She rushed up the stairs and stood face to face with him, fists shoved against her hips. "If you need to ask, you don't deserve an answer. You know me, or at least I thought you did."
Diane grabbed Tim's lapels and tugged him forward, planting a long, fire-ensuring kiss. She pulled back. "Goodbye, Tim. I'll give you the name of my new lawyer, you can forward my file to him."
She sauntered down the stairs, swaying her hips to let Tim know what he had lost and would discover he couldn't live without.
"Great, lost the relationship, and I still got no answer."
"Don't worry chum, I have a feeling she's a beehive full of trouble," I said, standing—a.k.a. floating—behind Tim. "She'll give you the honey, but you'll get stung anyway."
I watched Tim rotate step-by-step to face me, or the apparition of me. He turned a nice shade of white, maybe eggshell or alabaster, and his hands trembled. He tensed his muscles in order to stop himself from running away. He took a deep breath and swallowed hard.
"Nice camera trick," he stuttered.
I floated around so I stood on his left side. I kept my form levitating four inches above the ground. "Uh huh."
Now was the time to turn into a man of few words. Shake him up. Add some mystery to the whole see-right-through-me, the levitating, and the now-I'm-here-now-I'm-gone shtick.
"What do you want?" he asked gruffly. Of course, the trembling took away from his act of being nonchalant about a ghost having a discussion with him.
"Answers." I made my voice quiver and shake in a deep baritone.
Tim backed up a few feet. He wanted to bolt, but knew he couldn't get away from me if I didn't want him to leave. It was really easy to follow someone when you could skim across the air and materialize anywhere in a gasp of a breath.
"You probably have more than I do," Tim retorted.
The response would have been snappier if it had been delivered a little closer to my statement. A two-minute delay didn't add punch to the remark. What a shame to waste such a line.
"Not to what I want to know." Now, when a ghost waited a few minutes to respond, it didn't fall flat but added a very eerie quality. The effect I wanted. I jumped close to him, and then pulled myself back.
Tim swallowed hard, but no screaming or fainting. To be truthful, the fainting episodes occurred with women. Most of the time men just pretended we didn't exist. And boy was it tough for them. For some reason, it just didn't give me the same thrill to scare a dame.
"I'm not afraid," Tim said, a slight waver in his voice.
I decided to stay quiet and see what else he planned on saying. Silence made the tongue rattle.
"Ghosts are benign. They don't hurt people. Well, usually they don't," Tim explained.
"Question for you. Am I the exception?"
Tim seemed to be thinking this over for a long time. Was I or wasn't I, or if I wasn't, could he make me be? And why was I here bothering him? What exactly did he do to deserve that?
"This was once your building, but now it's mine. We must learn to co-exist with each other because I am not going to leave."
I burst into laughter. "You think this is a book? We must co-exist?"
"I read that's what you're supposed to say. You know, to make the ghost happy. Keep you benign."
"I'll be benign as long as I feel like being benign. You want me happy, buddy, tell me what's up with your client. What's her relationship to Willow?"
"They were friends."
"By whose standards?"
"They had disagreements, but they liked each other."
"Is the past tense because Willow's dead or did the friendly feelings vanished before the accident?"
Tim waited a little too long to give me an answer so I had one. Before the accident. Interesting turn. But how did it really fit? Braswell was the one who profited the most, maybe, from his wife's early demise.
"Willow knows it was murder. Willow cannot rest in peace like she deserves until she knows who and why."
"How can it be restful for you to know someone you knew murdered you?" Tim shoved his hands into his pockets and looked around. Probably trying to make sure no one walked into the stairwell and caught him arguing with nothing.
"Good point, Timmy, but the majority of us like closure, and it does rest the soul. Your client hated Willow."
"No, just a small tension between them because of Willow's marriage to Braswell."
"Gee, why wouldn't you want your friend to be happy?"
"That didn't bother her. Diane found out about Braswell being named the beneficiary to the business if anything happened to Willow."
