Ghostwriting (3 page)

‘Lost, believed stolen, one small antique fob watch of great sentimental value to owner. Reward offered for any information that might lead to the recovery of this precious family heirloom.' Winter slapped the paper in a triumphant fashion and Tani was so amazed that she kissed him.

‘Winter, you are a marvel!' Tani gasped as she read the notice for herself.

‘Simple synchronicity.' He shrugged off her praise. ‘A well-cherished item would have a strong psychic force attached. Such an item could only have been lost or stolen, so it stands to reason that someone is desperately looking to recover it.'

 

As she walked up to the gates of the huge mansion, Tani drooled a moment and allowed her imagination to run rampant concerning the man she was about to meet. He went by the name of Carl Hamden, which bothered her as the name of the handsome widower from her dreams had been Christopher. Then again, maybe this Carl person was looking for an entirely different watch and this little trip would prove to be naught but an unhappy coincidence and another dead end in her quest for a good night's sleep?

‘Please let him be young, single and interesting.' She pressed a button on the intercom panel and the gates parted wide.

Tani warily commenced her walk up the long, pristinely-kept paved driveway.

The large dwelling she approached was rather daunting, and she scaled the front steps to the pillared landing wondering if she should find the servant's entrance, as she suddenly felt very aware of being underdressed.

‘Toni Cavanagh?'

‘Tani.' She turned from checking out the architecture to discover that the man standing in the front doorway fitted at least one of her wishes. He appeared to be in his late twenties; not much older than she was. ‘Are you Carl Hamden?'

‘Unfortunately, yes.' Carl shook her hand and invited her inside.

 

The young lord of the manor was staring at her timepiece with a blank, slightly perturbed expression on his face. ‘This is it!
Thank Christ
for that.'

Tani was confused; surely he couldn't be the rightful owner. Carl didn't sound as if he was attached to the watch at all. ‘That can't be. I understood it belonged to a widower — by the name of Christopher?' Tani voiced her true concern.

‘Christopher is my father —' Carl responded automatically and then looked at her, dumbfounded. ‘Wait a moment, how could you know that?'

‘You're the babe,' she gasped under her breath.

‘Pardon.' Carl frowned, confused by her comment and disturbed that his query was not being answered.

Tani suddenly became rather suspicious of the dashing young gent. What if he had sold the piece off on his father and intended to do it again? Carl had referred to his father in the present tense, so Tani figured that he was still alive. ‘I should like to place this in the palm of its rightful recipient, if it's all the same to you.'

Carl's sweet blue-grey eyes turned stormy. ‘You're not another one of those bloody private detectives? Did Dad hire you?'

Due to the sarcasm in his voice, Tani couldn't tell if he was joking or not. ‘I work in retail.' She couldn't help but smile at his far more intriguing misconception. ‘I acquired the watch purely by chance.'

‘You'll have to forgive my rudeness.' He was more at ease after her assurance. ‘The loss of this watch has caused a couple of rifts in this household. I apologise if I seem a little tense.'

Tani suddenly glimpsed through the young man's cool front to a deep underlying sadness, but Carl forced a smile once more, his pleasant demeanour returning to mask any of his true feelings on the matter.

‘Forgive me.' Tani felt awful for her assumption that his intentions were the worst. ‘Perhaps you should return the watch?'

‘No, no,' he insisted, politely. ‘I feel sure that father dearest will wish to question you regarding
how
you came by his treasure.' Carl was really struggling to remain civil. ‘Do follow me.'

As Tani followed Carl down the corridors of the grand old house, she dwelled on her vision, and the tick, tick, ticking of the watch inside the case she held alerted her to a small discrepancy. ‘Excuse me?' She implored Carl's patience and attention. ‘I know that it's probably not my place to mention this, but … this watch wasn't ticking when it left your father's possession?'

Carl nearly fell over where he stood. ‘You're absolutely right.' The fact that she knew robbed him of further speech.

‘So, shouldn't we try to stop it and reset it to one o'clock?' Tani prompted a response from him, inwardly tickled that the young lord was observing her as if she were an angel or something — this being psychic business was kind of fun.

