Officer in Pursuit

by Ranae Rose

  “Speaking of freedom,” Grey said after a while. “When are you going to show off that new bikini? I can see the strap sticking out of your shirt. It’s like you’re trying to drive me crazy.”

  “It’s barely 70 degrees! I wore the bikini under my clothes just in case it got hot enough to swim.”

  “Oh, come on. Soon it’ll be a lot cooler and it’ll be a good seven months from now before it’s this warm again. Are you really going to make me wait that long to see you in a bikini on the beach?”

  Imagining a day on the beach seven months in the future put a spring in her step, pushed back the dark cloud of dread that’d been hanging over her for so long. She could see it – she could see them here in the future, happy and having fun.

  She ached for it – ached to know it would happen, that everything would be okay.

  “Oh, all right,” she said, grabbing the hem of her t-shirt and pulling it over her head. She couldn’t guarantee anything for tomorrow, but she could let herself be happy right now.

  Her shirt slipped out of her hands and landed on the wet sand. She grabbed it before a wave could take it away, then turned to face Grey.

  With the sea breeze blowing against her bare ribs and belly, she felt the tiniest bit self-conscious.

  Seeing the look on his face made it all worth it.

  CHAPTER 23

  Kerry had to admit, Faye’s decoration ideas had been worth all the work. It was Halloween afternoon and the entire festival set-up on Wisteria’s front lawn was swathed in gauzy black tulle spangled with silver sequins. The sky was cloudless, and later, when the stars came out, it would look like a little bit of the night sky had floated down to cloak the festivities.

  No one but Kerry, Faye and Alicia knew of the insane hours that’d gone into making the decorations.

  Kerry smiled. Really, it was lucky Faye had chosen such a demanding project. If she hadn’t, Kerry would’ve been out of work while her hand healed. She’d scraped by though, getting in enough hours to make sure she’d be able to keep a roof over her head.

  “So, do you need a cider sampler before the masses arrive or what?” Grey appeared in front of Kerry’s cider booth. “Because I volunteer.”

  He was dressed as Superman – in other words, he wore nothing but blue and red spandex, from head to toe. That, and a cape. He was so muscular, and the material was so clingy, that Kerry blushed every time she caught sight of him.

  With his dark hair, he actually did look the part.

  “Sure,” Kerry said, ladling some cider out of a bowl and into a plastic cup. “You’ll need all the energy you can get to run the duck pond game.”

  “Why?” He tipped back the cup and drained it in all of five seconds.

  “Because it’s the perfect game for kids between the ages of, oh, two and eight.”

  “So? The kids will love me. You’ll see.”

  “That’s because you’re one of them.” Sasha appeared out of nowhere, carrying a tray of cookies and shining in a long-sleeved red bodysuit, complete with glittering tail and a matching headband that placed pointy little horns on top of her blonde head.

  Grey swiped one of the cookies from the tray before she could react. “Who let you out of the kitchen? Shouldn’t you be slaving away in there with all the heat and flames?”

  Sasha just smiled. “We closed down the restaurant for the night to focus on the food we’re serving for the festival. I’ll be overseeing the serving.”

  “Great costume,” Grey said. “It’s like the manufacturer had you in mind when it was made.”

  “Careful, Grey. I wouldn’t provoke the person in charge of the food, if I was you.” She sauntered away, her cookie tray held high.

  Grey charmed Kerry into giving him a second cup of cider, then tipped his head toward the gates. “People are starting to show up. Looks like all the regular parking spaces are taken already. I bet Henry’s having fun out in the overflow lot.”

  Liam, Henry and Grey had all volunteered for the festival. Henry had gotten stuck with directing parking in the open field beside the lawn – a job he’d said he was glad to take, since there was no way in hell he was going to wear a costume.

  Liam and Alicia were running a couple of game booths.

  “You’d better get to your station,” Kerry said. “I see some families with little kids coming.”

