VEILED MIRROR (7 page)

B
eth lay awake, staring at the fine cracks in the old plaster ceiling. The sheets were cool, despite the muggy weather, but that did little to sooth her roiling thoughts. Would Ellie visit her again? Who would want her brother-in-law dead? Had his murderer killed Ellie, too? Or were their deaths really just accidents? Was she deceiving Jason, and everyone else, for nothing?

Shadows crept around the room as the moon rose. The sky had cleared. There would be no thunder to disturb her tonight—
if
she could ever get to sleep. She closed her eyes and lay very still, trying to imagine herself floating. It was an old trick that Ell had taught her.

Did Jason suspect anything? She’d already made at least one mistake that he’d noticed. She and her sister had switched places effortlessly when they were teens, but she and Ellie hadn’t lived together for years. Playing the role now required so much more attention, and so much more depended on her success.

A sudden chill thickened
the air.

Beth blinked and sat up, relieved and happy to see her twin. She reached out a fist then let it fall. What if she touched Ellie and there was nothing there? What if Ellie dissipated like mist?

Her sister grimaced and nodded, letting her own fist drop. “Shazzan
,”
she said without enthusiasm.

“Shazzan,” Beth echoed.

“So what’s the plan?”

“Jason wants to check out Palmer.”

Moonlight spilling in through the window turned Ell’s purple satin dress to silver. She drew up her skirt so she could sit cross-legged on the bed. “Follow the money,” she observed.

“Yeah.”

“Palmer is kind of creepy and annoying …” Ell sounded doubtful.

“ … But he doesn’t seem like the kind to commit murder.” Beth agreed.

“No.”

Ollie pushed the door open with his nose and padded into the room, his nails clicking on the tile floor. He stopped short in the doorway staring at Ellie, his nostrils working furiously.

“Hey there, Ollie-wollie! Come here, boy!” Ell patted the bed.

Ollie took a step forward, his tail wagging tentatively. His ears went up, then down, then up again.

“Oh Ell, you spoil him. He has a perfectly comfortable bed of his own just over there.” Beth pointed at the corner and Ollie’s plush plaid pillow.

“I know. But I’m over here.” She looked at Ollie and patted the bed again. “Come on boy!”

The dog wagged his tail with a little more enthusiasm, but he still hesitated.

Beth sighed. “It’s okay. Come on.” She made the gesture for
come.

Ollie jumped up on the bed, and lay down next to Beth, still sniffing the air in Ellie’s direction.

Beth stroked the silky hair on his neck. “It’s all right, boy. It’s all right,” she murmured. Ollie put his head on her knee but kept a wary eye cocked at her sister.

Ell frowned but didn’t try to coax him to her. “So, you’ve got Jase helping you. Good idea. He’s smart and handsome. You can mix business with pleasure.” She wiggled her eyebrows suggestively.

Beth shook her head “Bad idea. He thinks I’m you—and that I’m dead. There will be absolutely no pleasure involved.” Just the opposite. Being around Jason all the time and not being able to touch him or talk to him the way they had before was going to be hell.

“What?” Ell looked at her like she was demented. “Why didn’t you tell him the truth?”

“Because he has a real thing against fraud. He’d never go along with this. No way, no how.”

“You’re right. Besides, getting involved with him now would be too distracting. You have to focus on what’s really important. Finding our killer.” Ell’s hands fisted, and her voice rose. “That bastard robbed us! We had so much to look forward to, so many years. Chris and I got cheated and our baby got cheated. Now we’ll never get to feel the weight of our daughter in our arms, or see her first steps or hear her laugh. She’ll never go to her prom or get married or have our grandchildren.”

Ollie raised his head and barked.

Beth shushed the dog. Her heart ached for her sister and all the things that had been taken from her.

Ellie blinked then turned an intense gaze on Beth. “Jason’s right, you know. Palmer is the only one who would benefit from our deaths.
”

Jason watched as the
burly Russian bodyguard gestured into the boardroom on the fourteenth floor of the half-finished Purdue building. The room was as tight and windowless as a coffin. “Debov is delayed. Please to make yourselfs comfortable,” he said in a thick accent.

