Ever After (12 page)

“I heard that,” Shelby said, one brow darting up.

Oh, crap.

“We can start the search without you, but that would take so much longer. I don’t think you have days for us to wade around in your head.” Kaitlyn nodded at my bloodstained shirt.

“This ghost is getting ready to get very active, and we don’t know exactly what she’s capable of. We’ve heard stories, but if you want to survive this, you’d better fess up.” With a wire in her hand, Shelby dipped her head under the bed. Hopefully not to wire a bomb. She sounded like she was talking into a feather pillow. “Where is that plug-in? And is it the blue wire or the red wire I’m supposed to wire first? In the movies, you’re supposed to cut one of them to disarm it, so I figure you’d have to wire it up exactly the opposite way it would be disarmed. Everybody, hold still.”

She came back out with cobwebs in her hair and a mischievous grin on her face.

“Real cute. A telepathic smart ass.”

“There’s a real shortage of those around here,” she said, patting my leg. “I was just picking. I’m not a bit dangerous. I promise. We want to help.”

She swiped the cobwebs off her and continued with the brain/computer comparison.

“It can take days, weeks even, to search someone’s memory stores if they don’t give us a trigger such as a date, a specific event.”

He acts like he hates me but almost kissed me this evening. My memory tells me we both fell off a horse, but something deeper tells me that’s not all that happened. I remember a woman, or a thing. A woman/thing coming at me
, I thought and the girls both closed their eyes. For a few seconds they were somewhere else.

When they opened their eyes, they exchanged glances.

“Ava’s plan has worked like a charm,” Kaitlyn said.

“But so has Grace’s,” Shelby countered in dead seriousness.

“So, how much do we tell her?”

“The question is what don’t we tell her.”

They both turned to me.

“How ’bout tell me everything? You could start with why the name Grace sounds so familiar.” I couldn’t breathe. All the air had been sucked out of the room. That name caused my stomach to turn to lead and drop to my feet at its mention.

“We can’t. It’s too soon.” Kaitlyn crossed her arms.

“How about this? We’ll tell you what you need to know as you need to know it, but you have to trust us and try your best not to push Cole. Can you promise us that?” Shelby leaned on my bedpost.

“I don’t think you have to worry much about that. I think we just broke up before we ever started dating. He told me I had to leave or he was.” I clutched my blankets and pulled them closer. The throbbing in my head intensified.

“He’s not going anywhere. Trust us. He can’t. He just doesn’t know it yet.” Kaitlyn fiddled with a piece of equipment. “Just vow to cooperate, and we’ll be your new best friends.”

“Okay.” I leaned back on the pillows.

I wasn’t sure what they meant by half of what they’d said and wasn’t sure what I’d promised, but they were the best chance I had in learning why Cole Kinsley wanted me gone.

* * * *

The next morning, I was in the middle of about forty people in line to pay their final respects to Ava Rollins.

Cole was six people ahead of me. He didn’t speak a word to anyone, and he never looked back at me. Not that I should have mattered to him. He’d only known me for two days. The woman in the casket had been in his life for years.

It may have been inappropriate, but I couldn’t help notice how nice he cleaned up. His normally unruly hair was still unruly, and he looked even taller and more muscular in a black suit, a red tie, and a gray shirt.

When he approached the casket, his jaw clenched and then began to work.

The sight of him in a tender moment made me feel helpless. I wanted to be there beside him, holding his hand, consoling him.

As Cole visited at Ava’s side, a couple of antsy family members behind me began to oscillate from foot to foot, roll their eyes, and make impatient huffing noises. The guy in front of me checked his watch and sighed loud enough for Cole to hear.

Cole flashed him a glare that could have incinerated a small country.

The rude family member found something terribly interesting near his shoes to focus on.

Cole turned, reached into the coffin, and placed something in Ava’s hands. His bottom lip trembled. With his head down, Cole fled the casket, bumping into another group of loud family members.

They stared after him as if he was something they’d just scraped off their shoes.

When it was my turn to approach the casket, my stomach churned. I’d never met Ava Rollins. I could feel eyes on my back as I took her in for the first time.

