Die Job Page 4

  I jogged toward the cemetery—forgetting that I hated the place after being knocked into an open grave last May—as another two rockets went off with ear-jarring bangs. From the front of the house, the cemetery was quite a hike, around the side of the mansion and across the sloping garden in back. Students streamed from the house and the outbuildings, all thoughts of recording spirit data forgotten in the magic of fireworks. Nothing more than dark silhouettes, they laughed and pointed at the dazzling colors starring the sky over the graveyard. A device whistled skyward and exploded into ribbons of white that fizzled slowly as they drifted toward the ground. The lights seemed to animate the marble angel watching over one of the graves, making her wings shimmer and her marble robe seem to undulate in the play of light and shadow.

  A couple of minutes later, Glen Spaatz appeared beside me where I stood outside the wrought-iron fence that ringed the tiny cemetery. I wasn’t sure where he’d come from.

  “I think it’s time to call it a night,” Spaatz said in my ear. His arm brushed mine. “I’ll let the kids enjoy the show and then round them up. I must say this hasn’t been the most successful field trip on record.”

  Over the pops of the fireworks, I heard a faint call and I shushed Spaatz. It seemed to come from the direction of the mansion.

  “Did you hear that?” I asked Spaatz.

  He turned to listen. The sound came again, clearer as the wind dropped suddenly. “Help! Someone! Call nine-one-one!”

  Spaatz rolled his eyes. “Don’t they ever give up? How many pranks—”

  I was running back to the mansion before he stopped speaking. I knew that voice.

  Chapter Four

  MY BREATH CAME IN RAGGED GULPS AS I STRUGGLED up the slight rise to the mansion where Rachel stood on the terrazzo, waving frantically. Her hair straggled more wildly than usual around her face, and tears had smeared her mascara down her cheeks.

  She grabbed my arm and pulled me toward the French doors when I reached the terrazzo. “Oh, thank God! I don’t have my cell phone. I didn’t know what to—” She burst into tears.

  “What’s wrong?” I spoke as she dragged me across the ballroom and down the hall toward the huge foyer.

  She put one hand to her mouth and pointed with the other, shaking her head back and forth in denial of what lay before us.

  I gasped at the sight of the body lying at the foot of the staircase, unmoving, a trickle of blood oozing across the floor. One arm was flung over his head, the other trapped under his body. A gleam of white poked through a hole in his jeans and, with a sick feeling, I recognized it as his shin bone. His other leg was straight, the foot resting awkwardly on the bottom stair. A boy. Blond hair. Jeans. Braden.

  I dug my cell phone out of my pocket and punched in 911. I tossed it to Rachel. “Tell them what’s happened.” Crossing to Braden, I dropped to my knees and felt for a pulse. Thready, but there.

  I didn’t dare move him for fear of spinal injuries or other bone breaks, but I needed to treat him for shock. His pallor and jerky breathing, not to mention the still spreading blood, told me he was in trouble. Neither Rachel nor I wore a jacket I could use to warm him. My gaze flashed around the hall. A memory pinged and I dashed into the adjacent parlor. Grabbing hold of the velvet drapes, I ripped them from the rod, bringing it down with a huge clatter. Crumpling a panel of velvet in my arms, I carried it into the hall and spread it over Braden’s still form, tucking it as close as I dared.

  “What happened?” I asked Rachel.

  She had stopped talking and was staring at Braden, her eyes huge with worry. She shook her head. “I don’t know. We were in the parlor, doing our readings. I had to go to the bathroom. It took me a while to find it. While I was in there, I heard what sounded like explosions.”

  “Fireworks,” I supplied.

  She looked at me blankly, like she’d never heard the word. “I came back to get Braden, thinking we could go see what it was, and I found him like this. I didn’t have my cell and no one answered when I screamed for help and . . .” She dissolved into tears again.

  I moved to her and hugged her tightly. She was shivering. “You did great,” I said. “He’s going to be fine.” I hoped. I said a quick prayer.

  A siren racing up the long drive brought our heads around. Giving Rachel a quick squeeze, I jogged to the double doors and pulled them open. An ambulance, lights flashing, skidded to a stop beside an SUV that hadn’t been there earlier, and the EMTs hopped out. I beckoned them in and backed out of their way.

