If You've Got It, Haunt It: A ghost romance (The Peyton Clark Series Book 4)

by H. P. Mallory

  I found myself walking through the third-floor corridor of the museum where we met Reginald. I looked to my left and found Ryan right beside me. We were approaching the room from which the wailing came. I turned to ask him a question but was unable to speak. A second or so later, I realized why: I was having a vision of things that had already occurred; consequently, I had no control over what happened in the past.

  “The crying is coming from that room,” said Ryan. But just as we reached the door, we found our paths blocked by a stout, pudding-faced woman draped in so many shawls that she had no neck to speak of. She had long bangs and a mess of short, black hair that covered her ears, conveying the impression of a woman who reached middle age and stopped caring about how she looked or what anyone thought of her. The effect was both unsettling, yet strangely inspiring. She grinned, slowly.

  “Excuse me but can you let us through, please?” I asked. Her bulk filled the whole doorway.

  “Where are you going?” the woman responded.

  I looked at Ryan and he looked back at me but neither of us answered. Maybe that was because neither of us had a good answer. How do you explain why you’re chasing a ghostly wailing through the halls of a museum?

  “You hear that crying?” asked Ryan.

  “Yes, she’s been doing it for the past hour,” the woman replied although she seemed uninterested. “I assume the deceased was someone very close to her. Her husband, I think I heard a passerby say.”

  “Her husband?” I asked.

  She nodded. “Nobody has shown up yet except her. The service isn’t scheduled to start until three. Satisfied?”

  “Thanks for letting us know,” I said.

  The woman said nothing, but her eyes seemed to glimmer, as if she were enjoying the woman’s pain. She eyed me narrowly.

  “You’d think by now you could tell the difference between a living woman and a spirit,” she said.

  “You mean the woman in mourning?” I asked as I shook my head.

  “Yes,” the mystery woman responded.

  “She’s a spirit?” I asked, growing confused. I was taken aback. Ryan could hear the crying, so how could the woman be a spirit? Furthermore, Ryan could also see her!

  “You should be able to answer that question for yourself, considering you’re a sensitive, Peyton,” the woman replied.

  I felt my heartbeat skip. “How do you know my name?”

  Chapter Eight

  The woman ignored my question.

  “Is that the word they use now? Sensitive? When I was a girl, we called it ‘ESP’ and ‘parapsychology’ and a lot of other scientific-sounding jargon.” She said as she shrugged. “Words change but the basic ideas remain the same.”

  “How do you know Peyton’s name?” Ryan demanded.

  “I suppose it’s past time for introductions, isn’t it?” the strange woman said.

  “Yes,” I answered immediately. “I’d like to know who you are and how you know who I am.”

  She bowed slightly, her hair falling into her face. “My name is Angharad Llewelyn and I’ve only recently arrived to New Orleans.”

  The name “Angharad Llewelyn” sounded like she made it up on the spot.

  “What brings you to New Orleans?” asked Ryan as he eyed her with the same level of suspicion as I.

  “You’re smart people,” Angharad said, looking completely irritated at both of us. “I assume you’ve noticed the recent increase in spiritualist activity here in the Bayou?”

  Ryan and I looked at each other and frowned. It was fairly obvious that neither of us noticed anything out of the ordinary in New Orleans lately. Angharad appeared even more out of sorts.

  “There is, at this moment, something running loose in the French Quarter over by Pirates Alley,” she said in an increasingly irritated tone.

  “Something?” I repeated as my eyes went wide and Ryan studied Angharad.

  Angharad nodded. “In the next hour there will be an attack on the museum.” Then she sighed dramatically. “Of course, after that comment, both of you will naturally suspect me, at first.”

  “Well, if you know about the attack ahead of time,” said Ryan, “doesn’t that automatically make you the prime suspect?”

  Angharad ignored him. “I’ve visited the museum on this exact morning at least six times now, and I still can’t figure out who is behind the robbery. I’ve watched Pebbles steal the sword repeatedly and each time I hope for a clue as to who put him up to it, I get nothing. Whoever is behind the robbery clearly doesn’t want it being traced back to her.”

