Give Up the Ghost Read online

  “He’s not abusive,” I say, not sure why I’m focusing on TB, but I need to build up to Dwayne and her fish stick husband haunting me. “You saw him in there. He’s very protective.”

  Maribelle sighs and finally looks me straight in the eyes. “So was my husband.”

  I square my shoulders. “He’s not the enemy. He’s the reason I’m still alive.”

  Maribelle leans back against the sink and appears to be calming down, but she keeps repeating while shaking her head, “I shouldn’t have brought you here.”

  “It’s a blessing, really.” I try to take her hand again but she pulls away. “There’s a man stalking me and if he was here, we need to know. For everyone’s sake. Including the women of this town.”

  That old mistrust that’s her constant friend shines through the gaze she’s sending me. It’s now or never, I think.

  “I’m a medium, Maribelle.”

  So far, so good. She’s not called the authorities yet.

  “There’s a man who preys on people like me. If I solve the mystery of the people I’m seeing, the ghosts, they transition into this beautiful light. But, what this man wants is to steal the souls of those who are transitioning.”

  Her countenance doesn’t change but she’s not storming out either, so I continue.

  “I’m a SCANC.”

  Her eyes narrow and she folds her arms across her chest. I forget the stupid acronym means something else.

  “It’s not what you think. SCANC stands for….”

  “I know what it stands for.”

  “You do?”

  She relaxes a bit. “When did this happen?”

  I’m still not convinced she knows what I’m talking about. “Hurricane Katrina.”

  “Is this a water thing?”

  I nod.

  “Kinda weird that you would pick a houseboat on a lake to call home.”

  “That has occurred to me.”

  We stand for a while facing each other across the kitchen, letting all the revelations sink in. I’m stunned that she understands.

  “So, this man…,” she begins.

  “His name is Dwayne Garrett.”

  “…is looking for you to steal the souls of people?”

  It sounds so absurd I’m sure Maribelle doesn’t believe me, but the look she’s sending is not as distrustful as I would imagine. Again, I figure it’s time to lay the cards on the table. If we had one.

  “He’s a descendant of….” I still can’t bring myself to say it.

  “Angels?”

  I’m shocked because finding out TB’s heritage stunned me to the core. I can’t imagine anyone else knowing.

  Even more shocking is Maribelle smiling.

  “I’m a witch, Vi. Have been for a long time. I’m well-versed in the supernatural.”

  My mouth drops open. Not what I was expecting.

  “But if this Dwayne is a descendant…,” she begins.

  “Of Lucifer.”

  Her eyebrows rise. “Holy shit.”

  “Yeah.”

  “And he’s after you?”

  “Long story.”

  I relate how I met Dwayne at the national SCANC convention in New Orleans last fall, how we ended up on a press trip together down the Natchez Trace and how, when I refused to help him in his nefarious deeds, he tried to kill me.

  “TB saved me,” I add, leaving out his angelic powers. “But Dwayne escaped police. And that’s why the FBI came to my house the other day, because Dwayne’s on the loose. I saw him yesterday on the train to Chattanooga.”

  “Hence the protection stones,” Maribelle adds.

  “Yes.”

  After a few moments of contemplation, I still can’t fathom if Maribelle believes me or not, even if she is a witch.

  “Do you believe me?”

  She smiles but it’s a half-hearted one. “Not totally sure. Give me time.”

  “Well, that’s something we may not have.” I touch her elbow. “There’s something else.”

  She almost laughs. “More than devils, angels and SCANCS?”

  I swallow. Hard. “I’m seeing your husband.”

  We’re back to trust issues for she steps backwards, crosses her arms.

  “I realized it this afternoon when I saw your wedding photo.”

  She shakes her head. “Now, you’re pushing things.”

  “I saw him in Wisconsin, then again in the woods by my house. He’s following me. He said his death was no accident.” Maribelle moves to leave but I grab her shirt sleeve as she passes me. “He said to ask ‘MB.’”

