by Bobbi Holmes
With a renewed spring in her step, Heather flounced over to the counter and plopped down in the seat next to Ian. “Hi, Ian.”
Startled, Ian looked to Heather. “What are you doing, stalking me?”
Heather let out a snort. “Don’t flatter yourself, bud.”
Agatha leaned forward and looked down the counter at Heather. “Her hair is almost as bad as Pinkie’s. Isn’t she a little old for braids?”
Narrowing her eyes, Heather looked past Ian to Agatha and was tempted to tell the ghost to mind her own business. Instead, she picked up the menu and opened it.
Agatha looked Ian up and down. “My, you have all the ladies chasing you, don’t you? If I remember correctly, you were dating that Lily Miller. If that waitress was correct, it must mean you’ve broken it off with her. Can’t say I blame you. She’s a snotty little thing. Was quite rude to me when I was at Marlow House. Told me to leave. Young people should have more respect for the dead.”
Heather found it impossible to focus on the menu. Instead, she listened to Agatha.
“And you were smart to turn down Pinkie when she started with that, oh, I’m off in a few hours; maybe we can go have fun. Gracious, inviting herself to your house! Telling you she wants to see your great ocean view. But she didn’t care about the view, not the way she was leaning over the counter, practically shoving her breasts in your face!”
Heather closed the menu and asked Ian, “So how was the funeral? Not a dry eye in the house?”
Before he could answer, Carla showed up with Ian’s beer and then took Heather’s order.
When Carla walked away, Heather asked again, “So, how was the funeral?”
Ian shrugged. “It was a funeral. Alright, I guess.” He took a sip of the beer.
“I figure it must have been a really special funeral,” Heather said with a smile.
Ian furrowed his brow. “Why is that?”
“It was a special funeral,” Agatha said. “The flowers were beautiful. So many flowers.”
“I just figured you got to take home a door prize. It must have been special.” Heather grinned.
“Door prize? What are you talking about?”
“She’s sitting right next to you,” Heather said, looking across Ian to Agatha, who now looked at Heather with a confused expression.
“Who’s sitting next to me?”
“Why, Agatha Pine.”
Ian set his beer on the counter and turned to Heather. “That’s not funny.”
“You can see me?” Agatha gasped.
“Not trying to be funny. And I can prove she’s sitting there.”
Ian turned around in his chair and faced Heather. “Okay, this sounds good. Just how can you prove it?”
Peeking her head around Ian, Agatha said, “Yes, I’d like to know that too.”
“Because Agatha was just yammering away about what happened right before I walked in the diner.”
“I do not yammer!” Agatha huffed.
“Okay. I’m listening. Just tell me, what happened right before you arrived?”
Tilting her head slightly while lightly tapping the tip of her index finger against her chin, Heather said, “Carla leaned over the counter, gave you a good view of her cleavage, asked about Lily, and then suggested you two go out when she gets off work in a couple of hours, and apparently wanted to go to your house and see your great ocean view.” Biting her lower lip, Heather tapped her chin again and asked, “Am I missing anything? Oh yes, I know. She said you’d have fun.”
Speechless, Ian stared at Heather.
“I know! Tell him he ordered a French dip with horseradish. He told her not to bring the au jus,” Agatha blurted. “Oh, this is fun!”
Heather leaned forward, flashing a grin to the helpful ghost. “Thanks, Agatha.” She then looked back to Ian. “Agatha said you ordered a French dip with a side of horseradish and hold the au jus.” She looked back to Agatha. “Is that everything?”
“How did you know that?” Ian stammered.
“Agatha told me. She’s been sitting next to you since I walked in the diner.”
Ian shook his head. “I don’t know what’s going on. But you guys are playing some weird game.”
Heather rolled her eyes. “Please, Ian. Don’t get all paranoid on me. I really had more faith in you. To think I once had a crush on you.”
“So you aren’t interested in him?” Agatha asked.
“Oh please,” Heather scoffed.
