Even if I was tempted, which I wasn’t, I couldn’t have Reva in the house. I’d get whiplash trying to keep up with her changing moods.
“The Bide-A-Way. Three nights. Then you’re on your own.”
She started to protest, and I held up a hand to stop her. “I’ll pay, and you’ll find a way to pay me back later.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
“WAIT, WE’RE BUYING pajamas for Alicia?” I didn’t mention Reva’s early morning visit or the fact that she was, even now, firmly ensconced in a room at the Bide-A-Way motel. Paying for her room might have been the stupidest thing I’d done in recent months, and I didn’t need confirmation from outside sources.
“No, we’re not. I am. I saw some in the to-be-sorted box. We haven’t even tagged them in yet, but they’re brand new. Still in the package, and I haven’t seen any lot purchases on the books this week, so I'm thinking they should have been consignment items. I’ll kick in the consignment percentage, and I’m sure Alicia won’t mind since they’ve never been worn.”
Following Jacy to the back room, I shivered as a sudden chill washed over my skin.
“Is there a draft in here? When David gets back from Vermont, we should have him check it out.”
“I didn’t feel anything.” Jacy tossed me a puzzled look over her shoulder. “But I was going to ask him to look at that broken rack, so I can have him check for drafts at the same time. It always feels warm to me, but that could be a pregnancy thing.”
Or it could be a ghost thing, I realized when I picked up one of the packages of pajamas and it felt as though it were coated in a thin layer of ice. “Who brought these in? Do you know?”
I risked a quick look around to see if I could catch a glimpse of a non-living eavesdropper. Amber knew the rules, and even though she ignored most of them, she did have the decency to keep her chilly self away from me most of the time. She might be annoyed by our earlier conversation, but this was not her.
“Not sure. They came in on my day off. You’d have to ask Neena.” She held up two packages, one with a set of PJs in pink plaid flannel, the other a set in soft, gray fleece with pink trim. “Which one?”
“Go with the fleece. Hospital rooms tend to run chilly,” I said offhandedly as I glanced around the room looking for other ghostly signs.
I'm not a medium or a psychic, but I am haunted. I’ve decided there’s a distinction since I’d never seen so much as a flicker until Momma Wade meddled around with what she called my third eye. All my ghosts have been people I knew, too. So that was another point in haunting’s favor.
Being haunted didn’t mean I had some inherent ability, merely a run of bad luck and a spate of finding bodies. Well, except for Nick Mason’s, but I did know him a little, and I’d been close by when fire and rescue pulled his body from the wreckage, so it came to the same thing.
Following that logic, my stomach lurched. Had someone died in the shop? Or outside?
“I have to—” Right in the middle of Jacy discussing the merits of two different throws, I walked away to prowl every aisle.
“What are you looking for?” Jacy waddled after me.
“Oh, nothing.” I hoped. “Just getting the lay of the land.”
“You fill in for me all the time. You’re acting weird.”
Maybe so, but I made sure the place was corpse-free anyway. You can’t be too careful about these things.
“Let me see those pajamas again, please.” Jacy knew about my recent ghostly history, and what’s more, she believed me. Hard not to given her firsthand experience, but haunted pajamas might be a stretch even for her.
“Okay.” Jacy handed me both of the sets she’d been trying to decide between just as Neena walked in through the back door.
“Hey, do you know, just off the top of your head, who brought these in? I’m assuming they were meant for consignment, or did someone come in with a lot to sell outright, and the purchase wasn’t logged?”
Neena pulled off her gloves one finger at a time, then removed her knit cap before answering. Again with the lack of hat hair.
“Neither. Someone dropped off three bags of clothes and a couple boxes of other items on the back steps. That would have been last Tuesday.”
Jacy sighed and offered a mild rebuke. “We don’t take donations. Those should go to one of the churches.”
“Oh, I think we’ll make an exception in this case. I’m pretty sure I know where this stuff came from and why it was left here.” Neena took one of the pairs of pajamas and laid it on the counter, then smoothed the plastic while she pulled herself together. “Justine Banner took the first offer that came in on her place, gave the real estate lawyer her power of attorney to do the deal, and left town last Tuesday.”
