“Would you like me to call you to schedule that follow-up?” I shouted after her.
“No thank you! I’ll call you...” And the door slammed behind them. When the door slammed, the wailing ended as quickly as it had started and the walls stopped rattling.
The chick had some awesome powers, I had to give her that. She could move objects and make sounds the living could hear two counties over.
“Did we lose them?” he asked when the mayhem ended.
“I think so.” I slumped in my chair and banged my ear trying to stop the ringing. “Can’t you stop her like you did earlier?”
“I don’t even see her anymore, do you?”
“No.”
“Oh, she’s here,” offered Marmaduke. “I can feel her, but she’s...it’s the oddest thing, but I’m without words to describe the sensation.”
“Now he’s without words,” grumbled Dr. Callahan, running his hands through his hair. “What’s going on here? I can’t afford much more of this.” He stormed back into his exam room and slammed the door shut.
I winced at the slamming and then wondered if I should remind him of his twelve-o’clock appointment. Best to let him cool down a few. If we could make it through one more appointment, he’d be off to his other business and hopefully things would settle.
“Marmi?” I asked. “Do you still feel her around?”
“Very definitely. You do not?”
“Actually, I do. I just didn’t know how to explain it.”
“Precisely. I know the man is under a good deal of stress, but his comment cut me to the quick, I will say.”
The problem with having a friend whose ‘body’ is of the spirit realm, is the fact you can’t touch them, hug them, or place a consoling pat on their shoulder. I gave him a look to let him know I was sorry, then continued on with my thoughts. “Before, I felt her presence when she let me see her, but now...I can’t see her, but I feel like she’s...” I imagined a room that filled with gas—the more gas that went into the room, the more you could smell it, but still could never see it. “It’s like she’s grown.”
“Yes. The fiend is larger in spirit now. More powerful.”
I placed my head in my hands. “Oh boy. Why couldn’t I find a normal ghost-free job?”
CHAPTER TWELVE
DR. CALLAHAN’S TWELVE O’CLOCK PATIENT was a Mr. Yeltsin who only came in for yearly exams. Apparently, the elderly man had completed a vision therapy program several months earlier to eliminate double vision, and now saw Dr. Callahan for routine follow-ups. Surprisingly, Moonflower didn’t throw anything, knock anything over or down, and didn’t emit so much as a whimper.
Marmaduke came to the same conclusion I’d been chewing on. “She’s only bothered by females,” he said as Mr. Yeltsin left the office.
Dr. Callahan had been standing behind me. “That’s what I was thinking,” he said, three deep creases forming on his frowning forehead. “And that has to stop. I can’t limit myself to male patients. I’ll never make a living. Not to mention it’s probably sexism and I’d lose my license.” He lifted his briefcase onto my reception desk and tossed some files in, then clamped it shut. “Well, if you see her again, feel free to tell her that she’s ruining my life.” He pulled the briefcase from the desk and turned to leave. “I’m gone for the day. Sophie, feel free to leave as well. No reason for you to stay.”
“I’ll stay, if you don’t mind. I need the work.”
“I’ll pay you for the full day.”
“Right. About that—you said you could pay me today...”
He slapped his head. “Right. Sorry.” He reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out a folded envelope. “Here. Your first week’s pay. Really. Go.”
I took the envelope gladly, and smiled, so thankful to have some money. “Nope. I have plenty to get done.”
He tipped his head, giving up. “Okay then. Well, I’ll see you Monday.”
“Have a good weekend!” I waved. I was trying to cheer him up since his slumping shoulders told me he was way down in the dumps.
He waved back and let the door close behind him.
“That,” said Marmi, “is not a happy man.”
“I know,” I agreed. “It makes me sad.” I snatched the letter opener from a cup of pens on the desk, ran a clean slit through, and pulled out the check. Well, it wasn’t a windfall, but it would keep me eating, put a little gas in the car and help toward an impending rent payment. I kissed the sweet prize and decided that it would be best to get it to the bank before the two o’clock cut-off for deposits. Otherwise I wouldn’t have access to the money until Tuesday. I pulled my purse out of the corner and dug around for my car keys and sunglasses. “I’m going to the bank,” I said to Marmi. “You coming?”
