The Ghost Who Was Says I Do

by Anna J. McIntyre

  The next morning, Claudia woke up thinking about the marriage license, convinced Dirk was the one responsible for taking it. She was still thinking of the missing license when she stepped out into the hall and started for the bathroom just as Dirk was coming out of his room.

  “Good morning, Claudia,” he said briskly as he turned to the stairs.

  “You were in my room,” she accused.

  Dirk stopped walking and turned back to Claudia. “Excuse me?”

  “I want it back.”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “What do you think you’re going to do with it?” she demanded.

  “Claudia, I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about. Get a grip.” With that, Dirk turned and headed for the staircase again.

  Claudia stood alone in the hallway, fuming as she watched him head downstairs.

  “Ready to go down for breakfast?” Rachel asked when Claudia returned to the bedroom.

  “If Walt and Dirk are going to be at the table, it will be pretty darn awkward,” Claudia said as she grabbed her purse off the dresser.

  “This entire week is going to be awkward,” Rachel said.

  With a shrug Claudia opened her purse, intending to retrieve her brush so she could straighten her hair before heading downstairs. She reached her hand in the purse and froze. “It’s here!”

  “What’s here?” Rachel asked, standing by the door, waiting for her sister so they could go downstairs.

  “The marriage license! It’s here!”

  Rachel’s eyes widened. “It came back by itself?”

  Claudia glanced up at her sister and rolled her eyes. “Don’t be ridiculous. I must have overlooked it.”

  “Overlooked it? You dumped your purse out on the bed. How could you have overlooked it?”

  “Obviously I did, because here it is.” Claudia pulled the folded document from the purse and waved it at her sister before tucking it in a pocket of her handbag.

  “There is something strange about this house.” Rachel looked around nervously.

  “Oh please, you’re not going to start with the haunted thing again, are you?”

  “Clint told me some believe this house is haunted. Did you know people have been murdered here?”

  “Clint told you it’s haunted? When?”

  “I talked to him a little bit when I went outside to eat last night.”

  “Clint is just brimming with scams, isn’t he? I guess the newest one—right after claiming he wrote a book he’s incapable of writing—is that Marlow House is haunted. I imagine that would make a great tourist attraction.”

  “This is going to be an uncomfortable breakfast,” Danielle told Walt as she filled the pastry tray, and he poured freshly brewed coffee from the pot into the serving carafe.

  “Sadly our two guests who didn’t know my cousin have chosen to have breakfast with their family, so that just leaves the Dane sisters and the Thorpes.”

  “Perhaps they’ll decide not to come down for breakfast?” Danielle said hopefully.

  “I’m afraid not. Mrs. Thorpe is already sitting at the table, reading the newspaper and waiting for her husband to join her,” Walt told her.

  “Oh drat,” Danielle grumbled.

  “I’m a little tired of this game playing and everyone claiming to be someone they aren’t,” Walt told her as he picked up the carafe.

  Arching her brows, Danielle turned to Walt. “What exactly do you mean?”

  “Everyone pretending not to know each other. At breakfast, I’m going to let them know I know they knew Clint.”

  “Ummm…if you plan to—well, end the game playing—as you call it—you also intend to tell them you aren’t really Clint? That you were a ghost and took over his body?”

  Walt frowned at Danielle. “What, are you goofy?”

  Danielle shrugged and picked up the pastry tray. “Just checking.”

  When Danielle and Walt arrived at the dining room table, the Dane sisters and the Thorpes were already seated, drinking coffee.

  “I brought more coffee,” Walt said as he set the carafe on the center of the table with the pastries Danielle had just placed there. Their guests quietly watched as Walt and Danielle brought out the rest of the breakfast, which included scrambled eggs, bacon, hash browns, and biscuits and gravy. By their curious expressions watching Walt, Danielle suspected Clint had not been the type to help serve a meal.