As soon as I heard the name, I put two and two together and came up with the ghost.
The pajamas must have belonged to Felicity Banner, the victim of a hit-and-run accident her father had blamed on Nick Mason. Well, to be fair, the whole town thought he did it, but Dick had acted alone the day he forced Nick’s truck off the road, sending the innocent young man to his death. And Nick had been innocent—or so he’d insisted while he haunted me.
The good of living in a small town outweighs the bad at least ninety percent of the time. The other ten percent, and I was sure Justine would agree, could rob a person of their sanity. Dickie Banner’s arrest for manslaughter had been a hot topic since Halloween and would remain so until something juicier came along.
“Who could blame her for wanting to get out of Mooselick River? She’s lost her daughter and her husband. A new start might be the best thing for her.”
“So these pajamas," —I skimmed a finger over ice-cold plastic and repeated my earlier thought out loud— “must have belonged to Felicity.” From there, it took almost no leap of logic to assume her mother dropped off more than just a few items she could no longer bear to look at.
Jacy’s eyes were wide when she turned toward me, and I gave her a subtle shrug. I could be wrong. “Maybe we should pick something else for Alicia,” she said.
“Why?” Neena frowned. “I only knew the family a little, but Felicity was a sweet girl. She’d want Alicia to have these and would be happy knowing they brought comfort to someone who needed it.”
I felt the subtle shift of energy in the room and assumed that even though I’d yet to lay eyes on the ghost, she’d been listening. When the air warmed, I took the hint. “It’s settled then.” The pajamas went back into the bag just as a horn tooted outside the front door.
“That’ll be Patrea. You two go on ahead and get Jacy settled. I’ll lock up and be right out.”
Once they’d gone, I took a moment to speak into the emptiness. “I hope Neena’s right, and you won’t do anything to make Alicia feel uncomfortable. She’s going through a lot right now. I’ll come back as soon as I can and figure out a way to help you find the light, okay? Can you trust me to do that?”
I had no idea how I’d make good on the promise, but I hoped her silence meant yes.
Patrea insisted on driving. “No offense, Jace, but I’m not tooling through the city in the bubble-gum mobile. Not during daylight hours, anyway.”
Not that the mini-van in Jacy’s signature pink was the entire reason Patrea wanted to drive. She liked being in control, maybe even needed it. I wasn’t complaining, though. An hour subjected to Jacy’s brand of skill and reckless abandon behind the wheel would have pushed Patrea right over the edge.
It wasn’t entirely Jacy’s fault she was a heart attack on wheels. Brian’s father, a man who had spent his twenties touring fairs around the country with a stunt show, had taught her to drive. If my parents had known Jacy could put a car up on two wheels and take a spin around the block, I’m pretty sure they’d have never let me leave the house with her again.
On the way, I regaled them with the abbreviated version of Reva’s visit. The only thing I left out was her current whereabouts.
When we arrived at the hospital, Jacy in
sisted on carrying one of the bags.
"Give that to me." Neena reached for the handle. "Don't you think you're carrying enough already."
"It was my idea." Jacy swatted at Neena's hand and waddled off before anyone else could talk her out of it.
“I’m overwhelmed.” Alicia simply stared at the two large bags of items we hoped would make things easier for her. “Everyone has been so nice, but I feel like I’m in another world.”
We’d followed her to a private waiting room nearby since we weren’t allowed in Albert’s room. Huddled in a patterned chair with wooden arms, knees drawn up to her chest, Alicia looked like a child.
“Has the doctor spoken to you today?” I pressed gently.
“Just to say the tests showed improvement, but I think everyone’s worried. More doctors keep coming in. Some of them talk to me, some of them just look at whatever’s on the computer where they keep his information, and then they leave again. They want me to keep talking to him, and I do, but he’s not responding any differently today than he did yesterday.”
