by Terri Garey
The room was just what one might expect. It was peach, from the color of paint on the walls—highlighted with the ever-present white trim—to the peach floral bedspread and matching peach floral curtains.
It even smelled like peaches, most of the sweet scent coming from a bowl of potpourri on the dresser. Right beside the bowl was a silver vanity set and bottle of body lotion, Peach Blossom, of course.
"Everything's just the way Miz Peaches left it," Odessa muttered grudgingly. She'd followed us up the main stairs and now stood like a dark, disapproving shadow in the doorway, hands clasped over her ample middle. "Miz Bijou done tol' me not to disturb nothin'."
Kelly moved slowly, looking around, while I stayed by the dresser. Joe had decided to stay downstairs in the library, reading, to give us some privacy while we searched for whatever bits of our past we could find. Leonard went to one of the windows on either side of the bed and raised the sash. Fresh air flooded the room, setting the floral curtains dancing.
He nodded toward the double doors of the closet. "Peaches had quite a few clothes. If you don't want them, we can donate them to any number of local charities."
"Huh." Odessa's opinion of that idea was quite clear.
"The bathroom is through here." Leonard was still nervously acting as tour guide, and seemed unable to stop moving or stop talking. "Though I'm not sure what you'll find in there."
Peach-scented soap and peach-scented shampoo would be my guess.
Kelly's hand touched the closet doorknob, but I noticed she didn't seem eager to open it. She glanced at me, then away, but not before I saw the sheen of tears in her eyes.
"Would it be possible for us to have a few minutes alone, Leonard?" I'd never liked to cry in front of strangers, and I doubted Kelly was any different. "This is kind of overwhelming."
"Of course, of course." He looked relieved, while Odessa looked like she regretted leaving her meat cleaver in the kitchen. "We'll just go back downstairs and leave you to it."
The old man scuttled past Odessa and out the door, but the plump black woman didn't budge.
I looked Odessa in the eye, refusing to let her gimlet stare intimidate me. "We're not here to steal anything, you know." She didn't answer. "Bijou asked us to come…" I hesitated briefly. "… before she died."
"Huh."
Just when I was beginning to consider the wisdom of shutting the door in her face, Odessa turned and walked away. The heavy clump of footsteps as she made her way toward the staircase left us in no doubt as to her disapproval.
"I don't know what her problem is," I muttered to Kelly, "but I'll bet it's hard to pronounce."
Kelly's tears overflowed.
"That was supposed to be funny," I said, uncomfortable.
Crying openly now, Kelly leaned forward, resting her head against the closet door.
"C'mon, now." I moved closer, glancing around for some peach-colored tissues, knowing they had to be there somewhere.
Aha. I snagged the box by the bed and offered it to her.
"Buck up, little cowboy." Wow. I'd opened my mouth and my dad came out.
"How can you joke at a time like this?" Kelly asked, snatching a tissue. "Doesn't it bother you to be here, in our mother's room, knowing that she's gone and we'll never see her again? And now Bijou's gone, too. We'll never know anything about them."
"We don't know that for sure, now do we?" I deliberately made my voice sound cheerful. "We see dead people, remember?"
Kelly gave me a dirty look, but it was worth it, because she'd stopped crying.
"That's all well and good for you, Nicki," she said, dabbing at her eyes with the tissue, "but it doesn't help me at all. I can only see male spirits, remember?"
"Oh. Yeah." What else was there to say?
"I'm starting to figure you out, you know," she said, sniffling. "You use humor to deal with things you don't want to deal with."
"Gee, guess I can fire my therapist now. I'm cured."
"Huh," Kelly said, sounding eerily like Odessa.
I bit my lip, making an effort to take the high road. After all, she was having a harder time coping than I was.
She touched the peach floral bedspread, smoothing her hand over one of the pillows. "Is she here somewhere, do you think?" The look she gave me made my heart twist. "Do you see her?"
Just to satisfy her, I looked around the room, even stepping inside the bathroom and giving it the onceover. There was a clutter of makeup on the counter, a big can of old-fashioned aerosol hair spray, and a fuzzy peach rug with a matching toilet seat cover.
