Oh goodness no. He was working for the law.
“There are many variables.” Ivy couldn’t hide the snap in her tone. Detective? Was that why Joel had finally returned, to take a job with Sheriff Dunst? Or was it for another reason? What Ivy knew, and what really mattered, was that for this moment the young woman was still theirs.
Protective, Ivy leveled a glare on Joel that hurt her eyes, but when he ignored her, Ivy looked away. The sweetness of the young woman’s face, stilled in permanent sleep, increased Ivy’s irritation. The girl wasn’t a “case.” She was a lost, nameless soul. She had been a person with a story, a life.
Ivy’s hand hovered over the body before coming to rest on the shoulder with every ounce of possessiveness in her spirit. The cool skin of the young woman pressed beneath her palm.
“No one has identified her yet.” Joel’s statement ripped through the intimate connection of souls, and Ivy jerked her hand away from the body.
The woman had no identification yet. Even so, it dawned on Ivy with clarity, though she knew immediately it wasn’t supernatural. The young woman had named herself and whispered it into Ivy’s soul. Maybe this was why the town of Oakwood speculated as to whether Ivy Thorpe really was just an overcurious woman investigating the lives of the dead, or if she had some undefined connection to the afterlife. To Ivy, the dead were still alive.
She tried to control her breathing as she inhaled slowly. “Gabriella.”
“What?” Joel tipped his head, his features sharpened with suspicion.
“Call her Gabriella.”
“You know her?” Even her father was surprised. Ivy avoided looking at him. It was poetic. Gabriel. He’d been an angel. And she was—Ivy couldn’t help but transfer her gaze back onto the silent woman—she was an angel now too. She deserved a name.
Chapter 2
Kaine
OAKWOOD, WISCONSIN
PRESENT DAY
Kaine checked her rearview mirror. She’d made a habit of it as she traversed the country from the ocean-side walkways of San Diego to the obscure midlands of Wisconsin. No one believed her. They probably never would. Danny’s death two years ago still whispered its curses in her ear.
Your fault. Your fault.
She would never escape them, though no one else blamed her. Kaine was tired of violence touching every molecule in her body. Its ugly, poisonous fingers wrapped around her heart, squeezing until she couldn’t live life this way anymore. Danny had begged her ages ago to relocate to his beloved Midwest in order to start over and shake the shadow of depression following her.
She had refused and he had died.
The shrill ring of her cellphone shattered the silence of the car. Kaine jumped at the sound. She glanced down at the pepper spray, always handy in the passenger seat, then in the mirror again. Shadows clung under her eyes.
God, please bring me hope here.
The repetitious, old-fashioned telephone ring clamored for her attention. Kaine reached for her phone and eyed the number while her left hand clasped the steering wheel tighter. Leah. She tapped the green answer button.
“Hey.”
“Are you there yet?” Her sister’s voice was a welcome peace calming her heart.
“Almost.” Kaine ducked her head to get a better look beneath the visor that blocked the sun. “This place is really out of the way.”
“Well, it’s not San Diego.” Leah’s laugh soothed Kaine’s frayed nerves. She missed her sister. Terribly. Just to hear her laugh brought a lightness to her soul, even if it would last only for a moment.
“Not at all.” Kaine braked as a squirrel darted across the road in an erratic, nervous race against the car. “Stupid squirrel.”
“Huh?”
“Nothing.” Kaine readjusted her grip on the phone. Her car was too old to have Bluetooth built in, and her headset had died somewhere in Illinois. Kaine glanced around at the wooded acres that flew by her on both sides of the road.
“We should video-chat when you get there. I want to see this place.”
“It’s just a house.” An empty dream, Kaine didn’t add. “I don’t even know if I’m going to keep it once it’s fixed up. I just need a change, a new vision, to get away, and—I don’t know that I want to live in Oakwood. Permanently.”
“But it’s a historic landmark, Kaine. And according to Grandpa Prescott’s old family Bible with the family tree, our great-great-grandmother lived in the same town. That alone should excite you. Not to mention it must be beautiful there. The realtor said it was purchased after the turn of the century and restored. But now it needs some TLC. And you know Danny would’ve been behind this one hundred percent.”
Poor Leah. She was grasping at straws trying to give Kaine encouragement. Kaine’s eyes filled with tears, but she blinked them back.
“We don’t know much about Grandma Ivy, but I’m not here to play Ancestry-dot-com. Besides, the house might be historic for Oakwood, Wisconsin, but the fact I got it for a steal is what still makes me leery. No one sells historic landmarks for less than a quarter of an average mortgage in California.”
“Yeah, well, our realtor wouldn’t steer you wrong. He found our house here, and with his cousin in the same field in Wisconsin, it was a perfect connection since you couldn’t exactly fly cross-country to inspect it.”
Kaine sincerely hoped the cousin of Leah’s real estate agent had the integrity Leah was so certain of. Most people had an inspection done on a house, but it had been a short sale. Offers were contingent on skipping the inspection, with an “as is” clause. Call it stupid and impulsive, but Kaine wanted out of San Diego. The pictures on the listing had been blurry and very unprofessional, yet what she’d seen looked mostly cosmetic. A gabled house, Gothic and East Coast in style, unique to the area, with three bedrooms, a parlor, updated plumbing, and a broad assortment of other rooms labeled with Victorian-era terms. While Kaine wasn’t very interested in old architecture, Danny had been. Still, she was taking a financial risk to come here, and she wasn’t convinced she hadn’t completely lost her mind. Especially with a few days alone in a car to think, calm down, and have a sense of reason invade her emotional angst.
Kaine had already sunk the remainder of Danny’s life insurance policy into buying the old place on pretense of a new beginning but charged with the reality of a hopeful escape. Just because she had some savings to fall back on for repairs and living expenses didn’t mean she could afford an entire renovation. Maybe if she did this, she could keep Danny close. Perhaps he would be able to look down from heaven and be reassured that, in the end, she really did love him.
“Are you okay?”
The question was simple, but the answer was so complicated all Kaine could muster was “Yeah.”
“I don’t believe you.” Leah. She was a mother. Protective, nurturing, and full of emotional comfort.