Was I supposed to touch her? Meeting her for the first time, this way, under such circumstances, was so outlandish. I wanted to go back in the house and hide until the fiasco was over. Why couldn’t she could have called me while she was alive the way normal people would have and said, “Hey, I’ve investigated you extensively and found that you’re an all right girl, so to piss my family off, I’d like to leave you my legacy.”

My sad gaze slid over her white hair and frown-creased forehead.

Her lips had been placed in an almost smirk in her last final facial expression. Seemed fitting. Ava’s perfectly placed gray hair curled around her face, and her red earrings stood out against the white satin pillow. Crimson lipstick lined her lips with the precision she was accustomed to in life. Her black suit had been immaculately pressed with a red carnation on the lapel. Crossed at her stomach, her old wrinkled hands clasped one another.

The smallest Bible I’d ever seen in print lay on her stomach. It’s what Cole had in his hands before he got to her casket. For him to place it in her eternal resting place, it must have meant a lot to him. It looked very old.

I bowed my head and turned to find Preston right behind me.

He scooped his hand around my arm and led me to the right row of chairs set up in front of the huge flat screen television.

Parents of the wildest children finally called them in to be seated, but that didn’t stop the occasional whisper or outburst.

A man in a suit made his way to the front, cleared his throat, and started the proceedings.

Two could-be FBI agents in black suits and sunglasses stood on either side of a flat-screened television centered on a white cloth-covered table. One man held the remote and adjusted the television while the other studied the crowd from behind his mirrored glasses.

Preston nodded at me and excused himself to the podium—the first time he exhibited commendable manners since I’d met him. Once there, he placed his hands on the wood and looked out at the crowd with what appeared to be genuine sadness. Preston cleared his throat and gave me a half-hearted smile.

Maybe he wasn’t as bad as my first impression made him out to be. At least he was honest about his interests. That was more than I could say for Cole.

He sat a few rows back on the other side of the aisle. He stared straight at me with an eyebrow arched.

I faced forward, hating that I cared what he thought or felt.

Preston had started.

“You must have questions regarding your invitation here. As you all know, Ava Rollins would rather be hung up naked in the center of the town square than have kind words spoken for her or tears shed in her tribute. She was a woman of modesty, but was also a woman with her own ways at which all her associates were commanded to adhere. I’ve asked you all here today for a viewing of her final will and testament, read by none other than the decedent herself. Without further ado.” He stepped aside and nodded to one of his flank-men. One pressed a remote, which caused a cobalt blue screen to appear on the television.

An elderly woman resembling the woman in the casket but much more alive popped up on the screen. She wore an austere black dress and hat with a black wisp of tulle.

Everyone gasped.

Everyone but me.

She straightened her hat. Either she was stark raving mad, or she couldn’t have cared less what others thought. I leaned toward the latter.

“Is this damned thing working or not? I tell you, humanity has been plagued with technology,” she clucked in an authoritative, guttural voice.

A man’s muffled response was audible in the background.

“Hell, no, I don’t want you to rewind it and start over. Those cold hearted bastards wouldn’t inconvenience themselves for even a second unless they thought I was going to leave them something, so why make this any more pleasant for them?” She straightened her white puff of thinning hair and cleared her throat.

Someone said something in the background again.

“No, it’s not morbid. It’s funny. I’m dead so I should wear black. It’s only proper. Now shut up and record me before I fire you and find another maintenance person.” She sighed and focused her attention on the camera. “I’m sure you are all wondering why I would ask you to gather in my gardens when I wouldn’t even invite you to a Sunday tea when I was alive. Well, it sure as hell wasn’t to give you anything. Um, sorry. Sorry, Cole. I meant to say ‘heck.’ Ah. Oh, hell, I’m dead, so what does it matter if I curse. It’s not like it’s going to change anything.”

Cole’s eyes were red, but his face crinkled into a smile. He looked down to his lap.