“I think I will stay put and see if the gloomy diva shows herself.”
“Don’t eat my egg salad sandwich,” I teased him.
“Righto. I shall resist the urge.”
I’d hoped to only be out ten minutes or so, but the Friday traffic was worse than I’d anticipated. Luckily, my bank has a drive-thru ATM, so that part of my errand was easy peasy, in and out. Then I decided to treat myself to fries and a Coke at McDonald’s. Given the lunch hour, that took way longer than it should have.
By the time I pulled back into the parking lot, I’d been gone nearly forty-five minutes and had become drenched in sweat from the persistent heat and humidity. I was desperate for air conditioning. As I approached the office, I spotted Ronald Ellison peeking through the glass door. That, in and of itself, wasn’t so odd. What did take me by surprise was the fact that Marmaduke stood next to him, chatting him up. And Mr. Ellison was answering.
“Hello...” I ventured hesitantly, not exactly sure of what had transpired during my absence, although I had my suspicions.
Startled, Ronald spun around. “I’m so sorry!” he yelped.
I threw Marmi a what-are-you-up-to glance while addressing Ronald’s strange apology. “Sorry about what?”
He began to sputter out incomplete thoughts. “I was just...it’s just that...he...this is all new...”
“We’ve talked,” interrupted Marmaduke. “He knows everything.”
“Can we finish this inside?” begged Ronald, glancing fearfully around. “I don’t want Dory to know about this. She’s not a believer.”
“Sure.” I slipped my key into the lock and a second later the two of us were sighing from relief. Me, because of the cool air, Mr. Ellison, I surmised, because he felt safe from being caught as a weirdo who thinks he sees ghosts. Nearly tap dancing from what I assumed were nerves, he made another request. “Could you, um, just lock the door while we talk? This is all so...” he waved his hands in the air and made a whistling noise. “It’s all so out there. I can’t have anyone labeling me as insane or anything, you know?”
I nodded understandingly. “Absolutely.”
He whispered. “We’re alone, right? I mean, besides Mr. Duke.”
Marmi rolled his eyes. “Not Mr. Duke. Marmaduke. Marmaduke Dodsworth of Dartford in Kent.”
“Yes,” I assured him, “we’re alone. Well, except maybe for another ghost.”
His eyes widened and his head wobbled like a bobble head. “Jina?”
“We think so. We were hoping you could tell us, only she’s not showing herself today.”
He pulled his head into his shoulders like a turtle taking cover, and scanned the office with a set of fearful eyes. Poor Mr. Ellison was obviously traumatized by his gift. So much so that it was almost comical to watch. “Mr. Ellison...”
“Call me Ron.” His eyes kept darting around the room in a paranoid fashion.
“Um, Ron,” I cleared my throat. “Is this ability,” I gestured to Marmi, “to see spirits—is it new to you? You know, since your near-death incident?”
“There was no near-death about it. I was as dead as they get. You were there—you saw it.”
Yes, I was there, but I didn’t know if he remembered himself.
“So you remember talking to Marmaduke and then deciding to go back into your body?”
“Not at first I didn’t. Everything came back to me in the hospital, although I tried to tell myself it was all a bad dream. But when we brought the gift basket by and I saw him here, I knew.” Then he lowered his voice, and leaned toward me. “Although, on some level, I think I’ve always known.”
“Always known...what?”
“That I was different.”
He was different alright. “You mean, you had experiences before you died?”
He nodded vigorously. “From the time I was,” he tilted his head back and forth, thinking, “I don’t know, very young, I’d see things—people other people couldn’t see. Talked to them. When my parents insisted I was a silly boy with a wild imagination, the people went away for a while, but then, a few years ago, I spotted a ghost while showing a house in historic Old Town. When she started talking to me, I knew.” He did some more nodding. “I knew.” He wrung his hands and blew out a loud breath as if relieved to have spilled the beans. “I really need to get back to the office before Dory misses me. She keeps a tighter leash on me these days than she used to.”
