Andie’s voice penetrated his brain. “Logan? Are you okay? Is there more? Logan?”
More?
He clenched his teeth as he felt the sweat trickle down his back…
A pretty blond woman, crying, desperate, torn between two men…
The baby, where’s my baby? I can’t go without knowing…
A staccato blast fills the air, the scent of gunpowder…
A young man in a blue uniform falls into the woman’s arms…
No! she screams. Jacob, no! I did this! I killed him! How can it be, how can it?
But I cannot go without him…without Jacob…without Sean…
I cannot go…will not go!
What have I done? Dear God, what have I done…
Logan opened his eyes to see Andie crouched at his feet, her eyes genuinely worried. His clothing was saturated with cold sweat, but his mouth was dead dry.
“Thirsty,” he whispered.
She leaped up, and in a moment, was back with a glass of water. He drained it, then wiped his mouth on his sleeve.
“You are connected to her, Andie,” he panted. “To Emma Harte.”
“But how?”
He licked his lips. “Don’t know…only know, she did it. It’s why she’s still here.”
“Did it? Did what?”
“Killed her husband. Killed the man she loved. Shot him. His spirit went on without her, so she lingers…looking for him…waiting for him to come find her, take her with him. There’s more.”
“Tell me.”
“They had a wee babe. A son. Sean. She’s desperate to find him. Looking, looking, for a hundred years. Lost and looking…never finding. It’s why her spirit remains. She’s looking for her dead husband and her baby son.”
“But she loved Jacob. I mean, in my dreams, she…she adored him. Why would she kill him?”
“I don’t know,” he muttered, letting his weary head fall back. Closing his eyes once more, he whispered, “I don’t know.”
Chapter 15
We are all travelers in the wilderness of this world…
Robert Louis Stevenson
Ethan gestured to the file in his hand. “Officer Jacob Harte died the night of the earthquake. Firemen found him inside a shop they were about to dynamite.”
Andie glanced down at the folder. “But his death wasn’t a result of the quake.”
“He’d been shot through the heart.” A sheepish grin tilted his mouth. “I guess there’s a joke in there somewhere.”
When Andie didn’t return her brother’s smile, he handed her the folder. “Sorry. A little gallows humor there. Nobody was ever charged with the murder. It was assumed he was shot by a looter.”
“Assumed?” In her fingers, the file felt smooth, the paper cool. She wanted to hug it to her body, warm it, somehow give it life. “What about Emma?”
Ethan shoved his hands in his jeans pockets and lifted a shoulder in a small shrug. “Nada. She seems to have fallen off the face of the earth that night. Things were frantic after the quake and fire, and documentation is sketchy at best. She was probably killed in the quake and her body never identified. Or maybe she just left town.”
“She didn’t,” Andie whispered absently while her mind tried to reconcile the dreams with the reality she now held in her hands. “She never went anywhere.”
“How do you figure?”
The waterfront where they stood was windy and cool. Andie watched as a breeze off the bay ruffled Ethan’s hair. He turned his head toward her, and she saw her own reflection in his dark glasses.
She took in a breath, blew it out. “I just know.”
Maybe Emma’s body had died that night, but her spirit remained; without doubt, Andie knew it was true. Her dreams of the woman, the events of her life a hundred years ago, were too vivid, the story they told, too real.
A cold chill slid to the base of her spine as though somebody had run an ice cube down her bare back.
Though she had never before given the paranormal a second thought, the events of the last few weeks had changed all that. Emma’s ghost—or spirit or soul, whatever in the hell people called the remains of a person’s energy—lingered. Apparently, the woman had a message for Andie—though the nature of that message, and why Emma had chosen Andie to receive it, was confusing and thoroughly unclear.
Logan seemed convinced Emma and Andie were connected, related in some way. But how could he make such a claim when he didn’t even know her real name.
Or did he?…darlin’ Andie…Andie darling…
Damn, had he made her as a cop? He was a smart man; he must have either figured it out or had access to high-level resources.
