Die Job (5 page)

“Where else would you expect a ghost to go?” Tyler asked with a smart-ass grin.

Tyler’s smirk vanished when Spaatz grabbed him by the upper arm. He quickly let go as visions of lawsuits, I assumed, raced through his head. He folded his lips together, as if to keep hasty words from spewing out, took a deep breath, and said, “I’ve taught sixth graders with more sense.” His gaze raked Tyler.

“Hey, it was just—”

Spaatz cut him off with a sharp movement of his hand. “Where’s Coach Peet? I hope he’s not counting on having you buffoons in the starting lineup next Friday.”

The front door cracked open, letting in a gust of wind and a scattering of dead leaves. Everyone’s heads swiveled and a couple of people flinched as the door gaped wider. Coach Peet stepped in. He glanced around at the crowd, his brows drawing together over his beaky nose.

“Wally.” Spaatz spoke from the landing, bringing Peet’s head up. “Take this miserable prankster and park him on the bus.” He gave Tyler a light shove toward the stairs. “Then go find his partner in crime and lock him up, too. He was last seen heading for the cemetery.”

“What happened? Tyler, get—I want to know—” The coach broke off and settled for glaring as Tyler clomped down the stairs. Coach Peet held the door wide and gestured the youth out. He followed, slamming the door so the portraits on the walls shook.

The fog machine was still spewing and I bent to turn it off as the kids dispersed again. The boys’ flattened backpacks lay beside the machine.

“Are all your classes this exciting?” I asked Spaatz, trying to lighten the mood.

“Fortunately, no. Mostly it’s just dry old stuff out of the textbook. Boring.”

“Somehow, I doubt that,” I said. I was sure the high school girls, at least, weren’t bored in his class.

His smile reached his eyes this time and he studied me with awakening interest.

“Hey, Mr. Spaatz, can we be on the landing now?” Rachel called from the foot of the stairs.

Spaatz shook his head. “No, I think we’ll leave the landing
open. After all this activity, I can’t imagine old Cyril would want to show up here.”

Residual adrenaline from my ghost chase had me hyped up and I decided to check on the students posted in the outbuildings, including the kitchen, stable, and carriage house museum. The fresh air felt cool against my heated skin, and I dawdled along the oyster shell path hooking the buildings together. An owl
whoo-whoo
ed from a stand of trees to my left and I looked for her but couldn’t spot her. Three or four minutes spent with the pairs in the outbuildings convinced me that not even a science experiment involving ghost hunting could hold students’ attention forever. The kids in the museum were still zealous about the mission, recording readings from their EMF monitors every few minutes, but the other students seemed bored and ready to call it quits.

Reminding the girls in the kitchen that there was only fifteen minutes to go, I headed back outside. The air seemed heavier, pressing on my skin in a palpable way. Or maybe it was just my mood. Lonnie and Tyler’s escapade had left me unsettled and I was wishing I’d stayed home with Julia Roberts. I had almost reached the front door of the mansion when a loud explosion made me jump. What in the world—? A
shreee
split the night and then a burst of green and gold broke over the cemetery, showering the darkness with colored light. I laughed with relief. Fireworks. Someone was shooting off fireworks. My money was on the erstwhile ghost, Lonnie.

I jogged toward the cemetery—forgetting that I hated the place after being knocked into an open grave last May—as another two rockets went off with ear-jarring bangs. From
the front of the house, the cemetery was quite a hike, around the side of the mansion and across the sloping garden in back. Students streamed from the house and the outbuildings, all thoughts of recording spirit data forgotten in the magic of fireworks. Nothing more than dark silhouettes, they laughed and pointed at the dazzling colors starring the sky over the graveyard. A device whistled skyward and exploded into ribbons of white that fizzled slowly as they drifted toward the ground. The lights seemed to animate the marble angel watching over one of the graves, making her wings shimmer and her marble robe seem to undulate in the play of light and shadow.

A couple of minutes later, Glen Spaatz appeared beside me where I stood outside the wrought-iron fence that ringed the tiny cemetery. I wasn’t sure where he’d come from.

