I weighed what she said against the beautiful business card in my hands.
Pepper Martin, Fashion Consultant.
I tore the card in half, gave the pieces to Bianca, and walked away.
“Congratulations.” I wasn’t surprised to see Quinn at the cemetery for the big announcement. Ever since that night at the car lot when he finally spoke those three little oh-so-wonderful words, we’d been pretty much inseparable. I mean, when he wasn’t out catching bad guys and I wasn’t finishing up the restoration and winning Cemetery Survivor.
I’d like to say he looked happy about our victory, but truth be told, he looked sort of nervous. It was unlike him, and it was contagious. The smile vanished from my face, and I excused myself from where my team and I were celebrating our victory and ducked behind the moldy mausoleum.
“What’s wrong?” I asked him.
“Not a thing.” He poked his hands in his pockets.
Quinn never puts his hands in his pockets.
I eyed him carefully. “Then why do you look like you just swallowed a frog?”
His mouth thinned. “I do not—”
“You do. You’re supposed to be happy for me.”
“I am.”
“Then you might try smiling.”
He did. It didn’t last long. “Look . . . I’ve been thinking. About everything that happened. Bad Dog Raphael, and Bud the hit man, and about how your art show was vandalized, and—”
“It’s cool, isn’t it?” It was, and I laughed. “Everything’s tied up in a neat little package. Everything is explained. You think you’ll convict them?”
We were back on solid ground; there’s nothing a cop
“Bud is more than willing to squeal on Raphael, Raphael is more than willing to squeal on Kowalski, and Kowalski is willing to give them both up in exchange for some consideration from the prosecutor.”
“So all’s well that ends well.” I knew it was; when I got to Monroe Street that morning, I saw Jefferson Lamar watching and smiling as Helen brought him a bouquet of flowers. “So why are you looking so glum?”
“I’m not glum. I’m pissed. The more I’ve talked to Mad Dog and Bud and . . .” Quinn scraped a hand through his hair. “The more I hear from them, the more I think . . .” He let out a sigh of epic proportions. “It’s the same old, same old, Pepper. You sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong and putting yourself in danger. You were up in that damned car, and Raphael was waving a gun at you! And I thought things were different between us these days.”
“They were. They are!”
“Yeah, well, different doesn’t explain why you keep getting involved in these things. In fact, it only makes it worse. I told you I loved you. And you—”
“You know I feel the same way.” I wasn’t sure where this conversation was headed, but something told me I wasn’t going to like the destination when we arrived. I took a quick step toward Quinn. “I’m sorry that you keep worrying about me, but you shouldn’t. I can take care of myself.”
“That’s not what’s bugging me. I don’t understand what’s going on, and I don’t like the feeling. Why do
He was right, and I knew it.
Now that the moment had come for me to explain what I thought I’d never tell him, my stomach got queasy, and my voice wobbled over the words. “I hit my head back at Garden View,” I said, giving him the Reader’s Digest condensed version. “After that . . . well . . .” I was losing my nerve—fast—and I couldn’t let that happen. Before I could change my mind, I blurted everything out.
“I see dead people,” I told him. “They come to me because they can’t cross over to the Other Side without my help. So that’s what I do. I help them solve their murders. Or I help clear their names, like I did for Jefferson Lamar, and that’s why I get involved in all these things, and it’s not like it was my idea, but they’re going to haunt me if I don’t, so I might as well, you know?”
I froze, waiting for his response. It didn’t take long.
Quinn walked over, put his hands on my shoulders, and kissed me quick. “Maybe I’ll see you around sometime,” he said.
“‘Maybe I’ll see you around sometime?’” He’d already moved away, and I went after him. “I just told you the biggest secret of my life, and all you have to say is maybe I’ll see you around sometime? What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about how if you’re not going to tell me the truth . . . if you’re going to hand me some story about how you commune with the dead—”
“It’s true. I do!”
“Yeah. Right. Good-bye, Pepper.” Quinn’s shoulders were rigid when he walked out of my life.
