What a Ghoul Wants (12 page)

It took me over an hour to reach the hospital by bus, and I was lucky that I’d had
a small stash of twenty-pound notes stuffed into my back jeans pocket to pay for the
ride. Gilley’s mom—who’d practically raised me as her own after my mom died—had instilled
in me the need to always keep at least a hundred bucks hidden on my person. “A lady
should never be without the means to get herself from here to there,” she’d said.
“Always carry five twenties with you, Mary Jane. That’ll be enough to see you home
without needing to depend on some man for assistance.”

Gil’s dad had walked out on the family when Gilley was only five years old, clearing
out the family’s bank account as he went. Luckily for Mrs. Gillespie, her father had
been a man of significant means, and while he was alive, he’d paid all her bills;
then he’d made sure that his daughter was taken care of for the rest of her days by
leaving everything to her in his will. Mrs. Gillespie now lived in a grand manor-style
home and she owned a ton of real estate in and around Valdosta. It made me feel good
to know that someday, after that dear sweet woman passed on herself, Gil wouldn’t
want for anything either.

After exiting the bus at the stop near the hospital, I zipped into a Wimpy and wolfed
down a grilled ham and cheese sandwich with chips—or fries, as I mistakenly referred
to them when I ordered. Then I hustled to the hospital and up to the second floor.

I found Heath alert and looking very nearly like his old self. Just the sight of him
did a lot to set me at ease. “Hey, there,” he said with a warm smile the minute he
laid eyes on me. “Have I been missing you the past couple of hours. Get your cute
butt over here, woman.”

I practically ran to his bed and threw my arms around him. He still felt a little
cold, but nothing compared with how cool he’d been that morning. “God, it’s good to
see you,” I told him.

He lifted me off my feet and pulled me into bed with him, and for a long time all
we did was lie there in each other’s arms. Heath hugged me very tightly and whispered,
“You saved my life again. That’s one point for you.”

I chuckled. Heath and I had been in some really harrowing situations nearly from the
moment we’d met, and somewhere along the way we’d realized that we kept saving each
other’s lives. That had prompted a little lighthearted banter. “What’s the score?”

“You’re up by two.”

I lifted my head to smirk at him. “Winning!”

Heath laughed and it was a sweet, sweet sound, believe me. “What’d you do all day,
Em? Did you get some rest?”

That brought my mood crashing back down. In short order I told him what’d happened
when John and I had ventured back into the south wing. Heath held my hand and looked
grim. “Wish I’d been there.”

“She’s already had one crack at you.”

Heath rubbed his neck where I could see a faint bruise beginning to form. “Don’t I
know it.”

I smoothed away from his face the streak of bright white hair he’d gotten as a souvenir
from the last evil spirit we’d encountered, and told him about the show. “The network
is insisting we get some good-quality ghost footage by one a.m. tomorrow or they’re
pulling the plug, and since there’s
no way
I’m doing
any
kind of a ghostbust at that castle, effectively we’re done.”

Heath gazed at me with a lopsided grin. “You already quit, didn’t you?”

“I’m that obvious, huh?”

He shrugged. “It’s what I would’ve done.”

Still, I felt oddly guilty. “Sorry,” I told him.

“Why’re you sorry?”

“I feel like I cost both of us our jobs.”

“Em,” he said soberly, “if it’d been you here and me there, I wouldn’t have agreed
to do another shoot. That spook is
crazy
powerful. No way do we want to tangle with the likes of her ever again. And if that
means we both catch the first plane home tomorrow and start doing readings for private
clients in Santa Fe, well, then that’s what we’ll do.”

I sat up straight and stared at him. “Wait. . . Santa Fe? You think we’re both going
to live in Santa Fe?”

Heath took my hand and kissed it. “I know we haven’t known each other very long,”
he said with a shy smile, “but I want you to move in with me.”

My jaw dropped. “Heath. . . ,” I began, but couldn’t really figure out what to say
next. “I. . . my. . . it’s. . .”

His face clouded and I could see the hurt already forming in his eyes. “You don’t
want us to be together?”

I shook my head. “No! I mean, yes, I want us to be together, but I can’t move in with
you!”

“Why not?”

I tried to laugh, but it rang hollow. “Because you don’t even have a house anymore!
Yours burned down, remember?”

