Ghost of a Chance (Banshee Creek Book 2) (25 page)

Maybe it was all for the best.

"I don't care if you didn't know she was still married." Elizabeth's voice rose in outrage. "Oh, her husband showed up, did he? Why do I care? And why would I help you, traitor? Call one of your PRoVE friends. They're good at midnight emergencies."
 

She tapped her foot as she listened to Zach's excuses. Big mistake. The best way to deal with Zach's "emergencies" was to hang up immediately.
 

"I don't care if you left your pants," she said in a more subdued tone. He could tell Zach was winning because she crossed her arms defensively. "I know it's raining." She sighed. "Yes, I know it's cold. Zach." She closed her eyes in resignation.
 

Gabe stepped forward and took the phone from her hand. "Call someone else, Zach." He really didn't want to drive off and bail Zach out.
 

"I don't have anyone else. I'm freezing here, Gabe. I can't walk home."

"Call Mom."
 

"Are you crazy? I'm
not
calling Mom. No way."

"Fine, I'll call her then."

"No, Gabe, wait..."
 

Gabe ended the call and turned to Elizabeth. Her eyes sparkled in merriment. "Don't you dare laugh," he told her. "We should leave him to freeze. It would be a public service."

"We can't do that," she said with a sigh. "My mom would kill us. Your mom would kill us. Zach's harem would kill us." She took the phone from him and kissed him lightly on the lips. "I'm going to clean up and get dressed."
 

He watched her walk away. He should take her home after they rescued his feckless brother. Then come back to the hotel and take an ice-cold shower. That should be the plan. Unfortunately, it didn't sound like a really good plan, at least not right now.

Elizabeth paused in the doorway and looked back at him.
 

"But don't worry, Gabe. You still owe me." The mischievous smile was back. "And I plan to collect."
 

C
HAPTER
T
WENTY
-S
EVEN

E
LIZABETH
WAS
back in the passenger seat of the Ferrari, trying to enjoy the ride. In a few minutes they would pick up Zach and she'd have to fold herself into the back seat. Well, origami herself would be more like it. The car's minuscule back seat was built to accommodate golf clubs and briefcases, not human beings. She'd have to twist herself into a pretzel to fit, her neck would start hurting, and her legs would go numb.

But right now she wished her ears would go numb. Gabe had spent the past ten minutes complaining about Zach. They'd left the Middleburg Inn and crossed the town, and Gabe had complained about Zach. They'd left the town and headed north, and Gabe had complained about Zach. He had an encyclopedic knowledge of Zach's various scrapes and close shaves. He could probably spend the next ten hours complaining about Zach.
 

It was going to be a long ride.

"Why the hell is he stranded, during a storm, in the middle of fucking nowhere?" Gabe snarled. The car was accelerating. The more upset Gabe became, the more he accelerated, the car springing dangerously down the country roads. "I'm sure it's a girl," he continued. "It's always a girl with Zach."

"Zach tends to exaggerate," she replied in a soothing tone. "Maybe it's not that bad."
 

This was Zach they were talking about, so probably not, but hope springs eternal and so forth. She had no reason to defend the guy who'd spoiled her dream evening with Gabe. But she knew that when it came to Zach Franco, it was hard to stay mad.
 

Although Gabe seemed to have no trouble doing so.

"You know her. It's the girl he dated in high school. Whatsername? Mary?" He made a sharp turn into a private drive, and Elizabeth's hands tightened on the seat
 

"Maureen Sands?" She couldn't keep the distaste from her voice. "Zach's still seeing Maureen the Menace?"
 

Maureen and Zach had been an item throughout high school. They'd skipped class together, attended the prom together and, rumor had it, had done a short stint in juvie together. Then Zach had decided to go to Berklee College of Music, over his girlfriend's strenuous objections. Maureen liked nice shoes and expensive handbags and wasn't made to be a working musician's wife.
 

"But she's married." She struggled to remember old gossip. "She met someone in college, a business school student or something." The marriage news had been surprising because, while Zach was a merry prankster, Maureen was, well, a psycho. Who would marry a psycho?

"Yep, someone wealthy and not too smart married Maureen." He'd slowed down and seemed to be looking for the house numbers.
 