  “What in the world—” a disapproving voice said. Lucy Mortimer moved into the foyer from the hallway that led off to the administrative offices and storage areas. Her gaze took in the scene and then she gasped, “My parlor drapes!”

  Before she could rip them off Braden—which I feared she might do—the EMTs clattered into the hallway, lugging a gurney and their equipment. They had Braden hooked to an IV and secured in a cervical brace faster than I would have thought possible. They had lifted him on a backboard and were wheeling the gurney out the door as Glen Spaatz and a gaggle of students appeared on the scene, stopping abruptly where the hall met the foyer. Lucy hurried off toward her office, muttering about calling the board of directors.

  “Braden McCullers apparently fell down the stairs,” I told Spaatz briefly, watching as his face registered disbelief and worry.

  “Oh my God! Cyril’s ghost pushed Braden!” a girl’s voice said from behind Spaatz.

  A babble of voices rose up, only to be silenced as the front door thwacked open again and a man appeared on the threshold, eyes wide, gray hair mussed. I’d never seen him before.

  “Where’s Mark?” he asked urgently. “Is Mark okay?”

  We looked around. No Mark. No Lindsay. No Lonnie or Tyler or Coach Peet, but presumably they were waiting on the bus. I couldn’t tell if anyone else was missing.

  “Who are you?” Spaatz stepped forward and challenged the stranger. They were about the same height, but the newcomer was bulkier through the neck and shoulders.

  “Eric Crenshaw. Mark’s dad. I saw the ambulance while I was waiting. Is Mark—”

  “Take it easy, Dad.” Mark’s voice came from the hallway leading to the ballroom. Lindsay’s nervous face peeked over his shoulder.

  “Goddamnit,” Crenshaw said, taking a step toward Mark. “You were supposed to be outside at nine thirty, remember? So we could get on the road to your aunt’s? When I saw the ambu—”

  “Sorry. I forgot.” Mark’s voice was sullen; he clearly didn’t like being chewed out in front of his friends.

  “That’s not good enough,” Eric Crenshaw snapped, taking a step toward Mark. “You know your mother—”

  Rachel’s voice in my ear, begging me to take her to the hospital, drowned out the rest of their confrontation.

  “Please, Grace, I have to be there. What if he, like, dies?” She whispered the last word.

  “He’s not going to die,” I said firmly. Why did we make statements like that when we had no clue? Denial, I guessed, or hope. I pulled Spaatz away from the group. “When the police show up, tell them Rachel and I have gone to the hospital.”

  “The police?” He looked startled. “Oh, shit. Of course, the police.” He pushed a hand through his hair.

  “I’m surprised they’re not here already.” I said. I dug in my purse for my keys before realizing I didn’t have my car. We’d all come in the bus. “Damn!”

  At Spaatz’s raised brows, I explained my dilemma. “Take the bus,” he said immediately. “Tell the driver. He can come back for the rest of us after he drops you at the hospital. I don’t think we’ll be going anywhere any time soon.”

  “Thanks.” I gave him a tight smile, grabbed Rachel by the hand, and sprinted toward the bus.

  Three hours later, coming up on one in the morning, I sat in the hospital cafeteria, clutching a lukewarm mug of tea in my hands and being grilled by my ex-husband. Braden was still in surgery, his family hovering anxiously in the w
aiting room, and Rachel’s dad had fetched her an hour ago, promising she could return to the hospital in the morning. My ex, Officer Hank Parker of the St. Elizabeth Police Department, had shown up just as I was debating calling my mom for a ride home or lurking in the waiting room until someone looked like they were headed back to St. Elizabeth. Hank and his new partner, Officer Ally Qualls, a short, dark-haired woman, arrived before I could make up my mind. While Officer Qualls talked to Braden’s family, Hank steered me to the elevator and down to the cafeteria, where he bought me a fresh cup of tea.

  “Thanks,” I said with real gratitude, slumping into an uncomfortable plastic chair. The cafeteria smelled like burned toast and was deserted except for a man and a woman in lab coats arguing at a table by the window, and a short-order cook dressed as a mummy yawning over the grill.

