Fire and Ice: A Paranormal Romance (10 page)

A few minutes later, Billy got up.  He walked into the bathroom and came back with some tissue.  He dried his eyes and sat at the table where he had laid the money.  “It’s all here, just as I had put it away originally.  If I had thrown those boots out, it would have ended up in the trash.  If you hadn’t needed them, I never would have found this.”             

“Well, it’s a good thing I did,” said Sarah.  “I’m glad you got your money back.”

“I spent four years mourning Jessie’s loss,” Billy lamented.  “Those are four years I’ll never get back.  If it had been me on that boat who drowned, she wouldn’t have wasted a tear on me.”

“You don’t know that, Billy.”

“Do you have any idea how exasperated I was when this money went missing?  I could not figure out where it was for the life of me.  I practically turned this place inside out looking for it.  You know the worst part of it?”

“What?” Sarah asked.

“Jessie watched me.  She saw how upset I was and knew how desperate I felt.  She didn’t even care.”

“I think that Jessie wanted to give it back to you,” Sarah said.  “I’m sure that’s why she showed me the boots.”

“It doesn’t really matter now.  Do you know why I bought the boat?”

“Why?”

“Because Jessie asked me to,” Billy told her.  “I didn’t even want it.  I liked going out with my daddy on his boat.  We had done it for years.  I practically grew up on that boat.  But, Jessie said that if I didn’t buy
Gotcha
, she would miss her father even worse than she already did.”

Sarah got up off the sofa and came over to Billy.  She stood next to him and put her arms around his neck.   He reached out for her and put his arms around her waist, then rested his head against her.  They did not say a word.

* * * * *

On Monday, Billy tried to act cheerful for Sarah’s sake.  His attempts were not successful. They took his boat out to the Gulf as planned.  Billy wanted to show her a good time, but his heart was not in it.  So, he did what he did best—work. His hurt and anger made it one of his most successful days out on the water.  Was it because the shrimp were more plentiful or that he was just more determined?  He did not know.

Sarah watched Billy and was glad to be along for the ride.  They barely talked. Instead, she got to see him in action as the sun beat down on
Gotcha
.  Billy was a hard worker, she thought; a hard worker that Jessie never appreciated.  Would he ever trust someone again?  Jessie was definitely a tough act to follow, but for all the wrong reasons. 

For that entire day, Sarah was surrounded in the waters in which Jessie drowned.  Unfortunately, the power that the blue-eyed blonde seemed to have over Billy was still alive and well.  It appeared to run as deep and wide as the gulf that swallowed up her body. 

After the money was found, Sarah was almost tempted to reveal one more detail that she had purposely omitted about her dreams.  Sarah was relieved that Billy had never asked her to get specific in that regard.  Considering what had just transpired, she thought that perhaps it was best to get everything out in the open once and for all.  The boy—the one who always took Jessie’s hand—was a towhead blond.  What was the likelihood that the child was Billy’s?  Sarah had already met Billy’s parents who both had dark hair and eyes just like their son.  True, there could have been a recessive gene.  But, with what Harris had divulged over the weekend in regard to Jessie’s infidelity, it seemed that there could have been someone else responsible for that pregnancy.  Sarah did not want to take herself or her dreams too seriously.  Besides that, the child had never been born.  As Sarah looked out at the water, she decided to keep the details about the boy to herself.

On their way back from the Gulf at the end of the day, Sarah suggested that Billy come over to her apartment.  “We can get some Chinese food and I can download those pictures from the camera.”  She was hoping that a change of scenery might do him some good.  Spending the evening at his fishing camp would only be a stark reminder of the money that he placed on the table the night before. It would force him to go over Jessie’s thievery in his mind while the emotional wounds of it were so fresh.

“First, we have to head to the dock to unload this catch and have it weighed,” said Billy.  “Then, we can get cleaned up at my place.  After that, we’ll head over there, okay?”

“That sounds good,” Sarah replied.

“I know I haven’t been myself today,” Billy told her.

“I really am sorry about all that’s happened,” Sarah said.  “If it wasn’t for me and my crazy dreams, you could have been spared this heartache.”

“Not at all, Sarah.  You have done more for me in this past week than anyone has.  I’ve never known anyone like you.”

