The Last Kiss Goodbye: A Charlotte Stone Novel Read online

  “Here come the cops,” Michael said. Charlie became aware of the sound of heavy feet on the stairs seconds before Ken and two uniformed police officers stepped into the hall.

  “Jenna McDaniels?” one of the cops asked. Weeping into the phone like she was never going to stop this side of general anesthesia, Jenna nodded wordlessly.

  “We need an ambulance,” Charlie said, and one of the cops replied, “Already on the way.”

  “My mother’s coming,” Jenna told Charlie, tears rolling unchecked down her cheeks as she passed Charlie’s phone back to her. “Can you tell her where we are?”

  Charlie took the phone and complied.

  The EMTs arrived just as she was ending the conversation by promising to call Mrs. McDaniels if Jenna should be taken anywhere other than Lonesome Pine Hospital, which Charlie was virtually certain would be the case. As they converged on Jenna Charlie relinquished her patient to them. For a moment, because of a sense of duty toward Jenna, she watched critically: they seemed very competent. Satisfied, she stood up and moved out of the way to let them work. A wave of profound relief rolled over her as she realized that her part in this was ending, that the cops and appropriate-for-the-situation medical professionals would take it from here. She had played her small role in rescuing Jenna McDaniels from whatever hell she had been caught up in, and now that role was played out.

  By this time her house was filled with cops, upstairs and down, and from what she could glean from various conversations more were on the way. She knew how investigations worked: they would take Jenna to the hospital, take Charlie’s own statement, take lots of pictures of anything that needed taking pictures of in her house, maybe check the back door, which the intruder had forced open, for fingerprints and the yard for footprints. Then they would be gone, to focus their investigation where it needed to be focused, which was on finding out what had happened to Jenna and the other girls.

  Charlie would be left alone to get back to her life.

  Which right at the moment included a maddening, not-much-longer-for-this-earthly-plane ghost who was dangerously close to becoming way too important to her. Him she needed to deal with immediately, if, indeed, she planned to deal with him at all. The easy route would be to do nothing. To simply let him go. Allowing him to fade on out of her life would be the absolute smartest choice she could possibly make.

  And Charlie already knew that she was not going to be able to do it.

  “And there you see it again, folks: we have one more unfortunate victim rescued from the jaws of death by our heroic doctor, Charlie Stone.” Michael accompanied that infuriating remark by making a show of ironically clapping applause.

  Forget how drained and shaky she was feeling: Michael’s sardonic pseudo-announcement had the effect of stiffening her spine and heating her temper. Shooting him a narrow-eyed look—still translucent as smoke, he was standing near the door to her bedroom, out of the way of the hive of activity surrounding Jenna—Charlie barely managed not to snap You know what you can do with that, right? in reply. Instead she murmured to the nearest cop, “I’m just going to go wash my hands,” which were, in fact, smeared with blood, and which did, in fact, need to be washed. The cop nodded, clearly uninterested. Charlie walked (stalked?) past Michael into her bedroom. As she knew he would, he followed her in, moving past her on into the room. Clicking on the light, Charlie shut—and locked—the door.

  Then she turned on him.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  “What is your problem?” Charlie demanded in a furious whisper.

  Michael had stopped near the foot of her bed. Her big brass bed was dressed in layers of spotless white bedclothes that, fortunately, had been changed and made up yesterday in anticipation of her homecoming by the maid who cleaned her house once a week. The bed that she had last been in, less than a week ago, with him. Having the hottest, most mind-blowing sex of her life.

  After a single comprehensive glance, Charlie jerked her gaze from the bed to Michael. Luckily, she wasn’t prone to blushing. Luckily, too, he didn’t seem to have been struck by the same memory that still had the power to curl her toes. Shrugging his broad shoulders, crossing his arms over his chest, looking as big and bad in death as he ever had in life except for the fact that she could see right through him, he looked her up and down.

  “It’s not my problem you should be worried about,” said Michael. “It’s yours.”

