Ghostly Holiday (A Harper Harlow Mystery Book 11)

by Lily Harper Hart

  Jared knew exactly what she was doing and found it amusing ... almost. There was no way he was going to let her slide, though, so he grabbed her wrist before she could ease away. “Heart, we’re not done here.”

  Harper briefly pressed her eyes shut before planting a huge fake smile on her face. “Do you want to kiss me some more? I think I can make time.”

  “You’re very cute. Like ... so cute I just want to kiss you senseless.” He tapped the end of her nose. “I’m not falling for this, though, and you know it. Why were you here? Oh, and Heart, don’t leave anything out.”

  Harper let loose an exaggerated sigh. “I couldn’t let things go, even after an afternoon of shopping with Zander. The part that bothered me the most was Luke, and since I was fairly certain you’d cleared him as a suspect, I decided there was no harm in stopping for a visit.”

  “I never said we’d cleared him as a suspect.”

  “So ... you do suspect him?”

  “I didn’t say that either.”

  Harper frowned. “Jared, I wanted to talk to him about his choices. I think he gets it. He understands that leaving Ally while she was pregnant was probably the worst mistake of his life. Now, though, he’s terrified that he’s not going to be able to make up for it. I simply wanted to feel him out.”

  “And now that you have, are you going to stay out of it?”

  “Of course not.”

  Jared sighed. “I knew you were going to say that.”

  “You know me well.” She lightly patted his cheek and grinned. “I can’t let it go. You know that as well as me. If you try to force the matter, we’re going to fight. Do you want to fight at Christmas?”

  “Oh, that was low.” He made a tsking sound in the back of his throat as he shook his head. “That was really low.”

  “It’s the truth. I can’t look away. Zoe is out there. I feel it here.” She tapped the spot above her heart.

  Jared grabbed her hand and moved it to the spot over his heart. “Do you have any idea of what I feel here when I look at you?”

  She nodded, solemn. “Probably the same thing I feel.”

  “I’m a competitive soul so I like to think I feel it just a little bit more than you.” His grin was lightning quick. “I need you to stay safe. I don’t want you running around and finding trouble. Just ... promise me you’ll be careful.”

  “I promise. I’ll also have something warm ready for your dinner when you get home.”

  “Then we can properly make up after I eat,” he teased.

  “I didn’t think this was much of a fight. Do we need to make up?”

  He shrugged. “I happen to like making up. If we have to fake another fight to do it, we’ll merely have to suck it up.”

  She returned his smile. “Maybe you’ll let what I’m getting for Christmas slip during the fight.”

  “Not a chance.”

  EVEN THOUGH SHAWN AND Zander were annoyed when Harper announced they were going back to the park, they bundled up in five different layers and insisted on accompanying her. Since it was Michigan in December, that meant it got dark before six o’clock. While Harper might not have been an obvious target, there was no way they intended to simply let her wander around after dark without chaperones.

  “I don’t understand why we’re coming back to the park,” Shawn admitted as Zander killed the engine to his truck and hopped out. They were parked on the road located on the far side of the park so as not to draw attention to themselves, and it was so cold their breath came out in foggy batches as their feet crunched against the snow softly landing on the ground.

  “We’re looking for Jessica,” Harper replied, her eyes keen as she scanned the darkness. “Zander, did you bring the flashlights I asked for?”

  He made a growling sound before turning around to tug open the truck door. He rummaged behind the seat for what felt like a really long time before returning with three flashlights, which he proceeded to dole out. “Happy?”

  “You’re in a mood,” Harper muttered, making a face. “No one made you come. I was perfectly willing to make the trek by myself.”

  “Yes, and can you imagine the meltdown we would’ve been facing when Jared got home and realized we’d allowed you to wander around in the woods by yourself with a killer on the loose? Like I really have the energy to put up with that.”

  “This is hardly the woods,” she scoffed, flicking on her flashlight and pointing it toward the trees. “No one would dare come after me here. We’re close to the middle of town.”

