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

information listed — my birthdate, etc. — but was from an out-of-state hospital and of course different names for parents.”

“But that’s crazy,” Merrill says. “How could you possibly have two birth certificates?”

She shrugs. “I suppose your grandfather adopted me and somehow got the local hospital to issue another — a fake — birth certificate with his and my mom’s name on it so I would never find out the truth.”

“People don’t do that,” Merrill insists.

“You’d be surprised,” I insert and both women look at me. I shrug. “I’m from Louisiana. That kind of thing happens all the time.”

At this point, Annie turns to me and studies me hard. “The real question, Merrill, is why your friend here knew I was adopted when I haven’t told a soul.”

Only minutes before I felt confident and eager to solve this mystery. Gazing into the face of a woman raised in secrecy and deceit who suddenly discovered her life was a lie, my courage fails me. “It’s that ghost-seeing thing I told you about,” is all I can manage.

I sense Merrill catching up. “Does this have to do with those girls who went missing?”

I shake my head, but truth is, I suspect Gene Tanner had something to do with Lori’s murder. I’m determined to find out but first I need to bring Annie to Lori’s room where hopefully my ghostly roommate of the past week will be satisfied and move on to heaven or wherever trapped spirits go when they are finally released. I swallow hard, knowing I must ask Annie the inevitable. “What was your birth mother’s name?”

After a week in hell the heavens indeed part and I can almost hear angels singing. Three words and my heart soars.

“Her name was Lauralei Annabelle Thorne.”

After more questions flying across our cozy space by the bay window, I hold up my hand and insist we take a trip. We all climb inside Merrill’s Prius and the three of us head up Spring Street to the Crescent Hotel and a lonely young woman who never got a chance to see her baby grow up. I’m praying my instincts are correct and Annie is indeed Lori’s child.

I explain everything that had occurred the past week to both Merrill and Annie: Lori visiting me in my room, the pained look on her face as she held her arms like cradling a child; my visions that involved James Leatherwood; and how I’m fairly positive Lori’s baby was his. I haven’t connected the dots yet and I look in the rear-view mirror to Merrill for support.

“You need to tell her,” she answers softly.

“Tell me what?” Annie asks.

We park outside the Crescent and I turn in my seat to face her. “I believe that James Leatherwood, your father, was James Caballero, the son of an Italian immigrant from Ohio.”

Poor Annie, what a morning of revelations, and coming from a ghost-whispering Louisiana survivor of Katrina, no doubt suffering from PSTD. Her face pales once more and this time, I take her hand. “He lied and changed his name because he wanted to work here as a teacher and he didn’t have the credentials — or the right name for that matter.”

“But how do you know this?” Annie asks.

I can’t help but laugh. How indeed? “The same way I knew those girls had been assaulted and murdered. I see these ghosts, have visions through their eyes. I can’t explain it. I didn’t have this gift until that bitch Katrina came to town. Oh, sorry ma’am, pardon my French.”

“It’s not French,” Annie adds, which makes me smile. I do so love people who appreciate language.

“I also think that Lori left school when she found out she was pregnant. Perhaps her parents were urging her to give the baby up for adoption and she came back here hoping James would do the right thing and she could keep her child.” Honestly, I don’t know why I think this but I’m rolling with my intuition — or perhaps someone on the other side is feeding it and I’m listening, like the good girl my aunt told me to be. “Why she was murdered, I don’t know.”

All three of us shiver at the same time and Annie covers her mouth to stifle a gasp.

“James didn’t kill her,” I quickly add.

Annie closes her eyes tightly. “No,” she says, “but he had something to do with it.”

I don’t argue, have always thought the same thing, and we exit the car and walk silently through the lobby and up to the fourth floor, back to my home of the past few days. We stand outside my room and Merrill and Annie look to me as if I know what to do next. I shrug, then knock on the door. First things first, I think, find out if anyone’s in there. A maid opens the door and looks at us questioningly and it’s then I remember what I’m wearing.

“I’m showing these two ladies around,” I tell the maid as if I work there. “They have a wedding coming up and wanted to see some room examples.”