  “Her?” I asked.

  Angharad nodded. “I feel female energy surrounding the robbery. And if you must know, I’m wondering if the woman in that room might have had something to do with it.” Then she pointed at the woman who was mourning the body in the casket.

  “The mourning woman?” Ryan asked, just to be sure I guessed.

  “Yes, that one.”

  “Why would you assume she has anything to do with the robbery?” I asked.

  Angharad shrugged. “Whenever I enter the room to question her, she won’t talk to me and she asks me to leave, which only makes me more suspicious.”

  “Or maybe she just wants to mourn her family member in peace, and you keep interrupting her?” I suggested.

  “It’s a convenient cover,” said Angharad. “Anyway, having examined every second of what goes on in this museum in the next hour, I’m convinced the robbery involves a case I’ve been investigating—about a boy named Pebbles Ross. He disappeared about a decade ago during Katrina.”

  “A lot of people disappeared during Katrina,” Ryan answered. He was also in New Orleans during the hurricane and witnessed the worst of it first-hand. “A lot of people died.”

  “Yes, and it’s assumed that was the fate of this boy.” Angharad tugged at one of her shawls nervously. “But I’m not convinced.”

  I wanted to ask her more, but before I could, a second figure appeared in the doorway—the woman dressed in black who was seated in front of the coffin.

  “I’ve already asked you to leave,” she said, addressing Angharad without noticing us. “If you don’t stop bothering me, I’m going to call security.”

  “Good luck,” said Angharad dryly. “There’s not a single member of staff in the building this morning. I’ve already looked.”

  “Regardless, I don’t want you here.” The mourning woman then addressed me. “And who are you?”

  “We’re sorry to bother you,” I said as I turned to Ryan as if to say I spoke for him as well. “We will be on our way.”

  “You aren’t bothering me,” said the woman, shooting a venomous look at Angharad. “But she won’t leave me alone.”

  Ryan touched my arm lightly. “We’d better go. Maggie’s plane is about to land soon. We can figure this out later.”

  Angharad let out a small snort of derision; she appeared to be one of those people whose every action seemed calculated.

  “Is there something you want to say?” asked Ryan, frowning at her all the while.

  “No, feel free to go about your business.” She began to walk away, but after a few paces, turned and said, “Because you won’t remember any of this conversation anyway. I’m not ready to become the culprit in regard to this missing sword.”

  Judging from the blank expression on Ryan’s face, he didn’t understand what she meant any more than I did.

  “Won’t remember the conversation?” I repeated, as I shook my head. Before either of us could ask Angharad what she meant, she rounded the corner and disappeared.

  Looking satisfied but still ruffled, the woman in black returned to her position in front of the casket.

  Slowly, the vision subsided. I found myself blinking as the landscape of the museum faded into the muted colors of Lovie’s kitchen. I was seated at her table and Ryan was sitting right beside me. When I turned to look at him, his eyes were wide open, but his irises had rolled back into his head rendering his eyes entire
ly white.

  “Is he okay?” I asked as I looked at him with more than a little concern.

  “He’s fine. He’ll be comin’ round the mountain in just a bit,” Lovie answered.

  I noticed she had a paperback copy of an Agatha Christie novel. She was still holding it, so I figured she was reading while we were in our trance.

  As soon as she finished her sentence, I heard Ryan inhale deeply. I glanced over at him and watched his irises roll back into place as he blinked a few times with the look of surprise on his face.

  “Are you okay?” I asked as I reached over and patted his hand.

  “Yeah,” he answered on an exhale. “That was some trip.”

  “Yes, it was,” I answered.

  “So, what did you learn?” Lovie asked.

  “Did we see the same thing?” Ryan asked Lovie.

  “Yes, there is only one true reality,” Lovie told us with a succinct nod.

  “Yeah, then we didn’t exactly find out much,” Ryan said, sounding annoyed.

