3 The Ex Who Conned a Psychic

by Sally Berneathy

  “No, you won’t. This is your home, your bed, and I’m the guest.” Teresa went to her bag and retrieved the white gown.

  “Yeah, and I’m the hostess so I’m the boss. Besides, if you stay out here, you’ll be on the front line, the first one to encounter Collins. I’m the one with the grudge against him, and I’m the one with the gun.”

  “This is silly,” Charley said. “You’re both skinny. There’s plenty of room for both of you in the bed. Amanda snores, but not very loud.”

  “I do not, but that’s probably a good idea,” Amanda agreed. “I only sleep on one side, so the sheets are clean on the other.”

  “That used to be my side,” Charley said. “But she won’t let me sleep there now.”

  “You don’t sleep,” Amanda pointed out.

  “I could lie between the two of you and pretend to sleep.”

  “No,” Amanda and Teresa said at the same time.

  Amanda kept watch while Teresa went into the bathroom and changed into her gown, then Teresa entertained Charley while Amanda changed.

  When she came out, Teresa was already in bed with the sheet tucked under her arms. “What do you do when you’re here alone and want to change clothes or take a shower?”

  Amanda sank onto her side of the bed and looked at Charley. “I have to take his word that he’s not watching.”

  “Do you ever cheat, Charley?” Teresa asked. “Do you ever look when you’re not supposed to?”

  Charley opened his mouth then closed it. His lips twisted and turned as if struggling.

  “He’s trying to tell a lie,” Amanda explained. “So you do peek!”

  “I’m going to go in the living room and keep watch.” He disappeared through the wall.

  Amanda took her .38 revolver from the nightstand drawer and set it on top then switched off the lamp and lay back on her pillow.

  “That’s very interesting,” Teresa said, “what Charley just did. I never thought about spirits telling a lie or even trying to. That seems so unspiritual, so earthly.”

  “Charley tries, but he can’t. He always makes that kind of a face, like the words are fighting to get past his lips, but something won’t let them.”

  “Which means Anthony may be telling me the truth and somehow I’ve got to get back that damned passport and flash drive and give them away.”

  “And the money.”

  She sighed. “And the money. Right now I can’t see any way I’m going to get any of those items back, which means I’m going to be in your situation…haunted with visits from an ex-husband who’s stuck between worlds.”

  Amanda laughed. “I’m going to bet this conversation has little in common with the conversations from all those slumber parties and sleep overs you went to in high school.”

  Teresa giggled. “We talked about living boys and teachers, never ghosts. I certainly never told anybody about Mr. Finfrock or my grandmother. They already thought I was a little strange. That would have clinched it.”

  “The only person I told about Charley is Sunny, my birth mother. She didn’t believe me at first. I think she does now. We haven’t really had a chance to talk about it since.”

  Teresa lifted herself on one elbow. “Your birth mother? You were adopted?”

  “Well, sort of. It’s a long story. One night when this is all over and we have a couple of glasses of wine, I’ll tell you.”

  Reluctantly Teresa lay back down. “Okay. But I can’t wait to hear this story. Adopted? I can’t imagine your mother adopting a child to satisfy her motherly instincts. I never really knew her, of course, but she always seemed kind of aloof and rigid.”

  “My mother has unexpected depths. Both of my mothers.” Amanda was surprised that she felt comfortable mentioning Sunny to Teresa. Well, after you shared a ghost experience with someone, that did establish a certain level of intimacy. In spite of the circumstances, it had been kind of a fun evening. “Good night.”

  “If we have a good night and no visitors, I’m actually going to be a little disappointed.”

  “Me too,” Amanda admitted. “I’m ready to confront Collins and get this over with.”

  “And I’m ready to find out who killed Anthony so I can send him a thank you card and offer to appear as a character witness at his trial. Maybe then Anthony will go away and I won’t have to deal with getting that passport and flash drive back to him.”

  “So really we’ll only have a good night if a ghost and a psycho come to visit.”

