Broken Promises (4 page)

“I remember walking towards a bright light and thinking, ‘Okay, wow, there is a light. I guess I’m dead,’” she said, a little flippantly.

Then her voice softened as she continued, “But then someone called my name and I stopped moving toward the light. This voice...it was like it was both inside of me and outside of me, but I could hear it clearly.”

The memory of the encounter played in her mind for a moment and she paused as she remembered. Shaking her head slightly, she continued, “Anyway, the voice said I had a choice. I could continue to the light and wait for my family to join me someday or I could go back, but things would be different.”

“Obviously you choose to come back,” Katie said.

Mary nodded. “Yes, I didn’t want to leave my family,” she explained. “I didn’t want my brother...anyone...to feel guilty about my death.”

“So, what was different?” Clifford asked.

Taking a deep breath, Mary met their eyes. “When I came back, I discovered that I could see and communicate with ghosts.”

“Ghosts?” Clifford asked, shaking his head. “Are you kidding?”

Ian saw both surprise and doubt in Clifford’s face. “It’s not uncommon for people who have had a near-death experience to come back with extra-sensory gifts,” he explained. “I’ve not only done studies about it in the UK, I’ve also experienced it myself.”

“Wait! You’re telling me you can see ghosts too?” Clifford said. “Is this some joke or are you all just plain crazy.”

He stood up, his chair scraping against the floor. “We let you watch our children,” he said, his eyes widening with sudden fear. “You didn’t tell them...you didn’t expose them to your fantasies?”

“Of course not,” Mary cried.

“Mary would have never...” Bradley began.

“They wouldn’t have to,” Katie answered calmly. “Our Maggie can see ghosts all on her own.”

Everyone stopped and stared at Katie.

“You knew?” Mary asked.

“What the hell?” Clifford asked.

“I’m sorry, Cliff,” Katie said. “I’ve known that Maggie could see things since she was little. When she was a baby, I’d catch her lying in her crib, looking around the room and laughing at things I couldn’t see. At first I just thought she was seeing angels, but as she got older and started having conversations, I suspected it might be spirits or ghosts.”

Clifford turned to Katie. “Why didn’t you tell me?” he asked.

“Well, I didn’t think it was something you’d really want to know,” she replied.

Sighing, he sat back down in his chair. “My grandmother used to tell me she could see ghosts and I always thought she was nuts,” he confessed. “I always told her there were no such things as ghosts.”

Bradley laughed softly. “Yeah, well, that’s what I thought a couple of months ago. Until I met Mary and my whole perspective changed.”

Clifford turned to Bradley. “What changed your mind?”

“Seeing a ghost for myself.”

“You actually saw one?”

Bradley nodded. “Yeah, and I thought I was going nuts.”

Clifford turned to Mary. “Is this for real? Is there a purpose to it or is it just a cool parlor trick?”

“It’s real,” Mary said, “and it’s not a trick, I promise.”

“She’s solved a number of local murder cases,” Ian said. “Ghosts don’t just appear to her, they seek her out when they have unfinished business that’s keeping them here.”

“Mary was able to solve the murder of my wife using her talents,” Bradley added. “If not for her, I still wouldn’t know what happened to Jeannine or to my daughter.”

“You have a daughter?” Katie asked.

Bradley ran his hand through his hair and sighed. “Yes, I do,” he said. “And that’s the main reason we’re here tonight.”

The television glowed in the darkened living room and emitted the voices of an evening news show host who held conservative political leanings and the noted celebrity he was interviewing. Stanley Wagner snorted as he lifted up the remote and pressed the mute button. “Who cares what that nincompoop thinks?” he grumbled, standing and making his way from the living room into the kitchen. “Why the hell does he think that just because he can act in a movie, I’m supposed to consider him an expert on politics?”

He switched on the under-the-cabinet light and pulled a saucepan out of the drawer. Placing it on his butcher-block counter, he turned to take the milk out of the refrigerator across the room. On his way, he spotted the remainders of the strawberry-rhubarb pie Rosie had brought him. A lopsided grin spread across his face.
Yeah, asking Rosie to marry me is one of the best decisions I ever made
, he thought.