“On to the business at hand, since I’m sure most all of you have some other engagement to attend after they plant me in the ground. I, Ava Rollins, being of sound mind and an amazingly incredible body for a ninety year-old, leave you, Cole Kinsley, the cottage and a deed to the tract of land you’ve lived on since childhood. It has always been yours, as it will always remain.” Ava paused and smiled out to the sea of materialism, her blood family.

An uproar of contentious whispers commenced as heads turned to me, but Ava had anticipated their reaction.

“Oh, hush your mouths. I’m far from done. Martha Rollins, I leave you exactly what you’ve contributed to your family members, friends—if you can call them that—and fellow humanity. Nothing. You’ve granted more bitterness, back biting, pain and suffering than I could ever return you. So in my death, you receive exactly what you deserve, dear sister. Nothing.” Ava, with cold eyes, a stern age-rattled voice, and bitter humor, cut down the rest of her alienated family until there was not a single outraged person in the whole crowd left. When she was done with the slaughter, she turned her head slightly, and I swear, she looked straight into my eyes. Her final words were, “I’ve oftentimes wondered if everything I’ve ever done in my life was a mistake, but in this final moment, as I leave this world and enter into the next life, I can rest knowing I’ve done at least one thing with precision. I leave all of my worldly possessions, other than the aforementioned property, to Allison Ainsley Knowles. Please take care of Thomas and the staff. Give them raises and a healthy retirement sum. In closing, my dear Allison, you deserve all the joy and happiness life can offer you. Live life to the fullest, love like you’ve never loved before, and when you find something worth fighting for, don’t let anything come in your way.”

For a few seconds, the woman on the screen held me.

Her old, yellowed, loving eyes tugged at the fabric of my soul.

The screen went black.

I sat rigid, stunned.

This was real.

“Ava’s sister Portia has a few words, and directly after the service Ava arranged for a breakfast to be held in the grand ball room. I hope everyone will stay and join us.” Back at the podium, Preston’s face twisted as if he no more wanted any one of those heathens to stay than he wanted to contract a case of malaria. He came back to his seat beside me and sat even closer now. He placed his hand in my lap and took mine.

I stiffened but didn’t want to cause a commotion.

Family members and acquaintances whispered right through Ava’s sister’s eulogy.

Over my shoulder, Cole’s green eyes pierced me. He nodded, lifting an interested brow as his eyes fell on Preston’s hand.

Wait a minute. He didn’t want me, but no one else could make a move? Was that it?

I shrugged and spun back to face the front.

From the same direction, chairs clanged together and a commotion broke out. Cole didn’t bother with respect as he headed right for us, pushing chairs this way and that.

Portia must have been done with her speech because people around us had already made their way down the aisle.

Preston had just used my hand to help me up.

I couldn’t take my stare from Cole or find vocals to warn Preston.

Before I could fully stand, a deafening boom sounded from behind Ava’s casket, and the whole first row of people simultaneously plunged toward me. People fell on top of each other, and when I hit the ground, another body pummeled into me.

“Allie! Please open your eyes. Please!” A male voice.

A cloudy blur of people scattered around me.

Cole’s whole body covered mine. With both his hands on either side of my face, he said, “Are you okay?”

I nodded, not sure what had happened, or if I was in fact okay.

Cole rolled over and gently lifted me from the ground. He righted me, holding my arms to keep me steady. Beads of sweat trickled down his brow despite his body shivering through his suit.

A loud scream broke through the chaos. “It’s an arm! Oh my god! It’s an arm!”

And then someone else added, “Someone blew up the casket!”

“Should have been the girl,” another contemptuous voice yelled.

“Let’s get you out of here. Don’t look.” Cole pulled me to the safety of his arms and guided me to the back steps of the house. “It’s horrible. Close your eyes.”

I tried my best, but it was hard. I didn’t know if anyone had been hurt or if the only carnage had been to Ava’s body.

People picked themselves up off the ground and darted in all different directions. Parts of a black suit, a red carnation, and a foot lay scattered around us as Cole dragged me closer to the patio.

I held my stomach and closed my eyes until we reached the steps. I tried not to cry but couldn’t help it.

“It’s okay. I’m here. I’ve got you.” Cole’s fingers worked over my arm in soothing strokes as he led me through the house.