Jimmy bent over him and grabbed him by the front of his shirt to tug him up a little. “Get up, you son of a bitch!”
“Jimmy, don’t.” Caroline struggled to her feet, but she was still unsteady, dizzy, and her jaw hurt like hell. “Just get him the hell out of here.”
Jimmy let go, and Brian fell back into the grass again. Then he was at her side, his hands on her waist, helping her, supporting her as he scanned her face. “Are you okay? That bastard hit you. Are you—?”
“I’ll be all right.” She swayed a little on her feet, though, and thought maybe this was what they meant by the term punch drunk. She decided that she far preferred the regular kind of intoxication.
Jimmy scooped her up and carried her across the lawn, through the open patio doors, and into the kitchen, where he lowered her onto a chair. He grabbed the phone, punched in three numbers—911, no doubt—then cradled it between his ear and shoulder as he reached for a dishtowel and filled it with ice. He came to where she sat, knelt in front of her, and gently held the ice-filled towel to her jaw as he told the operator he was calling to report an assault and gave the address.
She heard a vehicle, tires squealing, engine roaring, and turned to look out at the lawn where Brian had been prone only seconds ago. But he was gone.
He’d been angry, furious, jealous. Now he was humiliated to boot and, she thought, maybe even more dangerous than he had been before.
Chapter 7
B y the time the police took her report and left, there was a big purple bruise forming on Caroline’s jaw, and her neck felt stiff every time she moved her head. Jimmy was still hovering, and she couldn’t quite bring herself to throw him out.
He came in from the kitchen, carrying two mugs, and handed her one of them. “Tea,” he said. “Chamomile. The box says it’s supposed to help you sleep.”
“I think it’s going to take something considerably stronger.”
He sat down on the sofa beside her, and she glanced into his cup. “Coffee?” she asked.
“Yeah. I want to stay awake, just in case.”
“Ever the protector.”
“I’m trying to be.”
She pursed her lips, sipped her tea.
“You never told the cops what you were doing out on the back lawn in the middle of the night,” he said.
“No, I didn’t.”
“You want to tell me?”
She set the cup down on the coffee table with a clunk and a slosh of hot liquid. “Why would I tell you something you already know?”
“How would I know, Caroline?”
“Come on, Jim. Cut the baloney. I had another visit from your girlfriend tonight. What was the plan? She scares the hell out of me, and then you show up just in time to offer comfort? Soothe the poor, frightened female’s shattered nerves? And then what? I’m so grateful I give you the house?”
He just sat there staring at her, and he looked hurt. “You really think this is all some kind of a trick I’m playing on you? Caroline, that woman you keep seeing is the same one I saw when I was a kid. I never told anyone about that. No one. Not until you.”
“No? Not even the previous owners? Or the ones before them, or—”
“No one.”
She bit her lip and fought with the gut urge to believe him. It would be too damn easy. But God, she’d never wanted to believe anyone more. “My real-estate agent said you’ve been trying to get this place back for years, at considerably less than the market value. She said this wet lady thing was just a prank you use to scare people away from here, get them to sell.”
He nodded slowly. “So, instead of just asking me about it, you decided to believe it.”
He had her there. It was absolutely true. She drew a breath and decided at least one of them had to be honest here. And as was usual, at least in her experience, it would have to be her. “Men have been lying to me for so long that asking for the truth doesn’t seem like a very viable option anymore.”
“Not me, Caroline. I’m not lying to you. I’m not going to. It’s true that every time this house comes on the market, I try to buy it. I actually had enough to offer the full asking price this time, but when I found out you were the other person trying to buy it, I withdrew my offer.”
To say the statement shocked her would have been like calling the Mount Saint Helens eruption a hiccup. “You withdrew your offer?”
He nodded. “You can check that with the real-estate agent, if you want. It’s on the record.”
She stared at him, searching his eyes. “Why did you do that?”
“Because getting this place back was important to me, but the chance to get you back into my life meant a hell of a lot more. Do you have any idea how long I’ve—scratch that. It’s too soon. Damn, I only wanted the place so I could figure out, after all this time, what the woman is, what she wants, why she keeps coming back here.”
“Really?”
He averted his eyes, and she felt it right to her gut. He was hiding something.
There was more to this than what he’d said. It was the first thing he’d said to her that felt like a lie.
“It’s been driving me crazy for a long time, and I figure the only way to get past it is to solve the mystery. Find the answers. Put it to rest, maybe put her to rest, somehow.”
She searched his eyes, tried to find the truth behind the shadows, but they revealed nothing. “This is a lot to swallow, you realize that.”
“Yeah. I do. And I’m sorry I didn’t warn you about her before you bought the place. I just didn’t want your first impression of me after all this time to be that I was certifiably insane.” He smiled, but it faded, and he lowered his head. “I guess I should have been more worried you’d think I was a liar and a con artist.”
She gnawed her lower lip. His eyes locked in on it for a moment, but then he lowered his head. “Why don’t you sleep on it? Check out my story tomorrow, the parts you can verify, at least. And maybe, if you want, we can talk again after.”
