Grave Danger (34 page)

She opened the box, pulling out a pair of slacks.
“Lizzy can work with tangible cloth too. She doesn’t keep much in
the store, but she has a woman who runs a web-site for her that
lets her sell online. She had the woman send these over from Ft.
Lauderdale where Lizzy keeps a warehouse. She staffs about thirty
tailors and seamstresses to make the clothes.”

Eleanor opened another box to reveal a burgundy
colored dress shirt. A jacket was in yet another box along with a
patterned tie and gold stick-pin. “I hope he has black dress shoes
because I didn’t think to order any.”

Clarissa nodded her head in approval as Eleanor held
up the clothing ensemble. “I think Jackson at least has shoes that
you’ll find acceptable.”

Putting everything neatly back in the boxes Eleanor
added with dire insistency, “And please, Clarissa, make sure he’s
wearing the right color socks. Black socks and nothing else. Don’t
let him out of this house in colored socks or, God forbid, white
socks.”

Clarissa took off the satin dress shoes, putting
them back in a floral colored shoe box. She sat on the couch, her
feet curled under her. “I’ll make sure he looks good enough to be
on the cover of GQ. Is that satisfactory enough?”

Eleanor came back to the couch. “How is he doing, by
the way? He’s been staying here a lot more than usual. He comes
over to the house after school every day now and stays for dinner.
About the only thing he doesn’t do here is sleep. Jackson seems to
open up to you more, like you’re a friend rather than an employer
of his grandmother.”

Clarissa knew what Eleanor meant. Jackson had opened
up to her about his life. He'd opened up more so to her because he
felt that they both had to deal with being different and the at
times difficult expectations of others who thought they knew what
was best for them. Maddy hadn’t questioned her grandson overly much
about the fight with his parents. Figuring that when he graduated
from high school he’d be in a better position to make the next
tough decisions in his life without his parent’s at times
overbearing influence, but then neither did she want to steer him
into a particular direction, the S.S., if that wasn’t what he
wanted.

“
He’s better when he’s here with us. He and
Leah have been going out a lot and I think it’s good that he has a
friend who doesn’t see him as weird or unnatural because of his
gifts.”

Eleanor made a curious expression. “What do
you think of Jackson and Leah? They could make a very interesting
couple, don’t you think? They
have
been hanging out a lot more than usual.”

Before Eleanor could continue down this path,
Clarissa interrupted her. “Don’t even go there, Eleanor. They’re
just good friends. I’ve seen them together and I can assure you
there is nothing romantic going on between them. You always do that
you know? You think everyone’s interested in someone just because
they spend time together.”

Eleanor brushed away her long curly blonde hair off
her shoulder. “I just think I’d be a good matchmaker, that’s all. I
can see when people like each other and know the difference between
friendship and infatuation. Except for you,” she turned her head to
give Clarissa an intense stare, “You don’t seem to get too close to
anyone. Isn’t there anyone you’ve sort of had eyes for?”

“
No,” Clarissa lied through her teeth. “I
haven’t been here long enough to figure that out yet.” Eleanor gave
her another long look, before turning away. That look said she
didn’t believe her friend one bit.

“
So if Jackson is your escort to the dinner,”
Eleanor began, a hesitant note in her voice. Jackson had only been
allowed as Clarissa’s escort because of some convincing on Maddy’s
part to the council members. “Who’s Henry taking?”

Clarissa had known for some time now how Eleanor
truly felt about Henry. Though both of them hid it well, anyone
with eyes to see the truth could see that those two had a terrible
love for the other. But something was preventing each from pressing
forward. Though Clarissa would like to help, she knew that it
wasn’t her place to interfere in the ‘will they, won’t they’
conflict that Eleanor and Henry had put themselves in for decades.
The drama of it all was outlasting the Ross and Rachael or Jim and
Pam plot lines. It would have been cute if it wasn’t so sad at the
same time.

She thought for a moment, trying to remember who
Henry had asked to the dinner. It wasn’t a woman she was well
acquainted with. “I think her name is Millicent Carp. Does that
name sound familiar?”

