“Well, that’s fine by me,” Jayce confirms. “And I know Drake won’t mind either. They can make us sign whatever papers necessary. I’m here for Charles primarily, Marla. Don’t forget that. You’re the casualty to his passing, and Drake is here for you.”
Marla reaches for her wine and takes a deep sip. I’d like to stop her, but hell, there’s no harm in it. She only poured herself a small measure, and this is the first time her sip has affected the liquid’s level in the glass. And the woman’s control is going to be an issue too. Years of deportment classes are really going to bite me in the ass here.
“I know the score, Jayce. Thank you for reminding me though.”
Jayce snorts at what can only be the older woman’s sarcasm, but I shake my head at her to stop any retaliation. “Marla, why do you live out here? In the middle of nowhere?”
“What do you mean?” She frowns at me, looking genuinely perplexed.
I cut a glance at Jayce who I sense understands where I’m going with this. “I mean, why are you living here? Why not in the city or somewhere else, somewhere that makes you happy?”
“This is my home.”
“More like a gilded cage,” Jayce grumbles, then when I sigh impatiently, she shrugs. “What? It’s the truth. We’re both thinking it, and Marla obviously doesn’t get it.”
“I can see why you didn’t become a psychologist,” I tell her quietly, then, when she looks annoyed, I quirk a brow. “You have no patience. Stop putting words in her mouth.”
She folds her lips in, and I can see she’s withholding a smile. Rolling my eyes at her, I turn my attention to Marla who’s watching the byplay between us. There’s a sorrow banked in her gaze, a hopeful longing too. Sadness for what once was but is now lost, and longing that she might have a chance to experience such interaction in the future.
She’s not going to get that here. One thing’s for sure, Jayce is right. It is a gilded cage.
Fancying up a prison doesn’t make it any less of a cell.
Without further prompt, Marla murmurs, “I like it here.”
“Do you? Do you really?”
“It’s quiet.” She smiles. “I like that.”
“Do you often leave the residence?”
“I have no need to leave often. The staff run this place like a machine. I need only leave when the mood takes me.”
“And does that occur frequently?”
“Not really. There’s little to do in the closest town.”
“Which is where?”
“Fairbanks.”
That has me blinking. “We’re in Alaska?”
Even Jayce looks surprised. “No wonder it’s so damned cold.”
“You get used to it after a while,” Marla assures her.
“Don’t you feel like you’re in exile, Marla? I mean. Here you are, this beautiful woman, still in her prime, and you’re stuck in this admittedly beautiful house in the middle of nowhere, in a state that’s infamously isolated. Hell, it should be on its welcome sign. ‘Don’t feel like you need to make friends.’” Jayce huffs. “I know that’s not you. Not really.”
“How? How do you know that? You’ve known me a handful of days,” Marla snaps, for the first time, showing a heated spirit.
“Because you’re a talker,” comes the easy reply. “Once you realized I wasn’t a con artist, and that I wasn’t going to break your trust, when we made it back here, you talked. And chatted. Then did it some more. You’re a people person. An extrovert. You wouldn’t be an actress, for God’s sake, if you weren’t like that.”
“I’m not an actress anymore.”
Sensing her stubbornness, I murmur, “Do you have no desire to return to the movies?”
“Hollywood is renowned for failing to cast women over a certain age.” Her brows twitch. “There’s little hope in wishing for something that can’t be.”
“With your history?” Jayce pulls a face. “You’d be rehired on the spot.”
A spark combusts deep in the grass-green of Marla’s eyes, but it’s quickly banked, and she shakes her head in speedy dismissal. “I doubt that.”
“You’ve no idea what a legend you’ve become. Retreating out of the spotlight the way you have, then there being absolutely zero gossip about you in the press... you’re surprisingly well renowned.”
“Even David, Drake’s nephew, knows who you are, Marla, and he’s a teenager! The way social media works nowadays, everyone forgets everyone, but that kid knew your name. He even understood why I felt star struck.”