  He ignored her suggestion, leaning instead on the cider booth. “Have I told you how amazing you look in your costume? I have to hand it to you – a shell bra is the only thing better than a corset.”

  Kerry’s blush deepened, and she diverted her gaze down to her mermaid costume. It was basically a tube-style dress that flared at the bottom, gauzy swaths of fabric giving the illusion of a tail. Blue and green sequins glittered all over, like fish scales. And while purple sequins had been sewn on to look like seashells over her breasts, she was covered from just below her collarbones to her feet, with only a hint of cleavage showing.

  “It’s not like I’m walking around in just a bra,” she said.

  “No, but this is a close second. I can’t wait to get you home.”

  She couldn’t help but smile. Peeling him out of all that spandex wouldn’t be so bad, either. “Well, it’s going to be a long time.”

  He grinned. “You’re telling me.”

  “No!” She laughed and lowered her voice, aware that families were beginning to enter through the open front gates. “I mean here – the festival won’t be over until midnight.”

  “I don’t care how long I have to wait; I’m getting you out of that shell bra tonight. And now, I have to go… This spandex isn’t very forgiving, if you know what I mean.”

  She blushed as she watched him walk away to man the duck pond game. She could watch him from the cider booth, which was centrally located among all the others and was expected to draw a lot of customers. With that in mind, she started unpacking and stacking the plastic cups she’d be serving the cider in.

  When a shadow fell across her, diminishing the late afternoon light, she looked up, expecting her first customer.

  Instead, she nearly had a heart attack.

  “God!” She stumbled backward, almost putting her elbow in the cider bowl. “Alicia! You scared me.”

  Alicia grinned, the expression creasing her moon-white make-up. “I look scary, then? I was going more for ethereal, but…”

  Kerry’s heart was speeding like a racehorse. It kept going like that as she looked Alicia up and down, taking in every detail of her heart-stoppingly detailed costume.

  She was a ghost bride. Draped from head to toe in white lace, her mesh veil only half-concealed her painted face, which was artfully made up. When she looked closely, Kerry could see it wasn’t just white make-up – it was white blended with shades of blue and grey to exaggerate her bone structure, bringing every angle to the surface. Only her lips were colored – blood red against the stark paleness of her face.

  “Are those dead roses?” Kerry asked, nodding toward Alicia’s bouquet and trying to sound like she hadn’t been scared halfway out of her wits.

  “Yes. They’re a nice touch, aren’t they? They were Liam’s idea.” She nodded toward her husband, whose costume looked tame compared to hers.

  “Are you supposed to be a lumberjack?” Kerry asked.

  Liam nodded, hefting a foam axe. “It was the only costume I could come up with that didn’t involve buying or making anything, other than this.”

  “I bought the axe for him,” Alicia said. “He was planning to just wear jeans and a flannel shirt. Can you believe it?”

  “Hey, I’m just here to run the ring toss. I’m not participating in the costume contest.”

  “That’s not the point,” Alicia said, nudging him. “Where’s your Halloween spirit?”

  “I think I left it behind in junior high.”

  Alicia rolled her eyes, but didn’t stop smiling. Her left hand sparkled with a diamond and bands that had nothing to do with her costume as she took Liam
by the arm.

  “We’d better get going,” Alicia said. “I see some kids closing in on the ring toss. I love your costume, Kerry – we’ll have to do a group picture tonight, before everyone goes home.”

  Kerry took a few moments to regroup after Alicia left, waiting for the tremor to leave her hands. It was ridiculous, but when Alicia had appeared, Kerry had mistaken her for the Lady in White.

  She wasn’t alone at the cider booth for long. Customers were trickling in and most of them wandered the grounds for a couple minutes before gravitating to the cider booth, as if it were the obvious first stop. Even the parents who got dragged off to the games came around eventually.

  A pattern quickly became obvious: about 1 in 10 customers asked Kerry if she worked at Wisteria, and if she did, did she think it was really haunted?