“
Millicent Carp,” Eleanor quoted back. “That
fish-lipped old handbag, what is he thinking?” Actually Millicent,
despite her unpleasant sounding name, was in fact a very attractive
woman in her mid-thirties who had once been romantically linked to
some of the hottest male actors of the nineteen thirties and
forties. She had that pinup model elegance that was all the rage
back then.

Eleanor hated Millicent Carp because she was tall
and curvy with long wavy brunette hair instead of short and slender
with cork screw curls that always required detangling in the
mornings. Even in death Eleanor had to fight the nature of her
hair. She rested on a satin pillow at night, but in spite of all
her efforts in this humidity her hair sometimes had a seventies
afro look about it.

“
She seems to be a nice woman,” Clarissa
defended Henry’s date. Out of all the committee members, Millicent
was one of the few who did try to strike up a conversation with
her.

“
Don’t defend that woman to me, Clarissa. I’ve
known her a lot longer than you have and she’s a snob. She’s always
telling stories of when she used to go to all the Hollywood parties
and how everyone adored her. What absolute nonsense.”

Clarissa couldn’t begrudge Eleanor for smearing the
woman’s name. In the same position she’d probably feel the same
way.

Someone knocked on the door to her suite. “Come in,”
Clarissa called out. The door was opened revealing Richard standing
in the hallway. Looking at him in his faded denim jeans and Black
Sabbath t-shirt from their 1978 World Tour she thought that he was
the one who needed to be fashionably re-vamped by Eleanor and her
expertise. However, knowing Richard he’d storm off at the slightest
suggestion or comment about his clothes.

“
You almost finish in here. Josh and I are
downstairs waiting.” He came into the sitting room, raising his
dark eyebrows at all the boxes stacked about the room. Stepping
around them he came to sit in the high backed chair next to the
couch.

“
So,” he said on a sigh. “You’re done with all
this right? We want to head out before it gets too late. The first
fifty customers get their drinks complementary if they bring in a
real human bone.”

“
What’s this?” Clarissa asked
confused.

Eleanor made an exasperated sigh as she reached
across the couch and smacked Richard on the arm. “You were supposed
to call her yesterday and tell her we were going out.” Turning to
Clarissa she explained. “There’s a new night club and restaurant
opening, tonight’s the big event and we thought you’d like to go
with us. Richard was the one who found out about it and he was
supposed to call and ask if you wanted to go.”

“
Why was I supposed to be event coordinator?”
Richard argued. “Besides you two spend all the time together I
figured you would have brought it up during all the girly talk.
Anyway it doesn’t matter. Josh and I snuck into the Science
Department at Flagler College and borrowed some bones from their
collection.”

“
I hope you plan on bringing them back,”
Clarissa said, not sure why they needed them. “Why do you need
bones to get into this club?”

“
It’s a ghost club,” Richard informed her with
a grin. “Only the dead and those in the S.S. are allowed in. The
bones play to the theme for the night’s party, The Skull and Bones.
Kind of an interesting choice since most of the guests won’t have
any. The club’s name is
Dark
Spirits,
kind of a weird name but who cares what they
call it as long as we get free booze.”

“
Sounds like an interesting place.” Clarissa
didn’t know there were clubs in the area dedicated specifically to
the dead clientele.

“
So you’re going with us, right?” Eleanor
asked with a bright smile. “Henry said he couldn’t come because the
council was sending him off on some negotiation meeting. I’m not
sure what it’s about; he was rather secretive when he told
me.”

Clarissa couldn’t at first recall either what it was
about. The council members, especially Isabella Canova, were always
having Henry going off on secret missions for them. But then she
suspected what it might be concerning. They’d found the bokor, they
just needed someone to convince him to come into town and do his
dirty work. Clarissa knew it was only a matter of time before the
pot was sweetened enough to convince him to come to St.
Augustine.