She wriggles on her seat, twitching from one side to another, as though her sitting bones are aching. But I can tell, they’re physical manifestations of an emotional discomfort. “That future is not for me anymore.”
“But why can’t it be?” Jayce demands. “If it’s what you want to do then do it!”
“I’m obliged by law to maintain a quiet existence.”
That has me frowning. “I’m no lawyer, but surely that’s only if you wish to maintain these current living standards, which I assume your husband pays for. Is it really worth living here if you have to be in such solitude?”
“This was Charles’s home.”
“I know it was. That wasn’t my question. Why do you live here? I know your family isn’t as wealthy as your husband, but they’re certainly not poor. You could afford to live anywhere in the world without your husband’s support, so that’s my question to you, Marla. Why? Why are you here? Still. After so long. And when you’re so unhappy.” Her lips purse, and I can sense she wants to answer, but I don’t let her. “You can’t deny that you’re unhappy, Marla, otherwise, you wouldn’t have tried to end your life. But that’s enough for tonight. I want you to think about what both of us have said though, and I’d like an answer in the morning.”
She processes that, head bowed, gaze focused on her wine glass like it holds the key to society’s most difficult puzzles. “It won’t change anything,” she whispers, tracing a finger on the table, following the lines and waves within the walnut veneer.
“Change is up to you, Marla. I can’t force you to make changes in your life. Neither can Jayce, even though I’m certain she’ll try very hard and be very much a pain in your ass. However, I won’t. That’s not my place. But it is my place to point things out. To make you think about things.
“You’re here by choice. You’re not forced to be here, even though you may feel as though you are. It’s your choice to have your husband pay for your living costs. It’s your choice to still be under his rule. And it’s your choice not to force his hand, to stay with him, even though this life he’s forcing you to lead is making you suicidal.”
Marla’s honey-colored skin turns pale and peaky at my short speech. Her cheeks are pinched. Her mouth is a bitter twist. Her control is in shreds.
She gets to her feet, then jolts at the sound of the chair scraping against the terracotta-tiled floors. “I’ll speak to you in the morning. I need to rest. It’s been a long, trying day.”
Before we can say another word, she rushes out, all thoughts of decorum disappearing as her mind, hopefully, processes what I just said.
I stop tracing her steps once the door bangs shut behind her. “I might have pushed her too hard then.”
“She needs pushing,” Jayce replies, a little harshly in my opinion.
I turn to watch her dragging a morsel of steak through a puddle of Roquefort sauce on her plate. Apparently that scene hasn’t affected her appetite.
I hide my smile in my wine glass as I take a sip of the fruity liquor.
“I know you think I’m being harsh,” she murmurs after a second. “But I’m not. We don’t have time to pussyfoot around, and you can’t sense what I can sense.” For the first time, her confidence seems to dissipate, and she stuns me by shivering in a room that, if anything, is far too hot.
“What do you mean?” I ask, curious by her involuntary response but concerned enough to reach out for her hand. She clings to my fingers, further stunni
ng me, and slides our palms together, seeking comfort.
“Part of the whole ghost thing is being able to read an atmosphere.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means I can sometimes read auras, if the situation merits it. When I walk into a room, I can read it. I know if there’s been an argument or if something has happened that has affected not only the room’s occupants but the room itself.”
“This is a part of seeing ghosts?”
She nods. Once. “They work simultaneously sometimes. When we went looking for David in the bookstore Kenna told me he’d holed up in, as soon as I stepped inside, I knew there were spirits there. I know that spirits are drawn to that place because of what happened there. Because the atmosphere still throbs with it, enough to attract them in their misery.”
My mind turns back to those bizarre moments when Jayce took me to a terrible neighborhood close to the Bronx. On one side of the street, gangbangers hung around, watching their territory like dogs ready to piss on a lamppost to declare the space their own, and on the other, a row of stores with more out of business than in.