Wait, wait, wait, she admonished herself. She was getting off track. For the moment, she would set those thoughts aside and examine them later. Right now, she had another mystery to solve.
“Andie?” Ethan said, rousing her from her thoughts. “What do you mean you just know…”
“I don’t know how I know, Ethan, I only know she died that night, too. She just…did.”
Andie had rendezvoused with Ethan in front of The Cannery on Fisherman’s Wharf, grabbed some to-go coffee, then crossed Jefferson to walk out on the Hyde Street Pier. Touristy as hell, but she didn’t care. She adored San Francisco, especially the waterfront.
Approaching a weatherworn bench, still a little damp from the morning fog, she sat with the file resting on her lap. She took in a deep breath of brisk salty air while she let her fingers slide over the file. Ethan remained standing, his stance wide, his attention focused on the bay behind her, where Alcatraz sat like a crazy kind of battleship anchored on a choppy sea.
The file on her lap seemed to grow heavy. She knew it contained photographs. Would the faces she was about to see match those of the people in her dreams?
What if they didn’t? Would she feel relief…or disappointment? And if they did match, would it mean her subconscious had been invaded by the spirit of a woman who had died a hundred years ago?
Her fingers trembled only a little as she eased opened the file; her breath snagged in her throat, and she nearly gasped out loud. Blinking back tears, she let the shock run its course as she tried to focus on the photograph of Emma Harte.
On barely a breath, she whispered, “Oh my God, it’s her.”
Though the tintype’s ecru-and-khaki hues had faded, the young woman who stared serenely up at Andie from a world that existed a century ago was the very woman of her dreams.
Andie let her gaze run over the picture. Emma Harte was lovely. Her hair had been brushed back and up, pinned into the Gibson Girl style of the day. Her light eyes gleamed with intelligence and undisguised mirth. She had a full mouth that curved into a smile, as though she knew some secret she was bursting to tell. Inside Andie’s head, she heard Emma’s voice, her Irish accent sweet and rich and honest.
Though she’d only seen Emma in dreams, looking down at her photograph now, she felt the woman was familiar in a way she hadn’t realized before. Something about her forehead perhaps, or the set of her jaw. And maybe a little something around the eyes. Though it was an elusive familiarity, it couldn’t be denied.
Had what Logan said been true? Were she and Emma Harte related? If so, it must be a distant connection, since neither Ethan nor Nate had been able to find a direct link.
“It is her,” she said flatly. “I can’t explain it, Ethan, but this is the woman I’ve been dreaming about.”
“Okay.” Ethan stared down at her for a few moments, then said, “What about the man?”
Taking a deep breath, Andie slid Emma’s photograph off the top, revealing a second picture.
Jacob Harte wore a policeman’s uniform and bowler hat. His handlebar moustache all but obscured his mouth, but the line of his strong jaw was clear. He had a fine nose, high cheekbones, dark hair. And he was handsome.
Andie glanced up at Ethan, then down again at the photograph of Jacob, then back up at Ethan. “Did you, uh, notice anything odd
about this picture?”
“Maybe,” came the curt reply.
“Maybe?” she drawled. “Ethan, he looks just like you.”
Removing his dark glasses, he rubbed the bridge of his nose. With a slow nod, he said, “I thought it was just my imagination.”
“No. He looks exactly like you.”
“And the woman,” he said. “You look like her.”
Andie shook her head. “I-It must be our imagination. We’re trying to find a resemblance, trying to make it fit, that’s all. We’re not related to these people.”
Ethan shoved his dark glasses back on, put his hands on his hips, set his jaw. “I don’t know. I guess we could be. Maybe Grandpa Jack’s father had a brother—”
“That would explain why you look like Jacob, but not why I look like Emma.”
Ethan rubbed his jaw. “Why does it matter? If the family tree gets a little confusing way back when, what does that have to do with now?”
Andie studied the two photographs. “Well, it doesn’t, except for my dreams and the possibility that this Emma Harte is trying to…uh…send me some kind of message.” She closed the file and shook her head. “There’s no way I can say that without sounding totally loony.”