Pulling the milk carton out and grabbing the pie plate, he placed them both on the counter next to the oven. He poured a generous cupful of milk into the pan and set it on a low flame on the stove. Reaching up to the cabinet above his head, he pulled down a small plate and immediately filled it with an oversized piece of pie.

“Nothing like a little snack before bed,” he said, wiping the knife with his finger and licking the filling off. “Yes, sirree, tart and sweet, just the way I like my women too.”

He reached over to the silverware drawer to pull out a fork when he caught a movement out of the corner of his eye. Something, no someone, had just moved across the hallway between his bedroom and the bathroom. Dropping the fork back into the drawer, he walked across the kitchen to the hall. He flipped on the lights and looked around. The bathroom was empty and so was the bedroom. He moved into the bedroom and checked the windows and the closet.

“I ain’t going crazy,” he muttered. “I seen something.”

Kneeling down on the floor, he checked under his bed and, except for a few dust bunnies, found it empty too. Grabbing the side of the bed to help get back up; he realized his next mistake as soon as he heard the unmistakable sizzle. He rushed out of the room back to the kitchen in time to watch the hot milk overflow onto the stovetop. Grabbing a hot pad, he picked up the pan and carried to the sink, letting it cool down while he cleaned up the mess on the stove. He picked up a roll of paper towels and started mopping up the milk when he froze and turned back to the hall.

The light had been off. The hallway had been dark. Whatever he saw had its own light source. Whatever he saw had been glowing. A chill ran down his spine and he shook it off.

“I’m a grown man,” he said loudly. “Ain’t gonna get spooked in my own home. You hear me. I ain’t going to get spooked.”

The light in the hallway turned off by itself.

Stanley took a deep breath. “Well, maybe I ain’t and maybe I am,” he whispered.

###

Rosie Pettigrew leaned forward over the bathroom sink and peered into the mirror, staring intently at her reflection. Without shifting her eyes, she reached down, picked up a plastic tube and squeezed a small amount of white cream onto her finger. She dabbed the ointment lightly into the fragile skin beneath her eyes and then patted the area until it disappeared into her skin. Glancing a little lower into the mirror, she studied what her gaping nightgown neckline revealed, looked down at the tube in her hand and shook her head. “There isn’t a tube large enough to lift and firm those,” she said with a giggle. “Oh well, Stanley didn’t fall in love with a twenty year-old, so he’d better not be expecting one.”

She put the lid back on the tube, placed it in her cosmetic drawer, flipped off the bathroom light and walked into her bedroom. Smiling, she took a moment to look around the room. Bathed in soft light from the lamp on the nightstand, the soft pink hue of the floral bedspread matched perfectly with the blush colored carpeting and curtains. Bright accent pillows of sage green, plum and periwinkle on the bed and a pale pink chaise lounge picked up the delicate flowers from the spread and made the decor more vibrant. A tall rose-colored vase stood in the corner of the room holding a bouquet of silk tiger lilies that added a delicate sophistication.

Walking over to the small vanity, she stroked the antique sterling silver brush and mirror that lay on the marble top and sighed with satisfaction. This room was everything the closet-sized bedroom she had as a child had not been. She had meticulously picked out every detail, even painting the walls herself. This was more than a bedroom, this was a statement. Rosie Pettigrew had made it. She had pulled herself up by her bootstraps and gotten out of the muck and quicksand of her childhood. She had left the feelings of worthlessness and inadequacy behind and replaced them with self-assurance and love. She glanced in the mirror and smiled. She liked herself, saggy parts and all. And that was the most important gift she’d ever given to herself. She had discarded all the unkind labels her father and those like him had placed on her. She wasn’t ugly. She wasn’t stupid. She wasn’t unlovable. She was a wonderful person, a good friend, and worthy of love and care.

“Welcome to the Rosie Pettigrew fan club,” she said, turning to the top of her dresser where a number of small picture frames stood. “Our numbers may be small, but they are growing every day.”

She was drawn to the newest one where she was in the middle of a photo with Maggie and Andy Brennan. The two children were smiling widely, their lips covered in chocolate frosting from licking the beaters. She remembered Mary insisting on taking the picture and the two children waiting until the last moment and then turning and placing chocolate kisses on either side of her face. She could almost smell the Dutch chocolate from the frosting. And she could remember the warmth from their innocent display of love.