We walked down the back alley behind the row and headed for a bookstore. What had once been grand was now derelict with rotten floorboards, half the ceiling caved in. Bookshelves still lined with books, which were destroyed by mildew and mold. Mice, rats, and insects were the sole clients of that particular store now. Well, the only living ones. Ghosts made their residence there too, from time to time. Which was why Jayce had bought the lease on it. She didn’t use it, had no intention of opening the space up in the future; she simply wanted access to it for the ghosts who were stuck there.
The place had a sense of faded grandeur. The bookshelves were ornate, tables had stacks of books on them, and they had old-fashioned green banker’s lights there for further study. I could easily imagine taking a seat and peering at whatever grand tome I was thinking about buying, sitting in the pool of hot light coming from beneath that infamous green glass before I decided whether I was going to make my purchase or not. It was a sad space, actually. I would like to have seen it in its heyday.
With the image of the store freshly in my head, I’m even more curious now. I felt no real disturbance in the shop. Nothing aside from concern that my feet were going to fall through the rotten joists on the floor, or that one of the supports overhead was going to give way and come crashing down on our heads. Even when I’d discovered David was there, I hadn’t sensed anything. Something that had added to my disappointment. I wanted to feel David’s presence, but it wasn’t there. He wasn’t there. Not the boy I knew and loved, anyway.
Before sadness can clog my throat and tear up my voice, I ask, “You know what happened to the store before you bought it?”
“Of course. The realtor told me, but I knew without hearing the actual tale.”
“How?”
She placed her knife and fork on the plate, then started to move her finger around the rim of her glass. It made a soft ringing noise, a sound that only the best crystal can stir. Her lips twitch at the sound, then she sucks in a deep breath. “There’s a disturbance in the atmosphere. You can’t see them, but they’re like shadows. Only there’s not enough light to make them so they’re like dirty smudges.”
“Are there any in this house?”
She wrinkles her nose. “A few. Not as bad as at that store.”
“Were people murdered there?”
“Yes. It was back in the sixties.”
“And the emanations are still going strong?”
“What happened was bad enough for that to be the case, yes.”
“Go on then, don’t keep me in suspense.”
She shrugs. “People were murdered there.”
“Why? How?”
“Racial tension was high. The book store owner allowed blacks to come in and purchase books. Some of the neighbors didn’t approve. They made their disapproval known.”
My eyes widen at that. “That’s terrible. How don’t I know that?”
“Why would you? It’s not your neighborhood. I highly doubt you know all the trauma and drama and tragedies that go down on every block. It’s a big city, Drake.”
“But still. That’s crazy.”
“Life often is.” She purses her lips. “That’s why ghosts like it there. All that sorrow...it requires a lot of dark energy, and they’re drawn to that.”
Now it’s my turn to shiver. “That’s creepy.”
She laughs a little, squeezing my fingers before releasing them. “Don’t worry. I’ll keep you safe,” she teases.
“My heroine,” I declare in a mock falsetto. When she grins, I wink at her. “What kind of smudges are in this place?”
“Not good ones, but nothing like murder, which considering Marla is certain someone meddled with the car David died in, is a positive. I’d know if anyone planned something like that in this house.”
“What happens if they planned it in a room you’d never been in? It’s a mansion, Jayce. You haven’t been in every room, have you?”
“No, but I’ve been on every floor, and like with a ghost, I’m drawn to those areas. I’d have sensed something by now.” She hesitates, then murmurs, “I should check the outhouses though. They’re separate entities so it doesn’t work quite the same way.” As she ponders the thought, I watch as she does something I know Marla’s laundry staff will detest her for. She pours a small drop of wine on the pristine white table cloth. The maroon disperses into the white, leaving behind a pale red-lilac mixture. She pours another drop onto the cloth, this time bigger. She does this twice more, each one subsequently larger. Then, she dips her finger into the wine and paints the liquid onto the fabric. “You see how these are all different?” I nod. “But they’re all from the same liquid, right? I didn’t change the coloring.”
