by Etta Faire
“It’s fine,” he said. I couldn’t tell if he was in pain or not.
“That’s a pro. Holds up well under pressure.” I was on the stair in front of him, yet I was still shorter. I kissed his cheek and made my way to his lips. I knew they’d be scratchy from his not-so-closely-shaved beard. I threw my arms around his neck and he easily lifted me, carrying me up both flights of stairs. If he was in pain, he did a good job of hiding it.
“I’m so glad you’re strange like me,” I said.
“I don’t feel strange.”
“We never do.”
He stopped at the strands hanging along my bedroom door frame, sniffing and touching them.
“Rosalie’s recipe for keeping ghosts out of my room,” I said.
“I have to get this recipe,” he replied, carrying me through the doorway, closing the door behind us.
I woke in his arms the next morning and it felt so good I almost forgot I had a seance to prepare for, and no idea how to prepare for it. Somehow, I needed to find evidence from today that tied Myles Donovan and the rest of his gang to the crime from 1957 in order for Gloria to get her justice. And no one in this town was helping.
But right now, the only thing I cared about was the bear beside me in bed.
“Good morning,” I said the moment Justin opened his eyes. “So, how does this superpower of yours work, anyway?”
He blinked several times, his eyes barely focusing. “Wait, what?” He shook himself like he was trying to wake up. “Superpower what?”
“The shifting thing,” I replied. “How does it work?”
He sat up along his pillow and I snuggled into him, smelling his neck. I could never explain why, but I always loved smelling his neck. It always made me feel safe and connected to him. Now, I wondered if it was because he smelled like a bear. I took another whiff. Lingering cologne and sweat.
He didn’t answer me, so I went on. “Do you need to get angry to change?”
“You mean, like the Hulk?” His voice was curt as he looked at the ceiling. I could tell he didn’t want to answer my questions. I wasn’t sure why.
“No. I have more control over it than a comic book character. It’s painful, yet compelling.”
I nodded. It sounded a lot like the way channeling and the curse were to me.
“And how did you even know I was in trouble last night, anyway, Dr. Banner,” I asked, sitting up.
“I had a feeling.” Justin turned over to face me.
“Like a spidey sense?”
He always looked good in the morning. It was easier for men to rock the tousled, bed-hair look. I wondered if it was even easier for bears. I nervously twisted my frizzed-up curls into a makeshift bun, trying to get there.
I didn’t want this new information about him to change things between us. I tried to look comfortable like nothing had changed, even though it had.
He ran a hand through his hair, and I noticed every muscle in his bare chest and arms. “I’ve been checking this area a lot since you told me about the snowplow incident. When you have a gorgeous, stubborn girlfriend who refuses to carry a gun and likes to stir up trouble in a town that doesn’t like to be stirred, you pop in every once in a while to make sure she’s okay.”
I knew he was looking for a thank-you, but I wasn’t feeling it. “I don’t need protection,” I said.
“I know. I wasn’t asking.”
I mindlessly ran a finger over his bare chest. It wasn’t even hairy like you’d expect a bear shifter to be. “But thank you.”
He was right. I probably should’ve carried a gun, but I didn’t really like those. Plus, I had horrible aim. I changed the subject. “So, how many shifters are there? How does this all work? And…” Something came to me. “Is your neighbor a shapeshifter too? Neither of you were cold in the parking lot the night I was over despite the fact you weren’t wearing coats. And that weird phone call in the middle of dinner. Was that like your top-secret, superhero call? I bet your whole apartment complex is full of bears, huh? And you all forage in the Dead Forest…”
“What? Now you’ve gone one-hundred percent out of your mind.”
His smile was crooked, his teeth straight. He leaned over and pressed his mouth over mine, stopping my line of questioning with a long kiss. When we came up for air, he said, “One of these days we’ll have a long talk about this whole thing. You can ask me questions about shifting and I’ll ask you questions about being a medium.”
“Deal.” That was seriously a no-brainer. I could talk all day about the oddities of being me. I wasn’t sure he was ready to hear those oddities, though.
“But we have to get going soon,” he said. He got up and I watched him walk across my room to find his clothes and get dressed, muscles rippling like he stepped out of an erotica book. The man certainly did not need a spin class, which was a good thing because the man also did not know how to ride a pretend bike.
And he was right. I still had a seance to plan and a multimillionaire to cook, and slowly, so the frog wouldn’t know.
Chapter 28
Double Trouble
The rental car made a weird grinding noise every time I turned on the heat. The radio didn’t work, and the tires slid even more in the snow than my Civic. But it was cheap, and when cheap is all you can afford, you just drive like a grandma while listening to the beat of your heat grinding. It took me half an hour to get from the car rental place to the Purple Pony.
I knew as soon as I pulled in, Paula Henkel was either buying more snacks at the Bait n’ Breath or she was harassing Rosalie. Probably both. Her large white truck took up two spots in the lot, like usual. As soon as I stepped inside, I noticed Lynette was there too.
“Got fired,” she said as soon as she saw me.
