Two Ghosts & a Love Song (Dead by the Numbers Mysteries Book 2)

by Jennifer Fischetto

  Okay, so yeah. He has been out of the loop.

  "Kit is the name of the escort Frank Mason used to see before he started seeing Serena."

  "Escort?"

  "Yes, as in call girl, high class hooker."

  He shakes his head. "No, that's not Carly. She'd never. Besides, she just broke up with her boyfriend."

  I scrunch up my face, unable to understand that logic. "What does that have to do with being an escort? You think a girl can't sleep with men for money, as a job, and not date someone at the same time?" He's a cop for crying out loud. Hasn't he seen all walks of life by now?

  "I mean… I don't know what I mean."

  I pace in front of his unmade bed and hope she and he haven't been doing the horizontal mambo. Then I realize I'm thinking about sex and my brother and shudder. I refocus my thoughts on Carly.

  "She just broke up with her boyfriend. What if she broke up with him by him ending it with her because he was seeing someone else? One of her coworkers. Or…" I make air quotes with my fingers. "Broke up really means she meant to blow up the competition but blew up the boyfriend instead."

  "Huh?"

  I stop pacing and break it down for him, telling him everything Frank and Serena have told me.

  When I'm done, he's glowering. "And you've kept all of this from me? I thought we were sharing information to help you help your friends move on to the light and to help me get promoted."

  I sigh. "We are. I just didn't want you to arrest Serena and Na…her boss." I don't have to spill every detail, do I?

  "Everything okay in there?" Carly calls out.

  I freeze, eyes wide. "What are we going to do?"

  "We're fine. We'll be out in a sec," Enzo shouts to them and then lowers his voice to me. "We're going to pretend all is fine because we don't know for sure it's not. Then tomorrow I'm going to look into her activity over the past few months, and I'll prove she's innocent."

  I bite my lower lip. "And if she's not?"

  He sucks in a deep breath. "Then I'll have to arrest her."

  "Can you do that?"

  He looks off for a moment. "Yeah. If she created a bomb to kill a person, I can definitely arrest her."

  I let out a breath. Good. "But how am I going to get through the night?"

  He gently grabs my arm and pulls me to the door. "With a smile. You can do this. You talk to ghosts."

  Again, he makes no sense, but I let it slide this time. I can do this. I'll just keep my mouth stuffed with food. I'm good at that. And maybe I'll fake illness. Hopefully she won't take offense if I suggest something she cooked has tainted my insides. That's it. I'll put on my goofy hat, make a lot of jokes, and endlessly mock Enzo. That should get me through the rest of the night.

  Enzo opens the door, puts a smile on his face, and steps forward. I don't bother telling him he looks like a creepy pod person.

  We step into the dining room, and my entire body goes numb.

  Julian is still seated in his chair, but he's wearing a deep frown. Carly stands to his side but one step behind. She's crying. I mean, whole face scrunched up, snotty sobbing. Tears stream from her bloodshot eyes, and her cheeks look like she's just bathed them by dunking her face in a sink full of water.

  What on earth is going on?

  That's when I notice the gun she's holding and pointing at Julian's head.

  Feeling doesn't return to my body. I'm still frozen to the spot. But my mind begins to race, and my first, corny thought is, Well, I guess that answers our question of whether she's innocent or not.

  I don't expect my brother to engage in idle chitchat, but when he says nothing, I glance at him.

  His gaze isn't on his lunatic ex and my gorgeous current. He's looking into the living room.

  I follow his stare and see his gun box, on the shelf, open. It's not locked? What is it with him and locks lately? I slug him in the arm.

  "So not the time," he whispers.

  Then, as if someone flipped a switch, all of the numbness leaves my body, and I slump against Enzo. Not Julian. No, this can't be happening.

  "Carly, what are you doing?" Enzo asks while putting an arm around my back and steadying me. He squeezes my arm, giving me the strength to right myself. This is not the time to fall apart.

  "I-I'm so sor-sorry." She chokes out the words between sobs. "I don't want to hurt any of you. I love you all."

  Yeah, that shows.

  "Then put it down," Enzo says calmly.