Glancing at the other photos, she smiled at the collection of her friends; Mary, Bradley, Ian and, finally, Stanley. She took a deep breath. Stanley.

She picked up the silver frame and studied the face looking back at her. He hadn’t wanted to have his photo taken and he had declared he wasn’t going to smile. She cajoled, pleaded and bribed, but nothing seem to work. Until, finally, she simply said, “Stanley, this is important to me,” and he immediately lifted his wrinkled cheeks into the closest semblance of a smile she’d ever seen coming from him. She almost expected his face to crack from the use of those muscles that hadn’t been exercised in years.

Chuckling, she lifted the photo to her face, she gently kissed his picture. “Good night, sweetheart,” she said. “Sweet dreams.”

Gently laying the frame back on her dresser, she crossed the room and climbed into her bed. She leaned across and turned off the lamp on the nightstand, grabbed the gel-filled night mask and situated it over her eyes. Then, with a smile on her lips, she scooted beneath the covers and snuggled into her pillow.

As soon as her head hit the pillow, her closet door soundlessly opened. Slowly, first one inch, then two and soon, the door was wide open. From the depths of the closet, a dark figure floated into the room. It was as tall as a man and was hulking in size. It hovered several inches above the floor and wavered next to the closet for only a moment. In the blink of an eye, the figure swept across the room, stopping at the edge of Rosie’s bed. Slowing, it hovered next to the bed, moving around the edges, studying the resting woman.

Rosie, blinded by her mask, lifted her pillow, plumped it several times, placed it back down on the bed and snuggled back into it. The figure merely observed her, waiting patiently. Within moments, her soft rhythmic breathing confirmed she was asleep.

Rising into the air, the figure hovered inches above the sleeping woman and finally dropped down to lie beside her. Rosie moved in her sleep, inching away, but the specter followed. She shook her head. “No, leave me alone,” she moaned in her sleep.

A brittle mocking laugh echoed in the quiet room.

Rosie sat up in bed, ripping the mask off her face. Frantically she reached for her bedside lamp and, with shaking hands, turned it on. Light flooded into the room and she scanned the area wildly. Taking deep calming breaths, she realized nothing was out of place. Her room looked the same way it had just minutes ago when she had gone to sleep.

“I must have been dreaming,” she said aloud, shaking her head. “I just scared myself.”

She began to reach for her mask when she saw the closet door was open.

“I thought I...,” her last words caught in her throat as she looked down. Her mask lay in the middle of an imprint of a body made by someone else lying in her bed.

“Your wife was murdered and your baby daughter was given up for adoption?” Katie asked, her eyes wide with horror after Bradley explained the circumstances behind Jeannine’s death. “How did you ever go on with your life?”

Bradley sat back in his chair. “Well, it wasn’t until recently that I learned what actually happened to Jeannine and my daughter,” he explained. “Mary was able to help Jeannine’s ghost remember what happened and we were able to finally catch the man who kidnapped her.”

Mary nodded. “We just discovered that his daughter was given up for adoption to a couple in Freeport,” Mary said. “But the records are still sealed, so we haven’t been able to discover anything else about her.”

Katie chuckled. “You must have thought it ironic when I told you Maggie was adopted.”

Mary and Bradley glanced at each other, neither saying a word. Finally, Ian replied with a nervous laugh of his own, “Oh, aye, it was quite ironic.”

“Wait...” Clifford said, eying the three of them. “You thought Maggie was Bradley’s daughter, didn’t you?”

Clearing his throat, Bradley nodded. “Yes, Clifford, for a little while we thought she might be my daughter.”

“But...but...why didn’t you come to us? Ask us?” Katie asked.

“Actually, that was our first impulse,” Mary explained. “It seemed so logical. Not only was she adopted, but Maggie admitted to us that she’d seen a ghost; a sad lady named Jeannine.”

Katie covered her hand with her mouth. “Jeannine…Bradley’s wife?” Katie finally asked. “Maggie had seen her?”

Nodding, Mary turned to Katie. “Yes, she had. And we thought, eight years old, a little girl, adopted, in Freeport and she talked about a sad lady, a ghost, coming to see her. What were the odds?”