“I’m sorry, but you need to go. I’ll see you later.”
Her head drooped forward suddenly, hair falling over her face. She knelt there like that, silent, for at least ten seconds. Like a wind-up doll that had lost power.
A frown crinkled his features. Something wasn’t right about this woman. He’d told her that he’d see her later, but that was only a delaying tactic to make her leave. He didn’t think it would be a wise idea to see her anytime soon—if ever again. There were so many red flags waving in his face that he’d be a fool to ignore them, no matter how strongly he was attracted to her.
She finally raised her head, and rose.
“Fine, Andrew.” She smiled blandly. “We’ll see each other later. Unless we see each other in our dreams tonight.”
“ ’Bye, Mika.”
“Good night, soul mate eyes.” She picked up her umbrella and let herself out.
The Rolls Royce waited for her at the curb. A chauffeur—a hat pulled low over his head hiding his face—opened her door, and in seconds, they glided away into the stormy night.
He closed the door and leaned against it.
Talk about a helluva day. A ghost was haunting his house. A woman he’d just met had become a borderline stalker.
The predictable, routine-dominated life he’d created was coming apart at the seams, like an old coat. He longed for a return to normalcy, as boring as it had been sometimes.
The doorbell rang.
Afraid that it might be Mika again, he cautiously peered through the peephole.
But it was only the pizza delivery guy.
Carmen sat at the kitchen table, reading an issue of
Essence.
He brought the pizza into the kitchen and placed it on the counter. “Time to eat.”
The cheer in his voice sounded false, but he didn’t know what else to say to her.
Her eyes punctured him like needles.
“I don’t believe you, Drew.”
“What do you mean?”
“You didn’t say a damn thing about meeting a new woman. Whatever, though, I can deal with that. But you slept with her on the first date?”
He leaned against the counter, folded his arms. “Carmen, that’s personal.”
“The first date?”
“Listen, I didn’t plan it, things just happened. When did I claim to be a saint?”
“Never.” She closed the magazine. “But it disappoints me. I thought you were better than that.”
Hearing those words from her hit him like a blow to the stomach.
Carmen held him in high regard. She always bragged about him to her friends, used him as an example of how there really were some nice guys left in the world, said he was proof that not all men were sex-crazed animals who dropped their drawers at the earliest opportunity. He cherished her admiration and respect for him. He felt as though he had failed her.
“I’m sorry to disappoint you,” he said.
“Whatever, like you said, that’s your personal business. But I think you could’ve chosen better. Did she follow you over here?”
Lips pressed together, he nodded.
“That’s some crazy shit, Drew. You’ve known this girl for a day and she’s following you?”
“Honestly, I never thought this would happen. She seemed normal at first.”
“Has she been to your house?”
“No.”
She smiled ruefully. “I bet. If she trailed you over here, you better believe she knows where you live, too.”
He didn’t want to think about it, but he suspected that she was right.
“I don’t want to tell you how to handle your business,” she said, “but I think you need to kick her to the curb. Like, ASAP.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“If you string her along, it’ll only get worse. When someone starts obsessing over you, they can be like a pit bull. Lock their teeth on you and you can’t ever shake ’em loose.”
“She’s a nice girl,” he said. “She’s only needy, I guess.”
“That’s how psychos are, Drew. Nice and needy—and nutty.”
“She’s had some bad experiences, stuff that’s damaged her.”
“Sure she has. So have all of us. That’s life, deal with it.”
“That’s harsh.”
“You’re a softie, and I love that about you, but you can’t be like that with this woman,” she said. “She’ll use that to take advantage of you. Manipulators recognize your weaknesses and use them to get what they want.”
He didn’t like the way she spoke about Mika as if she were some femme fatale, some psycho stalker. Mika wasn’t
that
bad. Carmen wasn’t being fair, and he wasn’t going to give her more ammo so that she could continue to attack Mika’s character.
Part of him, however, questioned whether he was letting his physical attraction to Mika soften his opinions about her. He knew from experience how easy it was to make excuses for all kinds of behavior after someone had rocked your world.
“Anyway, I’ve got it under control,” he said, his cue to change the subject.
“Was she jealous of me? I bet she was.”
He recalled Mika’s venomous comments.
It’s her, isn’t it? That bitch, Carmen . . .
“It doesn’t matter,” he said. “I told her the deal between you and me.”
“Told her we’re just friends? She’ll never believe that. She’s going to push harder now that she thinks she’s got some competition.”
“Doesn’t matter, it’s over,” he said. He opened the pizza carton. He put slices on plates for himself and Carmen.
But the scent of Mika’s perfume remained on his skin. Sexy jasmine. Yeah, she was way out of line for following him—but he couldn’t help wondering what they might have done if he’d spent the night with her again. His imagination cooked up a dizzying mélange of erotic scenarios.
Let it go, man. She’s crazy.
Later, he’d have to take a thorough shower to scrub all traces of her fragrance from his body. Or else, his mind would persist in churning out forbidden fantasies.
He returned to the table with the pizza.
“I still can’t believe you slept with her,” Carmen said.
He paused with a pizza slice near his lips. “Carmen, will you please let it go?”
“Forget it, it’s none of my business.” She took a bite of her pizza, flipped through the magazine.
