"I don't know," Zach said. "I didn't ask them."
"But you got a permit, right?" Even his reprobate brother wouldn't be stupid enough to do all this without a permit.
"I needed a permit for the outside." Zach finished his soda. "The inside is beyond their jurisdiction."
"The Committee doesn't think anything is beyond their jurisdiction." Gabe assessed his surroundings, counting every horror movie motif. The total was mind-boggling. "They'll go nuts when they see this."
Another shrug. "So what? They can't do anything to me."
But they could do a lot of harm to PRoVE, and to Haunted Orchard.
Gabe held his tongue though. He didn't want to fight with his brother. For once. "Why did you want to see me?" he asked instead.
"Never mind," Zach drank some more soda and looked at Gabe's cut. "That looks nasty."
"It's not that bad."
"Mom's going to go ballistic when she sees it."
Zach took a bowl of snack packs out of a cabinet. Individually wrapped snack packs? Finally, someone else in the restaurant business realized that sharing bowls was unsanitary. Maybe his brother hadn't been switched at birth after all.
"How did you get it?" Zach asked as he took the last macadamia nut pack.
Gabe frowned. Macadamia nuts were his favorite. Everyone knew that.
"Did Caine talk you into trying out his new katanas?" his brother continued, trying, and failing, to open the foil bag.
"No, this was a bit more dangerous. I went house hunting with Cole's sister." He reached for the snack pack.
Zach laughed. "Oh, that's right. Mom is still after you to buy a house. I forgot about that." He pulled the packet out of Gabe's reach. Hell, what were they, five years old? "What did you do to poor Elizabeth? Bark at her too loudly?"
"I didn't do anything. A ginormous chandelier fell on us."
"Not Liam's chandelier?" Zach froze, an alarmed expression on his face, and the macadamia nuts hung in air, gleaming enticingly in the morning sun.
He took advantage of his brother's distraction and claimed the snack pack. "Of course, Liam's chandelier." How many huge chandeliers were there in Banshee Creek?
Zach didn't mourn the loss of the fruits of the macadamia tree. "He's going to blow a gasket."
He clearly relished the prospect.
"Not my problem." Gabe opened the bag and shook out a handful of nuts. "Elizabeth gets to tell him about it."
"Well, that's different. I wouldn't mind Elizabeth telling me I had to reattach thirteen hundred crystals. She's not the little goth girl she used to be."
Gabe paused, the nuts held tightly in his fist. He didn't like the admiring tone in Zach's voice.
At all.
"Yeah, I noticed," he said, a slight edge to his voice.
"Joaquín noticed you noticing," Zach answered, undaunted.
"What?" What did their brother have to do with anything?
Zach took advantage of Gabe's confusion and stole back the bag of nuts. "He saw you in the parking lot when you tried to sneak out." He smirked as he poured the nuts out. "Mom was real happy to hear about you and Elizabeth."
Great, just great.
Gabe tried to think of a bigger disaster than having his mom try to match him with Elizabeth. He failed. "There's no 'me and Elizabeth,' so there's nothing for Mom to be happy about. Let's not let that rumor spread."
"Why not? She's a gorgeous blonde with long legs. She's exactly your type."
"She's Cole's sister."
"Did you see that movie she made? The one where she ate the live mouse? The costumes were pretty hot."
Gabe remembered. He remembered every inch of Elizabeth in that bikini in high resolution, but he didn't like the thought of his brother enjoying Elizabeth in that costume. "She's Cole's sister," he repeated sternly.
Zach shook his head. "Did you hear me? I said string bikini. Alien snakeskin string bikini."
"She's still Cole's sister."
"You would care about that, wouldn't you?" More head shaking from Zach.
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"Nothing." His brother emptied the nuts into his hand. "You're you and nothing, not even a gorgeous girl, will change that."
He ate the nuts quickly. Sharing was not Zach's strong point. None of the Franco siblings had ever attempted to master the art of sharing.
"What's your point?"
"You're sure there's nothing between you two?"
"Sure I'm sure."
"Good." He threw the empty bag into the trash. "Then there's no reason I can't go after her, right?"
"Wait, what?"
