Nearly Departed (Spring Cleaning Mysteries)

by J. B. Lynn

  I shook my head, not trusting myself to answer aloud. I'd decided long ago not to tell them the truth about their former almost-son-in-law. My hand trembled slightly as I took the plate.

  "He asked after you," Mom continued, oblivious of my distress.

  I could feel Smoke watching me. I kept my eyes on my plate.

  "He's running for Councilman you know," Dad interjected.

  "Raymond Kerr?" Smoke asked quietly.

  "Yes," Mom confirmed. "Do you know him?"

  "We've met." Smoke's tone was flat.

  I snuck a quick glance in his direction, which was a mistake. His blue, probing gaze was locked on me. I looked away, picked up a cookie, and bit it. It tasted like sawdust. I closed my eyes.

  "He even asked if we thought you'd like to work for him," Dad continued, oblivious of the chill that settled in the room. "But I assured him you were too busy making Jerry's dream a thriving reality."

  I couldn't tell them the truth about Raymond or the business. It would break their hearts.

  I opened my eyes just in time to see the displeasure in Smoke's.

  I knew he was disappointed, but he managed not to voice it until we were back in the van, and had pulled out of my parents' driveway.

  "I can't believe you didn't tell them," Smoke said. "I gave you the perfect opening. All you had to say was, 'I gave it a try, and it's not for me.' You could have walked away from the job you hate."

  "It's not that simple."

  "Why not? Do you really think they're more interested in the legacy of their son, who's probably dead, than the well-being of their daughter?"

  I slammed on the brakes so hard that the tires burned, enveloping the van in a cloud of acrid, melted-rubber smoke. "Don't say that! Don't you ever say that!"

  "What? That chances are your brother is dead? Why? You think it's healthy to go around pretending he's going to pop up, and everything will be back to being the way it was?"

  I jumped out of the van, not caring which house I left it in front of and stalked away.

  Smoke caught up immediately, practically nipping at my heels like a little yappy dog.

  I spun around, causing him to come up short to keep from barreling into me.

  "I know he's probably dead." I poked a finger into his chest to emphasize my point. "Despite what you seem to think, I've accepted that, but the last time I tried to broach the subject with my dad, he had a heart attack. So excuse me if I'd rather keep up the macabre charade than have my mother face the loss of the two most important people in the world to her."

  We stood there in the middle of a quiet suburban street, me practically foaming at the mouth, him watching me with an unnerving stillness. "You're just as important to her as they are. If she knew—"

  I turned away from him, an ache crushing my chest.

  "Is that why you didn't tell them about Kerr? Because you were afraid they couldn't handle it?" Smoke asked softly. He walked around me so that he could see my face.

  Refusing to meet his eyes, I stared at a distant streetlight. "I don't know what you're talking about."

  "Liar. Just the mention of his name frightened you."

  Shaking my head, I clamped my lips together to stop their trembling.

  "What did he do to hurt you so badly?"

  "Nothing." Nothing I'd shared with another living soul.

  "You broke up with the guy and quit your job over nothing?"

  "It would have been awkward to continue working together."

  "Yeah," Smoke said, disgust dripping from every syllable. "That sounds just like the kind of story Kerr would spin."

  A long silence stretched between us.

  He just stood there, watching me. I risked a glance at his face. Pity shimmered in his eyes.

  I didn't need his pity. I didn't need him trying to figure out secrets I hadn't told anyone. I didn't need him telling me what to do. I didn't need him.

  "I don't get why you're protecting him, Victoria."

  "You're fired!" I shouted.

  Caught off guard, he blinked at me.

  "I told you I'd fire you the next time you called me that. I'll give you a month's pay and a kickass letter of recommendation, but I never want to see you again."

  I expected him to get mad. I expected him to argue. Hell, I wanted him to fight with me, to have the excuse to blow off some of the rage at how unfair life was that was churning in my gut, eating me alive.

  Instead he raised his hands defensively. "If that's what you want."