Carla interrupted the conversation when she showed up with Ian’s food. He stood up and took his wallet out of his pocket.
“Carla, would you please put it in a take-out bag. I’ve got to go,” he said dully as he removed a twenty and tossed it on the counter.
A few minutes later, Heather and Agatha sat together at the counter and watched as Ian hurried out of the diner, his to-go bag in hand.
Heather reached for Ian’s bottle of beer, still sitting on the counter. It was almost full.
“I think that boy’s confused,” Agatha muttered.
“Damn straight,” Heather said before taking a long swig of beer.
IAN SAT IN HIS CAR, eating his French dip, trying to sort out what Heather had just said. The logical explanation, Heather had looked into the diner through the front window before entering and had seen Carla leaning over the counter in a suggestive manner. Had Heather seen the way Carla drew her finger down his arm, it wouldn’t take much deductive reasoning to figure out Carla was hitting on him. The part about the beach house and view could have been a lucky guess. After all, that’s how people who claim to be mediums often suck in their victims. He wasn’t sure how Heather knew about the French dip and horseradish. Perhaps she’d read that off Carla’s pad of paper when she was giving her order.
After Ian finished his sandwich, he shoved his trash into the to-go bag and crumpled it up. Tossing it on the passenger seat, he started up his engine.
When Ian pulled into his driveway a few minutes later, he was surprised Sadie wasn’t waiting at the window. Normally when he came home, Sadie would hear his car pull in the driveway and would be looking out the window before he turned off the engine.
Unlocking the front door a few minutes later, he glanced to the nearby window and there was still no Sadie looking out. Pushing open the door, he expected to find her waiting. She wasn’t there.
“Sadie!” Ian shouted. Assuming she had been sleeping, he expected her to immediately wake up and come running when she heard him call. Still no Sadie.
With a frown, Ian tossed the keys on a table and made his way through the house. It felt eerily vacant. Moving through the kitchen and then living room, panic began to set in. This didn’t feel right. Sadie never failed to greet him when he came home.
Picking up his step, he moved first to his bedroom. Sadie like to sleep on his bed.
He didn’t notice it at first. The window was open, and the breeze fluttered the curtain inwards. But he didn’t notice the screen was missing until he was right at the window.
Panic renewed, he looked outside and glanced down. There on the ground just outside the window was its screen, broken and twisted. Ian dashed to the back door while calling Sadie’s name. Hurrying to the rear yard, he expected to find Sadie waiting for him. But once again, his expectations were not met.
Ian ran the perimeter of the property, calling for his dog. But there was no sign of her—just the broken window screen lying on the ground. He ran down to the beach. There was still no sign of her.
Running from the beach back to his house, now out of breath, he made his way to the front yard. Stopping to catch his breath, he looked across the street at Marlow House.
Ian let out a sigh. “She’s got to be there. That’s probably where she went.”
TWENTY-SIX
The only car parked next to Marlow House was Lily’s. Danielle’s Ford Flex was gone. From what Ian understood, they didn’t have anyone staying at the bed and breakfast. He had been told the guests staying during
the Fourth had checked out early, after Agatha’s death. Apparently the police crime scene tape used to section off the area where Agatha had died didn’t enhance the ambiance of Marlow House. While the tape had eventually been removed, it wasn’t fast enough for those who had been staying for the holiday weekend.
Crossing the street to Marlow House, Ian noted the open driveway gate leading to the side yard. He suspected no one was home. Lily had gone with Danielle to Agatha’s funeral, and he assumed they were still at the wake.
Once he got over to Danielle’s side of the street, he called for Sadie. When she didn’t appear, he entered the side yard through the open gate, heading to the kitchen door. While he had a key to the house, he didn’t intend to use it. In fact, he needed to return it to Danielle. But he figured if Sadie had come over to Marlow House and had gone inside via the pet door, all he would need to do is call her name and she would come running.