But no Peaches.
"She's not here, Kelly." I hated to disappoint her, but remembering how Peaches had come to my room the morning of her funeral to say good-bye, I added, "I really think she's already gone into the Light."
"Then why did she show up in those pictures I took Halloween night? What about the man in the mirror?"
A vision of the pop star Michael Jackson popped into my head, but I knew Kelly wouldn't appreciate the song reference or the humor. "I thought you said you'd imagined him. Two glasses of wine, you said."
She looked away and shrugged. "I don't know. But Peaches was trying to communicate with us," she said stubbornly. "I know she was."
Tired of fighting a battle I knew I wasn't gonna win, I said, "Let's just look around and see what we can find. The sooner we get this over with, the sooner we can go home."
Kelly gave me an odd look—one I couldn't read, then said, "Yeah, I guess we better get started." She took a deep breath, and opened the closet doors.
"Wow," I said. "Looks like Peaches loved to shop."
Clothes in every color of the rainbow were crammed together so closely it was impossible to tell where one outfit began and another ended. Shoes were strewn all over the closet floor and crammed haphazardly on the top shelves. Belts and scarves dangled from hooks on the back of one door, and a broad-brimmed straw hat with pink flowers hung on the other.
"This might take a while," Kelly said.
As much as I was used to pawing through other people's discarded clothing, I found myself curiously reluctant to do it here. I mean, it looked like Peaches had just stepped out and might be back to change her shoes at any second.
"Can't we just look for the good stuff and go? I mean, these clothes are hardly going to tell us anything about Peaches." Eyeing the sleeve of a denim shirt covered in sequined palm trees, I added a silent, Except for her questionable taste in fashion.
"The good stuff?" Kelly was frowning at me.
I rolled my eyes. "Papers, Kelly. Diaries, letters, pictures, anything that will make you feel better and give you some closure."
An hour later we hadn't found a thing. No pictures, no papers, not even an overdue bill. Plenty of makeup, clothes, and costume jewelry, but nothing that told us anything about Peaches's past.
"Maybe Bijou cleared it all out after Peaches died," Kelly mused. "Do you think Leonard would let us take a look in her room?"
"Leonard isn't the problem, Kelly. Getting past the Dragon Queen in the kitchen, now that's a problem."
"There's still some boxes we haven't gone through in that chest over by the window," Kelly said.
I looked toward the chest, saw how deep it was and gave a sigh. "Knock yourself out," I said. "I'm gonna go check on Joe. Leonard's probably talking his ear off down there."
Kelly nodded, already moving toward the chest. It was a pretty piece, heavy yet feminine, delicately carved with doves and hearts. A trousseau, perhaps, for a turn-of-the-century bride.
An sudden twinge of sympathy hit. Poor Peaches.
According to Leonard, Peaches never married.
She'd lived here, in this house, her entire life.
And now she was dead.
Unexpected tears pricked my lids as I walked down the hall toward the stairs, but if I were being honest, they weren't for Peaches. They were for the loss of what "might have been." the thought of "What if?" I wouldn't trade my life for anything, but i
t made me sad to think about how different things might have been if she hadn't given us away.
I blinked the tears back, knowing in my heart that if anything had happened differently, I wouldn't be who I was. I wouldn't be Nicki Styx.
And I kinda liked being Nicki, myself.
I found my way to the library easily enough. The house was quiet, late afternoon sun streaming through the windows to make the wood floors gleam like gold. A faint clatter of dishes told me Odessa was still in the kitchen. Joe was in a leather chair by the window, sound asleep, feet propped on an overstuffed ottoman. A thick book lay open in his lap.
Poor guy. Doctors never get enough sleep.
I didn't wake him, but instead looked my fill, enjoying the sight of him sprawled in the chair, sunlight bathing his face. I'd seen him sleep before, of course, but only in the dark, close by on a pillow beside me. This was a different view entirely: a gorgeous man in the prime of his life, oozing unconscious sex appeal, laid before me like a banquet. One knee slightly raised, pointed toward the window. The bulge in the crotch of his jeans tempted my hand, and if we'd had the house to ourselves, I might've awakened Joe by cupping him there, bringing him to consciousness with the touch of my fingers.