  At first, Kerry didn’t know how to respond. Wisteria didn’t give ghost tours and she was pretty sure Benjamin would fight tooth and nail to keep anything as déclassé as a haunted house from taking place on its grounds. But the well-known rumors of spirits added a certain mystique to the property and evoked a sense of an enduring legacy, a past that was still, in a way, alive.

  So, she settled for a watered-down version of the truth, the sort of thing she figured most of them really wanted to hear, anyway. “There’ve been plenty of times I’ve gotten the sense that I wasn’t alone. You always feel like you’ve got company, in the house.”

  It was true. Even now, her heart fluttered at the thought of Elizabeth, the Lady in White. She was so used to seeing her every morning that it would’ve felt strange not to. And she didn’t think of her as a malevolent presence – far from it. She was Wisteria’s guardian ghost, a messenger – a sad spirit with good intentions. And yet…

  She existed, lingered at her old home, to inspire fear. Fear that might save someone – a wariness that might stop a disaster from reaching the final, irreversible stage that would take someone’s life. It was a sobering theory – one Kerry believed to be true. And so, yes, Elizabeth’s presence scared her, even if Elizabeth herself didn’t.

  Lately, she couldn’t help but feel that she had more than ever to lose. Getting close to Grey and becoming even closer to Sasha and Alicia, now that there were no secrets between them, had given her a sort of happiness that couldn’t be crushed by circumstances, no matter how dire.

  She wanted to stay alive and healthy for a long time, enjoying what she had.

  “Excuse me.” A mother with two kids dressed as pumpkins approached. “Can I get three ciders please? Thanks.”

  Afternoon faded to evening in a haze of transactions. Both the cash box and the credit card reader were given a workout as Kerry took the guests’ money and served their cider. It was even busier than she’d anticipated, a fact that had her feeling optimistic. Wisteria had suffered from lost income after the fire, but this would help make up for that in part, and it might even become a tradition.

  She’d gladly help out again if it did. Standing in her booth, glittering with sequins, she was basically getting paid to watch Grey move around in his spandex suit. It was quite a show, and he was right: the little kids flooding the duck pond seemed to love Superman as much as they loved the game itself. Some parents even took pictures of their kids posing with him.

  He was tireless, seeming to thrive off the attention and the kids’ jokes. Kerry had never given it much thought before, but he seemed like he’d make a great parent.

  A pang of sadness sailed through her as she was reminded of the child she’d lost and the man she’d almost made a father. She’d been honest with Grey – she was glad she hadn’t had any children with Brad. She couldn’t stand the thought of a kid suffering through a childhood with an abuser for a father. If she had children, she’d want them to have a father who met the highest of standards – someone selfless and kind.

  Someone like Grey.

  Not that she was looking that far in the future or itching to start a family, but it was true all the same. Grey was the kind of person who could improve anyone’s life just by being a part of it.

  “Nice view, huh?” A twenty-something woman in a cat costume popped into Kerry’s field of vision, blocking her view of Grey. “I wish I’d borrowed one of my nieces or nephews for the night so I’d have an excuse to go play duck pond.”

  Apparently, Kerry wasn’t the only one staring. Cat Girl shot her a conspiratorial grin, and Kerry couldn’t help but laugh, mildly embarrassed for being caught ogling Grey while she was working. Really, though…

  They shouldn’t have put her where she could see him so clearly if they didn’t want her to look. It was simply impossible not to stare.

  It wasn’t until well into the night, when most of the families with young children had left and the crowd was teeming with adults jittering with nerves from the haunted house next door, that Kerry actually got a chance to talk to her personal superhero in spandex again.

  * * * * *

  “So, my ducks are basically dead in the water,” Grey said, leaning on the cider booth wall. “All the kids are gone.”

  He was frowning.

  Kerry had to fight a smirk. “It looked like you were having a good time.”

