by Beth Ciotta
Other ImaJinn Titles by Beth Ciotta and Cynthia Valero
Scandalous Spirits
Knight of My Dreams
Kindred Sprits
by
Beth Ciotta and Cynthia Valero
ImaJinn Books
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons (living or dead), events or locations is entirely coincidental.
ImaJinn Books
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Memphis, TN 38130
Ebook ISBN: 978-1-61026-059-6
Print ISBN: 978-1-893896-34-5
ImaJinn Books is an Imprint of BelleBooks, Inc.
Copyright © 2003 by Beth Ciotta & Cynthia Valero
Printed and bound in the United States of America.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.
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Cover design by EJR Digital Art
Interior design: Hank Smith
Photo/Art credits:
Biplane © Efbee | fotolia.com
Clouds © Kagenmi | fotolia.com
Couple © vgstudio | fotolia.com
:Eski:01:
Dedication
For my mom, Judith Lynn Ensley, who taught me to put the pedal to the metal, both on the road and in life. For my grandma, Florence Klimback, who taught me to never stop long enough to let the dust settle.
—Cynthia
To my mom, Rebecca Spencer, and my grandma, Rozella Childers, the two women who nurtured my creative spirit and encouraged me to reach for the stars.
—Beth
We both would especially like to thank Michael Peteani (8811 Romeo) for his aviation expertise and for allowing us to take the “wheel” of his single-engine Bellanca.
Prologue
“IZZY, DON’T!”
Isadora Van Buren, heiress cum flapper, resident poltergeist, grinned in league with the devil as she swooped down on the bent-over construction worker and pinched his derriere. Her doe eyes widened. “So firm!”
The muscle-armed handyman wheeled around. “Was that you, Bob?”
Bob looked over at José from his sawhorse. “Was that me what?”
Bulging biceps looked around the decaying room, noting the tarp-covered furniture, dust motes floating in the rays of sun. And Bob—who stood a good two feet away. “Never mind.”
José bent down again.
James, the youngest of the scandalous Van Buren ghosts, flew over to his sister, a blur of kinetic energy. “Cut it out, Izzy! You’ll make trouble for Professor Bookman.”
She fluffed her sleek bobbed hair and sniffed. “He could use some trouble. It’s been duller than death around here. I’m glad he sprained his ankle. If his big foot hadn’t busted through the rotting floor, he wouldn’t have called these guys.”
She eyed the workman’s tight behind. Before James could stop her, she pinched José again.
He bolted up and grabbed his hammer. “That’s it. I’m gonna break your fingers.”
Bob held up his screeching circular saw in self-defense. “Move closer, José, and I’ll give you a nip and tuck. Free of charge.”
Izzy clasped her hands to her flat bosom and wiggled. “Ooh, I love it when men fight over me!”
Jonas, the eldest and, lately, the most sedate of the ghostly trio, turned away from his usual post, the arched window of Laguna Vista’s west tower. He slid his hands into the pockets of his pleated trousers and furrowed his brow. “This is hardly the same thing, doll.”
She shrugged. “When you’ve been dead for over seventy years, you take what you can get.”
The two workers faced off, José with hammer cocked, Bob’s saw whining in the air. Things were about to get ugly. James acted. He pinched Bob’s behind.
Bob jumped. The saw went flying into the water-stained wall, knocking out a good-sized chunk of plaster before hitting the floor. The men eyed each other for a heartbeat, then bolted from the west tower, their boots devouring the creaky steps that led down to the first floor. Seconds later the front door slammed.
Izzy giggled. “You pinched a man’s butt.”
James frowned. “Only to save it. You had those two ready to kill each other.”
Bee-stung lips twitching with delight, Izzy whipped off a hideous plastic tarp and stretched out on the threadbare indigo settee. “You’ve never fought over a woman?”
Jonas smiled. “I hate to break it to you, doll, but those fellows weren’t fighting over you.”
She threw one arm over her eyes. “Can’t a girl dream?” She sighed. Twirled her pearls. Sighed again.