I don’t know how long I stood there, torn between running after him and crawling into that hole in the mausoleum floor and never coming out again. I only know that after a while, my team came over to find me.
They closed in on me so fast, I barely had time to wipe the tears off my cheeks.
“We’ve got something for you,” Absalom said, and handed me a picture. It was a publicity shot taken not long after the competition started, and it showed me standing near the Monroe Street entrance with my entire team. It said “Thank You” across the bottom in artsy graffiti-like lettering.
“I should be thanking all of you,” I managed to choke out the words.
“Hey, don’t get all emotional!” Absalom patted me on the back. “And get back over near the fountain. Ella brought over a bottle of champagne. We’re going to celebrate!”
They hurried off. Crazy Jake hung back. “I have a special present for you,” he said, and he shoved something in my hands and followed the rest of my team.
It was kind of hard to see what it was, with the tears in my eyes and all, but I looked down at the black and white photograph Jake had handed me.
The picture had been taken the night of our bachelor auction. There I was, breaking all the rules, standing next to the statue of President Garfield inside his memorial.
I wasn’t alone.
There on my right was the statue of the President at the center of the rotunda. There was me. There on my left . . .
On my left was the misty image and I’d bet anything that Jake thought it was nothing more than a reflection.
I knew better. I saw an imposing man with a beard. And I wondered what Jake would say if he knew he’d taken a picture of the ghost of President James A. Garfield.
It took a while for my paperwork to be approved, and that meant I had time to fret and worry and second-guess myself.
I did a pretty good job of it.
But then, it’s not like I had a lot of other things to think about. We wrapped up Cemetery Survivor, and I was back at work at Garden View, and there was no sign of a presidential ghost or any other restless spirits. I didn’t have my team to keep me company, and I was sleeping alone. What else did I have to occupy my time?
Remember that old saying I’ve mentioned before? The one about being careful what you wish for? I guess it pretty much came true. I was leaving for the airport when I found a bouquet of flowers outside the door of my apartment. Like anyone can blame me for thinking—for one, brief, shining moment, anyway—that they came from Quinn?
No such luck. No sign of Quinn, and no sign of a signature on the card that came with the flowers, either. Which doesn’t mean there wasn’t a message:
No TV show. I’ll have to watch you in person.
“Creepy.” On my way to my car, I took both the card and the flowers down to the Dumpster in back of my apartment building, and if I hadn’t been avoiding thinking about what I’d been avoiding thinking about for as long as I could remember, I might have convinced myself that the flowers were a fluke.
The case was wrapped up, and thanks to the careful questioning of the police (not to mention the fact that he was hoping to get a little something back in exchange for any information he gave the cops), Mad Dog had admitted that he’d sent that mugger after me and that the same man—Bud—was the one who came af
ter me at the Lake View and killed Sammi instead.
But he’d never said a word about flowers.
Like a scene in a cheesy movie, my memories flashed over everything that had happened that summer: the flowers, the lipstick, the cheap chocolates.
“If it all didn’t have something to do with the case . . .” I murmured to myself, and a slow chill shimmied up my back. Like anybody could blame me for glancing over my shoulder?
Thankfully, there was nobody around, but that didn’t stop me from getting in my car as fast as I could, and from locking the doors once I was in there.
I gripped the steering wheel and let my brain follow the logical progression.
“If the flowers are still coming, they had nothing to do with your case. If they had nothing to do with your case, that means somebody you don’t know about is sending them. And that means . . .” I swallowed hard. “Stalker?”
Even though I wasn’t looking forward to where I was going, I was grateful to be getting out of town.
When I finally arrived at my destination and parked my rental car, I was far from home, and I wasn’t thinking about my stalker any longer. That didn’t keep my heart from beating double time. I blamed it on the altitude. It was better than admitting I was nervous.
I’d taken a flight to Colorado and driven from the Denver airport with a voodoo doll on my front seat next to me. I gave the doll a pat for luck, got out of the car, and went inside the prison to visit my dad.
Dead Man Talking Page 24