by Terri Garey
Leonard blinked like an owl behind his glasses.
Trying to remain patient, I elaborated. "Peaches never mentioned that we had a grandmother. In fact, she told Kelly that she lived alone, with no family, and worked for an insurance company."
"They had a disagreement." He shrugged. "You know how complicated mother-daughter relationships can be."
"What did they fight about?"
"I have no idea," Leonard said. He took another sip of wine. "More mashed potatoes?"
He dabbed at his lips with a napkin while Kelly and I exchanged a glance:
"What's going on here, Leonard?" Something was up. The beads of sweat forming on that bald head weren't caused by hot soup.
"You done started it, Leonard, and now you gots to finish it." Odessa's voice from the doorway behind us made me jump. "Tell 'em. Go on, tell 'em."
Leonard looked at us helplessly, then laid down his napkin. "But that's the problem, you see." He wet his lips, glancing back and forth between Kelly and I. "You must forgive an old man, but I'm not supposed to tell you anything."
Huh?
"Dammit, Leonard." Odessa may've taken her meals in the kitchen, but she had no problem speaking her mind.
I swiveled in my chair to look at her, and Kelly did the same.
"What that old fool is trying to say," she waved a plump hand at Leonard, "is that you either got the knack or you don't."
The knack.
"Both your mama and Miz Bijou—they got the knack. If you got it, well and good. If you don't, they ain't nothin' here you need to know." She glared at us both, taking her time. "The house be the one to decide whether to tell you its secrets."
Odessa met my eyes one final time before turning away.
"Y'all enjoy your dinner."
* * *
CHAPTER 12
"A tarot card?"
I stared at the image in Kelly's hand; a burning tower, all black and gray and grim as Hell. Tarot cards were supposed to be colorful, weren't they? "Are you kidding me?"
My card was more like it, even if it made no more sense than hers—a hunky blond guy riding in a chariot, blue and silver on a bright yellow background.
Since neither envelope was addressed, we'd chosen at random, and I'd taken the one from Kelly's left hand.
"The Tower,'" she read aloud from the bottom of her card, then glanced at mine. "The Chariot. What do you think they mean?"
I checked the now empty envelope again to see if I'd missed anything. "Senility comes to mind."
"We should have come here sooner. I really wanted to talk to Bijou again, and now it's too late." Kelly looked sad, guilty even. "Didn't you want to get to know her better?"
I didn't know how to answer that, so I just shrugged.
"I was hoping she could tell us about Peaches, talk to us about the knack."
"You probably didn't miss much," I said. "If this is her idea of a letter to her granddaughters, she obviously had a screw loose."
I paced the floor of the Delft Room, a blue and white attic bedroom Leonard had shown us to after dinner.
"Why are you always so cynical?" Kelly sat on the bed—the only bed—which had a blue and white quilt as coverlet. The walls were papered in elaborate blue and white toile, taking advantage of the odd-shaped angles of the room. The garret-style windows were draped with lace.
"I'm not cynical," I said, "I'm pissed. I feel like I've just stepped into a frilly version of the Twilight Zone." Tarot cards? This made no sense. "What's going on here?"
"Hell if I know," Kelly said, surprising me with the casual profanity. She tapped her card with one hard. "But it'll be fun to find out."
"What the hell are you talking about?" I had no problem with profanity, especially if the situation called for it. "This is not fun. I've had a lot of fun," I made marks in the air with my fingers, "and this isn't it."
She shrugged, giving me a grin. "So you say."
"Thanks for setting me up at dinner, by the way." I crossed my arms and thrust out a hip, unamused. "You didn't even bother to ask if Joe and I wanted to stay here tonight before you agreed to it."
"I didn't think you'd mind. What's the harm?"
"What's the harm?" That innocent look of hers wasn't fooling anybody. "This house is haunted, and we see dead people. Do I need to spell it out for you?"
I did not need more drama in my life.
The Blue Dahlia had drama written all over it.
There was a tap at the door, which was open. "What's the verdict?" Joe asked, stepping into the room. "Do we stay or do we go? Leonard's asked me twice if he can help me with our luggage, and I'm not sure how much longer I can hold him off."
