by Edie Ramer
“But it could’ve been an accident, right? She could’ve tripped over the rug or something like that?”
The two lines between Tricia’s eyebrows deepened. “She died in her favorite easy chair.”
He looked at Cassie, who lifted one shoulder. From the jut of her chin, he knew her mind wasn’t changed. She was one of those people who would insist white was black.
“Is something wrong?” Tricia looked at Cassie. “Did Isabel tell you anything?”
“I haven’t seen her yet.”
“Then why are you asking these questions?”
“Yes, why are we asking?” Luke raised his eyebrows at Cassie.
She looked back at him, all expression wiped from her face. “You asked, not me. I don’t have any questions or doubts.” She leaned over the table. “Did anyone tell you that you need to work on your hostility?”
“Did anyone tell you not to insult your clients?”
“I just insult the special ones.”
Aware of Tricia in his peripheral, her gaze darting from him to Cassie and back to him, like a TV camera at a tennis game, he choked back a laugh. “You haven’t even talked to the ghost yet. If you don’t think you can, walk away before you waste your time and my money.”
“I can talk to her.” She gave him a defiant look.
Good. A glaring ghost whisperer was less temptation than a gooey-eyed one. If Cassie looked at him the way Tricia did...
He stood. “When you talk to Isabel, let me know what she has to say. I need to work on a song.”
Not giving her a chance to say anything more, he strode out of the room. As he passed Tricia, she sighed. A moment later, he hit the staircase, then took the steps two at a time, the tune thrumming in his mind along with a dozen thoughts.
If someone killed Isabel Shay, it was nothing to do with him or Erin. Just in case, he’d check the locks every night. He couldn’t take a chance that Erin might be in danger, as crazy as that idea sounded.
So this was what parenting was about. Worry and anxiety.
Why did so many people crave this gig?
He snorted. One thing he wasn’t going to do was look for Isabel’s supposed murderer. He was a songwriter, not a detective. The only place he’d catch a murderer was on YouTube, killing one of his songs.
Chapter Seven
No one murdered her! That was impossible! How dare she say such a thing?
Isabel hovered in the hall, a few feet off the floor. Luke barreled into the hall and strode past her, not looking her way. If he had, he'd have seen her ectoplasm flicker off and on, like a clap-on lamp.
This flickering had never happened before and it terrified her.
She tried to calm down, but why did the ghost whisperer say that about her? The idea was ridiculous. She’d never done anything to deserve being killed. The only people she hurt were ones who deserved it, who thought they were better than her.
Luke bounded up the stairway. Darleen's skinny daughter hurried into the hall to catch a glimpse of his back, her mouth open. Not even noticing Isabel.
The so-called ghost whisperer was wrong. Horribly wrong. Horribly, horribly, horridly.
The flickers grew stronger, more violent, faster and faster, in and out, visible and not visible.
Darleen's daughter started to turn toward Isabel. Another second and she'd see Isabel.
Isabel flew straight up through the ceiling and landed on her knees on the front guest bedroom. Other people had seen her already, and that she could handle. But not falling apart like this.
She glanced around. The door to the guest bedroom was open. What if Darleen's daughter came up to dust and saw her?
Still flickering, Isabel stepped into the closet, welcoming the darkness that settled around her like a favorite blanket. In a few seconds, the flickers eased, slower and with less violence.
A sound came out of her that was as close to a sob as she could utter. She couldn't let it happen to her again. She couldn't get this upset. She had to do something to stop the ghost whisperer.
The ghost whisperer wanted to get rid of her…but what if she got rid of the ghost whisperer instead?
In that instant, Isabel felt a shift inside her not-all-here-but-not-yet-gone body. The flickers stopped and at the same time she knew how to make the intruder go away and never, ever come back.
***
Cassie trudged up the stairs, not eager to complete her mission of confronting Luke. The thought made a trip to a dentist sound pleasant.
So far her attempts at businesslike discussions had turned electric-edged, veering into confrontations.
She passed the second floor landing and tramped toward the tower. Why was she letting her real feelings show? Usually she put on a mask of politeness Superman’s X-ray vision couldn’t penetrate.
The tower door was closed. Solid mahogany and old like everything else about the house. As she raised her fist to knock, a string of guitar chords flowed out through the cracks above and below the door, a bluesy mix, the tune catchy. She paused for a second, and then knocked decisively, two times. The guitar playing stopped and she felt a twinge of regret.
Dropping her fist, she took a deep breath. When he opened the door, she had her game face on, the one that said “Talking to ghosts is a respectable profession, and if you don’t like it, you can bite me.”
“What?” he asked.
Who had taught him his manners? Oscar the Grouch? “You left before I finished.”
He stood on his side of the door, the guitar draped across his chest, one long-fingered hand holding it lovingly.
His brows raised and she realized her pause was too long.
“It’s about the house,” she said, her words whooshing out too quickly now, but screw it. If she wanted to talk fast, she’d talk fast. “What do you know about it?”
“It’s over five thousand square feet and has too many rooms.” He shrugged. “I saw it on the Internet, liked the location and the property. Liked the look of the house. Solid. So I bought it.”