For a moment, Ethan gazed out across the bay, then rolled his lips together and shrugged. “A couple of years ago, I would have agreed with you. But my wife…I mean, you know, Georgie…well, like, okay, here’s the deal. For Christ’s sake, I’m married to a woman who makes me carry a green-silk hankie in my pocket so I’ll stay healthy. And, what’s even weirder, I actually do it.”
Andie smiled up at her brother. “It’s only because you love her so much.”
He shrugged, then a faraway smile turned his mouth into a that-close-to-being-silly grin. “Yeah,” he said quietly. “But that’s beside the point. I mean, while I still don’t buy her whole feng shui thing, I have come to accept certain, um, elements of it, I guess you’d say, and if my wife thinks my carrying a green-silk hankie will keep me safe, I don’t have a problem with that. So if you tell me you have dreams of a woman who looks like you, who lived a hundred years ago, who’s trying to send you some kind of message, well hell, who am I to throw stones?” He shrugged again. “I mean, maybe Nate’s right. Maybe you should go see Tabitha and have her help interpret your dreams. It can’t hurt, can it?”
A blessed event, they call it! Blessed when it’s over, and that’s a fact!
With my belly swollen twice the size of California, my knees up and spread wide, all dignity has vanished, and I feel vulnerable and even shamed. I’ve never seen a babe born, so this is new to me, and perplexing. I’m used to knowing what I’m about, but this has stolen my self-assurance from me and replaced it with bewildering doubt.
Sure, and I’m giving a heave and a push, but I may as well be trying to roll a barrel of nails up Telegraph Hill with me little finger, as shove Jacob’s son into this world.
“Emma,” Mary darlin’ says to me…like I could hear a word she says above my own yellin’. “I can see the baby’s head now.” Her eyes are wide, her pretty mouth curved into a bow. “Soon, now, Emma. Very soon. Do you have anither push in you, gal?”
“Anither push?” I’m yelling. Though I love her dearly, ’tis a truly stupid question she’s askin’ me, and don’t I know it! “I’ll give you anither push…me doubled fist in me husband’s handsome snout, the rascal! If he ever comes near me again with his bulgin’ pole, I’ll be slammin’ it flat with me cast-iron pan, and that’ll teach him to be sweet-talkin’ me come a foggy Sunday mornin’!”
But Mary, she smiles. “Ah, yer sayin’ that now, gal, but it’ll be different come by and by. And when yer holdin’ yer own sweet babe in yer arms, you’ll be glad of that Sunday mornin’, and wishin’ fer anither.”
A pain the likes of which I’ve never felt seizes my spine, and my belly tightens. Placing my sweating hands atop the mound, I heave to, letting loose with a yelp that sets my own ears a-ringing. I collapse onto the bed, the linens near soaked as they are with sweat from my own poor body.
“That’s fine,” Mary whispers. “Here he comes, and fine he is, gal. Ooh, there you are my sweet lad. And a slippery little angel, to be sure…”
I barely hear what it is she’s going on about, so glad I am for the pain to have eased.
The pain…
“Is he out, then?” I ask, my voice no more than a squeak. “Is he here? Why can’t I see him? Why can’t I hear him?”
My son is dead! My own wee babe dead! Why is he not wailing like a banshee? My heart ceases to beat as terror grips at me like the very fist of Death. My fingers claw at the damp bed linens, and I try to rise. “Mary…tell me!”
“Lay yerself down, gal,” says Mary, calm as you please. “’Tis a strapping lad, Emma, but yer not done as of yet. Give us anither quick push.”
I muster a bit of energy and do as she bids. In a distant sort of way, I feel something slide out of my body. The bloody bits that come after the baby, must be.
Over my still-swollen belly, I see Mary pick up my sewing scissors. A bit of a snip, and my wee babe and I are parted, one from the other, for now, and for always.
That’s when it happens…that’s when the tears come. Tears mix with sweat on my cheeks until I can no longer tell which from which. I try to catch a glimpse of my newborn son, but my sobs jerk my body so, and my eyes are too blurred to get a lasting look.