Drawing a breath, she reclaimed the cup and took a long, warm drink. When she set it down again, it was half empty. “If you’re telling the truth, then…I owe you an apology. A big one.”
“I can wait. Been waiting a long time…for you.”
“That’s even harder for me to swallow than your ghost stories.”
“Yeah, well, we’ll work on that next. Go on, get some sleep. Brian isn’t going to get within a mile of you tonight. I promise.”
She nodded, finished her tea, and went to the stairs, then paused and looked back at him. “Thanks for staying tonight.”
“Thanks for letting me.”
Caroline was frowning when she reached her bedroom. She sank into the chair in front of her dressing table and stared hard at her reflection. He hadn’t hit on her. Hadn’t touched her. He’d beaten the hell out of Brian for her, even though Brian outweighed him by fifty pounds and maybe could have done him some damage, had he been sober. He didn’t even hesitate jumping on the big jerk. He took her accusations without getting angry, and then, to top it all off, he stayed in spite of them.
She looked into her own eyes. “You know what they say,” she whispered. “If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.” Then she lowered her head. “Unless it isn’t. What if it isn’t? What if he’s really as great as he seems?”
She was almost afraid to entertain the possibility, because if she did, if she let herself believe it and he turned out to be just like all the rest—damn, she didn’t want to be hurt again. She didn’t want to go through the heartbreak, not again.
“But what if I miss out on something wonderful, just because I’m afraid?” she asked her reflection. She closed her eyes, lowered her head. “Maybe he’s worth the risk.”
Jim had to leave in the morning—duty called. He had to keep his PI business running by working the paying cases. She had to leave, too. She’d gotten away with working at home the day before, but a person had to show up now and again if she wanted to collect
a paycheck.
Jimmy followed her to the bank and watched as she went inside, just to be sure she was safe before he left her there. He’d programmed his cell number into her phone, so she could call if she needed him, and he promised to keep it turned on all day.
He was either very special and very concerned or the best actor since Dustin Hoffman. She wished she knew for sure which was true.
By lunch hour, she’d confirmed his story with her real-estate agent and bitched at the woman for not telling her the whole story in the first place. He really had offered the full asking price for the house this time, and he really had withdrawn the offer when he learned who else was trying to buy it.
How could the woman have left out important details like those?
She also got the names of the previous owners and contacted them. They confirmed that not only had they never been told any story about a ghost, but they’d never even heard of Jimmy Lipton. One admitted to having “seen something” but refused to elaborate. Some of the others swore they’d never seen anything unusual and had moved for different reasons. Though the nervousness in their voices when she asked about the wet lady gave away the truth. They’d seen her, too.
At noon, Jimmy showed up at her office door, which she’d left open. “Free for lunch?” he asked.
She was, though she almost felt guilty for taking a break at all, when the only work she’d done all morning had been her own personal snooping. She’d delegated everything else, shuffled appointments, and basically spent the day trying to find a reason not to believe the dream man standing in her doorway was for real.
She hadn’t found one. Not one. She didn’t know whether to be relieved or terrified.
“Sure, why not?” She reached for the mouse to shut down her computer but froze with her hand on it, blinking at the screen.
“What is it?” Jimmy came into the office, around the desk, and leaned over her to look at the screen, where a photograph had just finished loading, a photograph that bore a striking resemblance to the wet lady.
“I was looking up former owners of the property, clicking on names for related links. I got nothing new, so I broadened the search to items pertaining to Mulberry Street. And this came up.”
She read the caption beneath the photo aloud. “Police still have no clues in case of missing girl.” Caroline lifted her gaze to meet Jimmy’s. “It’s her, isn’t it?”
He nodded, then covered her hand on the mouse with his own, its warmth taking away a bit of the chill that had suffused her body. He moved the mouse, pressed her forefinger to click on the “full story” link in the local paper’s archives. And there they read the tragic story of nineteen-year-old Natalie Bruscheau, who had vanished from her own home in the dead of night with her parents sleeping downstairs and had apparently never been heard from again.
“It happened before my family moved here,” Jimmy said. “How the hell is it I never heard about this?”
But there was something off about his voice. Something unsteady, insincere. Or maybe that was her skepticism about men in general rearing its head again.
She told herself to give him the benefit of the doubt for once. “Maybe you did and just didn’t make the connection. Or maybe your family kept it from you. I mean, you were a kid. They probably didn’t want to scare you.”
“But if I’d known—”
“What if you had? What could you have done? Jimmy, whatever happened to her, it had already happened. There’s no undoing it.”
He nodded, but there was a deep shadow in his eyes.
Time to change the subject. “You’re a PI, right?”
“Yeah. So?”
“You have friends in the police department. All PI’s do, don’t they?”
“It helps.”
“Call whoever it is you know there. See if they ever found anything further—had any suspects or clues or anything.”
“I don’t know that that’s going to help, Caroline.”
“Please?” She frowned, studying him, wondering why he would hesitate.