When Ian arrived at the kitchen door, he looked inside and spied Max sitting on the kitchen table, looking at him, his black tail swishing.
“Sadie!” Ian cried as he knocked loudly on the door. Max didn’t budge off the table. He continued to stare at Ian.
“If Danielle catches you on that table, you’re in big trouble,” Ian said aloud. If Max heard Ian’s words through the closed door, he either didn’t understand or he didn’t care. He continued to sit on the table.
Ian stood at the back door for at least ten minutes, but when Sadie never appeared, he decided she wasn’t in the house.
“Maybe she came over here and then took off when no one was home,” Ian muttered to himself when he walked back toward the street. Taking the cellphone out of his pocket, he immediately called the local humane society to see if they had picked her up. While Sadie was wearing a collar and she was microchipped, it was possible the humane society had her but hadn’t yet had time to contact him.
He was just crossing the street back to his house when they answered his call.
“Are you sure?” Ian asked after he was told they hadn’t picked up a golden retriever.
“Sorry. But we did get a call about an hour ago about a golden lab running along the highway, about a mile south of Pilgrim’s Point. We sent someone out there, but we couldn’t find the dog. It’s possible the caller got his breeds mixed up, and it was a retriever and not a lab.”
“Okay, thanks. I’ll go check. And you have my number. If anyone picks her up, please call me. It really isn’t like her to take off like this.”
After Ian returned to his side of the street, he walked to the back of his house and picked up the screen off the ground. He inspected it a moment, noting the gouges in the mesh.
“You did a number on the screen. This isn’t like you, girl. What did you see out that window to make you take off like this?”
Before getting into his car to go search for Sadie, Ian went back into his house and closed his bedroom window. He intended to search the area along Pilgrim’s Point first. If she had managed to run all that way, it was a dangerous stretch of highway, and the risk of her getting hit by a car was too great for him to ignore.
Ian was tempted to call Danielle and Lily and ask them to help look for Sadie. Despite all that had happened in the last couple of days, he had no doubt they sincerely loved his dog. But he knew they were both at the wake, and he felt a sense of urgency to check out where the dog had been sighted, especially considering the traffic along that stretch.
While driving, Ian watched for any sign of his dog. When he finally reached the highway, he experienced a wave of dread. The last thing he wanted to do was find his beloved golden retriever dead along the highway.
The sun was just starting to set. It hung low in the sky, hovering above the ocean, transforming the horizon into glistening orange and gold. Traffic along this section of the highway was moderate for a summer Wednesday. So far, there was no sight of any dog—retriever or lab.
Just as Ian approached the curve along the stretch leading to Pilgrim’s Point, movement along the side of the road up ahead caught his attention. Could it be a dog? Slowing down, Ian turned off the side of the road and parked his car out of the way of oncoming traffic.
Exiting his vehicle, he slammed the door shut and shouted, “Sadie! Sadie!” Walking toward the area where he had spied motion, he continued to call her name.
He walked the area known as Pilgrim’s Point. Located along the ocean side of the highway, its western border a sheer cliff overlooking the Pacific Ocean, it had been the site for several fatal car accidents during the past year—including one murder.
A car racing by him honked. Ian turned toward the highway and spied the rear of the vehicle as it disappeared down the road.
“Who is Sadie?” a female voice behind him asked.
Turning abruptly toward the unexpected voice, he found a woman standing between him and the cliff, the sun glaring brightly behind her, obscuring her features. Squinting, he used his right hand to shield his eyes from the sun.
“Where did you come from?” Ian asked. He glanced to his right and then left. He didn’t see any other car parked along the highway aside from his own.
“Who is Sadie?” she asked again.
Ian looked back to the woman, who was no more than a silhouette, her features and form blurred by the glaring light of the setting sun. “She’s my dog. Have you seen a golden retriever in this area?”
“You’re the second person looking for a dog today. But hers was a Labrador. He went down to the ocean, that’s where his owner eventually found him. You know labs, they love water.”