Dropping her head on her knees, Alicia sobbed while I rubbed her back gently. When she spoke again, her voice was muffled. “They think I don’t hear them talking or that I don’t understand, but I do. Most people never come out of it if they’ve been in a coma this long. Dr. Maron says he’ll do another scan today, and he tries to seem positive. Dad’s been breathing on his own since the first week. He opens his eyes sometimes, and his motor response is good—whatever that means. Then the doctor says things about intracranial pressure and Glasgow scales and stuff that Aunt Denise understands. But she’s not here, and it all sounds terrifying.”
Over Alicia’s head, my gaze landed on Patrea. Her mouth set in lines of determination, she nodded to me and quietly left the room. Within minutes, I suspected, someone would show up to give Alicia information in lay terms she could understand.
I wasn’t wrong.
Patrea returned with a satisfied look on her face and ushered in the charge nurse, a veritable hulk of a man with a taciturn expression. “We’ll leave you to speak privately, and then I know Miss Runyon would like to get back to her father. Alicia, you know how to get in touch if you need anything. Don’t hesitate.”
There was a threat in her eye that wasn’t missed by the nurse, and a promise to Alicia as well.
On the way out, I leaned down to give Alicia a hug and reiterated that I was available at any time, then followed Patrea’s stiff-gaited march down the hall.
“Honestly,” she fumed. “They’re expecting her to advocate for her father, make decisions about his care when they can’t be bothered to explain the situation clearly. She’s alone for the moment and needs advocacy as much as he does, and I mean to see she gets some help in that department.”
When we should have turned left to head toward the parking lot, Patrea turned right instead. Then she stopped and held her keys out toward me. “I’m going to need a few minutes here. You can wait in the car if you want.”
Before I could take them, Jacy spoke up. “I’d rather put my mean face on and back you up if that’s okay.”
“Same goes.” Unlike Jacy, Neena could look intimidating when she tried.
I waved off the keys. “I’m in.”
We probably didn’t manage the perfect wind-in-the-hair, slow-motion turn at the end of the hallway, but it wasn’t for lack of effort. That sense of purpose carried us right up to the head of administration’s office.
“Miss Heard. Did you have an appointment? I don’t remember—” The receptionist frowned.
“No, I was here visiting someone. Is he in?”
“Well, yes, but—”
Patrea didn’t listen to the protest. “Thanks, we just need a moment.”
Since I’d heard some of her family history over Christmas, I wasn’t shocked to hear Patrea call the man behind the desk Uncle Joe.
She introduced us first, and as we took seats, launched right into the reason for busting in on his workday. As succinctly as possible, she laid out Alicia’s situation and described our recent experience.
“Someone needs to stand for that girl until her aunt gets back tomorrow. She shouldn’t be asked to make decisions for her father without a better understanding of his prognosis and treatment options. Given her age, patient services should be liaising with her father’s doctors. She’s what?” Patrea turned to me. “Sixteen? Seventeen?”
“Around there. Certainly no older than seventeen. She’s still in high school.”
Even if she hadn’t called him uncle, the family resemblance between Patrea and Joe was easy to see. Older by at least two decades, he shared with his niece the same stubborn set to the jaw, the same brow line lowered over eyes that pierced when they faced one another off across the desk. Her lips might be dyed red with makeup, but they formed the same straight line as his.
He broke first and proved she wasn’t the target of his temper. “Budget cuts and vacations mean we’re more than short-staffed.”
Patrea took pity. “Authorize the staff to talk to me, and I’ll stay with her. There’s an aunt—the father’s sister—coming in from St. Louis tomorrow, but things are happening now. Alicia shouldn’t be asked to make patient care decisions based on information that’s too technical for her to fully understand. No one should.”
“No.” Joe held up a hand to stop the tirade before it got fully underway. “They shouldn’t. It’s not a perfect system, and I'm sorry this girl fell through the cracks.”
I’d seen Patrea in crusader mode enough times to recognize the signs, especially on a face that looked so much like hers. “I’ll see to her. You have my word.”
