Ernie glanced around the room. We’d already been through every file cabinet and every desk drawer. He shrugged. “Maybe he keeps those books at home.”
“Or maybe they’re too precious for that.” I’d already been through the credenza once, and I’d seen there was a safe behind one of its doors, but damn, there I was being shallow again. Back before he ended up in the clink, I knew the only thing my dad kept in his office safe was my mother’s jewelry, and I assumed everybody thought the same way. Jewelry was valuable. Books? Not so much.
Jazzed, I knelt on the floor in front of the safe and looked over my shoulder at Ernie. “What do you think?” I asked.
He knew exactly what I was talking about. “I’m pretty new at being dead,” he said. “Never tried anything like it. But if you believe . . .”
I did. I think. And if I didn’t, I told myself I did, anyway. That was the only thing that gave me the courage to shove my hand right through the inch-thick steel plate door. When I brought it out again, I was holding a sheaf of brittle papers and a book. A dusty, old book.
“Got it!” I jumped up and plopped the book on the desk, then dropped into Doctor Gerard’s chair to start reading. It was no picnic. The book was old, the printing was faded, the font was gothic and tough to read. Still, I was lured by the tantalizing possibility of finding the information Madeline used to steal my body.
Even an hour later, I hadn’t given up, and it was a good thing.
“Here!” I pointed to the page and called Ernie over. “It says exactly what Madeline said the night she pulled the switch. It says the stars and the moon have to be aligned and—”
I read the rest of the sentence and my voice faded. “What? What is it?” Ernie’s eyesight wasn’t all that good. He squinted and bent for a closer look. “It says you can do it again, right? You can switch back?”
I slammed the book shut. “Sure, it says I can do it again. But not until the stars and the moon are aligned the same way. It also says that’s not going to happen again for another seven hundred years.”
18
I might not have been able to help myself, but there was no way I was going to let Hilton Gerard keep pickling people’s brains.
As certain as I was of that, I was even more certain that there was only one person who could help me. Talk about believing in the impossible!
The last I’d seen him, Dan was at my conference hotel with Madeline, and I guess that’s where I expected him to stay. But this was Chicago, remember, and in Chicago, hotel rooms are at a premium. I was scheduled to leave town the same day Doris hit the road, and I’d seen the sign in the hotel lobby that said the American Association of Water Purification and Pollution Professionals was due at the hotel next for their big annual conference.
That meant some poor AAWPPP schlep was in my room.
I should have thought of this before I told Ernie I’d see him later and hocus-pocused my way back to the hotel, but hey, I was new at this whole incorporeal thing, and I was still more than a little shaken by the news that if I waited for the stars and the moon to be aligned just the way they were when Madeline snatched my body in the first place, I wouldn’t want the seven-hundred-year-old carcass anymore, anyway.
Not sure what else to do, I stood in the hotel lobby and said, “I need to see Dan Callahan,” and sure enough, just like before, I felt a tug and a pull. The world around me zipped by in a blur. The next thing I knew, I was standing in a short-term rental condo near Lincoln Park. Don’t ask me how I knew this, I just did. It was actually kind of cool.
So was the condo itself.
The living room was tastefully furnished with a burgundy-colored leather sectional, arm chairs in stripes of brown, purple, and the same winey color as the sectional, and a gorgeous Oriental rug that sat on a polished hardwood floor. One wall featured a brick fireplace; another was filled floor to ceiling with bookcases. A single expansive window revealed a million-dollar view of park and buildings gilded by the setting sun.
I could get used to a place like that.
It looked like Madeline, though, was a little tougher to please.
Even as I stood there, she shuffled (just for the record, I have never shuffled; eight years of ballet, tap, and jazz lessons made sure of that) into the room wearing a gray and red flannel robe I wouldn’t have been caught dead in. Without even a look toward the fireplace near where I stood, she tossed the latest issue of Elle down on the sleek, I-wish-it-were-mine coffee table.
“Boring,” she grumbled. “Boring, boring, boring. How can anybody—”
“What’s that you said?” The bathroom was down the hall, off the kitchen, and Dan stuck his head out of it. His right cheek was coated with shaving cream. There was another poof of it in his left palm. “You talking to somebody?”
Madeline flopped down on the sectional. “Can’t we do something interesting this evening?”
He wiggled his eyebrows. “We already did a couple interesting things,” he said. When he didn’t get a response from her, he walked out of the bathroom and crossed the kitchen into the living room. He was wearing nothing but a pair of those clingy boxer briefs that look great on the models in the ads and even better in person when the guy wearing them happens to be Dan.
Once he was in the living room he could see into the dining room, and he glanced that way and at the stack of file folders on the table in there. “I told you, I’ve made some notes and lists. After I’m out of the shower, we’ll go to dinner and talk about the situation at the clinic. Nobody could say that’s not interesting! And don’t worry, I know how anxious you are for us to get all our information in line so we can confront Hilton, but he’s not there tonight, anyway. I know for a fact he’s over at Northwestern. He’s giving a lecture on homelessness and the mental health crisis. We’ll take care of the due diligence tonight and talk to him at the clinic tomorrow. And before you can tell me you can’t wait that long . . .” He gave her a smile she didn’t return. “I’ll make it quick.” He ducked into the bathroom, then just as quickly was back out again in the hallway.
