Give Up the Ghost

by Cherie Claire

  A stifling silence descends for what seems like minutes until Sebastian rises and stares off toward the kitchen.

  “What is it?” Maribelle asks.

  He says nothing, which unnerves us more.

  “Are you just being paranoid now, brother?” Portia asks.

  But then, we all smell it. Something’s burning.

  We bolt into action and head toward the back of the building. When Sebastian opens the door to the kitchen, a blast of hot air nearly knocks off our feet. The kitchen roars, engulfed in flames.

  Chapter 14

  TB slides two hands around my waist and firmly pulls me backwards into the main room.

  “Get outside,” he yells, then releases me and heads toward the kitchen.

  I’m not about to let my friends and family fight this alone, especially since there’s a handy paint tarp by the fireplace. Just as I’m about to grab the fabric, another hand grabs my elbow and pulls me back. This person, however, drags me to the door.

  “Get outside,” Agent Sheridan says.

  “But…,” I object, pointing to the tarp.

  “I got it.”

  The next minute I’m standing in the building’s parking lot.

  I hear the sirens approaching, see members of the community running over with blankets. An unmarked car comes screeching into the lot, gravel flying everywhere. Clayton emerges and, once he makes sure I’m not harmed, rushes into the burning building.

  I feel helpless, standing there watching everyone struggle to get the blaze under control. It’s still raining, so that gives me hope, but I spot flames reaching through the back roof so I know the kitchen’s a goner. When the fire trucks arrive, I’m pushed away from the scene, even have a fireman insist I go home and stop being a spectator.

  “My family’s in there,” I tell him.

  But as more and more people arrive and the parking lot fills up, sirens spin like a strobe light against the low-hanging clouds making the scene resemble a disco club, I retreat farther away. I find myself in the woods next to the buildings, watching the action like a movie. I strain my neck hoping to spot my husband, siblings, my favorite witch, but people are running every which way, disappearing into the building, running out the other side, a giant blur.

  “Amazing what happens when you don’t live up to a bargain.”

  My heart rises in my chest and lodges somewhere around my throat. I’m afraid to turn around, afraid to look Dwayne in the eyes.

  “Poor Vi, your life is disappearing around you.”

  I scan the chaotic scene before me hoping to spot Clayton or Sheridan, but there’s no one in the parking lot now. Everyone’s inside fighting the fire. Dwayne inches closer and I can feel his breath on the back of my neck.

  “All this goes away if you give me Jack.”

  I close my eyes, trying to find that balance Maribelle insisted would give me strength, but my words come out hollow and scared. “I’m not giving you a thing.”

  “Fine.” Clayton emerges through the building’s front door and I feel Dwayne move backward. “Then your family’s next. And maybe Gunner would like a turn with your cat?”

  It feels like an eternity before Clayton looks my way. I stand there numb, scared to call out, afraid Dwayne will stab me in the back. Finally, Clayton spots me, notices my panic, rushes over.

  “What is it?”

  I turn for the first time but Dwayne’s long gone.

  “He was right here!”

  Clayton pulls out his gun and rushes into the woods, motions with his hand for me to head toward the building so I do. When I reach the front door and the safety of the firemen, I look back. Clayton’s disappeared and the woods suddenly appear agitated, as if the storm’s returning.

  I remember Dwayne’s last words and even though I shouldn’t be doing this, head toward the houseboat. I feel more confident once I’m inside my crystal circle of protection, but my heart’s beating rapidly as I try to remember if Stinky remained inside or out when we left for the restaurant. I open the door and call his name but receive silence in return. I waddle into every room, check under the bed, look through closets — even open and inspect the kitchen cabinets where he likes to hide when the weather turns hot. Nothing. As an afterthought, I grab a knife. I return to the deck and call his name. A distant roll of thunder answers but no orange-and-white cat.

  “Stinky!” I call out frantically.

  I hear steps running up the deck and turn, brandishing the knife in front of me. Clayton holds a hand up, his other gripping a gun.

  “What the hell are you doing here, Vi?”