  “You’re right. This isn’t very much like the slumber parties in high school. It’s way more fun.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  “Amanda! Wake up! He’s here!”

  Amanda sat bolt upright in bed. “Who? Where?”

  “What’s going on?” Teresa’s voice was muffled with sleep.

  Charley darted through the bedroom wall then back again, wringing his hands. “Ronald Collins is here! He’s in the living room!”

  Amanda’s heart rate shifted into overdrive. Her mouth went dry. The man was there, inside her home. She picked up the gun from her nightstand. Her heart pounded all the way to her fingertips as they clutched the cold metal. She wasn’t sure if she was more frightened or angry, but she knew for sure she wasn’t going to let that disgusting man get away with invading her home.

  “He’s heading for the bedroom!” Charley disappeared through the wall then came back again. “Shoot him! Quick! Through the door! Right here!” He held a hand about four feet off the floor. “Gut shot! Now! Shoot him! Amanda!”

  Trying to shut out the sounds of Charley and of her own heart pounding in her ears, Amanda stood and pressed back as close as she could to the bed. She wanted to stay in the shadows until Collins came in and she could get between him and the door to trap him in the bedroom. If he saw her and tried to run, she couldn’t shoot him in the back. Well, she could, but Jake would frown on it. That would probably be more of a relationship killer than taking Charley along on their first date.

  She cocked the trigger and took her stance, waiting.

  “He’s almost here!” Charley lifted his hand higher. “Head shot! You can do it!”

  She would really like for Charley to shut up just once, but he wasn’t going to.

  Teresa came quietly around the bed.

  In the excitement, Amanda had forgotten about her guest. “Get behind me!” she whispered.

  “No.” Teresa slipped silently to the other side of the door. The moonlight coming through the window glowed on her white nightgown, making her look as ghostly as Charley who glowed faintly. Amanda’s red nightshirt would, she hoped, let her stay hidden until he got into the room.

  The door began to open slowly.

  “Shoot!” Charley shouted again. “What are you waiting for?”

  Amanda stiffened, ordered herself to relax, to focus on the gun sight, to hold her finger steady on the trigger.

  A hinge creaked and the door stopped moving.

  Amanda held her breath.

  The door moved again.

  “Shoot him!”

  Perspiration gathered on her forehead. Charley’s antics were as much the cause of that perspiration as Collins’ presence. She wanted to scream at Charley to shut up, but she didn’t dare. She didn’t want to scare Collins away, let him have time to regroup and come back another time. This needed to end tonight.

  The door slid quietly open and a tall figure with a beard and baseball cap took one step into the room then stopped, looking around.

  Damn! Amanda needed him to come farther in.

  His head turned toward the bed, toward her, and his eyes widened.

  “Don’t move!” she ordered. “I’d like nothing better than to blow your bald head right off your neck and kick it down the stairs!”

  The man froze then turned as if to run.

  “Stop!” But he wouldn’t, and she didn’t dare shoot him in the back.

  Before he could get through the doorway, Teresa appeared behind him and lifted a hand t
o his neck. Electricity sizzled through the air and around the man’s throat. Slowly he crumpled to the floor.

  “I got him!” Teresa brandished her purple stun gun. “Quick! Call the cops. He won’t be out forever unless he had a bad heart and I killed him.” She didn’t seem even a little remorseful at that possibility.

  Amanda had thought about killing him, but the idea of actually having a dead body in her bedroom was a little creepy. She released the trigger and set her gun on the nightstand. “You think he’s dead?”

  Teresa looked all around the room then shook her head. “No. I don’t see his spirit. He’s alive.”

  It was a better method than touching his neck to feel for a pulse and maybe getting lice from that beard.

  Amanda laid down her gun, picked up her cell phone and dialed 911. “I have an intruder.” She gave her name and address then hung up before the woman could ask for more information. She wasn’t sure how much time she’d have before the cops got there, and she wanted to spend that time waking Collins and having a heart to heart chat with him.

  She flipped on the lamp and strode over to where the man lay. With one foot she turned him over.

  The baseball cap came off exposing a full head of hair.