"I thought you took it to the Cabot House," I said.
He shrugged. "I checked us in, but the rooms weren't ready. Luggage is still in the trunk."
Damn.
"Look, Nicki, if you don't want to stay, then you and Joe just go on over to the bed and breakfast and I'll stay here," Kelly said.
"Are you nuts? Leave you here alone?" I don't know why, but I just couldn't do it. "Who knows what kind of trouble you'll stir up with your magic mirror while I'm gone?"
"You brought the mirror?" I was glad to hear Joe was just as appalled at Kelly's stupidity as I was. "Why?"
Kelly shot me a resentful glance. "Because Peaches's spirit may still be in this house, and if she is, I want to talk to her."
Joe shook his head. "Give it up, Kelly. Let it go."
She raised an eyebrow. "Don't tell me what to do, Joe. You know that never worked." Her gaze flicked over me. "I don't think it'll work for Nicki either."
True, but I didn't need Kelly to tell me how to deal with my own boyfriend.
"I don't like it," Joe said stubbornly.
"No offense, but I don't care. This house is all that's left of our family, and I'm not ready to leave. Besides," she shot me a quick glance, "Nicki's already seen one spirit, and everything's fine."
The look Joe turned on me made me squirm. "I haven't had time to tell you about it," I said, "and we haven't had any privacy." The look I passed on to Kelly was pointed.
Joe sighed. There was a pause, then, "I can't win with either one of you, can I?"
I wasn't sure what to say. Was he talking about the issue at hand, or something deeper?
"I'm going down to unload the car," he muttered. "But I'm going on record as saying I think it's a bad idea."
"I'll come with you," I said. To Kelly, I added, "And I'm not staying in this room. It looks like a giant blue and white doily."
"I knew it" Joe swore, shaking his head. "I knew it. So much for a peaceful weekend in Savannah." He strode down the hallway so fast I had a hard time keeping up with him. "I leave you two alone for five minutes and all hell breaks loose." He looked angry. "When were you going to tell me you'd seen another ghost?"
"Don't be mad at me," I said. "This is all Kelly's fault. I wanted to leave but she played the guilt card." I wasn't taking the blame for any of this. "She's the one who wants to see a ghost, not me."
He waited until we were outside on the front porch before asking any more questions. "Who was it? Who did you see?"
I winced at his abruptness, knowing it was rooted in worry.
"Remember the spirit who appeared to me at the funeral home? The blond woman?"
"The dead guy's mistress?" Joe unlocked the car with a beep, popping the trunk.
"Yep. She showed up late this afternoon, talking trash."
He gave me a look. "Talking trash?"
"Oh, you know," I said, giving him a nervous smile. I didn't really want to tell him that Barbie had promised to turn me over to her "master." It sounded melodramatic and scary and stupid. "Girls talk trash all the time. Make snide comments, insult each other's taste in clothes. It's the girlie equivalent of arm wrestling."
"This ghost came all the way to Savannah to insult your outfit?" Joe obviously wasn't buying it. The trunk lid slammed as he finished unloading the bags. "What did she say
? What does she want?"
Poor Joe. He probably missed the days when he was involved with someone bland and ordinary. Like Kelly.
Not liking that train of thought, I derailed it by going back to the problem at hand. "She's mad about losing her boyfriend, and she wants to cause trouble." I was talking about Psycho Barbie, of course. Wasn't I? "She's an angry spirit, very bitchy, but I don't think she can actually do anything to me—she's a ghost, after all. Ghosts have very limited access to the physical world." I'd almost said "plane," and wanted to bite my tongue off at the near slip.
Joe wasn't buying that explanation either. "Surely you haven't forgotten about Caprice."
"Caprice was being manipulated by a living person," I said quickly. "Her spirit was under the control of someone else."
Joe was quiet for a moment. "Why did this woman's ghost follow you here?"
I shrugged, not wanting him to know how worried I was. "I don't know, but she said she likes the Blue Dahlia. Maybe she'll stay here when we go back to Atlanta."