  She shakes her head. "I can't. You know, don't you?"

  I put a stupefied look on my face. That's not hard to do sometimes. "Know what?"

  "About Kit. I saw the looks the three of you exchanged. Don't lie to me," she shouts, shaking the gun near Julian's temple.

  His jaw is tense, and his expression is dark. I'm sure he's more pissed that she somehow got the gun without his knowledge than he is that he's in danger of having a hole in his skull. I, however, want to cry. How can this be real? Even though Enzo and I just briefly discussed Carly being Kit, it wasn't real.

  "We can figure this all out," Enzo says in his calm cop voice. "But you need to put the gun down, so no one gets hurt. You don't want to hurt Julian, do you?"

  Her eyes widen, which allows more tears to escape at a faster rate. "No. Never."

  I take half a breath, 'cause she can say whatever, but as long as that gun is pointed at him there's a chance it can go off by accident.

  "Good," Enzo says and takes one step forward. "Then put it down, and we can talk."

  I follow his footsteps. On some illogical level, I'm hoping that if she sees us continually side by side, she won't realize we're edging up on her. Her tsunami sobs have to be blurring her view.

  "I'm not stupid, Enzo. After what I've done, I'm only going to jail. There's no sense in talking."

  From the corner of his mouth, Enzo whispers, "Keep her talking," before taking another step.

  I keep up and say, "I want to know what happened though, Carly. I want to understand. You're family."

  Enzo lightly nods his approval.

  She lets out a shaky breath and quickly wipes her face with the back of her free hand. "What do you want to know?"

  "Why'd you set the bomb?" Seems like the big question. "Why'd you kill Frank?"

  She lets out a crazy kinda chuckle. "Frank. I thought he was Thomas Sterling, like everyone else."

  "Did you find out he wasn't and got angry?" And if that's the case, there are many less deadly ways to express that anger.

  She frowns. "No. I didn't know until that night we all went to dinner, when Enzo told us."

  It sucks that she found out that way.

  "I didn't want him to die." Her voice sounds strangled, and the tears start flowing again. "I loved him. I wanted her out of our way."

  She intended to kill Serena. Just like I thought. I realize I'm smirking and push it off my face.

  During our conversation, I hadn't realized Enzo took a few steps to his right and widened the gap between us. I take a small step to my right and catch Julian shaking his head. I freeze. He stops shaking it. He wants me to stay put, and I wonder why? I guess my earlier assumption of Enzo and I staying side by side isn't best. Anyway, I don't spend time dwelling on it. I need to keep her talking.

  "What did Serena do?" I ask. It's pretty obvious to me, but I'd like to hear her thoughts.

  Carly gasps. "She stole Thomas from me."

  "How?"

  "She knew he and I were dating, and she flirted with him and got him to ask her out."

  I'm a bit confused. "She told me she never met Kit. She didn't know you."

  She scoffs. "She knew of me. She knew he was dating someone else."

  She keeps tossing around the word "dating" as if they were a real couple. "Weren't you paid to be his escort?"

  She blinks rapidly. "Yes, at first, but then I fell in love with him. He was so smart and beautiful."

  Enzo's closer to her side of the table, and now I get why Julian wanted me to st
ay still. If she's concentrating on talking to me, she may not see Enzo coming. And if I kept up pace with my brother, she definitely would've noticed.

  "Okay, so she flirted with him and stole him, but if he was really in love with you, wouldn't he have stayed?" Maybe it's a bad move to point out her crazy.

  She nods and lets out a wail of a sob. "But we didn't have enough time. If she'd stayed away, if we'd had more time, he would've fallen for me the way I did for him. I know it."

  I don't bother arguing with her. Maybe she's right.

  "Why didn't you just scratch her eyes out or something? Why go to that extreme?"

  She widens her eyes. "I tried. I called him, texted him, ran into him. I sent her threatening letters. I did everything I could. They chose to not care about my feelings."

  From my peripheral, I spot Enzo move another inch. Julian stares at me and gives an encouraging nod. Okay, where are we?

  "So…uh, what about us?" I ask. "Why did you come back into our lives? Was that a coincidence?" I get the sneaking suspicion it's not.