  “Not really,” Shawn argued, pointing his beam in the direction of downtown. “That’s quite a walk ... and it’s so dark, no one would be able to see you unless they were looking directly at you. When you add in the fact that it’s cold enough to force everyone inside, it wouldn’t have been wise to come out here alone.”

  “Well, I’m thankful you came with me.” Harper smiled at him. “You’re a prince amongst men.”

  “Hey!” Zander barreled between them, his eyes on fire. “I’m a prince amongst me. Me!” He thumped his chest to make sure all eyes were on him. “In fact, I’m better than a prince. I’m a king amongst men. You guys are simply my court jester and lady-in-waiting.”

  “Wait ... .” Shawn drew his eyebrows together. “Am I the jester or lady-in-waiting?”

  Harper giggled as she shifted her flashlight to a clump of bushes about twenty feet away. “I don’t want to be the jester, so that has to be you. In fact ... .” She trailed off when the beam bounced over a ghostly face. Slowly, she tracked the light back to the spot where she saw a pair of dead eyes staring at her and sucked in a breath when she recognized Jessica. The woman looked almost blue in the lighting, and it was an eerie sight.

  “She’s here,” Harper said quietly, exhaling heavily.

  “Well, that’s good,” Zander said, putting his hand to her back. “Get this conversation started so we can get out of here. It’s freaky cold and I want to build a fire when we get back to the house.”

  “That’s the plan.” Harper forced a smile that felt somehow unnatural and took a tentative step forward. “Jessica, do you know where you are?”

  The woman merely stared.

  “Do you know what happened to you?” Harper asked, unsure how far she should press the obviously traumatized woman. “We want to help.”

  “We definitely want to help,” Zander agreed. “It would be easier if you would join us in my truck, though. I invite you in for a conversation ... not to haunt it or anything. We’re still alive so we shouldn’t have to suffer to get information.”

  Shawn slid his boyfriend a sidelong look. “I thought the invitation thing was only an issue if you were dealing with vampires.”

  Zander’s glare was withering. “It could be true for more than one thing. I’m simply covering my bases.”

  “Oh, well, good.” Shawn shook his head. “I would hate to have to deal with ghosts who refuse to leave after the fact.”

  “Shut up,” Harper barked, never moving her eyes from Jessica’s sad face. “Jessica, we need your help. There’s a little girl who is still out there, missing. Are you aware of what happened to Zoe Mathers?”

  For the first time since Harper started talking, Jessica’s expression changed and she registered something the woman said. “Zoe,” she murmured, shaking her head. “I ... think I knew she was missing. There was a candlelight vigil the other night. I attended it. That’s the last thing I remember.”

  Harper tilted her head to the side, conflicted. “You were already dead at the time of the candlelight vigil,” she corrected finally. Ghosts often had screwed-up inner clocks, but no good could come of letting the ghost drift without actual knowledge. “You died before then. I believe it was earlier in the day.”

  “I wasn’t at the vigil?” She screwed her face up in concentration. “That doesn’t sound right. I remember being there.”

  “You were. I saw you there. It’s just ... you were already a ghost.”

  “Is t
hat what I am?” Jessica looked intrigued despite herself. “I didn’t know I was a ghost.” She studied her hand, as if seeing it for the first time. “How did I become a ghost?”

  “That’s what we’re here to ask you,” Harper replied simply. “We want to know what happened to you. We believe you were struck from behind here, right in this park.”

  “Struck from behind.” Jessica repeated the words. She seemed ridiculously slow, and Harper was starting to wonder if that was a byproduct of the weather. Maybe a new ghost had issues when it was cold. That was something she hadn’t considered before, but she could hardly rule it out now. “Maybe. I don’t know. Everything is jumbled.”

  “Okay.” Harper decided to take a different approach. “What can you tell me about Luke Mathers?”

  “What?” This time there was definite life in Jessica’s eyes as she snapped her head in Harper’s direction. “Is Luke here? Has he come to see me?”

