She bit her lip and sighed. “Ex-fiancé.”
“Really?” He drew out the syllables, sounding surprised, in an almost insulting manner. Did he think she couldn’t land someone in Paul’s league? In the hottie department, Paul might not be in the same category as Noah, but he wasn’t a dog either. Lots of women found her ex attractive. She’d heard he’d been quite the ladies’ man since their split almost two years ago – which oddly didn’t make her the least bit jealous. Just relieved.
It would make her feel even better if he started seeing someone regularly and stopped … what? Stalking her? Spider shifted in her seat, uncomfortable with that label. Paul hadn’t done anything threatening to her in a very long time. Sure, he dropped by her house when she was home far too much for her liking, but the man was still a friend of her father.
Odd, though, that he’d been here today. He’d always claimed he hated the food whenever she’d wanted to eat at this deli.
Shaking his head and snapping her attention back to him, Noah reached for his sandwich. “I just can’t picture a sweet girl like you with a creep like that.”
Oh. That was a compliment, wasn’t it? Maybe she’d misunderstood his reaction.
“What makes you think he’s a creep?” She’d thought Paul had been on fairly good behaviour. A bit rude, but heaps better than when they were alone.
He half smiled at her. “The way he was crowding you, for one. The way he ignored me. For all he knew, I could have been your brother or boss or someone important.”
Smiling wryly, Spider took a bite of a potato chip. “He wasn’t always a creep.”
“Maybe he was, and you just didn’t notice.”
She shook her head, feeling sad at the rush of memories she’d fought hard to forget. “We grew up together. I’ve known him forever. Trust me, he wasn’t always like that.”
It hurt to remember the boy Paul had been, knowing her friend was gone. Their fathers had been buddies on the force together, so they’d gotten paired a lot as kids. Memories of their childhood escapades still brought a smile to her face.
Paul had also been the first boy she’d ever kissed. Her first everything. They’d just graduated high school when he’d proposed, and since he’d helped her through the most hellacious period of her life, she’d felt obligated to accept. What an idiot she’d been. Sure, she’d loved him, but even then, she’d longed for something … more. Something to set her heart racing. Someone to inflame her passion. The Eric to her Sookie. The Edward to her Bella.
“Emma?”
Blinking, she realized Noah was watching her closely, as if waiting for a response.
“Huh?”
“I asked if you were okay?”
“Of course.”
He opened his mouth and looked ready to ask more questions she didn’t want to answer, so she sat up straight, leaned forward and cleared her throat. “What’s your favourite colour?”
“Mine?”
She nodded. “Favourite colour. Go.”
“Blue.”
“Been there. Done that. I’ve been thinking pink. Maybe platinum-blonde.”
“Are we talking about your hair?”
“What else would we be talking about?” She twirled her locks around her finger. “So far I’ve done purple, green, and blue. Is that weird?”
She might as well fly her freak flag now and get it out of the way. She was actually curious about his reaction to her unorthodox appearance. Not that it mattered, but it was a big turn off when guys treated her differently because of it.
“Can I be honest?” He leaned closer, a smile playing at the edges of his delicious-looking mouth. “I don’t care what colour your hair is. It’s your hair, not mine. Besides, you’re a pretty woman. I doubt your hair colour changes that.”
Whoa. He was good.
And she wasn’t buying it.
“I read an article online the other day that said it was a huge turn-off for guys when a woman dyed her hair ‘Rainbow Brite’ colours, as they put it, but thank you for being nice.”
“Maybe the surveyor asked the wrong guys.” His smile stretched. He had a killer smile. “You are full of surprises, Emma Fisher.”
She clenched her teeth to keep from reminding him she preferred to be called Spider.
Wait.
“I didn’t tell you my name was Emma Fisher.”
He didn’t flinch. “You’re also not the only person who knows how to do a search for somebody online.”
