None of them had believed he would really tell, or have the nerve to confront either Glen or Jones again.
The whisper of cushions and a grunt from Mick drew his attention back to Reece, shifting to a more comfortable position. As soon as she settled again, so did the dog, looking utterly content.
“Did I mention that I had a visit from a ghost tonight?” she asked, the lighter tone in her voice signaling the end of the other subject.
“It must have slipped your mind. What happened?”
“Just light. Footsteps. A book moved from where I’d left it a few moments before.” She paused. “A note written on the mirror telling me to leave.”
“Not a very friendly ghost, huh.”
She shrugged carelessly, though Jones wasn’t too convinced by it. “Maybe he doesn’t like sharing my room with me. Or maybe he thinks if I couldn’t bother to visit while he was alive, I’m not welcome now that he’s dead.”
“He? Your grandfather?”
She shrugged. “I smelled tobacco. Though I doubt he’s the only Howard who liked his cigars.”
The presence at the creek that morning had smelled of tobacco, too. Arthur Howard had dominated the place while he lived. It was no surprise he’d hang around now.
“You planning to spend the night out here instead of inside with him?”
She made a pfft sound. “If Grandmother had a chaise with a nice thick cushion on it… He didn’t waste any time on me when he was alive. I doubt he’ll give me much more of his attention now.”
“That would be my guess.” Jones yawned, then nudged Mick. “Come on, boy, I need to get some sleep.”
He half expected the dog to open one eye, give him a blank look, then close it again. Instead, Mick stepped lightly to the ground, stretched, then trotted for the cottage. Reece laughed at his fickleness. “Yeah, good night to you, too, Mick. You’re welcome for all the scratching.”
“Sitting with you is comfortable,” Jones said as he stood. “Stretching out on the bed, though, is his idea of the way to spend a night. See you tomorrow.”
He crossed the road into the shadows that hugged the other side, listening for some sound that Reece was going inside, too. It didn’t come. When he stepped inside the cottage, he turned back to fasten the screen door and saw her still sitting there.
He intended to lock up, strip down to his boxers and crawl back into bed, but the sight of her held him there. She seemed so alone and vulnerable. She was alone: no family that counted, no man to stand beside her, just friends back in Louisiana.
That wasn’t too different from his life, the cynic in him scoffed, and he wasn’t alone or vulnerable.
But no one had abandoned him. No one had ever wanted him dead.
After a few minutes, she stood and, like Mick, stretched. Her back arched, her breasts pushing against her thin shirt, the hem of the shirt rising up over her middle. She held the position long enough to make his mouth dry, then straightened, looking at the house for a time before finally walking to the door. She really didn’t like the place. But why should she, when all the memories were bad?
He stood there in the dark, just watching, until she disappeared inside. A moment later the patio light came on again. Soon after that, a shadow appeared in the only room lit up, then those lights went out, too.
Rubbing at the unease cramping his neck, Jones closed and locked the door and went to bed.
Reece awoke even more tired than when she’d finally fallen asleep. She hadn’t had any screaming-to-wake-the-dead nightmares, but her sleep had been restless, her dreams haunted by Grandfather’s fierce scowls, Mark’s taunts and angry words.
If you say a word…
Curiosity killed the cat.
Meee-oww.
She felt a little better after a long shower. After dressing in jeans and a shirt, she picked up the family-history book from the dresser, her gaze fixing on the mirror. Leaning forward, she blew out her breath on the glass, curious to see if the message might reappear in the fog. It didn’t.
Grandmother had already eaten breakfast and was in her study, her back to the door, when Reece tried to slip past. Without glancing up, she said, “It’s about time you got out of bed.”
Reece grimaced before turning into the room. Grandmother could hear the faintest creak of a floorboard when someone was trying to sneak past, but never heard any of the thumps and thuds from the ghosts. How was that? “Good morning.”
