Michelle stared into the quiet darkness. She hated the silence. It reminded her of the before-time when she’d been normal like everyone else. She’d fallen out of a canoe at summer camp at age twelve. It had taken time to find her in the murky waters of the lake, and even more time to get her to shore. When she’d awakened in the hospital after nine days in a coma, she hadn’t been alone. She’d heard voices no one else heard, saw people who weren’t there, and all of them had something in common—they’d all drowned. She hadn’t understood what had happened to her, but it hadn’t taken her long to realize her little quirk needed to be kept secret, even from those closest to her.
Because of her near-drowning, Michelle disliked water. Although her parents had insisted she learn to swim, she always thought she’d rather undergo root-canal surgery than go swimming in a lake. Helping those who’d died that way find peace and comforting those who grieved, helped control her distress. Unfortunately, her fear of water had escalated into a serious problem lately, one she wasn’t prepared to share with anyone.
Nestled in the blanket in the warm room, she recognized the various sounds emerging in the darkness—crickets, bullfrogs, an owl, and the screech of car tires. Outside, gusts of wind blew against the windows rattling the screen. Inside, the ticking of her alarm clock matched her heartbeat. Who was her mysterious, faceless lover? The things the man could do to her body! Even now, the memory of his rough hands against her skin sent waves of need through her. Tonight, there had been a different aspect to the dream, one that upset her more than usual. What atrocities would she have witnessed if she hadn’t awakened? She didn’t know how much more pain her poor heart could tolerate.
She suspected whatever the ghost needed was tied up with the erotic dreams far more vivid than any real-life experience she’d had. Everything centered on the man. She chuckled, the sound loud in the silent room.
Okay. I’m desperately in love with a man whose face I can’t see, who’s been dead for a couple hundred years. How pathetic is that?
She closed her eyes and imagined his hands moving slowly across her naked flesh, enflaming her. Desire pooled in her stomach. She imagined her hands roaming across his beautiful body, tracing every scar there. She ran her fingers through his long, wavy, honey-brown hair. She felt his full, warm lips on hers, tasted him when his tongue invaded her mouth and tangled with hers.
Who are you? Her heart begged.
She shook her head, blinked, and forced herself out of the fantasy. The last thing I need is to go there again tonight.
Unfortunately, the ghost she saw didn’t speak, so where would she find the two-hundred-year-old ghost of the man she loved, the one who obviously needed her help? Most likely in this area since the haunting had started here, but duty called her back to Toronto tomorrow.
“I will come back and find you.” Her voice echoed in the silence of the room. She looked at the clock—two a.m. She had to get up at seven to catch her flight. Feeling a bit calmer, she stretched out on the bed and closed her eyes. The vision in the mirror filled her mind, and wept as she always did.
* * * *
Frantic pounding at the door woke Tony from a sound sleep. He looked at the alarm beside the bed—barely after eight.
“Professor Steele! Wake up! Please wake up? They’re dead, professor, they’re dead!” Jackson’s panic-filled voice jolted Tony into full consciousness.
What the hell? Dead? Who’s dead?
He jumped out of bed, grabbed the jeans off the floor where he’d dropped them the previous night, and hurried barefoot down the stairs to open the door. Jackson’s fist hovered in mid-air preparing to pound on the door again. Tony noticed the frantic look on the young man’s face and realized the water streaming down his cheeks was a mixture of rain and tears. The boy panted and Tony forced himself to assume a calm he didn’t feel. He needed to be strong to support Jackson in his obvious distress.
“What happened, Jackson? Who’s dead?” he asked abruptly, his tone as professorial as he could make it.
The young man pointed to the beach, to the spot where the woman had stood the night before. On the sand, next to a canoe and assorted branches and other debris, lay a lump of rags. Fear coursed through his veins, and his heart leaped into his throat. Instead of vanishing, had the woman been swept into the angry water? In that storm, a rip current could have formed and pulled her in.
