The Ghost and the Bride Read online

  “Avoided that problem,” Walt said with a sigh of relief.

  “What problem?” Kent asked, watching his impostor lead Felicia to the kitchen.

  “Outside I couldn’t do anything to prevent her from shooting him.”

  “Would that be such a bad thing? At least then I wouldn’t have to worry about Pamela,” Kent grumbled.

  “Please, just go upstairs and let Danielle know what’s going on. I need to keep an eye on those two.”

  Kent started to ask Walt a series of questions, ignoring the urgency for him to go upstairs to let Danielle know what was going on.

  “Kent, stop!” Walt insisted a few moments later. “Those two are in the kitchen alone. I need to get in there. The only thing worse than having that man’s spirit hanging around the house would be if she blew out his brains in the kitchen. I’m pretty sure Joanne would not want to clean that up!”

  “Fine, I’ll go tell Danielle what’s going on…although, I don’t know why, as nothing has really happened yet aside from her showing up, and I’m pretty sure Danielle already knows that, considering the woman rang the bell.” Begrudgingly, Kent vanished.

  When Walt entered the kitchen a few moments later, he was surprised to discover no one was there. It didn’t take him long to figure out where they had gone—out the back door.

  “No!” Walt groaned. He quickly made his way to the open window. A screen separated Walt from the impostor and Felicia; however, it might as well have been an impermeable steel-reinforced brick wall; they had the same effect.

  Looking out the back window, Walt pleaded, “Get back inside!” Unfortunately, neither party could hear Walt, and even if they had been able to, they wouldn’t have listened.

  “Why are they outside?” Kent asked when he appeared a moment later.

  “Because you kept asking stupid questions!” Walt snapped.

  “I don’t understand,” Kent muttered.

  “Quick, go tell Danielle they’ve gone outside—they’re on the back porch.”

  Thirty-Seven

  On the precipice of reclaiming his life, exhilaration surged through Tagg. His chest could barely contain the wild beating of his heart, its drumbeat spurred louder by his excitement. He had resisted the urge to snatch Felicia into his arms and kiss her. Instead, he stood on the back porch at Marlow House and stared into Felicia’s wicked blue green eyes, attempting to organize the words he needed to say. But before he could utter a syllable, she reached into her purse and pulled out a handgun. She pointed it at him. He recognized it. It belonged to him. Tagg began to laugh.

  Felicia tilted her head slightly, curiously studying the man before her. Her hand didn’t waver. “You find this amusing?”

  “Yes. We can laugh about it later,” he told her. He didn’t make an attempt to take the gun from her hand. Tagg knew Felicia too well to be that foolish.

  “I might be laughing later, but I imagine you’ll be six feet under.” She smiled calmly.

  “It’s me, Felicia, Tagg.”

  Startled by his words, she stepped backwards, away from him. “You trying to be funny?” She cocked the gun.

  Tagg froze. In that instant he realized he might have miscalculated how to handle the situation. When Felicia got that look in her eyes, she was difficult to deal with.

  “Please listen to me…” he begged.

  “Police! Drop the gun!” a voice shouted from Felicia’s right. Instead of dropping the gun, she pulled the trigger. Kent’s body fell to the ground as Felicia started to redirect her aim toward the voice who had given her the order.

  Another shot. This time coming from the direction of the side gate.

  Walt stood fascinated, looking out the kitchen window. He recognized the voice who had shouted for Felicia to put down the gun. In the next moment Danielle ran into the kitchen, rushing to Walt’s side. She looked out the window.

  “You should have stayed in your room,” Walt grumbled, still looking outside.

  “Are they both dead?” Danielle asked, her voice a low whisper.

  Danielle knew she had been foolish to have rushed into the kitchen like that. After all, Felicia could have easily shot through the open window into the house, and Danielle wasn’t certain Walt would have been able to stop the bullet from hitting her. But when Kent told her his impostor had taken Felicia outside, Danielle had called the chief to let him know. After that, she found it impossible to remain in her bedroom.