“Izzy,” James said through clenched teeth. “Professor Bookman hired those men to reinforce the floor and to patch the leaky ceiling. In our day the west tower was the elephant’s eyebrows. Now look at it.” He gestured around the combination bedroom/sitting room. Tattered velvet drapes hung limply from bent rods. Wind whistled through cracked windowpanes. Floorboards bowed against chipped marble tiles. “It’s crumbling around our ears. We haven’t aged, but the tower has. It’s depressing. I, for one, could use some cheering up. Why the heck did you have to scare off those handymen?”
“I couldn’t help it!” She bolted to her feet, fists balled at her sides. “I’m bored.”
Jonas raised hopeful eyebrows. “Might I suggest a change of scenery?”
“Go chase yourself.” She knew full well he was talking about the “other side.”
James thumbed up the brim of his brown felt Fedora. “Go pester Professor Bookman. He can take it.”
“That’s the problem! I’ve tried scaring him, shocking him, seducing him. The man’s unspookable!”
“He’s a parapsychologist, for cryin’ out loud.”
“Hired by our grand-nephew to solve whatever mystery has you and me and Jonas chained to Laguna Vista. To help us cross over to the next plane, blah, blah, blah,” she mimicked. “A waste of money.” Besides, she didn’t want to cross over. She preferred Limbo to Hades, thank you very much.
“You’re just scared,” James said.
“And stubborn,” Jonas added. “Let it go, Izzy. Whatever regret you’re clinging to, come to terms with it and let it go. I can almost guarantee you won’t end up dancing with the devil.”
“‘Almost,’” she grumbled. “How reassuring.”
“Jonas cheated on his wife, and he’s not going to Hell,” James said. “I’d say you’re in fair shape, sis. So you drank. So you slept around. Big deal. It’s not as if you hurt anyone. Not intentionally.”
She turned her back on her brothers and lit a Chesterfield, hoping they wouldn’t notice her trembling hands. “I’m thinking you’re right, Jimmy,” she said in a chipper voice. “I should have shown some restraint. I should have toyed with those handymen instead of giving them the heebie-jeebies. Then again, as Jonas has pointed out time and again, restraint is not one of my most glowing attributes.” She blew out a stream of smoke and sighed. “I suppose I could swap the professor’s toothpaste with his muscle ointment. That could be fun.
”
Jonas sighed.
James groaned.
She distracted herself by remembering better days. To think that Laguna Vista, the former summer home of their parents, department store tycoon J. B. Van Buren and his socialite wife, Ella, had once been the high-society playground for some of America’s most popular celebrities. Not to mention occasional politicians and assorted European dignitaries.
Now the deteriorating mansion belonged to Jonas’s grandson, Marcus Van Buren, the reigning CEO of the family empire. Marcus, unlike his father and grandfather, was a bit of a stuffed shirt. Although he’d inherited Laguna Vista over thirty years ago, he hadn’t spent the night until recently. That he’d stayed away so long had struck her as the ultimate snub. She was, however, willing to forgive her grand-nephew. He was family. Family stuck together. Besides, he’d married that ghost-busting tomato, Daisy Malone. Izzy didn’t appreciate the woman’s attempts to help them cross over, but she did welcome the frequent visits of Daisy’s numerous brothers and sisters.
Then there was Rufus Sinclair, Marcus’s personal assistant. Handsome, muscular, he was the cat’s meow. But Marcus and Daisy were on their honeymoon, Daisy’s family had stopped coming around, and Rufus, to her dismay, hadn’t been back since the wedding. That left Professor Bookman, a man hell-bent on helping the infamous Van Buren siblings move on.
Izzy didn’t want to move on. She wanted to go back. Wanted to do it all again. She’d enjoyed five glorious, hell-raising summers under this terra-cotta roof. Sure, there’d been some bad times, but they’d been few and far between, and Izzy refused to dwell on anything sad. Though, she had to admit, every now and again, she did reflect on one particular evening in 1928. The night Jimmy accidentally drove the family’s luxury automobile off a bridge, ending his fast-lane life along with hers and Jonas’s. Kind of hard to blot that out.