He raced down the stairs, oblivious to the cold on his feet and the rain lashing at him as it had the night before. Jackson followed him. They stopped beside the body—no, bodies—feet ashore, heads under water.
“Oh, my God!” Aaron lay supine in the water, his face barely submerged. The head tucked under his, the body bundled inside the zippered jacket, must belong to either Lindsay or Lissa. He moved toward his students, intent on pulling them from their watery grave, but Isaac, the resorts handyman grabbed his arm.
“No, Professor. I’m sorry, but we can’t touch them. Kara’s called nine-one-one. We need to wait for the police.”
Tony heard a shrill scream and turned in time to see Lissa collapse to the ground. Jackson stood numbly beside her. It’s Lindsay then.
“Jackson,” he yelled, but the boy didn’t respond. Tony walked over to him and shook him.
The boy, obviously in shock, blinked his eyes. He looked like a lost, frightened child. Tears coursed down his cheeks.
Tony spoke abruptly. “Help me get her inside. She’ll catch pneumonia out here. She’s wet right through.”
The sound of footfalls on the grass alerted him to a new arrival. Tony looked up. Kara ran across the grass toward them. The girl didn’t need to see the bodies. Bad enough Lissa and Jackson had. No doubt the image would remain with them, as it would with him, for the rest of their lives.
“Kara, come here. I need your help.”
She responded to the command in his voice, turned, and ran over to him, but her gaze drifted to the shoreline.
“I called nine-one-one like Isaac said. The dispatcher promised someone would be here shortly. What happened?”
There was no point in hiding the truth from her. “Two of my students have drowned.”
She gasped.
“Follow me. Lissa has fainted. I’ll need your help undressing her and getting her into bed.”
Tears filled Kara’s eyes. “She and Aaron were going to get married in the spring. Poor thing, and I think she’s pregnant too.”
Tony’s head snapped up. Son of a bitch. That’s why she’s been so sick lately.
Mechanically, Jackson lifted Lissa up into his arms and walked toward the cottage she and Aaron shared. Tony hurried ahead of him, and opened the door.
“Take her into the bedroom, Jackson, and then go out into the kitchen, and wait for me. Do not leave this cabin. Kara, can you undress her?”
“Sure thing, Professor.”
He left her to it and went out into the other room to wait for her.
“Jackson, I need you to stay with Lissa. Don’t leave her. The police are on their way, and I’ll send the paramedics in to have a look at both of you as soon as I can.”
Kara re-entered the sitting area. Tony followed her out of the cottage. He heard the approaching sirens.
“Go back to the office. There isn’t anything else you can do.”
The girl nodded and retraced her steps to the resort’s office. The police car pulled into the lot followed by the ambulance. He hurried down to the beach. He needed to know what the hell had happened.
* * * *
Michelle sat at a table in her favorite deli across from her best friend Tasha and read the text message on her phone. Her boss, Colin Sanders, the province’s chief coroner, wanted to see her as soon as possible. It looked as if the quiet weekend she’d planned had just gone down the drain.
Damn! After three months in the field, you’d think I could have a few days off? I know we’re really busy right now, but…
“It’s from Colin. He wants to see me ASAP. He’s attached phot
o-documents to this text.”
“Gees. Can’t he leave you alone long enough to eat? You just got back a couple of hours ago. Look at the overtime you put in on that last case. I hate it when they send you those gruesome pictures, especially when you meet me for lunch.” Tasha took a bite of her sandwich. Despite her words, the veterinarian rarely let anything interfere with her appetite. “We haven’t had a meal together in ages. I don’t bring my work with me when we meet.”
Tasha jerked her head sending her long blonde ponytail swaying back and forth across her back. Her blue eyes sparkled with mock indignity. Work clothes did nothing to disguise her curvy, lush figure, a foil for Michelle’s tall, slenderness. Her dad used to refer to them as salt and pepper. He’d say they added spice to his life. Now alone in the world, she wouldn’t know what to do without Tasha. She chuckled and shook her head.