“While I’m getting dressed,” he said, “you might want to go over all of it again. You know, what happened where and when. That way we’ll be on the same page when we do finally talk to Hilton. And believe me, Pepper, I swear, if he doesn’t answer my questions the way I think he should—”
“I know, I know.” She waved a dismissive hand in the air, and I saw, much to my horror, that her nails were cut short and not polished. Did the woman have no standards? “We’ll go to the cops.”
Dan cocked his head and narrowed his eyes. He came back into the living room. “Are you feeling all right?”
She clicked her tongue. “Why shouldn’t I be? I’ve got just what I wanted, don’t I? I’ve got you, and you’re going to help me investigate at the clinic. That certainly should satisfy my sense of self-importance. And my delusions of grandness. Like all narcissists, I believe I’m special. Every little success feeds my sense of entitlement.”
He stared at her as if he’d never seen her before. “Sure, but what it doesn’t do is explain what the hell you’re talking about. Or why you’re using terms right out of a psychology textbook. I’ve never heard you talk like that before Hilton got ahold of you.”
I cannot put into words how happy I was to hear this. I’d come to Dan for help because of all the people I knew, he was the only one who was open-minded enough to not only believe in ghosts, but in ghosts switching bodies with live people, too. I hoped. Now that he saw that there was something really sketchy about the Pepper who wasn’t Pepper, maybe he’d see the light.
Then again, that scenario counted on Madeline continuing to act like a moron. I should have known there was no way that was going to happen.
She saw the slippery slope she was headed down. That’s why she shook herself out of her funk and smiled. “Am I talking crazy? I know it isn’t like me, but really, Danny, I think there has to be more to life. You know, more than solving dumb crimes for
dead people nobody cares about anymore anyway.”
“Is that what you do?” Dan’s eyes lit, and it was no mystery why. Sure, I’d told him I’d seen and talked to Madeline, but I never mentioned any of the other ghosts. Or the other cases I’d investigated. This was news to him, and Dan being Dan, nothing could have thrilled him more. Well, maybe realizing he was actually in the same room with the woman who’d tricked him into marrying her, lied so that she could benefit from whatever success he had, and made him pine over her for three long years when he should have given her the one-finger salute, turned his back on her grave, and gone on with his life.
But I digress.
Dan being Dan, he was blown away. He said, “That’s amazing. And no way you can possibly think it’s dumb,” and I was glad he was having the conversation with Madeline and not with me, because most of the time, I thought it was dumb, too. “That’s the coolest thing I’ve ever heard! I can’t imagine you’d ever want to do anything else. And now that I know what you’re actually doing is solving crimes for them . . . reaching out a hand from this world to those on the Other Side . . . Wow! I’m more impressed than ever. And you should be, too. You’re special.”
“I am.” Madeline simpered. “Special and bored.” She got up and went over to where Dan stood so she could run a finger from his collarbone down to the elastic waistband of his boxers. “Let’s forget this whole thing, Danny, honey. Let’s head somewhere else. Do something else. Who cares what Hilton is up to at that clinic of his.”
He looked her in the eye. “You do. You just told me—”
“I did. But I’m so tired of the whole thing. And I nearly got killed, remember. I think it’s smarter—and safer—to just stay out of it.”
“You are definitely not acting like yourself.” Dan put a hand to her forehead. Satisfied that she wasn’t burning with fever, he kissed the tip of her nose. “You need to focus. Once you do, everything will come back in line and you’ll feel better. Have you called Ella to ask for a couple extra days off? And have you had a chance to look through your suitcase for that list of missing clinic patients you told me about?”
Her smile was a little tight, but my guess was that Dan didn’t notice. That’s because she was busy tickling a finger over his abdomen. “I’ve got the extra days off all taken care of. As for that list . . . I’ll look. I promise.”
“That’s my girl!” Dan grinned. He glanced at the coffee table and the magazine she’d tossed there. “After all you’ve been through, you should just sit back and put your feet up and read that magazine I picked up for you downstairs at the newsstand. I’ve got to admit, it was a stab in the dark. I don’t know much about women’s fashion. But I figured you’d like it.”
This time, she didn’t even try to hide her opinion. She grimaced. “I told you, I’m not the fashion-conscious airhead I used to be. Why do you think I went out and bought this nice comfy robe this afternoon? It sure beats that slinky, nasty one I brought here to Chicago with me.”
Since slinky and nasty equaled the sweet emerald green satin wrap I’d bought to treat myself, I didn’t appreciate the criticism. I’d kept my mouth shut to this point, but enough was enough. I stepped to the center of the room to let her have it.
