Emily's Ghost

by Stockenberg, Antoinette

  "It was a dream," the senator reassured her, cradling her in his arms. "A dream, and it's over. It's over."

  "But it wasn't a dream ... I was there, really there ... in Newarth ... a hundred years ago ... with Fergus," she insisted, only half-conscious.

  The senator laid her gently back onto her pillow. "Shhh, back to sleep ...."

  She shot back up. "No! Stay by me, oh please, Lee ...." She was trembling violently.

  "I'm right here," he whispered, pulling up the comforter that had slipped off the bed. He wrapped it around her shivering torso, but it made Emily feel entombed and she threw it off.

  And yet she was ice-cold; her teeth were chattering. She crossed her arms, huddling, trembling, desolate. "I'm fine, I'm sorry, I'm fine," she babbled, remembering that she'd wanted above all to seem unpossessed to him.

  He gathered her back up in his arms. "Emily, Emily ... I can't stand to see you like this," he said, holding her tight.

  Something in his voice, something stricken and tender and sympathetic, filled her with an almost aching sense of relief. She opened her arms to him, still shivering, and said, "W-wouldn't you know, I c-can't bear to b-be this way, either," and pressed her cheek close to his heartbeat, doing exactly what she swore she'd never do: clinging to someone with every cell of her being.

  He was nuzzling the top of her head with his chin, murmuring reassurances, soothing her, calming her. Her trembling subsided and her emotions, flash-frozen by the nightmare, began to thaw. The bedroom was very warm, and she was in a man's arms, and she was wearing very little. She had an almost hypnotic feeling that she was having an erotic dream, an antidote to the nightmare that had preceeded it. She shifted her position against the senator, wanting instinctively to draw still closer to him. Through the thin fabric of her nightgown she felt him shudder.

  "Emily ... don't," he said in a taut voice.

  "No?" She whispered the word, the tiny word, with a humility born of the nights of insanity she'd just lived through. She simply had no idea any more whether she was in or out of bounds. "No," she repeated to herself with infinite melancholy.

  "Oh, Christ ...."

  She heard his resolve snap, exactly as if he'd broken a branch over his knee, and then suddenly he brought his mouth down hard on hers in a kiss of electrifying passion, holding her breathless, kissing her again and again, each kiss overpowering the one that went before it, reducing her to rubble. None of the men in her life had prepared her for this, for the driving, physical hunger, the raw ache of passion, that Lee Alden was bringing to her. The others were--nothing, mere boys having fun on a Saturday night, she saw that now.

  This was new, and this was real.

  She returned his kisses with a kind of dangerous fierceness, aware that they were dancing on the edge of a cliff and reveling in the sensation. His lips were bruising hers, trailing hot kisses on her cheek, her ear, the curve of her neck. She caught his face in her hands and dragged him back to her, to kiss him again, to taste his tongue. A low cry of hunger tore from his throat; the sound of his passion thrilled her, driving her own desire to new levels.

  He dropped fierce kisses between the curves of her breasts. "God forgive me," he murmured, "I want you so much –-"

  "Then have me, Lee ... have me." She lay back on her pillow in the semi-darkness, signaling her complete willingness. In a heart's beat he had shed his clothes and slipped her gown over her head. And then he was kissing her again and again, fanning her desire with love-words, breaking away for random forays over her nakedness, creating flashpoints where once there were none. He was leaving her breathless and gasping for air, turning her nightmare inside-out with the skill of a sorcerer. Emily was not prepared for this, for the reckless, consuming power of sexual desire; she was amazed to realize that she knew nothing about sex, really -- nothing at all.

  And then they came together and continued to dance to the same frenzied, primal rhythm, until they got too near the edge of the cliff and tumbled over it in a free-fall into nothingness. Her nightmare came full circle, because now, falling, she was completely content, completely without fear. It was the first time since Fergus showed u p-- the first time in her life -- that she'd felt like this. She was falling down, down, down, detached and serene, safely beyond the reach of any force, in this world or in any other.

