I sat up straight. It was a very generous offer coming from a famous and busy person. “Thank you, Emma. Sometimes I do feel rather alone and confused about all this.”
She laughed. “Me too.” She paused. “There’s actually another reason for my call.”
“My father again?”
“No, not this time, but a spirit has come to me determined to send you a message.”
I didn’t know what to think. My earlier experience with Emma Whitecastle had been both disturbing and interesting, but I still wasn’t onboard with all the ghost stuff. “Okay,” I said with caution.
“Remember when I was at your house and called you Dottie?” she asked.
“I do, and I should have told you then that the name Dottie did mean something to me. I’m sorry. I was just surprised.”
“Well, Dottie is back and has a message for you.”
“You mean the spirit of Elaine Powers is giving you a message for me, don’t you? Elaine—the woman who was just killed—always called me Dottie.”
“Mmm, no; it isn’t her. For the past few days, the spirit of a woman named Dottie has been bugging me to contact you.”
I sat up straight, my eyes fixed on the colorful print hung on the wall across from my desk. “And?”
“She says thank you.”
I shook my head a little, wondering if I’d heard correctly. “She asked you to tell me thank you? That’s it?”
On the other end of the phone, Emma conferred with someone, but I didn’t hear the other person’s remarks, only Emma’s. Then Emma said to me, “Dottie says to tell you thank you for everything you did for her sister.”
“Anything else?” My head was starting to swell like it had been clubbed.
“No, that was it,” Emma said. “She’s gone now. Spirits generally do that. Once they get their message across, they disappear as quickly as they show up.”
After the call with Emma, I sat in my office staring at the print on the wall again, this time for several minutes. I wasn’t studying it but going over the conversation with Emma several times in my head until my office phone rang. It was Steele. I answered it on autopilot. “Yeah, Steele?”
“Come in here, Grey, I have some questions on one of those companies you organized.”
“Be right there,” I said and disconnected the call.
I didn’t get right up and obediently hustle into Steele’s office. Instead, I continued staring at the print until it morphed into a picture of the gravestone at the Pomona Cemetery. Two names. Two graves. Sisters, tragically torn apart, now united forever. Picking up another Swiss chocolate, I held it aloft as if making a toast. “To you, Dottie and Elaine. May you both finally rest in peace.” I popped the chocolate into my mouth and closed my eyes, letting the rich goodness slowly melt in tribute.
the end
acknowledgments
Always and forever, thank you to my agent, Whitney Lee; my editors at Midnight Ink, Terri Bischoff and Rebecca Zins; and everyone else at Midnight Ink/Llewellyn Worldwide who has a hand in each of my books.
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