“Just like that?” She snapped her fingers.
“I make up my mind quickly.” His tone changed, low, seductive.
Cassie raised her chin. He was doing it on purpose, playing a game to amuse himself and rattle her. “When was it built?”
“Long, long ago and far, far away.”
“Not funny. My guess is close to a hundred and fifty years. Look at the plaster.” She gestured at the ten-foot ceilings. The curlicues with the tiny gryphon face must have been made by a master plasterer. The creator had probably been dead for over a century, but his art remained. “The etched glass in the doors, the painted ceilings in the main rooms downstairs.”
He shrugged. “In southern California a lot of people have this stuff.”
“They have streets of gold too?”
His laughter rasped like sandpaper. “Fool’s gold, maybe.”
“You must have the information somewhere.”
“My papers are in my safe deposit box—in California. Why does it matter? What does it have to do with Isabel?”
“I don’t know if it does.” She didn’t want to tell him about the niggle in her mind. It had poked at her brain since she first saw the gingerbread front, the two turrets, the lightning behind the house, trying to tell her something. She just wished it would tell her louder and in words.
“Ask the ghost,” he said.
“Dead people aren’t like live ones.” Thank God. “But I’ll ask her.”
If she saw Isabel. Ghosts were like cats. They came out when they wanted, not when she wanted.
Sometimes the best way to get them to emerge was to ignore them.
When he didn’t reply, she opened her mouth to talk…and realized he wasn’t looking at her face.
She followed his gaze about a foot down. Straight at her breasts.
Thank God her nipples weren’t hard.
With that thought, they pebbled.
She cleared her throat and raised her eyebro
ws. “Are you finished looking at my breasts?”
He grinned. “Never,” he said, then stepped back and closed the door.
She knew she looked like a fish with her jaw dropped and her mouth wide open.
Through the door, she heard the guitar thrum, then Luke’s voice drifted out.
“Round woman, round woman, I want a woman who’s round.
I want a woman who isn’t afraid of a few extra pounds.”
She clamped her mouth shut, wheeled around and then stomped down the stairs.
He was mocking her weight. Although the way he’d looked at her...
Could it be possible he meant it?
The thought made her pause halfway to the second floor landing. She shivered and then headed down the steps again. No matter what he meant, his hands weren’t traveling up or down any of her round curves.
They were a No Trespassing Zone.
If he crossed that line... Well, she’d do something.
Chapter Eight
The instant Cassie entered the family room, energy fluttered at her like a thousand invisible butterfly wings. She stopped, every brain cell fired up, every nerve on alert.
“Isabel?”
No one answered. No one appeared.
The fluttering stopped, but she sensed the presence of another soul, the air swirling around her, taking her measure.
“Isabel, I know you’re here.” She closed the door to create a sense of intimacy—just the two of them. Sucking in a deep breath, she tried to center herself. But she’d never been good at centering. After a few minutes, her thoughts drifted toward Luke.
She ruthlessly shut them down. He was too disturbing. Like a dark storm, with threats of lightning and thunder.
She’d much rather think about a sunny day. Joe. He was a sunny day, though he had his dark times too. But the sun wasn’t always shining. And sometimes when she and Joe were driving in the car with the windows rolled up, she got a whisk of musk…
Her imagination wasn’t that good. Probably those were the times they passed a dead skunk on the side of the road.
A noise caught her attention, a hissing sound.
“Isabel?” She glanced around. “I know you’re there.”
The noise stopped. No redheaded ghost appearing. Time to put her ghost therapy skills into action.
“Isabel, I hear you had health problems before you passed. Do you want to tell me about it?” Ghosts didn’t lose that part of their soul, the one that wanted to bore everyone about their medical problems. “I’m listening.” Cassie moved to the middle of the room, tilted her head, and waited.
It felt as if the walls of the room were holding their breath.
Not the walls. Isabel. A throbbing silence that happened when another person—dead or alive—was hiding from view
She wasn’t ready to come out and play, but she was curious. It was a start.
Cassie walked to the lannon stone fireplace and studied the photo on the mantel. Erin with a woman. It looked like her mother. Vanessa something.
She peered closer. Yes, the woman from the photo in Erin’s bedroom, sans the burgundy-colored streaks in her black hair.
Cassie’s opinion of Luke went up a notch. She was pretty sure he didn’t put his ex-wife’s photo in the family room for himself. It was for Erin, to make her feel connected to her mother. A kind thing to do. A mensch action. The action of a man who read Fathering for Dummies.
The action of a man who bought a house off the Internet to give his new daughter a safe haven.
Cassie supposed even the most cynical rockers did one or two kind deeds in their sorry-ass lives, but if her father had done even half as much...
Clearing her throat that had clogged because of a stupid, stupid emotion, she moved to four framed line drawings of black musicians on the wall. These and the photo were the only personal touches. Everything else looked decorator flawless. Perfection without soul.
The hiss returned. Cassie went still, her gaze frozen on the trumpet player, his eyes closed, a look of bliss on his face, as if the horn satisfied something inside him.
“What do you think it would be like to feel like the way this man looks?” She nodded at the drawing.
