by Ann Charles
“You only went on three dates.” She held up three fingers and shook them for emphasis.
“That’s because the creep announced on our third date that he wanted to take out life insurance on me. Do you know how weird that is? Why was he already thinking about me being dead?”
“Maybe he liked to insure things he found valuable,” she said under her breath.
I harrumphed. “Or he planned to kill me and collect the dough.”
“Doc’s right,” she said a little louder, leaning back in the chair again. “You’re running some kind of horror movie marathon in your head tonight.”
“Hey, you two,” Doc interrupted our whispering. “When you were trying to break into this door earlier with this …” He held up the crowbar. “Were you able to budge it even a little?”
“No.” Natalie stood and joined him, pointing out where she’d wedged the crowbar in her attempts. “Short of tearing a hole in the door—no easy task with a solid piece of oak—I only managed to dent the jamb.”
“Interesting.” He grabbed the doorknob, twisting it and pulling a couple of times. “Jane must be using psychokinesis,” he said.
“That’s where people use their minds to move things without actual physical contact, right?” Natalie asked.
“Precisely,” Cornelius answered her.
“But how is a ghost able to make a door stick like it’s been superglued shut?”
The sound of the back door opening made me hop to my feet. I frowned toward the hallway, my fingers crossed I wouldn’t see Ray or Jerry appear in the doorway. I wasn’t ready to exchange blows with the former tonight or play any kind of “ball” with the latter.
The sight of Cooper made me take a step back. His black police coat and wool cowboy hat were dusted with snow. His scrutiny of the situation in Jerry’s office started with Natalie and ended at Doc. Before I could ask why he was gracing us with his surly self this cold and dark evening, he said, “Guess who I found sneaking around outside?”
Mona took center stage, waving in at us with her gloved hand. “Hi, everyone.” Her eyes sparkled between her mint green scarf and matching stocking cap, her cheeks and nose bright pink from the cold.
“She wants to join your party.”
Doc aimed a wrinkled brow my way.
I held my hands up, showing my innocence. Turning to my real estate mentor, I asked, “What are you doing here? I told you it was only going to be the four of us in here tonight, nothing for you to worry about.”
She opened her mouth, but Cornelius moved over to her and started scanning her with his EMF meter. “I invited her,” he said over his shoulder. The light stayed a steady green as he checked her out. “It’s as I figured,” he said, lowering his toy.
“You mean Jane’s attached to her?” Natalie offered.
“No. She’s real.”
I scoffed. “Of course she’s real.”
“You can never be sure when you’re in active locations.”
I muttered a few choice words about socking him in an active location.
“Violet,” Cornelius said. “I told you before that you need to speak more clearly for us to pick up your voice on tape.”
I crossed the room, jabbing him in the forearm with my finger. “And I told you earlier that having Mona come was not a good idea. Don’t try to tell me you didn’t hear me say that either.”
“I heard you, but this one already knows.” He lifted his EMF gadget again, inching over next to where Doc and now Cooper stood by the closet door. Natalie had returned to the safety of Jerry’s chair, keeping plenty of distance from Cooper.
I planted my hands on my hips. “What does he mean you already know, Mona?”
“He’s probably referring to Jane’s ghost,” she answered vaguely.
“We covered that.” Something about the way she was slowly pulling off her gloves, as if it took concentration for each finger, gave me pause. “What else do you know?”
Setting her gloves on the corner of Jerry’s desk, she unzipped her white, puffy coat. “Merely a few things that I’ve gleaned while observing life around the office over the last few months.”
“Give me an example.”
She smiled. “For one, your boyfriend is a medium.”
Doc’s mouth tightened, but he didn’t deny it.
“Why in the world would you think that?” I tried to make her declaration seem absurd.
“Please, Violet. Enough with the theatrics.” She unwound her scarf, her jasmine perfume freshening the stale office, and dropped it next to her gloves. “Don’t worry. I haven’t told anyone else that he’s seen Jane’s ghost.”
