“Maybe that’s why Otis was here,” suggested Phil. “Was he here to make a payoff now that he’d finally sold it?”
Again a spark flickered in Leroy’s big eyes, but he said nothing.
“It still doesn’t explain why you’re hanging around, Leroy,” Emma said. “Otis is dead and you could have looked for that cash earlier today, right after we left.”
“I’m telling you, Emma,” Gino said, not taking his eyes off of Leroy, “he hung around to kill me. Stealing the money was probably something he thought about only recently, to make it look like a robbery. If you had gone off by yourselves today, I’m sure you would have returned to find me as dead as Otis.” He paused as a thought occurred to him. “Were you going to kill poor Marta, too?” he asked, addressing Leroy again.
“Or was Marta Peele a part of this?” suggested Phil. “Was the plan that she go to her friend’s while you take out the Costellos?”
Phil’s questions caused Leroy to snort. “Marta wouldn’t harm a hair on Gino’s head. She’s devoted to him like a little lapdog. Not to mention, she’s hardly smart enough.”
“Okay, so that narrows the suspects,” mused Granny. “I’ll bet that nasty Vanessa is behind this.”
“I’ll bet your right, Granny,” Emma said out loud, more to test Leroy’s response. “Granny thinks,” she said glancing sideways at Phil and Gino, “that Vanessa is behind this.”
“Granny?” Leroy asked, slightly puzzled. Then his face broke into a sardonic smile. “Oh that’s right. You’re the ghost whisperer, Emma. So a ghost just told you that Vanessa is in on this?”
“Yes,” she answered, “just as a ghost told me he saw you kill William Otis.”
Leroy laughed and shook his head from side to side. “I’d like to see you sell that to a jury.” He looked at Gino. “So you’ve finally gone around the bend, Gino, and believe in this B.S., too?”
“Who is he calling bull puckey?” Granny snapped.
“Calm down, Granny,” Blaine told her as he watched with interest. “I think Emma’s got a plan.”
“Well,” Granny said, “she’d better get that plan into gear or we’ll all be haunting Misty Hollow.”
Gino smacked his forehead with a palm, causing Leroy to aim the gun directly at him. “Of course, the meeting at the Plaza!” He looked at Leroy. “You really should be more careful, Leroy. I know a lot of people in New York. People who are happy to call me and let me know my wife and assistant were seen arguing in the bar at the Plaza.” He paused and took a few deep breaths. Leroy said nothing.
“Granny, is Fran with you today?” Emma said openly to the ghost, hoping that Leroy continued to think her medium skills were all a scam. Phil glanced at her like she was crazy, then his eyes changed, telling her he’d caught on to her plan.
“Of course she isn’t,” Granny said with surprise. “You know she’s not dead.”
“Too bad,” Emma said to Granny. “I was hoping she’d be here to see this.”
Leroy laughed again. “Who’s this Fran? Another one of your imaginary friends?”
“Well, I’m glad she’s not,” Granny answered, her hands on her hips, “or she’d be in front of a gun, too.”
Blaine floated over to Granny. “I think Emma wants you to find Fran and tell her to get help.”
Granny looked at Blaine for a second, then she looked at Emma, who rolled her eyes in confirmation. “I knew that!” Granny snapped just before disappearing.
“Is that where you hatched all this?” Gino asked Leroy, returning to the theory about Vanessa. “Wasn’t Vanessa offering enough cash to bump me off? Did you remind her that if I die, she becomes a very rich woman?” Gino shook his head and chuckled. “This is all making sense now. It’s a very old and tired story line.” He looked at Phil and Emma. “We have a prenup,” he explained. “If we divorce, Vanessa gets a very nice settlement, plenty to keep her in style. If she’s found to be unfaithful, that settlement can be halved. The baby would be proof enough for that without digging up other affairs.” He looked back at Leroy. “But if I die, Vanessa gets half of everything. The other half would go to T.”
As a horrid thought occurred to Gino, he slapped a hand over his mouth. When he removed it, his jaw was tight and his lips almost white with anger. “Please tell me,” he said to Leroy in a low, menacing tone, “that you weren’t supposed to wait until Tanisha got here and take her out, too?”
