The Ex Who Saw a Ghost (Charley's Ghost Book 4)

by Sally Berneathy

  Teresa looked confused. “I...I’m glad your brother is all right. I don’t understand, but I’m glad I was mistaken.”

  Charley frowned. “What’s wrong with Ross? The boy’s dead. He was all see-through and floating a foot off the floor.” Charley looked down at the location of his own feet and slowly settled to the floor.

  Ross folded his napkin and turned to Teresa, but it wasn’t the happy, flirtatious way he usually looked at her. His gaze was sober and a little sad. “I know you want me to believe in your ability, but this isn’t the way to do it.”

  “But I...” Teresa bit her lip. For a moment Amanda thought she was going to cry. Instead she produced a smile and picked up her purse. “Well, shall we go?”

  Amanda had thought the evening couldn’t get any worse. It wasn’t the first time she’d been wrong.

  Chapter Two

  Amanda climbed determinedly up the stairs to her apartment on the second floor over her motorcycle repair shop. Jake held her left arm and walked beside her. Charley floated through the rail on the right side, his icy grip never leaving her elbow, his monologue rolling on incessantly.

  “What do you think it means that I could see Parker? I must be doing something right. Hey! Don’t get so close to Jake! I’m right here. I can see you. That was pretty cool, being able to see another spirit. I’d like to talk to him, exchange stories. Tell Jake to take his hand off your arm!”

  Early winter swept through the night and wrapped chilly air around them. Or maybe it was just a reflection of how Amanda felt inside...cold and dark.

  The movie had been violent and bloody, the short walk to their cars silent and tense. She had probably experienced a more awkward occasion sometime during her life but it was hard to recall just when. Maybe the Halloween party she’d attended dressed as a hooker because her date failed to tell her it was a church social. Or the literature class when she’d had to give an oral book report after reading half the book. At least that had only lasted an hour. The current event lasted six hours and felt like sixty.

  “I think your friend upset Ross,” Jake said.

  Amanda flinched. “Yeah, that was obvious. He didn’t like hearing that his brother’s dead.”

  “Dead men don’t answer phones and send text messages.”

  “I could if I wanted to.” Charley’s tone was sullen.

  He might be right. In his current state of pure energy, he was able to turn on the television and make weird things happen to cell phones and computers.

  “She really does see spirits of people who’ve died,” Amanda said. “She saw my grandfather.” And Charley. “Maybe Ross’ brother’s spirit somehow disconnected for a few minutes. Maybe he was doing meditation or something and his spirit left his body briefly.”

  “Meditating in a bar? Ross really likes Teresa, but that whole thing about seeing ghosts may be a problem.”

  Will it be a problem for you if I tell you I see my dead husband’s ghost? Amanda swallowed the question. This was only their third date. Too soon for confessions. I eat tortilla chips in bed, I have cold feet, I burp after my first Coke of the day, and my ex-husband’s ghost lives with me.

  They reached the first landing, turned and started up the final steps to her front door.

  What would she do when they got to the door? At the end of the evening of the first two dates, she’d invited Jake in for a glass of wine. They sat and talked then shared long, delicious good night kisses. But those evenings Charley had been across town with Teresa, held hostage by the connection she’d accidentally forged with him while trying to cross him to the other side.

  Tonight Teresa was with Ross, and Charley was with Amanda.

  She shivered.

  Jake wrapped his arm around her waist. “That breeze is cold. I think we’re in for an early winter.”

  “Tell him to take his hands off you right now,” Charley ordered. “If he doesn’t, I’m going to be forced to do something.”

  What did Charley think he was going to do other than yell at her and make Jake shiver?

  The three of them reached the top landing. Amanda took her keys from her purse.

  Charley darted forward and stood in front of the door, arms outspread, attempting to block their entrance. “He’s not coming in here.”

  She didn’t want to give in to Charley’s demands, but she didn’t want to spend the evening being tortured by him either. She turned to face Jake, uncertain what to say.