Chapter Thirteen

Sarah’s Apartment

-

Billy and Sarah got cleaned up at the fishing camp and headed out to spend the evening together.  They picked up Chinese food in the parish, drove to the French Quarter, and brought it over to her apartment.  When they got inside, Billy commented on her staircase, once again.  “I guess I should call you ‘the woman with the spiral staircase’ from now on,” he joked with her.

Sarah was glad to see Billy smile for a change.  She headed to the kitchen to get some plates.  When she returned, they ate at the coffee table in the living room.  “Somehow, it feels weird coming back here,” she said.

“Why?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” Sarah admitted.  “But, when I walked through the door, I thought of this as the place of all those dreams.”

“You should come and stay with me,” Billy suggested.

“So, you want a roommate, huh?” she smiled.

“Maybe,” he grinned back at her.

Sarah looked across the room.  “You forgot about my piano,” she laughed.  “You’ve got a lot of steps.”

“We can figure something out,” Billy assured her.

“These are really good,” Sarah said as she bit into an egg roll.

“All of their food is great,” said Billy.  “I go over there after work and pick it up a lot of times.”

“I sure am glad you are here,” she told him.  “Once that dress shop closes downstairs, this building feels pretty empty.”

“It’s lucky that you can hear the music from the street,” he said.

“I know,” Sarah told him.  “Sometimes, I leave the French doors open to the balcony and let the music fill this place.”

“I want to tell you something in case I did not make it clear before,” Billy said looking at her seriously.  “None of this has been your fault.  It was all there and you helped me see it.  If you didn’t, I could have been stuck in that space for a lifetime with no way out.”

“I feel like I’ve brought you nothing but grief,” Sarah told him.

“Not at all,” he reassured her.  “You just opened my eyes.”

“Well, I hope that this whole nightmare is going to get resolved soon so that we can move past it.  Tomorrow we can try to see if Shaunessy owns one of the buildings,” said Sarah.

“I’ll pick you up after you get off of work tomorrow and we can head over there,” Billy told her.  “Honestly, I don’t even know what Jessie wants from me.  Why would she even bother to make contact?  I’m sure that she had plenty of other guys to bother.”  Sarah could detect the sarcasm in Billy’s voice.

“I don’t know.  But, please stay over tonight.  I don’t want to be here alone.”

“I’ll stay,” Billy promised her.  “I hope that those dreams disappear.  Enough is enough.”

“Well, at least I slept last night,” she smiled.

“To be honest with you, I’m not exactly doing you a favor.”

“What?”  Sarah did not understand.

“I dread the thought of going back to my place and being alone after having you there,” Billy admitted.

“You know what?  As soon as we’re done eating, I want to go up to my office and download those pictures so I can have them for class tomorrow.  The kids will really love seeing them.  Then, we’ll have plenty of time to spend together.”

* * * * *

After they finished dinner, Sarah opened the French doors so that Billy could listen to the jazz coming from the bar across the street.   “I’ll be back in a few minutes,” she told him.  Sarah grabbed the camera out of its case and headed up to the loft.  She sat down at her desk and turned on her computer.  She proceeded to check her email that had accumulated over the past few days. 

Sarah’s older sister, Lacey, had sent her a letter saying that all was going well with her shop, What Nots, in Texas.  She was excited to hear that Lacey was coming to visit her in New Orleans in the next month.  By then, school would be out, so Sarah would have lots of time to spend with her.  Lacey had managed to turn the semi-vacation it into a buying trip.  Sarah could imagine how fun it would be to help her scout out vintage items and hand-painted furniture locally.  If there were any bargains to be found, Lacey would surely track them down.  They would be perfect for her store and Lacey had already done some extensive Internet searches to find out what was available.  She had a list of places to visit, including a warehouse that supplied props to the burgeoning movie industry there. 

Sarah deleted a few items of junk mail and shut down her email.  She got the memory card out of the camera, and popped it into her computer.  Within seconds, all of the pictures were uploaded.  She stored them in a folder on her desktop and started to look at them.  As they came up on her screen one by one, she noticed that they were not photos of Florida.  They were Jessie’s.  They had still been on the dead woman’s camera after all those years. 