  The tears follow the panic. “I can’t find Stinky.”

  Clayton approaches the scene like cops in TV series, checking around corners, pistol to the ready. When he finds the area safe, he places his gun back in the hip holster.

  “Your cat can fend for himself,” he tells me, checking me out as well. “You, on the other hand.”

  “Am helpless.”

  Now, I’m really crying because I can’t do anything. I can’t help my family and friends save their business, can’t protect my precious pet or home, can’t face the person who is wreaking havoc on my beloved community. I can’t even solve Jack’s mystery so he can transition. I’m totally useless.

  Clayton pulls me into his chest and I let loose into hiccupping sobs, my hands gripping his shirt to steady myself. I’m heaving so hard my bones ache.

  “I’ve got you,” he whispers into my hair, patiently waiting for my jag to subside.

  I’m so thankful for this rock-solid man, grateful to lean on someone in my pain, but the truth is Clayton hasn’t been there for me. Dwayne has repeatedly come and gone in Emma’s Cove without the FBI’s knowledge, even standing within sight of the restaurant blaze. If Dwayne can reach me in a firestorm of firemen and FBI agents, what chance do I have in battling this man?

  I pull away, averting my gaze. Am I being paranoid or is Clayton working with the other side?

  “I’m fine now, thanks.” I start to crawfish back to the front door. “I think I’ll go in and rest for a while.”

  And pack my bags.

  Clayton senses something’s amiss and reaches for me, but I retreat farther, try to find the doorknob without turning around.

  “Vi, we should talk.”

  I attempt a reassuring smile but Clayton’s not buying it. He takes a step forward and I grab the doorknob behind me, open the door.

  “Another time,” I say quickly, cross the threshold and close the door with a bang. I lock both the knob and the deadbolt, lean my pounding head on the doorframe, and wait for the giant shadow to leave. After a few seconds, the shadow moves and I hear his footsteps head down the deck. It’s only then that I exhale a long breath.

  I look around at my sweet little houseboat and begin crying again. I hate leaving my precious oasis but I brought tragedy to this cove and I need to take it away. I head to the bedroom and pull suitcases from under the bed. I begin emptying my closet, throwing my clothes in without much thought, adding toiletries and my prenatal vitamins. Once everything’s finalized, and I zip up my laptop and notebooks into another bag, I grab my phone to call for an Uber. I’ll catch the first bus out of here, drawing away Dwayne and his evil.

  But where am I supposed to go? Home to my parents, where I might put them in danger? If Dwayne follows me there, how will I protect the lives within me?

  I fall into the living room’s easy chair still clutching the suitcase and the laptop bag, tears dripping down my cheek, creating polka dots on my maternity shirt. I’m screwed if I stay and dangerously on my own if I leave. There’s no way out of this mess and no one to save me.

  The footsteps return but this time there’s more than one. A knock sounds on the door and I spot two shadows on the other side. I wipe the tears from my face and look around for the knife, find it resting on the coffee table before me. I grab the instrument of protection and stare at the door, but I refuse to move, even when the knocking becomes
insistent.

  “Vi?” Carol asks from the other side.

  I drop everything and head for the door, pull it open and find my tribe.

  “Why are you here?” Carol asks me. “There’s a four-alarm fire across the street.”

  Nothing like journalist friends smelling a hot story — pun intended — to knock me out of my pity fest. I can’t help but laugh. Carol notices the tears lingering on my cheeks, however, so her smile fades as she comes inside, followed by Morgan.

  “What’s going on?” she asks.

  While I relock the door, I explain how family members, TB and three women in the community and I were having a private conversation at the restaurant when we smelled something burning and discovered the kitchen ablaze.

  “The fire chief said the kitchen’s a mess but the rain helped them get it under control fairly quickly,” Morgan says. “Nellie’s on the scene.”

  Carol’s worried about me, pacing the living room, studying my packed bags and the knife on the coffee table.

  “What’s going on, Vi?”

  I swallow the lump the tears left behind. “I’m leaving.”

  “What? Why?”