  Harper felt sad for the woman. She was a little pathetic, after all, and completely lost. That was not something Harper could focus on given the current circumstances, though. “Luke is at home dealing with things. With Zoe missing, he’s had to answer a lot of questions.”

  “So ... he’s not here?”

  “No. He’s not here. He’s at home, although he knows you hired a private investigator to spy on him.”

  Jessica’s face crumbled as she started making odd sobbing noises that set Harper’s teeth on edge. “He knows about that? Oh, how embarrassing.”

  “Yes, that’s what’s important now,” Harper deadpanned. “We should worry about how embarrassed you are. Hey! Look at me!” She snapped her fingers to get Jessica’s attention. “I’m sorry for what happened to you. I really am. I hope you weren’t involved in Zoe’s kidnapping because it will make me regret feeling sorry for you, but right now I’m sympathetic.

  “There’s nothing we can do to help you but find your killer, though,” she continued. “We can’t do that until we find whoever kidnapped Zoe. I don’t know a lot, but I know they’re the same person. So, we need to know who killed you.”

  “I don’t know who killed me.” Jessica’s voice was firm as she collected herself. Harper’s words obviously had a stinging effect, because she stopped feeling sorry for herself and focused on the issues at hand. “I don’t remember a lot.”

  “Why did you hire someone to follow Luke? Did you really think that would work to get him back?”

  “I felt him pulling away,” Jessica explained. “Weeks before he actually called it quits, I felt it. He admitted something to me one night, and I couldn’t get it out of my mind. It bothered me a lot, but he never said anything similar again so I let it go.”

  “What did he say?” Harper asked, curious despite herself.

  “We’d been drinking and were walking home from the bar. I said the worst mistake I ever made was dying my hair blue when I was in high school. It was wrong for my coloring and washed me out.”

  Harper had no idea where she was going with this. “Okay.”

  “He said that the worst thing he ever did was abandon Ally and Zoe,” she continued. “He said that he would never be able to make up for it no matter how hard he tried. That’s when I knew things would never be how I wanted them to be, although I fought it for a long time because I didn’t want to admit defeat.”

  “So, you assumed he was going to go back to Ally, and that’s why he broke up with you.”

  “He claimed it wasn’t true, but I wanted proof.”

  “Did you take Zoe? Did you plot to take her?”

  “No. I might be immature and full of myself, but I would never hurt a child.”

  Harper believed that. “Okay. We’ll figure out who did this, Jessica. In the meantime, you might not want to hang around this place. I think it’s slowing your reactions. Go home, to your house or your mother’s place. Warm up. You might be able to think better after that.”

  “Sure. I guess it couldn’t hurt.”

  JARED WAS EXHAUSTED WHEN HE walked into the kitchen shortly before nine and found Harper, Zander, and Shawn cleaning up after dinner.

  “Hey.” He moved immediately to Harper and gave her a long kiss, his fingers chilly from the cold outside. “How did things go for you tonight?”

  “Pretty good,” Harper replied. “I found Jessica’s ghost. She doesn’t know who killed her, but she swears up and down she didn’t have anything to do with Zoe’s kidnapping.”

  “Do you believe her?”

  “I think I do.”

  “We have dinner warm for you in the oven,” Shawn offered, pulling open the range door and retrieving a foil-covered plate. “Meatloaf, mashed potatoes, gravy, and green beans.”

  “Wow. Comfort food.” Jared gladly accepted the plate and moved toward the table. “If Jessica had nothing to do with Zoe’s kidnapping, that means someone wanted to point the finger at her.”

  “She makes an intriguing patsy,” Shawn agreed. “She was obviously obsessed with Luke to the point where she was asking about him tonight, but from what Harper said, she was well aware that Luke had regrets about leaving Ally and knew she didn’t stand a chance against the family he’d left behind when it finally came time for Luke to grow up.”

  “Yeah, it’s a difficult situation,” Jared agreed. “I need to think on it overnight. My head feels like mush.”

  “That’s because you’re working too hard.” Harper sat next to him and moved her hand over his back. “Did you get anywhere tonight?”

