by K. J. Emrick
“Me too!” Kyle said brightly.
Miranda contained her eye-roll, but just barely. “Hey, what do you suppose is taking Thomas and Barbara so long to get back here?”
“Maybe Marvin put up more of a fight getting thrown out than Barbara could handle?” Jack sighed, and picked up the box of emeralds again from Miranda’s purse. “Come on. Let’s go make sure everything’s all right. Then I want to ask Thomas some questions about these.”
Just as they entered the hallway, a shot rang out through the house like the sound of muted thunder.
“This way!” Kyle shouted for Miranda to hear, floating off quickly like a blue streak of light down the hall.
Jack and Miranda followed, more because they heard the direction of the shot on their own than because of any helpful guidance from Kyle. The hall took a right turn, and then a left, and then they were at an open doorway leading to a huge kitchen of gleaming tile and new appliances.
There, on the floor, lay Thomas Crowe. Blood was pooling under his body as he lay facedown on all that spotless tile. Miranda saw a blue haze lifting off of him, and she knew it was his ghost, his spirit leaving his body.
The blue light was there, and then it was gone. Thomas’s ghost had just departed to the other side.
“Well,” Kyle remarked. “No unresolved issues with that man’s spirit, apparently.”
There was a hidden note of sadness in Kyle’s voice. He wanted, desperately, to be able to cross over the same way. They just didn’t know what was holding him back.
They didn’t have time to ponder the questions of the universe, however. There was another man in the room. Marvin Locke.
He was holding a gun.
Jack raced forward, easily disarming the shorter man, wresting the gun away. It was a very small automatic. Miranda didn’t know much about guns but it had looked small in Marvin’s hand. She saw Jack slide out the part that held the bullets, and then put that in his pocket as the gun itself went into the back of his pants.
“Ow, Jack!” Marvin stepped back, rubbing his stinging hand where Jack had bent the wrist around at a painful angle. “This isn’t what it seems! I didn’t do this!”
“Marvin Locke,” Jack said in a blank tone of voice. “You’re under arrest for the murder of Thomas Crowe.” He took a deep, deep breath, and added, “As well as the murder of Anya Westfield. How could you do this, Marvin?”
A wail of pure anguish assaulted Miranda’s ears. Anya’s spirit materialized in the room through the ceiling from the upper floor. “He did it? Marvin killed me? I can’t believe it! Noooooo!”
Then she disappeared again, flying away through the open door to the hallway this time.
Kyle scrubbed a hand over his face. “That Anya,” he said. “She’s quite the screamer, isn’t she? I’ll go make sure she’s all right.”
He faded away too, floating through the door just as Millie and Barbara came running in.
“What’s all the commotion?” Barbara demanded. Then she saw Thomas’s body on the floor, and her hands flew to her mouth. She closed her eyes and looked away.
Not Millie. She stared down at Thomas through her glasses with a focus that was laser sharp. Then her eyes found the box on the floor. The one with the emeralds inside. The one that Jack had dropped when he disarmed Marvin.
Quickly, Miranda swiped the box up off the floor and held onto it tight. Maybe Millie’s interests in it were innocent.
And maybe not. Miranda wasn’t taking any chances. While everyone was occupied watching the action she carefully opened the box and dumped the emeralds inside her purse.
“I’m calling the local police to come and detain you, Marvin.” Jack already had his cellphone out to make the call. “Don’t do anything stupid before they arrive.”
“Jack, I’m telling you,” Marvin protested. “This isn’t what it seems!”
“Murder weapon in your hand, motive… yeah. Adds up for me. Then again, what do I know? I’m just a police detective.”
“Motive?” Marvin questioned, his voice rising in pitch. “What motive?”
“He stole Anya from you,” Jack said, pointing down at Thomas. “I’m guessing you came back to talk to Anya yesterday in some vain attempt to get her back. When she refused your advances, you killed her. Now you’re back here again for no reason at all, and Thomas dies. With you holding the gun, let’s not forget.”
