Chapter 14
CHAPTER 14
Colt had been studying the photos, trying to find a clue. A hint. Something, anything, that spoke to him. So far he’d had no luck. There just wasn’t much to work with. While he did see ghosts, he was no psychic.
The man in the photos was Walter Wakefield, of that he was certain. Did that mean anything at all? He didn’t want to believe someone he knew could be involved in Jack’s murder. Crystal’s too, perhaps. If what he’d seen in movies and on television, if what he read in mystery and true-crime books was true, most murder victims knew their killers. Not that a movie or book could be seen as proof.
The longer he studied the photos, the more horrified Crystal looked. Might be nothing more than his imagination working overtime. Knowing Jack was dead colored everything he saw. Was there anything going on in the grainy background? Who was she looking at in that last photo? Maybe if he had the originals, which seemed to have been taken with a cell phone and printed with a less-than-stellar printer, he’d catch more details. He was so firmly in his detective mindset, so intent on finding something, anything, the text notification startled him so much he jumped a little.
Home? I’m at your door.
He couldn’t hear much of anything from the little back room where he cleaned records. And studied evidence, these days. Colt left the room, walked through the hallway that never saw any customers and into the cleaner, brighter main area which was filled with bins and t-shirts and coffee pots. There she was. Anna, standing at his door. He was closed on Monday; maybe she’d forgotten.
Why was she here? What had they left unsaid? Nothing he could think of. Her mom was leaving tomorrow, maybe the next day if Anna’s cousin wanted to stick around for the night. She might. Nina Miller and her niece had a long drive ahead of them. Anna wouldn’t be far behind. She’d helped her mom set insurance and cleanup into motion, and once that was underway she’d see her mom settled and then return to her job in Nashville.
Leaving him here with an extra ghost or two. Who’s counting?
He unlocked the door and opened it wide. Anna walked in; he locked the door behind her.
“Everything okay?” he asked.
She didn’t look okay, not at all. He couldn’t blame her. The news about her brother had to be hard. The news about the man she’d slept with was just as shocking. Stress showed in a tightness of her jaw and an uncertain glimmer in her eyes. In spite of it all she took his face in her hands, pulled him down slightly, and kissed him. It wasn’t a long, passionate kiss. He tasted desperation and a lingering sadness in the too-brief kiss. He also tasted something new. A connection he hadn’t expected to find, a familiarity that made the kiss seem like one of many to come. He’d never thought to have that with her, not with anyone. With a kiss he was convinced he needed her in a way that went beyond the physical. Needed her in a gut deep way he’d never expected.
Dangerous thoughts.
“What was that for?” he asked when he caught his breath.
“I wanted a kiss so I took it,” she said, not looking directly at him.
“You came all this way for a kiss?”
She tilted her head back and looked squarely at him, unafraid but also uncertain. “I don’t know what to do. Jack is dead and no one knows. I can’t tell Mom, I can’t, and looking back I wonder if maybe Dad didn’t… maybe he knew all along.”
“What makes you say that?”
“Things he said. The way he didn’t seem surprised that Jack stayed gone, the way Mom did. He and Jack never really got along. They were always arguing, from the time my brother was twelve years old.”
“I remember.” Arguments about hair, clothes, music, school. Pretty much everything. “What did they argue about when he was an adult?”
“Money, mostly.” They walked away from the front door and all the windows, toward the back room. “Jack always had a get rich quick scheme going. An investment in a building, a new casino, an up and coming tech business. It was always the deal to get in on. I didn’t know many of the details of all that happened after I moved to Nashville, but Mom said that last argument, the failed investment that wiped out a lot of their savings, was the last straw for Dad.”
Maybe Jack had lost the wrong person’s money. He thought of the list of names and numbers he’d found. Investors? Marks?
When they were behind the counter, Anna turned and surveyed the room. “Are they here now?” she whispered.
“Some.” Maude, Gerald, Nicole, a fading spirit that almost blended into the green woodwork.
“Can you, or they, call someone back? Can we ask my Dad to…”
“No,” Colt snapped. “No way. If I start calling ghosts to me it might never stop. It doesn’t work that way, it’s never worked that way, I can’t imagine…”
He’d never tried calling Lizzie to him, though he’d been tempted. He remembered calling her name during those first bad days after the accident, but once he’d realized what had happened to him he didn’t even do that. He’d gone to the site of the accident more than once but even then he hadn’t made an attempt to call Lizzie to him.
The idea of not just dealing with the ghosts who were stuck but inviting them in…
Anna placed a calming hand on his arm. “Never mind. It was just a thought. I suspect maybe he knew something but I could be wrong. I won’t do that to you.”
“There has to be another way.”
She nodded. “I agree. We just have to find it.”
We . Was there a we?
