Ghost Walk (11 page)

“Grace.” 
Jamie’s voice broke through her escalating panic and she automatically looked
his way.  He caught hold of her eyes and didn’t let go.  “It will be alright.” 
He said quietly.  “I promise you, I’ll keep you safe.”

Drat.

Grace
moved.  Without making the conscious decision to take even a single step, she
was suddenly halfway across the room.  She made it to the doorway and tied to
remember how to breathe.  So far so good.  Now how was she going to do the rest
of this?  “Go check if anyone is coming down the hall.”  She got out
frantically.  “I don’t want to get caught.”

Jamie
rolled his eyes like she was being silly.  “I used to make my living sneaking
about the seven seas, you know.  And a ship is a great deal harder to hide than
a wee girl.  I think I know how to…”

“Just
go do it!”

Jamie
held up his hands in surrender.  (God, he had beautiful hands.)  “Fine.”  He
strolled his invisible self into the hallway and made a production of looking
around.  “You see?  No constables are coming to arrest you.  I told you, I will
let nothing happen to you.”

Peaceful
green cornfields.

Peaceful
green cornfields.

Peaceful
green cornfields.

Grace
took a deep breath and skirted into the hall.  She ducked under the velvet
ropes cordoning off the steps and hurried up the steps two at a time.  It only
took five seconds, but by the time she reached the upper landing, she was
pretty sure she was having a heart attack from panic.  No one had seen her.  Or
at least no alarms and sirens were blaring.  That was good news.  Right?

God,
she was losing her mind.

How
in the world had he convinced her to do that?  Why had she felt safe enough to
try?  Grace never felt safe with
anyone
, but now she was willing to
trust an adrenaline junkie ghost?  Maybe she was sick.  She paused in the
shadows to take her pulse, already expecting the worse.  See?  Her heart was
going too fast.  First she’d keel over of a coronary and
then
she’d get
tossed in a prison cell, all because of Jamie.

The
oblivious moron wore an encouraging grin.  “You’ve done it!  And faster than I
ever expected, given your natural pessimism.  I knew you had it in ya!  It can
be quite fun to break the rules, when you give it a go.”

Satisfied
she wasn’t having a heart attack (yet), Grace focused on the idiot ruining her
life.  “This is not fun, Jamie.”  She hissed.  “I just want to get it over with
as quickly as possible, so I can go home and take a Valium.”

He
made a tsk sound.  “You’ve got to overcome your weak spirit, lass.  It’s
stifling all your potential.  There’s nothing wrong with being a bit of an odd-duck. 
Live your truth.”

Grace
rolled her eyes.  He did love his pop-psych crap.  She seriously needed to call
her cousin Blessing for an anti-ghost spell.

…Or
maybe not.  The last spell Blessing cast gave Grace green hair for three
weeks.  Spells
always
went wrong.  They were the worst kind of magic, in
her opinion.  Totally unpredictable.  She’d probably just end up with
two
Jamies
bitching at her.

“I’m
not
weak spirited or an odd-duck.”  Grace scowled at him.  “I just like
to follow the speed limit, pay my taxes on time, and obey the law.  That’s
being a responsible adult.”

“It’s
being a smashingly dull adult.”

“At
least no one’s lynched me, yet.”  Grace headed down the upstairs corridor.  “Is
her room this way?”

“Aye,
last one on the left.”  Jamie followed along behind her, looking irritated.  “I
wasn’t lynched for anything I
did
, ya know.  My having a bit of fun with
Lucinda and dancing at a ball didn’t kill those girls.  Hardly fair to blame me
for the town being so bloody stupid.”

“You
were a convenient scapegoat, given your reputation.”  She glanced up at him.  “I
don’t suppose you have an alibi for any of the disappearances?”

“I
was getting drunk at The Raven when Lucinda disappeared.  I was there late into
the night and then I was passed out in my cabin on the
Sea Serpent
.”

“None
of your men could verify that.”

“Because
they were drunk, too!  They were bloody sailors!”