  “What in blazes were you doing at a high school get-together, Grace?” Hank asked. He leaned back in his chair and stretched his long legs out toward me. He’d thickened a bit through the neck and middle since high school, and his brown hair had thinned a bit, but he still looked sharp in his uniform. He’d applied to the Atlanta Police Department more interested in cop groupies and carrying a gun than protecting the public, but it seemed to me recently that he’d gotten a bit more serious about policing. He’d told Mom he was planning to take the sergeant’s exam before long. “You don’t have the hots for that teacher, that Spaz guy, do you?” His eyes narrowed with suspicion.

  Hank’s jealousy, despite our divorce, which happened largely due to his infidelities, got on my nerves. I was sure he’d deliberately mispronounced Glen’s name. “It was a field trip,” I said. “Surely Mr. Spaatz”—I emphasized the pronunciation—“told you that.”

  “Yeah. But it still sounds like a stupid-ass idea to me,” he said, shaking his head. “Ghost hunting? What’s the point of that? I can’t see where it matters if there’s ghosts or not. What were they going to do if one showed up? Put it in a zoo?”

  Maybe it was because I was sleep-deprived and worried, but what Hank said made a certain amount of sense. Scary. “I don’t know,” I said. “It was for science.” I propped my elbows on the table and let my head fall into my hands.

  Hank snorted. “So, what were you doing there?”

  “Chaperoning.”

  “Damn fine chaperone you are.”

  His words scraped my raw emotions. I’d already been beating myself up for agreeing to chaperone in the first place and for failing so miserably at it. It was at least partially my fault that Braden McCullers was in the hospital. “Thanks a lot,” I muttered.

  “Not that it sounds like you could have prevented the accident,” he added graciously. “The fireworks, now . . . We’re going to have to ticket the kid who set those off when we catch up with him. All the other kids say it was”—he checked his notebook—“an Alonso Farber.”

  I was concerned that Lonnie still hadn’t turned up, but it was Hank’s first words that caught my attention. “Accident? You’re sure it was an accident?”

  Hank worked his lips in and out. “Of course. What else would it be? You certainly don’t believe that ghost—Cyrus or whatever—”

  “Cyril.”

  “—shoved him off the landing?” He guffawed. “You need more than caffeine, Grace—you need some shut eye. Let me take you home.”

  Riding home with Hank was not high on my list of things I wanted to do, but neither was sleeping in the hospital waiting room. “Okay, thanks. Just let me see if there’s any news on Braden,” I said.

  When we got back to the ICU, a tall woman in surgical scrubs was talking to Braden’s parents. “A coma?” his mother said in a horrified tone, and slumped forward in a faint. The doctor and Mr. McCullers caught her before she hit the floor. A line of plum-sized plastic jack-o’-lanterns strung over the doorway wavered.

  “Guess we won’t be able to talk to the kid any time soon,” Hank said, hooking his thumbs in his utility belt. He approached his partner to tell her he was running me home. She looked over, suspicion in her dark eyes, and I remembered that she’d seemed interested in Hank the last time we met. I couldn’t think of a good way to tell her she was welcome to him, so I gave a little wave and tried to look nonthreatening. After the night’s adventures, I felt about as glamorous as a manatee and was sure I had circles under my green eyes and a pasty complexion from lack of sleep. My light brown hair was a tangled mess and my shirt had blood on it from when I’d tended to Braden. Apparently, I looked as bad as I felt because Officer Qualls smiled, said something to Hank, and turned back to the family member she was interviewing.

  Hank and I rode home in the patrol car in silence. The loblolly pines lining both sides of I-95 turned the highway into a dark tunnel, and traffic was light at this hour. Hank pulled into my landlady’s driveway and got out when I did. “It feels just like old times, Grace,” Hank said. “Like when we’d come home from a date and I’d walk you to the door. Remember how your mom used to flash the porch light when we were ki—”

  “It’s late and I’m beat,” I said, not wanting to encourage his romantic reminiscences. I had all those memories locked in a corner of my mind labeled: “Big Mistake. Keep Closed.” I started briskly toward my apartment, a former carriage house slightly offset from my landlady’s Victorian home.

