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

shock, making me convinced men are the most clueless species on earth. He makes love to a student and she leaves school a few weeks later and it never occurs to him why? His next words prove me wrong, however, and now I see him for the cad he truly is. “I’m engaged. Judith Tavers, the home economics teacher and I are going to be married in another week.”

Lori jerks back, stunned. I think she’s going to unravel on the spot, her mouth agape as if to scream or cry. James wraps an arm about her to steady her while placing a hand over her mouth. “Please don’t cry. I never meant for this to happen. I never meant for any of this to happen.”

Lori pushes him away, this time more in control, angry. “I don’t care anymore about you. If you want to marry someone else, then so be it. But you have to help me keep my baby. You owe me this much.”

A bell rings and doors open in the hallway outside his office. James quickly closes the door as a mass of students are heard walking the hallway. The wheels are turning inside his head. He’s trapped and he’s trying to figure a way out. Finally, after a few moments and the noise outside disappears, he takes Lori by the shoulders once more. “Elizabeth Hawkins has mono and went home yesterday. She’s living in Blair’s old room and I have the key.” He swallows and we all know why that key is in his possession. “Go there, take a bath and get some clean clothes on.”

“And then what?” Lori is all business now, stern and unyielding. Amazing how in addition to a child, motherhood brings steel to fuse with a woman’s spine.

James is surprised at her transformation. This is not a teenage girl who will do as she’s told. “I have play rehearsal right now,” he stutters. “As soon as it’s done, I’ll come up to the room.”

Lori pulls out the birth certificate from her purse and displays it in front of his face. “I want my baby, James. Do you understand me? Either you help me, James Caballero, or I’ll tell everyone who the father is and what he is.”

He sees his name on the birth certificate, but he’s not playing. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“That night in Tanner’s office downstairs. I heard it all. I know who you really are.”

James retaliates like a trapped animal. “And how am I supposed to know that I’m really the father?”

Lori slaps James so hard the sound reverberates in my head and I can almost feel his pain. A red welt appears on James’ cheek and I want to cheer, “Go Lori!” except that this is all so tragically sad.

Silently, James heads to his desk and removes a key from the back of a drawer and hands it to Lori. “I’ll wrap up rehearsals early and come to you as soon as I can. We’ll work this out. I promise.”

I’m now in Lori’s room, or Elizabeth’s, and the décor reflects another girl’s personality, more frou-frou and lace, less books and papers. Lori’s soaking naked in the tub, softly crying, when Gene Tanner enters. It’s the first time I’ve seen the murderer up close and whole, and he scares me more in full flesh than he ever did. Tanner’s dressed in a trench coat poked with stains that I fear are blood. His hair’s slicked back with some oily substance with several dirty strands hanging over his beady eyes which show no semblance of kindness or love. He’s on a mission, heading straight to the bathroom.

I scream out but of course no one can hear me and within seconds in this vision the deed is done, Lori drowned in her tub by Tanner merely holding her forehead and torso down by force. He stands and uses a towel to dry the water Lori splashed around the tub in an effort to save herself. My heart breaks seeing my dear friend lifeless in the bath, one hand draped over the tub’s edge, palm up, as if waiting to hold her baby one last time. “No,” I scream out again, but nothing emerges from my throat, like those awful dreams where you can’t speak no matter how hard you try.

Just before Tanner leaves, James enters the room, and the two nearly bump into each other. “What are you doing here?” James asks, deeply shocked for the second time that day.

Tanner throws the towel at James, who catches it and looks at it questioningly. “You reneged on your promise, Professor. You told the police where I was. I came back to return the favor.”

Tanner shoves James out of the way and heads out the door. James rushes to the bathroom and cries out when he sees what Tanner has done. He grabs Lori, pulling her into his chest and rocks her while he sobs and apologizes over and over again. I almost feel sorry for the man. Maybe he would have done the right thing. Maybe not. No one will ever know.

I can only imagine that James feared a scandal because once he calmed down and starting thinking, he removed the birth certificate from her purse and stuffed it in his coat pocket. Then he dressed Lori in Elizabeth’s clothes and, when no one was looking, pushed her dead body over the balcony edge.

