“No wonder he asked you to marry him,” Michael said under his breath.
“And just what is that supposed to mean?”
“Emily, you were his whole career. How many of these stories were chosen by you, researched by you, then written by you?”
“A few,” she said. That Donald was a lying, betraying jerk didn’t mean she was. The credits on the news shows had shown that Donald had written and researched them; Emily’s name never appeared on any of the scripts. And that’s the way she wanted it, she’d told herself often. Some of the stories he had done were quite controversial and….
She looked up at Michael. “Perhaps I stepped on a few toes and someone found out it was me, not Donald, who had found out what I did. Is that what you think?”
“Exactly.”
For a moment Emily’s head whirled with memories of all the stories she had “helped” Donald with. In fact, that’s how they’d met. Emily had repeatedly written to Donald begging him to come to her library to speak to a group of teenagers about broadcasting careers, but all she’d received were form letters saying his schedule wouldn’t permit him to come. Emily had racked her brain to find a way to entice him to her library, then she remembered something she’d read about endangered species, and she remembered something the wife of a big-time building contractor had said in jest, then she remembered something she’d heard on TV. When she put it all together it made a rather good story, so she wrote it up and sent it to Donald.
Two weeks later Donald came to Greenbriar, met Emily and talked to the students, and ended up renting an apartment and making the tiny town his weekend home. And Donald had investigated what Emily had written, found it all to be true, so he’d done an exclusive on the evening news. In the end, the building contractor had been stopped in the middle of the job and Emily had heard that he’d lost millions in future contracts. But Donald had won an award for the story and he’d celebrated by buying champagne and roses for Emily and taking her virginity.
“Why are you looking so strange?” Michael said. “How many of these stories have given someone a reason to hate you?”
Emily gave a weak smile. “I’d think they’d hate Donald. He read them and he received the awards.”
“Contrary to your opinion of him, it doesn’t take much of a brain to realize that Donald is an idiot. He’s a pretty face and he reads rather well. No one who had spent half an hour around him would believe that he discovered these stories. Kill Donald and what do you achieve? Nothing. A person needs to kill the source, which is you.”
“Oh,” Emily said as she sat down hard on one of Donald’s black couches. “I never thought of it that way. I encouraged Donald to allow me to remain anonymous. I never wanted the limelight. I just wanted to see that justice was done.”
Michael smiled at her. “I like that you never change. You have always been a lover of justice. A couple of times you’ve even given your life for justice.”
“Is this one of those lives?” she asked timidly.
“Not if I have anything to do with it. Now, let’s get busy. I think we need to look for a case that isn’t finished. Do you remember which ones those would be?”
“Does that include the men who are getting out on parole soon?”
For a moment Michael just blinked at her. “When I asked you what evil surrounded you, why didn’t you think of all these reports you had done?”
“I didn’t think anyone knew about my connection to them. Donald always said I was his secret weapon.”
“Donald wanted to take all the credit for himself,” Michael said with a grimace. “All right, what’s done is done. How do we start going over these? If we take them one by one I can feel which have evil attached to them.”
“Why not just pick up the bound scripts?”
“Too diluted. There’s bad energy there but it’s too weak. I need the source. Where is your original research?”
“On computer disk,” she answered, being purposefully vague.
Michael glared at her.
“All right. Everything is on Donald’s portable computer. He didn’t want to leave anything with me because….” Breaking off, Emily looked at Michael.
“You don’t have to tell me, I know. He didn’t want anyone to accidentally find out that you had done all the work and he had done nothing.”
“That’s not exactly what he said, but maybe it’s the truth.”
“So where is his computer?”
“You can’t look into a person’s private files. It’s illegal and unethical and, besides, I have no idea. I would imagine it’s with him or at his office.”
“I doubt that he’d leave it at the office. He wouldn’t want anyone snooping. Shall we look around here?”
Emily knew better than to tell Michael that they couldn’t stay there to go searching through Donald’s private effects because she well knew that Michael would do whatever he wanted to do. “Bedroom?” she said. “Or would you rather take the living room first?”
Chapter 19
HAPPY NOW?” EMILY ASKED. “WE’VE COMMITTED grand theft as well as breaking and entering, but we have nothing. So, are you terribly happy?”
“Not in the least,” Michael answered, ignoring her sarcasm. “There is something wrong here but I don’t know what it is.”
“What’s wrong is that Donald will probably be coming home any minute and he’s going to call the police and have both of us sent to jail. You may be able to fly out but if someone kills me in jail I’ll stay dead.”
“A common problem with mortals,” Michael said without looking up from the book of scripts.
It was now after 6:00 P.M. and, as Emily said, they had found nothing. Not that the day hadn’t been interesting. They had found Donald’s personal computer and with its seven hundred bytes of disk space, all Emily’s research had easily fit onto it. The problem was that Donald had a password to protect all his files and Emily had no idea what the word was. After she’d explained to Michael what was needed, he’d said, “Lillian will know what it is. She makes your duck’s life her business.”