"How?"
Tim looked down at the ground and released a deep sigh. "Me."
"During a little tumble in the hay?"
"I just spoke without thinking about who I was saying it to. You know, sharing the day with your loved one."
"The same one who was going to be screwed by her business partner. Nice move." I tipped my hat to him.
"If I hadn't told her, she'd have been mad at me when she found out through the grapevine or from Willow. The whole honesty thing gets you in trouble either way."
"Very true, but client matters should be kept confidential. Isn't that the usual line?"
"But you gotta talk to your woman about your day." Tim tugged at his collar. "Or that will get you in trouble. Along with tears and the cold shoulder."
"So normally you blabber, but just never get caught."
"It normally doesn't matter."
"Ah… the no personal involvement."
"Correct."
I wondered if doctors and other lawyers speak of their clients' and patients' problems to their wives and lovers. Or husbands. I must remember to be—what was that word? I flipped through my blue notebook—politically correct. What puzzled me was… when had politics ever been correct?
"So you slipped the secret about the will to Diane, and she wasn't too happy about good old Braswell getting the loot."
"Loot? Diane didn't care about the money. She wanted the business. She was entitled to it."
"Entitled. Strong word for an employee."
"She helped build the business."
"Ah, and did you point this out to Willow when she was making the will or changing it after her marriage? Did you say anything about some kind of clause to protect Diane when the business details were ironed out?"
"I didn't know about it at that time. I didn't come in until later. My father—"
"Have you asked Daddy about any of this? Or does the normal vulture heart beat in his lawyer chest? Think maybe he spoke a word or two about her eliminating Diane, made her seem less in the big picture?"
"I don't know."
He didn't say his daddy wouldn't, just that he didn't know whether he had. Maybe Daddy needed a haunting. Nope. Not in my realm of having to care. Willow was my client. Not Diane. I couldn't go around spooking everyone just for the hell of it or sooner or later I'd find myself in Hell. Unless, of course, I could get his father to come to me. If he entered Willow's turf, then it was my prerogative.
"You can't speak up to Daddy's character, but what about Diane's? Think she might be up to a little brake tampering?"
"One cannot speak of the true character of anyone but themselves."
Take a note: And even then, sometimes people elaborate.
I heard my name being called. My conversation with Tim and Willow's investigation had to wait. Jenny needed me.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Abby
I'm dead.
I didn't want to believe it. It was a strange sensation to be sort of alive, but not really. I saw and heard everyone. The people I loved and the people who loved me. But they couldn't see me anymore, couldn't hear me. I didn't exist to them.
Except for Grandma. She felt me. How come Rich couldn't?
"I'm here, duckie." A deep masculine voice bounced off the walls of my, I mean, Rich's, living room. "I'll take her from here."
"Thank you." Grandma motioned
for Rich to help her up from the couch. I watched as the love of my life reached tenderly for my Grandma's outstretched hands and assisted her to her feet.
The moment Grandma stood, and enveloped Rich in a fierce hug. Rich clung to her. Grandma held on to him. They gripped each other, trying to keep the other one from slipping too far into grief.
"I'm gonna find who killed me." I crossed my arms over my chest and glared out into the real world.
Grandma lifted her head from Rich's chest and gazed in my direction.
"She can hear you," the man said.
I turned toward the male voice. Leaning against the wall behind the couch, actually on top of the couch, was a dark-haired guy of about thirty-five, wearing a three-piece suit and a fedora. He looked kind of familiar.
The hat rose off his head, and he tilted his chin down. "You're a cute kid."
"I'm not a kid."
"Sure, you are."
"And just who the heck are you?"
"Trust runs so deep in the family." He spun his hat on his finger.
"You'll take care of her?" Grandma asked.
He turned to Grandma and smiled. "Of course, duckie."
"It's… he's… that's a ghost," Rich gasped.