Emma tensed as the idea of both Kelly and Tanisha walking into a death trap coursed through her body like an electric current. She glared at Leroy, who remained smug and silent. Emma’s body shook as she fought to keep herself from flinging her body at him in fury. Phil, sensing her wrath, put a hand on her knee and squeezed. It was a signal to sit tight, to use her head and not her emotions in the dangerous situation. Reluctantly, Emma worked to do just that, knowing it was the smarter course of action. In situations like this, clearer heads usually prevailed.
“Okay,” said Phil, “that makes sense in a sick greedy way, but did Vanessa know about William Otis and the manuscript?”
“Vanessa knows nothing,” Leroy said scornfully, “except for the latest in fashion and how to spend money.” He fidgeted and pulled his phone out of his jacket pocket. He glanced quickly at it and frowned, obviously expecting a call.
“Yes, she offered to pay me to kill you, Gino,” he said, returning his attention to his hostages. “She offered me a lot. She said she’d transfer the money right before she got on the plane to Italy.”
“So,” Gino said, joining more of the pieces together, “that’s why you’re checking your phone. You’re waiting for the transfer to come through.” It was a statement, not a question. “The thing is, Leroy, it won’t.”
Leroy narrowed his eyes at his employer, the skin pulled tight across his narrow face. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying I’m no fool, Leroy. Vanessa took five grand out of our joint checking account yesterday, and ran up the credit cards. Then she bought a one-way first-class ticket to Italy. Right after that, I called the bank and locked everything down, every account, except for my personal account, which she can’t access. If she didn’t transfer the money yet, there’s no way she could unless she has a secret account under her own name. And if she does, I guarantee she’s not going to use it to pay you off now that the cash spigot has been turned off.” He paused, then added, “And she’s already somewhere over the Atlantic. She left this morning.”
“No,” Leroy snapped, “that’s not true. You’re just trying to mess with me, to get in my head like you do in your books.” He sneered at his boss, but his feet shifted back and forth, telegraphing his faltering confidence. “But this isn’t fiction, Gino. This is real. Very real. Vanessa told me she wasn’t leaving until tonight, which would give her time to make the transfer.” He waved the gun back and forth in front of them all. Blaine Brown made a grab for it but his foggy image went through Leroy instead.
“Sorry, Emma,” Blaine said, and tried again with the same results. Each attempt only sent a slight shiver through Leroy.
“It’s true, my boy,” Gino told Leroy in a calm voice. “We spoke this morning. She even told me where she left the rental car, and I assured her that I wouldn’t enforce the unfaithful clause in the prenup.” Gino stretched his long legs leisurely, like he was simply relaxing with a few friends. “But this, this attack on my life will certainly change that.”
Phil shifted on the sofa between Gino and Emma, adjusting his hold on his injured arm. “But what about Otis? Was Vanessa in on that scam, too?” he asked again.
Everyone looked at Leroy for the answer, but he was unraveling like an old sweater, which made him even more dangerous. Every now and then Blaine tried to push him, but failed. Emma knew that if Granny got to Fran, help would be on the way, but would it be soon enough?
The room grew markedly chillier. Emma noticed i
t first, but soon everyone was fidgeting, trying to fold in on themselves to reserve their body heat. Leroy glanced up at the French doors, which had been left open when Emma and Gino had barged into the house.
“You,” Leroy said to Emma, using the gun as a pointer, “close those doors. There must be another storm blowing through.”
Carefully and without any sudden movements, Emma got to her feet and walked the few paces to the doors. It was a beautiful fall day outside, not a storm cloud in sight. As she closed the doors, she stuck a hand out. As she expected, it was noticeably warmer outside. If she closed the doors, and with no fire in the hearth, she knew the room might get even colder. With her back to Leroy and a small hopeful smile on her lips, she firmly shut the French doors and turned around.
As Emma expected, the room was filling with hazy figures, but only a couple were clearly visible. Blaine was standing next to Leroy as he’d been before. Abigail came into view near the bar and with her, Warren. The others, not much more than various clumps of shimmering dust motes, were scattered around the room, but as Emma carefully returned to her seat, she saw some of them materializing. Soon the room was filled with spirits, young and old, male and female. The figures all wore various styles of clothing from another era. A few she recognized from the photos in the album.