“Are you planning to try to solve this thing on your own?” he asked.
“Not if you’ll agree to help me.” She shifted her eyes back to the photo. It looked like a high school senior portrait, black and white. Natalie had been a pretty girl with too much mascara, long dark hair, and an innocent smile. Caroline thought of the way she’d looked when she’d shown up on the back lawn. That innocence, long gone, replaced in her eyes with a look of need, of longing, and of utter despair. Licking her lips, she looked at Jimmy again. Deep down, she felt that if she started trying to solve this thing, that would mean she believed it, and that would mean she believed him. And how was she supposed to keep a healthy skepticism in place if she started believing in him? If she believed this, then she’d end up believing everything else, and that might very well lead to heartache.
Then again, she was looking at the face of the girl she’d seen, or a damn similar one. Which didn’t mean he couldn’t have found this story on his own and made sure the girl he sent to haunt her house bore a strong resemblance. Still, she felt compelled, and she always trusted her gut.
Her cell phone rang before she got any further in justifying her plans. She answered without looking to see who was calling first, because it saved her from having to think any more about his motives or the reasons for his hesitation.
“Hi. It’s Shawn.”
She closed her eyes. Great. All she needed today was to hear from her ex. Hell, maybe fire and brimstone would rain from the sky next. It would fit right in. “Look, I don’t have time to talk to you today, Shawn. Not unless you’re calling to tell me my money is on the way.”
“I didn’t know you’d stoop this low, Caroline. But you can tell your boyfriend to lay off. The check is in your mailbox.”
“My what? What are you talking about?”
“Look, if you’re tough enough to play hardball, you ought to be tough enough to own up to it. You got your way, okay? I didn’t even waste time to mail it. And it’s all there. Half the equity in the house, half the value of the business at the time of our divorce. All of it. I don’t want to hear from you—or him—or your brother, either, ever again.”
“Him who? Who the hell are you talking about?”
“Good-bye, Caroline.”
He hung up without another word, and she was left standing there blinking in confusion—but only for a moment. A second later, she realized what this meant, and she felt a slow smile spreading over her face and a huge weight lifting from her shoulders. “I’m saved,” she whispered.
“Come again?”
“I can pay for the house. I don’t know what the hell happened, but Shawn says he’s paying me, in full. All of it. Today.”
“That’s great news. Congratulations.”
She frowned at him. “He kept saying something about my new boyfriend. You didn’t…you didn’t do anything to him, did you?”
“I didn’t know you considered me your new boyfriend. Now, this is progress.”
“Jimmy, I’m serious.”
“I didn’t touch him. I swear.”
She searched his face, thought that wasn’t a real answer, at least not a whole one, and decided to find out on her own. Because if he was responsible for this—and she had a feeling he was, somehow—well, hell, she owed him.
“You gonna help me dig into this case or not?” she asked.
He met her eyes and nodded. “Yeah, I’ll help you, Caroline.”
He sounded as if he thought it was a bad idea but seemed to be trying to hide that.
“We need to swing by my place first and grab that check out of the mailbox before Shawn changes his mind and goes over there to take it back. And we need to deposit it. Then we can go see your friend the cop.”
“How long is your lunch hour, anyway?” he asked.
“Long enough. I just decided to take the rest of the day off.”
She grabbed her purse and headed for the door. He stopped her
with a hand on her shoulder. “One thing first.”
Caroline turned, and he tugged a small, flat box out of his pocket and handed it to her. “I picked this up for you on my way to work this morning.”
Frowning, she took it and removed the cover. A bracelet made of alternating clear and black beads glittered up at her.
“It’s quartz and onyx,” he said. “It’s supposed to be protective.”
“Against ghosts?” She took the delicate piece from the box, fingering the cool stones and going soft inside, in spite of herself.
“I don’t think our ghost is much of a threat. I was thinking more about Brian.” He took the bracelet from her hands and slid it over her wrist, his fingers caressing her skin as he did. She barely suppressed a shiver and knew without a doubt that she still wanted him. Maybe more than ever.
“Caroline, I checked with the cops this morning. When they went to pick him up last night, he wasn’t home. They haven’t been able to locate him.”
Her shiver changed in the blink of an eye, from one of desire to one of fear. She stared at the bracelet that surrounded her wrist, at Jimmy’s hands, still there, touching her skin, and then slowly lifted her gaze to his.
“He’s going to come after me, isn’t he?”
“He might try. But he’s not going to get to you. I’m not going to let that happen, Caroline. You have my word on that.”
And suddenly, more than anything else in the world, she wanted to believe him. Please, God, she thought silently, let Jimmy Lipton be for real.
Chapter 8
T hey spent the rest of the afternoon at the police department and the library, poring over everything they could find on the case of the missing nineteen-year-old. Jimmy did the searching and printing up of documents and news stories, then divided them into two piles, one for her and one for him. But they didn’t find a hell of a lot more than they already knew. Girl disappears from her own bedroom in the dead of night, no clues, never heard from again. Case still unsolved.
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