"Not this time," Kayla shot back stubbornly.
Glen marched up the steps. "At lunch the other day you practically accused him of being a dawdling old man or a drug addict! And now suddenly you believe him?"
Kayla’s jaw worked. "It’s not suddenly. It’s…"
But Glen wasn’t really interested in Kayla’s answer, and the taller woman’s unusually reasoned response floated right over her as she stewed malevolently.
Does she really believe the huge fees I negotiate are because people actually want real scientific answers?
Is she
that naïve?
Glen’s thoughts began to filter into Kayla’s consciousness and she pushed them away without examining them as she continued with what was fast turning into a tirade.
Glen knew all too well what their clients wanted. They wanted peace of mind, sleep without nightmares, and a rational explanation for the irrational from someone with lots of letters after her last name. So what if every once in a while she ‘created’ a little business? She gave them what they wanted, they paid her well for it, and nobody got hurt.
Kayla clapped her hands together loudly, causing Glen’s eyes to snap up. "Are you even listening to me, Glen?"
Glen nodded as she broke out into a nervous sweat.
This cannot be happening. I will not lose this client. His fees are already spent.
With Mr. Keith she’d gone farther than she ever had before, guaranteeing not only Kayla’s final results but a timeframe for those results. After all, she and that cute, curly-haired simpleton, Mary MacPherson, had created this little ‘haunting’. It
couldn’t
be real.
"Glen!" Kayla’s hands twitched with the need to reach out and shake the small woman until she was sure she had her full attention. "Dammit, are you paying attention or am I talking to thin air?"
Glen shook her head a little as she snapped out of her own thoughts. "I heard you, Kayla. I’ll be back here tomorrow evening for your report. Unless you’ve got something tangible to show me, I expect that your research will reflect the
truth.
Kayla’s body went ramrod straight. "Are you saying I’m lying?"
Glen turned around and began trotting down the steps. She had to get away from Kayla’s prying mind and think. She needed a contingency plan. "I’m saying that your reputation and mine are nothing to trifle with." When she reached the bottom she glanced over her shoulder at Kayla. "There is nothing going on here other than the overactive imagination of an old man. There will be a press conference the day after tomorrow, whether you’re finished poking around here or not. If you want to make a fool of yourself by announcing there is a ghost, or Big Foot, or the Loch Ness monster himself is living in the mud puddle on the front sidewalk, then be my guest! But you won’t be taking me down with you." Her dark eyes flicked to Liv and she all but sneered. "This could ruin her career. If you care for her at all, you won’t allow that to happen."
Glen slammed the door on the way out, leaving the old house silent except for the ragged sounds of Kayla’s breathing.
Liv was too stunned to breathe at all.
* * *
Eyes closed and alone in bed, Liv heard the clock in their room at the Bed & Breakfast chime three times. She turned on her side and reached out with one hand, feeling the cool empty space next to her where Kayla should be. She sighed and opened her eyes, finding no peace even in the warm bed and cozy room.
Liv stood and wrapped the blanket from the bed around her shoulders. Slipping a hand out she pulled back the thin curtains and looked down to the beach below. She could still see Kayla sitting there on a blanket, bathed in moonlight, hair blowing gently as she silently stared into the night. Alone.
"Kayla," Liv sighed, her heart urging her to go out to the beach, but her head reminding her that Kayla had asked for this time alone. She’d shared her discovery of the IV bags and the hidden space between the walls, where someone had waited to frighten Mr. Keith, with Kayla, who hadn’t been at all surprised. To the contrary, the blood on the wall had never impressed Kayla as a true paranormal event. The fact that she could now be certain of that allowed her to shift her focus to the areas that were truly intriguing to her.
They’d spent nearly an hour studying the light balls that had shown so clearly in the recording of the Keith House’s hallway. Those, and the feelings both she and Kayla had experienced in the house, were more than enough to whet Kayla’s appetite for discovery. Kayla had expressed, with typical enthusiasm for her job, that she was certain the house had more to reveal. Just because part of the mystery had turned out to be a hoax, it didn’t mean that the rest of it was.