“But—”
“You told me you worked for Zachary Collins, so I looked up his agency’s website, found your full name, and did a little investigating of my own.” His brow arched. “Not that there’s much to find.”
“A girl has to cover her tracks.” She took a bite of her sandwich. “So, what did you find?”
“According to your Facebook page, you’re one hundred two years old, your profile picture is a skeleton wearing a tutu and a tiara – nice touch, by the way – and you have a wicked sense of humour.”
“I’m twenty-five.” She threw that out there to make sure he knew they were compatible age-wise. “Find anything else?”
“I did get a hit on a picture of the chief of police at some ceremony a few years ago, and I’m pretty sure that’s you standing beside him in a pretty little navy dress.”
Crap.
“He’s my dad.”
“So I gathered.” He leaned back, looking relaxed. Take away the five o’clock shadow and dark circles under his eyes, and he almost looked happy. “Can I ask you a personal question?”
No. No freaking way. She didn’t do personal questions.
She gritted her teeth. “I suppose.”
She didn’t want to be rude.
“Do you actually believe your boss is psychic?” His tone implied he didn’t.
She narrowed her eyes. “We don’t advertise that on the website.”
“I remember his TV show. The Psychic Detective.”
“Oh.” That made sense. “Yes, I do. I’ve seen him do … things that aren’t easy to explain. Alexandra, too. First day I met her, she told me things about me only my mom could have known.”
He frowned. “Your mom is…?”
She swallowed the lump that always formed in her throat when she remembered her mother. “She died when I was fifteen.”
“Sorry.”
She shrugged. Until Alexandra had helped her get some closure, she’d never been able to say more than three words about her mom without falling apart. Now, it was easier to push them out. “I was lucky to have her that long, and now I know she’s at peace.”
“And you also believe in ghosts.”
After what she’d experienced the past two nights? Abso-freaking-lutely. “You’re the one living in a haunted house.”
He shook his head. “I believe in logic. There’s some explanation for all of this.”
She tilted her head and considered him. “No offense, but you look like a crack-house reject right now. You obviously haven’t been sleeping much and—”
“Insomnia.” He rubbed at his eyes. “I’ve been stressed since I moved.”
“Uh-hmm.” She wasn’t buying it. Something had been keeping him awake. “You must believe a little. Otherwise, what are we doing here?”
Noah took a deep breath and tried not to look cornered by the question. It wouldn’t do him any favours to suggest he was humouring her, or the truth, that he was using her.
“We’re here because you’re experiencing something, and that has me worried.”
She rolled her eyes and pushed the last of her sandwich into her mouth. She said nothing while she chewed, simply considered him, as if he were a puzzle that she was trying to piece together.
She was turning out to be quite the mystery herself. Obviously, she wasn’t as innocent as he’d originally suspected – not if she’d had a fiancé. Why the hell did that thought irritate him so much? He had to enforce serious self-restraint to keep from pushing Robocop’s teeth d
own his throat when he’d crowded her in her seat. At least she hadn’t encouraged the behaviour, leaning away from the other man and not responding in kind to his not-so-subtle come-ons.
Noah wasn’t the jealous type; and, hell, he barely knew this woman. Sleep-deprivation was effing with his mind.
“What about your boyfriend?” The words left a sour taste in his mouth.
“Boyfriend?”
“You said you had one.” He’d also seen a man stop by the other night. “Did you tell him what happened? Is he going to stay with you tonight?”
Red crept across her face. “I’m not actually seeing anyone at the moment. When I said boyfriend I meant that I have a friend who’s a boy. I mean, man. I have a man-friend. Several, actually. Totally platonic.”
Some knots in his shoulder loosened, and he drew a deep, grateful breath through his nose.
He thought back to the dossier he’d compiled on her before he’d known who she was. There had been surprisingly little to discover about Emma Fisher considering she held such an important position in Collins’ firm. Here was his chance to fill in the blanks.