The old lady turned, and displeasure wrinkled her nose. She disapproved of jeans—Reece had heard that on her first day in the house fifteen years ago—and shorts—Reece had learned that on her second day. And she certainly disapproved of Hawaiian shirts with bright red flowers on a royal-blue background.
Some days a girl just had to dress to suit herself, and today Reece really needed the lift from the vividly colored shirt.
“I’m going to a meeting in town today,” Grandmother said once she was certain the censure had been recognized. “As Mr. Jones is going to restore the gardens, I believe joining the garden society is in my best interests. The meeting is today, and there will be a luncheon afterward. I gave Lois the day off, so you’ll be on your own for lunch.”
“That’s fine.” Reece wasn’t a fan of eating out by herself, but this would give her a chance to go into town and see if anything jogged her memory. She doubted it, since the bulk of her time had been spent here on the property, but hey, it was an excuse to get out for a few hours, right?
Grandmother tucked her handbag under one arm and bypassed Reece on the way to the door. When her gaze fell on the book Reece held, she gave a firm nod of approval.
Reece followed her into the hall. “Do you need a ride?”
“Of course not. I am fully capable of driving myself where I want to go.” Grandmother cast a sharp look over one shoulder. “I may be approaching eighty, but I’m as able-bodied and sharp-minded as ever.”
Her snippy tone made Reece draw back emotionally if not physically. “I never suggested you weren’t.”
“Your cousin suggests it quite regularly.”
“He worries about you.” Heavens, she was defending Mark. Who would have imagined it.
As she stepped outside, Grandmother shot her another scowl. “When he’s got something genuine to worry about, I’ll tell him.”
When the warm morning sun struck her, Reece felt a moment of relief. A gentle breeze blew from the west and smelled faintly of wood smoke. On the far side of the river, a thin plume of smoke circled lazily into the sky, and an unseen boat putted on the water. It seemed such a normal scene that, for a moment, she felt normal.
As Grandmother passed the fountain, heels tapping on the brick, Reece drew her attention back. “I only offered because I hadn’t seen a car around.”
“It’s in the garage, where we’ve always kept the cars.”
Garage? Reece glanced around, her gaze lighting on the storage sheds that stood between the house and the barn. She’d walked right past them yesterday, paying them no mind, but now she saw the keypad on the nearest one, and the overhead door.
A faint memory stirred: that door standing open, Grandmother’s big old Cadillac gone, Grandfather’s beat-up pickup inside. The tailgate was down, the bed littered with dirt and holding a tarp stained with something dark and wet. Grandfather, filthy and sweating, yelling at her to get back to the house, and Mark…just standing there, a look on his face. Fear? Excitement?
Goose bumps covered her arms, and she shivered violently, hugging herself to ward off the sick dread. She’d seen that feverish, gleaming expression in Mark’s eyes before, one day when he’d…when she’d…
The memory was there, so close, so elusive. She focused inward, trying to grab it before it slipped away, but she was too late. Like fog struck by burning sun, it disappeared.
Like the message on the mirror last night.
“Do you intend to follow me all the way?”
Grandmother’s impatient voice brought her back to the mome
nt. They were halfway to the garage, when Reece couldn’t remember crossing the patio. She looked at the garage, then back at the house, and gave herself a mental shake as she stopped. “No, of course not.”
“The spare key and the code to the gate are on my desk. If you go somewhere, be sure to lock up. And if you do go somewhere, change clothes. Howard women do not appear in public dressed so gaudily.”
Reece stood where she was, book clutched in her arms, until the garage door had lifted, until Grandmother had climbed behind the wheel of a big old Cadillac—Lord, surely not the same one she’d driven fifteen years ago—until she’d backed out of the garage and driven past with a frown directed at Reece.
“Wow. That car’s a classic. It’s older than both of us.”
Jones’s words would have startled her if Mick hadn’t run into view the instant before he spoke. She turned and watched the two of them saunter down the road from the direction of the barn.