"You're afraid of her, aren't you?"
I sighed, not bothering to deny it any longer. "Yes."
He stared at me, and I wondered what he was thinking. Then he started walking toward me, and my heart did a flip. His big, warm hand covered my shoulder. "I'm here, baby."
I met his eyes, deep green and rimmed with fatigue. His dark hair needed a comb.
And just like that, I knew I was in love with this man. This man, who worked a fourteen hour shift, then drove to Savannah to keep his crazy girlfriend and her crazy sister company in a haunted house. This man, who I first laid eyes on when I opened them in a hospital, fresh from a near death experience. This man, whom I'd spent the last couple of months getting to know and seeing in action.
This man. Joe Bascombe.
I opened my mouth to say those three little words.
Joe gave me a lopsided grin, squeezing my shoulder reassuringly. "Everything's going to be okay, Nicki. We'll stay one night, and then if we have to drag Kelly kicking and screaming back to Atlanta, we'll do it."
Great. The image ruined the mood.
"But first, how about you and I go upstairs and pick out a room, hm? Kelly may like dollhouses and blue and white doilies, but I'm a king-sized bed kind of guy."
The mood returned, but with a slightly different vibe.
"That's because you've got some king-sized parts," I teased.
He wiggled his eyebrows suggestively.
"Your ego, for starters." I laughed as he made a mock effort to smack me on the ass. "Now show me your king-sized muscles, and carry those bags upstairs."
When we came downstairs an hour later, all the lights on the bottom floor were off. Which did not make me happy, because we'd left most of them on after Leonard had said his good-nights. Odessa had retired to her cottage out back, but it was a little early in the evening to be turning out all the lights.
"Kelly went to bed already?" Joe seemed surprised. "It's barely eight o'clock."
"Huh." The hair on the back of my neck prickled. "Something's wrong."
Joe didn't hesitate, and took the remaining stairs double time. "Kelly?" he called. "Are you down here?"
"In the living room," she answered.
"What are you doing in the dark?" I asked, annoyed. "Turn some lights back on." I pushed past Joe to do it myself, hating that she'd scared me like that.
The lights came on, and there was Kelly, sitting on the couch with Spider, one of the guys from the diner.
"Hey," he said. He nodded at Joe and me without smiling, looking like a brooding version of his name. Thin face, dark eyes, and neatly trimmed goatee. Barbwire tattoos on each wrist, silver crucifix dangling from one ear. A little too gaunt for my taste, but I did like his style. He was holding a beer, and Kelly had one in front of her on the coffee table.
She looked flushed. "Spider came by to see how we were doing," she said.
I'll bet he did. But it was none of my business if Kelly wanted a little action, so I just smiled and took Joe by the hand. "Cool," I said, ready to lead him away. "We'll be in the kitchen." Joe had expressed an interest in Odessa's apple pie, and I was more than willing to let Kelly enjoy her own dessert without having to share mine.
"What's with the candle?" Joe asked, resisting my tug on his hand.
I wasn't sure why he'd asked the question. We'd obviously interrupted a romantic little "getting-to-know-you" time. So what if they'd lit a candle? Was he jealous?
Kelly gave him a frosty look. "What about it? It's a candle."
Joe took a step forward, examining the objects on the coffee table. "You're doing it again, aren't you?"
"Doing what?"
"Dabbling."
"Leave me alone, Joe. You don't know anything about it."
"I do know about it," he said. "More than I ever wanted to."
Part of me was fascinated by the byplay between Joe and Kelly, and part of me was queasy. This must've been how they were to each other when they were married.
And that's the part that made me queasy.
"We were just about to do some dowsing, man." Spider moved his angular frame to the edge of the couch, setting his beer bottle down with a thunk. "It's no big deal."
I laced my fingers with Joe's, wondering if Kelly had mentioned to Spider that my boyfriend was her ex-husband.
"You're looking for water in the middle of a darkened living room?" Joe's skeptical tone made it clear what he thought of that idea.
"Looking for water is only one form of dowsing," Spider said tersely. "A very primitive form, actually."