  This stops her cold. I’m staring at her back, but I can tell she’s relenting. Finally, after what seems like an eternity, she turns, her expression troubled.

  “He’s the only one who ever called me that.”

  Now, it’s my turn to lean back on the sink. “Caroline Montclair said it too.”

  “Caroline’s a ghost?”

  I rub my eyes because saying all this out loud makes me skeptical.

  “I’m channeling Caroline Montclair from Emma Harrington’s quilt. Or maybe because I was at the brown spot in town. I don’t know. But she keeps telling me to ‘Ask MB.’ And so does Gorton.”

  Maribelle shakes her head in frustration. “Who’s Gorton?”

  “Sorry, your husband looks like the man on the fish sticks box.”

  “His name is Jack Greene.”

  “Sorry.”

  Suddenly, I’m tired, weary of explaining this crazy trip I’m on, exhausted from the visions, and I have two people inside of me stealing my nutrition and energy.

  “I met Gorton — I mean Jack — in Wisconsin and he told me a man was looking for me. I saw Dwayne the next day in the Atlanta airport. He and Caroline keep telling me to ask you.”

  “Ask me what?”

  “I don’t know.” Now, it’s my turn to sound agitated.

  We hear commotion in the living room and an additional voice joining the others so we head back to the front of the house. Clayton has arrived, his large presence filling up the room, along with that delicious earthy smell. I turn to introduce Clayton to Maribelle but pause when the two gaze at each other with disdain. If this was the Middle Ages, swords would have been drawn.

  “Ginsburg,” Maribelle says tersely.

  “Greene.”

  “O-kay,” I say. “Obviously, you two know each other.”

  Maribelle’s back to being defensive, arms crossing her chest, eyes turning into little darts. I don’t buy into the negative view of witches, know that the practice of Wicca concerns tapping into the divine through nature and not hags on brooms turning young virgins into newts. But right now, Maribelle’s evil eye could kill. I wouldn’t want to be on the receiving end.

  “Why don’t we all sit down,” Clayton says, attempting a smile.

  A long stream of expletives comes flying out of Maribelle in response to that suggestion.

  “O-kay,” I say again, touching her arm, which feels like steel. “I think sitting down, some coffee….” I look at Sebastian and TB who get the message and they both happily rise and head toward the kitchen. Wish I was heading there with them.

  “I mean no harm here,” Clayton says to Maribelle. “I’m here for Vi.”

  “Then why is it that I’ve heard you reopened my husband’s case.”

  “Wait,” I say, looking from one to the other. “What?”

  Clayton’s sighs. “Can we please sit down and discuss this?”

  Maribelle looks out the front window. “Are your men out there ready to haul me off to jail again?”

  “That wasn’t us, Maribelle.”

  “Right.” The sarcasm begins. “You weren’t my enemy, just gave all kinds of evidence to the local police who read it wrong. And they hauled me off to jail.”

  I can tell Clayton’s getting tired of the conversation. He straightens, placing hands at his hips like a father finding his best tools left out in the rain.

  “Sit down, Maribelle,” h
e bellows in that daddy voice and after a few moments of resistance, Maribelle and I take a seat, Maribelle’s arms remain crossed defensively across her chest and her gaze studies something in the distance.

  Clayton joins us, those enormous legs stretched out in front. “First of all, we got a call from Touché.”

  Maribelle looks back and is about to retort, but Clayton holds out a hand. “We’re not taking his complaints seriously. We know you’re not practicing without a license.”

  More expletives from Maribelle. And I wonder, how does Clayton know this?

  “But Vi said something about a ghost….” He looks at me, eyes narrowed.

  “I told her who I was,” I say.

  “She mentioned that a man she’s seeing in the woods near her house was wearing an earring in his right ear.”

  For the first time since spotting Clayton, Maribelle releases her arms. I’m not sure if she’s surprised at the news of her husband’s earring or that Clayton believes in ghosts and me seeing them.

  “What about it?” she asks.

