Tombs of Endearments (6 page)

I swallowed hard. “You’re talking black magic?”

When he moved, Damon’s white shirt shimmered like starlight. “I guess that’s what you’d
call it. Whatever it is, he’s wicked good at it.”

“And you want me to tell him to stop?”

“I want you to tell him that whatever happened between me and his old lady, it don’t matter anymore. He’s got to let me leave. Before…” As if there was electricity sparking through them, Damon flexed his hands. “I can’t be in the world and not be part of it,” he said. “Not for much longer. It’s killing me.”

“You’re already dead.”

“It’s killing my spirit, Pepper. Don’t you see it?” He held his left hand in front of my face, and for the first time, I noticed that it looked a little different than the rest of him. I could almost see through it. “If I can’t cross over soon, I’ll disappear completely. Not in this world. Not in the Other World. Will you help me, Pepper?”

I didn’t have a chance to say I would. An SUV coasted down the hill. The ghostbusters were back.

“Nothing up there at the monument,” Brian called out to me before any of his compatriots piled out of the car. “We didn’t see that other group of ghost hunters you talked about, either. We figured maybe they headed down here, so we thought we’d give it another shot. Have you seen anything?”

I refused to look at Damon. “Not a thing.”

“But something’s going on!” Stan’s face glowed with excitement. He pointed his Geiger counter right at Damon. It crackled like a son-of-a-bitch.

Brian signaled to Angela to start taking pictures. Her flash went off in my eyes and blinded me. “Here, grab this.” He shoved an electronic thermometer in my hand. “Get a reading.”

I did. When my eyes adjusted to the darkness again, I saw that the spot where Damon stood was colder than the surrounding area. I flicked off the thermometer. “Not a thing,” I told Brian. “And I wouldn’t hang around here too long if I were you. Security makes its rounds here in another few minutes. We should all get going.”

Damon got my message. While the ghostbusters were stomping around calling out readings to one another and looking as excited as can be, Damon walked off into the dark.

Stan’s Geiger counter stopped making noise. He turned it off, then on again, just to see if it was working. “What happened?”

I shrugged and headed for my car and, funny, I wasn’t feeling nearly as negative about this case as I had been that afternoon.

Not even the idea of talking to a guy who was really good at black magic discouraged me.

The afterglow of all Damon had told me radiated from my smile. I was smart and I was brave and I never quit.

“Come on, little girl, crave the possibilities.” I sang the tune under my breath as I got in my car and pulled away. “Laugh and run, naked in verdant meadows, drunk with your power.”

I was already up the hill and out the side gate that led back to the real world when the lyrics to the rest of the song hit me and caused my temperature to soar.

“Open to me. Give your body. Your soul. Your love. Your all.”

The next morning, I was still on top of the world.

Who could blame me!

I was smart. I was pretty. I talked to the dead and the dead talked back. Sometimes, they even sang.

Not to worry. I may have been delusional about guys in the past (Joel Panhorst being the prime example), but I wasn’t headed off the deep end. I knew my relationship with Damon was going nowhere with a capital NO. But if nothing else, my little talk with him had been a wake-up call. Thanks to Damon, I remembered that I had a lot to offer, and a lot to look forward to.

I was so sure of all this that when I got home, I called Quinn.

Of course, I’d forgotten about the baseball game, and when his voice mail message clicked on and I heard the blistering rumble of his voice, I hung up. I wasn’t in the mood for playing phone tag, leaving a message and waiting for him to return my call. I liked it better when I was in the driver’s seat.

After all, that was where a self-reliant, fearless, in-control woman belonged.

Humming a Mind at Large song, I wheeled my Mustang into the cemetery, enjoying the splash of morning sunshine against the road. I had a meeting with Ella at nine, and after, I was doing a run-through on that tour for the fourth graders. Other than that, my calendar was free and clear, and with any luck, Ella wouldn’t find a way to fill it and I’d have time to do a little sleuthing. I needed to find out more about Vinnie Pal and come up with a plan as to how I was going to approach him about Damon’s problem.

After all that was taken care of…

Smiling at the thought, I turned into the employee parking lot and took my usual space at the far end where the shade of nearby trees would keep the Mustang cool all day. I turned off the ignition, grabbed my purse, and reached into the backseat for the plastic grocery bag that contained the Cool Whip container of salad I’d brought along for lunch. By the time I was on my way to the office, I had my plan down pat. After I took care of the details of my business life (both the cemetery part and the private investigation part), I’d get back to the personal side. I’d written Quinn’s number on a sticky note and tucked it in my pocket. Later, I’d give him a call.

Old habits die hard, and when I thought about talking to Quinn, butterflies filled my stomach and threatened to erode my aplomb. I ordered them to settle down. As of last night, I reminded myself, I was a new woman, a confident woman, and everything about me said self-assured: The tilt of my chin. The swagger in my walk. Even the authoritative sound of my heels clicking against the flag
stone pavement as I approached the building.