  “That’s not Ronnie,” Charley said.

  “What? Sure it’s him. So he got a hairpiece. I saw him wearing this cap the night we went out for Mexican food. It’s Collins. Look at that ratty beard.”

  Teresa frowned and held the stun gun toward Amanda. “Take this.”

  Amanda accepted the purple object and set it behind her on the night stand. “What’s wrong?”

  Teresa leaned slowly toward the body. “This is not possible.” Her words were muffled as if she pulled them from the depths of her being.

  Had Teresa accidentally zapped herself with her stun gun?

  “Don’t get too close!” Amanda warned.

  Teresa reached down, grabbed the beard and tugged. It came off in her hand. She gasped, tossed the beard across the room, and stepped backward, her eyes wide and her face pale. Her mouth opened but no sound came out.

  “Are you all right?”

  Teresa closed her mouth, swallowed, looked at Amanda then at Charley then back to the man on the floor. “That’s Anthony.” Her voice was quiet and strained. “That’s my ex-husband.”

  Teresa must have zapped herself and it had affected her brain. Amanda leaned over and tentatively touched the man’s shoulder. It was real and solid. “This is not your ex. Your ex is dead, and this isn’t a ghost.” But this man did look a lot like the pictures Amanda had seen of Anthony. Still, it was a generic look…Italian or Hispanic.

  Teresa looked down again and shivered. “I know he’s dead, and this can’t be him, but it is. I swear it’s him. I don’t understand.”

  Neither did Amanda. Obviously the man who’d broken into her apartment wasn’t Ronald Collins, but it didn’t look like a ghost either. Unless some ghosts were more material than others. “You did say you wanted to try to lure Anthony here tonight to talk to Charley.”

  Teresa’s eyes widened and she gazed at Amanda in horror. “Oh no. I’m so sorry. I told his ghost—I mean, him—that you have the flash drive and passport. He came to get it. Damn! It’s him, all right. He’s not dead. Now I suppose I’ll have to start the divorce proceedings all over again and pay more lawyers’ fees!” She gave the body a savage kick.

  “Teresa, Anthony’s dead. They found Anthony’s body in the garage.”

  “Burned beyond recognition.”

  Amanda’s gaze met Teresa’s as the implications of that detail sank in.

  In the dead silence that followed, Amanda heard the distinct clicking sound of her front door knob turning.

  She froze. “The cops would knock, wouldn’t they?” she said softly.

  “I’ve got this.” Charley darted past them through the living room.

  Teresa pointed at the lamp. “The light!”

  The living room was dark, and they didn’t want to be spotlighted for the benefit of whoever was breaking in now. Amanda switched the lamp off just as the front door began to slowly creak open.

  Charley rushed back to them, not even bothering to move his feet in a pretense of running. “It’s Collins! I’m sure this time!”

  Amanda looked at the unconscious man on her bedroom floor. Apparently the local organization of home invaders was having their Friday night get-together at her home. And she was still in her nightshirt. Her mother would be mortified.

  “Amanda! He’s coming!” Charley warned.

  The real Collins’ appearance in her apartment seemed anti-climactic, almost an after-thought. Amanda reminded herself he was real, that a crazy man was breaking into her home. Another crazy man.

  She grabbed an arm of the first intruder. “Help me move him. We need to close the bedroom door!”

  Charley and Teresa both grabbed the other arm. Amanda and Teresa tugged the man farther inside the room while Charley pretended to help.

  Charley darted back into the living room then returned to the bedroom. “Hurry! He’s got the door open enough to come in!”

  Amanda eased the bedroom door almost closed and peeked out the opening.

  Collins stuck his bald head and ugly beard into her living room then came in, closing the door quietly behind him.

  Amanda’s mouth went dry. She reached behind her and lifted her .38 from the nightstand.

  Collins walked through her living room with a swagger, leaning to run a hand over the cushions of her sofa. They would have to be cleaned.

  As he approached, Amanda again cocked the trigger of her revolver. The small click sounded eerily loud, seemed to echo in the darkness.