He wore shorts again, denim, with a T-shirt advertising a nursery in Louisville. His hair was untidily combed, and dark glasses hid his even darker eyes. He looked friendly, approachable, sexy—and still, somehow, mysterious. It wasn’t the way he moved, all smooth and easy, or the way he grinned, all open and boyish. It was just some aura about him. Some little bit of something.
“Everything else around here is ancient. Why not the car?” She greeted Mick with a quick rub, then asked, “Walking the property again?”
“Giving Mick some exercise. He’d sleep twenty-two hours a day if I’d let him.” His gaze slid over her. “I like your shirt.”
Glancing at the huge flowers, she smiled. “Me, too. It’s hard to take life too seriously when you’re wearing a Hawaiian shirt.” If only that were true.
“Where is Miss Willa off to?”
Reece fell into step with him and headed back the way she’d just come. “She’s joining the garden club in town. Now that you’re restoring the gardens, it’s her duty.”
“She takes duty very seriously.”
“Yeah.” Except the duty of caring for her granddaughter when she’d taken her in. Had Grandmother been so disinterested that she hadn’t noticed that something was wrong? Or had she just preferred Mark? After all, she’d described Reece as spoiled with a tendency to cry, while Mark was merely a pest.
“You’ve got a book again.”
Again? He’d never seen her with a book. Oh, but she’d told him she’d read a lot that summer. “It’s a Howard family history, bought and paid for by the Howard family.”
“Lots of unbiased views and straightforward facts, huh.”
“There’s nothing like having total control over the final product. How’s the work coming?”
“Great. I’ve done some preliminary sketches, and Lori, who works back in the office, is doing a search for the original statuary. I doubt we’ll be able to buy much of it back, but Miss Willa wants to try. We’re also putting together a list of—”
He stopped in his tracks, the words stopping, too. Reece looked at him, then in the direction he was staring: his pickup. It took her a moment to realize what was wrong with the picture: both tires on the driver’s side were flat.
“Son of a bitch!” Jerking off his glasses, he lengthened his stride and Mick ran ahead, a low rumble coming from his throat.
When Reece caught up, she saw that the other two tires were flat, as well. With a jerk of his head, Jones muttered, “Yours, too,” and she spun around to the same sight with her SUV.
“They weren’t flat when Mick and I left the house. What about you?”
“I don’t… I was talking to Grandmother, and I—I remembered something from—from before. I didn’t notice the cars at all.”
His gaze sharpened, and she realized his eyes were the biggest source of his mysterious aura. They were so dark, so intense. A lot of emotions could hide there. A lot of secrets.
He started to speak, but bit off the words and yanked his cell phone from his pocket instead. Finding the number he wanted, he gripped the cell tightly and walked a few feet away. “Hey, Calloway, it’s Jones again. I just have a request this time.” Tersely he explained the situation, said thanks and disconnected. “He’s going to send a wrecker out.”
Reece frowned as she walked toward her car. She’d heard the Calloway name before, and not just on the plantation she’d passed on her way here. Memory clicked: Mark had mentioned it. Grandmother’s lawyer.
Why would Jones have Grandmother’s lawyer’s number in his cell?
“Robbie Calloway?” she asked, her voice reedy. “The lawyer?”
“No. Russ Calloway. Owns the biggest construction company around here.”
She didn’t realize she’d been holding her breath until she let it go. It seemed logical a landscape architect would meet the owner of a local construction company. Maybe Jones did a few small jobs on the side while working on big projects like this.
He passed her, walking a wide circle around her truck. “Your ghosts ever do anything like this before?”
She lifted one shoulder in a hapless shrug. “One of them moved my book last night. Have yours?”
He shook his head. “I’ve never run into a destructive one.” He gazed up at the sky, rested his hands on his hips and flatly said, “Well, hell.”
Well, hell, indeed.
Chapter 6
The tow-truck driver gave them a lift to a tire store in town, the one recommended by Russ Calloway. After talking with a service technician, Jones and Reece left their vehicles there and walked outside to the sidewalk.
