A Ghost of a Chance, Cherie Claire [a court of thorns and roses ebook free .txt] 📗

Winnie’s got the mommy look going, staring at me across a table full of teapots, scones, miniature cucumber sandwiches and a chicken salad laced with pecans I would normally devour. I’m starving, having missed breakfast, but I’m too tired and confused to consider raising a fork to my lips.

“What is it?” Winnie asks.

There were so many times on this trip where I doubted my sanity, figured Lillye’s death and Katrina’s wrath had finally tossed me over the edge, but Carmine’s revelations and TB’s research that backed my ghost sightings had given me hope that I wasn’t stark raving mad. Now, I’m back to the beginning.

“Did you have a nice spa visit?” Winnie places two sandwiches on my plate, then attempts to plop another scoop of chicken salad to the one I haven’t touched.

I hold a hand over my plate. One thing I can’t stand is wasting food. “No, the spa visit didn’t go so well.”

Winnie leans in close. “Did you see another dead body?”

I start laughing because I haven’t a clue what I just saw. Was Michael a ghost? Was he an imposter like James had been at the college, imitating a masseuse because he couldn’t afford college? Or maybe the Spa Nazi recognized my voice on the phone and decided to mess with my head. “I don’t know, Winnie. I don’t know anything anymore. I can’t believe I’m actually looking forward to going back to war-torn South Louisiana.”

Winnie touches my hand and it feels good to have a friend. I send her a sad smile and she squeezes my fingers. “I’d usually say something uplifting right about now,” Winnie says, “but guess who just walked in the door?”

I’ve completely forgotten about Madman, which makes me laugh even more. “You know things have gotten really bad when the last person I want to see is my sexual fantasy of the last few years.”

Winnie frowns, not knowing what I’m talking about. I don’t feel like explaining so I rise and head toward the front door. There, in all his cop glory, hat upon his head, gun belt cockeyed off his waist like John Wayne, stands Maddox, smiling as if he’s happy to see me. I stop cold, washing in that congenial greeting, imaging that maybe this day isn’t so bad after all. Maddox waves and grins seductively like there’s some carnal secret between us. Although this sets afire a few firecrackers in my female places, I can’t help but wonder why the transformation.

The closer I get, however, the more I realize those eyes are not quite meeting mine, just a hair off to the side. I turn and look back toward the group. Sure enough Kelly, our Southern Belle from Georgia, is waving at him from across the room. I want to say this day could not get any worse but I’m afraid to jinx it because after you watch the levees break in a town where they insisted they would hold forever, you know it can always get worse.

As I approach Maddox he turns his gaze to me and his smile fades. “Miss Valentine.”

Business as usual. “Mr. Bertrand.”

“We need to talk.”

We look around for an empty table but Miss Mary’s Tea House is packed with our large group and the regular lunch crowd; the rains seem to be attracting people not able to get outside. There’s a cute little gift shop in front that offers more privacy so I head off in that direction, not even bothering to ask. When I reach the front door, I turn abruptly, my arms solid across my chest. I want to get this nightmare over with and go home.

Maddox must have sensed my aggravated energy for he takes a step back. “Uh, I wanted to let you know what we found out.”

“Okay.”

“You were right, there was a groundskeeper at the college who left after the murders. If they were indeed murdered, but we’re treating them as homicides.”

I say nothing, just stare, which unnerves him. I desperately want to say, “Tell me something I don’t know, you cocky son-of-a-bitch.”

“Uh.” He pulls out that stupid black book from his back pocket and low and behold he has written something in it. “It was a man named Gene Tanner, originally from St. Louis. Worked at the college the same years as those girls were killed.”

I exhale but my arms stay locked and Maddox keeps watching me as if I might grow horns. “Did he leave right after Blair was killed?”

“Yeah.”

I nod. “Did you find anything else about him? Priors? Arrests in other states?”

“Yeah.”

I tilt my head and cock my jaw. “Are you going to tell me?” I’m treading on sensitive ground with a cop and I know it but I can’t help myself and he’s taking it so I keep going.

Maddox looks at his notes. “He was arrested in Washington state a couple of years later, convicted of sexual assault and the killing of two young girls.”

This takes the wind out of my sails. James let this monster loose to save his career and keep himself out of jail and two young lives were lost in the balance. I drop my arms and exhale. “What happened to him?”

Maddox glances back at his notes. “He was sentenced to hang right after the trial.”

I drop my head and study the knots in the wooden floor, remembering the faces of those girls this monster killed and secretly buried. “Good riddance.”

“There’s something else.”

I look up and realize Maddox is talking to me like a colleague and not a stranger, a prying journalist or a person of interest. The change in the atmosphere between us is almost palpable. No matter what occurred over the past few days nor his dalliance with Miss Georgia, I decide to drop my defiance. “Hopefully, you found out he’s burning in hell.

Maddox shakes his head. “Hell’s right here,” and for a moment I recognize that all-too-familiar pain, realize we share an experience witnessing the same horrors, only our dead bodies floated in floodwaters. Before he wallows into those depths, however, Maddox gets back on dry ground, returning to his stern cop demeanor, and I chide myself on using too many metaphors.

“Right before the hanging, they asked Tanner if he had any final words.”

“Did he?”

Maddox flips a page of his notebook and reads, “‘You might have gotten me on these crimes, fellas, but you’ll never find the girls of Arkansas.’”

A laughing couple enters the restaurant and the cold wind rushes through the gift shop, sending a violent shiver up my back. Maddox flips the book closed and slips it into his back pocket.

“Why didn’t they ever put the two together?” I ask.

Maddox sighs and looks out the window where the wind is forcing the rain to dance against the parking lot in horizontal sheets. “Maybe the Washington guys told the police here what he said, maybe they didn’t. My guess is that if they did, city officials didn’t want anyone to know that a murderer was living at the school because then who would want to come to Eureka Springs. The Blair girl alone really did a number on their enrollment. If her body had been found murdered and sexually abused, that would have closed the school for sure.”

“In the meantime, Mr. Tanner kills two girls in Washington.”

Maddox watches a man struggling with an umbrella run from the neighboring antique store to his car, getting soaked in the process. “Welcome to my world.”

I still don’t like the guy, and I don’t believe we’ve graduated to friends, but I think I understand him better. It’s a good way to part company so I place a hand on his forearm and squeeze, much like Winnie had done only minutes before, and head back to my table.

“Don’t you want to know about that girl who jumped off the balcony?” Maddox asks to my rear.

I close my eyes and exhale. Do I? I ask myself because I so want Lori’s haunting to go away and the more information I receive, the worst this nightmare gets. On the other hand, I want to help Lori make whatever transition happens when you solve a ghost mystery.

When I turn back to Maddox, he’s holding