Ghost Times Two Read online

I laughed.

  Megan pressed her eyes together for an instant, opened them to stare stonily at the—to her—empty chair. “Hilarious.”

  “Begone, James.” If I sounded Shakespearean, I simply couldn’t resist.

  “On my way. Tomorrow I’ll be at the office.”

  Megan looked startled, lifted a hand to her head.

  As he departed, I was sure Jimmy had gently stroked a shining swath of dark curls.

  Silence.

  I was sure Jimmy had left. I became visible. I opted for casual comfort, a keyhole tie sweater in a pale green, white slacks, and lime leather flats. “He’s gone.”

  Smoky gray eyes studied me. “How do you know?”

  “Jimmy doesn’t want you to be unhappy.”

  A tiny smile curved her lips. “Jimmy really is—” A pause. “—was kind, a real softy beneath his brash poke-it-and-see-if-it-bites exterior. I know he wanted me to be happy. With him. He doesn’t want me to be happy with Blaine.”

  “That’s why I’m here.” She needed reassurance. “I meant what I said. I’ll leave in a moment. But first, let me congratulate you. Smith and Wynn, attorneys-at-law.”

  It was like watching lowering purple clouds transform to blue skies. For an instant, I saw Megan as she should be, eyes shining, her face eager.

  Her voice was soft. “It will be wonderful. I can get up in the mornings and be excited again, instead of dreading each day. Although I really should turn Blaine down.”

  “You want the job. You want to be happy. Why should you turn him down?”

  “Money.” She spoke as if the word were heavy as a boulder.

  I was surprised and disappointed. I thought it very likely she’d earn more in an established firm, but I wouldn’t have pegged her as a woman who put money above everything.

  “I see.”

  “Do you? You reek with disapproval. I owe forty-eight thousand four hundred and six dollars and thirty-three cents. That’s my debt out of law school. That’s why I was ecstatic when I got the job with Layton, Graham, Morse and Morse, the best law firm in Adelaide. Brewster Layton was a good friend of my uncle’s. I interviewed with Brewster and he hired me on the spot, an associate at seventy-two thousand a year. I can’t tell you how happy I was.” There was no trace of happiness in her grim expression.

  “What went wrong?”

  “Mr. Layton—I’m supposed to call him Brewster—I always admired him. He’s tall and thin and scholarly-looking with a goatee, a widower. He’s had a sad life. His wife died from cancer a couple of years ago and then his daughter was diagnosed with congestive heart failure. Julie died this spring. He’s been pretty withdrawn ever since I came to work. I thought he was the lead partner. That’s what I always understood. But he almost never comes out of his office. When he does, he looks like the Hounds of Hell—”

  She gave me a quick look.

  I nodded, quite familiar in myth and poetry with the supernatural beasts with glowing red eyes and matted black fur.

  “—are after him. I thought I’d be working for him. Instead I work for Doug Graham.” There was no pleasure in her voice.

  “And?” I prompted.

  “A big guy. Maybe six foot three. Thick blond hair, blue eyes, good-looking. Played football. Makes a room seem small. Big laugh, big smile, but his eyes aren’t smiling. He can definitely turn on the charm. He massages clients with phone calls, e-mail updates, texts over the weekend. But I do most of the work while he’s out on the golf course. A bully in depositions. He’s made a lot of money. He lives in one of those fancy houses with copper spires, brick, stone, stucco, and anything else the architect can think to throw in. When I took the job, I didn’t know I’d end up as his minion. Megan, I need an extra woman at dinner, show up at seven, Megan, drop off the car for an oil change, Megan, take a run up to Victoria’s Secret and get a red teddy in a small. You get the picture. And I thought I was trapped.”

  “A red—oh, my dear.” I was appalled.

  She shot me another quick glance and this time she was amused. “My honor is unsullied, if that’s your concern. I don’t know who the teddy was for. He has an ex-wife, and I doubt it was for her. But he’s everything my uncle taught me to despise in a certain kind of lawyer, more interested in big fees than honest work, padding his hours, always ready to cut corners.”

  “Why have you stayed?”

