by Bobbi Holmes
“It does explain a lot,” he muttered.
“Have you been feeling confused recently?” she asked.
He nodded. “Yes. But things seem a little clearer now.”
“It works that way. But please, you need to tell me about this person threatening to hurt Walt and Danielle, and why.”
“It sounded like they’re looking for some diary or letters belonging to Walt Marlow.”
“Which Walt Marlow?” Marie asked.
“What do you mean?”
She shook her head. “Never mind, I don’t have the time to explain now. Continue, please.”
“It has something to do with a book Walt wrote,” he began.
Eleven
The purring woke Danielle, but she didn’t open her eyes. Wanting more sleep, she rolled over, her back to Walt, as she clutched a pillow in her arms and curled up in a fetal position. She felt Max’s soft forehead gently butt her bare shoulder, and the purring grew louder. Still not opening her eyes, she gently nudged the cat with one hand, trying to push him off the bed. Max sidestepped Danielle’s attempt and jumped on her legs.
With a groan Danielle sat up, opened her eyes, intending to scold her cat, when she spied an elderly woman sitting cross-legged at the foot of her bed, staring up at her and Walt. Danielle screeched in surprise and jerked to a fully sitting position, waking Walt.
“What?” Walt asked groggily, now sitting up and rubbing his eyes. It only took him a moment to notice Marie, who wore white slacks, a Hawaiian shirt, and a cockily placed straw hat, sitting with them on the bed.
“Good morning,” Marie said.
“Sheesh, Marie, you scared the crap out of me,” Danielle grumbled.
“That’s not a ladylike word, Danielle,” Marie scolded.
“I have to assume there’s a reason for this sunrise visit?” Walt asked.
“I don’t make a habit of popping into your bedroom—unless it’s of the utmost importance.” Marie frowned and pointed to Walt. “You don’t have a shirt on. Cover up. Certainly you have some pajama pants on under that blanket?”
“Sorry, I wasn’t expecting guests.” Walt tugged the top edge of the sheet, covering the lower half of his chest.
“I hadn’t planned to come to your room, but I intended to stop over a little later, which is why I’m wearing what I have on.” Marie pointed to her Hawaiian blouse. “You just came back from Hawaii and all,” Marie explained, as if it should make sense. It didn’t to Danielle. “It has been decades since I could sit cross-legged!”
“Why are you here?” Danielle asked.
“To warn you.” Marie’s tone turned somber.
“About what?” Walt asked.
“Someone intends to kill you.”
They said nothing, but simply stared.
“And I don’t want to explain all this twice, so why don’t we do this right, and you call Chris and Heather and get them over here. Unless you think I should wake them up?” Marie suggested. “We need to inform the mediums, except for Evan.”
“Who intends to kill us?” Danielle asked.
“Unfortunately, I don’t have that information. It’s one reason you need to get Chris and Heather over here. I considered getting Eva, but I think I can handle this myself,” Marie said.
“Can you please give us a little more information?” Danielle pleaded.
Marie looked at Danielle sympathetically. “I think you need some coffee, dear. You’re not fully awake yet. I’ll pop downstairs, start some, and you call Chris and Heather. I’ll meet you all in the kitchen.” Marie vanished. Max let out a meow, jumped off the bed, and sauntered out of the room.
Danielle looked over to Walt.
Walt picked his cellphone up from his nightstand and turned to Danielle. He nodded to her phone sitting on the table on her side of the bed. It floated up on its way to her. “I’ll call Chris; you call Heather,” he suggested.
“No way! You call Heather. She made an enormous deal about not jogging this morning and sleeping in and how no one had better wake her up. I’ll call Chris!” She grabbed for her cellphone as it hung in midair, but Walt willed it away from her reach for a moment, giving him the time to make the first call.
When she finally grabbed ahold of her cellphone, she glowered Walt’s way and muttered, “Rat.” He was already talking to Chris.
Pearl opened her bedroom blinds and looked outside. What a lovely day, she thought. Unfortunately, it was almost the fourth, which meant cars would line the street in a few days for the Marlow fundraiser. She was half tempted to buy a ticket and attend. It wasn’t that she particularly wanted to support the fundraiser, but she was curious to have a look inside Marlow House. As much as she hated to admit it, she had grown increasingly curious to get a closer look inside the old house, especially since practically everyone in town had traipsed through it at one time or another, and she always felt foolish admitting she never had, when the subject came up. After all, she lived right next door.
Looking down at the street, she spied her neighbor to the south walking by her house—Heather Donovan. While she was used to seeing Heather out and about at this time of day, as the woman regularly jogged in the mornings, Pearl was not used to seeing her dressed in what looked like pajamas and fuzzy slippers. Heather wore her black hair in one high ponytail and carried what looked like a pillow tucked under one arm. Pearl frowned at the sight.
She then noticed one of her other neighbors, Chris Johnson, walking down the street. He was a distance away, so she grabbed her binoculars from the dresser to look closer. Like Heather, he appeared to be wearing pajamas—at least pajama bottoms, with a wrinkled gray T-shirt and a pair of flip-flops. His pit bull Hunny walked by his side.