Satisfied she’d won, Patrea gave her uncle a smile and thanked him, then left him to his job.
“I guess I didn’t need to fire up my stank face. That was ridiculously easy. We could have waited in the car.” Jacy shivered at the slap of cold air that chilled her skin as we stepped outside. “I was expecting a battle, but you didn’t need us at all.”
Patrea scoffed. “Fat lot you know. My cousin’s wife had a baby right after Thanksgiving, and if you hadn’t been there, Uncle Joe’d have pulled out his phone to give me a slide show of the little tyke for an hour. She’s as cute as she can be, but I have a low tolerance for looking at twenty-six nearly identical pictures of any baby sleeping in the same position.”
Neena barked out a laugh and nudged Jacy with her hip. “Fair warning, then. In another month, you’d better stay away from this one.”
“Oh,” Jacy agreed, “I’m totally doing that, and I’m not even sorry. I won’t be able to help it.”
“Noted,” came Patrea’s dry response.
“I’m sure you’ll do the same when it’s your turn.” Jacy wasn’t above giving Patrea a tweak. “I think you and Chris would make cute babies together.”
Patrea paled. “I'm not … we’re not—” she stumbled over the speed of her denial.
“Oh, yes, you are. I have a feel for these things. Ask Everly, she’ll tell you.”
“She does,” I agreed as Patrea’s face went from white to pink. “She’s hardly ever wrong.”
“Never wrong.” Jacy mock-glared.
Patrea slid behind the wheel but didn’t make a move to start the car. “It’s too soon to have these feelings. I barely know the man. It’s not right.”
Neena let out an indelicate snort. “You know him well enough to stay at his house for a week. I’d say that’s a start, and who makes the rules about how long it takes to fall for someone?”
With a hint of her former humor, Patrea turned to me, and we spoke simultaneously, “Hallmark.”
Patrea started the car and pulled out of the parking lot. “Doesn’t matter,” she said, “I’m back to work tomorrow, and I’m sure that will be the end of whatever this was. A nice holiday fling or one-night stand that went on a little too long. I’m not the settle-down type, and I can’t see him pursuing me once I’m back in my own place.”
I remind
ed her she hadn’t thought she was the holiday romance type, either. “Don’t put limits on yourself. It's not all or nothing, you know. And you don’t have to decide anything today. You live an hour apart. In Maine, we call that just down the road.”
“An hour or a world away, it’s all the same,” Patrea muttered.
CHAPTER EIGHT
“RIGHT THERE. TURN right. Right there.” Reva stabbed a lethally-red tipped finger toward the storage facility with huge signs I couldn’t have missed if I tried.
“I see it. Which unit?”
“It’s one of the big ones on the back side. 209. Just go around to the left.”
“You really didn’t need me for this, you know.” I could have slept another half hour at least.
“So you’ve said, but you wouldn’t want me to come here by myself, would you? A woman alone on this side of town. It’s like sending me into the wolves’ den wearing a sheep costume.”
A night at the Bide-A-Way hadn’t made a dent in Reva’s mood. She was still acting as if we’d had a minor tiff, and she could win me over with a girl’s day out. Even if I had any interest in restoring our relationship, digging around in a sub-zero storage area for a box of her unmentionables wasn’t on my list of bonding activities.
I rolled my eyes and sighed. Nestled in the nicest of suburbs, not even three blocks from the home she’d shared with my ex, Reva wasn’t in any danger. Well, that wasn’t true, she was, she just didn’t know about my desperate desire to throttle the life out of her. And if she didn’t shut up, I might give in to temptation.
“It’s that one. 209. Do you see it? 209.”
“I see it.” I swear I wasn’t thinking it was an excellent place to hide the body, or not seriously anyway, as I rolled to a stop in front of the only door on the narrow end of the long building.
“You have the key, right?”
“Sure do.” Reva dug in her purse and came up with a lone key on a ring. “Come on.”
Shaking my head, I said, “I’ll wait here.”
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