his pride, to not run away. Honestly desperate. But why? If he was just a regular guy who thought he’d been stood up, he could have chalked it up to poor chemistry and left it at that. There had to be some compelling reason for him to track her down. And just how had he known...
The taxi driver began his rant again, only this time, he tried English. “Seven euro. Seven euro and you can go back to begging. But I must be paid, monsieur!”
“I’ll pay it,” she blurted. Whatever it took to get him out of the way. She had questions and wanted answers. And she didn’t want that taxi available to Fisher if she decided to run again.
No. He wasn’t Fisher. Not now. He was just that Scot.
He stayed on his knees, blushing and mortified that she was paying for him yet again. But there was a little hope in his eyes, too. The way he was breathing, he was good and worn out. Now that she knew she could escape him if she wanted, she was back in control. Her adrenaline ebbed away. Sure, he might be a criminal, a kidnapper, but she was pretty damned good at fighting back. Maybe she hadn’t won any medals like Julia had, but when it was important, here on the streets of Paris, her training had paid off.
She held out the money and made the driver come to her. He definitely did not get a tip for helping her enemy catch up. She stood her ground while the unhappy man hurried back to his vehicle and drove away. All the while, people hurried down the sidewalk, rubbernecking as they went, trying to figure out why the big man was on his knees. Some of them noticed her standing deeper into the park and laughed or nodded. Lover’s spat, they probably thought.
Boy, were they wrong.
Chapter Sixteen
Ignoring the people loitering on the fringes of her awareness, hoping to see some sort of confrontation, Martine folded her arms and cocked a hip.
“I have three questions,” she said. “You tell me the truth, I stay. You lie to me—one little lie—and we go for another run…straight to the police.”
He took a deep breath and let it out slowly before he nodded. “The truth. Whether or not ye wish to hear it?”
Something she didn’t want to know? The idea filled her chest with dread, but she didn’t let him know it. Could anything really be worse than what she’d imagined? “Yes. No matter what.”
“Ye mean to shout, then? Or will ye draw near?”
“Here’s fine,” she shouted, uncaring who heard. In fact, the more witnesses the better, especially if he was going to confess.
“Then ask yer questions so I may get to my feet, for Paris is not so soft on the knees as Scotland.”
She didn’t even smile. This was no time to try charming her. “Fine. First, are you in league with the Frenchman? Second, how did you find me? And third, who told you my sister’s ashes were in a Ziploc bag?”
Fisher braced his hands on his thighs, and put his chin on his chest. The image kept her from taking a deep breath. She almost felt sorry for him, but she couldn’t let that get in the way of finding out the truth.
She had the impression he was weighing the pros and cons of lying to her, which made it easier to hold tough. He was muttering, too, like he was arguing with himself. Martine couldn’t understand the words, but the tone was distinctive. And one-sided. What made her suspect he was literally out of his mind was the fact that he paused—like someone on the phone, waiting while someone else argued back.
Maybe he really did need help.
“Enough,” he barked to his right shoulder. “But ye’re wrong. And I’ll say it now. This will not end well.”
After another deep, slow breath, like a boxer getting ready to step back into the ring, he lifted his head.
“Firstly, I am most certainly not in cahoots with the Frenchman who accosted ye yesterday. Nor any French person. I can honestly say I’ve not spoken with a living Frenchman for a matter of...years. I am eager to hear why ye could imagine such a thing. Yer mind, lass, must be an interesting place.”
Oh, it sounded good, but she wasn’t about to believe it was true—at least not until she heard him answer the other two questions.
“As to how I kenned where to look for ye this morning, I was warned that ye’d snuck out the back of the hotel.”
Warned? He wasn’t alone, then, just as she’d feared. And that made escaping a little more complicated than just running her heart out. But since that was her only option at the moment, she prepared to do just that by unfolding her arms, shaking out her hands, and bracing her feet apart. “Warned by whom?”
Another deep breath. A little muttering. A shake of his head. “Steady there, lass. Are ye all right? Mayhap ye should sit—”
“Warned by whom!”
“The same soul who mentioned the Ziploc bag.”
Martine’s mind whirled. She had mentioned the bag to only one person, when she’d explained her plan. Before she’d ever left home.
Aunt Penny.
If her aunt had sent this guy, then it was all just a joke. He’d been sent to keep an eye on her, to pretend interest in her. He would have known it was Penny’s money they’d been spending at dinner last night. Maybe he’d pouted, not because he was embarrassed, but because his dinner would be taken out of his paycheck or something.
Paid to be her boyfriend for a day or two? Paid to make sure her trip to Paris was memorable?
Those images she’d committed to memory, like a collection of candles, started melting, turning into a disappointing version of what they had been.
She had to finish this and get out of there. “All right. Let’s hear it.”
“Promise ye willnae run.”
“I promise nothing.”
“Fine, then.” He sighed. “It was yer own sister.”
She rolled her eyes. “I told you I only had one sister.”
“Aye. And it is Julia herself who gave me a message for ye when she sat down at our supper table last eve.”