  The tears threaten again and it’s hard to talk. I shake my head instead.

  Carol takes my hand and leads me back to my chair, sitting opposite me on the couch. “Tell us what’s going on.”

  I explain how everyone pushed me out the door and that’s when Dwayne found me, threatening me and my family.

  “And my cat,” I whisper when the lump reemerges. “I can’t find my cat.”

  Carol shivers and sends Morgan a knowing look. “Like the Greenes’ cat in Maine.”

  My adrenaline shoots high. “What?”

  Carol exhales and her shoulders drop a good inch. “We found out quite a bit about Maribelle Greene, her husband Jack, and some lunatic she had as a brother. Apparently, he did some horrible things to their cat.”

  “And the neighbors,” Morgan inserts. “There’s a warrant out for him from the Portland Police for breaking and entering and animal cruelty.”

  Now I rise and begin pacing. I’ll die if anything’s happened to Stinky.

  “It gets worse,” Carol says.

  I turn and laugh nervously. “How?” Although, I dang well know how.

  “Nellie got your husband’s accident report from last night,” Morgan tells me. “It looks like someone tampered with his brakes.”

  My old resolve to leave this place resurfaces. “I have to get out of here. Dwayne Garrett is after my family. He started the fire.”

  “The guy you told us about?” Carol asks. “The one who tried to kill you in Mississippi?”

  I nod. “He’s here in Emma’s Cove, sneaking around under the FBI radar although God knows how, unless….”

  I hate to throw suspicion on Clayton and his men in case I’m wrong.

  “Unless what?” Carol asks.

  What the hell? I trust my friends to dig into things in an honest, balanced way.

  “They’re either the most incapable FBI agents ever or they’re working for Tennessee’s Best Hotels trying to nab Maribelle’s property next to her hotel.”

  I leave out the paranoia sweeping the town, and the other supernatural information. Journalists deal in facts and logic so it’s best not to include ghosts, demons and bad juju in brown patches.

  “I got the scoop on Tennessee’s Best,” Morgan adds, pulling out his reporter’s notebook. “They’ve been donating vast amounts of money to city council members’ reelection campaigns. Word on the street is that Touché’s spreading bad information about Maribelle, trying to get the community to pressure her to sell.”

  “The lunatic brother is working with them,” I add.

  “Damn.” Carol leans back on the sofa.

  “It gets worse,” I tell them. “We think her brother may have killed her parents.”

  Either that or Maribelle’s the best liar in Tennessee and we’ve all been sucked in.

  “This is a great story.” Morgan looks pleased, and if I wasn’t a journalist who might have reacted the same way in the same situation, I would stab him with that knife.

  Copy Desk Carol, on the other hand, who didn’t go into journalism to discover the next Watergate, sends him a reprimanding look.

  New footsteps sound on the deck so I grab the knife and face the door, feet splayed.

  “Okay, you’re scaring me,” Carol says.

  I think to mention the crystal protection circle that’s kept Dwayne away but I doubt she’d understand. And I’m not sure it’s working, considering Dwayne has bypassed the FBI, my vigilant feline, and my husband who can sense danger within a one-hundred-mile radius.

  Someone’s fiddling with the doorknob and all three of us hold our breath until the door flings open and TB steps inside. He only has eyes for me.

  “Vi, where the hell have you been?” He grabs me in a tight embrace, ignoring the knife in my hands, which I immediately let fall to the floor.

  “I’m okay,” I mutter into the crook of his shoulder.

  But I’m not, still determined to leave this place. And that thought makes the tears fall again.

  “I’m Carol from the newspaper,” I hear Carol say behind TB. “And this is our business editor Morgan.”

  TB pulls back and acknowledges my colleagues politely, although he never lets me go, holds me tight with one arm around my shoulders. I can’t stop the pain breaking through, thankfully not sobbing like when Clayton visited but the tears keep falling in an endless stream I can’t control.

  Bless her heart, Carol comes to the rescue, hands me a tissue while she explains to TB what information they found on Maribelle and her brother, the developers trying to infiltrate Emma’s Cove, and how the police report suspects someone tampered with his pickup truck.