Heath frowned. “They have apartments in Santa Fe, you know, Em.”

I sighed, a little exasperated. Why had he just assumed I’d be happy to leave my home
in Boston? “I don’t want to live in an apartment,” I said maybe a
tiny
bit testily. “I have my own condo in Boston.”

Heath let go of my hand and sat back against the pillows. “Ah. I get it,” he said
in that way that suggested he really didn’t.

I sighed heavily. “And what about Gilley? He’ll never want to move to Santa Fe.”

“I wasn’t asking him,” Heath said levelly.

That took me aback. “Wait. . . what? You want me to just. . .
leave
my best friend in Boston?”

“I thought it was better than leaving your boyfriend in Santa Fe.”

I looked down at my hands. How had this conversation suddenly taken us in such a nasty
direction? I took a breath (or three) and said, “Heath, I really,
really
appreciate your offer to move in together, but for the past fourteen years my home
has been Boston. And I don’t know how you can expect me to just drop everything and
move with you to Santa Fe. I mean, if you think about it, doesn’t it make more sense
for you to come to New England and move in with me?”

“You own real estate in Boston,” Heath said. “My
family
lives in Santa Fe, M. J. Family trumps real estate any day of the week.”

I bit back what I wanted to say, which was something like “Unless we’re talking about
real estate trumping
your
family,” because I really didn’t care for most of Heath’s relatives. Instead I said,
“Well, Gilley is
my
family, Heath. And so is Teeko, and Mama Dell. They all live in Boston. It would
be just as hard for me to leave them there as it would for you to leave your family
and your home.”

“So. . . what?” he asked me. “You want to break up?”

“No!” I said quickly. “It’s just. . .” My voice trailed off. This was an impossible
conversation.

“There are no easy solutions here, are there?”

I stared again at my hands. “I guess not.”

Heath took my wrist and lifted it to kiss my palm. “Something tells me we’re gonna
be racking up the frequent-flier miles.”

I felt a small smile tug at my lips. “I’m so, so sorry.”

Heath took hold of my head with both hands and pulled me forward to kiss me sweetly.
“Don’t sweat it,” he said next. “If we’re both in this for the long haul, we’ll survive
the geography.”

I looked into his beautiful brown eyes hopefully. “You’re in this for the long haul?”

He grinned. “I have been from the start, pretty lady. Or didn’t you know?”

Visiting hours ended at nine and I left the hospital only after I’d had a nice long
chat with Heath’s nurse about his condition. She assured me that he would need to
stay only the night, and that as soon as the doctor got to Heath on his rounds the
next day, he’d be released with a clean bill of health. “Come round anytime after
ten in the morning,” she said merrily. “He should be ready to go by then.”

I walked to the bus stop and realized I’d just missed the nine twenty. It would be
another twenty minutes before the next bus, and I had a lot of time then to think
about the fact that I hadn’t called the hotel to leave word with Gopher about where
I was.

I looked around for a phone booth, but they were as scarce in Wales as they were in
the States now that everyone and their brother had a cell phone. Everyone but me,
that is. I grumbled some more while I waited on the hard cold bench and thought about
the bad luck of having my phone stuck in a haunted castle probably for good. Had I
backed up my contacts to Gilley’s computer? He’d been bugging me to do that, but I
didn’t think I’d gotten around to it yet. I sorely wanted my phone, but Heath and
I had talked about it, and he’d convinced me that going back into the south wing,
even covered head to toe in magnets, was suicide.

That meant that the both of us would have to figure out how to get our stuff replaced,
and then of course there was the added problem of getting a new passport without any
form of ID. I’d probably have to go to the U.S. embassy very soon, which was no doubt
in London, and I’d somehow have to get there on only the eighty pounds left in my
pocket. Unless Gilley loaned me some dough, which he probably would, but then he’d
never, ever, ever let me forget about it.

With a sigh I wondered if anyone would be worried about me back at the castle. I checked
my watch. By now they’d have noticed that I wasn’t in my room, and someone from the
crew was bound to raise a red flag when they couldn’t find me. “Smart, M. J.,” I muttered.
Gilley was likely freaking out. If he’d managed to pry himself loose from the photo
shoot, that is. Oh, who was I kidding? With a horde of beautiful flamboyant men in
ready abundance, I’d be lucky to ever catch Gilley’s attention again.