“Julia.”
“Aye.”
“Julia Julia? You’re saying you see dead people.”
He made a face. “I am admitting it, aye. While you were in the loo, I asked if she had a message for ye.”
Oh, this ought to be good. “And?”
She’d been so relieved not to hear her aunt’s name, she’d relaxed and taken an unconscious step forward. Realizing her aunt still might be behind his new story made her freeze in her tracks. He wasn’t going to get off so easy.
“She said that aye, she had a message. To tell ye, exactly this… A Ziploc? Are you freaking kidding me?”
Martine’s butt hit the hard path before she knew her knees were giving out.
That was exactly what Julia would have said. And not even Aunt Penny could have guessed so accurately. Her sister might have been impressively formal around her medical colleagues, but the second she got home and it was just the two of them, she lost the bra and the professionalism. But if Martine were being honest, most of the cursing Julia did was to make her laugh.
While the world spun in a wide circle around her, Martine’s mind went back to the threat she’d made that morning when she’d tried to blackmail Julia into haunting her. If Fisher was telling the truth, it meant Julia had returned long before the threat of having her ashes thrown in the trash.
If Fisher was telling the truth…
The world stopped spinn
ing on a dime. She got to her feet. The path was dry, but she brushed off her butt, just in case. “Goodbye, Mister Rankine.” She checked the time on her phone. “Tell whoever hired you that you had to clock out at 9:18 a.m. I’m done with you.” She turned on her heel and walked into the park.
She needed to forgive Penny for a lot of things, but with the woman footing the bill for this trip, for Julia’s sake, Martine thought they might finally be able to move on. If her aunt was behind the Scottish assault on her heart, though, there was a new rent in their relationship that would never be fixed. And though it was tempting to get mad and stay mad rather than admit how her heart hurt, she would wait until she confronted Penny face to face before she made any judgments.
The Scot? He was just a stranger doing a job—and a stupid job at that. If he was supposed to charm her, then fall back on the “I talk to dead people” story when the charming act didn’t work, he shouldn’t have agreed to it. Lying about his sister’s ghost, though? That was a little too blasphemous to forgive, even for her.
“Ye’re limping,” said a deep voice from just behind her.
“Yeah? So I limp sometimes. Go away.” She walked on, trying not to limp at all. Her leg never hurt her much anymore, but there was some sort of muscle memory that took over now and then.
“Julia says ye only limp when ye’re feeling guilty…about the accident.”
Martine turned on him and poked his chest with a pointy finger. “Look, you. You don’t get to use my sister’s name, do you hear me? And you don’t get to follow me around anymore. You’ve been busted. You’re a fraud. And there’s no actual reason for you to speak to me again.”
He gave her a sad look.
“I don’t need your pity, man. Just leave me alone.” She was glad he couldn’t read her mind, or he’d know just how badly she wanted him to come closer.
Don’t listen to me. I don’t want to be alone.
“Ju… Yer sister says to tell ye that she’ll kick yer arse if ye toss her in the trash bin.”
She’d given her threat out loud. He must have her room bugged or something. “I don’t get it. What is in it for you? What’s in it for anyone? Why is it so important that I believe you can speak to spirits? That message you concocted? Pretty lame. A voice from the grave would have something more important to say, don’t you think?”
“Precisely my own reaction, when she said it.” He turned his head to the side as if listening to someone else. “She said that if anyone is to blame for her lingering, it is you.”
Martine took a deep breath and tried to calm down. “Okay. I’ll bite. What did I do to make her linger?” It was too bad the guy was a con artist because she’d kill for a conversation, even an argument, with Julia.
This time, when he tilted his head to the side, he looked confused. “She says…you died too.”
Chapter Seventeen
Fisher held up one finger. “Just a moment. That is not quite what she meant. It is not that you died, too, it’s that you stopped living.”
“You know,” Julia gestured toward her sister. “She stopped living her life. She’s so sure she should have been the one on the pavement that morning, she started acting like she really had been.”
Fisher shook his head. “It would be ever so much easier if the two of ye could have this conversation without me. Even now, yer sister is preparing to run away.” He put his hands together and asked for God’s help. Then he begged Martine, with a wave of his fingers to come closer instead of backing away. “I’m finished with shouting,” he said, speaking much quieter. “If ye’d like to speak with yer sister, ye’ll have to make an effort, aye?”
Julia rolled her eyes and spoke directly to Martine. “I’m really here, you idiot. Give it a rest already.”
Clearly, Martine heard nothing and continued to stare at him.
“She said I’m really here, ye eejit—or rather, you idiot. Give it a rest already.”
Martine gasped, indignant.
He threw the sister a warning glance. “I dinna believe insults are helping matters, lass. And besides, shouldn’t ye be worrit over yer soul just now. Who kens which door might open to ye if ye’re standing here spewing meanness.”
“Yeah,” Martine chimed in. “Since she didn’t get around to all those brilliant plans, she probably won’t get credit for them—” She slapped a hand over her mouth, catching herself on the side of the believers.