Pepper Martin was nobody’s doormat. She’d never be needy or scared or wimpy. There wasn’t anything in this world—or in the Other one, for that matter—that would change that. Not anything at all except—

“Joel?”

At the bottom of the steps that led into the building, I screeched to a stop and stared in stunned surprise at the man in the gray pin-striped suit who stepped into my path.

“Joel? What the hell are you doing—”

“It’s nice to see you, too, Pepper.”

Joel’s smile was wide and genuine. He leaned in close and gave me a peck on the cheek like we were old friends.

Which, I reminded myself, we never were. Friends, that is. Our relationship had never started with casual friendship, long talks, and the kind of getting-to-know-each-other my mother always told me was essential if a man and a woman were ever going to really get along. Oh no. I’d met Joel at a friend’s wedding, and the attraction was mutual, instant, and impossible to resist. Before the night was over, he’d dumped his date, I’d dumped mine, and before anybody could say,
Happily ever after
, we were at the nearest hotel having hot monkey sex.

He was a successful financial advisor who came from a family even wealthier than mine. My parents were over the moon.

I was a girl whose parents belonged to the right country club, lived in the right upscale suburb, and knew how to mingle with the best of them. It
didn’t hurt that my father was a plastic surgeon or that Joel’s mother was something of a cosmetic surgery junkie. His parents saw it as a match made in heaven.

This, of course, was all good news, and it would have stayed that way if not for the fact that just weeks before the fairy-tale wedding I’d planned down to every last flower petal, he called things off.

I told myself not to forget it, but like I said, old habits…

My head knew Joel was a first-class creep who was more worried about what my dad’s status as a convicted felon would do to the Panhorst reputation than he was about ruining my life.

That didn’t keep my heart from skipping a beat.

“Imagine bumping into you here.” My voice barely made it past the lump in my throat. Until another thought struck. “Nobody died, did they?” I asked Joel. “Oh my gosh, you’re not here to—”

“Buy a plot? No, no, nothing like that.” Joel waved away the idea with a dismissive gesture. I looked over his suit—expensive, his haircut—expert, and his tan—not store-bought, which meant he’d recently spent time at the family’s home in Jackson Hole. No doubt, he noticed me noticing. He brushed a hand over his sandy hair. It was as thick and as wavy as ever. When he was done, every strand fell back into place. “Actually,” he said, “that’s not why I’m here at all.”

It isn’t often that I find myself at a loss for words, but I have to admit, all this came at me out of left field. The first explanation that popped into my head seemed the most preposterous. But it was the
only thing that made any sense. “You’re here to see me?”

Joel’s smile got a little wider. He chuckled, and I remembered that in a lifetime that seemed a lifetime ago, I’d thought that sound was as rich as Joel was. I also thought it was as sexy as sin. Unfortunately, that part hadn’t changed. “Of course I’m here to see you,” he said. “I wonder if we could talk.”

It wasn’t what he said, it was the way he said it. That single word,
talk
, contained all the wallop of a lightning strike. Could anyone blame me for taking this scenario to its logical conclusion?

Joel wanted me to take him back.

The thought stuck in my brain like bubble gum on a sidewalk. My stomach flipped. My head spun. I reminded myself that these days, marriage wasn’t what I wanted. Joel wasn’t what I wanted.

Was he?

I stalled for time and dared another look in his direction. Because I’m so tall, I’d always liked guys who towered over me. The way I remember it, the fact that he’s six four was one of the first things I’d noticed about Joel, along with his slim, runner’s body and a face that wasn’t as handsome as it was distinguished. He had eyes that in some light looked as if they’d been lit with blue neon. His hands were large and strong, and even though I knew this wasn’t the time or the place, I couldn’t help but remember that he used to give the best massages and that more often than not, what started as a loosen-up-Pepper massage turned into hot sex.

I gulped down the knot in my throat and forced
the hormone-induced bubble of excitement from my voice. “Of course we can talk. There’s a picnic table out back where employees eat their lunches. Why don’t we—”

“Wouldn’t we be more comfortable in your office? You do have an office, don’t you?”

I did, and I thought about its size, my uncomfortable guest chair, and the mess I’d left when I raided the cemetery archives for information about Damon. Not exactly the impression I wanted to make. And not exactly the place I wanted to take Joel, not when I looked over at the building and realized Ella had her nose pressed to the window of her office. No doubt, somebody told her there was a man hanging around outside and she’d already figured out that Joel and I weren’t strangers. I didn’t need her questions; I started toward the back of the building. Joel followed along.

My head was spinning so fast, I couldn’t bring myself to say another thing until I tossed my lunch bag and my purse on the table and sat down.

A few feet away, Joel shifted from foot to foot. I could understand why. It wasn’t easy for a guy with as much pride as Joel to grovel.

“So?” I leaned forward, egging him on. “How did you find me?”

He sat down on the bench next to me. “I heard you worked here. You know, from around.”

The thought of our former friends gossiping about how Pepper Martin was down on her luck and working as a tour guide in a cemetery didn’t cheer me. Then again, my guess was that none of our former friends talked to the dead. I was one up on them there.