‘
Nobody
who does not know either my father or myself
intimately
could know that.' Carl wanted to smile, but he was wary — she had to be misleading him somehow.

‘Your mother knows.' Tani nearly choked on the words and yet she was compelled to say them. ‘She watches over you and has done so since the day you were born.'

The soft look of wonder left Carl's face and his dark scowl returned. ‘My mother died the day I was born,' he stated coldly.

Tani did not retract her claim, nor did her eyes waver from Carl's face in the presence of his anger. ‘I know,' she replied, holding up the watch that was the urgent concern. ‘Do you have a small screwdriver?'

Carl blinked, realising that he'd misunderstood her meaning, and what she'd truly been implying both confused and intrigued him. Now he didn't know what to make of this mysterious woman dressed all in black. She looked rather like a witch, and in an odd way she
was
rather bewitching. ‘Sure thing.' He let go his anger to see to her request.

 

In the large, darkened sitting room, an aging man sat in a plush chair by a roaring fire, his legs covered with a blanket. He stuck his head around the side of the padded armrest to view Tani and Carl as they entered.

‘Hello, welcome.' He beckoned with his hand for Tani to join him. ‘You made it past security, I see.' His eyes shot his son an accusing look.

Tani was in a daze, seeing the handsome young bachelor from her dreams in the old man she approached. She opened the green velvet case in her hand and held it out before her, as an offering.

‘You recovered it!' The way Christopher took possession of the watch reflected how much the piece meant to him. ‘You did better than those damn
detectives I hired. Most well done, my dear, most well done.'

‘It was an accident, truly.' Tani didn't want to make the hired help look bad. ‘I saw Carl's ad in the paper.' She went for the simple explanation.

‘Bah!' The old man waved off his son's efforts. ‘The only reason he posted that ad was so he could regain possession before I did, and flog the watch off again.'

‘For the umpteenth time, I did not flog it off,' Carl lashed back in his own defence.

‘Yes, you did!' Christopher shot back at him. ‘This watch marked the beginning and the end of my relationship with your mother.' He waved the piece at his son. ‘You never forgave her for dying and leaving you with me.'

The look on Carl's face implied that the accusation might be true, and thus Tani was swayed toward believing Christopher. Still, she quietly backed away, as this argument was none of her affair.

‘The most precious memento of Helen that I have.' Christopher held the watch to his heart, momentarily appeased to hold it close. ‘And you had to take it away!' he roared in conclusion.

Tani was glad to have retreated some distance as Carl seemed fit to explode.

‘No, father,
I
was supposed to be your most precious memento. Me!' he hollered in spite. ‘It is you who has never forgiven me for killing her.'

Tani's heart leapt into her throat, for she felt all the guilt that had been instilled in the young man. He'd truly been made to believe that he was responsible for his mother's death.

‘Dear Gods!' Tani spoke up, oblivious as to how out of place it was for her to do so. ‘Your mother died because it was her time and for no other reason.'

‘Tell him that.' Carl directed her to his father, happy to have someone to back him up for a change.

‘As painful as it was to leave you both, Helen was gratified by death's release. She'd done her time on this hellhole of a planet.' Tani looked at Christopher. ‘And as pleasant as you made her time here, she dwells in a far more contented place where she still watches over you both.' Tani's enchanted spiel ended, and viewing the expression on the faces of both men, she was stumped as to what to say next. Thankfully, the large doors to the sitting room parted and in walked a middle-aged gentleman in a business suit.

‘Well, it's a bit late for you show up, Detective Roberts,' grumbled Christopher, holding up his prize. ‘This young lass here has already found it.'

‘Then you must be Tani Cavanagh, the one who purchased the fob watch a few weeks back from an antique dealer on Oxford Street?' The detective made it known that he had been doing his job.

‘That's right,' Tani smiled, impressed.

‘It appears the store owner was deceived into purchasing the item from a usually credible supplier, one Prestige Jewellers —'

‘Which is where I took the watch to be cleaned,' Carl pointed out.