  “How do you think it looks for someone fresh out of law school to join a firm and leave in a few months? It looks unsteady, unreliable. Worse, it looks like there’s something wrong with me. Doug Graham’s a big deal in Adelaide, bonhomie all around town, has clients stacked up in the waiting room. I can’t go around saying he’s a jerk and maybe half-crooked. It’s a shame, because Mr. Layton and Ginny and Carl Morse are good, honest lawyers. Besides, I can’t prove anything on Doug. He’s too smart for that. But there have been little things, and I really don’t trust him. I thought I’d stick it out for a year, then look for a job. I had top grades. I could have gone with one of the big firms in Oklahoma City or Tulsa but I wanted to come home. Jimmy and I had been dating off and on, and I didn’t know, hadn’t thought it through. We had a wonderful spring semester together in Italy, at the campus in Arezzo. We’d dance in the moonlight to the mandolins. But we’re—we were so different. My friends said he was a wild man. I knew they were right. He was—maybe he still is—wild and crazy. Always up for a dare, skiing, rock climbing, river rafting. When I got the call, I wasn’t surprised, Jimmy gone in the rapids. But I was here and I thought I was stuck, but now”—suddenly she looked young and happy and eager—“now I can leave the firm. I’ll give notice tomorrow. I have to finish up anything I was working on, but I can do that in a month. Of course, I’ll probably be in debt forever. There won’t be much money, just Blaine and me. But I can be happy again. And”—she reached out, touched my arm—“you’re here to take care of Jimmy. Everything’s going to be wonderful. Tomorrow I give notice. Tomorrow everything gets better.” She looked at me intently. “What’s your plan for Jimmy?”

  “I’ll have more to report tomorrow.” It’s lonely when you are on the field of battle and have no clue, no map, no weapon, no strategy. “Tomorrow,” I said profoundly if ambiguously, “is a new day. Sleep well.” I disappeared.

  I hoped Wiggins was pleased. . . . Oh, likely not pleased that I’d appeared, but perhaps he understood I meant well and had successfully encouraged Megan. I felt that I’d bought a bit of time. She didn’t expect a solution to Jimmy’s presence before tomorrow.

  I took the opportunity to make brief visits to places dear to me. Besides, it distracted me from the worry that was like a burr in a sock. How in the world was I going to persuade Jimmy to say good-bye?

  I dropped in on my daughter, Dil. She was studying her checkbook at the kitchen table. She called out to her husband in the living room, “What do I do when the statement shows three thousand less than I have in the register?” A long-suffering voice replied gloomily, “I suggest a calculator, aspirin, and prayer.” “You sound like my dad. He always told Mom, Please don’t subtract.” Dil’s nose wrinkled. “That’s funny. It’s like Mom’s here. I can smell gardenia. She loved gardenias. Once when she’d really screwed up the checkbook, she distracted Dad by doing a cancan through the kitchen.”

  As Mama always told me, “If you make a man laugh, all will be well.”

  Laughter and chatter rose on the summer night air on the terrace by a swimming pool. Shaded lamps illuminated small groups. My son, Rob, slipped his arm around his wife, looked down with a happy face. “Everyone’s having fun, aren’t they?” “We give great parties,” she replied, not smugly but confidently. “Just like your folks did.” I blew her an unseen kiss.

  I wafted here and there in Adelaide, ending up in a comfortable room at Rose Bower, the mansion owned by the college and used to house important guests. I knew I could always count on
finding an unoccupied room.

  I selected a stately room with a canopied bed and a chaise longue. I appeared in a short white nightie. Soon I was comfortably settled in bed, lights off, but my gaze wide and staring. I could avoid the truth no longer. I hadn’t an inkling how to propel Jimmy Heavenward.

  Chapter 3

  Not even country smoked ham, fried eggs, and grits at Lulu’s improved my mood. I gave a worried glance at the mirror. I looked fine, red curls fresh, green eyes clear, freckled face youthful. Twenty-seven is such a good year. But the Count of Monte Cristo had nothing on me when it came to feeling trapped. I couldn’t bribe Jimmy. I couldn’t coerce Jimmy. I took a last sip of coffee.

  In her small modest apartment, Megan no doubt was eager to start her day, confident she would soon be free of a disappointing job and free also of Jimmy’s attentions. I glanced at the clock on the wall. A quarter to nine. Jimmy was probably at the law firm ensconced in her office.