“Sorry,” I replied. “I guess they didn’t buy my ‘I’m just here because I forgot my hat’ lie after all.”
She shrugged. “No biggie. I’d rather have it this way. It wasn’t like I was getting paid. And it’s gonna look amazeballs on my resume when I put down what I was fired for. We’ve gotta nail that newspaper for covering up the murder and anyone else involved.”
She stared at me like I should chime in with how, exactly, we were going to do that.
“Is that what we’re all talking about here?” I said, directing my question to Rosalie and Paula Henkel more than Lynette.
“No, not exactly,” Rosalie said. “We heard what happened last night on Gate Hill.” She adjusted her head scarf. “Are you sure this is worth it?”
“Hell yes,” I answered. “The only thing I’m not sure about is what you’re doing here, Paula. The seance is at the Purple Pony now, for free. We need to make money and you are no longer getting a cut.”
She pursed her lips. “And that’s where we have our problem. I didn’t know you did that. You should’ve told…”
Rosalie cut her off. “As soon as Lynette posted the free seance in the university’s newspaper, somebody called Paula and bought up every damn ticket.” She smiled, probably because she could use the money and was breathing a little easier. “So good news: we’re not losing the farm. Bad news: They’re either going to let the bed and breakfast sit empty or they’re stacking the audience full of people like the Herndons.”
“Nope,” I corrected her. “The bad news is for whoever bought those tickets. The seance is here now, for free. So, the Donovans or whoever else bought the tickets can sit alone at the bed and breakfast and enjoy their buffet.”
“You didn’t tell me you changed the seance’s location,” Paula said, hands on her hips.
“I didn’t need to. You told me you were giving me two days, and if I didn’t hear from you in those two days, I should consider the seance cancelled. That was a long time ago. I considered it cancelled.”
We scowled at each other for half a minute.
“So we have two seances at the same time, different locations,” Rosalie said. “And the one with food may or may not have people attending.”
I sat down on one of the stools my boss kept at various places around the shop so she could rest her bad hip whenever it acted up on her. “How many free tickets have you given away?” I asked Lynette.
“I just wrote to show up here at eight o’clock like you said. And I can’t change that because the next edition of The Daily Bear doesn’t go out until next week.”
After debating for a while on the best plans, we ultimately agreed to do the seance at the bed and breakfast like originally planned, but to put a note up at the Purple Pony telling people about the location change so they’d know where it was at.
“What if those raggedy tag college kids come and eat all the food someone else paid for?” Paula asked.
I stared at her.
“This is Chez Louie we’re talking about. The new fancy restaurant. This isn’t Waffle Buffet.”
“Rich people hardly eat anything,” I said.
“And college kids eat everything and the napkins too, if you let ‘em.”
“Okay, valid point. If Myles Donovan and the rest of his gang actually show up to claim the dinner tickets, then we’ll ask for tickets at the buffet line. Otherwise, the food is free for everyone,” I said, reminding Paula that it had already been paid for, and profited from, so she shouldn’t care who enjoyed it.
I scrolled through my phone as soon as the dreadful woman left. On the one hand, I needed to impress the college kids with a good seance full of ghosts and spooky stuff so they would become interested enough to want more from the Purple Pony. On the other hand, I needed to blow this case open using evidence and proof, and ghosts were not generally considered factual.
And so far, I really had neither.
“What can you borrow from the media center at LU?” I asked Lynette, an outrageous plan forming in my mind.
Maybe I could at least make this entertaining.
Chapter 29
Sometimes, Friends Turn
Several little-old-lady faces peered through the blinds of the large front window, probably to see who was making “all that racket” when I pulled into the parking lot a couple days later in the car I was now calling the preacher, because it was loud and seemed to be demanding money at every turn.
Landover Assisted Living was a beautiful brick building with horizontal parking along a circular driveway and a ridiculous amount of shrubbery separating the parking lot from the walkway. I stumbled through the bushes instead of going around, waving to the faces that were still staring at the woman in the loud car who was so lazy she took awkward shortcuts through snow-covered bushes.
The place was really warm when I got inside, which made the combined smell of incontinence, medicine, and mac n’ cheese make my gag reflexes act up.
“I’m here to see Bertha Martin,” I said to the woman in scrubs at the front desk.
She pointed to the guest book. “Just sign in.”
No ID required. No “Is she expecting you?” They were way too happy to have visitors at this hell hole.
“Bertie is down the main hall to the left, room 106.”
I passed by the living room, where 80- and 90-year-olds sat around a large TV or played cards at tables. No wonder they’d been so interested in my car sounds. This place was seriously lacking in entertainment.
Bertie was a woman who could afford a lot of facelifts in life, and decided to purchase every single one of them. Her cheekbones were unusually high and pronounced, more like strange growths protruding under taut skin that seemed to also somehow make her lips seem frog-wide. She adjusted her short, dark wig when she saw me, but it was still askew.
“I thought you were Charlie,” she mumbled, wringing her hands together, her long, bony fingers covered in rings.