The bus was late and chock-full of passengers, so it had to let people off at nearly
every stop, which got me back to Kidwellah at close to midnight. I trudged up the
road wearily; all I wanted was a solid night’s sleep. As I pushed through the door
into the main hall, however, I knew that sleep was likely the last thing I’d get that
night.

Gathered in the front hall and huddling close like frightened children were John and
Gilley, along with Arthur Crunn, who appeared so tired he looked haggard.

“M. J.!” John called anxiously as he came hurrying toward me. “Where’ve you been?”

“I’m really sorry, guy. I was at the hospital visiting Heath and I forgot to leave
a note and my phone is still stuck in my old—”

“Never mind about that! We’ve got bigger issues!” Gilley snapped, adjusting the collar
of his magnetic sweatshirt, which I’d noticed he’d traded the fashionable outfit,
fedora, and heavy makeup for.

“Boy, do we ever,” John said, his eyes pinched with worry.

“What’s going on, fellas?” I asked, hoping that if I adopted a reasonable tone, it
would help to calm them down.

“I told them not to go,” John said to me, his face racked with guilt. “M. J., I swear
I told them not to go!”

“Told who?” I asked. I didn’t know what’d happened while I was away, but the hair
rising on the back of my neck told me it was something bad.

“There’s no sign of them,” someone up the stairs called down. I looked up and recognized
Michel. “And the chest has been moved aside from the door.”

“No sign of whom?” I asked, sensing the mounting panic in the room, and when no one
immediately answered me, I grabbed Gilley by the fabric of his sweatshirt and pulled
him close. “Tell me what the hell is going on!”

Gilley’s eyes were wild and frightened and he looked like he wanted to be anywhere
but there. “It was Gopher’s idea,” he whimpered. “I overheard John trying to talk
him out of it, but you know how stubborn Gopher can be! I didn’t know he’d recruited
Meg and Kim until John came to tell me! I swear I didn’t, right, John? I didn’t know
he’d taken—”

I tugged again on Gilley’s sweatshirt to get his attention because my heart was now
racing. Gopher had done something. Something bad, I was sure of it. “Land that plane,
Gilley, and just tell me!”

It was John who answered me. “Gopher talked Meg, Kim, and one of the male models from
Michel’s shoot into going on a ghost hunt. He wanted to send the networks some footage
and, like an idiot, I told him all about our encounter with the Grim Widow. I think
he and the girls went into the south wing to try and get her on film.”

The shock of what he’d just said made me feel light-headed. “Oh, God!” I whispered.
“How long ago?”

Gilley gulped. “It’s been nearly two hours, M. J.”

I bit my lip as I thought about the spikes still in my room. Even if John had lent
Gopher the six he’d been carrying when he’d come with me, that was hardly enough spikes
for four people to fend off the Widow and whatever demon had chased after me and John.
“Did they have
any
kind of protection?”

John cast his eyes to the floor. “I thought that by not giving Gopher any spikes he’d
think twice about going on the stupid hunt. I had no idea he’d talk Meg and Kim into
going with him!”

Meg was our production assistant and Kim was our assistant producer. They were really
sweet young girls who tended to jump at Gopher’s every command.

“So, to protect them from
the
most dangerous spook we’ve probably ever encountered, they have
nothing
?” I shouted at him, losing my cool big-time. “How the hell could you be so stupid?!”
John flinched like I’d just slapped him and I immediately put a hand on his arm. “Oh,
John, I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean it like that!”

“No, you’re right,” he said contritely. “That
was
stupid. Kim and I broke up in Germany, so we haven’t exactly been talking. I should’ve
known Gopher would order them to go with him. I wasn’t thinking straight.”

I turned away from him and focused on Gilley. Pointing to his sweatshirt, I issued
an order. “Gimme that.”

Gilley’s eyes widened in alarm and he quickly crossed his arms over his torso and
hugged himself. “No way!”

I grabbed hold of his collar again and pulled his face to within two inches of mine.
I had no time for his stupid theatrics and I wasn’t about to go searching for my friends
without some serious armor. “Gil,” I said levelly, “I am
not
kidding around here. Give up that sweatshirt before I rip it off of you!”