  I watched in amazement as he turned around and calmly strolled back to the van as though a crazy woman hadn't just screamed at him like an indignant banshee. He opened the driver's door, reached in, and removed the key from where I'd left it in the ignition.

  "What are you doing?" My voice was shrill enough to shatter glass.

  "I'm going to call Mike and have him drive you home." He turned back to face me, his expression deliberately bland.

  "No, you're not."

  As I rushed toward him, he slipped the key into the front pocket of his jeans and leaned back against the van. "Would you rather I call your…rather I call Ruth and Artie?"

  "I'd rather you not call anybody. Give me my key."

  "You're in no condition to drive."

  "So what?" I knew it was a childish response, but there was no way to take it back, so I just stood there glaring at him with my face burning and my heart thundering in my ears.

  He cocked his head to the side. "I wouldn't want you to get hurt because I upset you."

  "I'm not upset."

  He raised his eyebrows.

  "Why do you even care about any of this?"

  "Because I know what it's like to be trapped in a life you didn't choose for yourself," he said quietly, pulling his phone out of his other pocket. "Who should it be? Mike or your folks?"

  "Don't you dare!"

  "I'd be happy to call someone else for you. Venus, maybe?"

  I made a wild grab for the key.

  My fingers had barely skimmed the denim when he caught my wrist and spun me around, so that it was my back against the van. Using his other hand, he cradled the back of my head, making sure it didn't bounce off the metal panel.

  I blinked up at him, surprised and unable to figure out how he'd managed to maneuver me so quickly without causing any pain. I tried to push him away with my free hand, but he didn't budge.

  "What are you doing?" He stood so close his breath tickled my cheek.

  It occurred to me that this was the most contact I'd had with a living person who wasn't a relative or a friend from grammar school in a long time. "I…I'm trying to get my key." I tried to twist my wrist free of his grasp, but it was firm.

  "You don't strike me as the type of woman who makes a habit of going around grabbing at a man."

  I looked away, focusing on a house at the end of the street. I couldn't tell if the rasp in his voice was aggravation or flirting. I hadn't felt like a woman of any kind in a long time, a doting daughter and a worker bee, but not a woman.

  Standing so close I was suddenly…uncomfortably aware that I was a woman. My cheeks flushed with prickly heat.

  The hand that had been behind my head stroked over my ear, down my cheek and to my chin, where it exerted just enough pressure to force me to look at him.

  "I…I…" I ducked my head to escape the searching blue gaze that seemed to read me as easily as a picture book.

  Smoke lowered his head so that his breath caressed my ear. "Let me drive you home."

  Nodding my agreement, my eyes drifted closed, delighting in the sensation. I'd forgotten how nice it could feel to be so close to someone.

  "Then you'll never have to see me again."

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  True to his word, Smoke drove me home, got out of the van, and walked out of my life, without so much as a see you around.

  The enormity of what I'd done hit me the moment he was out of sight. I'd just fired the best employee I'd ever had for no go
od reason, all because he'd made me uncomfortable by giving a damn about my well-being. I had the urge to chase after him and beg him to come back. Instead, I waded deep into the garage and started tossing supplies around like a madwoman. I didn't care about the mess I was making, I just needed an outlet for my frustration. "I hate this job! I hate it! Hate it! Hate it!"

  "Then why do it?"

  The words drifted toward me from the entrance of the garage.

  I whirled around to find Smoke standing there, arms folded across the chest, surveying the damage I'd done.

  "What are you doing here?"

  "Forgot my phone in the van."

  I stood there, chest heaving from my temper-tantrum, willing him to walk away. He didn't. He just stood there, watching, waiting.

  "Come out of there before you hurt yourself, Tori."

  "There you go, telling me what to do again," I replied weakly.

  A ghost of a smile flitted across his lips. "I'm not forcing you to do anything. Your parents aren't forcing you to do a job you hate. It's all—"

  "I don't have a choice!" I interrupted.

  "Sure you do."