The room held two beds and two chairs. The older lady sitting on the bed next to Bertha scoffed. “Stop talking about Charlie. He ain’t comin’.” She turned to me. “She’s off her rocker again. Charlie’s her son, but he don’t come to see her.”
“You don’t know that,” Bertha said.
“The hell I don’t. When’s the last time he came?”
“Thanksgiving.”
“Maybe one of the Thanksgivings before I got here. He and the pilgrims brought you a turkey.” She had white hair that almost matched her velour sweatsuit. She shook her head, turning her attention back to me. “Gets dressed for Charlie every single day. He ain’t comin.’” She was shouting now.
I leaned into Bertha. “Maybe there’s a place we can go to have some privacy,” I said ignoring her roommate. “My name’s Carly Taylor. Delilah Scott sent me. She said you might know about the scandal way back when that involved the firm you used to work at.”
“Delilah Scott. She came to visit me the other day.”
I nodded. I didn’t mention the part where she’d technically come to see another friend and had originally wanted to strangle Bertha when she saw her waving to her.
Bertha stood up. “There’s a computer room nobody uses too much.”
We headed over to it. Fluorescent lights buzzed over our heads as we walked, at a pace only slightly faster than not moving at all.
“What do you remember about Dwight Linder?” I asked, taking her arm to help her along.
She smiled up at me. “I got fired because of him. And I got married because of him too. How about that?”
“Sounds like quite a story,” I said.
“One of the owners at Feldman-Martin, Samuel Martin, took me out to lunch to see what I knew about Mr. Linder. I didn’t know anything. How could I? I was just the secretary, fresh out of secretarial school to boot. It didn’t matter. He was there to break the news to me that I was being fired, tell me how sorry he was they had to let me go. But something magical happened.” She paused like she was remembering it. “We never had a better time. I was being fired and all I kept thinking about was what a marvelous time I was having at lunch. We married six months later, much to the chagrin of his children who were all older than me.”
“That is a story,” I said. “I married an older man too.”
“Then you know. The problem with falling in love with an older man is there’s never enough time for the good times. The age difference robs you of that.”
“Nope,” I said, shaking my head. “There just weren’t enough good times, period. Nothing to do with time robbing me of them.”
I thought it was best not to tell her the part where that dead older man and I were now roommates who solved murder cases together in our haunted house. Some things were best left unsaid.
“Sam used to tell me that if he’d met me sooner, it would never have worked between us. He said he was a different person back then. Things are supposed to happen when they happen in life.”
“Plus, years sooner and you would’ve been a child.” I pointed out, then regretted it. I could tell by her expression she liked to remember things her way.
“I can’t tell you much about Mr. Linder,” she went on. “I never saw anything too much out of the ordinary. Never knew about an investigation until I was being fired because he stuck his hand in the cookie jar.”
“How many cookies?”
“Way too many.” Bertha smiled through her wide, bright red lips as we turned down another hall. She seemed especially happy to have me there. “I feel like I know you,” she kept saying.
Since Bertha was Sam Martin’s widow, I knew she was only going to be able to tell me one side of this two-sided argument. She probably believed her husband that Dwight Linder was the guilty one.
“Do you remember any of the names of Mr. Linder’s clients, the ones that he allegedly bilked out of money?”
She shook her head. “Only a few. Most of it happened before I got there. In fact, Sam found out later that’s why Mr. Linder’s old secretary quit. She was tired of people coming in, demanding to know stuff about the investment. Being his secretary was harassment.”
“Did you experience this harassment?”
“I wasn’t even there a full year, but yes, es
pecially there toward the end. A lot of wealthy, powerful people were very angry. And some not so rich people too. I’ll never forget the last day I saw Mr. Linder…”
She pointed to a room and we went inside. It was small and bright with a large desktop computer sitting on a table along with a printer. No one else was in there. She closed the door and gently sat down in the only seat, which was in front of the computer.
“It was the Friday before the accident.” She paused to look at the overhead lights. “No, it must’ve been a Thursday. Mr. Linder always took Fridays off. And he usually left early most days anyway. He’d sneak out and I wouldn’t even know it until I’d check on him.” She lowered her voice. “Rumor had it, there was a shed at the country club full of moonshine that Mr. Linder took full advantage of, if you know what I mean.” She winked awkwardly, her thick mascara sticking a little when she opened her eye again.
She propped her hands over the keyboard in front of her in perfect about-to-type formation. “I wasn’t a very good secretary,” she said.
“You look like you know what you’re doing.” I commented, pointing to her hands.
“Typing? Yes. But, I let all sorts of people in to see Mr. Linder, even when he told me he was too busy to see them. But when a teacher comes in with tears in her eyes holding the deed to her house, or the construction worker’s kid pulls out a photo of his family… What can you do? I had no idea it was because Mr. Linder was swindling them. I thought they needed Mr. Linder’s help.”
“Was Bill Donovan one of Mr. Linder’s clients? Was he angry too?”
“I’m sure Mr. Linder never swindled Mr. Donovan. They were good friends. Inseparable. Their families went way back. Why I think their grandparents even built the golf course together or something like that.”
“Sometimes friends turn on each other.”