"So is Zach in love?"
 

"Of course he's not," Gabe scoffed. "She just knows how to push his buttons. When her husband ignores her, she calls Zach and spins him a sad story." He squinted at a tiny sign perched on a tree. "Lately, she's been telling him she's separated from her husband." He drove toward the next house.

"Is that true?"
 

"Not as far as anyone can tell. But it may explain why Zach finally buckled."

"Oh, no." She winced in sympathy. "Poor Zach."

He snorted. "More like idiot Zach."

"You could be a bit more sympathetic."

"Why are you defending him? I thought you were mad at him?"

"Well, yes. I should be furious. He knifed me in the back with the pizzeria remodel." She reconsidered. "Although, I think machete'd would be a better term."

"Have you been inside?" he asked in a carefully modulated tone.

"Not yet. The big reveal is tonight, isn't it? Why isn't he supervising?"

"That's a good question. I guess Maureen can be very persuasive." He checked the clock. "Great, it's almost time for the pizzeria opening. We have to get Zach there pronto." He pressed the accelerator and the car jerked forward.

"
Now
you're worried." She rolled her eyes. "What am I saying? Of course you're worried. You probably funded the remodel."

"No. He wouldn't take my money. Anyway, it's his business. He can do whatever he wants with it."
 

"Not if the Historical Preservation Committee has anything to say about it."
 

And they would have plenty to say about it, several pages of new regulations extending their jurisdiction to interior remodels, to start.

"The Committee has to stop interfering," Gabe said firmly. "They're killing the local economy."

She frowned at that. She'd been trying to neutralize Gabe's anger toward his brother, but it appeared she'd done too good a job. She didn't want Gabe defending the paranormalization of their town. "Do you really want to see the town turned into a theme park?"

"It's not a theme park, Elizabeth." His hands tightened on the steering wheel. "It's just businesses taking advantage of a favorable commercial environment. The paranormal stuff is in. People have a right to cash in on it."

"Cashing in is temporary. The Committee is trying to help people build something long-lasting. We need families to move in and help revitalize the town. Instead, we have kids walking around in bloody shrouds brandishing oversize cutlery in the middle of summer." Elizabeth tried not to sound like a screeching hag (not a banshee, absolutely, positively not a banshee). She failed. "How am I supposed to sell a house if I have a horde of corpses marching in front of it?"

"It wasn't a horde. It was the Virginia is for Zombie Lovers Convention. It's a free country. Zombies can visit if they want to. And the Historic Preservation Committee isn't winning itself any friends by hounding the local economy into a comatose state." He shook his head in exasperation. "You know I'm right. Think about it. Would you like it if someone tried to tell you how to sell houses? How would you feel?"

"That's different. Unlike Zach and your PRoVE loonies, I have good judgment. And don't you dare roll your eyes at me."

"I'm not rolling my eyes."

"You were
thinking
of rolling your eyes."
 

"Wasn't."
 

He stopped the car in front of a brick colonial with a large oak tree in the front yard. Maureen's sporty car sat on the driveway next to a black Range Rover. Elizabeth had to admit that the house was very nice. Maureen's husband must have paid a mint for those copper gutters. They were worth every penny though.

"Anyway," Gabe said, "your good judgment should tell you that Zach doesn't need any help from the Historical Preservation Committee."
 

She ignored his comment and focused on Maureen's roof, one of those new and expensive composites that mimicked slate. As she calculated how much of the cost could be recouped on resale, she noticed a figure climbing out of a second story window right behind the oak tree, a familiar figure. She gasped as Zach reached for a branch, missed, and landed in the bushes. He dragged himself out and ran toward the car.

The good news was that he didn't seem hurt by the fall.

The bad news was that he wasn't wearing any pants.

"Trust me," she said. "Zach needs help. A lot of help."

C
HAPTER
T
WENTY
-E
IGHT

T
HE
PIZZERIA
was full of people and noisy as hell. The harried waiters wore T-shirts bearing various versions of "Survival Tip Number..." as they lugged sangría pitchers and took down orders. A sign over the bar read "Welcome to Pepe's. Doors slam, glasses shatter, and mozzarella flies. Don't be alarmed. Pepe is harmless. Mostly."
 