“Oh sure,” the maid says, and grabs her cart and heads out the door.

“We just need a few minutes,” I tell her back.

She waves me off. “No worries. I have several open rooms on this floor so take your time.”

I immediately close the door and lock it, amazed at my good fortune, then look around for my familiar friend. She’s nowhere to be found and my heart sinks. What if she doesn’t show?

“Now what?” Merrill asks.

“I don’t know. There’s no guidebook to this stuff.”

Minutes go by and nothing so Merrill and I make ourselves comfortable on the bed. Annie walks around the room nervously, wiping her palms on her jeans and looking inside the closet, the bathroom, behind the TV credenza as if Lori is playing hide and seek. After another five minutes, I can’t stand it anymore. “Lori,” I shout out. “Where are you?”

Again, nothing and suddenly my confidence evaporates, replaced by my old friend, neurosis. I stole my brother’s trip to Hawaii and flew up here on a whim when I should have been home salvaging my career, if I still have one. I need to look for another newspaper job before I run out of money and I need to make amends with my ex-husband who’s been supportive through this ghostly nightmare. Eventually, I have to apologize to my mom. What the hell am I doing here? I think. I lean forward and hang my head in my hands, trying to still the anxiety. I’m the biggest fool, trying to solve a mystery from the nineteen twenties, of a ghost no less!

“Vi.” Merrill’s voice brings me back and I straighten, watch as a mist appears at Annie’s back morphing into the face and stature of a young hopeful woman. I rise and call out her name, but Lori only has eyes for her missing baby girl.

Annie turns and the delight that spreads over both their faces takes my breath away. The resemblance is uncanny. They gaze upon each other as if old friends finally reunited, as if the fact that neither has seen each other since the day Annie was born is irrelevant, and I see a tear escape down Annie’s cheek while Merrill cries softly to my right.

“Lauralei Annabelle Thorn,” I say, trying to quell the lump in my throat, “meet your daughter, Melinda Annabelle Leatherwood.”

The four of us remain like this for what seems like an eternity — Lori gazing upon her grown daughter with love and pride, no doubt aching to touch her; Annie absorbing every inch of the mother she never knew; Merrill sniffling as she watches from the bed; and me standing there amazed that I got it right. I think about that again. I did this. I solved this mystery.

“I have so many questions.” Annie pleadingly looks my way.

“She’s never talked to me.”

We both gaze back at Lori who shakes her head. I can’t help but wonder why the mysterious Michael, if he was a ghost, could walk, talk and knead me like bread but this poor murdered soul stands mute. One of a million questions I have for Carmine, when I catch up with him next.

Suddenly, Lori starts to fade, although the smile never leaves her lips, and we all gasp at the thought of her moving on. I wonder if she will disappear into the light like Sam Wheat in Ghost, crying out to us that the love we have in life goes with us in the end because one thing’s for sure, the hairs on my arms are tingling with the love radiating through this room.

Panic seizes me thinking that the ghost tours at the Crescent will continue naming her Annabelle the suicidal coed, relating repeatedly that she jumped off the balcony like those overdramatic ghost shows on A&E. I don’t want this precious young woman who suffered in life to be reduced to a sappy Hollywood story.

“Lori, before you go,” I call out, “how were you murdered?”

She looks my way and blinks slowly as a soft white halo appears behind her head. I get the message, and I know I have very little time. I close my eyes and feel myself drifting away, like I did the first evening spent in this room. This time, however, I kneel to avoid a fall and in an instant I’m back in the nineteen twenties watching the crime unfold.

At first, Lori’s standing in James’ office, dressed in dirty clothes, her hair mussed and shoes covered in mud; outside it’s pouring like the night I left Eureka Springs. Lori’s no longer pregnant but her belly betrays her last few months. James jumps from his desk and grabs her by the shoulders, taking her in from head to toe. “What on earth? Why are you here? What happened?”

“I had your child,” Lori pleads, “and my parents won’t let me keep her. You have to help me.”

James’ eyes widen in