I did a quick survey around. “Moonflower’s not being cooperative today. I’m sorry. Do you feel her presence at all?”
He nodded. “Yup. Feel something. Heavy. Big.”
Marmaduke had been holding vigil by the door. “My, my,” he said, staring at something through the glass door. “The doctor’s friend has returned.”
At first I thought he meant Moonflower. “She’s outside?”
“Not that friend. The young man who has been lingering about the place.”
Ron and I stepped toward the door. Sure enough, off in a small cluster of trees stood the kid who’d been following Dr. Callahan.
“He’s friends with Dr. Callahan?” Ron asked. “That’s strange.”
“They’re not friends, he’s been stalking Dr. Callahan. I’m afraid he’s casing the office.”
“Oh, I don’t think he has a criminal nature. That’s Jina’s boyfriend, Jonathan.”
Aha. Now we were getting somewhere. Excited, I grabbed Ron’s arm. “You’re sure about that?”
He bobbed his head some more. “Sure as sure can be. She called him Johnny and he pretended to hate it, but he actually loved it. He had it bad for her. Used to surprise her at the office—stopping by to bring her a snack or some candy.”
Johnny. That’s what Moonflower called Dr. Callahan. Finally things were beginning to make a little more sense. Surely, then, Moonflower was the ghost of Jina Bhandari. Although, why she called herself Moonflower was still a mystery.
“Ron,” I gave him a sweet smile. “Can you help me with one more thing before you go back to work?”
“Will it be quick?”
“Won’t take more than five minutes of your time, I swear.”
Afraid that Jonathan would take off running the way he had earlier in the week, I asked Ron to make an introduction. I wanted the event to appear as natural and unplanned as possible to avoid any possibility that Jonathan would flee the scene. He could be the very answer to all of my problems. Well, they were actually Dr. Callahan’s problems, which by default, had become my problems.
We left the office chatting like two old friends. We walked down the little sidewalk that led to the front of the building, as if we were heading toward his office and the mailbox. I brought the mailbox key along just to make it seem more legit. Ron smiled and waved at Jonathan all very friendly-like, and gestured for him to join us. I sweated a few bullets when Ron waved Jonathan over. Acting didn’t come naturally to Ronald Ellison. And Jonathan was excessively cautious. But finally, the kid ambled over to the corner where we stood.
“Hey, Mr. Ellison,” he mumbled, eyeing us warily. He brushed a few strands of his dirty blond hair away from his forehead. “How have you been?”
“Oh, you know. Good.” Ron stuttered a little uncertainly. “Good as can be. Um, this is my friend...” He’d forgotten my name.
I stepped in to assist. “Sophie.” I stuck my hand out to shake Jonathan’s. I wouldn’t say we shook hands so much as I pumped his very limp excuse of an appendage. He obviously wasn’t very accustomed to the social grace. Either that or he was scared out of his wits. Which might have been the case. His palm was very sweaty, but then again it was nearly a hundred degrees outside.
Ron snapped his fingers. “Sophie! That’s it. Sorry. The heat is getting to me I think.” After a moment of awkward silence, Ron clued in that his job wasn’t done. “Oh, Sophie works for Dr. Callahan in Suite A. He purchased the unit from Jina’s father a few months ago.”
The fact that Jonathan’s face didn’t change in the slightest told me that he was already well aware of that detail.
I played the empathy card. “Ron has told me a lot about Jina,” I said. “I’m so sorry. It sounds like she was a really wonderful and sweet person.”
Poor Jonathan’s eyes actually grew glassy as tears welled up in them. “She was.”
“It must be hard.”
“Yeah.”
My heart was breaking for this poor kid. “You both must have been pretty scared. The idea of becoming a parent, at any age, is intimidating, but probably especially frightening for the two of you.”
Jonathan’s expression flashed from sad to confused. His eyes widened, his brow crunched. “I’m, um...I don’t know...parent?”