To distract myself from such lewd thoughts, I focused on his face, loving the way his hair curled behind an ear—his hair was one of his most appealing qualities, dark and thick, soft. His cheekbones were all male, lashes surprisingly feminine. He'd shaved this morning, leaving his jaw smooth. I studied the faint lines at the corner of his eyes, wondering which creases came from laughter, which came from worry. Being a doctor must be so hard—everyone constantly depended on you to take care of them, to make them feel better.
Which made me feel guilty for depending on him, too.
"Do I pass the centerfold test?" Joe's sleepy murmur made me smile. He lifted one hand in my direction, coaxing me closer. "I tried so hard to position myself properly before Moby Dick put me to sleep."
"I might've known," I said, settling myself into his lap, drawing a satisfied grunt as I wiggled against him. "You have no shame."
Joe pulled me down onto his chest, closer to his lips.
"You were looking at me like you wanted to eat me," he murmured. His breath tickled my cheek as he brushed my lips with his—once, twice, three times.
"You must be psychic," I breathed.
And then we stopped talking while he kissed me again, long and deep. A stirring against my hip revived earlier naughty thoughts, but a sudden clatter of pots from the kitchen confirmed that now was not the time.
Reluctantly, I pulled back a little, but kept my place in his lap. He was hard where I was soft, and my body melded to his like butter—I didn't wanna get up yet.
"How's it going upstairs?" Joe asked, tucking a strand of my hair behind an ear. "Any progress?"
I shook my head. "Not yet. Kelly's still going through Peaches's things, but I needed a break."
He tilted his head, questioning, "You okay?"
I smiled, resting a hand on his heart. "I'm okay."
"Maybe I should take the car and go check us in at the bed and breakfast," he said. "It's getting late."
"Sounds like a plan." I would've liked to go with him, but felt I should stay with Kelly for the time being.
"You'll have to get up, then," Joe said. But neither of us moved. I laid my head against his chest and he drew me close, both arms around me as I listened to the thud of his heartbeat against my ear. Other than that, the house was still.
"Two rooms at the bed and breakfast, remember?" I trailed a hand up his arm, loving the rasp of hair against my palm. "Make sure one has a double bed."
Joe's chuckle made my body shake along with his. "Like I could forget something like that."
And then he kissed me again before reluctantly displacing me from his lap, and I walked him to the front door, where I waved good-bye.
Then I looked for a private place to use my phone, not ready to go back upstairs and dig through more of Peaches's belongings.
Evan was probably wondering how things were going in Savannah, and I couldn't wait to tell him.
Through the double doors at the back of the house, a bricked-in courtyard beckoned. A wrought-iron table took up one corner, so I went outside, pulled out a chair and sat. The bricks beneath my feet were bumpy with age and smattered with fallen leaves. The sun was getting low on the horizon, and the air held a chill, but the shadowed courtyard was just what I needed.
I took a few deep breaths and soaked in the quiet, the scent of wood smoke from somebody's chimney, the musty smell of damp leaves. Soothing, if the whole situation weren't so bizarre. Then I called Evan.
"Hey there, devil doll." Caller ID had long since eliminated the need for a simple "Hello."
"Hey."
"What's wrong?" Evan was alert to nuances. "Is the bed and breakfast okay? Sometimes it's hard to tell when you book a place over the Internet."
"We never made it to the bed and breakfast," I said. "We're still at the Blue Dahlia."
"What's it like?"
"It's a big old house full of empty rooms," I said. "And Leonard lied to us."
"Leonard." Evan kept his answers short, waiting impatiently for me to fill in the blanks.
"Leonard Ledbetter. He's the manager here. The caretaker, or something. Bijou wasn't sick. She—She's dead."
Silence from Evan. Then, a strangled, "Dead?"
"Died in her sleep a few days after the funeral. Her funeral was a couple of weeks ago."
"And nobody told you?"
"Nobody told us."
"Why not?"
"Your guess is as good as mine."