Miranda was proud of Jack for being able to be so professional in the face of all this. His ex-girlfriend was murdered, and now her current boyfriend too, both apparently by the man who had broken Jack and Anya up all those years ago.
Still, something didn’t feel right to her.
As his call connected and he began talking to whatever police dispatcher had answered, Miranda studied Marvin. He was distraught. Understandably so, perhaps, but it didn’t look like the sort of upset she might expect on the face of a killer who had just been caught.
And how did the emeralds fit into this?
Barbara made a sound that was almost a sob. “I’m going to sit down in the living room. I can’t believe this. Both of my friends are dead.”
“I’ll join you,” Millie offered. “We’ll need to wait for the police.”
Miranda watched them go, making sure they turned toward the back of the house and not the front doors in the opposite direction. The Ravens Falls Police would want to question them.
Marvin was wringing his hands. “Jack, I did not do this. I couldn’t! You remember how I was back then. I was always a lover, not a fighter!”
Jack took a step toward him, but then remembered himself and stopped. He very purposefully shoved his hands in his pockets. “You were so much of a lover that you didn’t care if you were with another man’s girlfriend. Mine, to be precise.”
“Jack, she cheated on you too. If you’ve forgiven her, why can’t you forgive me?”
“This isn’t about that,” Jack growled. “We both saw you in here, holding a gun over Thomas’s dead body.”
“I heard the shot same as you. I came in here and found the gun on the floor. I shouldn’t have picked it up, but that doesn’t make me the killer!”
“You expect me to buy that? Barbara was showing you out the front door, remember? You had no business being in this house still.”
“I told her I knew my way out,” he explained. “Then I stayed in the front entryway waiting for my chance to sneak back in. Before I could, I heard the shot.”
Jack shrugged. “You must really take me for a fool, Marvin. You hooked me into this because you thought my mind would be too messed up with Anya’s death to notice you were the killer. Too bad for you I got over her a long time ago. Maybe not the betrayal the two of you committed, but I had no more feelings left for Anya. I’m just here to do a job.”
“You don’t understand,” Marvin said, miserably. He scrubbed at his face with his hands, searching for the words. “You don’t understand.”
“Then why don’t you explain it to me?” Jack suggested. “Love to hear it.”
That was when the lights went out.
There, in the dark kitchen, Miranda heard the faint sound of footsteps rushing and then Jack’s muffled groan as was pushed off balance. She could just make out the way his body slumped up against the center island counter.
Then, before Miranda could react, someone slammed into her hard enough to knock her off her feet. They took the box out of her hand at the same time, and then they ran away.
Chapter 7
A moment later, the lights came back up.
Marvin was gone. The box was gone. Jack was rubbing the back of his neck, pushing himself back to his feet.
Thomas’s body still lay on the floor.
The killer had gotten away.
“Jack!” Miranda said in alarm, racing to his side to support him with an arm around his waist. “Are you all right?”
“Somethin’ hit me,” he slurred. “Damn, that hurts. Marvin. Had to be him. Gotta find him.”
His hands went frantically to the back of his waistband and relief flooded through his expression as he found the gun was still there.
“Come on,” he told Miranda. “Barbara and Millie are still in the house somewhere. If Marvin finds them I don’t know what he’ll do. And, if he makes it out the front door and drives away, it might be days before we find him again. I don’t want him to have any more time to concoct some sort of alibi.”
Miranda wasn’t so sure that was what was happening. Certainly, Marvin was running from being arrested. But there was no way he could have turned out the house lights. He was standing right here with them when it happened.
Besides, there was something else.
“Jack, whoever hit you took the box from me. It’s gone.”
“What!” Now Jack was really fired up and Miranda didn’t have the opportunity to tell him that the emeralds were safe inside her purse. “Okay. This whole house has to go on lock down. Stay here, and I’ll go look for Marvin. The front door is that way so if you see anyone going by in the hallway, you scream for me as loud as you can.”
“No way. I’m coming with you.”