  He looked down at her, brown eyes warm, full lips slanted in a half smile. She desperately wanted to kiss those lips and feel those arms around her. Charley had been a good kisser, a skill which played a part in her decision to marry him since her former boyfriend had not. But Jake took that skill to a whole new level, made an art out of it, a delicious, seductive art.

  As Jake’s lips came closer, she decided she’d been wrong about the weather. It was quite warm. She tilted her head and stretched toward him.

  “No!” Charley rushed between them, a blast of frigid air.

  Jake shivered and pulled back. “You get some cold winds up here on the second floor, don’t you?”

  “Yeah, sometimes it gets very cold.” She scowled at Charley who responded by darting through them again. “Uh...” Ask Jake in and put up with Charley or send him away?

  Amanda’s heart sank to her toes. She had no choice. This evening would definitely top the list of her worst experiences.

  She lifted a hand to her forehead and prepared to drag out the overused excuse of a headache. Would he think she was trying to get rid of him? Would he feel rejected and never ask her out again? Would her fear that he’d reject her when he found out about Charley become a moot point?

  Jake took her hand. “Are you feeling okay? You seemed a little off all evening.”

  He was giving her the perfect out.

  Except she didn’t want to take it.

  “Get rid of him!” Charley demanded.

  That made her decision easier. Not only did she not want Jake to leave, but she refused to take orders from Charley. Somehow she’d get through the evening in spite of whatever interruptions he came up with.

  “I feel fine, but it is chilly outside. Why don’t you come in and I’ll make you a cup of hot chocolate?”

  A slow smile tilted his luscious lips. “I’d like that.”

  Amanda stepped forward, reached through Charley and slid her key into the door then stopped. “It’s unlocked. I could swear I locked it when we left.”

  Jake put his hands on her shoulders and moved her aside. “You did. I remember you doing it.” His deep voice had changed from warm and sensual to grim and dangerous. He slid a gun from inside his jacket. He was in full cop mode. “Stay back.”

  For an irrational moment Amanda wondered if Ronald Collins had returned, was waiting in her apartment, high on drugs, ready to torture her.

  But he was in jail awaiting trial, and besides, she’d put a bullet in his knee cap. He wasn’t going anywhere without crutches for a long time.

  Her breath caught in her throat. This wasn’t Highland Park where she grew up. This was near Harry Hines Boulevard, a mixed bag of residences and businesses like the noisy bar down the street that catered to a rough crowd.

  But her apartment was at the back of her motorcycle shop and up two flights of stairs. An unlikely target for burglars.

  Unlikely but not impossible.

  “I’ll check the entire place while this dirt bag is wasting time playing Mr. Macho.” Charley disappeared through the door.

  Maybe the intruder would have a special bullet that could slay a ghost. If silver killed werewolves, surely some kind of metal could kill a ghost. Did they make bullets out of pyrite, fool’s gold? That would be appropriate.

  Jake eased the knob then kicked the door open. “Police!”

  A high-pitched scream came from inside Amanda’s apartment.

  Charley rushed back through the door, a horrified expression on his face.

  What terrible cre
ature could horrify a ghost?

  “It’s your sister!”

  “What?” Charley’s words didn’t make sense. Amanda only had one sister, and they were not close. Jenny was pregnant and was surely home with her lawyer husband Davey in their cozy house in Highland Park this late on a Saturday night.

  “I’m unarmed!” a little girl voice shrieked.

  It couldn’t be.

  Amanda stepped toward the open door. “Jenny?”

  Jake stood in a classic Weaver stance, poised to shoot. He looked really hot that way, but one glance at the short, dark-haired, very pregnant woman in the middle of her living room doused all those thoughts even more effectively than Charley’s presence did.

  Jenny waddled toward her, and Jake stepped aside.

  “I thought you’d never get home!” Jenny wrapped her arms as far around Amanda as she could with her baby belly in the way.

  “Uh...” With seven years difference in their ages and a thousand years difference in their temperaments, the two had never been close. Certainly they’d never been affectionate toward each other or hugged each other. Until now.

  Jenny burst into tears. “I’ve left him!”

  Amanda patted Jenny on the back and stared at Jake helplessly. He holstered his gun and shrugged, looking as helpless as Amanda felt. “Who have you left?” Surely not Davey, her soulmate. confused

  “Davey’s so mean to me!”