“I think it’s time to call it a night,” Spaatz said in my ear. His arm brushed mine. “I’ll let the kids enjoy the show and then round them up. I must say this hasn’t been the most successful field trip on record.”

Over the pops of the fireworks, I heard a faint call and I shushed Spaatz. It seemed to come from the direction of the mansion.

“Did you hear that?” I asked Spaatz.

He turned to listen. The sound came again, clearer as the wind dropped suddenly. “Help! Someone! Call nine-one-one!”

Spaatz rolled his eyes. “Don’t they ever give up? How many pranks—”

I was running back to the mansion before he stopped speaking. I knew that voice.

MY BREATH CAME IN RAGGED GULPS AS I STRUGGLED up the slight rise to the mansion where Rachel stood on the terrazzo, waving frantically. Her hair straggled more wildly than usual around her face, and tears had smeared her mascara down her cheeks.

She grabbed my arm and pulled me toward the French doors when I reached the terrazzo. “Oh, thank God! I don’t have my cell phone. I didn’t know what to—” She burst into tears.

“What’s wrong?” I spoke as she dragged me across the ballroom and down the hall toward the huge foyer.

She put one hand to her mouth and pointed with the other, shaking her head back and forth in denial of what lay before us.

I gasped at the sight of the body lying at the foot of the staircase, unmoving, a trickle of blood oozing across the floor. One
arm was flung over his head, the other trapped under his body. A gleam of white poked through a hole in his jeans and, with a sick feeling, I recognized it as his shin bone. His other leg was straight, the foot resting awkwardly on the bottom stair. A boy. Blond hair. Jeans. Braden.

I dug my cell phone out of my pocket and punched in 911. I tossed it to Rachel. “Tell them what’s happened.” Crossing to Braden, I dropped to my knees and felt for a pulse. Thready, but there.

I didn’t dare move him for fear of spinal injuries or other bone breaks, but I needed to treat him for shock. His pallor and jerky breathing, not to mention the still spreading blood, told me he was in trouble. Neither Rachel nor I wore a jacket I could use to warm him. My gaze flashed around the hall. A memory pinged and I dashed into the adjacent parlor. Grabbing hold of the velvet drapes, I ripped them from the rod, bringing it down with a huge clatter. Crumpling a panel of velvet in my arms, I carried it into the hall and spread it over Braden’s still form, tucking it as close as I dared.

“What happened?” I asked Rachel.

She had stopped talking and was staring at Braden, her eyes huge with worry. She shook her head. “I don’t know. We were in the parlor, doing our readings. I had to go to the bathroom. It took me a while to find it. While I was in there, I heard what sounded like explosions.”

“Fireworks,” I supplied.

She looked at me blankly, like she’d never heard the word. “I came back to get Braden, thinking we could go see what it was, and I found him like this. I didn’t have my cell and no one answered when I screamed for help and . . .” She dissolved into tears again.

I moved to her and hugged her tightly. She was shivering. “You did
great,” I said. “He’s going to be fine.” I hoped. I said a quick prayer.

A siren racing up the long drive brought our heads around. Giving Rachel a quick squeeze, I jogged to the double doors and pulled them open. An ambulance, lights flashing, skidded to a stop beside an SUV that hadn’t been there earlier, and the EMTs hopped out. I beckoned them in and backed out of their way.

“What in the world—” a disapproving voice said. Lucy Mortimer moved into the foyer from the hallway that led off to the administrative offices and storage areas. Her gaze took in the scene and then she gasped, “My parlor drapes!”

Before she could rip them off Braden—which I feared she might do—the EMTs clattered into the hallway, lugging a gurney and their equipment. They had Braden hooked to an IV and secured in a cervical brace faster than I would have thought possible. They had lifted him on a backboard and were wheeling the gurney out the door as Glen Spaatz and a gaggle of students appeared on the scene, stopping abruptly where the hall met the foyer. Lucy hurried off toward her office, muttering about calling the board of directors.

“Braden McCullers apparently fell down the stairs,” I told Spaatz briefly, watching as his face registered disbelief and worry.