  “I don’t have a problem.” As she spoke, she stalked across the room to the first of the two long windows that overlooked her backyard and the mountain beyond it. Looking to her right, she was able to see part of the street. At least half a dozen cop cars were parked where she could see them, which meant there were more that she couldn’t see parked right in front of the house. An ambulance, siren screaming, was just turning the corner, heading her way. Although the police cars were all dark and only the ambulance’s stroboscopic lights were still flashing, she could see the vehicles even through the darkness and rain, courtesy of the house and outdoor lights of every single dwelling within view: the sirens had clearly roused the neighborhood. Knowing the way the community worked, she had little doubt that the neighbors who were not at this moment actively converging on her house were peering out their windows. Given everything that had happened, she hated the idea that anyone, good guy or bad, could see in, which with the overhead light on was a given. Jerking the curtains closed, then stalking to the other window to close those, too, she said, “My only problem is you.”

  “Hah.” He had turned to watch her. Stopping in front of the fireplace, which was between the windows—it was a lovely room, big and high-ceilinged, with white walls and dark hardwood floors and an ornate fireplace below a painting of a waterfall splashing down in a woody Blue Ridge Mountain glen, her own oasis of serenity—she glared at him. He continued: “You really don’t see it, do you? You think I was kidding, downstairs? I wasn’t. You’ve got a fucking death wish. You need a shrink, shrink.”

  “What I need,” she said, goaded “is an exorcist. Who specializes in removing unwanted ghosts.”

  “Baby, if I was unwanted you wouldn’t have turned the water on in your kitchen.”

  Charlie’s lips firmed: he had her there. And the fact that she was still frightened silly by his see-through state—okay, truth was truth. Dead serial killer or not, he had become (stupidly, dangerously) important to her. Not that she meant to admit it.

  And he was right about the shrink. She was exhibiting classic symptoms of what even she recognized as a real self-destructive streak. But when she thought of trying to describe her current dilemma to one of her esteemed, non-ghost-seeing colleagues, she went cold all over. Nobody would believe her. They’d think she was delusional, possibly schizophrenic or the victim of something organic such as temporal lobe seizures. Whatever, the word would spread that she was a couple of spark plugs short of an engine. Best case scenario, she would lose her credibility. Worst case, her job and her medical license.

  He added: “You’ve got blood on your face, by the way.”

  Without another word, Charlie turned and headed for the en suite bathroom, pulling her phone from her pocket with angry resignation on the way. If there was a chance to save him from whatever Eternity had in store for him, which from every indication was shaping up more along the lines of fire and brimstone than Pearly Gates, she was going to go for it.

  Michael followed her into the white-tiled bathroom with its big, claw-foot tub and separate shower and pedestal sink and water-saving toilet: old-fashioned in style but completely modern, because she’d had it redone. “That’s the second time I’ve been scared enough about what was happening with you to fight my way out of Spookville when I didn’t think there was any chance I was going to be able to get out ever again. Second time since I died, which hasn’t been all that long. You following me here? Twice in less than a week that you’ve scared me shitless because you’ve been that close”—he held his thumb and forefinger about a quarter of an inch apart�
��“to getting yourself killed. That I know of. Like I said, you’ve got a death wish.”

  “I do not.” Charlie’s back stiffened with indignation even as she went ahead and pushed the button on her contact list that would place the call she knew she would never forgive herself if she didn’t make. “What difference does it make to you anyway if I get killed? Looking at it from your point of view, I think I’d be thinking we could be two little angels—or whatever—together.”

  He snorted. Mouth twisting, he met her eyes as she glanced around at him. The expression in his was impossible to read. After a second he said, “You’re not me, and you don’t know shit about my point of view. What I’ve learned from being dead is, your life is something that has more value than you realize. You did your best to save mine; I’m doing my best to save yours.”

  “Quid pro quo, hmm?”

  “Whatever them fancy Latin words mean, Doc.”

  “If you know they’re Latin, I’m guessing you know what they mean.” She’d already discovered that his laid-back southern exterior concealed a keen intelligence.