  Mean? Amanda couldn’t wrap her mind around the concept of Mean Davey. Perhaps he could be stern in dealing with tax matters for his clients, though she couldn’t swear to that. For sure he was a total softie when dealing with his wife. “What did he do? Did he hit you?”

  Jenny pulled away. “No, of course he didn’t hit me. Why would you think something like that about Davey? Oh!” She turned toward Jake. “I didn’t realize you had company.” She extended a bare hand toward him. The glittering diamonds that usually covered her fingers were missing, and the hand looked surprisingly small and vulnerable. “I’m Jenny, Amanda’s sister.”

  Amanda stepped forward. “Jenny, this is my, uh, friend, Jake. Jake, my sister, Jenny.”

  Jake’s hand swallowed Jenny’s in a brief shake. “Pleased to meet you, Jenny.”

  “Very nice to meet you, Jake. I’m so sorry to interrupt your evening.”

  Jake sidled toward the door. “No problem. You didn’t interrupt anything. We were just saying goodnight. I’ll call you tomorrow, Amanda.”

  She nodded. “Okay.” Well, that took care of what she should do about him.

  Jake opened the door and Amanda stepped over to close it behind him. He turned, leaned toward her and gave her a brief kiss, a quick peck. “Later,” he whispered.

  The kiss…the promise...was enough to lift her spirits.

  “I saw that!” Speaking of spirits...

  Amanda closed the door. She was alone with Jenny and Charley.

  Again she’d been wrong about the evening not getting any worse.

  Jenny once more burst into tears and sobbed on Amanda’s shoulder. “You’re so lucky you got rid of Charley before you got pregnant because it’s not fun! Look how fat I am! I can’t sleep at night and I have to go to the bathroom every few minutes and I can’t wear my rings because my hands are swollen like a boxer’s and I can’t wear high heels because I’m unbalanced, and I need to wear high heels because I’m short! You know I’ve always worn heels so people would look up to me. You’re tall. You don’t have to worry about that, but I do, and I have lots of pretty shoes, and I can’t wear any of them but it doesn’t matter anyway because I can’t wear any of my dresses that go with the shoes because I’m huge. I want this baby to get here so I can have my body back! I’m so glad you came home! I need my sister!”

  That was really strange. Jenny was their mother’s daughter. They had always been joined at the hip. Amanda was odd daughter out. Of course, Jenny was their mother’s biological daughter and Amanda wasn’t. Jenny was a clone of their mother, doing all the right things, following the rules while Amanda...didn’t.

  She patted Jenny’s back in a futile attempt to soothe her. “What about Mother? Don’t you need your mother at a time like this?” Please say you need your mother! I don’t know what to do with a sobbing, pregnant person!

  “She and Daddy are in Hawaii for some sort of award he’s getting! Can you believe they left me alone at a time like this? I don’t have anybody but you!”

  “Oh, yes, the Hawaii trip. So if Davey didn’t hit you, what did he do that’s so bad you had to leave?”

  Jenny wailed louder. “He’s just awful! He does terrible things!”

  “Like what?”

  Jenny snuffled. “Well…I think he’s cheating on me and why wouldn’t he when I look like this?”

  “Let’s sit down and, uh, talk,” Amanda suggested. “Maybe have some ice cream.” Pregnant women craved ice cream, didn’t they?

  Jenny nodded and snuffled again. It was better than sobbing. “That would be nice. Ice cream just like when we were little girls and you’d get up in the middle of the night and sneak into the kitchen then come to my room and we’d sit on my bed and eat ice cream and talk.”

  Amanda didn’t correct the pretty little story by reminding Jenny how that evening ended with her sister spilling chocolate syrup on her bed and white carpet. The next day she’d sworn to their mother that Amanda had done it. Though Amanda had protested, it was the bad sister’s word against the good sister’s.

  But they were adults now, not children.

  Jenny waddled toward the sofa then plopped onto it with a sigh...next to her three designer suitcases.

  “Omigawd!” Charley said. “I think she’s moved in.”