  "You don't understand," I whispered around the painful lump in my throat that threatened to cut off my air supply. Suddenly devoid of the adrenaline that had fueled my outburst, I swayed unsteadily on my feet. I looked down at the floor to hide the tears threatening to spill down my cheeks.

  "Then explain it to me," He stalked through the garage until he was right in front of me. He cupped his hands around my shoulders. "Please."

  I wasn't sure if he was offering physical support or trying to draw me in. All I knew was that I wanted to lean into him, lean on someone.

  "Offer me a cup of coffee, Tori," Smoke urged quietly. "We'll go inside and talk it over."

  I raised my eyes to his face. I saw concern in his steady blue gaze. I looked over his shoulder to the moonless sky. "We can't go in the house," I said. "It's that time of the month."

  Smoke chuckled. "Relax. 'Talk it out over coffee' isn't code for 'let's have sex.'" Releasing my shoulders, he stepped back as though to prove that nothing physical would be happening between us.

  I looked away, cheeks flaming. "I…I didn't mean—"

  A giant crash from inside the house effectively stopped my stammering and simultaneously proved my point.

  "Stay here!" Smoke took off for the house at a dead run.

  "No! Stop! Come back!" I chased after him, but he'd gotten a better jump and had longer legs.

  Thumps and thuds echoed from inside the house.

  Smoke had already flown up the back steps and was opening the kitchen door, something he shouldn't have been able to do. I realized that I must have left it unlocked when I'd left the house in the morning.

  "Don't!" I screamed.

  But he ignored the warning and pushed inside. The thumping, thudding, and crashing increased exponentially.

  "Smoke!"

  I jumped inside, fearful of what I would find. I imagined discovering his bloodied body sprawled across the linoleum.

  He was not prone on the floor as I'd feared, but he was hiding behind my kitchen table, which had been turned on its side to be a makeshift shield. Cans covered the floor, of course, once again pulled from my cabinets, and as I watched, one arced through the air, smashing into my now splintered tabletop.

  "Stop it!" My throat burned with the exertion. "You stop it right now."

  I jumped in front of Smoke to protect him. It would have seemed more heroic if I hadn't twisted my ankle on a can of beef stew and fallen to my knees in an undignified heap.

  "What the hell is going on?" Smoke asked. He sounded shaken.

  I couldn't blame him. To him it probably seemed that the tin and aluminum projectiles were being launched out of thin air. He couldn't see Delia grabbing the canned pumpkin and taking careful aim at the shaved dome of his head.

  "That's enough!" I told her as I struggled to my feet. "Put the pie filling down and step away."

  "Who are you talking to?" Smoke whispered.

  "I'm going to kill him," Delia declared, but she didn't immediately chuck her impromptu weapon.

  I could only deal with one of them, so I gave the immediate threat my attention. "You can't kill him here," I told my ghostly roommate.

  "Why the hell not?"

  "What if you can't get rid of him?"

  She considered that. We'd had enough conversations about ghosts being tied to the places they died for my argument to make sense. She tossed the can from hand to hand as she weighed her options.

  "Get out!" I whispered to Smoke, shooing him toward the kitchen door.

  He got to his feet, but then froze. He stared wide-eyed at the can floating in the air.

  "Now," I urged. I reached over the table, grabbed a handful of his shirt, and dragged him toward the door, making sure to keep my body between him and Delia. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw her put down the pumpkin and pick up something smaller.

  We'd just escaped outside when she let the last can fly. It crashed against the door frame with a sickening thud.

  Smoke and I both winced.

  "What the hell was that?" he asked.

  "A wild guess, but I'd say black beans."

  He stared at me as though I made even less sense than the situation he'd just run into. "What was going on in there?"

  I shrugged, too tired to try to keep the secret. "I told you. This house is haunted."

  "Haunted? As in by ghosts?"

  I nodded. "One ghost. Delia. It's her time of the month. It's the full moon. She died on a night with a full moon."

  "You mean you really believe in ghosts?" He stared at me as though I was even more frightening than the can floating in mid-air had been.