I smoothed a hand over my brown wool pants and the creamy colored sweater that made my hair look more fiery than usual, and contained a grin when out of the corner of my eye, I caught Joel checking me out. “So, you knew I’d be here. And you wanted to talk,” I reminded him.

“Yeah. Of course.” His smile was fleeting. He rose to his feet and walked over to where a stone wall higher than his head marked the boundaries of the cemetery. When he came back again, he looked more ill-at-ease than ever. I could have been magnanimous and tried to relieve his discomfort, but let’s face it, he deserved to squirm. At least a little.

Joel sat back down. “It’s about our engagement,” he said.

“Of course it is.” I braced myself for his apology.

“You see, Pepper, it’s like this…” Joel stood and looked down at me. “I want the ring back.”

“What?” I was on my feet before I knew it, my fists on my hips, ever so grateful that he’d cut to the chase and saved me wasting any more brain cells on the possibility of getting back together with him. This was exactly what I needed to remind myself what it was I didn’t like about Joel—he was a no-good, dirty, rotten rat. “You came all the way here to tell me you want me to return something that was given to me as a gift?”

“No, I came all the way over here to tell you I want back what’s rightly mine.”

“The ring you gave to me.”

“Yes, of course I gave it to you, but Pepper…” I’d already turned and walked away, and Joel had
to scramble to catch up. Like I said, his legs were longer than mine, and apparently all those years of tennis lessons had not been for naught. He managed to scramble in front of me and angle himself in my path. He refused to budge. “You remember the story about the ring, I know you do. You know how important that ring is to the Panhorsts.”

“Yeah, yeah. So I was told. About a million and one times.” Just so there was no mistake about me being sick to death of the whole thing, I rolled my eyes. “Your grandfather bought the ring at a little antique shop on the Left Bank and gave it to your grandmother as they stood at the top of the Eiffel Tower. They were married in Paris, and they were unlucky enough to still be there when the Nazis showed up. Your grandmother smuggled the ring out of the country by sewing it into the hem of her skirt. Who cares! And now that I think about it, how stupid could they have been? Who vacations in a country that’s about to be conquered, anyway?”

At the risk of crinkling his Italian silk tie (blue, the exact shade of his eyes), Joel crossed his arms over his chest. “That’s beside the point.”

“There is no point.”

“There certainly is. The ring rightfully belongs in the Panhorst family. And you’re not a Panhorst.”

“I’m not a Panhorst because you didn’t want me to be a Panhorst. And—” When I saw him open his mouth to interrupt, I held out a hand to stop him. “Just so there’s no confusion about the subject, let’s get this straight right here and now. I’m thrilled not to be a Panhorst.”

“Which is exactly why you shouldn’t mind giving me the ring.”

If there was logic somewhere in Joel’s argument, I couldn’t find it. Tired of even trying, I spun away from him, grabbed my purse, and reached inside. It was three days before payday and I’d already received (and spent) my monthly check from Harmony, Didi Bowman’s granddaughter. The only paper money I had was a ten. I wadded it into a ball and tossed it at Joel.

“Here. You need to sell the ring to raise money, I’ll save you the trouble.”

His cheeks got dusky. He didn’t stoop to retrieve the ten. In fact, he didn’t even look at it. His voice was as icy as the look he shot my way. “I happen to be doing very well financially, thank you very much.”

“And I’m so happy for you.” Sarcasm dripped from my every word. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to get to work, where, by the way, I am doing very well, too.”

“Yeah, right. As a tour guide in a cemetery.”

Joel’s voice chilled me to the bone. Which wasn’t easy considering that my temper shot to the stars and my temperature went along with it. I had never been particularly proud of making my living by leading tours through a cemetery, but at least it was an honest living. (Except, of course, for the part about briefly being on the mob payroll.)

Besides, there was more to my life than leading tours. I was a private investigator, damn it. And a damned good one, to boot. I somehow managed to keep my voice to less than a roar. “You’ve got a lot
of nerve criticizing me. If it wasn’t for you dumping me—”

“If it wasn’t for your father breaking the law—”

“—I’d never be here in the first place.”

“—I never would have had to suffer the embarrassment of associating with your family.”

“And just so you know, buster, I do a whole lot more around here than just—”

“Leading little old ladies on sweet, little tours! It’s such a come-down, Pepper. You can understand why people are talking. I mean, it’s incomprehensible—”

“—that you would show up here and demand my ring back. Just because you can’t—”

“—that you have to do this to make ends meet. Incomprehensible and strangely, sad. And just so you know that you can keep your money, that I don’t need it, I don’t want the ring so I can—”

“—sell it? Of course that’s what you want to do. So don’t try to lay a guilt trip on me about good ol’ Grandma and Grandpa Panhorst. You’re going to head to the nearest jeweler to make a quick buck. And in case you’re wondering how I know, there’s no mystery there. All you care about is money. It’s all you’ve ever cared about. Why else would you want the stupid ring now?”

“So I can give it to my new fiancée.”