He let out a high-pitched laugh and looked at Julia. “There, ye see? She believes ye. Anything ye have to say should be said and quickly. Ye never ken how long these moments will last. I never had such a chance, myself, and I’ll not have ye squander yers if I can help it.”
Martine came forward quickly, grabbed his hands, and demanded to know what he saw.
“A lass much like yerself. Her hair has none of those white wisps that ye have. Her eyes are mirrors to yer own. She has a cynical way about her, while ye...”
“I what?”
“Yer a bit sadder, I think.”
“I think the word you’re looking for is sober.”
He wrinkled his nose. “Sober, then.”
“What’s she wearing?”
“A sheer sort of dress. Layers of it.”
“I had them put her in a frilly nightgown I found at a store she loved. She took pajamas very seriously.”
“She agrees ye made an excellent choice. She also approves of the hat. Says you should have bought the red purse.”
“Yeah, well, shopping with a limp was no picnic. If I’d have been the one killed, she could have cremated me in sweats.” Though Martine was making light of it, Julia wasn’t happy to hear the last.
“There’s something she wants ye to do for her.”
“Really? On top of flying to France and spreading her ashes at Sacré-Cœur?”
“Aye. Besides that.”
Fisher repeated the message verbatim, one sentence at a time. “I want you to stop telling people how wonderful I was. How wonderful I might have been. How the world lost out. I want you to accept the fact that my life ended when it was supposed to. I want you to forgive me for not accomplishing more before I died. Let my life be my life. Let it rest. Let me rest. Stop thinking about what you thought my future should have been and start thinking about your own. If you don’t let it go, your headstone will read, “she stopped living when her sister died, to spite God.”
“I won’t have a tombstone. I’ll be cremated, like you.”
Fisher continued to repeat Julia’s words. “Hey. My tombstone will be an ancient white cathedral in Paris...if you stop running around and get it done already.”
With tears pouring from her eyes, Martine smiled. “All right, Zippy. I’ll do it. But that won’t mean you have to leave me, right?”
“Not yet,” Fisher answered, though Julia said nothing.
Martine was clearly relieved. “Good. We’ve got loads to talk about.”
He exchanged a look with Julia. The spirit knew he was misleading her twin, but she said nothing. The loss of Julia, a second time, was destined to be hard on the lass, and he saw no need to start the pain early.
On the way back to the metro station, Fisher led Martine to a table inside a patisserie and insisted on treating her to a traditional Continental breakfast. The pastries in the glass case looked twice as luxurious as anything she’d ever seen before. Twice as big. Twice as fancy. Twice as fattening. But when in Rome...
She swallowed a bite of morning roll—a cinnamon roll made from layers and layers of croissant dough covered with cinnamon-sugar. Looking down on it from the top, it looked like a maze. She brushed sugar from her face and gestured to the table in general. “How are you going to pay for this?”
His eyebrows bobbed, and a sly smile cut dimples into his cheeks. “I did a bit of serenading beneath yer window this morn, not that ye were there to hear it. I happened to leave my bonnet on the ground and it magically filled with coins.
She laughed through her nose. “People paid
you to sing in the morning? Are you sure? Maybe they were paying you to stop.”
“Ye’re no’ a morning-type person, I gather.”
“Only when Julia would force me.” She straightened and looked at the empty chair beside her. She’d completely forgotten Julia was with them. But even her sister wouldn’t blame her with such a handsome distraction sitting across from her.
“Yer sister is gone, lass. No doubt she’ll reappear in a bit. Hard to say. I doubt she is in control of where and when she comes forth.”
“Sounds like this isn’t your first close encounter.”
He laughed lightly. “It is not. Nor will it be my last.”
Martine shook her head and pushed the rest of her roll in his direction, just in case he wanted what was left. “I’m sorry. I’m still trying to get used to the idea that I’ve had a conversation with my dead sister today. I mean, I talk to her all the time, but...”
“But this time she spoke back.”
“Yeah. It just can’t be real, but if you were playing a joke on me, you’re doing a great job of sounding like my sister.”
“Am I?” He pitched his voice high to ask it, like he was trying to sound like a woman. They both dissolved in laughter.
The waiter came out with the bill, but even after Fisher paid it, he made no move to leave. “Now that Jula is absent, can ye tell me about the accident that took her life? I thought it might be a mite bit rude to ask her myself.”
Martine shifted in the wrought iron chair, but there would be no getting comfortable with her past. “My sister and I have always been a little...competitive. When we were little, our dad used to make us race each other to work out our energy, so we’d sleep better, he said. It grew into a ritual. Even after we were on our own, after our parents died, we still ran. Every day.” The memory of that last morning rose up and sat heavy on her chest.
Fisher nodded. “Until the accident.”
She sucked a breath deep and forced herself to go on. “It was just another morning run. I complained like I always did. We ran in the street because the asphalt was easier on our joints than concrete. When cars came, we’d move to single file. Whoever was in front would move ahead a little, and the other one would slip in behind. I guess I was feeling extra competitive that morning because, when we heard a car coming, I wanted to take the lead.