Doc hadn’t really seen Jane’s ghost, mostly just sensed her. At least that was what he’d told me.
“How do you know about that?” Natalie’s worried expression probably mirrored mine.
“Jane told me.”
My lower jaw bounced onto Jerry’s floor. “What? You said you hadn’t actually seen Jane’s ghost, though.”
“I haven’t, but she’s been leaving me notes.”
“What kind of notes?” Cooper prodded, unzipping his coat. Apparently he was sticking around for a bit. He shot another glance in Natalie’s direction, holding steady on her face for a couple of beats before focusing back on Mona and his interrogation.
“Mostly short to-do lists here and there around the office. You know how Jane loved her lists.”
Yes, I remembered well. Until Jerry showed up, the office was run by lists—from sales and pending sales to marketing and yearly goals.
“Are the lists in her handwriting?” Doc spoke up for the first time since Mona had shown up.
“When they are handwritten.”
“What do you mean ‘when’?” Natalie pressed.
“Sometimes, when I’m alone at work, she types notes on my computer.”
“Like when you’re typing away during the day?” Was that what Mona was doing when she was clackety-clacking on her keys day after day? Writing back and forth with Jane’s ghost?
“No. She does it when I step away from my laptop for a few minutes to grab some coffee or use the restroom. I’ll come back to find a document open with a short note typed on it. Those are usually typical of her to-do notes she used to leave on my desk, requesting I order more office supplies or run out to pick up more coffee.”
“Sounds like she’s still playing boss.” Doc shot a raised brow at Cornelius, who nodded once in response.
Cooper crossed his arms, his gaze narrowed on Mona. I’d been on the receiving end of that interrogation stare too many times to count. “She leaves you other types of notes, though?” he prodded her to continue.
“Yes. Several times she’s drawn a word or shape in the zen sandbox on my desk—those messages are tough to decipher though and more cryptic than not.”
“Cryptic in what way?” the detective continued.
She shrugged. “They’re random. I get the feeling she was sitting at my desk pondering something, doodling in the sandbox.”
“Has she ever left you a message on the bathroom mirror?” Natalie asked. “Cornelius told me mirrors are sometimes portals between realms.”
“Not to date, at least not that I’ve noticed.”
“You mentioned that some messages are actually handwritten,” Doc said.
Mona nodded. “Every now and then, I’ll find a couple of words scrawled on the whiteboard first thing in the morning when I arrive. At first, those messages were very hard to read, as if her hand was trembling as she wrote each letter. However, her penmanship has improved, and now the writing is similar to when she was still with us.”
“Does that mean she’s gaining strength?” I asked Doc.
He scratched the thick stubble on his jaw. “Or perfecting her aim, if you will.”
I turned back to Mona. She’d been hiding these hair-raising incidents for months. What kind of a friend was I not to have realized something was going on behind the scenes? I’d been so caught up in
my wacky world full of asshole detectives, jerkoff exes, and deadly others that I had missed the signs. Then again, I had noticed more tension in her, but I’d figured it was due to her attraction to Jerry, not because her dead friend was sending her ghostly messages from the other side.
In the future, I needed to pay more attention to signals I detected, watch more closely for obscure clues. “How come you didn’t say anything before about these notes from Jane?”
Her brows pinched. “At first I thought that maybe I was seeing things. I was still pretty upset about losing my good friend, her funeral only days past. But when the messages continued, I started researching messages from beyond. I read an article written by a paranormal investigator about a woman who thought she was being haunted by her recently deceased husband. She talked of similar events—cryptic love notes carved on her headboard, a bouquet of her favorite flowers left on the kitchen table, the scent of his cologne on the pillow next to her in the morning. You know, ghostly activities similar in some ways to what I was experiencing here with Jane.”
“Damn, that’s so sad,” Natalie said. “It reminds me of the pottery wheel scene from Ghost.”
“It was heartbreaking to read about the poor widow,” Mona agreed. “Upon further investigation, though, it turned out she was responsible for all of the so-called paranormal activity in her house.”