He’d planned to go to The Magnolia tonight to see if any ghosts were hanging around. He didn’t normally go looking for spirits, but in this case…
“I’m sorry I reacted so badly,” Anna said, moving closer. “Finding out Jack is dead, that you see ghosts and they’re… everywhere… seeing the house burn. Suspecting that maybe Dad knew…” She sighed. “It was a lot all at once, and I panicked.”
“Understandable.”
“But I like you, Colt. I’ve always liked you. I don’t want to walk away, to run away, just because of a few ghosts. And a murder. And Dad… I might not want to know if he was involved in any way, but I need to know.”
He wouldn’t call a spirit back to this world where they no longer belonged, not even for Anna, so he didn’t address that issue. No, he skipped right over that part. For now. “I like you, too, more than I expected.” More than I’d hoped for . “You’re going to stay?”
Anna nodded. “For a while, at least. I called my boss and told him I’d be away longer than I expected. He didn’t take it well. Told me to be back by next Monday or to look for another job.”
“What’s the plan?”
“I’m going to rent my apartment to a friend who’s been looking for a place. The lease is up in three months, and if I decide to stay I can have my stuff shipped here.”
“If you don’t stay?”
“Then I’ll go back to Nashville, write some songs, and get another job as a bean counter to pay the bills. We’re always in demand.” She smiled a little then backed up a couple of steps. “But first, I need to go shopping.”
“What do you need?”
“A couple of suitcases.”
“If you’re not leaving, why do you need suitcases?”
“They’re for Mom. I had hoped to get away with sending her things in a couple of bags, but she went wild at Dawn’s Radiance, so she’ll need more packing space than her shopping bags will provide.”
“I have suitcases.”
“Thanks, but I don’t want to…”
“I’ll never need them. Even if I do, I have several suitcases in a few different sizes. You can have your pick.”
“Okay. I might take you up on that.”
“They’re in a closet upstairs in my bedroom.”
She didn’t hesitate. “Let’s go.”
She’d expected a rustic style in Colt’s room above the depot’s main space, but that’s not what she got. He’d completely remodeled the second story space of the old depot. It wasn’t just a room at all. There was a bedroom, a living room, a decent sized bathroom and a small kitchen, all clean and new looking. No, no rustic here. No chaos. No rough green walls, like the ones downstairs. He gave her a very quick, very casual tour.
The furnishings didn’t exactly match — it was what her mother had always called “Early Married” style — but his second story home was comfortable, spacious, and had an air of Coltrane Hart in his personal turntable and records, the fancy coffeepot and assortment of mugs, the bookcase filled with hardbacks. Thrillers and Sci-fi, mostly, a couple of true crime books. There were even a couple of cookbooks mixed in.
“Why on earth did you move to the house on Pine Street?” she asked. “This is much nicer.”
“There are currently no ghosts in the Pine Street house,” he said. “Well, there weren’t any until your Mom and Jack moved in.”
“Will he… will Jack go to Florida with Mom?”
“I don’t know. Maybe.”
Anna looked around the room again, double checking shadows and corners. She saw nothing, but then she never had. Didn’t want to, either. “Are any of your depot ghosts here now?”
“No, but they do visit on occasion. I moved out because I needed a break. I wanted to be alone for a while.”
Anna took a step back. There it was; that was the big issue. He wanted to be alone.
It was as if he read her mind. He gave her a smile. Not his brightest, but it would do. “It’s the ghosts I need a break from. Not you.”
That was a relief. Why? Colt was supposed to be a fling, and they hadn’t gotten far even with that. One night, before everything blew up. One night was all they’d had. So far.
She was serious about staying for a while. Colt could be a part of her time back in Seawolf Beach, no matter how long it might last. He could be a part of her life in a hundred ways. Not in the ways she’d imagined as a child, but as a friend and lover, a person she could rely on. A man she could be there for, when he needed it.
Colt needed her. He needed someone who would accept who he was, ghosts and all.
Was he her person? She’d heard that phrase a time or two, or twenty. The meaning had never resonated with her, until now. He was hers, and she was his. She didn’t want to let him go, ever.
“I’ll get those suitcases,” he said, walking toward the bedroom.
She followed him. The store was closed, they were alone, and this wouldn’t take long. Anna pulled her t-shirt over her head and tossed it aside, as Colt opened the closet door and reached inside and down. When he turned, a medium sized suitcase in each hand, she was already working the button on her shorts.
He dropped the suitcases, his attention wonderfully distracted. He looked at her for a long moment, then glanced over her shoulder and said, “Clear out. Keep the others out, too, or I’ll play nothing but bluegrass for the next week.”
He looked at her and smiled, as he began to undress and she continued shedding her clothes. “Maude hates bluegrass.”