  She shakes her head, and the gun shakes too, but it's still aimed at Julian's head. Please don't pull the trigger. "No. I purposely went to the station that day to reconnect with Enzo. I was never mugged. It was just a ruse."

  Enzo stops short. He must be surprised by this news. He opens his mouth to say something, but shuts it, probably remembering not to call attention to himself.

  So I ask, "Why?"

  "I saw an article in the paper about that clown that died on the beach. The woman Izzie was accused of killing. The article said that charges were dropped, Izzie's brother was a cop, and that Izzie's sister had discovered the real killer. I figured getting close to Enzo would be a way for me to know what was going on with Frank's investigation."

  How ingenious. How sneaky.

  "I didn't count on Izzie's sister running her own investigation. I should've known though. You were always a snoop and talked to imaginary friends as a teen. What was with that?"

  If one of my imaginary friends was here they'd…

  That's it!

  I look to a spot on the wall behind Carly, so I can concentrate, and I think of Freezer Dude. He probably won't show up after earlier, but it's worth a shot.

  Before I get a real chance to try though, Carly jams the handle of the gun into Julian's skull.

  He groans and falls forward. His forehead rests on the table. He doesn't move.

  "Oh, my God, Julian." I take two steps toward him, and Carly raises the gun, aiming it at Enzo. "No one move. Do you think I didn't see you inching closer, Enzo? I'm distraught. I'm pissed. But I'm not blind."

  He and I glance at one another. The width of the table is between us. What options do we have? If one of us makes a run for her or the door, the other gets shot. Will she actually shoot us though? It's not something I'm willing to risk.

  "You planning on killing Gianna?" Enzo asks.

  Carly looks from him to me. Despite the hunk of metal in her hand that can put a hole in my head, she looks sweet and kind. She doesn't say anything though.

  "And me? You can shoot me? We once loved one another." His voice has a sharp edge to it. Where is calm-cop Enzo?

  "I don't want to hurt any of you. I'm sorry for hitting Julian."

  "Then what are you doing?"

  The gun is still aimed at him. "I need you to give me a minute to think."

  "That doesn't sound so bad," I say.

  Enzo shoots me an are-you-crazy glance.

  She looks around the room, as if she's looking for something. "Do you have rope or duct tape?" she asks.

  Great. We're about to be tied up.

  "No."

  She gives Enzo a look. "Every man owns duct tape."

  He cocks his head toward the back of the house. "There's some rope in my closet. Top shelf."

  She thinks about this for a moment and then looks at me. "Go get it. No funny business. If you take too long or don't come back, I'll put a hole in him. I don't want to, but I will."

  I swallow hard and nod.

  "Wait. Where's your phone?"

  "In the kitchen."

  "That's right. You had a text earlier."

  On the upside, if I don't show up to Zoe's later, maybe Serena will get suspicious. I doubt it though. We aren't that close.

  "What about yours?" Carly asks Enzo.

  He pats his left pocket.

  "Take it out. Slowly."

  He does that and tosses it on the table. It's closer to me than him, but there's no way I can grab it without her seeing.

  "Go," she says and waves the gun at me but aims it back at Enzo immediately.

  I turn and flee from the room. I yank open his closet door and see not only a rope on the shelf but a roll of duct tape beside it. Rope should be easier to get out of. Smart brother. I grab it and quickly look for a weapon small enough to fit in the palm of my hand. But while my bedroom has tweezers, cuticle clippers, and bobby pins, Enzo's is void of anything small.

  "Hurry up," Carly shouts.

  I shut the closet door and rejoin them, holding up the rope. Julian is still slumped over, and I pray he's not dead. My stomach churns. I want to cry. And I seriously want to smack Carly.

  "Great," she says. "Tie up your boyfriend first."

  I stare down at the mess of rope in my hands. "It's too long."

  She juts her chin toward the carving knife beside the rest of the roast. "Cut it, and then put it back."

  I do as told and, with two rope pieces in hand, I hurry to Julian's side. I kneel beside him and gently lift his head.