“Shall we call her?” Emily asked, reminding him that Lillian was a naked lady with no body. “Or do we conduct a séance?”
“I’ll ask Henry to go for me. I’d go myself but I have to drag this body around and it takes too long.”
“I hate to hear who Henry is.”
“He lives here.”
“Of course. Why did I even wonder?” After that Emily didn’t ask too many questions as Michael spent the next hour poring over more of the bound volumes, page by page. And later, he cocked his head to one side as he seemed to listen to someone—or something—then he informed her that the password was “Mr. News.”
“Not very original, is he?” Michael asked, refraining from remarking on Donald’s vanity in using such a password.
And Emily bit her tongue to keep from asking how one ghost transferred information to another. How did they travel? The whole thing made her feel creepy to know that there was an invisible world around her world that, until recently, had seemed so solid.
But even if she’d wanted to, Emily couldn’t have said anything because, abruptly, Michael said, “We have to go. Now.”
“He’s coming, isn’t he?”
Once again, Michael seemed to be listening to someone. “Yes,” he said softly, then gave Emily a long look. “We must go this instant.”
There was something in his manner that made her hesitate. “Is it more bad spirits? Are they after you?”
Michael didn’t answer as he shut the lid of the computer (making alarms go off because he hadn’t exited properly) tucked it under his arm, then began to push Emily out the front door of the apartment.
But they were too late, for coming down the hall toward the apartment was Donald, his arm around a beautiful blond who Emily was sure didn’t have a brain in her head. It would be much too unfair for her to have brains and legs like that, Emily thought as she stood rooted to where she was and
stared.
But Michael reacted. Grabbing Emily, he shoved her against a wall and began kissing her with passion. Within seconds, her thoughts were on Michael only; Donald was forgotten.
When Michael broke away, Emily stared up at him, her eyes full of stars.
“They’re gone now,” Michael said, still hiding Emily from view with his big body.
“Who?” she whispered, then remembered when Michael smiled down at her smugly.
“Get away from me!” she said, pushing at him.
“But I thought you liked for me—” The look she gave him made him break off, but he was still grinning. “Let’s go,” he said and, taking her hand, he began to run with Emily trailing behind him.
When they reached the street, she was out of breath. “He’s going to know who took his computer,” she said, panting. “He knows that I know where the key is hidden.”
“Do you think your Donald doesn’t know who is trying to kill you and why?”
“I refuse to believe that,” Emily said firmly. “For all that Donald may be a bit vain, I can’t believe that he actually knows about…about murder. He doesn’t want me dead.”
“Not unless your death gets him the biggest story he’s ever had in his life,” Michael answered, then put up his hand and yelled, “Taxi!” One stopped immediately.
“Where are we going?” she asked once they were inside.
“There’s only one place that’s safe for us,” he said as he settled Donald’s computer on his lap.
“Oh no, not there,” Emily said, groaning. “Not the Madison house.”
“I thought you liked the place.”
“I did. I do, but—” She broke off because he was smiling at her. “Drop dead.” She knew too well that he was reading her mind and that her fear was for him and the way the angry spirit in that house had treated him. She was not going to fall for him, she told herself. She could not; would not. “Yes, of course,” she said after a while, her voice as cold as she could make it. “Evil is your business, not mine. But I do know that taking a taxi all the way back to Greenbriar is too expensive. And it would draw too much attention.”
“Sure,” he said, grinning. “We’ll take a train. Did I tell you—”
“Yes!” she snapped, then turned to look out the window. “You told me everything.”
“I like this stuff,” Michael said. “What is it again?”
“Gin. You shouldn’t be drinking it. I’m sure it’s against God’s laws.”
“Excess in all things is against God’s law. You want to tell me what you’re so angry about?”
They were sitting on the floor of the Madison house, or rather on a double layer of thick oriental carpets that Emily was sure were worth a fortune. There was a fire blazing in a fireplace that probably hadn’t been cleaned in a hundred years, and to the side were the remnants of a meal of Moroccan chicken and chocolate mousse. She had to give it to Michael that he had quickly adjusted to the comforts of human life and he had certainly learned a lot about food in a short time. Now Emily sometimes found herself asking him how to do things.
“A golden sovereign,” he said, making her look at him in puzzlement. But she looked away quickly because he looked too handsome in the firelight. The darkness of the house seemed to enclose them and make them cozy and safe.
“I beg your pardon,” she mumbled as she demurely sipped her diet cola. She was staying away from anything alcoholic.
“I think you people say, ‘A penny for your thoughts.’ Well, I’m offering more. I offer you all the gold buried in the foundation of this house.”
For a moment she looked at him with eyes wide with curiosity, but then she looked away. “Nothing,” she said, not allowing herself to ask about any gold. “I’m just tired.”
“Emily, you can lie to anyone else, but not to me. What’s wrong?”
“You can read minds so you tell me,” she snapped.
“Your life has been shattered and you don’t know how you’re going to put it back together,” he said softly.