Grandma patted Rich's hand. "Don't worry. That's my brother, Calamar."
"You're Great-Uncle Calamar?" Excitement wiggled through me. The last six months I spent learning about him, trying to know him, and now he stood… appeared… before me.
He grimaced. "I prefer Callous."
Rich gaped at Callous, eyes fixated and wide.
Why him? Why not me? I moved toward Callous. "Why can't he see me? Why hasn't anyone been able to see me?"
"You're not ready yet. You've just begun to accept this existence. The turmoil in your soul is just now starting to settle."
"So he will? Later?" I tried to keep the hope out of my voice.
Callous frowned. "It's best if he didn't. Remaining among the living isn't good for them. Or us."
"Abby's with him?" Rich pointed a shaking finger at Callous.
Grandma took Rich's hand and placed it in the crook of her arm. "He'll take care of her. It's time for us to go."
"She won't be scared?" Rich looked around the room at the destruction I had created.
"He'll help her."
"I'm going to find out who killed Abby and make them pay!" Rich vowed.
A shiver whispered through my spirit.
"Not a good idea, kid." Callous floated off the couch, beckoning for me to follow. "You leave that to me."
"You're dead."
"That makes it a lot easier for me to find out." Callous tipped his hat at Grandma. "I'll be safe. Nothing bad can happen to me."
"I have to," Rich said.
"Listen, kid, I admire you, respect you for wanting to right this, but leave it to me, leave it to us. Me and Abby will set this straight. She doesn't want anything to happen to you. If something does, it might not allow her soul to rest, and she'll be stuck in Limbo forever. You want that for Abigail?"
"No," Rich whispered.
"Promise you'll leave it to me?"
I started to talk, but Callous sent me a silencing look. There was a warning in his dark gaze. He knew more about this new world I had entered, so I obeyed the unspoken command.
"How will the police get your information?" Rich asked.
"I'll pick a medium."
"I want to be it," Rich said.
"No."
"Why not?" Rich and I asked.
It seemed like the best answer. Rich knew me and saw Callous. Who better to get the information to the police? Why use a stranger?
"I have my trusted counterparts."
"You can trust Rich," I said.
Callous centered his attention on me. "He'll be a suspect. It's always hard for the police to accept something as the truth when a probable suspect gives it to them. It's like asking two brothers which one broke the vase. Both will claim they didn't and the other did it."
"He didn't do it," I said.
Uncle Callous studied me carefully, hard. His dark eyes drilled into mine. "Did you see who killed you?"
"No."
"You have no idea who could have done it? Who did it?"
"No."
His voice softened, and he walked over to me. "Then you don't know who didn't do it, either." He wrapped a protective arm around me and led me out of the room, out of the house, through the walls.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
"Do you remember how well that turned out?"
What do I do with a kid?
The question continued hammering my mind as I took Abigail out of the house and back to my office. I never had kids in the living world, and for my sister to hand off a twenty-one-year-old to me scared me more than death. What do I do? Or undo.
There was so much to teach—and warn—her about Limbo. Abby lucked out that her tantrum hadn't resulted in someone getting hurt. Unlike the physical Earth, 'I'm sorry' never fixed mistakes, and hurt feelings manifested in the spirit until a ghost exploded and created damage that altered the living world—and locked a spirit in Limbo forever without the benefit of ever leaving the between again.
"Wait right here." I sat Abby down in a chair in my office.
She allowed me to take charge without a fuss. Was that her normal temperament or the calm before the lash out, the frozenness of shock? I studied her. Concern grew. In my experience, women weren't so compliant, then again maybe my personality brought out the worst.
I started to close the door, peeking through the shrinking opening to watch Abby. She sat and stared at the back wall. The door closed with a tough pull.
"Nothing can happen to her here," Ann said.