It wasn’t until Liv remembered the pad of paper in her pocket that the evening came to an abrupt and painful end. She and Kayla had flipped through the book and with every turning page exactly what happened to Mr. Keith that night became crystal clear. They learned the who, how, and why, as though the entire thing was a cheesy, scripted story and now was time for the answers to be revealed to them before the final act.
The first page, with the name printed in bold letters in the upper right hand corner, had identified the notebook’s owner: Mary MacPherson, daughter of former Keith House maid Mrs. MacPherson. And Liv and Kayla both admitted that at least part of that made perfect sense. Of all people, she would have had total access to the house. She’d grown up there and had likely explored every nook and cranny of the old place. Who better to ferret out a secret hiding place than a child?
Page two yielded the ‘how’. Mary had written down step-by-step instructions for herself.
Call blood bank and make sure Tracy is working.
Remimber to pay her with cash.
Meazure wall for tubing - ask Tracy about size.
And on and on it had read. Liv and Kayla had actually burst out laughing. Mary was either several fries short of a Happy Meal or the most helpful criminal on the planet. Her entire plan was laid out in great detail, and in hideous spelling, right there in black and white. Liv wouldn’t have believed someone could be so careless if she hadn’t seen that ‘stupid criminal special’ on cable television just before leaving for Edinburgh. The bad guy had written a ransom demand to a bank teller on the back on an envelope addressed to him, and then forgotten to gas up his getaway car, which ended up puttering to a pathetic stop right in front of a local police station. Actually, compared to that guy, Mary looked like a mastermind.
On the next page, Mary reminded herself to buy more cigarettes, a book on hauntings, and call about her mother’s doctor appointment. And she drew a picture of a tree that wasn’t half bad.
When they flipped to page four, the smile fell from Kayla’s face and landed with an unceremonious thud. Things didn’t seem quite so funny anymore. This page was spotted with lovely three-dimensional hearts containing the initials G.F. + M.M. Below the hearts was a phone number. When Kayla saw the phone number she jerked the pad from Liv’s hands and stared at it hard, her lips forming a tight, thin line, the hearts reflecting dully in Kayla’s glasses.
"Kayla?" Liv had inquired, wondering what was wrong and feeling an unexpected panic well up so quickly from inside her that she’d literally grabbed hold of Kayla and held on tight. "Hey, are you okay?" She’d searched her face. "You don’t look so good."
Without a word, Kayla had gently removed Liv’s hands and pulled her cell phone from her bag. She handed it to Liv. "Go ahead. See for yourself." The words were bitter and Liv found herself caring nothing about the Keith House and everything about the well-being of her partner.
"Kayla, you’re scaring me. What’s wrong?"
The tall woman had wrapped her arm around Liv’s slim waist and squeezed gently. "Call the number, Liv," she’d repeated. "Do it."
And Liv had, her eyes flicking back and forth between the phone’s number pad and Kayla’s face. When she finished dialing she brought the phone to her ear and heard the person on the other end of the line answer, "Glen Fuguchi."
At the sight of Liv’s mouth hanging wide open, Kayla sighed and flopped down on the floor, her head in her hands. "Dammit," she’d cursed, in a low voice that sounded every bit as hurt and bewildered as it did angry. "I can’t believe it. She set me up."
After that, they’d locked up the Keith House and come straight home to sit on the windswept beach and talk for several hours. Kayla’s emotions were as raw as Liv had ever seen them, and she felt powerless to help her. It didn’t matter that Kayla had suspected that Glen was up to something with this job. The bottom line was, Kayla considered Glen a friend. And her friend has used her. Badly.
With tears in her eyes, she’d explained to Liv that she could count the number of people she considered more than mere acquaintances on one hand, and that Glen was the only ex-lover who’d ever shown even the slightest bit of interest in remaining friends after the affair had ended. Trust was something Kayla placed a high premium on and rarely felt it in others. This was a painful reminder of why that was.