  My heart sank. He didn't believe. He thought I was nuts.

  I turned away and trudged toward the garage silently berating myself. I should have known better. I never should have told him. Now he'll tell Mike. Mike will probably have me committed. Hmmm, maybe that wouldn't be so bad. I could catch up on sleep.

  And then the guilt set in. I can't do this to Mom.

  I turned around, ready to beg Smoke not to tell anyone what I'd said.

  He was right there behind me.

  "You've got to stop doing that," I muttered.

  "Doing what?"

  "Sneaking up on me."

  "I wasn't sneaking up on you. I was following you."

  "You should stop that too."

  An uncomfortable silence, punctuated by thuds and thunks from the house, stretched between us as we stood beside the van.

  "About the ghost thing—" we said simultaneously.

  Smoke dipped his chin. "You first."

  "Just do me a favor and forget I said anything," I said in a hurried rush. "I was just yanking your chain to see how you'd react."

  "That's the story you're going with?"

  I shrugged and looked away. "It's all I've got."

  "And how do you explain that?" He tilted his head in the direction of the house. Delia was still making a racket.

  "Ummmm….magnets?"

  Folding his arms across his chest, he considered me carefully. "Is that a question or an answer?"

  My spine stiffened, and I found myself standing taller, as though I thought by looking tough, he'd believe my bluff. "Whichever you want it to be."

  His mouth flattened into a hard line. "That's your M.O. isn't it? Tell people whatever they want to hear."

  "Tell him I'm here! Tell him I'm here!" a tiny, shrill voice demanded. Angel appeared between us.

  I'd been about to say 'fuck you' to Smoke. Instead I bit my tongue, unwilling to curse in front of the little girl.

  "He doesn't believe Halley, but he'll believe you," Angel said. "Please, Vicky? Please tell him I'm here?"

  I shook my head. Things were bad enough. I couldn't afford to make them any worse.

  "Pleeeeeeease?" Angel whined piteously.

  I closed my eyes. I wanted to help the
little girl. I really did. I said to her, "Not now."

  "Not now?" Smoke asked incredulously, thinking I was talking to him. "Why? Do you have something better to do? Like trash your garage some more?"

  I opened my eyes and glared at him. "You don't understand."

  "Then explain it to me."

  "Tell him! Tell him!" Angel shouted, jumping up and down.

  "Angel says hello," I blurted out.

  Smoke's gaze darkened dangerously, and his hands balled into fists.

  Frightened, I took a step back and found myself flattened against the van. I eyed him nervously as he covered the distance between us in three long strides.

  "What did you just say?" The words were spoken softly, but they brimmed with a barely suppressed anger that sent a chill racing down my spine.

  Telling him about Delia had been an error of judgment.

  Telling him about Angel had been an even worse mistake.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  "Everything okay?"

  Smoke and I both turned in the direction of the voice.

  Detective Alan Reed stood a few yards away. His hand, none-too-subtly resting on the butt of his service revolver, which hung from a shoulder holster. No doubt he'd seen Smoke's aggressive posture and was trying to assess the situation.

  "Hey!" I meant the greeting to sound casual, but it came out as a nervous squeak. "What are you doing here?"

  "Thought I'd check up on you." Although he was talking to me, Reed didn't take his eyes off Smoke. "Make sure you hadn't run into any more trouble."

  The anger that Smoke had been sending in my direction a moment ago had found a new target in the form of the detective. He stared at him with a dead-eyed glare that would have made a lesser man cringe. Reed though, stared back nonplussed.

  "We're good. Everything's good." I didn't know if I was trying to reassure him or myself. I punched Smoke in the shoulder playfully to illustrate my point. That brought his attention back to me. I stared into his eyes, willing him to relax, silently begging him to not make the situation worse.

  With a nod so slight, I doubted Reed could even see it, he acquiesced. Stepping back, he adopted a relaxed posture, all traces of his anger evaporating into thin air.