Ghostsnaps (Knead to Know Book 4) (4 page)

He nodded. “You sense it too?”

“Definitely, but I haven’t seen anything. I’d be interested to know more about the owner. I bet she had an incredible life. If we check the public records, I bet we could find her name and then it’s just the matter of a little research.”

Boone glanced around the room. “Do you think there’s something to solve here? If there is, it certainly isn’t as clear as my other visions. Mostly I’ve just had intuitions, but if there isn’t a mystery or a person to help, then I don’t know why I’m feeling anything.”

I ran my fingers down the wall. “It couldn’t hurt to check. Maybe it’s nothing.” Jazz drifted through the air. The exact same music I kept hearing in my shop since Boone brought the mirror. The fun, energetic beat lifted my heart and swayed my hips. “Do you hear that?”

He stilled, tilting his left ear up for a moment before shaking his head.

Different music—an old dance tune or something—grew louder and louder obscuring the other. “You don’t hear the music at all?” I nearly had to shout to hear myself over it.

“I hear this,” he shouted back.

The house was suddenly full of semi-transparent people. The roar of the partygoers competed with the now-blaring music. The men wore their hair slicked back and sported tuxedos; the women shone and glittered in fabulous beaded dresses and headpieces. The 1920s in all its glory had come to life before me. Boone had gone silent as he watched the party with wide eyes. I moved closer to him so he could hear me.

“This is wild,” I yelled.

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” he said.

Champagne flowed and the living room was lavishly decorated. A beautiful woman with black hair and a silver dress moved through the party with ease and grace. A moment later she passed directly by me, but this time she was decked out in a sparkly blue gown. She went straight for a door near the front of the house and disappeared into another room. The mirror next to the doorway caught my eye. It was the one Boone had given me. I nudged him and pointed.

A few moments later, two more figures ambled past us toward the door. I glanced at them and my mouth fell open. They were . . . me and Baker.

What the hell? That couldn’t be right. I tried to get a closer look, but the door closed behind them.

I started forward, needing to see for myself that I wasn’t actually in that room. It was just a woman who looked alarmingly like me with a man who only resembled Baker. It had been a mere glance. My eyes were playing tricks on me. The door opened again, but before I could get to it, the black-haired woman, dressed in silver once more, came out with a different man. The vision faded.

“What on earth?” I said.

Boone shook his head, looking as confused as I felt.

The vision roared back to life around me.

A grandfather clock started to chime. One, two, three, four, five…the music lowered and a booming sound came from the room in the front of the house…six… the music came back to full volume and everyone continued on just as they had been…seven, eight, nine…a man raced from the front room and exited the house…ten. The next instant, the entire party was gone. We were once again standing alone in the empty house.

I looked up at Boone, and his blue eyes, warm as the sky on a sunny day, met mine. “You were there,” he said. “How is that possible?”

I shook my head. “Looks like we have a case.”

How or why we were supposed to solve a ninety-year-old case was beyond me, but the signs did seem to point in that direction. Someone was shot in that room. Who and why was what we had to figure out. The woman with black hair had been spotted in two different dresses. Had time overlapped? Had we witnessed two separate moments? Is that why I’d heard two individual songs? Maybe the killer was never caught or maybe the wrong person had been charged. But why did any of it matter after so long? If all of Boone’s visions were this jumbled, it was amazing he could tell me as much as he did. Even though I stood in the midst of the party, I still didn’t have a clue about what I was seeing.

The nagging feeling flooded back: we needed to discover the source of Boone’s guidance sooner rather than later. I’d never had a vision until tonight, and it wasn’t like psychic powers were catching. All of this was suspicious. I was afraid someone was pulling strings—and if we didn’t get in front of this, they might lead us right off a cliff.

The moment I stepped foot back into my bakery all I could hear was jazz coming from the café side. The first song at the greystone was playing on repeat in here. None of this happened before I got the mirror. It had to be the links. Something on it was connecting me to whatever event we stay in the house.

I stood in front of my reflection, inspecting it. Maybe a ghost came with it—but how could the ghost be in both places at once? I had heard that somewhere that ghosts could get stuck in mirrors, which was all fine and dandy, but that didn’t explain how it could both haunt my mirror and the house. After a few minutes of staring into the mirror and getting nothing, I gave up and decided just to enjoy the music. I had baking to do—though I mentally vowed on the way back to the kitchen to solve this mystery fast so I wouldn’t have to spend the rest of my life listening to the same song.

As I worked, I mentally made a list of everything I needed to do.

Research ghosts
Research the house and the woman who owned it
Pick desserts for the buffet set up
Plan the mystery for the evening
Tell Phoenix and Boone about one another
Figure out what I want

Maybe I could take care of two of the problems at once. If I could find this spirit some closure, perhaps I could use the same mystery for my party. After all, there was a gunshot and a ghost with an unresolved issue. It had murder mystery written all over it. However, I also knew that after this long, the truth would be nearly impossible to find. That wasn’t going to stop me from doing everything in my power to figure out what happened that night, though. I had to have seen the vision for a reason. There must be something I could do.