  “Do you always do all the cooking?” Dirk asked Danielle when she sat down at the table a moment later.

  “No. I have a woman who works for me, and she does some of the cooking. But she wasn’t feeling well, so I told her to stay home this morning,” Danielle explained.

  “And do you often help with the guests?” Dirk asked Walt.

  Walt smiled at Dirk and said, “I try to help.”

  “Interesting,” Dirk muttered under his breath as he piled scrambled eggs on his plate.

  “I think it might be a good idea to clear the air—since you all intend to stay for the next week,” Walt announced.

  Dirk furrowed his brows. “Excuse me?”

  “I still have amnesia, and I don’t remember anything of my life prior to the accident; however, it has come to my attention that I knew all of you.” Walt paused and then looked at Mrs. Thorpe. “I will amend that; I’m only assuming you and I have met since I worked with your husband.” Walt smiled pleasantly.

  “I don’t understand. If you say you have amnesia, then how—” Dirk began.

  “I told him,” Danielle interrupted. All heads turned to face her.

  “You? How would you know?” Dirk asked.

  Danielle smiled at Dirk. “You’ve been in the real estate business for a while; don’t tell me there hasn’t been a time you were curious about one of your clients, so you Googled them to see if you could find anything?”

  Dirk arched his brows and smiled at Danielle. “You Googled me?”

  “Yes. And it seems you work for the same real estate office Clint worked for, so I have to assume you knew each other.”

  Dirk smiled at Danielle and glanced to Walt. “Yes, we worked for the same office. But I will have to say, we were not actually friends—simply colleagues. We never ran with the same crowd. And to be honest, I don’t think we spoke with each other more than a couple of times—aside from having an occasional real estate deal together.”

  “Did you know Walt would be at Marlow House when you made the reservation?” Danielle asked.

  Dirk looked at Danielle for a moment before answering. Finally, he said, “I knew Clint was staying here, yes.”

  “If you say you and Clint weren’t really friends, then why did you come to Marlow House?” Danielle asked.

  “I didn’t say I came here because of him.” Dirk picked up his coffee cup and took a sip.

  Walt turned his attention to Claudia and said, “It seems Claudia and I were also acquainted in my other life.”

  “Other life?” Dirk chuckled.

  “That’s how it feels.” Walt shrugged.

  “And exactly how did you know Claudia?” Dirk asked.

  “I suspect you also know her—but that’s just a hunch on my part.” Walt smiled. “But it seems she and I started out at the same real estate company.”

  Claudia glared at Walt but said nothing.

  While Pearl was still unhappy about the bed and breakfast next door, she was pleased there had been no sign of any cats rooting around in her yard since having a little talk with her neighbors. She also had not seen any stray dogs since she had been forced to lock the golden retriever in her toolshed.

  Pearl dreamed of returning her yard to its former glory—including an addition of rosebushes to replace what her cousins had removed. She intended to devote Saturday morning to taking inventory of her plants, along with planning what needed to be added. Walking the perimeter of the property, Pearl came to the back of the yard. She looked over the fence at the garage her neighbors had added. She f
rowned. When she had been a young girl, there had been nothing back there. She remembered playing in the vacant yard with her cousins, believing it was their own private jungle. With a snort, she remembered what she had overheard Walt Marlow telling that woman about the house being haunted.

  “Ghosts,” she huffed. “What a bunch of poppycock.”

  Pearl noticed a withering rosebush on her side of the back fence, near the Marlow House property line. Walking to the bush, she knelt down and pulled the rose clippers out of the pocket of her gardening apron. The sad little plant had once been one of her grandmother’s prized rosebushes. Determined to save it, she snipped off some of the dead foliage and then heard footsteps. Still kneeling by the bush, she looked up and spied Walt Marlow walking to the garage.

  Walt glanced at his watch. They had finished breakfast twenty minutes earlier, and now he was on his way to get his car so he could take it to the car wash. Before leaving, he had helped Danielle with the dishes, and with Eva and Marie at the house, he didn’t feel uncomfortable about leaving her at home alone for an hour while he ran a few errands.