“You’re right. I’m sorry. Next time, if you’d like to bring snapshots of cute puppies or kittens, I promise to look at them and be suitably awed.”
Tasha smiled and wagged a finger at her.
“And that’s all I’ll let you do. With your crazy hours and work schedule, you couldn’t handle a pet. Of course, if you ever decided to date and have a serious relationship…”
“I know.” She sighed. They’d had this discussion countless times, and while Tasha’s nesting instinct seemed to have grown proportionately of late, Michelle preferred the solitary life she’d chosen. Besides, she’d found the perfect man. He just happened to be over two hundred years old and dead.
“I haven’t got time to take care of a pet or a relationship. It’s great having you to check the apartment while I’m gone. Lynn’s worth every penny I pay her. I won’t come home to three inches of dust.”
Being single made her an ideal candidate for out-of-town cases, especially those with more questions than answers. As Tasha pointed out, she had nothing and no one to worry about. Even the goldfish she’d had a couple of years before she’d taken this job had bit the dust—or rather been flushed.
“Colin wants me to come in today. It would be nice to have some idea what he’s got on his mind. I’ll just take a quick peek. You know how I hate surprises. It’ll only take a sec. Maybe it isn’t an assignment. Maybe he just wants a second opinion on something. Go ahead and eat. I’m not going to rush away on you, I promise.”
“I’ll cross my fingers. Your last case took a lot out of you. You look like crap, by the way. You’re having those nightmares again aren’t you—the ones where you fall into the water and drown or something? Don’t say you aren’t, I can tell. You need a break, and I want you to meet Simon. You’ll love him. He’s cute and…” Tasha laughed. “I like him, what can I say? I think he’s the one, Michelle, I really do.”
She took another bite of her sandwich, and then motioned toward Michelle with it. “Go ahead. If there’s anything interesting, can you share?”
“Probably not, but we’ll see.”
Michelle opened the first attachment and frowned.
“Whoever took this isn’t much of a forensic photographer.”
“You’re such a perfectionist. You can be so picky at times. God, the last thing I’d want to do is have you sit in on a necropsy,” Tasha said. “You’d be criticizing my every move.”
“Not picky, thorough. There’s a difference. It’s like with my quilting. I like to be precise. Anytime you want my advice, just ask, but unless the pooch has drowned…” She huffed out a breath. “This picture asks more questions than it answers. I hope the others are clearer. Since their heads are in the water, they probably did drown, but why?”
“Me see?”
“Why not? You can’t tell who it is.” Michelle held the phone out.
“You know your thoroughness makes you one of the top forensic investigators in the province. If Colin’s giving this to you, it’s because he thinks there’s something to it. If anyone can figure out how those guys got dead, it’s you.”
Tasha reached for the phone, peered at the picture, and then handed the phone back to Michelle.
The snapshot showed two corpses, but you had to count feet to be certain. From their size, Michelle assumed the bodies belonged to a man and a woman, but they could easily be an adult and a child. The picture had been taken from the side. Debris littered the shoreline beyond the cadavers, probably the aftermath of a storm. She noticed a canoe lying on its side about ten feet farther along.
Michelle shuddered. Canoes! She hated canoes. She stared intently at the photograph and scowled. The stretch of land looked vaguely familiar. Using the tips of her fingers, she enlarged the image. The smaller victim had lost a left shoe—a laced one—not an easy thing to do.
“That just looks wrong.” Tasha motioned to the phone with her sandwich. “You can’t even tell what it is—man, woman, child. You’re right. It’s a lousy picture.”
Michelle shook her head.
“Not quite. I can’t tell if the top body is a woman or a child, but judging from the size of the feet on the bottom one, it’s a man.”
She opened the next attachment, expecting to see another shot of the bodies. Instead, she discovered a profile sheet with information and a photograph. Examining the image, she picked up the same sense of déjà vu. She held out the phone to Tasha who’d met everyone in her life. “Does this guy look familiar to you?”