Instead of a reply to her question, emotion pounded at her. Waves of anger.
The hairs on Cassie’s nape and her forearms rose. For the first time in her ghost whispering career, she felt like the blonde babysitter in a slasher movie.
She rubbed her arms. She needed to shake off this unease. Isabel would sense her apprehension and get a kick out of fanning it.
“What’s the matter, Isabel? I can feel you’re upset. Why don’t you talk to me about it?” She turned in a half circle. Still no action but—
A sailboat painting crashed off the other wall onto the floor.
Cassie jumped, then planted her feet on the beige carpeting and tried to radiate calmness even though her heart beat erratically, a song out of tune. “I see you don’t care for boats. What else don’t you care for?”
The newspaper flew off the table between the two chairs.
“You don’t like being dead, do you?” Of course not. It hadn’t been Isabel’s time to die.
A lamp tumbled off a side table but didn’t break.
Cassie locked her muscles, not jumping this time. Isabel had snapped from annoying to destructive.
One thing had changed to make that change. Cassie. She was in the house. In the family room. Isabel’s favorite place to hang out. She had happened, invading it, seeking her out, intent on making her leave.
“Is it me? You want me to go away?”
An invisible hand tossed a vase off the smoked glass coffee table, glass shattering into shards, water dripping onto the carpet, flowers scattered.
“It takes a lot of ghostly muscle to throw that.” Cassie put amusement into her voice. Maybe slight mockery would start Isabel talking. “A lot of ectoplasm. I don’t want to tell you your business, but it would be easier if you’d just say what you want.”
A screech sent quivers up and down her spine. Human yet inhuman.
And as fake as the Phantom of the Opera’s face, meant to scare her.
“I know you don’t sound like that. Why don’t you—”
A brass candlestick flew off the fireplace toward Cassie. It stopped two feet from her face, hovering in the air. Cassie was lifting her hands to protect her eyes when the door opened and Tricia stuck her head into the room.
“Is something wron— Oh my God!”
The candlestick changed course and flew toward Tricia.
“Shut the door!” Cassie yelled, and dived for the couch, her heart pounding wildly.
Tricia screamed and slammed the door shut, the candlestick banging against it as Cassie ripped the pillows from beneath her and piled them over her like shields.
She’d figured out Isabel’s problem.
For all the good it would do her.
***
The door to Luke’s studio burst open. Tricia tore inside, sliding to a stop a few inches away from where he sat in front of his synthesizer. “The ghost—” She panted, a hand splayed over her breastbone. “It’s throwing things.”
He jumped to his feet. “Where?”
“The family room.”
Dread formed a lead ball in his stomach. “Cassie,” he snapped. “Where is she?”
“She’s there. With the ghost. She—”
He tore past Tricia, running as if a gold medal were at stake.
“Don’t go without arming yourself,” she yelled.
He didn’t answer, not even to ask how he could hurt a ghost. If there was a ghost. Maybe it was a trick Cassie was playing. Something to make him pay more money.
Maybe her readiness to give him back the money had been a pretense, a trick. Maybe she was acting.
He hoped so. He fucking hoped so.
He thundered down the stairs, Tricia’s panicky voice behind him.
“I’ll call 911.”
“
No!” He raced down the stairway three steps at a time. What was Tricia planning on telling the cops? That a ghost was throwing things?
He reached the first floor and flat out ran. He busted into the family room just as one of his Marsdon prints flew off the wall toward a mound of cushions and pillows on the couch.
Cassie. She was beneath the cushions. She was okay.
A print lashed toward him. He leapt out of the way and it smashed against the wall behind him, wood splintering.
“Luke!” Tricia screamed from the hallway. “Get out of there!”
Cassie peeked through two pillows at him. Something out of place on the cream-colored pillow caught his eye. A bright red blob.
Blood.
Cassie’s blood.
“Stop!” he shouted, adrenaline rushing through his veins.
“You stop!” a woman’s voice shouted back. Shrill and edged. Not Cassie, not Tricia.
“Isabel!” Cassie’s head emerged turtle-like from the pillows, her hair half covering one eye. No blood. Then she lifted her hand to push away the hair, and red streaked across her forehead.
The acid taste of fear burned his stomach.
Cassie scrambled out of the belly of the couch, holding a cushion in front of her chest. Instead of racing to him, she looked at the wall where the pictures had been. “You heard us talking in the library, didn’t you? You’re upset about what I said.”
Isabel screamed, and waves of anger reverberated off the denuded walls of the room. Running again, Luke lowered his head. He reached Cassie and his shoulder plowed into her stomach. Her breath whooshed out and he slung over his right shoulder, like a sack of sand. Then he ran again, back to the doorway.
“I hate you!” Isabel screamed. “I hate you.”
With every running step, Cassie’s head bobbed against his back, her breasts cushioning against his shoulder blades. Any second Isabel could throw something at her.
He’d made Cassie a fucking target.
There was a roaring in his head. His heart beat faster than a spinning CD, and he lengthened his stride.
Something thudded and Cassie grunted. Then he was out the door.
It felt as though he were running in slow motion. He peeled out of the family room and pulled the door shut behind him.