Carmen was jealous. She probably was “disappointed” in his poor judgment in sleeping with Mika on the first date, but her jealousy likely loomed larger in her mind than anything else. He didn’t know why he didn’t see it before now.
“So, does Mika have any competition?” he asked.
She didn’t look up. “Not from me she doesn’t.”
Her reluctance to meet his eyes only verified his suspicion.
The other day, he’d admitted to himself that he was jealous of her dating other men; she obviously was jealous of him dating other women. What did that say about them? Was their “we’re just friends” categorization of their relationship merely a front for what they really felt for each other?
It was an awkward subject that he wasn’t quite sure how to approach—and he wasn’t sure that he wanted to. He liked what they had together, whatever it could be called. He didn’t want to drag it into the spotlight, subject it to examination, and risk spoiling it.
Carmen made it easy for him by changing the subject. She finished her pizza, pushed aside the magazine and said, “Let’s get back to the ghost stuff.”
They discussed how he might go about opening a dialogue with the ghost, when he decided that he was ready for that step. He suggested that since the ghost had typed a message on his computer, using the laptop might be the best way to begin the communication. He could present a question to the spirit in his word processing program. Carmen agreed that it was a good idea.
“Maybe if I ask, the ghost will write my next book for me,” he said. “Gives new meaning to the term ‘ghost writer,’ doesn’t it?”
“Good to see you’re keeping your sense of humor, Drew.” She stored the leftover pizza in the refrigerator.
“If I couldn’t make fun of it, I’d have to check into a padded room somewhere. The whole situation is totally crazy, you know?”
“You know what gets me? The timing of it.”
“I don’t follow you.”
“The haunting starts a couple of days ago. Then you met psycho chick yesterday.”
He’d let her “psycho chick” comment slide. “So?”
“So doesn’t it seem a bit too coincidental to you? Two weird things starting at the same time?”
“I don’t see how Mika could have anything to do with a ghost, or vice versa.”
“Me, neither.” She wiped the counter with a dish towel. “It was only a thought. I think everything happens for a reason. I don’t believe in coincidence.”
She’d raised an interesting idea. But he couldn’t go anywhere with it. Mika was only a woman who was eager for love. He didn’t know yet what the presence at his house wanted from him, but he doubted it had anything to do with her. It was an intriguing, but moot, point.
Outdoors, a peal of thunder shook the night. Gusts wailed around the windows, sounding like the cries of a lost child.
Chapter 15
C
ourtesy of five milligrams of Ambien, Raymond finally enjoyed several hours of peaceful, dreamless sleep.
He’d left his office early and slid into bed at three in the afternoon. He awoke around eleven. Eight hours of quality sleep. He felt invigorated.
Beside him, June slumbered quietly. He’d slept so deeply he’d never heard her get into the bed.
He kissed her on the cheek. Although he disliked visiting his physician, the sleep aid prescription had been exactly what he needed. He loved her for being concerned about him. Especially when he lacked the good sense to take proper care of himself.
He quietly left the bedroom. He planned to review some business documents, watch ESPN for an hour or so, and return to bed. He didn’t want to throw his sleep schedule completely out of whack.
He tied the belt of his house robe, got a glass of water from the kitchen, and went to the den. His leather briefcase lay on the coffee table. A Post-It was stuck to the top. “Call Andrew, re: golf” it read, in his chicken-scratch handwriting. He’d scribbled the note to himself before retiring to bed.
Now that he’d found a solution to his nightmares and had gained some rest, he felt better about talking to his son. He called Andrew’s house. It was late, but his boy was a night owl, like him.
There was no answer; Andrew was probably out chasing women. Chuckling at the thought, he left a message asking Andrew to meet him at the driving range tomorrow afternoon.
Smiling to himself, he unlatched the briefcase and raised the lid.
He expected to find a collection of manila file folders within. He didn’t.
He found, instead, darkness.
Blackness completely filled the bottom half of the briefcase, as if he’d raised the cover of a manhole that dropped into a subterranean world of endless depth.
A powerful force, like gravity, drew his hands toward the darkness.
He yelped. Tearing his hands away from the pull of the mysterious energy, he slammed the lid shut.
What the hell had he just seen? Was he still asleep and dreaming?
When he reached out to get the glass of water, his hand trembled so badly that water slopped over the rim. He gripped the glass in both hands to steady it, drank deeply.
He studied the briefcase.
“You imagined that, Ray,” he said aloud. “There’s no way you really saw what you thought you did, and you know it.”
Slowly, he leaned forward. He popped open the case.
Impenetrable darkness yawned inside.
Again, he felt that strange, invisible tug.
He smashed the lid down and kicked the briefcase. It flipped off the table and thudded against the floor, out of sight.
“Out of my mind,” he said. “Going out of my damn mind.”
Maybe he’d defeated the nightmares, only to be plagued by something even worse: hallucinations.
He remembered Dr. Unaeze’s words about the sleeping pills:
Other potential side effects are difficulty breathing, nausea, temporary amnesia, and in rare cases, hallucinations.
Hallucinations. Seeing crazy shit that wasn’t real.
It was a frightening thought that he dared not consider further.
He decided that work could wait until morning. Instead, he would watch television. Not in here, though. He didn’t want to be around the briefcase, didn’t want to touch it and move it out of the room, either.
In the family room, he settled into his recliner—he called it “The Captain’s Seat”—picked up the remote control off the armrest, and clicked the power button.