Ghost a La Mode (4 page)

She was almost finished with her pie when she felt a chill. It was the wee hours of the morning, and she hadn't put on a robe before coming downstairs. She hurried to finish. As she took her last bite, Emma caught a glimpse of something out of the corner of her right eye-a shadowy movement near the door to the laundry room. Her next breath caught in her throat. Then she noticed that Archie, who was back in his bed, hadn't budged except to wag his tail. Emma shook her head in annoyance.

"Come on out, Nate," she said in a loud whisper.

It wouldn't be the first time Emma had found Nate trying to sneak out of the house in the middle of the night. The small back stairway led from the second floor to the kitchen. It was on the opposite end of the house from her parents' bedroom and next to Kelly's-perfect for latenight comings and goings. Emma was realistic enough to realize Nate and Kelly were probably sexually active but not so open-minded to allow the kids to flaunt it under her parents' roof. Even though, Emma reminded herself, Grant had done his own nocturnal traveling up and down the back steps.

When she received no response, Emma got up and went toward the laundry room. "The jig is up, Nate. You've been busted."

She snapped on the light to the laundry room. It was empty. She shook her head. She could have sworn she saw someone. Must be her tired mind playing tricks-or maybe it was Granny Apples paying her a visit. Emma tried to rub the chill out of her arms and laughed lightly.

She looked down at Archie. "You'd get the nasty old ghost for me, wouldn't you, boy?"

But even the reassuring wag of Archie's tail didn't dispel the nagging suspicion that she wasn't alone.

EMMA LOOKED AT THE numbers scrawled on the scrap of paper held in her hand and compared them to the numbers displayed on the front of the house. It was a match. The last time she'd been here, it had been dark, and Tracy had driven. She found a parking spot a few doors down and pulled her white Lexus sedan into it. The house-small, white, and without pretense-belonged to Milo Ravenscroft, the psychic who'd led the seance. It was located in a pleasant working-class neighborhood in Los Angeles that bordered the city of Santa Monica. The streets were narrow and cluttered with parked cars and seemed a million miles away from the manicured streets of Pasadena.

It had been a disturbing week for Emma. Ever since Sunday night, when she'd had that talk with her father about seances and ghosts, Emma had been sensing shadows moving near her, then dashing away, as if playfully spying on her. And not just at home, but almost everywhere she went. Just as disturbing was the scent of apple pie that always seemed to linger in the air, yet no one else could smell it. She dismissed it all as foolishness, but even so, she'd thrown the rest of the apple pie into the garbage. When she decided enough was enough, she made a private appointment with Milo Ravenscroft. She still didn't believe in the existence of the ghost of Granny Apples but was sure if she could dig deep enough into Milo's motives, perhaps she could prove him a fraud or receive some kind of explanation.

"Okay," she said to herself audibly. "Just go in there and get to the bottom of this."

Still, she sat, not making a move to turn off the engine and get out of the car. In spite of it being a warm May day, the car interior grew chilly. Emma felt goose bumps rise on her bare arms and tried to readjust the air conditioning, but it wasn't on.

"Come on now," she said to herself again. "You're just being silly."

"Yes, you are."

Emma whipped her head around to see who was speaking to her, but saw no one. "Great, first I'm talking to myself. Now I'm answering myself. Next, I'll be seeing things."

"Fraidy cat."

Unbuckling her seat belt, Emma twisted her head around to get a full view of the back seat and again saw no one. The voice she'd heard had been strong but not loud, like it was being filtered through gauze or whispered on the wind. She tried to convince herself that it was her own subconscious speaking to her and that it only seemed real. With nervous hands, she twisted the top off the water bottle she kept in the console and took a big drink. After all, what was she afraid of? Certainly not a fraud and scam artist. She took another drink and shivered. The inside of the car was getting colder.

"I told you she wasn't right, Kitty."

At the sound of the words, Emma sprayed the water in her mouth over the dashboard and windshield of the car.

"Hush now, Granny. Our Emma's a skeptic, but she'll come around. She always was a smart, courageous girl."

Emma stared straight ahead out the car's windshield as she replaced the cap on the water bottle with shaking hands. Once more she felt the presence of a shadow but stronger this time, as if the car was stuffed with something she couldn't see but could definitely feel. Something cold and thick and smothering like dense ocean fog or a wet wool blanket.

"She don't look so good."

Like lightning, Emma flung open the car door and fled. She stood in the street a few feet away from her car and stared at it. She was still staring a few minutes later when another car came slowly down the street. Emma stepped out of the way but still didn't get near her own vehicle. The other car, an older Honda wagon occupied by a young couple with a toddler strapped into a car seat in the back, stopped and lowered the passenger-side window.