  “We talked to Jessica’s mother. She was a mess and couldn’t offer us much help. Everything else is a dead end. I can’t help but think we’re missing something.”

  “Yes, well ... .” Harper trailed off, pursing her lips. She had no idea what to offer to make him feel better.

  Jared made a happy groaning sound as he dug into his food. “This is amazing. Zander, you outdid yourself.”

  “How do you know I didn’t cook?” Harper asked suspiciously, annoyance evident when everyone in the room started laughing. “I don’t think that’s an outrageous question.”

  “You have many fine attributes, Heart, but cooking isn’t one of them,” Jared offered. “Oh, and by the way, I’m picking up my mother at the airport tomorrow morning, so I was hoping we could get together for lunch before I have to cut her loose and go back to the case.”

  Harper almost fell out of her chair she was so surprised. “What?”

  “My mother,” he repeated. “Did you forget she was coming?”

  “I thought that was still up in the air.”

  Jared made a face. “Christmas is almost here. Why would it still be up in the air? I told you she was coming.”

  “Yes, but then I never heard another thing about it. I figured she changed her mind.”

  “Well, she didn’t. She’ll be here tomorrow.”

  Harper was flabbergasted. “Where is she going to stay?”

  “The new house. That’s why we bought the fancy guest sheets.”

  “But ... the room isn’t ready.”

  “Well, I guess you’ll have something to keep yourself out of trouble tomorrow morning, huh?”

  Harper narrowed her eyes to glittery blue slits. “You planned this.”

  “Not at all. I’m going to take advantage of it, though. If you’re entertaining my mother, you can’t get into trouble.”

  “Don’t underestimate her,” Zander warned. “She can find trouble no matter the circumstances.”

  Harper was legitimately worried she was about to test that theory.

  Fourteen

  Harper couldn’t help feeling that Jared somehow tricked her into believing his mother wasn’t coming for Christmas. Sure, he told her months before that Pamela Monroe planned on visiting her son on the east side of the state over the holidays, but she pushed it out of her mind when no further conversation popped up.

  Now she felt as if she was under the gun, and she wasn’t happy about it.

  “Get up,” she ordered the n
ext morning, skipping their usual snuggle fest and tugging at the duvet cover as he attempted to pull it over his head. “Get up. Get up. Get up!”

  Jared merely opened one eye and stared at her. “It’s not even seven yet, Heart. Why are you torturing me?”

  “Why do you think?”

  “Did you and Zander inadvertently swap bodies during the night?” Despite the early hour, Jared found he was enjoying the flustered appearance of his girlfriend. “Is this a Freaky Friday kind of a moment?”

  “Do you think that’s funny?”

  “Not if I have to make out with Zander.”

  “Ha, ha, ha.” She planted her hands on her hips. “Your mother is coming. You didn’t tell me, and now we’re way behind. We have to get over to the other house and put everything away before you leave to pick her up at the airport.”

  “Yeah, that’s not going to happen.” Jared refused to let her rile him. “Besides, you don’t have to do anything at the other house. I told her it was going to be a mess.”

  “I have to get the guest room cleaned and find the bedding I bought ... and stash all the other boxes that are planted all over the house.”

  He smiled as she swiped at her hair, which only served to make it stand on end. She was absolutely adorable, and he could think of a few other things he wanted to do besides unpack boxes. “Come back to bed.” He lifted the covers, slanting a pair of decidedly bedroom eyes in her direction. “I’ll make it worth your while if you do.”

  On a normal morning, the invitation would’ve been impossible to deny. Harper was in a different world now. “Get up!”

  “Geez, Heart, you’re taking all the fun out of a lazy morning.” He heaved out a sigh and rubbed his cheek. “Stop freaking out. She’s not staying at the house. She doesn’t care if the guest room is ready.”

  Harper stilled. “You said I had to get the guest room ready for her.” Her tone was accusatory. “You said she was coming today.”

  “She is coming today. She’s not staying at the house, though. I explained what a mess it is. She’s staying in the hotel. I reserved her room weeks ago.”