by Harte, Marie
“The next one will be in your gut. Blood or not, I’m done with you. And so is she. That’s the last warning you’ll ever get.” Finn kept his weapon trained on the body behind Noah and backed from the room before he vanished.
Eager to see who’d been shot, Noah turned. On the ground lay the body of a man, and blood stained his light-colored trousers. To his immense frustration, Noah couldn’t see any more than that bloodied leg through the fog of the past. He could almost feel Cecilia pushing at him to look closer, to use his abilities and see the truth in front of his face. But something blocked him from doing so.
“Fucker. I’ll get you. Cecilia is mine. That whore is mine,” the downed man screamed. He stumbled to his feet, and Noah took a hard look at the man he suspected had shot and killed Finn and Cecilia. He concentrated until his head hurt and wiped at a bloody nose. Damn if he hadn’t pushed himself to the extreme to penetrate the curious vision before him.
Tan trousers, a dark vest over a black work shirt, and scuffed brown boots appeared like magic. Standard western apparel, with the exception of the gun belt slung over slim hips. Noah concentrated and noted the man’s dark hair reached his shoulders. His face remained a blank canvas, which was odd. Noah had never before witnessed a partial scene of the past.
Cecilia appeared and prodded him. She wore the same scarlet dress, the same earrings and bound hair, but her eyes held a worry that reminded him so much of Lara. “Hurry, before it’s too late. Catch him.” Not a vision of the past, her ghost.
She reached out and grazed his cheek. He shivered at the touch and studied the cursing man as he limped from the room and dragged himself down the stairs.
The stairs?
Noah looked around him, stunned to suddenly see the Lady Fine Saloon in all its antiquated glory. Light spilled in from the outside, brightening the scarred and stained tables, over which a few drunken patrons still gathered. Dust floated in the sunbeams, landing on the gnarled hands of miners and men who’d been alone for too long. Men who’d rather drink than find a warm woman to curl up next to.
A woman like Lara. Conscious of the thought that didn’t belong in the past, Noah trailed the bleeding man out the door. He couldn’t manage a glimpse of his face, for all that he tried. But he swore he knew the man, the way he moved, the way he spoke. He’d seen this guy before. Going on the premise that the murders were cyclic, if this was the same man who’d killed Finn and Cecilia, his present incarnation had to be Mike or Bill. Or was it someone else?
“Mr. Fury?”
Expecting to see Finn again, Noah watched the injured man spin around with his gun in hand. Fury? But this wasn’t Finn. Finn’s brother, maybe?
Fury swore and clamped down on his thigh with his free hand. “What the fuck are you followin’ me for?”
The slight woman shivered and held out his hat. “Sorry, Michael. You dropped this.”
Michael? Michael Fury? Or Mike Buckman? The past and the present felt all jumbled up. Noah tried to break free from his vision, concerned because he’d left Lara just as Mike had entered the inn. To his alarm, he couldn’t stop watching history unfold. Stuck with whatever he needed to see, he mentally followed Michael Fury down the street and onto his horse. They rode for what felt like several hours, though he knew only seconds had passed. And all the while, Noah fretted about Lara.
Michael found a drunken doctor on the outskirts of a mining shanty who happily removed the bullet and sewed him up for a few coins. As a reward, Michael shot him between the eyes and took back his money and everything else of the doctor’s he wanted. The few miners yelling for help scattered when Michael put a few bullets in their asses.
He grunted and stared down at his leg. “Fucker.” He took a swig of what the doctor had been drinking. “Little brother thinks he owns her. That he can tell me what to do. Like I’d let that sniveling little pissant run me around the way he does Mama.”
Noah frowned. A family connection between Michael and Finn, and a family tie between Mike and Bill. First brothers, then cousins. Blood. He could feel the answer within reach, but something was still missing. He wanted to see Michael Fury’s face. That he couldn’t bothered him.
“Little brother, I’m comin’ to git ya. You and that whore o’ mine.” Michael took another drink and slumped to the ground, passed out. The bottle emptied into the sandy ground, its contents absorbed in seconds. The sun shone on the glass, and a ray of light lit Michael’s face. In that moment, it wasn’t Mike Buckman Noah saw…but himself.
He blinked and stared once more at the computer monitor. It was all he could do not to throw up. The nausea gripped him and wouldn’t let go. This wasn’t a past like any he’d ever seen. Spurred by a ghost to see the truth, he’d seen something that made no sense. Noah was the danger to Lara? He would rather shoot himself than ever harm her, but what if Lara had been closer to being right than she’d thought?
What if Noah wasn’t possessed by Finnegan Fury, but by Michael Fury, Finn’s brother? That scene in her office might not have been Finn, but Michael whom Cecilia had pleasured. In hindsight, he realized she’d called him Fury, but never by his first name.
Jesus, what a nightmare. Not sure what to do, he stared without seeing at the computer monitor before a name popped out at him from the screen. Knowles Tragedy Kills Two.
Ida Knowles owned the Lady Fine Inn; her nephew Bill remained a top suspect. Or did he?