"Are you all right?" the woman asked Emma.

Emma slowly moved her eyes from her own car to them. "Yes, thank you." As she spoke, her eyes wandered back toward the Lexus.

"Are you sure?" The woman spoke slowly as her eyes noted Emma's expensive linen dress, designer shoes, and pearls snuggled at her neck and ears. To her, Emma looked like she should be head ing for lunch at the Bel Air Hotel instead of standing in the middle of their neighborhood.

Emma turned and looked at the woman and saw that she was staring at her with open curiosity, then realized how crazed she must look. She forced herself to focus on the conversation, doing some quick damage control.

"I'm sorry." Emma peered inside the car at the couple and smiled. "I must look like I'm crazy, but there was a huge bee in my car, and I'm allergic."

The couple smiled back. The man leaned toward her across his wife. "We understand. My brother's like that. One little sting and he's in the ER. Want me to make sure the thing's gone?"

"Thank you very much, but I think it is. Besides, I'm visiting a friend. I'm sure he'll check it out before I leave. But I really appreciate you stopping. It was very nice of you."

They all waved goodbye, and the car continued down the street.

Once the couple was gone, Emma cautiously stepped toward her car. Part of her wanted to hop back inside and take off for home to seek medical advice, voices or no voices. The other side of her wanted more than ever to keep her appointment with Milo Ravenscroft. Either way, her purse was on the passenger's seat where she had left it, so she had to at least stick her arm back inside to retrieve it.

Looking at her watch, she saw that she still had ten minutes before her appointment. Taking a deep breath, she resettled herself behind the wheel and shut the door. The air from outside had warmed up the interior. Leaning her head against the headrest, she closed her eyes and tried to think rationally about what had just happened. Hearing voices wasn't normal for a healthy woman, she told herself. It just had to be an outcome of the stress she was under with Grant, not to mention the seance last weekend, coupled with her father's story about her mother and Paulie and that darn Granny Apples character. If she'd never see, taste, or smell another apple pie again, it'd be fine by her.

And Kitty-where'd that name come from? The voices seemed to be in conversation-conversation about her-as if they knew her. Emma only knew one Kitty, and that was her aunt Kitty, her mother's older sister, who was in a rest home in Palo Alto. Kitty had been there for the past two years following a horrendous stroke. Emma and her mother had just talked about planning a trip to visit Kitty. That must be it, she thought. Her subconscious was digging around, rooting up past conversations and piecing them together in some type of audible mirage. The theory calmed her down.

Maybe she needed a rest? Maybe all the stress of the separation and pending divorce had finally gotten to her. Kelly would be leaving soon for a long trip with her father, part of her graduation present, and her parents were shipping out on an Alaskan cruise with friends. Emma promised herself a little relaxation.

Feeling much better, Emma made her way to the front steps of Milo Ravenscroft's home and knocked. The door was opened by Milo himself. He was a small man, barely five foot five, with a slight frame and stooped shoulders. His head was bald, with a halfcircle fringe of brown hair. He wore thick glasses and appeared more like an aging accountant than a clairvoyant, or what Emma thought a clairvoyant should look like. He looked at her with surprise.

"Mrs. Whitecastle," he said to her, "you could have called to cancel. You didn't need to stop by to do it." His voice was soft and comforting.

"Cancel? But why would I do that?"

"I just assumed ... with the death in the family ...'

Emma's eyes shot open. "Death? You must be mistaken."

Her cell phone rang. Emma pulled it out of her purse and read the display. "I'm sorry," she said in apology to Milo. "It's my father"

"That's quite all right. Please, answer it."

Emma flipped open the phone. "Hi, Dad. I'm about to go into an appointment. What's up?"

"Emma, I'm sorry," her father began in a somber voice, "but we just heard from your cousin Marlene. Aunt Kitty passed away this morning.

HER COUSIN'S HOUSE IN Palo Alto was very large and beautiful, yet still maintained a homey, lived-in feel. Marlene had married an electronics executive who'd gone on to make it even bigger in the computer explosion. Her husband, Bob Singh, was the CEO of an Internet company that had managed not only to boom in the birth and growth of Silicon Valley but to survive the bloodletting of the dot-com bust that had followed.

Everyone who'd attended Kitty's funeral had gathered at Marlene's home following the graveside service. Emma, Kelly, and Emma's parents had flown up the two days before for the funeral. Elizabeth and Paul were staying over several more days, but Emma and Kelly were returning home in the morning.