"Hey, it's not every day I get to hook up with an alien princess." With that parting shot, he walked back to the kitchen.
Gabe slowly unclenched his fists. He was trying to reconnect with his brother. Punching his face was not going to achieve that.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
ELIZABETH WALKED out of her townhouse and glanced at her car parked across the street. The morning sun gleamed off the metallic orange paint and a fat gray tabby lay on the hood, basking in the glow.
She could drive to work, but the office was a couple of blocks away and the del Sol could use a rest. The tabby could keep its napping spot.
She locked the door to the townhouse, picked up the tote bag full of house listings, and headed to the office. Fall was beginning to assert itself and a sudden breeze made her shiver. She should get her coats out of her parents' attic. Correction, she should've gotten her coats out of her parents' attic several weeks ago.
Ah, the joy of living in The Quarters, the oldest and most painfully historic part of Banshee Creek. The houses were quaint but also tiny with two microscopic bedrooms, a cupboard with plumbing that passed for a bath, and nonexistent closets. Unlike the rest of the town, the houses in The Quarters didn't have brick fronts or slate roof tiles, only humble wood siding and cedar shakes. They also didn't have any legends or eerie stories. Servants had no time for hocus-pocus.
She loved her house. She'd invested several years of film royalties on the crumbling pile of sticks. It had heaps of charm, including a cozy fire stove for heat, and a rustic stone wall. True, every autumn she had to pack her summer stuff, drag it to her parents' house, and bring back her coats and sweaters. Then she had to reverse the process every spring, but a fragmented wardrobe was a small price to pay for historic appeal. For now, she'd accessorized her summer dress with warm black tights she'd found in the back of her drawer—with only a minuscule, practically invisible hole in the back of the leg—and a gray cardigan. Not the most stylish combination, but she had no clients to see today. She smiled with satisfaction. Today, that was her mother's job.
She balanced the heavy tote and fished her phone out of her purse, noting with a frown that her father had steadfastly ignored all her phone calls. He didn't seem very interested in the news that his wife appeared to be recovering.
Typical.
But she didn't have time to deal with that right now. She had one last unpleasant chore she wanted to cross off her to-do list before reaching the office. Dialing, she set off for Main Street at a brisk pace. The young cherry trees were starting to shed, and their leaves fell like festive confetti onto the polished cobblestones. Phone held to her ear, she approached Main Street. She needed her Banshee Creek Bakery spiced latte fix.
"Hey," Holly answered the phone curtly, sounding stressed.
Elizabeth could hear a cartoon theme song in the background. Good. Holly's toddler, Ben, seemed to be occupied. Elizabeth steeled herself. "I didn't sell the house," she blurted out, bracing to face her friend's disappointment.
A blast of cheery music greeted her announcement. Someone was doing unnatural things to a coconut tree.
"Of course you didn't," her friend replied with a snort. "What were you even thinking, trying to sell it to Gabe, of all people?"
"He needs a house," Elizabeth replied in a defensive tone.
"He doesn't need that house. Don't y
ou remember our freshman year?" Her voice dropped to a whisper. "Gabe actually went inside the house, Elizabeth. On Halloween night." A tinge of horror colored her words. "Liam says Gabe and Cole looked pretty spooked that night. They saw the stains," she hissed dramatically.
"What are you talking about? The floors are spotless." She felt her temples starting to throb. Again? She was having this conversation again?
"Liam says Cole told everyone in the senior class that the marble was drenched in blood."
Elizabeth rolled her eyes. Her brother, God rest his soul, had been such a drama queen. "Cole was a very creative liar, Holly. You and Liam fixed the house. Did you see any stains?"
"Gosh, Elizabeth. They only show up at midnight on Halloween. Everyone knows that." Holly's voice was firm. "That house has been unlucky for a long time. I mean, look at you. I heard that, thanks to the house, you lost a client and almost lost your head."
Great, she was now another Hagen House victim. Wonderful.
"Well, the client is my mom's problem now."
"She's back at work? How did that happen?"
"Gabe didn't give her much choice."
She felt a bit guilty about that, but hey, it was all for the best, right? It would be her mom's first house hunt in—she paused to calculate—two years.