"The old guy Kelly talked to on the phone—"
"Leonard."
"Sick is a hell of a long way from dead."
"Tell me about it."
"Um…" I could practically hear Evan's mind working. "You need to get out of there, Nicki. The old guy could be a psycho or something. I'm having visions of Anthony Perkins and the Bates Motel."
"Ugh." I shuddered, partly from the thought of the famous shower scene, and partly from the cold wrought iron beneath my butt. "Enough with the visions. Believe me, being able to see things that aren't there ain't what it's cracked up to be."
Silence.
"That was a joke, Evan."
"It wasn't funny, Nicki. When are you coming home?"
"Kelly's determined to search through the house for keepsakes, and Leonard's invited us to dinner. I think we'll be here awhile." I hesitated, knowing Evan wouldn't like this next part any more than I did. "And just so you know, the house may be haunted."
I could hear his sudden intake of breath. "What did you see? Who did you see? You didn't talk to them, did you? You should come home, Nicki."
I was touched by his concern, but as usual, calming Evan down calmed me down. "It's okay. I didn't see anything. Not yet, anyway. Kelly and I met a couple of guys who give ghost tours and they told her the house was haunted, but who knows? At any rate, as soon as Leonard invited us in, she jumped on it."
"This Leonard guy sounds like a nutcase."
"I'm pretty sure he's harmless." Leonard might be a liar, but he didn't strike me as dangerous. "Just a lonely old man. If you met him, you'd see what I mean. And Joe's here. It'll be okay."
"You be careful, Nicki. You know how quickly things can turn ugly."
Do I ever.
"And I'm not just talking about your hair," Evan added, making me grin.
"You're just jealous because pink streaks don't work for you, pretty boy."
"Neither does Vin Diesel, but I'll survive." I could hear the smile in Evan's voice. "Now Vin's personal trainer… there's somebody to be jealous of."
"Slut."
"Skank."
When I hung up the phone a few minutes later, I felt much better. Touching base with Evan always grounded me.
A rustle came from the bushes to my right, and I glanced over to find I was being watched. A pair of
bright green eyes surveyed me calmly, those of a cat curled up in the fallen leaves. The orange and brown shading of her coat had rendered her almost invisible. The cat rose and slid from the bushes, giving me a cautious mew as she came to rub against my ankles.
"Hey you." I stroked her, enjoying the way she leaned into me. I'd always liked cats, but never had one. "Aren't you pretty?"
She answered with another mew, earning herself a scratch under the chin. Green eyes slitted in bliss, then shot wide at a sudden rattling sound. A leaf rolled by, and the cat pounced, swiping it with a paw and sending it careening across the bricks. She was after it instantly, her fickle attentions now focused on play instead of petting.
"I hate cats."
The woman's voice made me jump.
"Horrible creatures, leave hair everywhere."
Psycho Barbie took a seat in the wrought-iron chair facing me, crossing her legs in a choreographed slide worthy of a fashion model.
Conversely, I straightened, spine stiff as a ramrod. The hair rose on the back of my neck.
The bitter-eyed blonde from the funeral home. Here, in Savannah.
Red lips smiled a flawless smile, and my blood ran cold.
"Don't look so surprised, Nicki. Just because you've been left alone doesn't mean you've been forgotten." A tilt of a blond head, the perfect pose, très chic. "I told you we'd be watching." Barbie glanced idly around the courtyard, then back at me. "Nice house. I feel right at home here."
I was so screwed.
"Wha—" I licked lips gone very dry. "What are you doing here? What do you want?"
"It's time we had a little chat." Psycho Barbie's smile turned smug, somewhat sly. "You met my master the other night. Halloween is his favorite holiday, after all. One never knows in which guise he'll appear, but blond rock stars and leather-clad bikers seem to be among his favorites."
"Sammy," I murmured, not even realizing I'd said his name aloud.
"Strangely enough, he's quite taken with you." Her gaze flicked over my khakis and denim jacket. "He likes your sister, too, but you seem to be the one he prefers." She shrugged as if there were no accounting for taste. "And what my master wants, he gets."