“How was your evening?” Phoenix asked behind me, making me jump and drop the bowl I was mixing. Batter splattered across the floor. Perfect.

I scanned the room until I found him, standing next to the door by the café. For the first time since I had gotten back, I couldn’t hear the music at all. It had disappeared when Phoenix arrived. Why was that? “A little warning next time. You scared the crap out of me.” I stooped to retrieve the bowl and started to wipe up the now ruined batter.

Phoenix smiled ever so slightly as I put the dish in the sink and turned back to him. “How was your night?” he asked again, his voice low and dark. Alarms fired off in my head. Something had happened. Immediately I was on edge. Phoenix stood still and passive, but his shoulders were tight and drawn up toward his ears.

I shook my head ever so slightly, waiting for the bad news to drop. Was it Olivia or Holden? Had someone attacked the club? I wished he’d say something, not just stand there waiting for me to answer. “Fine. How was yours?”

“I’ve had better,” he said, not moving toward me.

Concern consumed me. Something happened at the club. Or…oh, no…his parents. Had something happened to them? Was he hurt? I scanned him for injury, but he looked like he always did: black jeans, black Henley shirt, and a black leather jacket. Not that I would be able to see any injury on him—short of cutting their head off, a jinni could heal from most wounds. “What happened? Are you okay?”

“What did you do tonight, Maggie?” I finally recognized what I was hearing in his voice. It wasn’t sadness or fear. It was cold, hard anger, and it was directed at me. Concealed, but barely. I had seen Phoenix a lot of ways, but really truly mad, like he was now, wasn’t one of them.

We stared at each other for several long moments. I didn’t know how to respond. I had only done one thing that I could think of that could have possibly pissed him off. I went on a barely-date, but still a date, with Boone. Had Phoenix found out and charged over here to give me a piece of his mind? He had a lot of nerve, considering we had never even gone on a real date. “Why?” I finally asked.

He gave me a dark look. “Don’t make me ask you again.”

My eyebrows shot up. Phoenix couldn’t tell me what to do. Mr. I-Don’t-Want-To-Define-Anything could just get over whatever bug crawled up his butt. I crossed my arms. “I had a date.”

Holding my breath, I waited for his reaction. Would he be jealous? Did he want more and didn’t know how to say it? This possessive crap wasn’t going to fly with me. He needed to learn how to use his words like a big boy if that’s the direction we were headed. And even if we did start officially dating, which I wasn’t sure I wanted, Boone was going to stay in my life. Phoenix would just have to trust me.

“That’s it?” he asked.

Now I was really confused. Wasn’t that enough? Why the hell was he here? This wouldn’t be the first time Phoenix had me spied on, but he couldn’t possibly think I had slept with Boone. Looking at his annoyed face though, I wouldn’t put it past him. “You didn’t…we didn’t define what we are doing. I didn’t think you’d care if I went on a date with someone else. It’s not like we have ground rules. If you expect something different, you need to say so. I assumed you were still seeing other people.”

Phoenix pressed his lips together in a thin white line.

“Nothing happened.” My hands moved as I spoke, my emotions rising. Guilt that I might have somehow injured him made me all the more defensive. I didn’t like hurting people. “And even if something did happen, you don’t get to be mad about that. Every time I bring us up, you shut down. How am I supposed to know what we are? We’re living in the moment—whatever that means.”

“That’s not what I’m talking about, Maggie.” He took a deep breath, obviously struggling for patience. “Tell me everything you did after I left today.”

Oh. I ticked off everything that happened throughout the day as he listened. When I finished, I shrugged. “That’s it. Why? What happened?”

His jaw tightened. “Someone was in my house.”

I took a moment to process that. All of this fuss over that? Good God, I thought something tragic had happened. “And you thought it was me?”

“I don’t know what I thought.” He rubbed a hand over his chin. “I’ve gone to great lengths to keep my residence private and now…” A somewhat frightening smile spread over his face.

I walked around the island, avoiding the spill, and stood in front of him. His leather jacket was soft and supple beneath my hand as I placed it on his forearm. “I haven’t told anyone where you live.”

He didn’t quite meet my eye. “I know.”

Why didn’t I believe him? It shouldn’t have mattered, but it did. Phoenix and I might have been unclear on a lot of things, but I liked to think we were at least friends, even if it was a strange, unsettling sort of friendship. I slipped my other hand beneath his jacket. “Phoenix.” I waited until he finally looked at me. “I wouldn’t.”

The back of his hand brushed over my cheek. His eyes darkened as they lingered on my lips. “I’m having a hard time figuring out what to do with you.” His voice was much softer now.