‘To be flogged off,' Christopher insisted.

‘Actually,' the detective spoke up to set the story straight, ‘the watch was only in to be cleaned. Apparently a few items have gone missing from the jeweller in question, along with all their paperwork and computer records. Which is why it took so long for the store to identify missing items, and, indeed, to discover what became of your fob watch. It was only when the dealer on Oxford Street finally confessed to his oversight that we were able to piece together this much of the mystery. A new employee of Prestige Jewellers, who has been off on sick leave for a week, is now being sought for questioning.'

‘Well, hallelujah!' Carl cried out. ‘Now that I have been proven innocent, I do believe I have a life to be getting on with. Thank you, Detective.' Carl shook the man's hand and then tipped his head to Tani. ‘And thank you, Miss Cavanagh.' Carl turned on his heel and headed for the door. ‘I am greatly obliged to you both.'

‘Son!'

His father's use of the word startled Carl to a halt, and he did an about-face to find Christopher
had risen from his chair in appeal: ‘Please stay a moment.'

His father's request was so humble and out of character that Carl nodded to agree.

‘That will be all for now, Detective.' Christopher dismissed him. ‘And Miss Cavanagh, if you would be so kind as to wait in the next room, I would be greatly obliged.'

 

In the next room a small fire was being lit by one of the house staff, who offered to fetch Tani a cup of tea.

‘I could get used to this,' she decided, sinking into a comfortable seat in front of the fire. She was feeling decidedly grand at having solved her mystery, and it was now painfully clear why the return of the watch had been so important. Carl and his father might have remained out of sorts for life had the matter remained unresolved. And what had she gotten out of all this? She'd discovered a whole other side to herself, a hidden and mysterious talent that may have remained dormant all her life. And even if her gift never arose from the depths of her psyche again, at least her dreams would be her own.

 

‘Miss Cavanagh?'

She was gently shaken from her deep and contented sleep to find both Carl and Christopher smiling down at her.

‘Oh dear.' Tani raised herself from her slouched position. The quiet of the huge room and the soft crackling of the fire must have put her to sleep. Then it dawned on her that she remembered nothing of what she'd dreamt and that made Tani smile.

‘Sorry we kept you waiting so long.' Christopher poured her a cup of tea. ‘It seems we are greatly in your debt, my dear, and have come to discuss the reward that Carl promised in his ad.'

‘Really, that's unnecessary. I'd be happy to recoup the money I paid for it … so I can put it back in my travel fund, where it should have stayed in the first place.'

Carl was amused by her words. ‘Lucky for us that it didn't.'

‘That's something,' Christopher said to Tani. ‘Where were you saving to go?'

Tani was stumped by the question. ‘I hadn't decided … somewhere exotic.' She took her best stab at an honest response.

‘In that case, when you've decided, you let me know,' Christopher insisted. ‘I own an airline,' he commented casually. ‘Carl, here, is our best pilot.'

Unaccustomed to receiving praise from his father, Carl had to query it. ‘You never told me you thought so.'

Christopher obviously regretted this failure. ‘There are many things I never told you … but that's
going to change,' he stated resolutely, seeming high on life and at peace with the world.

‘You're a pilot?' Tani felt her heart melting in her chest. Finally, here was a man who fitted in with her scheme of what the future held in store.

Carl nodded to confirm her wonder. ‘That's why I'm still single. Women always seem to want to nest … especially once they see this place!'

‘Not this little black duck,' she assured him, figuring that Carl's choice of vocation probably had a lot to do with escaping his father. ‘If I had the money, I'd just keep travelling forever.'

The way the two young people were smiling at each other made Christopher wonder if perhaps there wasn't more karma behind his treasure going missing than just the airing of tension between Carl and himself. The aging father suddenly fancied that perhaps, one day, the fob watch would be returned to Tani's possession by way of a family heirloom. The notion tickled Christopher's fancy and he chuckled to himself, patting the timepiece that had been returned to his inside jacket pocket, next to his heart.
Most well done, my dear, most well done.