Love Overboard - By Janet Evanovich Page 0,41

Ivan and spoke in a confidential voice. “Her aunt Rose talks to Walter Cronkite all day.”

Mrs. Platz pinched her lips together. “I believe in ghosts. I always have, and I always will. And I can feel that there’s a ghost in this house.”

“Hah! Some ghost,” Mr. Platz said. “Has to knock on windows to get into her own bedroom. If she’s such a hot ghost, why doesn’t she just waltz through the wall? Any self-respecting ghost can waltz through walls.”

Mrs. Platz dismissed him with a wave of her hand. “Don’t pay any attention to him,” she said to Melody. “He doesn’t understand about these things. He has no psychic energy.”

Melody poured more maple syrup on her pancakes and nodded in understanding.

“Do you think if I went up to the widow’s walk, I would get to see her?” Mrs. Platz asked Melody. “Do you suppose you could introduce me?”

“Sure. Hey, anybody who uses Clairol Ebony’s okay in my book.”

Mr. Platz grunted. “You think she’ll be out in the rain? Won’t her ectoplasm get wet?”

“I don’t know,” Melody said. “But she grooves on fog.”

Stephanie kept her eyes averted and concentrated on her mashed potatoes. She felt hideously sorry for Eileen Platz, and at the same time was on the verge of bursting out laughing. The poor woman had maintained a marathon vigil with nothing to show for it other than a red nose and frozen feet. At one point a small crowd had even gathered to watch the two crazy women standing in the rain on the top of Haben. The local cable station had sent a minicam, and a kid from the high school paper had stopped by to get details. The astonishing part was that everyone seemed to know about Tess, and no one disputed her existence. What the people of Camden, Maine, couldn’t understand was why Eileen Platz thought it necessary to talk to old Red’s widow. Stephanie chewed a piece of fried chicken and wondered about the sanity of New Englanders.

Melody looked as if she’d fared considerably better than Mrs. Platz. Her hair was freshly washed and starched and more brilliantly orange than ever. “It’s a shame you didn’t get to see Tess,” she said to Mrs. Platz. “She probably went to the mall.”

Eileen Platz sat a little stiffer in her chair, and Stephanie thought she was most likely trying to decide if she’d been made a fool of. She couldn’t begin to guess why Mrs. Platz had believed Melody in the first place. Because you believe what you want to believe, she told herself. Eileen Platz wanted to believe there was a ghost on the widow’s walk. Just like all those kids in the rehab programs had wanted to believe drugs would help them cope, make them smarter, make them cool, make them sexier, give them energy. She almost wished Mrs. Platz had seen Tess. After standing in the rain for seven hours, Mrs. Platz deserved to see something.

“Cheer up,” Mr. Platz said to his wife. “We’re staying here one more night. Maybe the ghost will come back and knock on your window some more.”

Chapter 8

Stephanie pulled down the shade on her brand-new window and turned to look at the man sprawled on her bed, taking in his gray wool socks, lean muscular legs encased in soft faded jeans, awesome bulge behind his zipper, unbuttoned shirt displaying a swath of hard, smooth chest and stomach. His hair needs cutting, and his beard should be bronzed, Stephanie thought. She’d never thought of a beard as being an instrument of torture, but Ivan knew how to exact a price with his. “Do you think Mrs. Platz will make contact with Tess tonight?”

Ivan grinned. “It’s possible. Tess should be back from the mall by now.”

“You know, this is crazy, but I’m beginning to feel as if I actually live with Tess. I think I know how Jimmy Stewart felt about Harvey.”

He put a pillow behind his head and motioned for her to come to him. He liked being friends with Stephanie. He’d like to lie there and talk, he thought, but already the pressure was building in him, and he knew talk would be put aside for a while. It was early, barely ten o’clock, but he didn’t know how he’d lasted this long. His worst fears for the bed-and-breakfast business were coming true. It was almost impossible to get Stephanie alone.

When they were married—and there was no doubt in his mind that they’d be married—she could run the inn