“A form of poltergeist activity,” Cornelius clarified.
“That was the investigator’s theory. Their hidden cameras showed the woman moving around the house in the night as if in a catatonic state.” Mona clasped her hands together. “Anyway, for some time after that, I wasn’t sure if I was doing these things myself, acting out in a grief-stricken, zombified state. The feeling of losing one’s mind is not something you openly share with your coworkers.” She looked at me, a hint of sadness in her eyes. “Not even when they are your friends.”
Boy howdy! I knew what she was talking about, having been in the same sinking boat myself with Prudence and Wilda Hessler, and then this Executioner gig. “You came clean with Cornelius, though.”
At her nod, Cooper asked, “What changed?”
“First, Jerry started seeing things, too. He wasn’t as apprehensive about the sightings, talking openly to me about the items Jane was moving around in his office. Then he called in reinforcements.”
She focused on our upstairs neighbor, who was now fiddling with one of his hand-held recorders. “One morning last week, Cornelius and I were sharing coffee out front. He told me there’d been a lot of electromagnetic energy spikes during the night, especially near my desk. He mentioned noticing a floral-scented perfume in the air. The next day, I brought him the bottle of perfume I’d taken off Jane’s dresser after her funeral, something to remember her by. One sniff and he declared it a match.”
“Why didn’t you tell me about this last week, Cornelius?” I asked.
“Ms. Hollister requested I remain quiet about her spectral interactions.”
“Does Jerry know about any of this other stuff you’ve been experiencing?” Natalie asked. “The notes and messages?”
“No. He is only aware of her tendency to mess up his office.”
I paced in front of Jerry’s desk. “Do you think Ray or Ben knows about Jane?” More worrisome, did they know about Doc?
“Ray is too obsessed with trying to muck with your career and bolster his, especially after you made the hotel sale. He doesn’t want you to outsell him. Unfortunately, the feud between you is personal now in his distorted fantasyland.”
Cooper grunted. “Parker has a special talent when it comes to stirring up hell with a long spoon.”
I wrinkled my nose at him.
“If Ben noticed anything, he hasn’t mentioned it,” Mona continued. “I’ve done my best to erase all evidence of Jane’s notes prior to his arrival at the office each day.”
Cooper’s radio spurted static-filled gibberish, making Mona and me jump. He turned a dial down without even looking. “Why were you sneaking around outside tonight? Was it only to see what these four were up to? Or did you have an ulterior motive?”
“Cooper,” I sighed. Once a cop, always a cop. “Why would Mona have ulterior motives?”
“I have an ulterior motive,” she told him. “And I wasn’t sneaking.”
The smirk he aimed at me was overflowing with gloat. “Any other questions, Parker?”
“Nobody likes a know-it-all,” I shot back and then turned to Mona. “What ulterior motive?”
“Earlier this evening, I stopped back here to grab some paperwork I’d forgotten in the printer. You’d already left, but Cornelius was in Jerry’s office setting up another camera. When I checked my laptop before heading home, there was a new note from Jane.”
“She’d accessed your laptop while it was closed?” Doc sounded surprised.
“No. She carved two words into the cover.”
Chills peppered my arms.
“What did it say?” Natalie pressed.
“ ‘Stay out,’ “ Mona said. “With several exclamation marks.”
“The carvings are rather disturbing,” Cornelius added. “They are reminiscent of the scrawls I saw inside a haunted prison in Missouri years ago.”
“She must mean the cellar,” Natalie said.
“When Cornelius saw the carvings, he insisted I join your séance tonight. He thought I could help, acting as a lure since I have a previous connection with Jane’s ghost. So here I am. However, Coop’s right, I have an ulterior motive. I’m tired of being on the receiving end of all of Jane’s notes. I want to talk to her and find out why she is sticking around, leaving me notes, and harassing Jerry.” She focused on me. “I know you don’t want me here, that you’re probably trying to keep Doc’s medium abilities a secret, but I give you my word.” She turned to Doc. “Both of you. I will not say a thing outside of this circle about what happens here tonight.”