Pearl continued to watch as Chris met Heather by the front gate leading to the Marlows’ side yard. Chris opened the gate, holding it while Heather entered the yard with Hunny, and followed them in. The three walked to the Marlows’ side door and walked in the house without knocking.
“What’s going on over there?” Pearl muttered. “Who wears pajamas to the neighbor’s house? And who takes a pillow with them?”
“The one day I plan to sleep in,” Heather grumbled as she and Chris walked in the house. They found Danielle and Walt sitting at the kitchen table with Marie. Danielle wore a robe over her nightgown, while Walt wore plaid pajama bottoms and a T-shirt. Hunny trotted to Danielle first, accepted a pat, and then nosed Walt and said hello before curling up on the floor under the table.
Marie sat in an invisible chair, leaving two of the four kitchen chairs to Chris and Heather. Cups of coffee floated toward the kitchen table.
“What’s this about?” Chris asked as he sat at the table, snatching a cup of coffee from the air as it floated to him. Heather snagged the second cup for herself and sat down. Still clutching her pillow, Heather set it on her lap. In the center of the table, Old Salts cinnamon rolls filled a rose-patterned platter.
Heather helped herself to one of the sticky sweet rolls and muttered under her breath, “These are why I have to jog.”
“I’m not sure what’s going on,” Danielle told Chris. She looked at Marie and said, “Okay, we’re all here.”
“Someone intends to burn down Marlow House,” Marie began, “with Walt and Danielle inside.”
Marie was a good fifteen minutes into her story when Chris interrupted by asking, “Who was this ghost?”
“He didn’t tell me his name,” Marie said. “Connor woke up, started crying. I was about to pick him up, but Ian came into the nursery. It scared the ghost away, and I figured I needed to get right over here and tell you what I learned. Ian and Lily don’t even realize I was over there this morning—much less about a strange ghost in the nursery.”
“Not exactly,” Heather said. “Yesterday Sadie found your ghost hiding in Connor’s closet. She started barking—seemingly at nothing. So Lily brought Sadie over here to have a chat with Walt, and we all looked for him over at Lily’s. But he wasn’t there.”
>
“He’s back,” Marie said.
“This has to have something to do with whoever broke in here the other day,” Danielle told them.
“Someone already broke in?” Marie asked.
“Yes,” Walt told her. “The day we got home from Hawaii. Joanne walked in on them, but they left without being seen. We naturally couldn’t tell her Max told us. They were looking through the desk in our bedroom. After she arrived, they slipped out through the hidden staircase.”
“Which makes sense they would search your desk if they were looking for some diary or letters,” Danielle said.
“And one of them was at the library yesterday?” Walt asked.
“Yes. According to the ghost, the woman claimed to have been there. Said something about you insisting the story was pure fiction, but that you lied.”
Walt and Danielle exchanged quick glances. “The woman you said looked familiar, she asked you that question,” Danielle said.
“You don’t have a diary, do you?” Heather asked.
Walt shook his head. “No. But obviously they assume my former self kept a diary, which inspired the story.”
Danielle looked at Marie. “Did he describe the woman or man he saw?”
Marie shook her head. “No.”
“He didn’t mention if she was black, did he?” Danielle asked.
“No, why?” Marie asked.
“Yesterday, at Walt’s presentation, two of the women who asked about Walt’s inspiration for the story, they were black. I just thought, if the ghost mentioned that, we could narrow our search. They were the only black women at the talk.”
“This must have something to do with Moon Runners,” Chris said.
“While real-life events from Walt’s first life inspired Moon Runners, most of those events never made the news back then,” Danielle said. “So this can’t be about something that actually happened, because who would know about any of it?”
“Unless there was another diary,” Walt said.
They all looked to him. “What do you mean?” Heather asked.
“If one of my readers recognized something in my book, then someone from my first life might have kept a diary or shared the events in a letter. While much of what I wrote about never became public knowledge, the people the ghost overheard must have read it somewhere. They recognized the similarities with Moon Runners. Is there something that happened back then they don’t want to come out now?”
“Perhaps they fear you have the same information written in a diary and letters, with the actual names of the people involved?” Chris suggested.
“Why would they even care? Even if you gave the actual names,” Heather asked. “What would it matter now?”
“It matters to someone; they’re willing to kill Walt and Danielle over it.” Chris then looked at Walt and asked, “Can you think of anything that happened back then that’s tied into any of the events you used in Moon Runners that someone today would not want to come out?”
Walt considered the question before saying, “Off the top of my head, I can’t think of anything.”
“I have an idea!” Heather piped up.
“What?” Chris and Walt asked at the same time.
“According to what the ghost overheard, the man and woman will be here on the fourth,” Heather began.
“With a bazillion other people,” Danielle said.
“I seriously doubt a bazillion will show,” Heather said dryly.
“So, what’s your idea?” Chris asked.
“Give them what they want. If they find a diary and it doesn’t include more than what was in Moon Runners, there would be no reason to come after you,” Heather said.
“But there is no diary,” Walt reminded her.
“Well, duh. But you can write one. How hard can that be? And leave it somewhere where they’ll find it on the fourth,” Heather said.
“I can’t write the diary,” Walt said.