  Just as he reached the side door to the garage, he heard someone call his name. Pausing, he looked back to his house and spied Claudia sprinting his way.

  “Do you need something?” Walt asked when she reached him.

  “I want to know what you intend to do about our marriage,” Claudia asked.

  “I need to think about it,” Walt told her, telling himself he would stop by the chief’s house and see if he knew how to help them determine if the license was real—and if Clint was still married.

  “What is there to think about? If you want to marry Danielle Boatman, you can’t do that until you divorce me,” she said in a loud voice.

  “Please, Claudia, can we talk about this when I come back?” he asked.

  “I don’t know what you’re waiting for. Do you want a divorce or not?”

  “You know that’s not the point.”

  “Listen, Clint, if you don’t make a decision about our marriage, then I will make that decision for you. I will show Danielle the marriage license and see what she wants to do. If she decides she doesn’t want to marry some guy who already has a wife, then I bet you’ll have to start looking for someplace new to live. And maybe I’ll just let your fans know you were courting a woman while still married to someone else. I wonder if that producer will still want to make your movie if they know you’re practically a bigamist!”

  “You’re being ridiculous. Everyone knows I have amnesia, and if you’re really my wife, it’s hardly my fault I didn’t know I was married,” he said in a low voice, practically a whisper.

  “You don’t seem anxious to get a divorce. I think you’re just pulling another scam. You’re good at scams, Clint Marlow. Just like that book of yours. Making everyone believe you actually wrote it, when I know for a fact you didn’t write a single word of it!”

  “You are being utterly ridiculous now,” Walt snapped.

  “Am I? I’ll tell you what, I’m not going to wait around all week for you to make up your mind. If you want that divorce, then you’d better give me what I want.”

  Twenty-Two

  Sitting on an imaginary sofa floating in midair, Eva leaned back leisurely and filed her nails while listening in on the conversation between Dirk and his wife, Tanya. So far, all she had overheard was the wife complaining about being stuck inside and wanting to go shopping.

  “Clint isn’t even here,” Tanya reminded him as she sat at the dressing table and leaned closer to the mirror, applying more makeup.

  “He just went to wash his car. You heard what he told Danielle, he’s coming right back.” Dirk sat on the edge of the bed, watching his wife.

  Tanya turned around on the bench and faced her husband. “This is a nice little town and all, but it’s hardly the ideal vacation getaway for January. Maybe if it was in the summer and there was at least a hint of sun, I wouldn’t be opposed to spending the week here. I don’t know why you can’t show the paper to Clint and get on with it.”

  Eva looked up from her filing. “I agree with your wife. Out with it so I can find something more enjoyable to do.”

  “I explained it before. After seeing Clint for myself and talking to him, I believe he does have amnesia. He’s not that good of an actor.”

  “So? It doesn’t mean you can’t just tell him what you know.”

  “But what if he doesn’t believe me?” he asked.

  “You have the proof. Show it to him. I don’t care if he does have amnesia, he’s still not going to want any of it to go public and risk going to jail.”

  “Do we really know that? At breakfast he talked about his time in California as if it was another life. Hell, he’s even going by another name.”

  “So?”

  “So instead of giving me what I intend to ask for—something that he can easily afford given his current turn of fortune—there is always the possibility he might go to the police instead. And then he’s not the only criminal, I am too. Last I heard, blackmail is illegal.”

  “He wouldn’t go to the police…would he?” She frowned.

  “I honestly don’t know. But I don’t want to risk it. I believe that if his memory comes back—it will seem more real to him. At the moment, he’s detached from his life as Clint—detached from his actions back then. I need to make him feel there’s a real chance he’ll be held accountable if he doesn’t give me what I want.”