“Oh my God! Cyril’s ghost pushed Braden!” a girl’s voice said from behind Spaatz.

A babble of voices rose up, only to be silenced as the front door thwacked open again and a man appeared on the threshold, eyes wide, gray hair mussed. I’d never seen him before.

“Where’s Mark?” he asked urgently. “Is Mark okay?”

We looked around. No Mark. No Lindsay. No Lonnie or Tyler
or Coach Peet, but presumably they were waiting on the bus. I couldn’t tell if anyone else was missing.

“Who are you?” Spaatz stepped forward and challenged the stranger. They were about the same height, but the newcomer was bulkier through the neck and shoulders.

“Eric Crenshaw. Mark’s dad. I saw the ambulance while I was waiting. Is Mark—”

“Take it easy, Dad.” Mark’s voice came from the hallway leading to the ballroom. Lindsay’s nervous face peeked over his shoulder.

“Goddamnit,” Crenshaw said, taking a step toward Mark. “You were supposed to be outside at nine thirty, remember? So we could get on the road to your aunt’s? When I saw the ambu—”

“Sorry. I forgot.” Mark’s voice was sullen; he clearly didn’t like being chewed out in front of his friends.

“That’s not good enough,” Eric Crenshaw snapped, taking a step toward Mark. “You know your mother—”

Rachel’s voice in my ear, begging me to take her to the hospital, drowned out the rest of their confrontation.

“Please, Grace, I have to be there. What if he, like, dies?” She whispered the last word.

“He’s not going to die,” I said firmly. Why did we make statements like that when we had no clue? Denial, I guessed, or hope. I pulled Spaatz away from the group. “When the police show up, tell them Rachel and I have gone to the hospital.”

“The police?” He looked startled. “Oh, shit. Of course, the police.” He pushed a hand through his hair.

“I’m surprised they’re not here already.” I said. I dug in my purse for my keys before realizing I didn’t have my car. We’d all come in the bus. “Damn!”

At Spaatz’s raised brows, I explained my dilemma. “Take the bus,” he
said immediately. “Tell the driver. He can come back for the rest of us after he drops you at the hospital. I don’t think we’ll be going anywhere any time soon.”

“Thanks.” I gave him a tight smile, grabbed Rachel by the hand, and sprinted toward the bus.

Three hours later, coming up on one in the morning, I sat in the hospital cafeteria, clutching a lukewarm mug of tea in my hands and being grilled by my ex-husband. Braden was still in surgery, his family hovering anxiously in the waiting room, and Rachel’s dad had fetched her an hour ago, promising she could return to the hospital in the morning. My ex, Officer Hank Parker of the St. Elizabeth Police Department, had shown up just as I was debating calling my mom for a ride home or lurking in the waiting room until someone looked like they were headed back to St. Elizabeth. Hank and his new partner, Officer Ally Qualls, a short, dark-haired woman, arrived before I could make up my mind. While Officer Qualls talked to Braden’s family, Hank steered me to the elevator and down to the cafeteria, where he bought me a fresh cup of tea.

“Thanks,” I said with real gratitude, slumping into an uncomfortable plastic chair. The cafeteria smelled like burned toast and was deserted except for a man and a woman in lab coats arguing at a table by the window, and a short-order cook dressed as a mummy yawning over the grill.

“What in blazes were you doing at a high school get-together, Grace?” Hank asked. He leaned back in his chair and stretched his long legs out toward me. He’d thickened a bit
through the neck and middle since high school, and his brown hair had thinned a bit, but he still looked sharp in his uniform. He’d applied to the Atlanta Police Department more interested in cop groupies and carrying a gun than protecting the public, but it seemed to me recently that he’d gotten a bit more serious about policing. He’d told Mom he was planning to take the sergeant’s exam before long. “You don’t have the hots for that teacher, that Spaz guy, do you?” His eyes narrowed with suspicion.

Hank’s jealousy, despite our divorce, which happened largely due to his infidelities, got on my nerves. I was sure he’d deliberately mispronounced Glen’s name. “It was a field trip,” I said. “Surely Mr. Spaa
tz
”—I emphasized the pronunciation—“told you that.”