“
No,” Clarissa answered her. “I already agreed
to help Maddy arrange a scrap book for Jackson’s graduation in the
spring. She wants to give it to him now partially full and then she
wants him to fill in the rest before his school year ends.” At
Eleanor’s disappointed look she added. “I promised her and I can go
to the club another time. Is that okay?”

She looked between both of them. It was only a
partial lie. She was helping Maddy this evening make up her scrap
book. But that wouldn’t take too long. It was later that she had
made plans to meet Corrigan on his side of the bridge. But she
couldn’t tell them that.

Why? They’re your friends.
She just couldn’t put them in that awkward
position.

Clarissa’s days were almost a routine now. During
the day she would spend time with Eleanor or Richard. They worked
for the St. Augustine Eidolon post. Richard wrote articles and
Eleanor took pictures, other days they worked part time at the
tourist shops and tour guides. Clarissa went with them when she
could, but most of the time she was asked to sit-in on council
meetings or be there when political figures from other areas around
the state came for a visit. So far only a councilman from down
south had come to pay a call. He’d left quickly the next day when
he heard of the problems they were having.

In the evenings she would have dinner with Maddy and
Jackson; a real dinner with real living food. At first it had been
awkward, but quickly enough they’d found their stride and for a few
hours every night Clarissa wasn’t a dead woman. After dinner they’d
watch television or play a board game. The games always ended up
with Maddy owning all the property and Clarissa mortgaging all her
homes. She knew right then that she didn’t have a head for
business.

Then Clarissa would walk Jackson out to his bike on
the street. They’d talk for a bit. Life with his parents hadn’t
improved much and the best way for everyone to get along was to
pretend that nothing was wrong. Hence, Jackson didn’t talk too much
with his parents.

“
You going for a visit?” he’d ask. He knew the
answer, but asked all the same.

“
Yes,” she answered. “You going to crash on
Leah’s couch again?”

“
Affirmative,” he answered back, “Until she
gets tired of seeing my snoring ass on her couch every morning.”
Jackson was secretly staying at Leah’s. Only the three of them
knew; his grandmother would have a fit. “It’s a bitch to drive back
every morning to school. But I’d rather drive from West Palm Beach
and back again every day to get to school than stay with them,”
‘them’, obviously being his parents.

Jackson would drive over to Leah’s house on the
south side of town and Clarissa would head back inside to help
Maddy clean up. She and Maddy would talk for a few hours before
Clarissa would make her usual departure up to her room. Once there
she’d change into her ‘Corrigan seeing’ clothes, shorts and tennis
shoes, a bathing suit if they decided to go swimming in the ocean.
She brought extra clothes if she thought about changing later.
Clarissa had tried to make her own clothes, but her stitching was
off and the result looked more Holly Hobby than runway quality.
Then she’d sneak out her window like an errant teenager.

“
Yeah,” Eleanor agreed on a sigh. “You can
come with us another time I guess.”

“
Thanks for being so understanding,” Clarissa
said, touching the back of Eleanor’s hand.

“
Well,” Richard hedged. “If you two are done
playing girl stuff can we get a move on. I got the bones
downstairs. You want a shin bone or a rib, Eleanor?”

Eleanor touched her lip thinking hard about the
question. “Rib, please.”

Clarissa walked them both downstairs where
they met Josh. He was dressed in casual clothes and had lost the
apron back at his place of work, the
Happy
Haunts
. “Hey, Clarissa,” he called out when he saw
them.

Josh had developed a tiny crush on Clarissa. He
might have mentioned it to Richard when they hung out at the tavern
after his shift. They were also both in a band together called the
Deadbeats. They were still pretty green and hadn’t had many gigs to
warm up on, but they were getting better. The council had hired
them, at an almost outrageous low price to play at the Halloween
party in a couple of days.

Tonight would have been like a double date only
Richard and Eleanor weren’t exactly interested in each other.
Really it was a maneuver to get Clarissa away from town and her
busy schedule so he could get to know her better and perhaps see if
she wanted to get to know him.