  Ready or not, it behooved me to be on hand. Perhaps inspiration would strike en route. I paid for breakfast, walked unobtrusively to the ladies’ room. Inside, I took a last admiring glance at a sedate but stylish short-sleeve navy matte jersey dress with a V-neck, natural waist, and slightly flared skirt. I fluffed my hair and disappeared.

  The law firm of Layton, Graham, Morse and Morse occupied the first floor of a redbrick building on the corner of Third and Comanche.

  The waiting area was well-appointed, two brown leather sofas and several deep, comfortable easy chairs. An elderly woman in a violet print dress was bolt upright in an easy chair, fingers gripping the straps to her leather purse. A walker sat squarely in front of her. A slender young man in a yellow polo, jeans, and sneakers, his hands laced behind him, stared out a window, his back to the room. A dark red Persian rug added a dash of elegance.

  The receptionist, a motherly woman in her late sixties with Mary Worth white hair, a plump face, bright blue eyes, and a rosebud mouth, sat behind a metal desk. A nameplate identified her as Louise Raymond. She took a dainty bite of a buttery croissant as she stared at her computer screen, flicked a crumb from a ruffled white blouse.

  I strolled down a long hallway. Bronze nameplates were on each door. I passed the offices of Carl Morse and Virginia Morse. Megan’s name was on the third door. Three desks sat in open alcoves on the other side of the hall. Another desk was tucked in an alcove between Megan’s office and a conference room. Desks in the alcoves were occupied. I noted nameplates. Sharon King was likely in her mid-thirties, light brown hair, delicate features. Wide-set, dark brown eyes were her most striking feature. She was conservatively dressed, a striped long-sleeve blouse, a midcalf skirt, modest white pumps. Anita Davis looked thrown together, an untidy mane of chestnut curls, no makeup, a baggy brown knit blouse with a snag on one shoulder. At the third desk, Geraldine Jackson was at the other extreme, masses of dyed blonde hair, lots of eye makeup, blazing lip gloss, huge hoop earrings, a carnelian necklace. A too-tight red and white striped rayon blouse emphasized voluptuous curves. Her white linen trousers were stylish. She was the kind of woman Bobby Mac described as a pistol. In the alcove across the hall, a sharp-featured young woman with jagged bangs and short black hair hummed as she separated stapled sheets of paper in different stacks. Her lacy white blouse was demure. Her nameplate was larger: Nancy Murray, Paralegal.

  At the end of the corridor on the left, gold letters on a mahogany nameplate read: Doug Graham. A corner office.

  I passed through the closed door of Graham’s office. I looked about and raised an eyebrow. Perhaps a little grandiose for a small-town lawyer? I circled around an eighteenth-century baroque desk with cabriole legs, which had likely belonged to a nobleman or a prince of the church. Walnut parquetry veneer decorated the serpentine front. The green leather desk pad was embossed with a gold design. I moved behind the desk and noted the central frieze drawer and two drawers on either side with ornate cast-bronze foliate handles.

  Opposite the desk was a Victorian red-buttoned soft leather sofa. A silver tea tray sat on a rosewood-inlaid coffee table. In one corner of the spacious room, a six-foot palm flourished in a ceramic pottery stand. Matching Windsor chairs sat at angles to the desk. Gold damask drapes framed three windows. One wall was dominated by an oil painting, clearly an original, of a horse galloping on a trail, bunched muscles straining.

  I wondered who decorated the office. Was it the product of a middle-aged lawyer’s perusal of Architectural Digest, his wife—or ex-wife’s—fancy, or a cynical interior decorator? All the surface of the desk lacked was a Borgia ring on one corner. There were no papers or folders scattered about. Burnished oak in- and out-boxes held some papers. A heavy silver frame on one corner of the desk contained the photograph of a striking woman, smooth golden hair that drooped artfully to one side, a cool, straight gaze from quizzical blue eyes, chiseled features, lips curved in a slightly mocking smile. I recognized a particular kind of woman: wealthy, privileged, comfortably superior, always expecting deference.

  I opened the center drawer. Heavy silver letter opener, tin of breath mints, calculator, assorted pens, small leather address book. A plush red velvet ring case nestled at one side. I picked up the case, lifted the lid. In a shaft of summer sunlight through the east window, a huge multifaceted diamond glittered bright as a piercing reflection from a snowcap. Magnificent. Breathtaking. To whom did it belong? I supposed the answer was easy. The ring was in Doug Graham’s desk drawer. I slowly closed the lid, replaced the velvet case. For whom was the ring intended?