So he didn’t know that Jina was pregnant or how she’d died, apparently. He must not have been on good terms with her family. The whole thing was just so tragic.
I’d taken Ron by surprise as well. “She was going to have a baby?”
Jonathan started to sway like he might faint. I managed to get an arm around him at the same time that Dory hollered from her end of the sidewalk. “Ronald? What are you doing down there? You have the Tucker house to show!”
“Be right there!” He shrugged apologetically. “Duty calls. Are you, um, going to be okay here?”
“Yeah, I think so,” I told him. I bolstered Jonathan a little more. “You’re not looking so good. Let me take you to my office and get you a cold glass of water. You can cool down a few minutes. I’m really sorry if I surprised you there. I just assumed you knew.”
“Surprised. Yeah. Surprised. Water would be good.”
Without meaning to, I’d managed to get Jina’s boyfriend into the office. It would be very interesting to see if she came out of hiding for him.
Once I had him resting in a chair in the reception area, I grabbed a cup from the kitchen and filled it with water from the cooler.
“You are a tricky one, aren’t you? Bringing the young bloke in here. Do tell—what is your plan now?” Marmaduke asked with the excitement of a young school girl who’d just stumbled onto a bit of juicy gossip.
I whispered as low as I could, making a zipper motion with my fingers across my mouth. “No talking. Just watch.”
“Oh, you do know how to take the fun out of things, don’t you?”
I shot him a glare to send my point home: Zip it, Marmi. Back to the reception area I hustled, full cup in hand. “Here you are, Jonathan. This should help.”
Jonathan reached up with shaking hands to take the cool drink. I felt bad for upsetting him. He gulped the water quickly, then shoved the cup back at me. “You’re sure she was pregnant?”
While keeping an eye out for Moonflower’s appearance, I set the cup on the counter, then sat in the chair next to the boy. “She was definitely pregnant. You didn’t know?”
He shook his head.
I rested a comforting hand on his knee. “Do you know how she died?”
A tear fell onto his plaid shorts. He wiped at his nose. “No one in her family would talk to me. My mom asked around and someone finally told her they thought it was a stroke.”
“It was an aneurism related to the pregnancy. Were you the...I know it’s awfully forward of me to ask, but do you think you were the father?”
Marmaduke didn’t abide by my order to stay silent. “This is bloody awful. Did they even let him attend the funeral?” When I snuck a quick peek, I think I detected him sniffling too. Who knew ghosts could cry? Marmaduke’s question was a good one though. Maybe it would help draw out some more information.
“Closure often helps in these sorts of situations. Were you at least able to say goodbye to her at the funeral?”
“She was Hindu—well, at least her family was—so I think she was cremated. But I don’t know for sure. Closure? Huh. I don’t think so.”
He wiped his eyes and blew his nose. If I wanted to figure out why she insisted her name was Moonflower, I was just going to have to go out on a limb. “Ron told me that you had a nickname for her...Moonflower, was it?” I cringed inwardly, wondering if the bait would catch a nibble.
He lifted his head and gave me a puzzled look. “Nickname? No.”
Darn.
“But,” he said a second later, “it was her favorite flower. Her mother grows them in her garden every summer.”
There we go.
“Do you think I could get another cup of water?” he asked.
“Sure thing.” When I got up to grab the cup, who should I spy hovering mid-air over the desk, but the one and only Jina Moonflower.
“Well, hello again,” whispered Marmaduke.
I’d barely had time to register that the trouble maker had finally reappeared when I heard the door open. Spinning around, I caught sight of Jonathan making a dash for it again. The door slammed shut before I could finish my plea. “Jonathan! Come back!” When I turned back around, his dead girlfriend was gone.
Let me rephrase that—she’d disappeared from my sights. She was very much present. The hair on my arms stood on end as the lights flickered once, then twice. “I’m sensing a disturbance in the force,” I told Marmaduke.
Keep Me Ghosted (Sophie Rhodes Romantic Comedy #1) Page 11