Stop and focus. Panic later. Follow your gut. He refused to let the vision throw him and read the old news report. Twenty odd years ago, Nancy and Brenda Knowles had perished in a fire. Nancy had died from a fall when she’d jumped to escape the flames. They’d found Brenda’s charred bones days later in her bedroom. Faulty wiring had been the suspected cause, though no one had ever concretely proven what had started the fire.
Noah’s gut churned, his confusion about the past mired with this information. Cecilia flashed in and out of his vision behind the computer, nodding like crazy. He could no longer hear the words coming out of her mouth.
A gasp behind him told him he wasn’t the only one to see her. At least he hadn’t completely lost his mind.
The librarian stuttered and pointed to where Cecilia had been standing. “My God, I saw her. I did! You saw her too, didn’t you? Oh my God!”
The raised voice roused the handful of people in the library, and Noah hurried to close the file he’d been looking at. No need to arouse suspicion about Mike and Bill, not when he had no fucking clue what to do with what he’d just learned.
He darted around the librarian and left the library in a hurry. Needing a shortcut, he used the alley behind the building to return to the inn as fast as he could. Cecilia Fine. Finn Fury. Michael Fury. Lara. What the hell did all of it have to do with him? Noah knew in his bones his history had nothing to do with the Fury brothers. He could trace his lineage back to his Scottish ancestors all the way to the early 1500s, so why the hell had he seen his face where Michael Fury’s had been? Unless Cecilia and Finn weren’t the only ones haunting this town.
He stopped in the middle of the street, shocked at the thought. If Cecilia could overtake Lara the way she had in Lara’s office, might a determined ghost do the same to him? Which would mean that vision of the past could have been manipulated. He’d never run into this before, but that didn’t mean it couldn’t happen. He needed to talk to Chloe again. Maybe her voices could help.
A sound penetrated, but by then, it was too late. In his haste to return to the inn, he hadn’t paid attention to his surroundings. So it was no one’s fault but his own when the truck knocked him from his feet.
* * *
Hours later, Chloe sat with Lara by the register. Frank had gone to find Noah, and worry continued to grow as Noah remained absent. Her lover wasn’t the only one not present. At the thought, Lara stilled.
“What’s wrong?” Chloe had kept up a steady stream of chatter that amused and relieved Lara at the same time. A pleasant woman with a keen intelligence, Chloe had sha
red more than a few humorous stories about Noah and his tendency to zone off into space.
“I just realized I haven’t heard Cecilia in a while.” Ever since Noah had arrived, she’d heard Cecilia’s voice several times a day.
With no one around at present, Lara and Chloe had the downstairs of the inn to themselves. Only the occasional phone call from interested visitors interrupted them.
“How often do you hear her?”
Chloe put her at ease, especially because the woman took for granted that the voices she heard were real. She hadn’t batted an eye about Lara seeing Cecilia.
“It started a month after I first arrived in town. Five months ago, I guess. I’d hear her whisper. Usually bawdy stuff. The woman has a sense of humor and a sex drive, I can tell you that.”
Chloe grinned. “Yeah? My voices aren’t as fun. The stuff they tell me usually leads to a death or an arrest.” At Lara’s look, she added, “I used to be a cop before I joined the PWP. Now I’m a manager for a gym. Very exciting stuff.”
Lara snorted. “Yeah. Your leap from exercise equipment to theft and murder wasn’t as far as you’d imagine.”
“I like you, Lara. You roll with it pretty well.”
“I do?”
“Most people would be sincerely freaked out by all this. Ghosts, voices, Noah and his freaky ability to see the past. You’re taking it all in stride.”
“Not as well as I’d like.” Noah, where are you? “I’m not as comfortable with the voices as you seem to be.”
Chloe shrugged. “Why not? They’re a part of you.”
“A part that made my life hell when I was a kid.”
“Yeah, we all seem to go through that. Me, I didn’t hear them until I was six or seven. They warned me to keep quiet. I tested them by sharing with my brothers, who didn’t believe me. Then I shut my mouth and kept their company a secret.”
“I wasn’t so smart.” It felt good to share with someone who understood. Noah could, to an extent. But Chloe had gone through something very similar. “My parents have always been really open with things. I shared everything with them. Unfortunately, they couldn’t get it. My voices never told me things I could prove. No secrets of lost treasures or the answers to whodunits. I’d simply provide them company. Like an invisible friend only I knew was real.”
“So everyone thought you were a kook. Happens to all of us with skills.”
“You’re lucky to be with people who understand.”
“I am now, but I wasn’t always.” Chloe gave her an odd look. “Noah seems to get you.”
Lara blushed. He sure did get her. “I like him a lot. I feel like I’ve known him for more than—jeez, it hasn’t even been a week.”
“Sometimes that’s all it takes.” Chloe smiled, and then her pleasure dimmed. “I wish the big ox would hurry his ass back. He’s starting to get on my nerves with this research nonsense.” Chloe sighed. “I hate worrying. So you heard these voices all your life?”
