Little Ghost Lost (Destiny Bay Cozy Mysteries Book 5) (16 page)

My heart jumped and skipped a beat. Suddenly I couldn’t breathe again, but for a very different reason.
 

“No,” I said. “You can’t.”

“Sure I can. I’m going to have to head out of here real soon. I can tell. They’re going to be looking a little harder now that you three are going to go missing. So I’ll dump these two here and take you with me.” His grin was sickening. “You’re a cute little thing anyway. You might keep me amused for awhile.”

I stared at him. “You’re crazy.”

Fury filled his face. “Don’t say that,” he cried. “Don’t ever say that to me.”

I tried to back away, but there was nowhere to go.
 

“I’m going to have to tie you up too, aren’t I?”

I shook my head. “No,” I said quickly. “No, I’ll do whatever you say. I’ll help you. Just tell me what to do.”

“You’ll help me?”

“Yes. Just like you helped the doctors at the home.”

That seemed to calm him down. “The doctors were good to me most of the time,” he mused, almost to himself. “But I had to kill one of them so that I could escape that night. It was too bad, really. He’d always been okay to me. But you have to do what you have to do sometimes.”

“I…I’m sure you meant well,” I lied. This was insane but I thought I was beginning to get a picture of what was going on here. In order for my theory to be true, this had to be the boy who drowned twenty years ago. So he didn’t drown?
 

“What is your real name?” I asked him.
 

“Matt,” he said. “They call me Matt Tyson at the home. But I know that isn’t my real name.”

“What is your real name?”

“Alexander Matthew Pennington,” he said proudly. “I still remember it from when I was a kid and I lived here. But my parents had to send me to the home after I pushed my sister off the balcony. They said I had to be managed. They told me I wasn’t Alexander Matthew Pennington anymore. But I knew the truth and I never forgot it.”

I was numb. So impossible, and yet so obviously true. This was the boy who was supposedly drowned. But he wasn’t drowned. His father sent him off to be “managed”, probably in a mental facility. And under an assumed name. Oh my.

But that wasn’t important right now. Getting away from him was. Somehow I had to incapacitate him so that I could get Bebe and Jill out of here before he tried to kill them.
 

I looked at him. He was looking through a medical bag where he seemed to have stored a lot of drugs he’d taken from the home. He pulled out a syringe and set it down on a table. I took a deep breath, wondering if I could knock him down if I ran at him hard. Something told me that was not the way I was going to win. He was just too big, too solid.
 

There was a knife lying on the table, too. He’d probably used it to cut the ropes he’d used to tie up Bebe and Jill. If I was quick, if I could move like lightning, maybe I could grab it before he noticed and plunge it into his heart. I didn’t have much choice, did I? My own heart started to pound.

He was talking as he worked, but I wasn’t listening any longer. My heart was pounding in my ears anyway. I was watching, biding my time, trying to pick the right moment.
 

He filled the syringe with something and laid it down, then turned toward me. It was now or never. I leaped out, grabbed the knife and slashed it toward him, aiming for his chest. I thrust with all my might, gathering every nerve, every muscle, every impulse and launched. For just a split second, I thought I’d done it. But then I was flying across the room and landed hard against the jagged wall. I lay where I ended up on the vile, filthy floor, coughing up something that tasted like blood. So much for a future in knife fighting.

Chapter Thirteen

And Matt was still talking. He sounded annoyed, but not threatened in the least. I cringed.
 

“Don’t, Mele. Let me get this done and then I’ll deal with you. You’re making it very difficult to imagine that I can take you with me. I mean...are you going to be attacking me all the time? I don’t think I can go for that. Maybe you ought to get a dose of this stuff I’m fixing for your friends. You deserve it after trying to pull that trick on me. Let’s see. Okay. Just stay there on the floor for now. If you try to get up, I’m going to hit you again and you might lose a few teeth this time. So just give me a minute here….”

I felt like crying in frustration. What was I going to do? But suddenly I noticed that there was something else going on. There was moaning again. But this time…maybe it
was
the ghosts.

I sat up. Matt had noticed it too. He stopped and listened, then looked at me.
 

“What’s that?” he said.
 

I didn’t answer. I was pretty sure I knew. Was this good or was this especially bad? I wasn’t sure.

The moaning got louder, and now there was wind to go with it, knocking things down. A huge flock of bats flew through the basement, chirping and creeping me out. But they creeped him out too. He yelled, almost in a panic, and batted at them as they circled his head.
 