  “Well, we learned who the mystery woman was,” I argued. I faced Lovie and decided to take over. “There was another woman at the museum and her name was Angharad Llewelyn. She said she was new to New Orleans and I guess the reason she wiped our memories clean is because she thought we’d accuse her of stealing the sword.”

  “Yep, we saw the same thing,” Ryan said.

  Lovie didn’t appear the least bit surprised.

  “It was odd when Angharad said something about replaying the same morning over and over in her head, like being on a Groundhog Day loop.”

  “She knew about things that were currently happening in other parts of the city too,” Ryan added, “things that we wouldn’t find out about until later.”

  “Yeah, she told us that there would be an attack on the French Quarter,” I said.

  Lovie seemed more interested. “A witch who’s been tormenting the city with snakes maybe?”

  “Maybe,” I shrugged.

  “And she saw things that hadn’t happened yet,” Ryan continued. “She knew there would be a robbery at the museum before it ever happened.”

  “She seemed to think the woman in mourning was involved with it,” I added. “But she didn’t say why or how.”

  Picking up my bowl off the counter, I went over to the sink and washed it.

  “Then she couldn’t tell you who was behind the theft?” Lovie asked.

  I shook my head. “She said whoever did it was hiding their trail.”

  “Hmm,” Lovie said as she tapped her fingernails against her lower lip. “Whoever did it must be a very powerful witch.”

  “A witch?”

  Lovie nodded. “Or a voodoo priestess—definitely something spiritual. Regardless, there is magic involved. I’m sure of that.”

  “Unless it was Angharad and she purposely lied to us in order to convince us of her innocence?” Ryan asked.

  I rinsed my hands over the sink. “It doesn’t seem very likely to me. I mean, if that were the case, why would she explain everything she did?”

  “Yeah, but don’t forget, she wiped our memories,” Ryan pointed out.

  “But, why waste the time in telling us anything at all if she were behind it?” I continued.

  Lovie nodded. “I believe Angharad—I don’t think she was behind the theft but probably doing as she said—trying to figure out who was.”

  I dried my hands before retaking my seat at the counter. Lovie was laying out a spread of raw vegetables and ranch dip. I grabbed a handful absently, wishing the day would slow down so I could catch my breath. It didn’t seem possible that only hours ago I’d awoken in bed, troubled by a dream about a haunted hotel. If I’d known how eventful the morning later proved to be, I might have been tempted to stay in bed all day.

  ###

  We returned to my house twenty minutes later to find the handyman, Greg, at work on the ceiling in my bedroom. Maggie still hadn’t arrived but I had a feeling she would any minute. Meanwhile, Drake stood in a dusky corner of the sitting-room with his hands over his ears, softly grumbling about something. Unfamiliar with his ghostly anatomy, I couldn’t tell if his ears were actually injured or he was just being melodramatic. I sensed it was the latter.

  “Hello,” I said as I greeted Greg. He glanced down at me from where he stood on his ladder and smiled. Ryan, meanwhile, started talking to him about the leak. I took that as an exit cue and started down the hallway for the kitchen. I wanted something to drink. I wasn’t surprised when Drake floated up beside me as I opened the refrigerator door.

  “Tell the man with the drill to take his trade elsewhere, s’il vous plait!” he exclaimed and I could hear his voice in the open air, rather than inside my head. Sometimes he chose to communicate with me like that and others, he preferred the privacy he found inside my mind. “The noise is most offensive to my sanity, mon chaton.”

  “Why are you hanging out in that room if you don’t like the noise?” I set my purse down on the counter, over the moon with joy to see him despite his perpetual prickliness.

  “I’m guessing you’re talking to Drake?” Ryan asked as he walked into the kitchen. He seemed irritated and I was more than sure his mood had everything to do with Drake’s presence. The two men were both alpha males that did nothing but butt their empty heads in displays of bravado.

  I glanced at Ryan and smiled apologetically. “Yes, sorry. I keep forgetting you can’t see or hear him.”