Tasha swallowed the mouthful of coffee she’d just taken and reached for the phone once more.
“Hubba-hubba! No, I’ve definitely never met this hottie. Who is he?”
“Ronald Davies, the mayor of the Municipality of Prince Edward.” She read down a little farther and then returned to the image. “Apparently he owns a winery.”
Clean shaven, his strong, chiseled features indicated his Native American ancestry. His clothing and hair didn’t fit her memories of the man, if you could call her fleeting sensation of recognition a memory. Her mother would have said he was Hollywood handsome with almond-shaped deep brown, almost black eyes. Michelle found him attractive, and the fact she did surprised her. She liked men, but usually needed to make a personal connection before being attracted to one, and she’d never been attracted to a Native American before—too much emotional history for that. She wrinkled her forehead in concentration. Picton sounded familiar although she knew she’d never been there. Winery…that’s it!
“Didn’t we talk about going to a wine festival in Prince Edward County this year?”
Tasha angled her head in thought.
“I think we did, but then you got called up north, and we let it go. I don’t know if we’d be able to get tickets this close to the event. I’m not sure how much time Simon can book off on short notice. Is that where they died?”
“It must be. I don’t think this is the dead guy though. Something about his build doesn’t quite fit.”
“Well, if that’s where you have to go, let me know. Maybe Simon and I can come down there and do a mini-tour with you. You can take personal time off, right?”
Tasha took a mouthful of coffee and stared into space. Michelle knew that look. She dreaded it and could almost see the wheels turning in her friend’s head.
“You know, you’ve gotten too serious this last month. I know something’s bothering you, and it must be really awful if you won’t tell me about it. I’m your best friend, remember? We share everything. You need to see Audra. I don’t know why you’re so against it. I’ve got to go to the ladies’ room. Be right back.” Tasha stood and walked away.
Michelle shook her head. A visit to a self-proclaimed, white witch-seer wasn’t on her wish list. She had enough crazy in her life as it was. She took a bite of her chicken wrap. Normally, one of her favorites, it tasted like sawdust today. She sighed. Tasha knew her too well, but this problem wasn’t something she could share with her—even her best friend wouldn’t understand.
She finished the tasteless wrap and opened the last attachment. The breath whooshed out of her. A surge of desire tore through her, burning he
r from the inside out. Her heart pounded. Beads of perspiration dotted her forehead and sweat trickled down her back.
It has to be the hair. The man had shoulder-length, honey-brown hair and sparkling, aquamarine eyes. His eyebrows were thick, his eyelashes long and full, and lips so perfect, she could almost feel them against hers. He had a dimple in his left cheek and a scar on his chin. She dropped the phone in her agitation. Tasha returned to the table and reached for the phone.
“What’s the matter?” She looked at the image on the small screen. “Wow! Who is this god? Please tell me he’s not the dead guy.”
Chapter Two
With an unsteady hand, Michelle reached for the phone Tasha held and stared at the image once more. Could he be the dead man? Possibly, but her heart screamed, “Please, God, no.”
“I’m not sure. I don’t think so.”
“I have a suggestion.” Tasha perked up, and Michelle shrank from what she knew would be a bad idea.
“I know you like to do everything on your own, but why not get another opinion here? You think both these guys are hot, right? Why don’t we take those pictures with us tonight and go see Audra? She can tell you if one of them is dead, which I hope neither of them are, or if one of them is the killer. You can eliminate one or both as suspects and get to the horizontal mambo in no time. You’ll owe me big time when one of them rings your bells.”
“Don’t be crude. We’ve been through this before. I refuse to go and see some crazy lady and ask her for information about my case—if the woman can see into the future, and that’s a really big ‘if’ in my book, I doubt images on a phone will give her any answers. You said I needed to have fun. Believe me, what you suggest doesn’t sound like fun to me.”
Tasha pouted, folded her arms across her chest, and stared mulishly at Michelle.
Echoes of the Past Page 2