“Why not?” Heather asked.
“I’m not even sure how I would write something like that—to make it believable. And much of Moon Runners came from my imagination. It’s been over a hundred years. There’s much I don’t remember.”
“You’d better start remembering,” Chris told Walt, “so we can figure out who’s trying to kill you and why.”
Twelve
Pearl stood at her bedroom window late Sunday morning, looking up the street at her neighbor’s house. She wondered what was going on over there. Were they having a party? When she had stepped out on her front porch to bring in her newspaper earlier that day, she had spied Heather returning to her house, pillow in hand, while Chris Johnson walked in the opposite direction, heading up the street to his house. He didn’t have his dog with him, and Pearl assumed he had left Hunny with the Marlows.
But now she watched as Heather parked her car in front of the Marlows’, with Chris in the passenger seat. They got out of the vehicle. Chris carried two large paper sacks. If she wasn’t mistaken, they were to-go sacks from Beach Taco.
Pearl then noticed the Bartleys hurrying across the street with their baby and dog, and then the police chief pulled up in his car, parking behind Heather’s.
“What is going on over there?” she wondered.
Heather and Chris had gone home to get dressed. Before returning, they picked up breakfast burritos. Heather drove, and Chris paid. They pulled up in front of Marlow House at the same time as Ian, Lily and the chief arrived. Once again, they circled the wagons.
They all gathered in the library. Walt had set up a large bulletin board on an easel, reminding Danielle of evidence boards she had seen on police television shows. While they all ate burritos, Danielle and Walt filled the non-mediums in on what Marie had told them.
Marie quietly listened to the retelling as she walked Connor around the room. To the chief, Ian and Lily, it looked as if the baby had taken flight. Danielle stood by the bulletin board, a stack of blank index cards and a pen in her hands. Walt sat in a nearby chair, facing the group. Their plan included dissecting Moon Runners to determine which real-life-inspired character or incident might have triggered a potential killer’s interest.
For about twenty minutes they discussed elements of the book; then Danielle said, “Should we start with the characters, the ones inspired by actual people?”
“That might make the most sense,” Walt said. The others agreed.
“What about the character Seraphina was to play?” Lily suggested before looking at Chris and asking, “Have you heard from Seraphina lately?”
“Not for a couple of weeks. She landed a minor role in a movie and has been working every day,” Chris said.
“What was the name of the real-life person who inspired Seraphina’s role?” Heather asked.
“That would be Desiree Davis,” Walt told her.
Danielle jotted her name on an index card, and Walt said, “You might as well put her sister up there too, Charlene.” Danielle gave him a nod and jotted Charlene’s name on another card. She put both on the bulletin board, stepped back, and looked at them.
“If I understand correctly, we’re thinking someone recognized one of Walt’s characters as some relative of theirs. Maybe the would-be killer is a grandchild. And for whatever reason, there is something that happened back then they don’t want made public?” Chris asked.
“They could be afraid Walt has even more information detrimental to their family,” Danielle said.
“Okay, either way, if we’re talking family members, wouldn’t the most logical ones to start with be the black women who asked Walt the questions at the library?” Heather asked. “Are they related to the Davis sisters, granddaughters or something?”
Walt considered the suggestion for a moment and shook his head. “I really don’t see why anyone from Desiree and Charlene’s family would care about anything in that book, much less want to kill me over it.”
“Discount nothing,” the chief urged. “Tell us what you remember about them.”
> “Desiree was a talented jazz singer. I frequented the club she played at. We were friends. The part in Moon Runners where the character I based her on gets involved with the club manager and he rips off a local bootlegger and almost gets her killed, that’s true. But even if the moonshiner’s family heard that story, all the players have to be dead by now.”
“And you saved her,” Danielle said with a grin.
Walt shrugged. “Yes, I got her out of there, and she always said I saved her life. But in my book, it was Hunter Rage.”
“So you really based his character on you?” Heather asked.
“No, I didn’t,” Walt insisted. “I wasn’t that colorful.”
“What happened to Desiree?” Lily asked.
“She got married about a year before I did, to a musician. They left the area around the same time that I got married.”
“What about her sister?” Lily asked.
“Eva knew Charlene better than I did. I had seen her in several local plays and met her backstage. Eva introduced us. In fact, I didn’t realize she was part black until I discovered she was Desiree’s sister. Charlene, like Eva, had been in some movies, but she never had Eva’s success. At least not while I was alive.”
“What happened to her?” Ian asked.
“I heard Charlene accepted an offer in Tinseltown and moved to California,” Walt said.
“Tinseltown?” Heather smirked.
“It’s what they called Hollywood back then,” Danielle said.
“This was before I met Angela, about six years after Eva died. When I was researching for Moon Runners, I tried looking her up to discover what happened to her, but I couldn’t find anything. I assume she changed her stage name,” Walt explained.
“Did you ever ask Eva what happened to Charlene? If she made it big in Hollywood? Eva seems to keep up with that sort of thing,” Heather asked.
“I did,” Walt said. “But spirits don’t necessarily know what happens to other people. She heard Charlene had left for Hollywood, but she didn’t know if she became successful under another name.”