  “Your wife thinks this Dwayne fellow caused the fire,” Morgan adds.

  TB releases me enough to gaze into my eyes. I think I finally have the waterworks under control so I tell him the bad news.

  “I saw him in the woods next to the restaurant.”

  I feel the muscles in TB’s body tense. “When?”

  “During the fire. He said he wouldn’t stop until I gave him Jack.”

  “Gave him Jack?” Morgan asks.

  “It’s a long story,” I tell him.

  Not what you want to say to a journalist. Both Carol and Morgan cross their arms and wait for me to spill the beans.

  “You really don’t want to know,” TB tells them.

  “Oh, yes they do,” I answer.

  More footsteps and Nellie appears in the door.

  “Hey Vi, got a laptop I can use? The night desk is waiting for the story. I have one in the car but it’s way on the other side of the action and the parking lot’s jammed with cop cars.”

  “Yeah, no problem.”

  I slip out of TB’s embrace and grab the bag that’s been left on the living room floor, pull my laptop out and hand it to Nellie who thanks me and immediately gets to work. TB notices the suitcase lying by the chair and sends me a questioning look.

  “We’re leaving,” I tell him and he nods.

  “Oh no, you’re not.” Now, it’s Portia’s turn to come waltzing through the door, leaving a long line of dirt and ashes in her wake. “The son-of-a-bitch responsible for burning my brother’s restaurant is going down.”

  Sebastian’s right behind, but he had the forethought to shake the mess off his shoes before entering.

  “Kitchen’s gone but we hadn’t installed the new appliances yet, thank goodness,” Sebastian tells us. “Good thing we have insurance.”

  Suddenly, the living room’s Grand Central Station. TB starts asking our guests for drink orders. Nellie grabs his sleeve and nabs a few quotes from him as a witness, then requests a Diet Coke. Portia calls her law firm and begins a long conversation with someone about arson cases. Sebastian introduces himself to Carol and Morgan and they fill him in on what they found. The noise resembles my family
dinners at holidays, events that would send my friends and old boyfriends running screaming from my home. Today, the cacophony comforts my bruised heart.

  I feel a nudge at my elbow. TB’s nodding toward the bedroom. If I was in the right frame of mind, I’d make a sly joke but today my thoughts run more toward slipping under those sheets and wishing the world away. I follow him to the back of the houseboat, TB closing the door to shut out the noise from the living room and conceal our conversation.

  “What happened?”

  I plop down on the bed, grateful to be off my feet.

  “I kept getting pushed out of the way and the next thing I knew I was in the woods by the restaurant. I didn’t see Dwayne, was too afraid to turn around, but it was him. He said if I didn’t give him Jack he would come after my family and Gunner would have a turn at….”

  The tears fall again. “TB, have you seen Stinky?”

  He sits next to me on the bed, shaking his head. “I let him out before we headed to the restaurant, figured we’d be home before dark.”

  I deflate like a balloon, lean forward and pull my hair through my hands not caring that I’ll resemble the Wicked Witch of the West afterwards. I’m so incredibly tired, so heartbroken I imagine myself melting into a puddle at my feet. And yes, I know, too many metaphors.

  “We need to leave,” TB whispers.

  “I know.”

  “We’ll head to my parents’ house in Florida.”

  Now, I really want to cry. It’s the best idea considering both parents contain Michael DNA, so three angel descendants against a Lucifer progeny makes perfect sense. It’s just that Angela and Richard Boudreaux lack creativity and color, literally live in a house that’s completely white inside and out. And I mean everything. They can discuss the day’s weather for an hour — God helps us if a hurricane’s coming, — and read nothing but non-fiction and ancient history texts, then corner you to relate every chapter ad nauseam. The TV’s always on, news channels analyzing one story for an entire afternoon. And then there’s the grandchildren. I’ll endure several scrapbooks filled with photos and examples of their accomplishments, which are many. Descendants, as you may guess, are overachievers.