“Billy, come here!” Sarah yelled downstairs.  Billy couldn’t hear her.  He was sitting on the loveseat listening to music.  She went to the top of the stairs.  “Billy, come here, please,” she called down to him again. 

Billy headed up the stairs toward her.  “What’s going on?”

“You won’t believe it,” Sarah told him as he got to the landing.  “Some of Jessie’s pictures are still on her camera.  Maybe there’s a picture of the building on there.  I thought you told me that she had taken them off of it at Charla’s house.”

“I thought she did,” said Billy. 

“If she didn’t delete them off of her memory card, they could still be here.  Quick, let’s look!”  Sarah hoped that they could find some answers at last.  She sat back down at her desk and continued to look at all of the photos.  Billy stood behind her and peered over her shoulder.  Pictures of the bayou came up on her screen.  There were several photos of the riverboat, one of which must have been the contest winner.  Then, the pictures of the dolphins came onto the screen.  Sarah went through each one.  There were no photos of the French Quarter.

“They’re not here.” Sarah was disappointed. “That could have solved everything.”

“We were so close,” agreed Billy.  “If only she had saved them.”

“You were right,” said Sarah turning around and looking up at him.  “Jessie did get rid of the pictures.”

“Let’s hope that we can link Shaunessy’s name to one of those properties that we got pictures of last week,” said Billy.

“Jessie’s photos could have solved the whole mystery,” answered Sarah.  All of a sudden, she got up from her chair and headed toward the door.

“Where are you going?” Billy asked her.

“To look inside her camera case,” Sarah replied.  Then, she hurried down the stairs.  Billy waited in the office.  He wished that the whole matter were behind them.  If only Jessie had saved the photos, then perhaps they would have had their answers.  But, the pictures were at Charla’s and they had no way to access them.  It felt as if they had hit a brick wall.  He began to wonder if they would ever get to the bottom of things.   

Sarah returned a few minutes later holding something in her hand.  “There was another memory card in the case,” she said.  “Let me see what’s on here.”  She sat down and uploaded the photos onto a new file on her desktop and started to look at them.  Billy stood behind her to get a view of the screen.  They saw pictures of the French Quarter.  There were several photos of a beige building with an iron gate and a courtyard.  Sarah kept going through them one by one.  Then, all of a sudden, a photo of a burgundy building was on her computer screen.  “This is it!” exclaimed Sarah.  “This is the building in my dream.  We found it, at last.”

Billy looked at it for a moment and after noticing the address; he could barely believe his eyes.  “Sarah, come on downstairs right now.  Stop what you’re doing and come with me.”

Sarah had never seen Billy be so take-charge in all the time she had known him.  He walked down the stairs and she followed him.  “What’s going on?” she asked.

Billy proceeded to the living room.  “Have a seat.  Sarah, please stay calm.  Stay calm for me.  I need you to,” he pleaded.  She sat down and he took a seat next to her.  He continued to talk.  “Sarah, that building in the picture is yours.”

“Yes, that’s what I told you.  It
is
the building in my dream!”

“That’s not what I mean,” Billy explained.  “I mean it’s the building you live in.”

“What?” she asked.  “It can’t be.  My building is gold.”

“Sarah, it’s your building.  Trust me.  Didn’t you notice that it was your address?” he asked.   “Even the dress shop downstairs was in the picture.”

“I didn’t notice it.  I didn’t have a chance.  You told me to come down here before I could get a good look at it,” she told him.

“Your address is four-sixty,” Billy reminded her.  “It is the same as the address in the picture.  It’s obvious that the building has been painted since the photo was taken.  Did you ever speak to the owner of the building?”

“Never.  I got it through a rental agency.  Remember I told you that before?” Sarah asked.

“I guess you did mention that.  I forgot,” Billy admitted.  “Sarah, don’t you get it?  The reason that Jessie came to you in your dreams had nothing to do with me.  You said yourself that the man is in the burgundy building.  Who lives upstairs?”

“I don’t know.  I’ve never seen anyone and I barely hear any footsteps because I’ve usually got the door open to the street.  I hear the music most of the time when I’m home.  It helps drown out the quiet,” she replied.