Liv pressed her forehead against the cool glass as she sleepily regarded the way her lover’s strong profile was outlined by silvery moonlight.
I’ve got to do something. I can’t stand watching her brood out there all alone any more.
She tossed the blanket off her shoulders and sat at the foot of the bed as she slipped on her sneakers and tied the laces.
Glen, Liv believed, had been right about one thing. Kayla’s reputation was on the line. They could take the information they’d found to the local police, but what then? All they really could prove was that Mary thought Glen was worthy of sharing several neatly drawn hearts with her. Even though Kayla was now certain Glen had been behind the whole thing, they still couldn’t prove that. And what if they could? Who would want to hire Kayla then?
Liv stood and grabbed her jacket, shrugged it on. Taking the blanket in one hand, she quietly crept out of her room and through the house, not wanting to wake any of the other guests or Mrs. Thicke, who she was sure would go to the trouble of fixing them some tea no matter what time it was.
The air was brisk and fresh, and any vestiges of sleepiness disappeared with the ocean breeze as she strode across the quiet beach.
Kayla turned her head when Liv was still several paces behind her. "Why aren’t you sleeping?" she scolded gently.
"Because you aren’t," Liv answered, dropping down onto the blanket in front of Kayla.
"That’s not a good reason."
Liv wrapped the blanket she’d brought out with her first around Kayla then herself, as she sat down between Kayla’s legs and leaned back against her chest. She sighed as long arms closed around her, pulling her closer. Kayla’s chin came to rest on her shoulder. "I don’t need a good or rational reason for anything I do when it concerns you, Kayla." Liv smiled. "I’m in love."
As Liv had hoped it would, that drew a tiny laugh from Kayla, who turned her head and kissed a pink, chilled cheek. "I know exactly how you feel."
Liv patted Kayla’s arm and her eyes turned out to the black ocean. Like the night itself, it was beautiful and scary at the same time.
They sat there for two more hours, sometimes talking, sometimes quiet, and, for Liv at least, sometimes sleeping. Just before dawn, when Liv was feeling utterly safe and content, wrapped tightly in Kayla’s arms, a wicked idea came to her. Lips more often used for smiles of delight and laughter curled into a predatory grin. Tomorrow they would set a trap for Mary MacPherson and Glen Fuguchi. "Only this time,
I’m
the spider."
Kayla’s heavy eyelids opened a crack and she searched the soft blanket for an eight-legged arachnid. "Huh?" Her eyes moved to the sand. "Where?"
"Never mind, ghostbuster, morning will be soon enough to talk about it."
"Sometimes I have no idea what you’re talking about," Kayla muttered, giving up, at least for the moment, on trying to understand Liv.
Liv chuckled softly. "I know." She pushed to her feet, her butt feeling numb and her muscles sore from the long period of inactivity. "Uff." She extended a hand to Kayla. "C’mon on, let’s go crawl into that nice warm bed with our names on it." Liv looked up into a spectacular blanket of twinkling stars and let out a long breath. The cold night air burned deep in her chest as Kayla’s lanky body popped up alongside her.
They walked in comfortable silence, until Kayla turned and said, "Liv?"
"Hmm?"
"Tonight… I mean, I know you were in bed… and… I want to thank you—"
"Kayla," this time Liv’s smile was full of love, "you don’t have to thank me, honey. That’s what friends do."
Kayla didn’t even try to talk past the lump in her throat. She just squeezed Liv’s hand and continued her trek up the beach, knowing deep in her soul that in a world where it wasn’t really safe to count on much of anything, a few things were written in the stars. Her heart filled with quiet wonder at the sure, solid knowledge that she and Liv were one of them.
"I
DUNNO, LIV." Kayla pulled a thin gray, v-neck sweater over her head. "That’s a long shot with Glen."
And I don’t know if I’m that good.
She felt Liv, who was clad only in a pair of faded jeans, step up behind her and tug her hair free from her sweater, her small hands lingering there and running lovingly through her hair.