Grace
rolled her eyes again.  “What about when the other girls went missing?”

“How
the hell should I know where I was back then?  It’s damnably hard to recall all
the details, when I’m not even sure exactly
when
they vanished.”

“Well,
the ‘details’ mean the difference between solving this case or not, so I
suggest you try to regain your memory.”  She arched a brow, just to needle him. 
“Unless you have a
reason
for your amnesia.  The murders stopped after
you died, after all.  Gregory Maxwell’s book tells us that no other girl’s
disappeared after you were gone.  The Hero of Yorktown found that very
coincidental.”

Jamie’s
expression darkened.  “Gregory Maxwell was
not
the sodding Hero of
Yorktown and I did
not
kill anyone, Grace.”

“The
first serial killings in America all happen within a week of each other.”  She
pointed out, warming to her topic.  “That’s the behavior of a perpetrator who’s
gotten a taste for it.  Someone who’s going to keeping going and escalating,
until he’s caught.”  She paused.  “Then you’re hanged and there were no more
killings.”

“Except
I. Didn’t. Bloody.
Do it
.”  Each word was bit off like bullet.  “What
can I say to make you believe that?”

“I
do
believe it.”  Really, she did.  She’d met killers and this man wasn’t
one of them.  “It’s just hard to separate these crimes from seeing…”  Grace trailed
off and shook her head.  “Never mind.  Forget it.”

Jamie
didn’t look ready to forget it.  “Separate them from seeing what?”

“Bad
things.”  Anyone with half a brain would’ve heard the finality of those words.

Jamie
frowned, not pleased with her refusal to confide in him.  Centuries of
isolation had obviously left him desperate for some kind of human connection
and she was his only option.  The man wanted to know everything about her.  If
he was corporeal, he’d no doubt be reading her diary and searching through her
underwear drawer.  “You know, there’s no harm in telling me your secrets.  I’m
the very best friend you have.”

“You’ve
got
to be kidding me.”

“It’s
true!  You are more important to me than anyone else, alive or dead.  It would
be safe to need me back, just a bit.  I wouldn’t mind, a’tall.”  He paused and
tacked on with a suspicious amount of innocence: “I truly could be a grand
partner.”

“You’re
not
my Partner, Jamie.”  He couldn’t be.  “You don’t even understand
what it really means.”  The Riveras were the ones who gave the word all its
capitalized subtext.  It was their family shorthand for the best kind of magic. 
Even Grace respected Partners and she worked hard to distance herself from the supernatural.

“Well,
explain it then!  What’s the point of keeping things from me?  It’s not as if I
can share your confidences with anybody else, is it?”

“Not
everyone likes to blurt out every thought in their head.”

“Usually,
that’s only because they’re hiding something.”

Grace
pointedly ignored that, because there was nothing to say.  She reached
Lucinda’s door and pushed it open with a bit more force than necessary.

The
bedroom was being used as storage, with piles of cardboard boxes and random
furniture.  Grace hoped they weren’t planning to throw out any of the old
knickknacks that were haphazardly arranged on every surface.  A little glue and
paint and most of them could be saved.  She hated to see old things just tossed
away, like they’d never meant anything to anyone.  Like they had no purpose,
just because they’d gotten a few dings.

Everything
deserved a second chance at life.

Jamie
looked around, an amazed expression on his face.  “It looks so different.”  He
whispered.

Grace
cleared her throat.  “So this is the last place Lucinda Ann Wentworth was seen. 
Sunday, June 28
^th
, 1789.”  She began, like it was any other crime
scene.  “Did you meet with her at all that day?”

“Aye. 
I saw her in the morning, while the rest of the household was at church.  She
pleaded a headache and begged off.  I stopped by to pay my respects and inquire
after her well-being.”

Grace
sifted through that garbage.  “She played sick, so you could sneak in and have
sex?”

He
shot her a sideways look, amused by her bluntness.  “Aye.”

“What
time did you leave?”