  “I was. Did you know—” he arched an eyebrow “—that the average five year old is completely incapable of telling the difference between the real Superman and a guy in a costume? Basically, I’ve been a god for the past five hours.”

  “You mean a superhero. There’s a difference.”

  “Yeah, whatever. The point is, I received autograph requests.”

  “Any phone number requests?” She arched an eyebrow.

  “No. What?”

  “Never mind.” She poured him a cup of cider. “So what are you going to do now?”

  “Thought I’d help out here. You have room for a god in here, right?”

  “Sure. Just don’t let your cape fall in the cider.”

  From then on, she handled the money while he ladled out the cider. No one asked for his autograph, but plenty of women gave him once-overs, and even twice-overs. Kerry noticed some male gazes clinging to her sequins, but pretended not to. After years of trying not to be noticed, it was strange to receive so much attention.

  “That haunted house must really be something,” Grey said. “Some of these people stopping in here afterward look like they’re on the verge of pissing themselves. Have you noticed how they look over their shoulders at anyone in a mask?”

  “Not really, but I hear the screams… Ugh, is that a chain saw?”

  The sounds from the neighboring farm property echoed through the night, in full-swing now that it was half past ten.

  “Since I don’t work at night, I haven’t heard any of this over the past two weeks,” she said. “I can’t imagine what our guests thought. No wonder Benjamin hates haunted houses.”

  “Benjamin?”

  “Wisteria’s owner.”

  Grey nodded. “Yeah, it’s pretty creepy. You probably can’t hear it as well from inside the house, though.”

  “I hope not.” Though she knew the production was all in fun, every time she heard a particularly piercing scream or the rumble of a chainsaw, a little chill raced down her spine. There was no question about it: Wisteria’s black tulle and sequins were as spooky as she wanted to get.

  Faye came by the cider booth at a quarter ‘till eleven, a big smile on her face. She wore a long black dress, striped stockings and a witch’s hat. “Kerry, since you’ve got an extra set of hands here, would you mind doing me a favor?”

  “Sure. What is it?”

  “The costume contest trophies are in the spare room we used for making decorations. Could you go grab them for me? We’re going to start judging in fifteen minutes.”

  “No problem.”

  “Just bring them up to the stage, please.”

  The stage was a temporary platform set up near the gates, about twenty feet wide and three feet off the ground. The fog machine beside it had been turned on, and as
tendrils of white vapor curled around its skirting, people in costumes began to queue up.

  By the time Kerry emerged from the mansion with a box of trophies in her arms, most of the guests had gathered by the stage. After hours of being in the center of a crowd, this left her feeling oddly alone on Wisteria’s lawn.

  More alone than she’d ever been, she realized as shock coursed through her. The Lady in White – Elizabeth – was nowhere to be seen.

  CHAPTER 24

  What Elizabeth’s absence meant, Kerry had no idea. The familiar apparition was there every day when she arrived for work, without fail. It seemed strange that she’d hide now, on Halloween of all nights.

  A part of Kerry dared to hope it was a sign that her personal dangers had finally passed, but she didn’t really believe it. Still, it was a nice thought, and maybe…

  Maybe Brad had finally been caught by the police. The idea dawned on her, shedding a bright ray of hope on her suspicions. She walked to the stage with a slight spring in her step, though she tried not to get her hopes up. After depositing the trophies, she returned to the cider booth.

  “People have lost interest in cider,” Grey said, nodding toward the stage. “What are the costume contest prizes?”

  “Trophies and gift cards that some local restaurants donated, including one from Harvest at Wisteria.”

  “People seem awfully excited.”

  Kerry shrugged and took advantage of the lull in business by finally pouring herself a cup of cider. “It’s free food.”

  “Speaking of food… You think there’s anything good left over at Sasha’s table? I’m starving.”

  Kerry cast a glance at the long table that’d been set up buffet-style on the other side of all the games. She had to lean out of the booth to see it, but there appeared to be food left. “There’s definitely stuff laid out. I can’t see what it is from here, though.”