“I’m curious, Emma. How did you get to be a computer expert? College?”
He knew she’d dropped out of Georgia State University as a junior, and she hadn’t gone back to earn her degree until last year. There had been a gap in her schooling that had intrigued him.
She licked some stray mayo off her lips and swallowed, eyeing him cautiously. After a brief hesitation, she shrugged. “I started tinkering with web design in middle school. Realized I had a knack for it. Once you understand how a website is coded, it’s not a big leap to figure out how to compromise one.” She pushed her tray away. “I eventually got a degree in programming, but I already knew most of what they were teaching. My professor thought I was quite gifted. I even taught him a few things.”
“Impressive.” He leaned forward. “With skills like that, you could probably get a job working for the government or a bigger corporation. Why work for Collins?”
Something defensive sparked in her eyes. “Because he was the first person to give me a chance. He’s a good guy. Fair. He didn’t care that my hair was purple or that I wanted him to call me Spider. Speaking of the bossman, are you ready to go?” She glanced at her phone. “I’ve got to let the dogs out in an hour or so.”
Half a sandwich still littered his plate, but he couldn’t bring himself to force it down. He shoved the uneaten food onto the tray with hers and stood. “Ready as I’ll ever be.”
***
Noah had only met the gray-haired attorney who’d rented him the house once, when he’d signed the lease and picked up the keys. Looking around his landlord’s office now, he figured the guy didn’t need the extra income. Rich part of town. Full waiting room. Expensive décor. The guy’s business was thriving.
“Mr. West, what can I do for you?” Lionel Carpenter greeted them both with a handshake. “I trust everything at the house is to your liking.”
“Everything’s great.”
An elbow to his side was an unnecessary reminder about why they were here. While he hesitated, Emma cleared her throat and bumped him again.
She sure could be a bossy little thing.
“I had some questions I wanted to ask about the place.” He rubbed at the back of his neck. “Have any of your former tenants mentioned anything … odd happening at the house?”
The older man heaved a sigh as he sank into his chair. “Let me guess. You want to know if the place is haunted.”
“Excuse me?”
“Ah ha! See. I told you!” Emma moved forward and braced her hands on the edge of Carpenter’s desk. “Tell us what you know. Have you ever had the house exorcised? Investigated?”
Seeing the attorney’s startled expression, Noah grabbed her shoulder and pulled her back. “Excuse my friend; she’s a little excitable.”
“I am not!” She shoved his hand away. She straightened the lapels of her leather jacket and arched a brow at him. “I am simply curious, thank you very much.”
Carpenter continued to look at Emma as if alarmed. Eyes wide, he stared at her for longer than Noah appreciated. “Look, I told you in an email there were some issues with the house. I even disclosed those material facts in the lease.”
Noah hadn’t read every detail, just the important stuff. Had he missed something?
“What’s a material fact?” he asked. He thought he knew, but he wanted clarification.
Frowning, Carpenter finally tore his gaze away from Emma. “Leaks. Structural issues. Past incidents at the home.”
“He means murders, suicides, those kinds of incidents. Right?” Emma demanded. Crossing her arms, she moved closer to the desk again. “Have there been any deaths at that house?”
“Not to my knowledge. That house has been in my family for decades.” The attorney gestured to a framed photo on the bookshelf beside his desk. “My great aunt and uncle left my father the house, and he left it to me. My great uncle built the house himself. Believe me, I’d know if there had been any deaths there.”
Noah took a deep breath. He knew this had been a pointless meeting. “I’m sorry we bothered you, Mr. Carpenter.” He reached for Emma.
“Wait.” Emma held out a hand to push him away. She turned to the attorney again. “You knew we came here to ask you if the house was haunted. That means other people have asked. What have they told you?”
Shaking his head, Carpenter leaned forward, his glance straying toward the bookshelf again. “The last tenant claimed he experienced strange things while living there. Objects moving. Lights turning on and off.” He narrowed his eyes as his gaze skimmed her figure again. “I’m sorry. Have we ever met?”
