Rip leaned against the wall with the remains of the toaster pastry. He had a wary look in his eyes and crumbs on his face. I immediately knew something was up. I reached out and tousled his head. "Whatchyu doing, kiddo?"
He gave me one of his long looks. He was so good at them that he could reduce an adult to gibberish within five minutes. I was proud of him for it. Not every woman's son had the ability to disconcert his elders, and it seemed more useful than anything the Boy Scouts could have taught him.
"Waiting for you. Why did you stay up all night?"
Did I detect a hint of concern in his voice? Could Kip have possibly seen the ghost, too? My son was far too psychic for his own good at such a young age. I'd been trying to help him learn how to control and cope with it for the past year. Though his talent had been apparent from birth, it had blossomed out since Roy left us. A lot of things had blossomed since then.
He took a deep breath and plunged ahead with what I was afraid I was going to hear. "Mom, I thought I felt something in the house last night. I had a nightmare."
Nightmare? Kip hadn't had nightmares for over a year. "What was it about, kiddo?"
"Some lady, I guess. I dunno. I woke up in the middle of the night and was worried about you. I thought maybe something was going to hurt you." He swallowed the last of the Pop-Tart and wiped his hands on his jeans.
Normally, when Kip was upset in the middle of the night he would come tapping gently on my door and creep under the covers next to me. That he hadn't done so this time told me that he'd been too frightened to leave the security of his own bed. I didn't want him to worry, didn't want to talk about the ghost until I'd figured out what was going on. "Well, I look all right this morning, don't I? It was probably a dream, my Kipling."
He gave me a penetrating glance, and I knew he knew I was hiding something, but I also knew he knew I wasn't going to tell him until and unless I was good and ready. He nodded and bolted for the stairs, stopping long enough to turn at the railing. "Okay. Can I go over to Sly's?"
Sly was his current best friend and a little con artist, but Kip had enough brains to keep from getting involved in whatever trouble that kid had cooked up. I waved him away. "Wear your jacket—it's cold out. And don't forget that I want you at the store in an hour. Be there." One of the kids' chores was to help out on Saturday mornings. He took the stairs two at a time and vanished out the front door with a slam.
On the way to the kitchen, I stopped by the rocker and picked up the sheets of paper on which my ghostly visitor had written. The moment I touched them, I felt a wave of sadness overwhelm me. I looked at the writing. No, it hadn't been a dream. Susan's presence had been real enough. "I was murdered by my husband but nobody knows. Help me." How the hell was I supposed to deal with this? I didn't even know who she was.
I cracked eggs into the skillet and started toasting the bread, while Miranda grabbed the paper from the front porch. She gave me a quick peck on the cheek as I slid our breakfast onto the ruby crystal dishes I had so coveted for years. Roy had thought them too old-fashioned. After he left, I didn't care what he thought. In fact, I had decided to find a set of Cranberry Spode to go with them. The contrast would be startling and eye-catching.
Miranda poured the juice. With a bite of runny yolk on toast, I opened the paper and glanced through the news. There, down at the bottom of the page, an article caught my attention. The headline read, "Local Romance Writer Found Dead in Home."
Susan Walker Mitchell died Thursday evening after slipping into a diabetic coma. Mae Tailor, the Mitchells' housekeeper, found Ms. Mitchell unconscious upon returning to the residence at about 4:00 p.m. on Thursday afternoon. Blood tests confirmed the presence of both alcohol and Valium in Ms. Mitchell's system, a dangerous combination. However, doctors attribute her death to hypoglycemic coma, brought on by a failure to eat after taking her morning insulin.
"The levels of Valium and alcohol were high, but not within life-threatening ranges," Dr. Johansen, the Mitchells' family physician, stated. "Mrs. Mitchell has been admitted to the hospital four times in the past year for low-blood-sugar seizures… unfortunately, no one was with her this time to prevent her from slipping into a coma." Ms. Mitchell died without regaining consciousness.
Ms. Mitchell was well loved for her work in the community theater, but she was best known for her career as a romance novelist. She produced twenty-nine books over the past fifteen years, including the best-selling Love on Clancy Lane. Her books are read worldwide.
Survived by her husband, Walter Mitchell, Chiqetaw, and a daughter, Diana Mitchell, Seattle, Ms. Mitchell will be greatly missed.
I stopped reading. Of course. Susan Mitchell. The romance novelist. I remembered seeing her mentioned in the paper before, though I'd never met her. The photograph beside the obituary was most definitely that of my ghostly visitor.
"Is everything okay, Mom?" Oh no, not her, too. It was bad enough that Kip had sensed something, but Miranda spooked too easily, and I didn't want her involved in any part of this yet.
I squelched the urge to blurt out the truth. "No… no… nothing wrong. Go ahead and run along. Remember to be at the store by ten."
She grabbed her pack and raced out the door to catch the bus. Grabbing a pen and a steno book I always keep handy near the phone, I ripped the article out of the paper and tucked everything in my purse.
So my ghost was real, or had been. Diabetic coma? Murder? With a dozen thoughts reeling through my head, I made my way out to the car and pulled out of the driveway. I had a lot to do before opening the shop. The only trouble was, I didn't know where to begin.
Chapter Two
CHIQETAW IS AN easy town to navigate—the streets are fairly straight, and the traffic, sparse. It was spitting snow as I guided my car down Main Street. The town council had decided to put up the Christmas decorations early this year, starting the day before Thanksgiving. Now, two weeks before Christmas, strands of colored lights sparkled around the lampposts and bare-branched trees that lined the main drag. I took a deep breath of the chill air that flowed in through the open crack of the window. God, how I loved this time of year.
Forty-five minutes before I was supposed to meet the kids at the store—enough to do a little digging. I pulled into the parking lot of Harlow's Gym. Harlow Rainmark was my best friend in this little burg, and without her I think I'd have gone bananas when I first moved here. Named after Jean Harlow by her starstruck mother, she had valiantly tried to live up to the legend, slipping into dangerous territory as she forced the envelope farther and farther in her youth.
I slammed the door of my Grand Cherokee—one of the few real luxuries I allowed myself—and pushed through the double doors of Chiqetaw's only spa.
Harlow was behind the desk. Her face brightened and she wrinkled her nose. "I was hoping you'd show up. It's dead in here. If it gets any slower I'm going to have to turn this place into a morgue." Her windblown tangle of hair never failed to amaze me. It was as if someone had taken a curling iron and crimped the shoulder-length strands into ribbons of shimmering, coiled gold. It came as no surprise to anyone when they found out that she'd been a professional model until she gave up her career and moved back to Chiqetaw to marry her childhood sweetheart.
"Cleaning day at C 'n C. I'm not due at the store for close to an hour. It's snowing, by the way."
"Ugh." Harlow hated both cleaning and snow. I agreed with her on housework, but the cold—I loved winter. She was much more of a sun bunny than I.
I dropped into one of the chairs that faced the customer service desk. "Sure is dead in here."