Jason tried to shout, to warn himself, “Don’t go in there! It’s a trap!” but his voice made no sound.

Jason walked into the tiny room. He could hardly turn around. He tried to keep his eye on the only exit, but no matter how he twisted and twisted again, his back remained to the door.

“Inferno! Inferno!” he shouted. Where was his back-up?

He had to get out of there, but his feet wouldn’t move.

The bodyguard pointed a gun the size of a cannon at him.

Jason reached for his weapon, but it was gone. Time was running out. He looked under the table, in all his pockets. Any second the bodyguard would fire.

Jason’s eyes snapped open. He was drenched in sweat, his heart beating a mile a minute.

His eyes searched the room. It took him a minute to remember where he was.
Chris’s. I’m at Chris’s house.
He took a deep breath, then another.

Damn it!
It had been three weeks since the last nightmare. He’d thought he was over them, no matter what the shrink had said.

Beth found Jason already
eating French toast in the kitchen when she got up the next morning. She’d put on jeans and a baggy tee-shirt to cover the worst of her scrapes and bruises. Her chest was too sore to wear a bra. For once, she was glad she wasn’t well endowed.

“Want some?” Jason said as she helped herself to some coffee. “There’s more staying warm in the oven. Maria made enough to feed an army.”

“In a minute. I need to wake up a little first.” Jason looked like she felt: exhausted.”Have you thought about what kind of services you want to have?” Jason’s voice was very gentle, as if he were afraid the question would trigger a flood of tears.

“No. Not really.” Ell hadn’t been up to discussing it before the accident.

“But you
are
going to have one? Or will you have two?”

Beth closed her eyes. If he knew she were Beth, he wouldn’t need to ask. She looked at him. “Of course I’m going to have one.”

Jason nodded, clearly relieved.

“But I want to wait until we know who killed them.” She wanted to wait until she could bury Ellie beside Chris, under her own name.

Jason stopped looking relieved. “That could take a while, Ell.”

“I know.” She gazed at the steam rising from her mug while Jason lay his knife and fork carefully across the plate. She could tell he was searching for a way to reason with her.

“Ell—”

“I’ll make a deal with you,” she said, cutting him off. “If we haven’t learned anything in two weeks, we’ll have the memorial anyway.”

“Why wait so long? It won’t make any difference to the investigation.”

Beth looked down at her coffee. “I know, it’s just …”

“It makes it seem more real, more final,” Jason said.

She met his concerned gaze. “Yeah.” She felt her eyes filling and she blinked back the tears.

“Let me do this for you. I’ll make all the arrangements.”

“Okay. But just for Chris. I can’t say goodbye to both of them at once. Can you put a memorial together by Saturday, do you think?”

Jason let out a long slow breath. “You want an open or closed casket?”

“Open, if they can. After Mom …” Beth shook her head. There had been no service for their mother. It had taken a long time for her and Ellie to believe their mom was really gone. “Chris had a lot of friends here. They need to say goodbye.”

Jason nodded. “Is there a minister you want me to call?”

Beth hesitated. She didn’t know. She and Ell had avoided the subject of religion since their teen years. It hadn’t seemed much more real than the psychics. The mediums had all said there was life after death, but they’d all been fakes. Yet now she was having dream conversations with her dead sister. She shook her head, confused.

“What about Reverend Douglas?”

Beth nodded, grateful that Jason had remembered the Unitarian minister that had married Ell and Chris. “Yes, call him.”

“As long as I’m making calls, do you want me to phone Beth’s boss too?”

“No!” The last thing she needed was that complication. But she realized from Jason’s startled expression that she’d spoken a little too forcefully. “Sorry. I just think it would be better if I called her friends myself. More personal. And I might as well phone Doug, too.”

“Doug? Is that her boyfriend?”

Was that a tinge of jealousy she heard in his voice? She shook her head.
No. Just wishful thinking
. “Her new boss.”

Her resignation must have made it into her voice.

“I thought she liked her job.”

“She does. Did. But Doug could use a personality transplant. Or so she said.”

Jason laughed, and Beth relaxed.