It seemed like yesterday instead of seventy-odd years past. She’d talked Jonas and Jimmy into accompanying her to Purgatory, one of her favorite speakeasies, two nights before her thirtieth birthday. Some might say she’d been selfish, dragging Jonas away from his wife and one of her silly dinner parties, stealing Jimmy away from his weekly poker game, but she was turning thirty. And she had no lover. No husband. No prospects. De-press-ing! And who better to cheer her up than her brothers?
Several hours later they’d staggered out of the juice joint hopped up on hooch and laughing like hyenas. Okay, maybe they should’ve called a cab instead of letting Jimmy drive. But Jimmy was only half-screwed. He could find his way home blindfolded. In hindsight, she supposed she shouldn’t have picked a fight with Jonas while Jimmy was trying to concentrate on the road. It was foggy, and Jimmy had a lead foot. But she had been desperate to keep her mind off her approaching birthday. Next thing she knew—crash! splash!—the Pierce was sinking to the bottom of the bay, and they were swimming with the fishes.
One moment they’d been arguing over who was going to take the World Series. The next they were free-floating twenty feet over the murky water, looking on as a fleet of gumshoes fished the dented Pierce-Arrow out of the bay. Seeing their lifeless bodies being pulled from the car had been a shocker. How could they be dead when they felt so alive? And if they were dead, shouldn’t they be in Heaven or Hell or . . . something?
Then it occurred to them. What if they were ghosts? They’d spent three minutes laughing over the swell pranks they’d get over on their cousins, then a sober second realizing the impact of their deaths on their loved ones. In the wiggle of an eel’s hips, a colorful whirlwind sucked them up and dumped them within the grieving walls of Laguna Vista.
They’d been stuck here ever since—a problem Jonas had been trying to rectify for more than seventy years. Last month he’d finally made major progress. Prompted by his grandson’s visit, he’d owned up to his scandalous past. Earned his ticket North. An angel named Mr. Newborne had even come to show him the way, arriving via that same multicolored whirlwind. But Jonas, the devoted sap, had refused to go anywhere without his brother and sister. All for one and one for all. Their childhood motto. He was waiting for Izzy and Jimmy to own up to their biggest regrets. Of course, that meant having to stew on past mistakes. As if she was going to do that.
James cleared his throat. “Speak of the devil,” he said as Professor Thaddeus Bookman limped into the room.
Bookman frowned, then pushed his wire-rimmed glasses farther up his nose. He couldn’t see the trio (only because they didn’t want to be seen), but it didn’t matter. He often talked to them anyway. He was calm as always, despite their latest shenanigans, as he picked up the saw.
Then, facing the room in general, he said, “I leave for five minutes, and look what happens. I thought I could trust you, at least where Marcus is concerned. You know he wants to move in here with Daisy. You know he hates media attention. Now I’ll have to call Sinclair to come down to make sure this stays out of the papers.”
“Rufus!” Izzy squealed. Oh, how she missed that handsome sheik. He made her feel so alive! “See?” she said to James. “No good deed goes unrewarded.”
Looking at the hole the flying saw had bashed in the wall, Bookman shook his head. Then he bent forward for a closer look, peering through the hole.
James waved his hands in warning. “No, Izzy!”
But she was already on the move. “Hot dog!” With a devilish gleam in her eye, she pinched Bookman’s rear, causing him to bang his head on a beam. But he didn’t turn. Instead, he applied the saw to the wall and made the hole bigger.
She narrowed her kohl-lined eyes. What in the world . . . ?
A minute or two later, he knocked away the plasterboard and dragged a dusty steamer trunk from behind the false wall. Two more trunks waited to be rescued from the darkness.
James whistled. “I forgot about those.”
Jonas floated closer for a better look. “Me, too.”
Izzy shrank back, her good humor cut short.