  There was also the threat of gunfire from external sources—such as whoever had just shot Felicia. Danielle looked out to the gate and then she saw them—three police officers slowly approaching, their guns drawn. One was Brian Henderson. Danielle wondered which one had shot Felicia.

  Motion from the bodies on the ground caught Danielle’s eye. She looked down.

  Felicia stood by her body, looking down at it, confused. Her head tilted from right to left as she watched in perverse fascination the way the blood gradually oozed from a hole in her chest.

  “What am I doing down there if I’m up here?” Felicia outstretched her right hand and looked at it, and then she looked back to her body on the ground.

  “Damnit, Felicia! What did you do?” She heard a familiar voice shout. It was Tagg. She hadn’t heard his voice in over a year, but she would recognize it anywhere. Looking to her left, she noticed a second body. It was Kent Harper’s, the bastard who had killed the love of her life. She smiled when she remembered she had shot him, and by the looks of it, he was dead.

  Movement caught her eye and she looked up. Tagg!

  “Oh my god, it’s you, Tagg! It’s really you!” Outstretching her arms, she ran to him—and then through him, ending up several feet behind him, her arms still outstretched, her back to him. With a frown, she froze and looked down. What just happened? she wondered. Turning around slowly, she came face-to-face with Tagg. He looked angry.

  “Why are you looking at me like that?” Felicia asked, her voice trembling. “Aren’t you happy to see me?”

  “I was until you shot me!”

  She shook her head. “What do you mean shot you?”

  Suddenly they were not alone. Police surrounded them, yet the police didn’t seem to notice either Felicia or Tagg. Instead, their attention was focused on the two bodies on the ground. Together, Felicia and Tagg stepped back, away from the commotion, yet their eyes remained riveted on what was happening.

  “She’s dead,” one of the officers called after checking the pulse of Felicia’s body.

  “Dead? What does he mean I’m dead?” Felicia asked numbly, unable to look away from what was now her corpse.

  “I think I have a pulse!” another officer called out from Kent’s body.

  Both Felicia and Tagg were momentarily stunned when a man came racing through the wall from Marlow House and dived into Kent’s body, disappearing.

  “No!” Tagg wailed. Running back to the body, he kneeled next to it on the ground. “No! No! This can’t be happening!”

  “I don’t understand, Tagg. What’s going on?” Felicia asked, sounding as if she was about to break into tears at any moment.

  Standing back up, Tagg faced Felicia, his expression glowering. “You shot me, and they shot you, you idiot!”

  Felicia shook her head wildly. “I didn’t shoot you! I shot him!” She pointed to the body now being lifted onto a stretcher. “He was driving the car that killed you!”

  “You just never listen, do you, Felicia? Why did I even imagine things would be different?”

  Danielle stood at the kitchen window, Eva to her right, and Walt to her left. Together the three stared at the commotion outside.

  “I hope those two aren’t going to stick around,” Danielle murmured.

  “At least that poor man got his body back. I wonder if he’s going to make it,” Eva said with a sigh.

  “If he does make it, I suspect he’ll need to come up with a good story as to why he asked Felicia here. I imagine they’re going to find that thousand dollars in her
purse. And it won’t take long to trace it back to Kent,” Walt said.

  “I guess he could feign another memory loss,” Danielle suggested.

  Before Eva or Walt could respond, something odd occurred outside that caught the three’s attention. The wind began to blow; however, it did not rustle the leaves on the nearby trees and bushes, nor did it touch any of the officers in the yard—not a single hair on any of their heads was disturbed. While patio furniture did not budge from its place outside, Tagg and Felicia found themselves being pushed around. Their hair, while just an illusion, blew erratically in all directions. Tagg’s Mohawk danced wildly on his head while Felicia’s blond locks angrily whipped her face.

  “What’s going on?” Danielle asked in a whisper as she leaned closer to the window.

  Later, when Danielle would recount the incident to Lily, she would tell her it was like a giant—albeit invisible—vacuum came down from the sky. At first the settings were in reverse, blowing air all over the place, and then someone, someplace, flipped a switch and it was in vacuum cleaner mode, and just like that, it sucked Felicia and Tagg up, distorting their bodies—at least the illusion of their bodies—twisting them in all sorts of uncomfortable contortions as the pair screamed in agony and then—poof—they were gone. And once again, the air was still.