He was so perfectly right that when she tried to speak, she couldn’t. She wanted to be brave. She wanted to be strong and tell herself that everything would be all right, but she couldn’t. Before she knew it was happening, tears began to run down her cheeks.
“Emily,” Michael whispered and when he tried to pull her into his arms, she fought him, but he held her firmly and didn’t let her pull away.
“It wasn’t fair of you!” she said against his chest, then used her fist to hit him. He didn’t flinch as he held her, her face pushed into the soft wool of his sweater. “I was happy. Maybe Donald is a jerk and maybe I would have been miserable as his wife and maybe he wanted me for the wrong reasons but I didn’t know any of that. I was happy. Do you understand that?”
“Yes, of course,” he said, holding her and stroking her hair. “You have always been happy with them at first.”
“Stop it!” she half-yelled, then tried to push away from him. He held her firmly. “I don’t want to hear about the past or the future. I just wanted what I had now.”
“But I ruined it,” he said softly. “Once again I ruined your life.”
“Have you done it often?” she asked sarcastically, beginning to lean against him, no longer attempting to pull away. What a hideous few days she’d had!
“Emily.” His voice was very low when he spoke and she felt it as much as heard it. “I have done horrible things to you.”
At that she pulled away enough to look up at him. His eyes were very dark and he was staring into the fire, but his arms were tight around her.
“I….” He hesitated.
“What did you do?”
Michael took a deep breath. “I have not just ruined your life now, I have ruined your last two lives.”
Emily did pull away so she could see his eyes. “Tell me what you did,” she said firmly.
He paused before he spoke and she could tell that he didn’t want to tell her what he was about to say. “I deserve a demotion. I deserve whatever fate Adrian gives me for what I have done to you. You see, Emily, you are so very good.”
“Yes, yes,” she said impatiently. “I’m so good my fiancé is out with someone else.”
“That’s just it. These men here on earth do not appreciate you. They see only what is on the surface of a woman. They see that you are lovely to look at, but they don’t look deeper to see that inside you are beautiful beyond compare. These human men do not seem to care at all for a woman’s spirit. If a good spirit is encased in a fat body or has a plain face, the men do not want her.”
“But, if I were gorgeous like that woman we saw with Donald…” she said sadly.
“No, you are beautiful, but you do not decorate yourself as she does—that woman we saw with your…your….”
“Ex,” she supplied, sighing.
“Yes, with your ex.”
“So you still haven’t told me what you did to me in the past.”
“You were the same then as you are now.”
“Plain and practical?”
“No! You were trusting and easily led. Your heart is so loving that you….”
“I what?”
Michael sighed. “You believe anything a good looking man tells you, that’s what. There are few to equal you on earth, Emily,” he said with disgust. “In life after life I have watched you throw away your goodness on alcoholics, on ne’er-do-wells who feed off of you. Do you have any idea what it was like for me to have to stand by and watch you and your two children nearly freeze to death one winter because your odious husband drank away the children’s food money? You took in washing, Emily. Your soft hands….” Pausing, he lifted her hand and kissed first the palm then the back of her hand, then each finger, one by one.
“So what did you do?” she asked softly.
“I directed you to a lady who needed sewing done. At least sewing was easier than washing and she—”
“No, I mean, what did you do to me in the last
two lives?”
“Oh.”
When he said no more, she put her head back on his shoulder. “Go on, you can tell me.”
He took a deep breath and it was a while before he spoke. “In your last lifetime, when you wore the silver dress, I chose that dress for you. I knew you’d look good in silver. You asked how your husband liked you in it. Emily, I…I didn’t let you marry. Every time a man came along and you thought of marrying him, I’d tickle your nose so you’d get away from him. For the last two lifetimes I’ve not let you marry or have children. For two lifetimes you’ve died a virgin.”
Emily pulled away from him and for a moment she was speechless, then she gaped at him. “What kind of angel are you? How could you do such a thing to someone under your protection? I don’t think you were sent to earth, I think you were cast out.”
“Emily, please, you have to try to understand. After that washing life I made sure you had a rich, strong father, but even he couldn’t prevent you from falling for a wastrel of a man. All that man wanted was your inheritance and he would have spent every penny you had and left you as a washerwoman. I couldn’t bear to see it happen to you again.”
“So you made my nose itch and left me a virgin. Just out of curiosity, how did you prevent the man from carrying me away? I assume he fought for my father’s money.”
“He, uh, well, he was caught in an embarrassing situation and had to marry someone else’s daughter.”
“And you saw to it that he was caught.”
“Yes.”
For a while Emily sat still in his arms, not moving, not knowing whether to believe him or not, but it all, somehow, made sense. All her life she’d had a feeling that she would never, ever, never get married, that no man was going to want her. When she was a girl she used to cry over pictures of babies and when her mother asked her what was wrong, Emily had said that she knew she’d never have any children.
“You did this to me for two lifetimes?”
“Yes,” Michael said, his voice heavy. “I know it was wrong of me. I shouldn’t have done it. In the end your life was almost as bad as it would have been if you had married the rotter.”