  “Yeah, well, take them fancy words you just threw at me and add in the fact that if you bite the big one, I’m toast. You ready to sentence me to an eternity in whatever the hell—and hell sounds about right—I’m looking at after Spookville?”

  No, she wasn’t. And he knew it as well as she did, so she didn’t even have to tell him so. Instead, she sighed. “I don’t have a death wish, okay? That’s ridiculous. Didn’t you ever simply have a bad week?”

  “A bad week? That’s what you’re calling it?” As they’d been talking, Charlie had put the phone on speaker, laid it down on the narrow glass ledge above the sink, and begun to wash her hands and face. He continued, “You’re a scientist. Look at the facts: you spend your workdays penned up in a little room with serial killers. Oh, I know you like to think you’re protected because you’re in a prison, and there are armed guards around, and the prisoners are locked in and shackled six ways to Sunday, but you’re not. You think I couldn’t have grabbed you if I’d wanted to? All I would have had to do was fake like I was choking or something, and you know as well as you know your name that you would have come on around that desk that stood between us to try to save me, and I would have had you. You think I didn’t work that out about five minutes after we started our first session? You think I’m the only one who’s thinking of trying something like that? Wake up, buttercup. The men you’re working with have been sentenced to death. They got nothing to lose. Every single one of them who isn’t crazy enough to want to die is thinking about how to break out of there. What’s the best way? I can’t speak for everybody, but I can tell you one of the possibilities I was considering: take the pretty doc hostage and use her as a ticket to the outside.”

  “You were thinking about taking me hostage?” Charlie looked around , blinking, from rinsing her face to ask indignantly. One shoulder propping the door frame, he was standing in the open bathroom doorway, his tall, muscular body oversized enough to fill most of the available space. He might even have looked scary if she hadn’t progressed way past being afraid of him—and if he hadn’t been as see-through as delicately tinted glass.

  More see-through than when he had followed her into the bathroom? She wasn’t even going to let herself answer that. Just asking herself the question was enough to make her stomach twist.

  Damn it.

  “Hell, yes, I was thinking about taking you hostage. I was thinking about trying anything that might have saved my damned life.” The soft sounds of the phone ringing on the other end as the call finally went through caught his attention and he squinted at the distraction. As Charlie reached for a towel, he added on a note of disbelief, “You calling somebody? Right now? Really?”

  “Yes.” She ran a brush through her hair. Her cosmetics were kept in a small plastic case on the glass shelf. Her bare face was way too pale and tired-looking, so, after giving him a quick glare simply because he was in a position to watch, she picked up her blush, opened it, and brushed a little of the pink powder on her cheeks.

  He was watching, critically. “Who?”

  “What are you, my keeper?” she asked as she progressed to slicking a rosy lip gloss over her mouth.

  He looked impatient. “Damn it, Charlie, I probably don’t have a lot of time left, and there’s a point I’m trying to—”

  He was interrupted by the sound of the phone call being picked up.

  “That you, cherie?”

  The cheerful voice booming through the phone prompted Charlie to answer, “Hey, Tam. Yes, it’s me. Listen, I have a problem and you are the only one I can think of who might be able to help me with it.”

  “I’m all ears,” Tam said.

  Mindful that Michael’s time could very well be measured in minutes rather than hours, Charlie got right down to it. “I have a ghost who’s getting ready to leave this plane. He doesn’t want to go, and I need him to stay—and to stay visible to me. I’ve tried everything I know to do to fix him to earth, but I don’t know all that much about it and nothing I do know seems to be working. If you know something that might help, I’d owe you big-time.”

  “You want to keep a ghost? Why?” Charlie already had been rethinking the use of the speaker phone as Tam’s incredulous voice came through loud and clear, but because time was at a premium and because she had needed to wash her face and hands and because she really hadn’t wanted to appear among all the people converging on her house looking completely unkempt, she had made the choice to multitask and here was the result: an initially intent look on said ghost’s face that was morphing into an irritating twinkle directed right into her eyes.