The sign was a little lopsided, due in no small part to Elizabeth's efforts. She'd walked in the door, looked around, and tried to use the sign to bash Zach on the head. Pepe wasn't the only one who tried to throw things around. Luckily for Zach, like everything else in the pizzeria, the sign was bolted to a sturdy piece of wood.
 

Gabe waited impatiently at the bottom of the stairs for his brother to put on some clothes. He watched as Caine walked in with three gorgeous girls in black motorcycle jackets, plus an elderly lady. Caine brought his mom? That was sweet and unexpected.
 

The biker looked around the room and practically beamed in satisfaction. The beam was clearly directed at Elizabeth, who sat at the bar, scowling. She turned her back to Caine and poured herself another glass of sangría. Gabe sighed. As soon as Zach came down, Gabe would be able to take an irate, and slightly drunk, Elizabeth home.
 

Or maybe not. Elizabeth settled at the bar in the not-as-modest-as-he'd-expected sweats and asked Zach's bartender, whose shirt featured "Survival Tip Number 13: Don't go to the Basement," for a drink. She seemed to be pointing toward a board that described tonight's sangría special. Upon arrival, Elizabeth had proclaimed that she hated the pizzeria with the passion of a thousand angry villagers carrying flaming torches, but now, she didn't seem to want to leave.

Good, maybe Zach's crazy scheme would sell Elizabeth on paranormal branding. After all, the rest of the town seemed content to guzzle down Vincent Price Peach Sangría and munch on Roger Corman's Fried Calamari. And he had to admit the place had come a long way. The old wood floors were still, as Elizabeth would put it, full of character, but Zach's solution had been to add corpse-shaped chalk outlines to the floor. He was pretty sure the large murals featuring agitated ominous black birds perched in a playground and a little girl watching a television screen had been painted by one of Elizabeth's old drama club buddies. Zach had probably paid her in pizza, or in other ways. The old wood chairs had received a coat of paint and new upholstery. They still looked pretty scruffed up, then again everything in the pizzeria got banged up. Whether or not they had a poltergeist was up for speculation, but the Franco pizzeria was, undisputedly, the most accident-prone business in Northern Virginia. Their elephant-sized insurance premium bore witness to that. The new decor worked. Pepe's Pizza was a place that invited you to linger.

Zach had turned the floundering family business into a success. A dingy, old pizza joint with a terminal case of Death-by-Domino's was now a hip moneymaker.
 

Pepe's Pizza was exactly the kind of business Gabe analyzed, deconstructed, reconstructed, and sold to be franchised, and he could think of five investors who would be interested. In less than two years, Pepe's Pizza could become a national brand and make his brother a millionaire. Zach wasn't interested in money, though. He just wanted a cool place to hang out with his friends. His brother was completely unacquainted with the profit motive, and Gabe often wondered if Zach had been adopted or maybe switched at birth. Even artsy Sebastian, who was an actor for pity's sake, had more business sense.

This was exactly the kind of transformation Gabe had hoped to achieve with the Haunted Orchard Cidery. But Gabe wanted more than a cool place to hang out. Haunted Orchard had the potential to be a gold mine. He fully intended to get it there.
 

Unfortunately, there was one person standing in his way, and she was at the bar guzzling down sangría like a thirsty sailor. But Gabe felt emboldened. His plans for the town were right. If only he could convince the Historical Preservation Committee and, most importantly, Elizabeth.
 

Zach ran down the stairs in a black shirt that read "Survival Tip Number 6: It Wasn't The Cat." His brother's hair was still wet from his run through the rain. Well, hopefully he'd learned a lesson tonight. He wasn't a horny teenager anymore. He was now a successful businessman with a local presence. Successful businessmen shouldn't be sneaking out of homes through the back windows. Or if so, they should do it with their pants on.
 

"Where's Elizabeth?" Zach asked as he walked toward the dining room. His eyes darted around the room, taking stock.

"At the bar trying to decide on what sangría to order next. You should cut that list down to one. Three is overkill." Gabe knew the statement was a mistake the instant he opened his mouth.