“Okay.” I remembered. How could I forget?
“Someone cut a hole in the floor through the ceiling of the room below, threw back the carpet and shot the guy.”
Which explained why the ghost was gone from here. I hadn’t seen that particular spook trailing in Bobby’s wake since that night. Mystery solved. Case closed. The spirit had gone on to … wherever.
“How did you know that?” Bobby asked.
“I didn’t.” And because I hadn’t—I’d only known that the dead man wanted him to look in the locker, not why—I even sounded convincing.
“You knew about the bomb in the basement too.”
“Did not,” I said quickly. Too quickly but it was the truth.
He drained the beer. I got him another. It gave me something to do other than panic.
“You walked right to it, Raye.”
“It isn’t as if the basement was huge, and you said that you’d searched everywhere else.”
“I said that as you were walking over there, not before.”
My mind scrambled for an excuse—anything other than that a seventeenth-century ghost-witch had been pointing to it. Amazingly, I found one.
“The other bodies were burned and Mrs. Noita wasn’t. I figured there was a fire coming, and what better way than an explosion?”
“You jump to that conclusion rather than that I interrupted the guy before he struck a match?”
According to Mrs. Noita, it hadn’t been a guy, but that was another bit of information I was going to have to keep to myself. At least until I figured out how to tell it without buying myself an express ticket to loony land.
“Don’t you ever have hunches?”
From his frown, I figured he did, but he didn’t like them any more than I liked some of mine.
“How did you get in?” he asked. “That cop-kid was supposed to keep everyone out.”
I shrugged, not wanting to point fingers and tell tales. I didn’t have to.
“He’s gotta be the worst cop ever.”
“Probably not the worst.”
Bobby cast me a disgusted glance. I wouldn’t want to be Brad the next time Bobby saw him.
“He just let you come in without trying to stop you?”
“He tried. I sicced Jenn on him and ran.”
“Don’t ever do that again.” He opened the second beer. “You took ten years off my life when you walked down those stairs, and that was before I saw the bomb.”
Silence descended. I wasn’t sure how to bring the conversation around to the woman in the photograph.
“Are you married?” I blurted. Considering his face, that probably wasn’t the best way.
“You think I’d…”—he waved at the table, causing me to blush—“if I were? Thanks.” He sat on the couch.
“I said that wrong.” I followed, perching on the arm. Near but yet so far. “I meant to ask if you’d ever been married.”
“Why?”
“Isn’t that what people ask…” My gaze drifted to the table. “After?”
“Usually it’s before, Raye.”
A point I’d already made to myself. “I’m not good at this.”
“You’re wrong. You’re very good at this.”
I blushed again, and he touched my knee. I felt that touch everywhere.
“I’ve never been married,” he said.
Was that good news or bad? Truth or another lie?
“Do you have kids?” My voice was too bright. He snatched his hand back as if I’d let off an electric shock.
“No.” His voice was hoarse. He slugged more beer.
“I’m sorry.”
“Why? Do I seem like the kind of guy who should have kids?”
As a kindergarten teacher I’d learned that, for most people, “should” had very little to do with having them.
Luckily he didn’t require an answer. He stood, and for a second I feared he’d leave. Instead, he took my hand. “How long until my clothes are done?”
“An hour.”
“That might just be enough time.” He drew me toward the bedroom.
I glanced at the wallet, now closed over the photo. If I hadn’t met Genevieve, I could brush off the picture as a niece and a sister.
But I had met her, and I was pretty sure I would again.
Really, Genevieve wasn’t the issue, and wasn’t that a surprise? The ghost wasn’t the problem. The problem was her mother. Where was she? Who was she? Was she?
Bobby had denied the mother and the child. I didn’t blame him. At least one of them, maybe both, was the source of great pain.
He closed the bedroom door and took me into his arms.
How did one bring up dead children?
One didn’t. Especially if one had been talking to them.
*
Henry stood on the landing outside Raye’s apartment. He couldn’t get in. Every time he tried, he wound up right here. Raye had warded the door. He wondered who had told her how.
“Daddy!”
Henry jumped. A child stood next to him. Her shirt identified her as a princess. Strange. He’d thought there was no royalty in America. Perhaps she wasn’t from here. However, it was best to be safe and not sorry.
“Your Royal Highness.” Henry bowed.
The child wrinkled her nose. “Who are you?”
“Henry Taggart at your service, ma’am.”