That was a long time. She had friends who'd managed to get married, have babies, and run triathlons in that time. Folks achieved educational degrees in two years. Hell, you could run for Congress twice, almost.
But for Mary Hunt, the last two years had been an interruption of all activity, like someone hit the pause button on her life.
"Wow, that is good news," Holly said. "I know you were getting a bit frustrated about the sofa issue."
Elizabeth suppressed a shudder. For the past two years, she'd followed the same routine. She'd stop by her parents' house in the morning to bring her mother a cup of coffee and a treat from Banshee Creek Bakery, and she'd find her mom, favorite afghan in hand, settling into the sofa. Elizabeth would return in the evening with take-out pasta, or a creamy slice of icebox pie, and hide her dismay when she spied her mom still lying on the sofa.
Her anxiety had mounted as the days and months passed. She simply couldn't figure out how to get her mom off the stupid sofa. She'd tried shopping excursions and concerts and trips to the botanical garden, but nothing had worked. A change in medication would improve her mother's mood for a couple of days, but the effect would wear off by the time the week was out.
"No kidding. As soon as my mom's back to working full time, I'm burning that sofa. I should have done it months ago."
"I'll bring the kerosene," Holly said with a giggle. Another loud scream echoed over the phone. "And Ben will join the party."
"Great. Now all I have to do is convince Gabe to give the town a chance."
"But we don't have any big houses in town." Holly sounded puzzled. "Everything is small here."
"There's one place that could be built out."
"What are you talking..." Holly gasped. "Oh no, Elizabeth. He'll never go for that."
"It's perfect. All it needs is a little expansion."
"A little? That place is a money pit, an intergalactic money pit."
"And he has an intergalactic money hose. He can afford it. And think of how it'll revitalize the town."
Yes, this idea would totally work. It would be good for Gabe, it would be good for the town, and it would be good for her mom. It was perfect.
"Your mom will never go for it," Holly noted in a somber tone. "She'll kill you if you show him that house."
"We'll see. Liam left the plans at my office a few months ago, and I'm on my way to pick them up now."
"Well, good luck."
Elizabeth could have sworn she heard a whispered "you'll need it" before her friend hung up.
She reached Main Street and glared at the PRoVE building in its chartreuse-festooned regalia. At least the mansard-roofed mansion was fixed up and occupied. Too many businesses were boarded up, empty eyesores on an otherwise lovely road. She particularly missed the Hungry Owl diner's pimento cheese sandwiches, a local delicacy now gone forever thanks to the stupid paranormies.
But some businesses still remained, like Banshee Creek Bakery. She walked into the tidy brick building with the pink-and-orange awning and looked around, noting the checkerboard pattern of pink-and-orange linoleum tiles, the pink counter, and the large glass case filled with pastries and cakes. Patricia stood behind the counter in a striped apron. She was looking through some papers.
And there, on the floor, right next to the pastry case, Elizabeth spied them. Two porcelain bowls with pink-and-orange stripes—one contained milk and the other one a perfectly square scone.
Elizabeth stared at the dishes, awed. Patricia had color-coordinated her sacrificial offering.
"Hey, girlfriend," she called out. "The usual, and make it double espresso. I'm going to need the caffeine."
Patricia jumped, her blue eyes widening in alarm. She quickly stuffed the papers in a drawer and pasted a bright smile on her face. "Coming up," she said, hurrying toward the espresso machine. "Pick a dessert. It's on the house. You must need a pick-me-up after Gabe saved you from that huge chandelier."
Ah, yes, the famous Banshee Creek grapevine at work. Elizabeth started to correct her friend—after all, Gabe hadn't saved her—but her eyes were drawn to the papers partially hidden under the cash register. "Are you getting a new sign?"
"Oh, that's just a proposal..." Patricia's voice trailed off as she hurried back with Elizabeth's spiced espresso latte.
Elizabeth pulled the papers out of the drawer and gawked at the pictures. The familiar Banshee Creek Bakery sign had been digitally modified. It still bore pink and orange stripes, but a humongous cartoon ghost now smirked gleefully at her. "You're putting a ghost in your sign?"