“You’d look like hell in my wrap, anyway,” I snarled at Madeline. “Even with my body, you couldn’t pull it off. Your true essence would somehow show through, and let me tell you, girlfriend, we aren’t talking attractive.”
This was, I admit, pretty bratty, but since it was true, I felt justified. Besides, who could blame me? For all she’d done to me, it was the least Madeline deserved.
Except she didn’t respond. I mean, not even with a snarling look.
This caught me off guard, and while I was still processing, Dan gave Madeline one more kiss and turned to go back to the bathroom. “Don’t think I don’t know what you’re doing,” he said. “You’re pretending to be all serious and unconcerned about things like fashion and makeup, but Pepper, nobody changes that much. Not that fast! Which is why I’m not buying it when you say you don’t want to have it out with Hilton. You think it might be dangerous, right? You’re trying to protect me. I know exactly how you think. But remember, I can take care of myself and besides . . .” He looked over his shoulder long enough to give her a wink. “You don’t have to pretend with me, Pepper. Not ever. I liked you fine just the way you were, so don’t think you’ve got to put on a show.”
“He liked me fine. Just the way I was.” I tried to point this out by stepping even closer to Madeline and stabbing a finger toward Dan.
She didn’t seem to care. She growled, “Show, my ass,” but not until Dan was out of earshot. When he had the bathroom door closed behind him, she sat back down on the couch looking awful (I mean, even more awful than anybody would have in a robe that should have been hanging in a stable). “God, I can’t wait to get out of here,” she grumbled, and she got up, went into the dining room, and snapped open Dan’s laptop.
I leaned over her shoulder. “What, you’re going to Google apology and woman whose body you stole?”
Except to shiver, Madeline didn’t acknowledge me.
And that’s when it hit.
She’d told me I’d fade away. She’d said that eventually, nobody would be able to see me.
I just never expected it to happen that fast.
I’ve got to admit, this gave me a jolt. Being invisible was hard enough to get used to. Knowing that little by little, I was disappearing completely . . .
I swallowed hard. Not an easy thing to do considering there was a lump in my throat.
There was also new determination in my every step.
While Madeline logged on to some psychological association website I couldn’t pronounce much less spell, I hightailed it into the bedroom. I ignored the mussed blankets and the tussled sheets and found my suitcase still sitting mostly packed near the closet. I rummaged around in it until I found the portfolio I had with me the day I talked to Sister Maggie. Don’t ask me how these things work, but when I ripped the sheet out of my legal pad, folded it, and tucked it into the pocket of my dumpy black skirt, I guess it turned as invisible as I was.
That would explain why Dan didn’t see either me or the list when I walked into the bathroom just as he finished shaving.
He turned on the shower and stripped off his boxers and hey, invisibility is good for something. Completely guilt free, I stood and watched and enjoyed. Once he was in the shower and had the curtain pulled, though, I knew I couldn’t waste any time. I had to get to work. If I was fading, I needed to make contact. Fast.
I looked around the bathroom and hit on an idea.
I grabbed the can of shaving cream, shook it, and went over to the mirror.
“What are you up to?” When he heard the slurp of the shaving cream whooshing out of the can, Dan’s voice came at me from out of the shower. “Pepper, are you playing with my—”
He stuck his head around the shower curtain. His hair was shampooed and bubbles dribbled down his forehead.
He flicked a finger over his eyes to keep the soap out and looked around the bathroom. “Now I’m the one imagining things,” Dan muttered. Until he saw the mirror.
When he stepped out of the shower for a better look, my hopes rose. And for once, I’m not talking about my hopes of getting a better look at Dan’s body.
He stepped in front of the mirror, water puddling around his feet, and read my message out loud. “Not me.”
With my hands clutched together and my heart in my throat, I waited for the epiphany moment when he made the connection and saw that he’d been wrong about the woman he thought was me.
Only he didn’t. He mumbled, “Pepper, you’re such a kidder,” and wiped the mirror clean.
As soon as he was back in the shower, I reached for the shaving cream can again.
Even above the noise of the water running, I heard Dan sigh. “You’re doing it again,” he said, and he wasn’t mad, exactly. He sounded more
exasperated, the way a parent would with a kid who was doing something cute, but annoying. “Another message, huh?” He turned off the water. “What is it this time?”
Dan stepped out of the shower, and when he saw that Madeline wasn’t in the room like he expected her to be, his brows dropped low and he glanced around. He grabbed a towel, wrapped it around his waist, and because he wasn’t wearing his glasses, he got closer to the mirror so he could read what I’d written there.
“Not me,” he read under his breath. “Madeline.”
For a moment, I thought I’d shocked him so badly that I’d killed him. That’s how still he stood. He stared at the mirror and the words written there, and when he finally started to talk, I wasn’t at all surprised by what he said.
“The magazine . . .” Dan’s head whipped around and he looked at the door. I imagined he was picturing Madeline sitting in the living room. “The robe. She said she didn’t want to investigate, and the Pepper I knew, hell, she’d go in with guns blasting if it meant finding the truth of a situation.”
Night of the Loving Dead Page 23