He took her by the arms, and looked into her eyes with a very serious expression. “Miranda, please. I’m pretty sure that I love you. I couldn’t bear it if something happened to you.”
Those words swept her off her feet in the most beautiful way possible. If only they weren’t standing over a dead body, in a house where the spirit of another dead girl was wandering around somewhere, and where a killer was still roaming free, the moment would have been perfect.
Such was her life, Miranda reflected.
“Jack… I don’t know what to say.”
“Say you’ll stay right here, where you’ll be safe, until the police arrive.”
Miranda was too independent to stay on the sidelines while the man did all the work. That was just something Jack was going to have to get used to. She was about to tell him so, when Kyle and Anya floated into the room, seeming to come straight through the refrigerator door.
“Miranda!” Kyle exclaimed. “Anya just remembered something. It’s important!”
“Hold on,” Miranda said to Jack. “Kyle has news.”
Jack looked all around, and then gave up, knowing he wasn’t going to see anything other than empty space.
“Go ahead,” Kyle prompted Anya. “Tell them what you told me.”
“It’s just…” The redheaded ghost lowered her eyes and fiddled with her fingers. “I apparently wasn’t a very good person in my past. I remember now, after seeing that box of emeralds you had. I stole that. Back when I was with Jack. Only, it wasn’t just me.”
“You had an accomplice,” Miranda filled in the blank. “Of course. Jack, I think I know what these murders are about. I think I might know who the killer is, too.”
“What?” he asked, baffled. “Of course we know who it is. It’s Marvin. What did Kyle say?”
“Well, it’s actually more what Anya said. She’s confessing to stealing the emeralds. While she was with you,” Miranda added, slowly, knowing what an impact that truth would have on Jack.
His face fell. “Just like we figured. She was unfaithful to me, so why shouldn’t she be a thief, too? Oh, wait. Of course. Now I get it!” He stared up at the ceiling, more or less where Anya’s spirit hovered. “All that time, we couldn’t figure out who did the robbery. It was because I kept talking to you about it, wasn’t it, Anya? Oh, you must have thought I was such an idiot. All the times I told you what was going on in the investigation. You used that information to stay one step ahead of the police, didn’t you? You used me!”
Anya’s spirit shivered, and she shrank back from Jack’s anger. Not that Miranda blamed him. What was he supposed to feel, knowing that the depths of Anya’s betrayal went even further than he had ever suspected?
“Forget this,” Jack said harshly. “I’m going to find Marvin. He was dating Anya back then. Clearly, he was her accomplice.”
“Wait,” Miranda said. “I think I have a way to find out for sure.”
“How?” Jack asked, and she loved the fact that he still asked for her opinion even though he was the police officer and she was just a crime novelist.
Of course, crime novelists knew all the twists.
“We’ll lay a trap,” she said, certain her plan would work.
“Using what as bait?” he asked her.
Smiling, Miranda reached into her purse and took out the loose emeralds she had dumped there after she had retrieved their box from floor. “These. The thief took the box, but I had already emptied these out. The killer will figure that out soon enough. But if we tell them where to find the emeralds, I bet they come looking.”
Jack looked from the jewels to her, and a slow smile spread over his face. “That’s my girl.”
“Mm-hmm. And don’t you forget it. Oh, and Jack?” she said, leaning in close. “I think I love you, too.”
The emeralds lay in a very obvious spot out on the kitchen counter. Together, Miranda and Jack walked through the house, talking very loudly.
“Are you sure they’re safe back there?” Miranda asked Jack.
“Yes, I’m sure,” Jack answered, his voice matching hers. Anyone, anywhere in the house, would be able to hear them. “No one would think of looking in the kitchen for them. On the counter. We’ll have to hurry up though, the Raven’s Falls police will be here soon.”
Now Miranda lowered her volume to a whisper. “Try not to be so obvious about it, will you?”
“Sorry,” he said. “I never took drama in high school.”