“No, but you change the quantity which affected the depth of color.”
“Exactly. Well, that’s how negative energy works too.” She points to a stain that’s dark red, bright and stark against the white. “That’s a murder. There’s no avoiding that kind of shittiness. It’s like a huge gash in a room. I have one in my bedroom actually. One of my ghosts was murdered by her son when she was asleep—he smothered her.”
I can’t help it. I gawk at her. “You knew that, and you still bought that place?”
“Technically, I had help buying that place, so my options were limited, but we live in New York, Drake. It’s very rare to go into an apartment and for there not to be some kind of smudge. Plus, I like the old bat. She’s one of the nicest ghosts I’ve got. Granny Roberts was a real rich woman back in her day.”
Shaking my head at her, I point at another stain. This one has a dark epicenter, but a wide area of diffusion. “That could be a rape. Or a beating. Something intensely violent that, over time, is degrading.” Pointing at the wine she’d smudged with her finger, she murmured, “That could be a particularly nasty argument. Then this one, with little center but still a relatively large stain, could be something like a suicide. Self-brutality creates surprisingly little atmosphere.” She pulls a face. “So, when I walk into a room, I look for smudges and ghosts.”
Something about what she said where Granny Roberts is concerned, has me frowning. “You told me you have at least two dozen ghosts following you around. Some ‘came’ with the apartment—” Like a shifty waste disposal unit, Jesus. “—and others, you bonded like David. Does that mean more than one person was murdered in that penthouse?”
There’s a wicked gleam to her smile. Wicked in a New England way, not the Catholic sense. She didn’t suddenly sprout a wart on her nose and grab a broomstick. It was a sharp, wry twitch of her lips that told me more than words ever would.
“How many?” I ask, the urge for specifics driving me.
“Four. But it’s an old building. Two ghosts died of Spanish flu there.” She pointed to the small droplet of wine. “That would be that kind of smudge.”
“Christ, Jayce, why would you wan
t to live somewhere like that? Surely that’s inviting ghosts into your life?”
“For a very long time, Drake,” she murmurs on an exhale, “ghosts were all I had.”
Chapter Ten
Jayce
The admission hurts to make. Why? Because it’s pathetic.
All I had in my life until he cropped up were the spirits of murdered, abused, or beaten victims who were destined for more torment in the shape of an endless, living death.
I know putting my eggs in one basket is stupid. We only slept together for the first time today, for Christ’s sake. But Drake is solid. Unwavering.
I tell him the freakiest shit, the stuff that creeps me out at times, and he processes it. Sometimes, he looks revolted—like when I told him Granny Roberts was smothered. Other times, he’s wryly accepting—like when I poured expensive wine on an expensive table cloth. The latter was a bit of a shitty thing to do, but it was too perfect a metaphor. It’s not easy to explain this stuff, and I know Marla can afford gallons of bleach to get rid of the stain.
I feel like whatever I throw at Drake, he will be there for me.
At my back.
For someone who has only ever had Kenna, as well as an entourage of ghosts, it’s a terrifyingly wonderful prospect.
I’ve yearned for this without realizing it. Yearned for it with a heart that was slowly dying, becoming as lifeless as those inside the ghosts’ chests.
This feeling of coming to life once more is painful, but he’s worth the discomfort.
I let out a sigh when he says nothing. Either I’ve stunned him speechless or he’s pondering my pathetic life before he and David came into it. Rather than let him stew, I state, “It’s getting late. We should be getting ready for bed. It’s going to be a long couple of days.”
The breath he exhales is long, deep, and surprisingly noisy. “I think you’d benefit from yoga, Jayce.”
The remark is totally not what I expected him to say. Hell, it’s nowhere near anything what I imagined. I bark out a laugh, and say, “You trying to convert me?”
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