  “Then this might be a wasted trip. The man has had amnesia for almost a year now, and if he hasn’t regained his memory, what makes you think he suddenly will now?” she asked.

  “For one thing, he’s been cut off from all the people he knew when he lived in California. Now that I think about it, it’s probably a good thing Claudia is here. Being surrounded by people he once knew before he lost his memory might be what he needs.”

  “And just why is Claudia here?” she asked.

  “I have to assume for basically the same reason we are.”

  “I just hope this entire thing doesn’t blow up in your face.”

  “Come on, it worked out with Claudia, didn’t it?” He grinned.

  “Which is one reason I don’t feel comfortable being under the same roof with her. You don’t know what she might do.”

  “If she was going to do something, she would have already.”

  Tanya let out a sigh. “Do you have some plan to jog his memory, aside from us hanging around for the week?”

  “Now that he knows we worked together, it will give me the opportunity to discuss the good old days with him.”

  “Good old days? You were hardly friends back then,” she scoffed. “And if that’s your plan, why didn’t you just come out and tell him you two worked together when we first checked in?”

  “I told you already. I thought if I seemed familiar, without telling him how we knew each other, it would get him to try to place me, which might help him regain his memory.”

  “Not sure this new plan will work any better than your old one.”

  “It might work if I bring up Jay Larson—talk about what a shame it is that he was murdered. That just might be the key to unlock his memory.”

  Danielle had just stepped out of the parlor when Tanya came down the staircase, wearing a coat and carrying a purse.

  “Where are you off to?” Danielle asked when Tanya stepped on the first-floor landing.

  “I thought I would do a little sightseeing. See what the local shops have to offer.”

  Danielle glanced up the stairs briefly. “Is Dirk going with you?”

  “No. He’s not much for shopping.”

  The doorbell rang, and both women glanced to the front door.

  A moment later Danielle opened the door and found Chris standing on the front porch.

  “Morning, Danielle,” Chris greeted her cheerfully and then looked to Tanya and smiled. “Hello.”

  Tanya’s eyes widened and she looked Chris up and down, a slow smile t
urning her lips.

  “Chris, this is one of our guests, Tanya Thorpe. Tanya, this is a good friend and neighbor, Chris Johnson.”

  Chris offered his hand to Tanya, who took it, yet instead of shaking his hand, squeezed it lightly and said in a raspy voice, “Hello. If you were my neighbor, you could borrow a cup of sugar anytime.”

  Ignoring the comment, Chris smiled and said, “Nice to meet you, Tanya.”

  With a sigh, Tanya released his hand and then leaned over to Danielle and whispered, “Yummy,” in her ear before saying her final goodbye and heading out the door.

  “Looks like you made another conquest,” Danielle teased after closing the front door.

  “Oh, stop.” Chris followed Danielle into the parlor. “I saw her wedding ring.”

  When they stepped in the parlor, they found Eva sitting on the sofa. “I saw you coming down the walk,” she told Chris.

  “Hello, Eva. I wondered if you were still here,” Chris said.

  “I see you’re temporarily relieved of duty,” Danielle told Eva.

  Eva let out a sigh. “Yes, the wife went on a little shopping trip, so unless her husband is prone to talking to himself, I doubt it’ll do much good watching him. Marie is still upstairs with the sisters.”

  “What exactly is going on?” Chris asked. “You never told me why you needed Eva.”

  Danielle spent the next ten minutes filling Chris in on what had been going on since the arrival of their current guests and answering his questions. She then looked at Eva and asked, “Did you hear anything that might shed light on what Dirk is here for?”

  “My guess, he’s planning to blackmail Walt. Not Walt, but Clint.”

  “For what? Is this about the supposed marriage to Claudia?” Danielle asked.

  “I don’t think so. But they mentioned someone who was murdered—a Jay Larson. Dirk seems to feel it’s a name that might help Clint regain his memory. Which of course is impossible, since Clint has long since moved on.”