  I carried a memory of the stone’s beauty with me as I passed through the door into the hall. The opposite office belonged to Brewster Layton. It figured that the law firm’s partners occupied the largest offices. I passed through the door and was surprised. The contrast was dramatic. There were no expensive furnishings here. A maple desk, an undistinguished couch upholstered in a subdued green and black plaid, two serviceable wooden chairs with blue vinyl seats.

  The door opened.

  I recognized Brewster Layton from Megan’s description, perhaps a little over six feet tall, close-cropped gray hair, sharp features, a neatly trimmed goatee. He closed the door, leaned back against the panel as if gathering strength. Knowing himself to be unobserved, there was no effort to school his expression. Megan felt like he was pursued by the Hounds of Hell. That suggested hot pursuit by horrors. To me, he looked like a very angry man, a man consumed by a cold, hard rage, a man pushed beyond endurance.

  The telephone rang.

  He took a breath, crossed the room, picked up the receiver. “Brewster Layton.” His voice was level, uninflected. “I’ll be right there.” He hung up, reformed his face, looked tired but contained, businesslike.

  I followed him into the hall and to the reception area.

  The receptionist smiled at the elderly woman. “Here’s Mr. Layton.”

  The woman gripped the handles of her walker and eased to her feet. “Brewster, I’ve been looking at the cards. They couldn’t have spoken more clearly. Trouble. Rash. The number twenty-nine.” A portentous pause and meaningful stare. “Janet turns twenty-nine next week! I want to redo that codicil to my will. . . .”

  They were in the hall, she pushing her walker, he at her elbow. His deep voice was soothing. “Winnie, perhaps we should consider the tax aspects—”

  The untidy secretary was holding letters and large envelopes in one hand. “Looks like Mrs. Kellogg’s redoing her will again.”

  The receptionist’s smile was kindly. “That woman finds all kinds of trouble in her cards. She’s lucky Mr. Layton takes good care of her. He’ll spend an hour and she’ll come out and the will won’t be changed but she’ll be much happier.”

  Anita Davis stared down the hall, her plump face resentful. “She doesn’t know trouble. She looks at cards and thinks she knows trouble.”

  The receptionist said diffidently, “A bad night?”

  A
nita pressed her lips together, nodded. Her face was slack with misery.

  “I’m sorry.” The older woman’s voice was kind.

  “Thanks, Lou.” Anita took a steadying breath. “I’d better sort the mail.” She moved down the hallway, slow steps suggesting fatigue.

  The front door opened. Megan hurried inside. She was lovely in a lemon cotton piqué knit dress. A white knit shoulder bag swung as she walked. Her young face radiated happiness. “Hi, Lou. I’m running late this morning.” Likely as a young law associate she was usually at her desk by eight a.m. I wondered if she’d taken time this morning to drive by the frame house Blaine Smith had remodeled for offices. Her eyes were shining. “Has Mr. Graham arrived yet?”

  “He just went to his office.” The receptionist looked toward the young man at the window. “Keith Porter’s waiting to see him.”

  Megan nodded. “Please let me know when Mr. Graham is free.”

  The receptionist smiled. “I will.”

  Megan walked briskly down the hall. She called out pleasant good-mornings. Sharon gave her an abstracted nod. Geraldine lifted a beringed hand in a salute. Nancy chirped, “I’ll have that deed ready this afternoon.”

  Megan stopped at Anita Davis’s desk. “Hey, Anita, how’s Bridget feeling?”

  Anita looked up. Tears welled in her eyes.

  Megan bent forward, said softly, “Do you need to go home?”

  “I better not. Mr. Graham called there yesterday. I answered because I thought it might be the doctor. He wanted to know what I was doing at home. I told him I’d gone out to run an errand for you and it was near so I just dropped by for a minute. He said he’d talk to me today. He hung up on me.” Her voice was high and scared.

  Megan looked somber. “I’ll talk to him.”

  Anita’s eyes flared. “That might make it worse. I’ll promise I won’t ever do it again. I’ll promise anything. I’ll work late for a month. But I can’t lose the insurance. It covers this doctor. I’ve checked it out. If I quit, if we tried to make it on what I’ve saved, that government insurance won’t cover this specialist, and he’s her only hope.”