Buried Innocence - A Mary O'Reilly Paranormal Mystery - Book Thirteen (Mary O'Reilly Paranormal Mystery Series) (2 page)

Mary O’Reilly was
just finishing up a long day of paperwork at the office. Her desk was filled
with an odd assortment of items: an opened and half-eaten sleeve of saltine crackers,
a jar of peanut butter with a knife sticking out of the top, some slices of
cheese, a jar of olives, some pieces of dark chocolate, a laptop with a
spreadsheet program open, a large pile of assorted receipts, several files
stuffed with paperwork, a bank statement, and a lit scented candle that smelled
like evergreens.

But instead of
working on accounting, she was absorbed with the computer screen in front of
her. Mike appeared on the other side of her desk and sat in the chair.

“What’s so
interesting?” he asked casually.

Mary jumped and
then looked around her monitor to the guardian angel. “I really wish you would
knock or something,” she said.

“You would think
having ghosts appear to you at all times of the day or night would have cured
you of being jumpy,” he replied. “So, what are you looking at?”

“My horoscope,” she
said, lowering her voice in embarrassment and hiding back behind her monitor.

“Your horoscope?”
he asked. “You don’t believe in that stuff, do you?”

She peeked out
again. “Well, most people don’t believe in ghosts, and you can see how wrong
they are,” she argued. “Besides, I don’t really believe in them. I just check
them every so often.
Just in case.”

“Just in case of
what?”

“Just in case they
are true,” she admitted sheepishly.

Laughing, he leaned
back in the chair. “So, what’s up in your horoscope?” he asked.

She shook her head
and glanced at the screen again. “It’s not good,” she said, and then she read
from the screen. “Caution is the key word for this week. The alignment of the
planets for your sign set up a situation where bad luck could be the dominating
force. Avoid tempting the fates. A black cat could be in your future.”

“Wow, you’re
right,” Mike replied. “You sit there, and I’ll call Bradley to come and get
you. We’ll wrap you in bubble-wrap, and you can stay in your bedroom all week.
Okay?”

“No one likes a
smart-aleck,” she said, wrinkling up her nose at him. “Fine, I’ll just go back
to work and not worry about my impending doom.”

Popping an olive
into her mouth, she picked up the receipt on the top of the file and looked it
over. “Okay, May 15
^th
, fifteen pounds of garlic,” she said slowly.
“Why did I buy fifteen pounds of garlic? And why did I consider it a business
expense?”

“That was for the
group that thought their ghost was also a vampire,” Mike replied, the hint of a
smile in his voice. “The only way they were going to let you investigate is if
you wore a necklace of garlic, and, once they found out you were pregnant, you
also wore a belt of garlic around your waist.”

Mary nodded at him
in a perfunctory manner. “Of course, that makes perfect sense,” she said,
adding the amount to the correct column in the spreadsheet. “Thank you,
Michael.”

“You are welcome,
Mrs. Alden,” he chuckled as he shook his head. He then took the time to examine
the snacks she had scattered over her desk. “Looking at the assortment on your
desk, if I had a stomach, I know I’d be sick to it.”

Mary looked up at
him and grinned. “I know. My tastes have certainly become eclectic,” she
admitted. “And you don’t even want to look in the refrigerator.”

“I thought the
whole thing with pregnancy and weird cravings was an urban myth,” he said.

Mary pulled another
olive out of the jar and then absently smeared peanut butter on it before
popping it into her mouth. “Yeah, me too,” she said, picking up another receipt
and studying it.

Mike shuddered. “Do
you know what you just ate?” he asked with disgust.

Turning to him,
confusion on her face, she shook her head. “What?”

“Never mind,” he
replied, moving his chair farther away from her. “So, are you going home soon?”

“Well, Bradley and
Clarissa have an appointment with Dr. Springler this afternoon, and then they
are going to go out for dinner together,” she said.
“Kind of
a daddy-daughter date.
So, this is the perfect time for me to go through
my paperwork before I forget why I bought this stuff.”

Mike leaned forward
in the chair and studied her. “How are you feeling about things at home?” he
asked.

She put the receipt
down and turned her full attention to Mike. “Actually, I feel great,” she
admitted. “The food I’m eating is actually staying down. I’ve moved past my
first trimester, so things are less scary for me. Clarissa seems to be
responding really well to therapy. Bradley…well, Bradley is a little overprotective.
But I get that, so I’m putting up with it.”

She grinned. “And
then I’ve got this great guardian angel
who
checks in
on me…” she glanced over to the clock on the wall, “about every two and a half
hours. It’s endearing but getting slightly annoying.”

Mike smiled
sheepishly. “I was trying to cut back to every three hours,” he admitted. “But
I just get worried. This is my first pregnancy.”

Shaking her head,
she sat back in her chair. “I promise that I won’t let anything important
happen without calling you first,” she said. “But in the meantime, I really
need to get some work done. And with all these interruptions—”

The tone of her
cell phone interrupted her, and sighing dramatically, she reached over to
answer it.

“Mary O’Reilly.”

She paused for a
moment, and a smile spread across her face. “Amelia, it’s good to hear from
you,” she said. “How’s the ghost tour business going?”

Amelia was the
owner of the popular and thriving Amelia’s Ghost Tours in Galena, Illinois, a
town about 45 minutes to the west of Freeport. Mary had met Amelia when she was
in Galena looking for unique furnishings for her home when she first moved to
Freeport. She caught sight of the store name and just had to go in. They became
friends immediately.

“Business is
great,” Amelia replied. “But I’ve got something a little more paranormal than
I’m equipped to handle. I know it’s late, but do you think you could drive to
Galena tonight?”

Mary glanced up at
the clock. It was nearly five-thirty, but she could be there in an hour. “Sure,
I can be there by six-thirty,” she said. “Do you want to fill me in before I
get there?”