“My kin want to help, Emma,” Blaine explained. “Tell us what we can do.”
Emma needed to signal them but wasn’t sure how. Would speaking to Blaine make Leroy more nervous, even though she was sure he didn’t believe in her abilities? He had mocked her when she’d spoken openly to Granny. Granny was still gone and Emma hoped that she’d had enough contact with Fran to be able to find her. Maybe, Emma thought, if she tried to address Granny again, as if she were here, Blaine would pick up that she was really speaking to him. He was a smart young man and death hadn’t seemed to diminish that.
“Granny,” Emma said, looking directly at Blaine, “be patient, the time will come. Meanwhile, let’s just gather around and wait.” He nodded back to her.
Blaine gathered the spirits up. They closed in around Leroy like a delicate feathery cocoon, not with the purpose of protection but of capture. That done, Blaine looked to Emma, waiting for further instructions.
“You bet the time will come,” Leroy laughed, trying to shake off the growing cold. “It won’t be long before you’ll be joining that old Granny you think you’re talking to.” Still unwilling to believe Gino about Vanessa, Leroy checked his phone again.
“Otis,” Gino said, addressing Leroy and getting his attention. “Phil asked you about William Otis and Vanessa. Did she know about the theft of my book?”
“No, of course not,” Leroy answered. “But she told me about it. I’d discovered it in the bottom of the file cabinet in a box about two years ago and asked her about it. Apparently, you’d told her your sad story one night after a few too many. She passed it off as just overwrought sentimentality on your end, and said you’d probably not even looked at the manuscript since you put it away.”
“So you took it and had it copied?” Phil asked. “Didn’t you think Gino would recognize it when it came out?”
Leroy shrugged. “Lots of books have the same plot. Bill and I worked it over, changing names and places. It could have been anyone’s book. The publishing world is filled with copycats.”
“Bill? You mean William Otis?” asked Emma.
“Yeah,” Leroy, said. “We’d met years ago in a writing class and kept in touch. Like me, he’s a good writer but was having no luck getting published, so we scanned Gino’s manuscript and reworked it. And, boom, just like that we landed an agent.” He grinned at Gino. “Your own agent, Gino. Obviously, you’d never shown Neil your manuscript because he didn’t recognize it and immediately signed Bill as a client. Soon after, he landed him a nice fat publishing contract.”
“So how do you benefit from that?” asked Gino.
Leroy shivered again and a dark, angry scowl covered his face. “Obviously, I couldn’t put my name on the book, just in case you became suspicious. So we had an arrangement to split the advance and royalties. We were supposed to meet in New York. He had some sort of meeting there. He’d just gotten his first advance check and cashed it and was supposed to give me half, but he never showed. Later he called and said his meeting had been canceled and he’d never gone to New York, so we arranged to meet at the old farmhouse to make the money exchange.”
“So you knew Vanessa was leaving me and heading to New York?” Gino asked.
“Of course I did,” Leroy said with a smirk. “She started planning that when we were in Italy, but when I showed up at the Plaza, she didn’t have the money she’d promised me.”
“And that’s what you were fighting about when you were spotted?” asked Phil. He tightened his grip on his arm as a spasm of pain shot through it.
“Yeah, pretty much.” Leroy was getting more nervous by the second as it became more clear to him that Gino wasn’t bluffing about Vanessa taking off and leaving him adrift. “Both of them stiffed me,” Leroy complained. “First Vanessa on the hit money, then Bill with the advance money. I was going to use that money to disappear, start over somewhere on a tropical island where I don’t have to lick the boots of a hack.” He nearly spit the words at Gino.
“Ha!” taunted Gino. “I’m so much of a hack that Broken Asphalt sold immediately, even without my name on it.”
Leroy shook the gun at Gino and everyone held their breath, expecting him to pull the trigger and get it over with.
“So you shot Bill Otis because he cheated you?” asked Phil, trying to diffuse the situation. It worked. The hand with the gun steadied and Leroy looked at Phil.