  “Police found one matching that description on the dock and chalked it up to being a woman’s. That, and what Vi said about him telling her it wasn’t an accident made us think again about the case.”

  Maribelle leans forward, elbows on her knees. “I told you it wasn’t an accident. The man was born on the water. He was half fish.”

  Clayton shakes his head. “That doesn’t mean he couldn’t have hit his head somehow, fell into the water.”

  “So hard it knocked his earring off?”

  “Maybe.”

  She’s not buying it. “Something happened, I just know it.”

  “Hell, he could have slipped.”

  “But there was no blood on the dock. There would have been if he had hit his head.”

  “It rained that night, Maribelle.”

  The two begin arguing while a buzzing starts at the base of my skull. I sense it sometimes when ghosts arrive but Gorton’s nowhere to be seen. Some non-entity is here, something primal and unseen. The feeling’s similar to that sensation I got at the brown patch of grass but on the polar opposite of the spectrum. This one feels positive. This one feels safe.

  When Aunt Mimi instructed me in the ways of the Craft, she said to let go and let the universe and God show me the way. If messages come, let them out. So, I do.

  “He didn’t slip, he didn’t hit his head,” I say. “Someone killed him from behind.”

  Clayton and Maribelle stop their bantering and look my way just as Sebastian arrives with coffee and TB with five cups, all different shapes and decorations. One reads, “I survived Bourbon Street” and I want to laugh, but every person is staring at me, waiting for some explanation.

  Finally, I shrug. “It just came to me.”

  Sebastian sends me a “Get real” look, Maribelle rubs her eyes in frustration, and TB asks if anyone wants sugar and faux cream.

  “All I could find was the powdered stuff.”

  I send my husband an appreciative smile but Clayton’s hard stare is like a laser burning a hole in my head. I know, too many similes. My journalism professor at LSU would have me hog-tied me for that. Wait, is that another one? Think that’s a personification.

  “Where did that come to you?” Clayton finally asks, bringing me back.

  I shrug again because whatever floated into my dang ADHD brain got sidetracked and is long gone. Wish Aunt Mimi was here. She offered me a crash course in Witchcraft on a road trip last fall, including a sexy moon ritual that got me pregnant, but what I really need is a doctorate program and Adderall.

  Everyone’s gazing at me for answers and I sink down in my chair. “Since when does the universe give you straight answers?” I plead.

  Suddenly, two unmarked black cars pull into the driveway and everyone’s attention turns to the front windows.

  Clayton rises. “That’ll be my associates.” To the rest of us of he adds, “Don’t move. We need to scour the place.”

  As Clayton heads out the door, I hear Maribelle mutter, “I should never have brought you here.”

  * * *

  It takes hours to dust the place for fingerprints while members of the Emma Harrington Foundation Board insist the FBI not pass on information about the women staying here if their fingerprints match a missing person case. Clayton assures them he will use good judgment and extreme care but doesn’t go so far as admitting complete concealment. The women know it and they send me angry gazes. I know they wish we had never arrived. Right now, I do too.

  I lean against TB and put my head on his shoulder. I’m dead tired and really need a nap. “Any chance we can go back to New Orleans?”

  He looks down at me. “Are you serious? I thought you loved it here.”

  I straighten, smooth down my shirt. “I do, but look at what’s happened since we moved here. And now everyone hates us.”

  TB glances at the women arguing with the FBI, at Maribelle sitting in a corner with her head in her hands. “I don’t think that’s true.”

  At first, I’m sure TB’s joking but when I study him harder I realize he’s being his usual naïve self, gazing at life through an innocent’s eyes. For the first time since meeting Dwayne and hearing his grim threats, I’m worried about my husband, scared he can’t see danger coming no matter what DNA is running through his cells.

  I think back on Natchez and how TB arrived in the nick of time to save me, instinctively knew where I was and that I was in danger. But does he sense that about himself? Will Dwayne sneak up on him and push him off a mountainside like he threatened on the train? Can a descendant do that to another? Or more specifically, does a Lucifer trump a Michael?