Bookman fiddled with the latches. James and Jonas flanked the trunk.
“Get a wiggle on, Izzy,” James said. “Here are our lives. Postcards. Love letters. Keepsakes. Let’s see whose trunk it is.”
She didn’t move. Couldn’t move. Please don’t let it be mine.
The latch popped open. Bookman lifted the lid. White boa feathers fluttered into the air. “It’s yours.” James waved her over. “Come take a look. Remember what that angel fellow said. We’re stuck here until we figure out what moral bungle landed us in spiritual Limbo. Maybe this trunk holds a clue that’ll jog your memory.”
“Maybe you should lay off,” she grumbled. She snuffed out her fag, then plucked at the fringe of her knee-grazing dress. “Maybe you should respect my privacy.”
Bookman held up an old photograph. James eyed it. “Hey, it’s Grace.”
Izzy sucked in a choked breath. A surge of anxious energy zapped the air.
James and Jonas looked at one another. “Grace LaRue,” they said in unison.
James punctuated the air with a finger. “That’s it! Izzy’s unresolved issue, or whatever the heck Mr. Newborne called it, has something to do with Grace.”
The mention of the heavenly escort’s name in conjunction with her friend’s sent a shiver down Izzy’s spine. She flew over and snatched the photograph from Bookman’s fingers. “Mind your own beeswax.”
Unperturbed, Bookman reached into the trunk and pulled out another photograph. He squinted. Adjusted his glasses. Widened his eyes. “Oh, my.”
Jonas mirrored the parapsychologist’s expression. “You can say that again, old boy. Impossible, yet . . . who in the devil is it?”
James gawked at the sepia-toned image, then at Izzy, who looked about as faded as the vintage photo. “I forgot about this fellow. The drifter. What was his name? Yowza. I never realized how much he looks like—”
“You’re screwy
.” Izzy grabbed the photo.
“Oh, no, you don’t.” Bookman held on tightly. He spun away and tucked the photograph inside his shirt.
He pulled a state-of-the-art cell phone from the pocket of his dated tweed pants while batting away the frenzied energy circling around him, making his hair stand on end. “Thaddeus Bookman for Rufus Sinclair.” He limped toward the door just as Isadora winged an empty perfume bottle at his head. It whooshed past his ear and shattered against the mildewed wall. “Sinclair? Bookman. Get down here pronto.” A stuffed pink poodle clipped his shoulder as he cleared the threshold. “We’ve got a situation.”
Chapter One
RUFUS SINCLAIR snapped shut his cell phone and grinned.
He’d called Barbie the Chopper Chick, his latest squeeze, for three reasons.
One: Barbie was an exhibitionist with a thing for carnival rides.
Two: He had a thing for exhibitionists with a thing for carnival rides. (He had a thing for any gorgeous woman who’d get naked in public with him.)
Three: He’d just completed his first solo flight in his new single-engine plane and had no one else to call. His boss and best friend, Marcus Van Buren, was on his honeymoon. His mother, who’d made him promise to call the second he landed or else, only sighed with huge relief, then said, “I can’t talk to you. You give me agita.”
As soon as he finished this heebie-jeebie business with Bookman, he’d be off to hootchie-kootchie with Barbie.
Crossing the deserted ramp, he glanced back to where he’d tied down his Cessna Skylane. The sleek white body gleamed in the sun. Burgundy and taupe stripes slashed the sides, curving and racing to the tail. Daring. Whimsical. Fast. His body tingled. He felt so alive. Ready to take on the world. Even ghostly Isadora Van Buren.
The thought of the horny, doe-eyed flapper had Rufus fighting a sudden urge to hightail it back to the plane. The Cessna, unlike Izzy, handled like a dream. It wasn’t that he hated Izzy. She couldn’t help having the hots for him. Women always had the hots for him. He hated that Izzy was a ghost who had the hots for him. He’d never forget the time she’d shoved him into a closet and clutched his package with ice-cold fingers. He’d sworn that moment never again to step foot inside Laguna Vista.