“When we met at the old house,” Leroy explained, “Bill only gave me a thousand dollars. It should have been thirty thousand. He whined about taxes and expenses and promised more later. We argued but he only laughed, telling me to try and sue him and see what happens. He flipped me off, laughed again, and started for the door.”
“So you shot him in the back for thirty thousand dollars?” asked Phil. “Small price for a man’s life.”
“Actually,” Gino noted, “Otis died for a thousand.” He looked at Leroy. “That’s all you got from him, isn’t it? Add that to the couple of thousand I had stashed away upstairs and you might be able to get a ticket to somewhere, so why not leave now and get on your way? We won’t try to stop you.”
Leroy let out a strangled half-crazed snicker. “I planned a little better than that, Gino. I just didn’t plan on being suckered by Bill and Vanessa. Bill might be dead, but it will be easy enough to find Vanessa and squeeze her for what she owes me.” He aimed the gun at Emma’s chest. “I’ll remind her that she got a deal, three bodies for the price of one.”
The ghosts around Leroy stirred and swirled around him as the room grew colder. He shivered and the gun shook with him.
“No!” shouted Phil seeing the gun trained on Emma. “Please don’t. Just go, Leroy, we really won’t try to stop or follow you.” Phil struggled to get to his feet, but Emma and Gino held him back.
“Now!” shouted Blaine to his army of ghosts. They pushed against Leroy as one just as he turned the gun on Phil and fired. The bullet went high, flying over Phil’s head, shattering the glass in one of the French doors. Emma screamed and ducked.
“Again,” shouted Blaine like a general directing his troops in battle. As a whole, the ghosts mustered their energy and quickly pushed against Leroy again. This time they succeeded in pushing his arm far to the side, just as he fired the second bullet. The shot shattered the mirror behind the wet bar.
Before Leroy could collect himself to fire again, Gino hurled himself against his assistant, knocking him to the ground and dislodging the gun. Emma jumped up. Finding the gun, she held it on Leroy just as he untangled himself from Gino.
“Enough,” she told Leroy as the winded Gino
got to his feet. When Leroy tried to get up, she ordered, “Stay right there, facedown, hands flat on the floor above your head.”
Phil got to his feet, but wasn’t steady. His bandage was beginning to show signs of leakage. “Sit down, Phil,” Emma told him gently. “We’ve got this.”
Phil smiled at her and collapsed back on the sofa, taking deep breaths as he held his arm. “Better listen to her, Leroy,” he said to the man on the floor. “She’s a crack shot, unlike you.”
The whine of sirens split the peaceful country air as police vehicles pulled up out front. “I’ll go tell them it’s all clear,” Gino said. As he passed Leroy, he gave the prone man a good solid kick to the ribs, causing Leroy to scream in pain. “That’s for my kid,” Gino said. He kicked him again in the same spot. Again, Leroy screamed in pain. “And that’s for Emma’s.”
Blaine sidled up to Emma. “Guess Granny managed to get to Fran, so if you don’t mind, we’ll go now. We’re all pretty tuckered out.”
Before Emma could say anything, including thank you, Blaine and his family were gone.
• CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO •
“HEDDY, Fran, I’d like you to meet my daughter, Kelly,” Emma said proudly.
Kelly Whitecastle shook the offered hand of each woman and gave them a confident smile. “My mother told me about you last night when we arrived, especially you, Fran. Thank you for sending the police to help them.” Kelly and T had arrived on Thursday, as planned, arriving just before supper. Emma and Gino had talked to their daughters after the police had finished questioning all of them about Leroy and Otis. They’d suggested that T and Kelly wait a few days before coming to Misty Hollow, but given the circumstances, the two worried young women wouldn’t hear of it. It had taken everything to persuade them to at least stick to their original plan of arriving on Thursday instead of driving down sooner.
“Yes, it seems we have the same gift,” Fran said, returning the warm greeting. “But I can’t take all the credit for the other day. Much of it goes to Granny. If she hadn’t been so determined to get to me, I wouldn’t have known to call the police.”
The Ghosts of Misty Hollow Page 21