His proximity was already starting to go to my head. I struggled to stay focused on what we were talking about.

“As unlikely as it is, I trust you more than anyone else. What I can’t decide is whether or not I’m a fool for doing so.”

“So you thought you’d accuse me of breaking and entering?”

He scowled. “It was the simplest answer. You are nosy.”

“And men say women are confusing.” I rolled my eyes. Maybe I was a tad nosy, but that didn’t mean I had taken to spying on him (something he couldn’t say) or committing felonies.

“It was worth a shot. I have an increasingly annoying problem and this would have solved it. You knew where I lived. No one else can say that. If it was you, then...” He shrugged.

The blood drained from my face and I dropped my hands from him. Was I the increasingly annoying problem? That was a less than flattering thought.

He caught me before I could take another step. His hand wrapped around my waist, and he stepped forward when I resisted coming back to him. “That’s not what I meant. Not you. You’re an increasingly
interesting
problem. The annoying one is something else entirely.” The curl of his lips made my heart beat a little faster.

But he didn’t continue. “Then tell me what’s happening?” I asked.

“I wish I knew.” He leaned in, brushing his lips against mine in what felt like an apology. “We don’t need to talk about it though. I’ll figure it out.”

I kissed him back, knowing full well I wasn’t going to let this go. I took a couple pulls from his darkness because, well, he was here, and also because I knew it would light the blue flames in his eyes and I took no small amount of pleasure in the knowledge that I was the one who got under his skin and challenged his control. “You came all this way to accuse me of breaking into your house. The least you can do is tell me exactly what’s happening.” I pulled a couple batches of cupcakes out of the oven, then led Phoenix into the café. Sitting on the couch with my back resting against one arm so I’d be able to face him, I patted the seat in front of me.

“Don’t you have things you need to do?” he asked, refusing to sit while edging toward the door. “Because I know I do. I should really go.”

“Yes, I have a lot of work to finish,” I said. “But right now, I want to be here for you more than I want to bake.” I patted the cushion again. “I feel like you owe me this.”

He sat down, giving me a perfect view of his side profile. I smiled to myself, more than tempted to lean forward and kiss his cheek, but I resisted. “Now, tell me about your troubles.”

His eyes flicked toward me, then away. “It isn’t your concern. I’ll handle it.”

“I don’t mind getting involved. I want to help you. You just have to let me.”

He pinched the bridge of his nose. “Maggie,” he said in a warning tone. “I don’t push into the parts of your life that you don’t want me in. The least you could do is offer me the same courtesy.”

Lies! He had done nothing but force himself into my life. He had me followed. He constantly showed up uninvited. “You have a selective memory.” He was trying to make me mad to distract me. I released my breath. “And I never said I didn’t want you in my life. I do. Besides, I’m not going to dive head first into your problems.” But we both knew I would. “I just want to hear what’s going on. Sometimes talking about things makes the answer easier to see. Why does everything have to be a secret? Whatever is happening is obviously personal to you. It won’t be to me. I’ll have a cooler head, which means I might see something you can’t.”

He sighed.

“What did the person take? Could it have just been a random burglary?”

He shook his head. “Nothing. As far as I can see, everything is accounted for. Nothing was disturbed at all.”

Hmm, that was strange. “So they were looking for something?”

“I assume, but I don’t know what or where they looked. Nothing appears to have been touched. Apart from the scratches on the lock where it was picked, it’s actually pretty clean. Including fingerprints. I only found mine and yours.”

“You have my fingerprints?”

“Yes. I lifted them after the first time I took you there.” He pursed his lips, glaring down toward the floor.

How could he live the sort of life where fingerprinting your girlfriend was a normal thing? I shook my head, but let it go. “I guess that leaves out a jinni. They wouldn’t need to pick a lock. They’d just transport in.”

He glanced up. “I don’t keep anything inside my apartment…as you know.”

He didn’t keep anything work related there, that was true. But he had plenty related to his past. And in someone’s past, there was always weakness. Maybe that was the problem. He was looking at this from the jinn point of view and he couldn’t find a reason someone would target him. But what if this had nothing to do with that. “Is the apartment in your name?”

He shook his head. “Of course not.”

“Is the name you used completely unconnected to you or did you choose something more sentimental?” Phoenix didn’t seem like the sentimental type on the surface, but the fact he still went by his real name told me maybe everything wasn’t as it appeared where he was concerned.

He didn’t answer.

“Is that the only thing that’s happened?”

His mouth pursed. “What are you thinking?”

Baby steps were the best I was going to get with getting him to share information. “Could this have less to do with whatever you are doing now and more to do with something from your past?” Not that I could imagine the dorky kid in his yearbook as the type to have enemies, but Phoenix wouldn’t tell me how or why he became a jinni. That wasn’t a decision that could be made lightly. Something bad must have happened to make him choose to make a deal with a demon. Only he could know if that was also something that might be catching up with him now.