They went through every room in the downstairs, finding each one empty. Then they went to the stairs for the second level, talking the whole way, knowing that if anyone was left in the house, they must have gone up there to hide, or to wait for the police—
“Miranda! Miranda it worked! Come quick!”
That was their early warning system. Miranda had left Kyle and Anya in the kitchen with strict instructions to make as much noise as they could as soon as anyone showed up to swipe the emeralds. Now Kyle’s shouts were joined by Anya’s scream, and Miranda grabbed Jack’s hand and began racing back the way they came.
“I take it your ghost friends are calling?” Jack asked.
“Yup,” she answered as they ran at a dead sprint.
“Well, well,” he said with a smile. “Kind of handy having them around.”
“Kyle has his moments.”
They slid to a stop in the kitchen doorway. The emeralds were gone.
But, in the middle of the room stood exactly the person who Miranda had expected to see.
Barbara Graham.
She blinked at them in surprise, her curly gray hair bouncing as she looked from Jack to Miranda.
“Huh,” Jack said. “I guess I owe you twenty dollars, Miranda.”
“Never bet against your girlfriend,” she told him sweetly.
“Yeah,” Kyle said, smugly flying this way and that. “I could’ve told you never to doubt Miranda.”
Barbara flashed them a sweet smile. “What’s this all about, you two?”
“Give the stones back,” Miranda said to her, “and just stay here quietly until the police arrive. We know everything.”
The smile on the older woman’s face slipped, just a little. “You know everything about what, dear? What stones?”
Anya floated close, pointing to Barbara’s left fist. “They’re right there. And to think, I used to call her a friend.”
“They’re in her hand,” Miranda told Jack.
He arched an eyebrow, certain he knew where that bit of information had come from, but he still stepped forward and pried Barbara’s hand open to retrieve the jewels. They shone with a green fire as he gave them to Miranda to put back in their box.
Barbara clasped her hands up at her chest, staring down at Thomas’s dead body. “How did you know?” she asked softly.
“Lots of little things,” Miranda told her. “
Like how you didn’t want us here, or how you liked to spend your time at this house. I had to ask myself why. You couldn’t possibly have had anything in common with Thomas and Anya. Then it hit me. Somehow, you found out about the emeralds.”
Knowing she was caught, Barbara didn’t hold anything back. “Yes. Oh, I’m so ashamed, but that kind of money could set me up for the rest of my life, at my age. Anya got drunk one night and let slip that she had committed this big robbery years ago. She said the jewels were still in this house. So, I’ve been searching for them for months now. Inviting myself over. Snooping about when I could. I finally found them yesterday. I found them, and I was going to be rich, but Anya caught me. She saw what I had done. She made me put them back and she told me I wasn’t welcome here anymore.”
Barbara took a heavy sigh, and told the rest. “I had to have those jewels. I needed the money so badly. So, when I saw Anya argue with that Marvin fellow and come in here, I decided to make my move. I always carry digitalis with me for my heart. I crushed up several of the pills and sprinkled them over a piece of chocolate cake, and gave them to her as a peace offering.”
“Oh,” was the very small sound from Anya’s ghost. “Oh, my. Chocolate was always my favorite…”
“You weren’t her accomplice,” Jack said to Barbara with absolute certainty. “Not when the emeralds were stolen. You couldn’t have been.”
Barbara shook her head, wiping away tears. “No, dear. That was Marvin. I heard what the two of them were arguing about yesterday. He said he helped her steal them, and he wanted his cut. Mementos from their past, he called them. He didn’t think it was fair that she broke up with him and then shared the wealth with a new man.” She looked up at Jack. “I don’t think you understand how lucky you are not to have stayed with her, young man.”
Anya’s blue aura brightened momentarily, and then began to dim. By degrees, she became harder to see. Her mystery had been solved. It was time for her to move on.
In her last moments on this plane, she floated closer to Jack. “She’s right, I think. You’re lucky you didn’t stay with me. I ruin everything I touch.” Then she looked at Miranda. “Take care of him. He deserves better than me. He deserves you.”