  “Maybe I could come in for a cup of joe,” Hank hinted, catching up to me easily.

  “No.” I stopped at my door, unwilling to open it while he was there.

  He looked taken aback but recovered quickly, giving me a broad smile. “Sure. You’re tired. Another time.”

  Before I could tell him there wasn’t going to be another time, not in this life or any other where I had free will, he leaned close enough so I could smell the coffee on his breath. “Then how about a good-night kiss, for old time’s sake?”

  I stared up at him, incredulity and anger fizzing through me. “What part of ‘divorced’ don’t you get?” I asked. “Not married. Not related. Not interested.”

  He reared back like I’d slapped him and his smile turned to a sulky pout. “You know you don’t—”

  The radio attached below his left shoulder crackled to life and spouted cop talk. Hank responded and I took advantage of his momentary distraction to open my door and slip inside, closing it firmly and leaning back against it. To think that I’d been anxious to get out and about on a Saturday night, I thought wearily as Hank stomped back toward his patrol car. I should have stuck with my original plan of a DVD, ice cream, and real estate listings.

  I stepped into my small living room/dining room combo. The kitchenette sat beyond it and my bedroom was to the right. It was small, but it was more private than a unit at a huge complex and I got a break on the rent for helping Mrs. Jones with her yard and garden. Fixing myself a tuna salad sandwich, I poured a glass of milk and settled at the dinette table, too wired to sleep, despite my weariness. I eyed the packet of MLS listings, but then my gaze drifted to the box from Rothmere. Wiping my hands on a napkin, I opened it. I thought about rummaging through the box to find more letters from Clarissa but decided to enjoy the anticipation of coming across them in turn.

  I unfolded the stiff paper, conscious of the creases ironed in by time. Gently spreading it flat on the table, I glanced at the signature. Spikier and darker than Clarissa’s rounded script. I began to read.

  October 18, 1831

  Dear Angus,

  Your condolences on the death of my husband are much appreciated. My bereavement was sudden, as you know, and you also know how grieved I am by his passing, but time and God heal all wounds, or so Reverend Johnson tells me. Geoffrey remains at Rothmere, as the estate belongs to him now that his father has passed to his reward. My other children have returned to their homes and all I have left to comfort me is Clarissa, who drifts through the day like a wraith since her father died, starting at sudden noises. I fear for her mental health and must deem it prudent for her to marry Quentin as soon as may be possible, despite our mourn
ing. I would welcome a visit from you when your business affairs permit.

  Yours,

  Annabelle

  Huh. Clarissa’s mother seemed to think her daughter was losing it after Cyril’s death. Well, wouldn’t anyone be knocked off-kilter by the circumstances? I wondered who Angus was as I sifted through the box’s contents. The next few items were receipts for household purchases—boxes of beeswax tapers; sugar; Finest India tea; American secretary cabinet desk of Cherrywood, one hundred dollars; rat poison; nails; and “a large and muscular black man, Amos, for seventy and a half.” I dropped the paper, realizing it was the bill of sale for a slave. It gave me an eerie feeling. I’d enjoyed history mildly in high school and college, but it had never felt as real to me as it did now. Something about these documents, written by real people who used to live near St. Elizabeth, made the past seem more immediate than my stodgy history texts had, despite their glossy photos and scholarly interpretations. History and the present seemed to merge in a way I’d never noticed before.

  Chapter Five

  [Sunday]

  I MUST HAVE FALLEN ASLEEP AT THE TABLE BECAUSE when the phone rang, I struggled awake, disoriented, feeling stiff from hours spent slumped over the sharp-edged table. I groped for the phone, knocking one of the Rothmere ledgers to the floor. Lucy would kill me.

  “How’s my favorite hair stylist?” Marty greeted me.

  I smiled at the sound of his voice and pushed my hair out of my face. I pictured him relaxed in his leather recliner with his laptop on his lap—he was always working on a story—long legs extended, sandy hair flopping onto his forehead.

  “I’m good,” I said. Well, I would be after a shower and a stretch. “And how’s my favorite reporter?”