"But she doesn't want to be here." I wandered over to Ann's desk and propped myself up on the edge. The wood jabbed into my back, the slight pain welcoming. In Limbo, the world was concrete, making it easy to remember to contain our tempers, and that not much separated our world of death from the real world of life. We could do more physically here, and more spiritually there. And that was the biggest drawback of returning to the world we knew. The actions of ghosts influenced more on the spiritual side than the physical.
"She just needs time to adjust." Ann leaned into my body. "I'll show her around. Introduce her to a few others."
I wrapped an arm around her waist. "I don't want her to run into Denver and learn the ways of existing in Limbo from him."
"I can handle Denver." Ann gazed at me as if I was a piece of cheesecake and her diet had just ended. "The best way to keep him away from Abigail is for us to find out who killed her. Then she'll leave Limbo and be safe from him."
Ann was right, but it still didn't sit well with me. I knew the direction she wanted me to take, one I swore never to go down. "I'll put Willow's case on the back burner. Focus on Abby's."
"As if that woman won't go looking for trouble."
If Willow didn't find it, she'd make it. Plus, it wouldn't be good for business. But this was family. "I'll work on both cases together. Bounce back and forth. I've done it before."
"And do you remember how well that turned out?" Ann rolled her pretty blues.
As a matter of fact, I had blocked that whole fiasco from my mind and soul. I used a medium to help with two cases involving the murder of 'respected' church members. I uncovered who killed Constance, the choir director from First Community, and the murderer of Patty, the choir diva from Trinity First. I decided to wrap the cases up at the same time as the two singing divas were creating quite the brouhaha. I had a petition on my desk signed by all almost all the residents of Limbo begging me to help these two 'ladies' move on.
I had wrangled a medium to announce the big reveal for me at the churches. With much conviction, the clueless woman announced to First Community that Ginger killed Patty. It was the truth, but not one that meant anything to the members of that particular church choir. Though, they all battled back and forth over the right to claim ownership of killing the fo
rmer-bad-girl-of-punk-turned-gospel-artist. None from that killer crew had ever met Ginger or Patty. Though, I was sure if they had, someone from the choir would've killed Patty. And probably Ginger.
By the time the medium had straightened out the mix-up, all the choir members were arrested, and Ginger had skipped town.
I held up my notebook. "I learned from that. I'll use two mediums and keep better notes. Just keep Abby occupied. I'm sure you girls can think of something to pass the time."
"Gee, Callous, let's see what other plans could there be. I don't know, Mr. Male Chauvinist. Giving Willow and Abby each half your attention. Or…" Ann grabbed me by the shoulders and shook me. "Take your niece with you!"
I pulled out of the clamp-like grasp. "Abigail? With me on a case? She's a kid."
"Liar," Ann shot the word at me. "Liar, liar, liar. If Abigail had been an Andrew, you would get him to help."
"No, I wouldn't," I lied.
"Liar." Ann dropped herself into her chair. "Well, guess what? I have a date tonight, and I'm not going to be able to keep an eye on Abigail for you."
"Now, who's lying?"
"I waltz out of here and have a talk with Harold, and then I'm not."
Ann had me there. She'd have a date and a devoted follower for eternity. In Limbo we still dated, had relations, and such. Of course, it wasn't the same. There wasn't the same intensity to relationships in Limbo as there was on Earth. Maybe I should find Abigail a date for the evening.
No, her death was too fresh and her ties to Rich strong. And the one man interested in Abigail, for reasons I still didn't know, was Denver. "All right. I could use a partner, and she does know her way in the new millennium."
"Smart man."
Ain't we all? I opened the door to my office and went to ask my grandniece for assistance on a case. "Abigail?"
She stood in front of the bookcase, fingers brushing over the titles. She turned to me. Abby's eyes held so much confusion and sadness. I felt my heart squeeze itself into a little ball.
"We're still here, right? On earth."
"No, kiddo. This place is an exact duplicate, but we're on a different plane, a different existence. We keep the image of ourselves, but all that's left is our spirit, our souls."
Dying For Redemption Page 8