The woman seemed completely unaware of her presence. She sat at the desk, the soft light of dawn illuminating her pale face. Her back was ramrod straight, her hands clasped in her lap, and her troubled gaze fixed on the horizon. A blank sheet of paper lay before her, a quill left forgotten in the inkwell as if she were about to write a letter but had changed her mind. Lauren lifted her head slightly to get a better look at the woman’s profile. She was young, mid-twenties Lauren guessed, and attractive. Her old-fashioned gown was sober, and a modest lace-trimmed cap covered her dark hair. Her only adornment was a necklace, the pendant resting just above the V of her lace tucker. It shimmered in the pearlescent light, the fiery stone reminiscent of an opal.
Billy raised his head and looked at Lauren, then turned toward the window. She expected him to let out a bark of alarm, or growl at the intruder at the very least, but he rested his head on Lauren’s hip and drifted back to sleep, as if completely unaware of the stranger. He hadn’t seen her or caught her scent because she wasn’t real. She was an apparition, an echo of a time gone by.
Feeling less frightened, Lauren sat up and leaned against the pillows, watching the woman with interest. After a time, she replaced the paper in a drawer, stood, and turned toward the door. Lauren could have sworn she saw tears in the woman’s eyes as she walked across the room, but with her face turned away from the window, it was difficult to be certain. As the light changed from pearl-gray to salmon pink, the woman’s silhouette grew fainter until she vanished altogether, leaving nothing but an unnatural stillness in her wake. Lauren laid a gentle hand on Billy’s head, needing to feel a connection with a living being. He lifted his head and looked at her, his brown gaze clear and alert.
“Good morning,” Lauren said, but made no move to get up. She was in no rush to start her day. As she watched the sun come up, Lauren reflected on what she’d seen. Had the woman been a figment of her imagination, or had she seen an actual ghost? She didn’t believe in ghosts, but she also didn’t believe that a person simply ceased to exist. Zack was physically gone, but she had often felt his presence, especially for the first few months, and when she spoke to him, sometimes an answer simply dropped into her brain, as if he’d whispered it in her ear rather than saying it out loud. Perhaps it was wishful thinking and she wasn’t ready to let him go, but she had felt him close, especially when she was alone, and when Xavier first brought Billy over, the dog had growled at something, baring his teeth and staring into nothingness. He hadn’t done it since their first week together, so perhaps he’d grown used to Zack’s otherworldly presence, and he seemed oblivious to the woman Lauren had just seen.
At long last, Lauren got up, took a shower, and dressed in a pair of leggings and a warm sweater. She lifted Billy off the bed and carried him downstairs, where she set him on the floor. He trotted over to his water bowl and drank deeply before turning his attention to his food. It seemed Dr. Kelly had been right, and Billy just needed a little time to recover.
After taking him out for a wee, Lauren made herself a spinach and cheese omelet and a cup of coffee, then returned upstairs, sitting down at the desk where the woman had sat only an hour before. There was no trace of the letter she’d been writing or the implements, only Lauren’s laptop, which hummed accusingly as soon as she powered it up. She hadn’t done any work in nearly a week and it was time to get started. She was working on an autobiography of a popular reality star whose life was of little interest to Lauren, but it was a job, and she would do it to the best of her ability. Once she finished the project, she’d devote some time to her own writing.
“How about writing a ghost story?” Zack’s voice whispered in her mind. “You always said you wanted to try a different genre.”
“I don’t think so,” Lauren replied. “Ghost stories are really not my thing.”
“Okay, how about a historical romance, then? You used to love reading those. Remember that series you gobbled up about the woman who went back in time to eighteenth-century Scotland? You couldn’t buy those books fast enough.”
“All right. I’ll think about it,” Lauren replied grudgingly. “Now I must concentrate on my client’s meteoric rise to fame. She wants to devote an entire chapter to Twitter and how a nude selfie she posted went viral.”
She could almost hear Zack’s chuckle as she pulled out her notes and began to type.
The Lost (Echoes from the Past Book 9) Page 35