  And when she landed it was on a downy pillow, with her knight, glistening from his heroics, lying next to her. Lee had rolled a little to one side, his legs still wrapped in hers, and was idly raking out the tangles in her hair with his fingers. When she opened her eyes, heavy with spent passion, she saw that his rugged good looks were softened by the same secret smile she knew was on her face.

  "Is it always like this?" she asked him in quiet wonder.

  He traced the outline of her kiss-stung lips and said, "You're asking the wrong fella. But if I had to guess, I'd say no; we'd all be dead of heart attacks."

  She chuckled softly, but persisted. "Then why was this like this?"

  "Dunno," Lee answered, lowering his mouth to hers in a feathery kiss. "Chemistry. Privation. Could be the devil made us do it."

  "I've never ... this was so ... I mean, I'm experienced, I am, don't get me wrong, but ... wow." She blushed, thinking she may have put a tad too much emphasis on the word "experienced." And was it necessary to sound so enthusiastic?

  He was listening to her, looking more and more thoughtful as she rambled on, trying to express herself. When she trailed off all he said was: "'Wow' is about right."

  He sounded almost depressed about it, which made Emily instantly surmise that he must have been fantasizing about his deceased wife, the beautiful and adored concert pianist, all along. "Were you thinking about ... someone else, when you made love to me?" she asked softly. She remembered that he'd never once used her name in passion. She considered it proof conclusive.

  He'd been idly stroking the chain of her necklace, but now he stopped. "Someone else?"

  Instantly Emily was sorry she'd brought it up. She felt him shift his weight and move off to one side. In the near darkness she was glad she couldn't see his face. "You've said how much you loved your wife," she ventured, swallowing hard, stepping over the new ground carefully. "And that you were still hoping to, you know, establish contact with her --"

  "--making you some kind of proxy for Nicole? Is that it?" He looked genuinely shocked. "How many ghosts do you think are flying around this bedroom, anyway?"

  Whether or not he meant to wound her, he succeeded. Emily switched on the bedside light and sat up, yanking the sheet over her breasts. "All right," she said testily, "maybe that's not it. Maybe I'm just trying to figure out what went on here. Whatever we had, it wasn't just six-pack sex." She brushed a lock of hair away from her eyes; her mouth was a thin, firm line.

  He was leaning on his right elbow, looking up at her. His eyes--so intensely blue, so intensely sincere--lingered on the white knuckles that held her bedsheet in place. "Yup. Big mistake."

  "What?"

  "I'm the world's biggest horse's ass," he said, shaking his head slowly. He smiled bleakly, then reached up to touch her face; instinctively she drew back. So he sat up alongside her, pulling his legs up and circling his shins with his forearms. "This was a beyond-dumb thing for me to do," he said quietly, focussing on his knees.

  "Excuse me," she said, amazed by his arrogance, "but I was there too."

  He turned and looked at her, and his expression blurred and softened for an instant. "I remember."

  "Then why do you act as if it was all your idea?"

  "Because I was the one with the runaway testosterone. You asked me for help, Emily. I betrayed your trust."

  Her eyes slanted suspiciously. Having been satisfied, suddenly he was talking sorry. Surprise, surprise. Now she was feeling betrayed. "You're not my psychiatrist," she said, just to be perverse. "You didn't breech any code of ethics."

  "Speaking of which--"

  Her eyes widened. "I don't believe it!" she cried, jumpi
ng out of the bed, wrapping the sheet around her. "You've slept with me, and you still don't believe me about Fergus! Do you! You want me to see a shrink! Don't you!"

  In reply he blew air out of puffed-up cheeks, got out of bed, and began to dress. Neither of them spoke. Emily stood clinging to her sheet, a Statue of Liberty minus the torch, and fumed over this newcomer to her shores.

  After he finished tucking in his shirt and buckling his belt, he took Emily's tattered pink chenille robe from the back of a chair and wrapped it around her and her J. C. Penney sheet. "Come into the living room, fully clothed, and we'll talk," he said with a heart-wrenching smile. "I guarantee I cannot be trusted under any other conditions. I don't know if I believe in Fergus or not. But I do believe in you." He kissed her on her cheek, then went into the living room to wait.