"I think it sounds fascinating," Kelly said. "Spider's been telling me all about it." There was a teeny bit of challenge in her voice. "Sit down, Joe. Join us. Stretch that scientific mind of yours."
She was baiting him. Why was she baiting him?
Joe grunted, wiggling his fingers. Evidently I'd been squeezing his hand pretty hard.
"What the hell, Joe? Kelly wants to be entertained." I pulled him down beside me on the couch. If he was jealous over finding his ex-wife alone in the dark with another man, I'd rather know about it sooner than later. And if Kelly still cared enough about him to make him jealous, I wanted to know that, too.
Bait away, sis. Let's see what happens.
Spider and Kelly moved over to make room, but it was still a tight fit.
"It works better in the dark," Spider said, and Kelly jumped up and flicked off the light switch again before plopping herself back down on the couch.
Now this I did not care for.
The candle flickered, giving light to a very small area of the living room. Beyond its faint circle of influence, the house lay in darkness.
Spider picked something up from the coffee table. It was a chain, with a weight of some kind dangling from the bottom. The chain glittered as it caught the candlelight. "It's a pendulum. I made it myself with a malachite crystal."
Of course you did, spook boy.
I glanced at Joe, and he gave me an eye roll. I relaxed a little, relieved to know we were obviously thinking the same thing.
Kelly reached out to touch the crystal, peering at it in the dimness. "How does it work?"
"Simple," Spider said. "You hold the pendulum over a flat surface, like this." He let the chain dangle over the coffee table. "You ask questions, and the way the crystal moves give you the answers. It's different for everybody, but mine goes in circles for yes, and straight back and forth for no."
I resisted another roll of the eyes.
Spider ran his hand down the chain, holding the crystal perfectly still. "If you really want to get specific, you can write the alphabet on a piece of paper—in a circle, of course—and let whatever spirit you're communicating with spell out words."
"Wait a minute." I wasn't sure I liked the sound of this. "Isn't that like using a Ouija board or something? I heard it's a really bad idea to use a Ouija board."
"Like you never have?" Kelly challenged me over Spider's lean back.
"Tell the truth."
"When I was twelve, maybe." I said, remembering those slumber parties where my friends and I had scared each other silly. "I know better now."
"Very smart," Spider said, surprising me. "Ouija boards are bad news."
I felt like sticking my tongue out at Kelly in triumph, but since I'd just admitted I was no longer twelve, I couldn't.
Joe heaved a sigh.
"You got a problem with this, man?" That was the first time Spider had addressed him directly. "Because if you do, your negative vibes could throw everything off."
Joe waved a hand nonchalantly. "Knock yourself out. I think I can manage to keep my negative vibes to myself."
They had a mini-staring match for about three seconds before Spider, quite literally, gave Joe the cold shoulder. He turned to Kelly and asked, "You ready?"
She smiled. "I'm ready."
Spider moved forward to sit on the edge of the cushion, which gave us a little more room. "The idea is that by using a pendulum, the spirits can tap into the invisible electromagnetic fields that surround us, and use them to communicate." He seemed to be speaking for Kelly alone. "We ask them questions, and they guide the pendulum to give us the answers."
"Uh-huh."
I bit back a grin at Joe's lack of enthusiasm.
Spider ignored him and dangled his malachite crystal, or whatever it was, over the coffee table, resting an elbow to steady his hand. He pinched the chain between a finger and thumb and ran them downward until the crystal hung perfectly still. Then he let go, holding only the tip of the chain. "Are there any spirits here who would like to communicate with us?"
Slowly, the crystal began to move. Within a few moments it was going in a small circle.
"That's a yes," said Spider.
"You're doing that," I accused.
"No, I'm not." Spider kept his voice level and quiet. Kelly shot me a dirty look, but I was so used to them by now that I could care less.
Spider went on, "Spirit, are you trapped in this house?"
The house was dead quiet, the candle was flickering, and I was very, very glad to have Joe sitting next to me on the couch.
The circling of the pendulum became erratic, and within a few moments it was swinging back and forth, back and forth.