  “What in the hell was that?” Danielle muttered, blinking her eyes in confusion.

  “I suspect that is exactly what it was,” Walt murmured.

  With a frown, Danielle turned to Walt. “What do you mean?”

  “Hell?” Walt said with a shrug.

  “Oh my, I was afraid something like that might happen.” Eva cringed.

  Before Eva could explain what she meant, a knock came at the kitchen door, and then it opened.

  “Danielle, how long were you at that window?” Brian Henderson asked when he stepped inside.

  “I came down after they were shot,” Danielle explained. “How serious is Kent?”

  “He’s pretty serious. Can you get ahold of Pamela and have her meet them at the hospital?”

  “Certainly.” She nodded. “I have Pamela’s cellphone number.” Danielle reached in her back pocket, and then remembered she had left her phone upstairs.

  “I’ll go upstairs and get it,” she told Brian.

  Unfortunately for Danielle, Brian wasn’t finished with her. He trailed along beside her as she went upstairs.

  “You do realize you could have been shot by one of the officers, don’t you?” Brian snapped as they walked from the kitchen to the hallway. “A bullet could have come right through that damn wall.”

  “It was all over when I got into the kitchen.”

  “But you didn’t know that.”

  “Okay, I’m sorry. So who shot her?”

  “I did,” he said gruffly.

  Danielle stopped walking; she turned to Brian. They stood at the base of the stairs. In a soft voice she said, “I’m sorry, Brian. Are you okay?”

  “Aside from regretting not shooting sooner so Kent wouldn’t be on his way to the hospital?”

  “She could’ve still shot him.”

  Brian nodded. “I know.”

  She started up the stairs, Brian trailing after her.

  “I’m still trying to figure out how the chief knew all this was about to go down,” Brian said.

  Danielle didn’t respond. She kept walking up the stairs.

  “Who was that woman, Danielle?”

  Danielle kept walking. “I’m sure the chief will explain everything.”

  “I killed her. Don’t you think I have the right to know who she was?”

  Danielle paused a moment and studied Brian. Finally, she asked, “Do you remember Jimmy Borge?”

  “Sure. The scum we sent away for dog fighting.”

  They stepped onto the second-floor landing.

  “She’s his sister. Felicia Borge.”

  “So why is she shooting Kent and not you?”

  Danielle stopped at the doorway leading to her bedroom and looked at Brian. “You sound a little disappointed she wasn’t shooting at me.”

  When Brian didn’t laugh, his expression stoic, Danielle put out her hand and touched his arm. “I was just teasing,” she said seriously. “I’m sorry, I tend to make inappropriate jokes when the tension gets to me.”

  Brian let out the breath he had been holding, and smiled softly. “Actually, I was damned relieved she wasn’t shooting at you.”

  “He looks a little green,” Walt noted. Danielle glanced to her right. She hadn’t noticed Walt before and she wondered how long he had been standing there. “I remember when Henderson couldn’t wait to send you to the gallows. Now, I swear he almost looks like he has a little crush on you.”

  “Do you know why she shot Kent?” Brian asked.

  “When Kent had his accident, the two men in the other car were killed. One of them was Felicia Borge’s boyfriend.”

  Brian let out a low whistle. “Talk about a small world.”

  “That’s what I used to think too.”

  “Used to think?” Brian frowned.

  “It’s not so much about a small world and coincidences, more like…what the universe has in store for us,” Danielle explained.

  “The universe?”

  Danielle shrugged. “I don’t know. The universe. Our creator. God?

  Thirty-Eight

  “I don’t understand,” Pamela muttered, shaking her head in denial. She stood in the small hospital waiting room outside of surgery, surrounded by family—her aunt, uncle, and two cousins—while talking to Danielle and Police Chief MacDonald. “Why was she there? Why did she shoot Kent?”