“You hungry?”
When she didn’t answer right away, he turned to see her staring around intently. There was nothing remarkable about the block: a ’50s-era drive-in; Charlie’s Custom Rods; a window treatment place; a chiropractor’s office. Was she looking for something recognizable from fifteen years ago?
Or was it all recognizable?
“Reece,” he said, and her gaze flew to his. “You want some lunch while we wait?”
“Uh, yeah. Sure.”
“You have a favorite place here?” He half expected a terse repeat of the claim that she didn’t remember anything, but he didn’t get it.
“No.”
“Downtown’s that way.” He pointed, and they started walking to the nearest northbound street. “There are a couple places down here to eat—a deli, a steak house, a home-cooking diner, Mexican, pizza, a riverside place that’s a little more upscale than the others. What do you feel like?”
“Any place where I don’t have to sit up straight on the edge of my chair and deal with a full complement of silver.”
“Miss Willa still likes things a little formal, does she?”
Her scowl was her only response.
Copper Lake was a nice little town, laid out around a central square with a white gazebo, lots of flowers and the usual war monuments. He pointed out a couple of businesses as they walked the few blocks to the square, then stopped across the street from the Greek Revival mansion that sat just southeast of the square.
“That’s where your grandmother is. The garden society meets there.”
Reece looked at the house, then back at him. “How do you know that?”
“My job basically boils down to gardening. I learn these things.”
“Beautiful place.”
“The oldest house in town. Not rumored to be haunted, though I assume it is.”
She looked at the house a moment longer, its white paint gleaming in the morning sun, the massive oaks with their Spanish moss casting welcome shade. It had been meticulously restored a few years earlier and was ready to face the next two hundred years with grace.
When Reece glanced back at Jones, her expression was troubled. “Do you think someone sneaked onto the grounds this morning and slashed our tires?”
“I didn’t see any slashes.” Or any footprints, though gravel wasn’t likely to show much. “I’ll bet they just let the air out.”
“They who?”
&
nbsp; He shrugged. “Ghosts? Your grandfather? Your grandmother?” A pause for effect, then, “You. Me.”
Her face paled. “I didn’t— Why would you—”
“I didn’t, either.” They crossed the street, passed A Cuppa Joe and continued northward. “I just can’t see Miss Willa stooping to vandalism. For someone to come onto the property, he’d either need the code for the gate or would have to climb the fence, and in the middle of the morning, that’s a bit of risk for very little gain. It isn’t much of a warning. It isn’t violent. Mostly it’s just a nuisance. Why would a living, breathing person bother?”
A few yards passed in silence.
“Mark has the code,” she said quietly.
“I figured that. And if he was seen, he’d have an excuse: he’d come to check on Miss Willa. But why? Like I said, it’s not a big deal. If the tires had been slashed—” and he could see Mark doing that, quick, vicious work “—that would be different. We’d be out the money for new ones, and there’s some element of threat there. But just letting the air out?”
She nodded as if agreeing as they turned at the next corner. Their destination, a little diner he’d found his first day in town, was in the middle of the block, a place that looked every bit its age. There were rips in the vinyl benches that had been repaired with duct tape, and the industrial carpeting on the floor carried a lot of stains. But the rest of the dining room was clean, the waitresses friendly and the food good.
He waited until they’d settled in a booth and the waitress had taken their order before he brought up the subject niggling at the back of his mind the past hour.
“You said this morning that you’d remembered something from before.” He watched for a response and saw it in the clenching of her jaw, the shadowing of her eyes. “You want to talk about it?”
She looked as if she wanted to put it out of her thoughts forever, but after a sigh, she shrugged. “It wasn’t anything much. Just I’d gone outside one morning and wandered over to the garage. Grandfather and Mark were in there, doing something with his pickup, and he…he screamed at me to get back in the house. He was angrier than I’d ever seen him. And Mark was so complacent.”
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