“What’s the plan, then?” Natalie glanced from Doc to Cooper, pausing on the latter long enough to size him up and down and all around. “Are you guys going to have Mona sit in the center of the room, like Vi did in Harvey’s barn?”
“You guys held a séance at Willis’ ranch?” Mona hit me with raised eyebrows. “Violet, you and I need to have a long talk about some of your properties.”
Mona had heard enough for now. It was one thing for her to think I could see ghosts. Finding out I was a killer might not make her eyes light up quite so much. Besides, Harvey’s barn dance was nothing compared to the galas I’d had at Prudence’s place.
I glared at Natalie. “Way to spill the beans, bucket mouth.”
“It’s a dangerous idea to include Mona in this operation.” Cooper took his wide-legged cop stance, shooting a scowl my way. “With Parker in attendance, there’s always the possibility for shit to go sideways on us and somebody end up hurt.”
“Are you going to start whining about your black eye again?” I shot back, patting my pockets. “Dang, I left my teeny-tiny violin at home, or I’d play you a sad song.”
Cooper and I locked glares until Doc waved his hand between us. “Come on, you two. Kiss and make up. We have work to do.”
Mona looked around the room, rubbing her hands together. “Now, what do you need from me to get things started? Should I get the candles we keep under the bathroom sink for power outages?”
“I really don’t—” I started to say.
“Parker, shut up,” Cooper said.
“Rude,” I snapped back. “You need to take a lesson on—”
“I’m serious, be quiet.” He cocked his head to the side, taking a step toward the doorway. “Do you hear that, Nyce?”
We all stilled, listening.
Something was beeping. Cooper eased out into the hallway. “It’s coming from out front.”
We filed out of Jerry’s office, following the sound. In the front room, my computer screen flashed on and off like a beacon.
Mona lowered into my chair. “That’s weird.
Have you been having any problems with your computer lately, Vi?”
“No.” I looked at Doc. “Is it Jane?”
He sniffed, searching the room. “I’m picking up traces. Coop, do you see her?”
I sniffed, too. The room smelled normal to me, a combination of varnish, stale coffee, and old building.
Cooper scanned the lowly lit room. “No, everything looks cl—” His gaze snapped back to the hallway. “There’s something moving at the edge of the shadows past Jerry’s office door.”
Why was Jane keeping her distance? Was she shy? Or was there something more ominous behind her avoidance?
My screen stopped flashing, staying lit.
“Jesus, Parker.” Cooper took a closer look at the screen. “Your desktop is as messy as your hair in the morning.”
I held my fist out toward him. “Keep it up, Cooper, and I’ll give your buddies down at the station another reason to poke fun at you.”
My screen was filled to the edges with icons representing file folders, documents, and applications. I liked to have everything spread out in front of me, not tucked away all neat and tidy like the anal detective probably did.
“Look,” Doc said, pointing at it. “The icons are disappearing.”
We all leaned in, watching over Mona’s shoulders. The buzz of the one fluorescent bulb lit over Ben’s desk seemed especially loud, the atmosphere charged.
One by one, the icons on my screen faded away, until there was only one folder icon left. It had no title.
“Should I open it?” Mona asked.
“Yes,” I whispered.
She moved the cursor over the icon and double-clicked. Inside the folder were two image files and one video.
“Do you want to do the honors?” she asked me. “It’s your computer.”
“You do it. She was your friend a lot longer than she was my boss. Besides, I have a feeling this message is for you as much as it is for me.”
“Okay,” Mona said. “Here goes.”
She viewed the first image. It contained a slightly blurred, grainy image of a symbol that appeared to be carved into a stone. Or was that a wall? It was hard to tell from the photo alone. The symbol was a long skinny diamond with two lines crossing in the middle, looking like a kite, giving the diamond a 3-D appearance.