  Three suitcases couldn’t begin to hold all the possessions Jenny needed on a daily basis...but it was a scary start.

  Jenny’s gaze followed hers to the luggage. “I’d have put them in the guest room, but you don’t have a guest room. Does Mother know you don’t have a guest room?”

  “Well, um, I don’t think the subject’s ever come up. She’s never been here, so, probably not.” Amanda looked around her apartment, the place she called home, the place she had furnished haphazardly from attics and garage sales, selecting each piece because it appealed to her but with no particular pattern in mind.

  Suddenly, rather than seeing the room as a comfortable whole, everything split into disparate elements. The hardwood floors were in decent shape, protected through the years by the ugly green carpet she’d ripped out before moving in, but they were scuffed and needed polishing. The coffee table didn’t match the lamp tables which didn’t match the bookcase that loomed on one wall and held her books, old and new, all treasured. One lamp was a Tiffany style with only a couple of cracks in the brightly colored glass, and the other had an ordinary shade but a crystal base. They both gave out light. Her bulky nineteen inch television rested on a small bookcase in the corner of the room. Her sofa, the one item she’d purchased new, blazed with brilliant bursts of red, purple, yellow and green. It sort of matched the Tiffany style lamp. The eclectic, boisterous aura contrasted dramatically with her parents’ and her sister’s homes. They both had a quiet ambience and lamps that matched. And, as Jenny had pointed out, she had no guest room.

  This was the first time a family member had seen her place. It was the first time she’d seen it through their eyes. She would have expected Jenny to run screaming from the room to find the nearest hotel with a spa.

  “Uh, Jenny...” She waved a hand around the room, unable to finish her sentence, biting back the irrational urge to apologize for living in a place she loved.

  “I promise not to get in the way,” Jenny said. “You won’t even know I’m here.”

  Amanda blinked. “What?”

  “I’ll just sleep on the sofa.” She patted the cushion next to her.

  “Don’t let her,” Charley said. “You know I like to watch TV in here while you’re sleeping.”

  “No!” Amanda was speakin
g to Charley but her sister’s stricken expression told her she thought the denial was meant for her. “You can’t sleep on the sofa. You’ll be uncomfortable.”

  Jenny sighed. “I’m always uncomfortable. Just get me a pillow and a blanket, and I’ll be fine. I’m short. I’ll fit.”

  Amanda had bought the sofa because it was cheerful, not because it was comfortable. “Uh, you’d fit lengthwise, but...” She paused. Considering Jenny’s rant about her size, it might not be a good idea for her to say the sofa was too narrow to accommodate her bulk. “It’s really hard.” She reached down and pushed on a cushion to demonstrate. “There are some very nice motels around here. I’ll take you to one.”

  Charley sneered. “How? On the back of your motorcycle? She’ll get her wish about that baby coming soon!”

  Jenny wiped her eyes with a hand that looked nude without her usual array of rings. “I don’t want to go to a motel and be all alone. I want to stay with my sister. Please let me stay with you.”

  “Don’t do it!” Charley ordered.

  Charley’s command sealed the deal. “Of course you can stay. But you’re going to take the bed.”

  Jenny lifted her hands to her cheeks, tilted her head and smiled. “That’s so sweet, but I can’t let you do that. I’ll be all right out here. I don’t sleep much anyway.”

  “No way is my future niece going to sleep on the sofa. Besides, you said you have to go to the bathroom a lot, and my bathroom is in my bedroom. You sleep in there and that way you won’t wake me when you get up to go.”

  “I am going to puke,” Charley announced. “Have you ever seen ghost puke? It’s not a pretty sight.”

  Jenny struggled to her feet and again wrapped her arms around Amanda’s neck. “Thank you. You have no idea how much this means to me. I hope you’re never in this situation, but if you are, I’ll do the same for you, except I have a guest room.” She stepped back and her blue eyes welled with tears again. “I used to have a guest room. Now Davey has my guest room. I don’t know where the baby and I will live, probably in some hovel.”

  “About that ice cream,” Amanda interrupted. “Chocolate or vanilla?”