“Oh damn,” Ian muttered. “I guess it wasn’t Sadie someone saw.”
A branch from one of the trees growing along the edge of the cliff arched to Ian’s right. When both Ian and the woman moved to his right, it placed the branch behind her, shielding the direct sunlight from Ian’s view and allowing him to see the woman’s features clearly.
It took Ian a moment for recognition to dawn. The woman was Darlene Gusarov’s doppelganger. No, he told himself. Doppelganger was someone who looked like a living person—Darlene has been dead for months. He then remembered, in the original definition, doppelganger was the ghost of a living person. Either way, he couldn’t wrap his brain around what he was seeing.
“Oh my, you look as if you’ve seen a ghost,” she said with a laugh.
Dazed, Ian muttered, “You look exactly like Darlene Gusarov.”
She cocked her head to one side and studied him for a moment. “Did we know each other? I can’t remember?”
Ian blinked in response, unable to phrase a coherent thought. In the next instant the woman turned abruptly, moving effortless through the tree branch—not a single leave rustled—and then she stepped from the cliff, disappearing from sight.
Letting out a shout in surprise, Ian raced to the edge of the cliff, first ducking under the branch. Looking down toward the ocean, he didn’t see the woman anywhere. She had vanished.
Sitting in his car forty minutes later, Ian briefly considered calling the police and reporting what he had seen. But what would he tell them? That a woman jumped off the cliff and when he searched the area she was nowhere in sight. He had even driven down to that spot on the beach below the cliff, and he couldn’t find her—or any evidence she had been there.
Closing his eyes, he tried visualizing what he had seen. Her face and figure was how he remembered Darlene. Of course, they had never been friends—and his memories of her were the few times he had seen her around town or the pictures that had appeared in the paper after her death.
He recalled Adam mentioning once that Darlene fancied herself a Marylyn Monroe double. While he couldn’t see the resemblance, he suddenly realized the dress worn by the mystery woman looked exactly how he remembered the dress—the one worn by Monroe in her famous air vent scene.
It was now dark outside. He needed to get home. Hopefully Sadie would be there waiting for him.
“IAN’S NOT HOME,” Lily noted sadly,
when Danielle pulled the car into their driveway. “No lights are on in the house. I wonder if he went to Portland?”
Danielle parked the car behind Lily’s. “I’m sorry, Lily. I wish I could help you.”
“Ian is just one of those stubborn nonbelievers. And even when he sees glasses floating around in the kitchen, he can’t for a moment consider it might actually be something paranormal.”
“A lot of people are like that.” Danielle turned off the ignition.
“But the problem is, in Ian’s world, there isn’t room for a believer. I guess if I can’t agree with him that ghosts aren’t real, then we can’t have a relationship.”
Danielle got out of the car. “In all fairness. You’ve also said you can’t have a relationship with a nonbeliever.”
“That’s not entirely true,” Lily argued as she got out of the car and slammed its door shut. “We’ve been going along fine this last year, Ian believing in nothing and me knowing the truth.”
Together, Danielle and Lily walked toward the kitchen door.
“But you also wanted Ian to know about the spirits. You said it was important for your relationship to be honest with each other.”
“I know. And I still mean that. I was the one who wanted to be totally honest in the relationship, and Ian wanted to be a jerk.”
Lily entered the kitchen before Danielle. She wrinkled her nose and sniffed the air. “Is Walt here?”
“Hey, Walt,” Danielle greeted him as she tossed her purse on the counter. “Yes, he’s sitting at the table.
“Hi, Walt,” Lily greeted him.
“How was the funeral?” Walt asked.
Danielle glanced around the kitchen. “Is Agatha here?”
“No. I haven’t seen her since she left earlier.” Walt took a puff off his cigar. “It’s been just me and Max.”
Danielle noticed black cat hair on the tabletop as she sat down. With a frown, she brushed her hand over the table’s surface, sending the cat hair to the floor. “That darn Max has been up here.”