For these long nine months, I’ve carried his tiny life inside my body. He and I were close as two people can be, and now he’s out into the world, and we’re separate. How can I protect him? Already, he’s an arm’s length away, just born though he is. We’ll never be so close again, and I feel that. Feel the ache of it in my heart, and I wonder, how can such a joyful day be so sad at the same time?
And now I hear them, my son’s cries. The first one comes soft, like he were chokin’ on a fish bone. Then anither wee squeak. Ah, but that was just the warm-up. Now comes a lusty bawl that nearly shakes the windows.
“And there he is then,” I choke through my tears. “Jacob’s son, and my own.”
I raise my head just as Mary wraps a thin blanket around the lad and lifts him up for me to see. And I grin, wide and laughing through my tears. He’s beautiful, with his red face and dark, damp hair. Gently then, Mary sets the noisy bundle into the crook of my arm, and I hug him close.
“And welcome to the world, Sean Jacob Harte,” whispers I to my babe. “You sure took yer time gettin’ here.”
His face scrunches up, and he yowls his agreement.
“Put him to yer diddie, gal,” says Mary, “while I get all this cleaned up. Go ahead. He’ll know what to do.”
For the first time, I look hard at Mary, her own eyes red with tears.
“I’m sorry,” says I. “I’m thankful of yer help, and glad for yer abiding friendship, but…I’m also sorry. I hadn’t thought how hard on you this would be…”
With a clean rag, Mary wipes the tears from her pale cheeks. “’Tis no matter,” she says lightly, and I know she’s lyin’. Now that I have a wee babe of my own, I understand her loss so much better. “’Twas a long time ago,” she says, stronger now. “And God’s will for all that. Besides, I can pour all my lost love onto this wee one of yours. That’ll be joy enough.”
I smile into Mary’s kind eyes, and she smiles back at me. Then I cup my hand around Sean’s head, his hair so fine and soft, and the same dark shade as his da’s. Easing up, I move him to me, and slide my soaked nightgown off my shoulder. Mary helps me put him to my breast. He nuzzles me there, opens his wee mouth, and latches on right away. The strength of his sucking takes me by surprise, as does the pain that follows as my milk lets down for the first time.
As my wee babe suckles his first meal, I gaze down at him in wonder. My son, mine and Jacob’s. Does every new mither feel her heart double in size, the first time she lays eyes on her newly born child?
The birth of my son has made of us a family, me and J
acob and Sean. My life is complete now, and I can’t imagine how much happier I could ever be. I only wish Jacob could’ve been here to witness his son’s first moments, but he’ll be home from work soon enough, and then the two men in my life and I will be together.
Joy, unlike anything I’ve known, fills my heart to near bursting, and I feel hot tears slide down my cheeks and into my mouth, and I don’t care. Let them come. I’m a wife and I’m a mother, and it’s nothing I’d dreamed of wanting so much, but realize now, I could never have lived without.
I feel a strange fierceness well up in me then, an anger, a fury of sorts, and I know that, without a doubt, I’d fight to the death to protect my wee babe from harm, and my husband, too…
Aye, to the death…and more.
Andie opened her eyes to meet her sister-in-law’s gaze. “So, Tabby,” she said flatly. “You’re the psychic dream interpreter. What did that dream mean?”
Tabitha March Darling, Nate’s wife of nearly two years, gently placed her hands on her swollen belly and closed her eyes. The maternity top she wore was thankfully devoid of pink bunnies and arcing rainbows, but was somewhat elegant, and the same vivid blue as her eyes. Until she’d actually met Tabby, Andie had wondered why sensible Nate had fallen for a New Age type, but in the ensuing months, discovered her sister-in-law was smart and sweet and fun, and obviously head over heels in love with Nate. They made a cute couple, and in July, they’d be a family.
The memory of Emma Harte’s words played through Andie’s head like the strains of a lost melody.
Tabby’s lashes fluttered, and she opened her eyes again, a look of confusion furrowing her brow. Absently, she curled a lock of strawberry blond hair over her ear.
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