I wake up with a start, still kneeling on the hotel room floor. I’m too stunned, too horrified by what I just saw to say anything, having difficulty breathing. I simply gaze up at Lori as she fades into this light that replaces the horror with something warm and loving. Just before she disappears into the heavenly mist, she sends me a smile that seems to say “Thank you.” I smile back, happy that at least one mother in this world saw her daughter one last time.

Once we’re all back to the living plane and Lori has moved on, Annie begins to cry. Merrill jumps up to comfort her mother and I rise from the floor to perch on the side of the bed, commanding myself to breathe. My head’s spinning but that buzzing now retreats to a distant hum and I am able to calm my rapid heartbeat. After a while we regain command over our emotions and I hear the maid’s cartwheels squeaking in our direction.

“I think we all could use a drink,” Merrill suggests. We exit the room as the maid turns the corner, wondering, no doubt, why a look inside a hotel room took twenty minutes.

The Baker Bar is buzzing with people so Annie, Merrill and I find a table in a back corner, ignoring the suggestion of the waitress that we fight the crowds and enjoy the spring weather on the balcony.

“But it’s so beautiful outside,” she insists, when we take our seats in admittedly the worst spot in the bar.

“This is perfect,” I say, and I mean every word. Think I’ll avoid balconies for a very long time.

Annie and Merrill are anxious to know what happened to me on the floor of that room, but I’m not sure how much to divulge. I explain that my visions confirmed what I had feared, that after Lori had given birth to Annie she traveled to the school in an effort to get James on board. Tanner had fled Eureka Springs after Blair’s disappearance and I relayed what Maddox had told me, that there were two months of his whereabouts unaccounted for after he left Pennsylvania.

“Why, though,” Merrill asks me. “Why would he kill my grandmother?”

I turn my napkin around and around with the tip of my index finger, wondering how to spin this tale. “He was an evil man. And I don’t think he liked James very much. I believe he killed Lori to get back at James.”

“Why did he dislike my father?” Annie asks me.

I shrug my shoulders and the two Seligmans send me a puzzled look. I know they doubt every word but they don’t inquire and I say no more.

“It all makes sense now,” Annie says. “After my father married my mother, they must have adopted me. But I doubt my mother was happy about it. She must have known why.”

Annie studies the ice in her drink, turning solemn. “I always thought my mother didn’t love me, but dad insisted she favored Brad over me because mothers have a special relationship with their sons. And since my dad always doted on me I dealt with it.”

“Brad is Letitia’s father,” Merrill adds.

I had forgotten about the mayor. “What’s Letitia going to think about her grandfather being a fake?” I ask. “She’ll hunt me down and murder me for sure.”

The drinks arrive and we pause in our conversation until the waitress leaves, then Annie leans forward so only our ears will hear. “No one’s going to know about this. It’s our little secret. Okay, girls?”

I want so badly to argue that poor Lori is the nightly subject of ghost tours with tourists watching the hotel’s balcony at ten-thirty every evening in hopes of seeing a frickin’ mist. After witnessing what really happened, I’m appalled that a young girl’s murder has become entertainment. I vow never to watch another TV ghost show again. But Annie’s right. It’s too difficult to explain and it tarnishes the reputation of one of the town’s leading citizens, not to mention his granddaughter running for office.

On second thought….

“She pulled out of the race,” Merrill says, as if she reads my mind. “The newspaper finally looked into that utility company wanting to come in and a lot of unpleasant things were uncovered, starting with a nice payoff to a couple members of the city council.”

“No wonder Letitia could afford that new Lexus,” Annie says.

“Not to mention that the newspaper got wind of this right before the election,” I add.

Merrill grins slyly. “I’m not saying anything.”

The two of them urge me to stick around and spend the night at their place. I consider it for a moment, but when they start suggesting ghost workshops in the store, I know it’s time to leave.

“I missed an attraction when I was here with the group and my editor specifically wanted me to write about it,”