  “I could go home and work until the baby comes,” I offer, thinking that if I weren’t around, TB would be safe.

  He pulls back, eyes enlarged. “You’d leave me?”

  I swallow hard. “I’m scared for you, sweetheart. Scared what Dwayne might do.”

  A big smile emerges that warms my heart. “He can’t harm me.”

  “He’s going to try.”

  TB feels it too, that doubt of confidence. After all, Dwayne walked on to a train right in the middle of the morning without anyone being the wiser. He’s been living among us with the FBI in sight. And when I think of Natchez….

  “He was arrested and thrown into jail, TB. And somehow he disappeared.”

  TB envelopes me into a tight hug, all the while insisting he’s got the upper hand.

  “The FBI has infiltrated the Cove,” he says. “If Dwayne arrives and tries to hurt us, they would be here to nail him. And now we have Sebastian, an extra warrior in our corner.”

  “He’s dangerous with a spatula,” I add, sarcasm my old friend.

  I look over at my brother who’s trying to console Maribelle. I was so hopeful at the beginning of this lovely day, felt like a normal life was finally on the horizon. Sebastian would move here and build a restaurant that would turn the culinary world on its head. Maribelle would find love again and with our help renew her license to practice midwifery. TB would graduate with a library degree and head to graduate school, unless he wanted to test the working waters first. I’d continue my travel writing career while living on a houseboat raising twins.

  And all those ghosts?

  “I think I want out,” I whisper.

  “What?” TB asks.

  “It would solve everything.”

  Clayton heads our way after his heated discussion with the women, looking like a hound dog left out in the rain.

  “Again with the similes!”

  TB and Clayton both look my way.

  “What?” TB asks.

  Did I say that out loud? What can I say, I’m exhausted. “I need a nap.”

  “I’ll get you home soon,” Clayton assures us. “In fact, we’re about ready to wrap things up here.”

  “Great,” TB answers and I can tell he’s tired too.

  “There wasn’t much to go on,” Clayton explains.
“Lots of fingerprints but there are so many people coming and going through the main house. And practically nothing of real use in the back shed. Even the footprints were marred. All we have are a few fingerprints out back but again, so many people have used these houses.”

  “What about the clothes?” I ask.

  Clayton sighs. “Tells us he was here. Might have his DNA. Nothing useful.”

  “Odd that Dwayne would leave them behind.”

  “I think he wanted us to find them.”

  I’ve been thinking the same thing. Dwayne would never be that sloppy. And he left clothes behind in Lithia Springs. Is this some message? Is he making sure we all know he’s here, can’t be found, and he’ll create chaos if I don’t give him what he wants?

  “So, we know he came here but so does the FBI,” TB says. “I don’t get it.”

  Clayton glances at the angry women. Dwayne’s playing with us, and right now he’s winning. I could tell by the quiet, intense conversations Clayton shared with his agents all afternoon that Dwayne came and went under their watchful eyes, that he lived here among us and the sanctuary of women and no one was the wiser.

  Suddenly, I’m so tired I’m not sure my legs will support the rest of me. Plus, I’m scared and want nothing more than to crawl inside the protection of my crystal circle and close my eyes to this madness.

  “Can we go home now?” I ask.

  Clayton ponders this and I’m thinking the answer is no, but he nods his head toward the yard and Clayton, TB and I leave the house, closing the front door behind us. Once we get there, I realize three of the Foundation women have gathered at one end of the driveway, huddled in a heated discussion. One of them looks my way and the hairs on my arms stand up. I pull my sweater close across my chest.

  “There’s something you should know,” Clayton says softly. The women are too far away to hear us, but he pulls us close anyway. “It’s about Maribelle.”

  I shiver and wonder if it’s bad news coming or the fact that the sun’s setting and a cold dampness has permeated the woods.

  “When her husband’s body was found, we searched the motel property, the neighboring woods, even your houseboat.”

  Oh no, I’m thinking, please don’t say you found evidence in our home.

  “We never found anything related to the murder weapon — if he was murdered.”