  “Yes, I do. And never mind why.” Giving Michael a sour look, Charlie snatched up her phone and turned the speaker function off. Feeling hope spreading inside her like kudzu as her friend talked, Charlie listened intently, had a whole multitude of second, third, and fourth thoughts, then said, “Thanks, Tam,” as she finally accepted the inevitable and disconnected.

  “Did I hear that right? You putting that savior complex of yours to work on trying to save me now?” The slow, mocking smile he gave her as she stuck the phone in her pocket, turned, and marched toward him would have infuriated her had it not been accompanied by an almost tender glint in his eyes. Rattled, she scowled at him.

  “Shut up and move,” she said, hating to find herself in the position of having to do something that she feared (a) was a terrible mistake and (b) revealed way too much about the muddled state of her heart where he was concerned. Unfortunately, the thought of the consequences should she fail to act was enough to keep her with the program. “So I made a call to a psychic friend and asked her how to keep you here. Don’t go reading into it.”

  “I won’t,” he promised as he obligingly moved out of the bathroom doorway to let her pass, and she guessed that he wanted what he hoped she could do for him more than he wanted to tease her, at least for the moment. Still, that smart mouth of his was going to get him killed one day, she thought savagely before she remembered that, oops, that horse had already left the barn. “So does your friend know how to keep me here?”

  “Her name’s Tamsyn Green. And maybe she knows how to keep you here.” Being careful to keep her voice low as muffled sounds from beyond the bedroom door reminded her of the activity in the hall, Charlie headed for her long, low mahogany dresser, where she kept a supply of jasmine candles in a drawer. The candles were a staple of her Miracle-Go kit, which was so named because the items in it were useful in dealing with the occasional ghost with evil intent that occasionally afflicted her. She’d already used a jasmine candle once in an attempt to banish Michael, with, as his continuing presence attested, less than stellar success. Now she would use one to do the exact opposite of what she had done to him the last time: instead of forcing him into the Hereafter, she would try to keep him in the Here on Earth.

  “That word maybe? I’m not a fan.” He was frowning, she saw with a quic
k glance at him.

  “Tough. Maybe’s the best I can do.”

  A sharp knock on the bedroom door made Charlie jump.

  “Dr. Stone?” It was a man’s voice, calling to her from the hall. She didn’t recognize it.

  “Shit,” Michael said. “Take a number, buddy.”

  “I’ll be with you in a minute.” Charlie raised her voice in answer.

  Michael made an impatient sound. “Forget about Snow White and the seven dwarves out there. Let’s get this thing done.”

  Charlie nodded: he had to be her first priority. Obviously tense now, Michael watched a little warily as she grabbed one of the smaller candles, fished out the cigarette lighter she kept on hand specifically to light them, should the need arise, from a delicate porcelain dish in the center of the dresser, and headed back toward the bathroom.

  “So who’s this Tamsyn Green?” He was following her.

  “Your best hope for staying here,” Charlie whispered sharply. Not that she thought anyone in the hall outside could actually hear her from the bathroom, which was where she was by then, but still. Her professional reputation wouldn’t survive too many rumors that ran along the lines of she talks to somebody who isn’t there. She could only hope that Jenna had sufficient traumatic memories to share with investigators to have forgotten about Charlie’s seemingly one-sided chats with thin air. “She’s from New Orleans. Her mother was some kind of voodoo priestess, apparently. I met her my freshman year of college, when I was still having trouble processing the whole I-see-dead-people thing. I went to this psychic fair, thinking maybe I’d find other people kind of going through the same thing, and she was one of the featured psychics. Since nobody was able to see the two or three spirits that I could see who were actually in the room, I had already more or less given up on getting any insight into what I was experiencing by the time I walked by Tam’s table and she asked me why I didn’t embrace what she called my gift and get over it. When she was able to describe the same spirits I could see, I knew she was legit. She’s more than legit, actually: she’s a full-spectrum psychic medium and clairvoyant who lives out in California now and makes her living giving readings for movie stars. She knows way more about this stuff than I ever want to or will.” Mindful of the instructions Tam had given her, Charlie had been setting things up as she spoke.