  “Who was this woman?” Tammy asked, her arm protectively around her niece.

  Pamela turned to her aunt. “She was the girlfriend of one of the men who was killed in the accident.”

  “She obviously wanted revenge,” Laura suggested.

  “But how did she know we were even in Oregon?” Pamela asked.

  The chief and Danielle briefly exchanged glances. Since they didn’t know who Felicia had told about Kent—or at least the Kent impostor—calling her, urging her to meet him—they thought it best to be open with that information. After all, the chief had already seen the evidence of the calls on Kent’s phone.

  “Her phone number was on Kent’s cellphone,” MacDonald explained. “It looks like he called her numerous times.”

  Pamela groaned, momentarily closing her eyes. “He always felt so guilty.”

  “The accident wasn’t Kent’s fault,” Mr. Miller reminded her.

  “I know that. But Kent still felt responsible. He wanted me to give her part of our settlement,” Pamela explained.

  “But those families were paid by the car manufacturer,” Tammy reminded her.

  “But she wasn’t. The money went to his parents. Maybe I should have listened to Kent. This is all my fault. He wouldn’t be fighting for his life again if it wasn’t for me.” Pamela began to cry.

  Danielle abruptly stepped forward and placed her hands on Pamela’s shoulders. Tammy was still at her niece’s side.

  “No, Pamela, none of this is your fault. No more than it was Kent’s when his car went out of control because of a factory defect. Felicia Borge was an evil person, and what happened to Kent is her fault alone, no one else’s.”

  Before Pamela could respond, the doctor walked into the waiting room and announced, “He’s out of surgery and in recovery.”

  Danielle stepped back so Pamela could see the doctor.

  “Is he going to be okay?” Pamela’s tear-filled eyes searched the surgeon’s face.

  “It was a little touch and go for a while there, but I’m confident he’s past the danger. He’s resting right now. You might want to go home, get some rest. He’s going to be out for some time.”

  Pamela refused to leave the hospital. She wanted to be there when Kent woke up. Danielle offered to stay with Pamela and urged Lily’s family to go back to Marlow House and
get some rest. They had to leave early in the morning to catch their flight home.

  “But what about Kent and Pamela?” Tammy asked.

  “Pamela can stay with me until Kent’s ready to travel. But it’s been a long day for all of us, and I don’t have to drive to Portland in the morning and catch a flight. I’ll look after Pamela, I promise,” Danielle insisted. “And you heard the doctor, Kent’s going to be okay.”

  “Thank you,” Pamela told Danielle after Lily’s family had left the hospital. The two women sat alone in the waiting room. “I love my aunt Tammy, but she can hover a little too much. I know she just wants to help, but sometimes it just makes it worse.”

  Danielle smiled. “Yeah, I understand. Lily felt the same way when she was recovering. Which is one reason she decided to stay up here.”

  Pamela smiled wearily and leaned back in the chair, her legs stretched in front of her, crossed at the ankle. “I know. Lily told me. I would never want Aunt Tammy to know I felt this way, it would hurt her feelings.”

  “I understand.”

  They sat in silence for a few minutes, each reflecting on the evening’s events. “I never mentioned anything to my family about Kent and I agreeing to a divorce when we get home. Now with all this—I imagine that divorce will be put on hold for now. At least until Kent is on his feet again.”

  “Who knows, maybe this brush with death will make Kent realize what he’s walking away from.”

  Pamela glanced to Danielle and frowned. “Weren’t you the one who said the divorce was probably for the best?”

  “Yeah, but…only if Kent can’t remember what you had. But who knows? Miracles happen every day.”

  Pamela smiled and then wearily leaned her head back on the chair. “I suppose I should just be grateful for the miracle of Kent surviving two deadly encounters. As for our marriage, I’ve come to accept that time in our life is over. We’ll get through this together—and then we’ll move on, separately. It’s just the way it has to be.”

  It was past midnight, but Joe knew Brian was awake. He noticed the lights on in the window when he first drove up. After parking, Joe spied Brian walking around in his living room. Hastily leaving his car, Joe sprinted up to the house.