“Don’t think so.” She shrugged. “How long ago was your last tenant?”
“That house has been empty for three years.”
“Empty?” Noah asked, moving toward the bookshelf. The other man kept looking between it and Emma. “Why?”
“The house has gained a bit of a reputation, it seems. Trespassers have vandalized it so many times, it’s been a devil to keep up.”
“Why not sell it?” Noah asked, scanning the framed photos on the shelf.
“My great uncle and his wife were very much in love, and they poured their love into that home. It was written into their will that it could never leave the family.”
Noah skimmed the photos. A couple of blond-haired boys with a woman. Probably Carpenter’s family. An older picture of a man who resembled Carpenter enough to be his father. One by one, Noah studied the pictures on the shelf until he came to one hidden in the back, behind them all. It was an old photo, black and white, of a man and woman standing close together in front of an old model car. His heart stilled long enough to stop his breath. He grabbed the photo and pulled it forward for closer inspection.
“Who’s this?”
Carpenter stood and moved closer. So did Emma. “My great aunt and uncle. Melinda and Harold Carpenter.”
Eyes wide, Noah glanced between the woman in the photo and Emma.
They could have been sisters; their likeness was uncanny.
For once, Emma was speechless too.
***
Holy crackerjacks. Was she a long-lost relative of Melinda and Harold Carpenter, or what?
Sitting in the car beside Noah, who was broodingly silent as he drove, she tried to remember her family tree as best she could and realized she had very little knowledge of it. When her mom had died unexpectedly of a heart attack at age forty-one, Emma had tried looking into her mother’s ancestry, worried sick that heart disease ran in the family. If there was a branch of her family tree labeled Carpenter, she sure as heck hadn’t found it then.
That left only one logical answer.
“Oh my gosh. I’m the reincarnation of Melinda Carpenter!”
“Don’t be insane.”
“How else do you explain that picture, Noah? Or the fact that I found my way to that house after all these years.
I don’t believe in coincidences. Everything happens for a reason.” This was just like an episode of The X-Files. Only minus Mulder and Scully, which was a darn shame. Mulder would know what to do next.
Noah took his gaze off the road long enough to frown at her. “Sometimes things just happen.”
“And sometimes they don’t.”
When he pulled into Zach and Hannah’s driveway, she crossed her arms. “I think I should go back to your house. I bet Harold has been trying to communicate with me because he thinks I’m her. Oh my gosh! I bet that’s it!”
“Calm down. You’re not coming back to my house.”
“Why not?”
“Because I’m not encouraging this.”
“How else are we supposed to figure out what’s really going on?”
“Emma, thank you for lunch.” His voice was firm. “I’ll see you later, alright?”
Men! They could be so frustrating.
With a groan, she pushed out of the car and marched up the driveway. She needed to let the animals out, anyway.
Pushing inside, she slammed the door shut behind her and punched in the security code to disarm the alarm. She was immediately swarmed by eager-to-pee dogs dancing around her legs.
Tossing her stuff onto the sofa, she went out back with her charges, trying to think about her next move as she watched them prance around the fenced back yard. She should do research into the Carpenters, find out more about them. She supposed she should talk to her dad and find out if he knew anything about them, too.
Whistling, she called the boys back inside and went in search of her computer. The cat was lying on it and her bag and didn’t seem in a hurry to abandon his newly made bed anytime soon.
“Abbott, I need my computer. Get. Off!”
The cat didn’t budge, so she tried pulling the bag out from under him. He slid off to the side along with half the items in her satchel.
“You had one job, cat. One job, to get off the bag. Look what you did.”
She spotted the small box underneath his front paw and realized she’d put the ring they’d found earlier in with her stuff. Oops. She should probably go return it to him.
“Ha! Now I have a legit reason to go back over there. Good job, cat.”
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