  A wide smile split the scraggly beard. “I spy somebody’s little eye peeking through the door! Amanda, here’s Ronnie!”

  Amanda swung the door wide and stepped out, leveling her gun at him. “Don’t move, and don’t touch anything else.”

  He deliberately traced his fingers over the shade of her floor lamp. “Isn’t that cute? Got yourself a little gun. Charley said you was a spitfire.”

  Charley shrugged. “I did.”

  “He’s right. Now get your greasy fingers off my property before I shoot you with this little gun that’s loaded with .38 hollow point bullets.”

  “You don’t want to do that.”

  “Actually, I do. I really do. I’ve been fantasizing about it ever since the first time you stepped through my door with your shiny head and ugly beard and that stupid piece of paper that my idiot ex-husband signed when he had no right to!”

  Charley flinched. “You don’t have to be mean about it!”

  Collins’ grin widened. “Now you got me. What you gonna do with me?”

  That was a good question. Since she was the one with the gun, Amanda didn’t feel her life was in danger so she didn’t have the legal right to shoot him. What did one do when holding a man at gunpoint and waiting for the police to arrive?

  “Sit down on the sofa.” She didn’t really want him sitting on her furniture, but she didn’t want him leaving before the cops got there either.

  “Whatever you say, sweetheart.” He sank onto the sofa, the macabre smile still on his face. “You look good in that short gown. Nice legs.”

  “Hey!” Charley darted through the coffee table and stood in front of Collins. “You can’t talk like that to my wife!”

  Amanda released the trigger of her .38 but kept the gun in her hand as she moved slowly across the room. She bent to turn on a lamp then sat on the chair facing the sofa. Charley perched on the arm next to her.

  She could see Teresa’s outline in the shadows of the bedroom, but with the light on in the living room, Collins probably couldn’t see her. He wasn’t expecting anybody else to be there. Thank goodness Teresa was hanging back, not rushing out with her stun gun to save the day. Now all she had to do was keep this crazy man in her apartment until the cops arrived.

  Collins draped an arm along the bac
k of the sofa. “This is a nice place. I’m gonna like living here.”

  Amanda leaned forward. “What is wrong with you? You can’t just come in and take my home and my business!”

  “Your husband gave me a piece of paper that says I can. You got anything to drink? My mouth’s kind of dry.”

  “I have plenty to drink, but you’re not getting any of it!” She shook her head. “You are bat crap crazy! My attorney has already filed a lawsuit to discount that piece of paper.”

  Collins snorted. “You got a lot to learn about how things are done in the real world, Miss Highland Park. I got a piece of paper says I own this place, and I got the power to run you out of it no matter what some attorney with a fancy degree says.”

  Amanda’s fingers tightened around the gun in her lap. To shoot or not to shoot. She sighed. Not really an option when he was apparently unarmed, both weapon-wise and mentally. “I’ve got the law and a .38 that say you’re wrong on both counts.” She leaned toward him. “Look, I understand you’ve got your drug dealers coming after you, but that’s not my problem.”

  “Yeah, I know you talked to Janice. You think I wouldn’t find out? She tells me things.”

  Amanda frowned, remembering Janice’s fear when she talked about Collins. “Yeah, she tells you things when you beat her.”

  “I never beat her. Sure, I hit her a few times. She likes it. Makes her feel like a real woman. Did you feel that way when Charley hit you?”

  Charley turned to her, his eyes wide. “I never told him that!”

  Makes her feel like a real woman? Amanda’s jaw clenched. She really, really wanted to shoot the man but she wouldn’t have time to hide the body before the cops arrived. “Charley never hit me. He had a lot of problems and did a lot of things wrong, but that wasn’t one of them.”

  “Too bad. You might have liked it.”

  “Or I might have shot him.”

  Collins’ grin got even wider. “You are sassy. Guess it goes with the red hair. I had me a red head once. She wasn’t so sassy when I got through with her.” He took a crumpled package of cigarettes from his shirt pocket, tamped one out and put it in his mouth.