  Left alone, Emily became rational once more. The facts were pretty straightforward: she had summoned him, she had seduced him, and she had picked the fight. Apparently it was the newswoman in her. She'd treated every man she ever knew like a guest on "Meet The Press." Once they'd got her number, most of them had backed away from her politely. A few had bolted outright. Maybe because Lee Alden was a bona fide politician, he seemed to be able to hang in there better than most.

  Or could it be that he really did want to believe in Fergus? If there was a Fergus, then there would be a Nicole. Somewhere.

  Emily dressed quickly into a pair of jeans and a cotton sweater of pale apricot, then went out to talk. All things considered, she decided it was best not to mention the sex. She needed time to sort that whole thing out.

  Lee was staring at his bound document, but he didn't seem to be concentrating. Emily curled up in a side chair and wrapped her arms around a chintz throw pillow, propping her chin on it. "I'm glad you didn't run out on me," she confessed. "I wouldn't blame you if you had."

  Lee tossed his pen down on the document and leaned back in his chair, locking his hands behind his head in an isometric stretch. "And miss all the fun? Never," he said with a half-smile.

  "I don't have a clue how I can prove he exists," she said, cutting straight to the heart of the matter.

  "I've been thinking about that. For starters, maybe give me the necklace after all."

  She hesitated. "I don't think I should, Lee. What if that breaks the contact and forces him back to the other side of the veil?"

  "Would that bother you?"

  She thought about it for a moment. "Yeah," she confessed, "it would. Fergus O'Malley deserves a break."

  "It doesn't sound like he's giving you much of one."

  She gave him an ironic smile. "You've only heard my side of the story so far."

  "Sure, but journalists are supposed to be impartial."

  She nodded absently, a little taken aback by the answers she heard herself giving him.

  Lee got up, walked the few feet over to the kitchen area, and poured himself a glass of water. "Not to put too fine a point on all this, but: you could have declined to give me the necklace on other grounds. You could've just said, 'Fergus doesn't exist, so what's the point?'"

  She looked at him blankly for a moment while his remark sank in. "You're right," she agreed, stunned. "But that possibility no longer occurs to me. You're right," she repeated, impressed with his fine logic. "I'm talking about Fergus the way I would a man unjustly held in prison: He's there, it's wrong, let's get him the heck out. That's all there is to it."

  "Then there's no longer any ambiguity in your mind. Fergus O'Malley is real."

  "For better or worse," Emily answered with a grim smile. She watched Lee's reaction, aware that she'd just put their relationship -- such as it was -- on the line. By denying that her problem was psychological, she was offering him a good excuse to bolt and run.

  He walked over to the window and stared into the deserted street below. "Hoo-eee," he murmured without turning around. "The evening is not going quite the way I pictured."

  "How did you picture it would go?" she asked, curious.

  He shrugged. "I guess I thought I'd find the loose wire that was making your lights blink; or trap the squirrel in your attic that was sounding like a dead body being dragged across the floor. Or fix whatever innocent thing was going on here. And then I thought we'd laugh about it, and share a bottle of wine, and --"

  He turned around and lifted his glass of water to her in a toast that was only half-ironic. "Come to think of it, maybe I did have a pretty fair picture."

  Emily winced. She had vowed not to bring up their torrid liaison, and here was Lee Alden, already happily reminiscing. How did men do it? No remorse, no guilt, no second-guessing. Clearly it was genetic.

  She was about to open her mouth to say so when Lee pressed a forefinger to her lips. "Just kidding. But I would like to know where we go from here."

  She wasn't self-centered enough to assume that he was referring to the two of them. "I guess I try to solve the crime," she said simply.

  "You don't need me for that."

  She thought he sounded disappointed, but who could tell? "Don't be too sure," she quipped. "I may need a sponsor for a presidential pardon for this guy."

  He laughed his easy, intimate laugh, and Emily realized that she was becoming addicted to the sound. It was painfully obvious why the man was on everyone's Favorite Singles List. She couldn't help wondering: Who would finally win him? Surely the only fair thing would be to hold a lottery.

  In the meantime, she was trying very hard to ignore the fact that she'd just become another notch in his gun-handle.