Amelia paused for a
moment. “No,” she finally replied. “I think I’ll let the woman sitting in my
store tell you her own story. Then you can get her vibe on your own.”

“So, do you think
she’s a nutcase?” Mary asked.

“Are you kidding
me?” Amelia replied, and Mary could hear the laughter in her voice. “I run
ghost tours for a living, and I’m calling a woman who talks to ghosts. Who the
hell am I to judge?”

Mary laughed.
“Excellent point,” she said. “I’ll see you in an hour.”

Mary hung up the
phone and looked up to see Mike’s disapproving face glowering down on her.
“Where do you think you’re going, young lady?” he asked.

Mary stood, picked
up her phone and purse and moved around her desk. “Um, to Galena,” she replied,
“to do my job.”

“You think you can
just drive off to Galena, in your condition?”

“Mike, I’m four
months pregnant,” she said. “For the most part, I feel great. I’m driving
forty-five minutes away, on a lovely summer day with no rain in the forecast
for days.”

She walked out the
door onto the sidewalk, and the hot August heat enveloped her. She was so glad
her car had good air conditioning. When she turned and locked her office, Mike
glided through the wall to stand next to her.

“Things could
happen,” he warned. “All kinds of things could happen.”

She shook her head
again. “Oh, so now you believe in my horoscope?” she asked, walking over to her
parked car.

“No, I don’t,” he
argued. “But there are other things out there that could harm you.”

She paused on the
sidewalk and looked at him. “Like what?”

He thought about
her question for a moment. “Well, this could be a trap,” he invented. “Amelia
could have been forced to call you.”

“I don’t think many
people could force Amelia to do something she didn’t want to do,” Mary said.
“Besides, we have a code phrase just in case something like that happens.”

Impressed, Mike
glided up next to her. “You do?” he asked.

She nodded. “Yeah,
it’s ‘Mike’s paranoid,’” she replied. “Great phrase isn’t it? Rings true.”

He slipped in front
of her to bar her way into the car. “Mary, you’re not going,” he said.
“Final word on the subject.”

She stopped and
then moved to walk around him when she found her way blocked by scaffolding
left there by window-washers. Dare she walk under a ladder when her horoscope
just warned her to beware?

“Yeah, go ahead and
walk under a ladder,” Mike taunted.

Turning back, she
reached through him, opened the door and slipped inside.

“Hey!” he cried.
“Watch your hands.”

“Sorry, a woman’s
got to do what a woman’s got to do,” she said, putting the key in the ignition
and turning the car on.

Sliding through the
passenger door to sit beside her, Mike folded his arms and sent her a
determined look. “Well, you’re not going without me,” he stated.

Mary shrugged.
“Fine,” she replied, shifting into reverse.

A knock on the
driver’s side window startled her, and she turned to see a young woman standing
in the street next to her car. She had long, dark hair and was dressed in
mostly black. Mary rolled down the window and smiled. “Can I help you?” she
asked.

The woman studied
her for a moment, a cautious smile on her face, and then slowly nodded. “I just
wanted to be sure you were okay before you drove off,” the woman replied.

“Okay?” Mary asked.

“Well, yes,” the
woman answered. “I’ve been watching you from my store across the street, and it
looked as if you were arguing with yourself about something.”

Emitting a nervous
laugh, the woman paused for a moment. “Well, I just wondered if you were
having, you know, a nervous breakdown or something. I wanted to be sure you
were okay before you got behind the wheel of your car.”

Chuckling next to
her, Mike sat back in the chair. “Sorry about that, Mary.”

Taking a deep
breath, Mary nodded to the woman. “How embarrassing,” she said. “I realize that
I must have looked a little odd from across the street. Every time I use my
Bluetooth earpiece people think I’m talking to myself. Either I’m going to have
to get a shorter hairstyle or a bigger ear piece.”

The woman sighed
with relief. “Of, of course, how silly of me,” she apologized. “I am so sorry
for delaying you.”

“Oh,
no problem.
It was lovely to meet you,” Mary said. “I’m Mary O’Reilly,
and I am a private investigator.”

“I’m Aubrie Ann,”
she said. “I run the New Age shop across the street. We just opened a couple of
weeks ago.”

“I’ll have to come
in and shop,” Mary said. “That sounds interesting.”

The woman stepped
back and smiled down at Mary. “You have a very interesting aura,” she said.
“I’d love to have you stop by.”

With a quick wave,
Mary pulled out into the street and drove away.

“An interesting
aura,” Mike replied. “See, that’s the kind of line I needed to know about when
I was alive.”

Mary glanced at him
before she turned right on Business 20 to head out of town. “You used lines?”
she asked.

He nodded. “Yeah, I
had a few oldies but goodies that seem to charm the ladies.”

“I know I’m going
to regret this,” she said. “But which one worked the best for you?”

He thought about it
for a moment. “Well, it’s been a while, but I think this one worked the very
best,” he said, and then he turned to her and winked. “Hey baby, if I told you
I thought you had a gorgeous body, would you hold it against me?”

“No, that one
couldn’t have worked,” she laughed. “Try again.”

“I seem to have
lost my phone number. Would you mind lending me yours?” Mike attempted.

“Nope, try again.”

“If being sexy was
a crime, you'd be guilty as charged!”

“Lame,
really lame.”

“Okay, I suddenly
remembered my number one, works all the time, pick-up line,” Mike said, a wide
grin on his face.

“I know I’m going
to be sorry,” Mary said, easing into the right lane before turning onto Highway
26. “But go ahead.”

Mike waited until
Mary had lifted her bottled water to her lips and taken a sip. “Baby,” he said,
lowering his voice into a sexy purr and leaning towards her. “If you were a
booger, I’d pick you first.”