“Just
before ten.  It was the last I ever saw her.”

“You’re
sure?”

“I
was nearly caught pant-less by her sister Eugenia, so I recall it well.  The
pinched-lipped little thing came back early and I had to hide in the kitchen, with
only a flour sack to cover me.”  He made a face.  “Believe me, that part sticks
in my mind.”

Despite
herself, Grace’s mouth twitched upward.  “You’re completely blowing my image of
staid and respectable Olde Harrisonburg, I hope you know that.”

Jamie
shrugged unrepentant.  “Lucinda had a laugh over my predicament, too.  She finally
tossed me my clothes out the window and I saw her wave goodbye.  The next day,
I heard she’d disappeared in the night.”

“Were
you worried?”

“Yes
and no.  At first, I wondered if she’d left with some man.  We all did. 
Eugenia heard her sneaking out, sometime after midnight.  There’d been whispers
of Lucinda seeing someone far more important than me.”

“Do
you have any idea who?”

He
shook his head.  “No, but she was conscious enough of her place in society that
she wouldn’t have settled for anything less than marriage.  Even eloping would
have been out of character for Lucinda.  She would have insisted on a large
wedding, to show off a bit.  When I considered that, I knew she hadn’t run away.” 
He paused.  “Besides, she never would’ve left all her frocks and jewelry
behind.”

“Did
she have any enemies?”

“Lucinda
had dreams to marry a rich man and move to the biggest house his money could
buy.  Have fancy balls and exclude half the town.”  He shrugged.  “Maybe she’d
pissed off a few other lasses with her flirting ways, but no one would want her
dead for it.”

“Seems
like someone did.”

Jamie’s
jaw ticked.  “I’ve always supposed it was some bastard she’d turned down. 
Figured he’d just take what she wouldn’t give.”  He looked around as if he was still
remembering the cluttered bedroom as it had once been.  “She deserved more than
being dragged away in the night.”

“Lucinda
probably never left this room alive.”

He
frowned as if that idea hadn’t occurred to him.  “What?”

“According
to Eugenia, Lucinda went to bed around nine.”  Grace set down her oversized bag
and took out her makeshift forensic kit.  She’d never thought she’d be using
any of it again, but she’d kept a lot of her tools.  “Her parents were already
asleep down the hall.  Around midnight she heard a noise that she thought was
her sister sneaking out.  In reality, it was probably someone sneaking
in
. 
The next morning Lucinda was gone and so were the bed linens, but nothing else. 
Add it altogether and it sounds like murder, not kidnapping.”

Jamie’s
head tilted.  “What makes ya think so?  We all believed someone had taken the
girls to defile them.”

“Then
he wouldn’t need the bed linens.”  Grace pointed out.  “No, the linens tell me
that there was a clean-up in here.”  She looked out the small window.  “This
room is on the second floor.”

“Aye.”

“And
no one heard the front door open.  That leaves this window as our probable
point of entry.”  She craned her neck down.  “It’s a straight drop into the
garden.  Was it like that back then, too?”

He
shrugged.  “I suppose.  I never climbed through her window, but I donea recall
a porch below.”

“Was
Lucinda sleeping with anyone but you?  This mystery man you were talking about
maybe?”

“Probably.” 
Jamie said easily.  He clearly didn’t buy into the “semi-frigid or pizza-tramp”
double standard.  “She liked to pass a good time.”

“Would
she sneak out her window to see him?”

“Scale
down the side of the house, you mean?”  He actually laughed at that idea. 
“Lord have mercy,
no
.  Lucinda wasn’t quite so agile.”

“So
that means someone came in here.”  Grace looked around.  “And it means they
left the same way.  They must have taken her body with them.”

But
why?

“Lucinda
might not have been dead.”  Jamie insisted.  “He could’ve just knocked her out
and made off with her.  Taken her someplace, while she was unconscious.”

“
Carrying
a live girl out a window is a lot more difficult than
pushing
a dead one
out the window.  It would be easier to rape her here, if that was his plan.”