  He trailed a finger along the line of her chin. "One last time: are you sure you don't want me to take the necklace?"

  "Sure as shootin'," she said with a brave smile. "I don't think the darn thing comes off, anyway."

  "I'd like to look at it," he said suddenly, and when she didn't object, he stepped behind her and lifted the clasped ends from her neck for a closer look.

  Emily held her hair up out of the way while he puzzled over the intricate lock. After a bit, her hands began to tremble. Everything about him seemed to set her on fire: his voice, his touch, his warm breath on the back of her neck.

  "There doesn't seem to be a way to open this," he said, stymied. "It looks like a typical barrel mechanism where one half should screw into the other. But these two halves make up a seamless whole. It's as if they were fused together. Did you just slip this over your head when you bought it?"

  "No; my friend Cara Miles fastened it."

  "Your friend Cara has a genius I.Q., in that case. Would she like a job as a campaign strategist?" he asked lightly.

  The idea filled Emily with quick cold panic.

  Jealousy? Is that what it was? She let out a gay laugh; it sounded horrible and false in her ears. Cara would be perfect for Senator Arthur Lee Alden III: sophisticated, clever, rich, well-born, and a dilettante. The perfect politician's wife. It would only be a matter of time before they merged dynasties. She could picture Cara's calling card in discrete raised lettering: Cara Miles-Alden.

  "Cara lacks the killer instinct," she said, clenching her jaw.

  "To be a campaign strategist? Isn't that a little cynical, m'am--even for a journalist?" He released the necklace and Emily felt the familiar weight on her neck again.

  "I don't think I'm being cynical," she protested. "It's the campaign strategists who're behind all the mud that's been flying so thick and fast -- and the primaries are still months away. I don't mean your campaign," she said grudgingly. "You'll take the high road; everyone knows you always do."

  "But then," she couldn't help adding, "you have an eighty per cent approval rating and a challenger with all the charisma of a pencil sharpener. You can afford to take the high road."

  "I take him very seriously," Lee answered somberly. "He has more PAC money than I do."

  "Lee, I'm serious. Political campaigns have become dirty little mud-slinging contests. I'm sure I speak for voters everywhere when I say --"

  Emily stopped mid-sentence. She so
unded desperately prim. And hostile. Where was it all coming from? After all the emotional highs and lows of the night, was it really going to end up in a boring political harangue?

  It was the sex. The sex was just too good. Why hadn't he asked her to move in with him immediately? Wasn't that why she was in a snit?

  "--when you say what?" Lee asked at last, his eyes alight with good-natured curiosity.

  "When ... when I say it's three in the morning and the last thing you need is a filibuster. You've got a plane to catch in a couple of hours, Senator. You should try to get some sleep." She padded barefoot back towards her bedroom, then paused at the door. "You don't have to worry about me any more, Lee," she said softly. "I'm going to be all right."

  He had his hands in his pockets and a bemused smile on his face. "I'm sure you will," he agreed. As she turned away she heard him say, "It's Fergus O'Malley I'm worried about."

  Chapter 9

  When she woke up the senator was gone. There was no sign that he'd pulled out the sleep sofa or curled up for a quick nap in the easy chair. Emily had to assume that he'd read until dawn, preparing for the upcoming Senate vote on day care. The television was on, which was no surprise to her; all politicians were news junkies. Emily wolfed down a bowl of Cheerios while she watched a snippet of the Today show, then picked up the phone and called the Boston Journal. She left the message that she wouldn't be in until later because she was tracking down a lead on a great new story.

  Even for Emily, it was brazen bluffing. If she was wrong -- if someone named Hessiah Talbot had never been murdered and someone named Fergus O'Malley had never been hanged for the crime -- then she'd better have some other great new story lined up to present to her boss. But despite the fact that Fergus was still nowhere in sight, Emily was filled with confidence, the result somehow of the incredible time she'd spent with Lee Alden. It was impossible to sort out the connection; she needed quiet and serenity and a pot of tea to do that. Right now she had to find the Newarth Library. Any other thoughts -- they were all of Lee Alden -- she pushed resolutely from her mind.