“What about her landlord? You want me to call him?”

Good Lord. She hadn’t thought of all the people back home who would be affected by her death. She’d have to solve this thing before everyone began wondering where she was and started asking questions. “Uh, no. There’s no rush. I’m sure she’s paid up to the end of the month.”

“Yeah, but with the story running on
CNN
, he’ll be wondering if someone will be coming to get her stuff.”

“
CNN
? What story?” Beth’s heart pounded.

Jason looked apologetic. “I’m sorry. I thought you knew.”

“What story?”

“Chris is a Pontifore. Even if he did keep a low profile, his death is news. They mentioned Beth too, since the two of you were in that accident only a few days later.”

“Oh no!” That jerk Doug would give away her job unless she was able to convince him the news report had been a mistake. “I’ve got to call those people.” She got to her feet.

He put a hand out to stop her. “Take it easy. Eat something first.”

Beth looked past Jason’s shoulder at the phone on the wall behind him. She couldn’t make this call in front of him, and he would think it strange if she just bolted. Or he’d be worried, and then she’d have to come up with some kind of explanation. Saving her job could wait fifteen minutes.

“You’re right. I’ll have some of that French toast,” she said.

She busied herself getting a plate, spreading butter, and pouring syrup and tried not to think about her friends, her apartment, her job. Her promise to Ellie was jeopardizing everything. She didn’t want to lose the tenuous stability she’d begun to create for herself. She didn’t want to lose her life.

Like Ellie already had. Literally. Beth winced inwardly, ashamed of her selfishness. She had to be bold and fearless like her sister.

What would Ell do in a situation like this?
She wished she could pick up the phone and call her, but that wasn’t possible anymore. She had to sleep to talk to her sister now, and she could hardly go take a nap right after getting up.

What would Jason think if he knew she talked to a ghost in her sleep?
Heck, what would
I
think, if someone told me a story like that?

Was
she losing it? When she was talking to Ellie it seemed so normal, just like they used to talk when they were kids. It didn’t feel like her sister was dead. Was she just making this all up so she wouldn’t have to deal with her grief?

“What do you think happens after we die?”
Damn
. She hadn’t meant to say that out loud. But now that she had, she really wanted to know.

Jason leaned back in his chair and looked at her thoughtfully. “I think we have to look at ourselves, really look, and see ourselves for who we are. Honestly. Without flinching. No misplaced guilt, but no glossing over the times when we ducked our responsibilities or when we really screwed up.”

“No hellfire and damnation?”

“Some of the guys I’ve investigated probably deserve it, but I think having to see themselves for what they are will burn them just as bad.”

“And then what?”

“And then we go on. Maybe we get another chance to get it right, or maybe the bad parts of us are just blown away and what’s left goes on to something else. I don’t know. But whatever the case, Chris doesn’t have anything to apologize for. He was a good person.” He shrugged and his lips curled in a self-conscious smile. “So was Beth.”

Guilt stung like a wasp.
I wonder if he’d still feel that way if he knew I was pretending to be Ell?

Then she asked, “Do you believe the dead can speak to us?” He’d listened to her talk about her father that night at the wedding and a few times after that, but they hadn’t ventured very far into this territory. Now, with Ellie talking to her in her dreams, she needed to know that Jason wouldn’t think she was crazy, even if she was never going to tell him about it.

Jason’s look was wary. “Are you thinking of going to a medium?”

“Of course not!”

“Sorry. I didn’t think so, but, uh …”

“You thought I might go off the deep end like our dad?”

“I wouldn’t put it like that.”

“But I
am
already talking crazy about killers and murder, after all.” Her tone was sharp.

Jason’s face grew stiff and his voice was firm. “I never said that.”

Beth glanced away and blew out a deep breath. What was wrong with her? It wasn’t like her to overreact like that. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it.” The muscles around his mouth relaxed. He pushed his plate away and leaned on the table with crossed arms. “So what do
you
think happens when we die?”

Beth thought about Ellie’s visits and what she’d said about Chris and their folks already having ‘gone on.’ “I don’t know. But I’m sure that death isn’t the end.”