  He winks at me, and I suck back a breath. Then he looks down, and I see that he has a steak knife in his grip. He inches it toward me. I take it and stick it into my back pocket. Thank goodness I wore jeans tonight and not something inappropriate for weapon-hiding like a dress. See, Ma. Dresses aren't all that.

  "He'll be fine," Carly says but doesn't look at us. She's too busy staring at Enzo. "Hurry up."

  I glance up, and her hand is starting to shake.

  Enzo looks at me, and I nod. I doubt he'll understand, but I don't know another sign for he's alive and awake and winking at me.

  I go to the back of the chair, grab Julian's hands, and pull them to me.

  "Make sure it's tight," Carly says.

  I do just as told, with grunts to demonstrate how tightly I'm tying it. But what she can't see is that I've tied it into a bow and put one of the rope ends into his palm. All he'll have to do is yank it to free the knot. Now his head lolls to the side, and he's doing a good job of making it look like he's unconscious.

  I take the knife from my pocket and stick the blade between Julian's thigh and the chair cushion. The handle sticks out, but Carly's on the other side of him. As long as she stays on that side she won't see it. There is a knife by each setting, so I have three others to grab. Julian may need this one.

  Then I shut my eyes and will Freezer Dude here. I don't care how creepy he is or if he's angry. We need help, so I need him. I'd call on Frank if he and I had a connection.

  "Now your brother," Carly says and points the gun to where she was seated for dinner.

  Enzo sits in the chair and puts his arms behind it.

  I walk around, eye the roast-encrusted knives, and then kneel behind my brother.

  "I truly am sorry, guys."

  "So you keep saying," Enzo says.

  Her breath hitches. "I know it's hard to believe. I just need time to get away. I can't go to jail, Enzo. I won't last in there. You'll all be fine. Your mother will come knocking when she hasn't heard from one of you by bedtime. She's very controlling."

  Enzo snaps his head up. "Don't speak about Ma. She was so right about you."

  Ouch!

  I mean, yeah, Carly fooled us all, she's a murderer, and she's holding us hostage. She deserves jail time and to be beat with a wet noodle. But I'm a little surprised at Enzo's tone. He used to love her. I expect him to have some compassion regardless of the circumsta
nces. He was always the empathetic one.

  "What's taking you so long?" Carly asks and nudges me with the gun barrel.

  I tie this one in a sailor's knot, like Pop showed me, Izzie, and Enzo years ago. She's staring at us. There's no way I'll get away with a bow.

  She nudges me again. "Okay, get up, and go over there."

  I stand and move a couple of inches to my left. I don't want to leave the table. I haven't gotten my hands on a knife yet. "Come on, Mitchell. I know you're mad, but this isn't a trap. I promise."

  Enzo glances at me, and Julian twitches.

  Carly doesn't notice Julian though because she's too busy frowning my way. "Who are you talking to? Who is Mitchell?"

  I stare into her eyes. "One of my imaginary friends."

  "What?"

  Right on cue, my finger begins tingling. Yes. Then he appears in front of me, on the other side of the table. His frown is deep and practically hides the blue of his eyes. "What do you want?" His tone is harsh.

  I point to him and say to Carly. "See, there he is."

  Of course, she's staring at a naked wall. Enzo and Julian look too.

  Freezer Dude takes in the tied-up men and Carly's gun and does the only thing a vengeful, angry ghost can do. He starts laughing. Not a little giggle, but a side-busting chuckle so hearty I'm surprised it doesn't rattle the windows. "What did you get yourself into?"

  "Whatever. Just help."

  "Say please."

  I narrow my gaze.

  Carly pushes me. "Stop trying to distract me. I'm just going to lock you up, and then I'm out of here. I won't bother any of you again."

  It would be easy to just let her go. She can flee and run away and never be seen or heard from again. But then I see Julian move his arms. He's freed himself. And it's possible that during a struggle the gun can go off. I can't lose anyone in this room.

  I look to Freezer Dude. "Please. Maybe you'll be able to stay inside."

  He stops laughing abruptly. "All right." He flies forward and into Carly.

  Her body twitches and then convulses.

  "What's happening?" Julian asks and stands up.

  "There's a ghost inside her."

  Both men raise their brows and look uneasy. Welcome to my world.