Patricia winced as she put the paper cup on the counter. "It's only a sketch. You know, just to see what it looks like."
"You...you..." Elizabeth sputtered. "How could you? You...you...Judas." She grabbed the coffee cup so quickly that hot liquid sloshed out of the mouthpiece and burned her wrist.
"It's just a concept," Patricia said with a guilty grimace. "The handouts at the town meeting looked so cool that I wanted to see what it would look like. I know you've been rabidly anti-ghost ever since your brother's death..."
Now that was a low blow. "This has nothing to do with my brother."
Patricia raised a skeptical eyebrow. "C'mon, have a cannoli." She waved towards the glass case temptingly.
Elizabeth looked at her friend's merchandise. Meringue ghosts with black fondant eyes peered back at her. They sat next to neatly stacked licorice spiders, Frankenstein cupcakes, and...was that a candy corn cannoli?
She slammed a five-dollar bill on the counter. "Thanks for the offer," she said with as much dignity as she could muster. "But as of right now, I'm on a diet. A sugar-free, goblin-free, critter-free diet."
She flounced out of the shop and hurried toward her office. Her best friend had turned traitor.
Unbelievable.
She tried to calm down as she walked down the street. Patricia's perfidious antics didn't matter. The Historical Preservation Committee had won. The paranormies were on the run.
By the time she reached the Hunt Realty office, her breathing had returned to normal. Like all of Banshee Creek's commercial buildings, the Hunt Realty row house complied with a draconian building code that imposed a three-story height limit and required brick facades with period moldings and vintage light fixtures. At Cole's urging, her mother had added flowerpots with brightly colored plants, but the ill-fated flora had died two years ago.
A tall figure was leaning against the door. A very familiar figure.
What was Gabe doing here? Was he meeting her mom? If so, he was extremely early. No suit today either, just another sports jacket with jeans that showcased Gabe's tall build and strong muscles. He looked delicious, and Elizabeth was keenly awar
e of her mismatched outfit and the hole in her hose.
And Gabe wasn't alone. A second Franco brother stood on the doorstep, and Elizabeth cheered up instantly. Zach Franco was a welcome surprise. Unlike his stiff brother, Zach was a cheerful, unrepentant troublemaker.
And, like Patricia, a traitor. The Franco pizzeria was yet to reopen, but Elizabeth had heard some disturbing rumors regarding Zach's décor choices. Zach's turncoat ways, however, didn't inspire the same sense of betrayal as Patricia's. Zach's moral alignment was strictly, as the Dungeon & Dragons crowd would put it, "chaotic neutral."
She approached the office and waved a greeting. "Hey, Judas," she said, smiling broadly. She couldn't help it that she adored Gabe's brother. Zach Franco was impossible to resist. "Are you babysitting today?"
"Traitor?" Zach hugged her, a bit too tightly. "What did I do to deserve that? I'm as pure as the driven snow."
"Ha," she replied. "Driven by a Mack truck maybe."
She tried to step back, but his arm still hung around her waist. That was weird. In spite of his undeniable charms, there were no sparks between them. So why was he acting so grabby? She noticed Gabe scowling at them but paid no mind. Gabe frowned at everything.
"It's so great to see you, Elizabeth." Zach's eyes twinkled mischievously. "I thought my ogre brother had chased you off."
"I'm just helping my mom. This is her first day back at work."
Damn, he was a good-looking guy, with his blue eyes and rakish smile. Why couldn't she be attracted to the playful Franco brother? Although playful didn't quite describe Gabe's younger sibling. According to the grapevine, Zach Franco had very special talents and wasn't shy about sharing them.
"What are you doing here, you miscreant?" she asked, trying to shrug out of his embrace.
It didn't work. What was it with Octopus Zach? If he kept this up, he was going to get a sharp stiletto in his instep. Her boots weren't very practical for walking, but they were excellent for self-defense.
"Babysitting is the right word. Mom's afraid your brother will run off to Manhattan without completing his task. I'm here to make sure he goes through with it."
Ghost of a Chance (Banshee Creek Book 2) Page 10