  “Tell Drake to be quick because we’ve got lots going on,” Ryan said. “And Maggie is going to be here any second.”

  Drake glared at him. “And you can tell le barbare to mind his own business pour moi.”

  “I won’t do that,” I said as Ryan disappeared down the hallway. “But going back to your original complaint, why are you hanging out with the handyman if you don’t like the noise?”

  “The sound echoes throughout the entire house, mon ami,” Drake replied. He was, easily, the most pretentious person living or dead, that I ever met. Depending on my mood, my house could either be cozy and comfortable or insufferably irritating.

  “So go hang out in the garden for a while.”

  Drake frowned at me and a lock of his dark brown hair dropped onto his forehead, giving him the rakish air of an absolute rogue. Which wasn’t far from the truth. Drake was exceptionally handsome, but he was also smugly self-centered. And, yes, equally charming.

  “You are well aware that the departed are not capable of just floating from place to place like an untethered dirigible.”

  “Like a what?”

  He folded his arms across his chest. “An untethered dirigible.”

  “I heard you the first time. What the heck is an untethered dirigible?”

  “A dir-i-gi-ble is an aircraft such as a blimp or a zeppelin. An untethered dirigible floats with no sense of direction or control.”

  “Oh,” I answered with a shrug. “You learn something new everyday.” Then I thought better of it and turned to face him. “You were alive when people traveled in blimps?”

  He glared at me. “Non,” he said as he shook his head.

  “Then how did…” I started.

  “I watched a program on that infernal contraption you refer to as…”

  “Television,” I finished for him.

  “Ah, oui,” he said with a clipped nod. “About the noise…”

  “You can’t even go into the garden?” I asked rhetorically as I searched the fridge for something to drink. Pushing past the orange juice and a pitcher of sweet tea that was way too sweet, I grabbed the grape juice bottle.

  “Non, I cannot,” Drake replied. He watched me remove the top to the bottle before downing a few huge gulps. “Your manners are quite uncivilized, madame,” he said with feigned disgust.

  “Stick a sock in it, Drake,” I answered as I wiped my mouth with my sleeve. I put the cap back on the juice and placed the bottle in the fridge before I shut the door and went into the living room. Drake floated at
my heels.

  “When will you allow me to occupy your lovely body again?” Drake asked as he eyed me up and down. It was no secret that Drake had been lusting after me for quite a while now.

  “Um, file that under never,” I answered. Although there was a big part of me that wanted Drake back inside of me (in a possession sort of way, thank you very much) as much as he did, I enjoyed toying with him. He drifted down into the chair, accidentally sinking through the cushion before struggling to lift himself back up. I couldn’t help but laugh.

  “I miss being out and about,” he said with a frown.

  “So you can’t go anywhere or leave the house?” I asked. I basically already knew the answer. If he could have, he would have.

  “The amount of energy expended to exist in the outside world is too taxing. The deceased thrive in the places where we once lived, and our vitality begins to falter as we drift away from those locations.”

  “Ah, now I get it,” I answered.

  Glowering at the room above us, as if he could see straight through the floor, he said, “I would prefer not to leave, but I can’t continue to stay here or subject myself to this awful racket.”

  “Are ghosts usually so sensitive to sound?” I asked, now genuinely interested.

  “Yes, I am quite delicate in all of my senses,” Drake answered. “With each fall of that hellish hammer above us, I am reminded of the young man in the Bible who had a tent peg driven straight through his skull!”

  “You’re so dramatic,” I answered with a smirk. “It’s not that loud!” That wasn’t strictly true; the noise was almost unbearable, but I enjoyed watching his indignant splutters.

  “We shall see if you feel the same way when you’re a ghost,” muttered Drake.

  I tried not to feel sorry for him because pity is basically a useless emotion, but I couldn’t help it. I couldn’t imagine not being able to sleep or go out to view the outside world. More than once Drake expressed feelings of lust and hunger that presumably couldn’t ever be satisfied. I imagine it must be immensely frustrating to spend one’s eternity longing for the things you could no longer have.