Glad to change the subject from her anxiety about Noah, Lara answered, “No, only until I graduated high school. I’d been ignoring them for a long time; I was sick of always being the school freak.”
“How did other people know? Did you or your family tell them?”
“It was a friend who did it. Before I’d realized sharing everything with family wasn’t helping, I’d extended that trust to my friends. My family tried to understand me. They chalked up my voices to an odd quirk and let it go. My friends turned out to be not so friendly. Before I’d entered middle school, I was the town freak show. So I kept to myself and left town as soon as I could. I went to college far away, got my degree in hotel management, and here I am.”
“But how did you get here?” Chloe frowned. “All this coincidence, you looking like Cecilia, hearing her, working at her old place. It’s tied together. It fits.”
“I don’t know. I was moving from internship to internship and furthering my education when I was drawn to this place. Maybe an article I saw in a magazine or a news piece on TV. Remember a few years back, how anything Western was really big? They did some stories about outlaws. I must have heard about Finn and Cecilia’s doomed love affair.”
“Hmm.”
“What?”
Chloe cocked her head, and Lara swore she felt another presence with them. An odd sense, to be sure, but not a scary one.
“I think you were called. She needed you here. To break the cycle.”
“What cycle?”
“The past sometimes repeats itself if you don’t break the cycle. Someone killed Cecilia and Finn a long time ago, right?”
Lara nodded. “Yeah. No one ever found their killer, and they died in each other’s arms. It was tragic. A lot of historians think Finn killed her, then killed himself.”
“And here we are,” Chloe said as she threw up her arms. “The painting of Cecilia Fine has been stolen. Two people are dead because of it, and one of them looks just like you and Cecilia. Now Noah’s here, and you’re thinking he’s Finn. Why?”
“Why do I think he’s Finn?”
“Yeah.”
Lara swallowed hard, allowing herself to admit what she didn’t want to. “Because he and I share a connection, one that shouldn’t be so strong after just getting to know each other. It kind of makes sense if it’s because of the past.”
“Yeah. Because how much of a slut would you be if you’re balling my buddy days after meeting him?”
Lara gaped, not sure how to react, when Chloe burst into laughter.
“Sorry, you had that one coming. Seriously, Lara. It’s obvious you two gel. He talks about you like you walk on water. Noah barely speaks, but I couldn’t shut him up yesterday. He went on and on about you, which was weird enough. Noah is usually so oblivious to women, I used to think he was gay.”
“He’s not gay.”
“I have a feeling you’d know.” Chloe grinned. “Noah’s a great guy, but I worry about him. He spends so much time in the past, he loses himself in the present.”
“Not with me.”
“And that’s why you two belong together. He looks at you like he’s never looked at anything or anyone. And I’ve seen you checking him out too. All morning you kept sneaking him glances. Those moon-eyed, I’m-in-love looks.”
How embarrassing.
“It’s okay to like the guy. He’s hot. No, nothing ever happened between us, and nothing will. But damn girl, I have eyes. He’s got the dark, brooding thing down to a science.”
Lara chuckled. “He does, doesn’t he?”
“So are you going to come back with us to Oregon when this is done?”
“What?”
“You know. Come back with us. Bend has some terrific Craftsman architecture. It’s a real tourist town with all the ski slopes so close. You could easily run a B and B there.”
“I’d run an inn,” she said automatically, trying to process the thought of setting up in Bend, finding a new place to explore and reinvent.
“Whatever. People always need a place to stay and a qualified person to manage it. Point is, you can work anywhere, right? But there’s only one Noah.”
“He hasn’t asked me to come with him.”
“So who says he has to ask? Though I have a feeling he will. Think about what you’ll say when he does.” Chloe nodded to herself. “Sorry I got distracted. So about Cecilia…”
She continued to talk, but Lara didn’t hear her. She had a hard time thinking about anything but Noah. What if he did ask her to come with him? Would she? How tied to the inn did she feel? And what would it be like to be around people like Chloe, others who accepted people with odd skills—as Chloe called them—without blinking an eye?
“Lara? Cecilia. Why do you think you can’t hear her now?”
“I don’t know. But it bothers me.” To her surprise, it did. Before, hearing Cecilia reminded her she’d never be normal. But not hearing her now hinted at something not right with their town. “And I don’t like not knowing where Noah
is either. I have a bad feeling about him.”
“Me too.”
Frank entered the inn, breaking the somber mood. He wore his customary dress slacks and a button-down shirt. He had his hair tied back, a diamond stud in his ear, and his handsome face was wreathed in smiles as he entered with the Littleton couple. Lara appreciated the normalcy of the moment, grateful for the distraction. Imagine Frank—Ian Ryder—a master forger. Talk about weird with a capital W. No matter what the others said, Lara trusted him. She trusted Frank.
“Good luck with your gallery, Mrs. L. And I’m glad you like Sunrise. That piece was always one of my favorites.”
The older woman smiled, gave him a wink, and joined her husband up the stairs after a wave at Lara and Chloe.
“There you two are.”