The funny thing was, all this commotion was happening right around him, as though he were making it happen with his own evilness. Wind and bats and bad smells and moaning and objects flying through the air—it was all happening to him, not to me.
 

I jumped up, ignoring my aches and pains, and reached in to his medical bag. Just as I hoped, my fingers connected with a damp rag. The chloroform. Without even thinking, I grabbed it and smashed it into his face and then held on while he thrashed against it.
 

In no time at all, he crumpled to the ground. The moaning stopped. The bats disappeared. The winds died down. And I heard Roy’s voice at the top of the stairs.
 

“Mele. Are you down there?”

By the time he got to me, I’d begun to collapse.
 

“Roy,” I said, reaching toward him as though he was going to take care of everything. He held me tight and I melted and was ready to spend the rest of the day in his arms.
 

“Bebe and Jill,” I managed to point out. “Call 911. They need medical attention.” And then I closed my eyes and laid my head on Roy’s muscular chest. I was over and out.
 

Fifteen minutes later I got my second wind. I was sitting on the old leather couch in the library. I could hear the paramedics taking Bebe and Jill away. One of them prodded me for a few minutes, trying to get me to admit I needed medical attention. I put him off, promising to go on my own to the urgent care clinic. Suddenly I noticed Aunty Jane was sitting on a chair by the fireplace. And Mandy was with her, Sparky at her feet. What?

I waited until the paramedic left the room.
 

“Aunty,” I said in a whisper. “What are you doing here?”

“I brought Mandy back where she belong,” Aunty said stoutly. As I watched, she put the enameled box so like something my mother had once had on the side table. “You can thank me later, when you feel up to it.”

I shook my head, wondering if maybe I’d hit it too hard or something. “Really? But how? How did you get here?”

“Never you mind. I managed just fine.”

“But…”

She sighed. Mandy grinned. I rolled my eyes.

“Come on, tell me what happened. You’re driving me crazy!”

“Okay, here’s how it went. Your Roy fella came to the house to look for you. Mandy and me, we watched him and his partner walk around the house. I was debating whether to try to talk to him or not. You remember that last time? I talked to him just fine. Remember?”

I had to admit, I remembered. Her talking to Roy probably saved my life that day. But that was then-this was now!

“Okay, while we watching, his cell phone buzzed. I looked over his shoulder. He had a text from you. He said to the other fella, ‘She’s at the Pennington House.’

‘“Okay,” says the other guy. “Let’s go.”’

“I knew this would be our chance. I grabbed Mandy and we hopped into his car even before he got in. There was plenty of room. And we got to ride in a police car. Mandy liked that.
 
So here we are.”

I frowned, trying to puzzle this out. “But I didn’t send a text. I tried, but there was no service in this house.”

Aunty nodded. “It was Dante. He took care of that. He said you threw your phone, so he picked it up and took it outside where it could get service and then he wrote the text message. He was hoping Roy would see it. Then he came back in the house and got the ghosts together to help you down in the basement.”

I closed my eyes and remembered what had happened. “I’m glad they did help me,” I said, my words heart-felt. “Do you know….?”

I was going to ask if she knew who the ghosts were who’d helped me, but a couple of transparent apparitions had joined us. I hadn’t noticed them at first, but now they were plain to see. I looked at them carefully. “Who are you?” I whispered.

As they became more clear I could see that they were both female. One was pale and painfully thin, with long flowing robes. She nodded her bobbed head and said, “I’m Penelope Pennington.” The other, with shorter clothes, longer hair, and a beautiful face, said, “I’m Pamela, Mandy’s mother.”

“Oh!”

The beautiful ghost reached out and took her child’s hand. “Mandy, I’ve been so sad without you.”

Mandy was all smiles. She went to her mother with her arms open and hugged her. “I’m sorry, Mama. I just wanted to see some TV. Ever since that man left…”

I sat there watching them, nonplussed. How many times had I said you could never trust a ghost? How many times had I warned myself against taking any of their talk at face value? And yet, confronted with a child, I’d tumbled for her phony story like a ton of bricks. Oh brother. Never again!

“I’m glad you’re back where you belong, Mandy,” I said aloud. “Be good to your mother. Okay?”

I wanted to thank the ghosts, but there was no time. I could hear Roy talking, coming down the hall toward the library. When I looked back, the ghosts were gone—all of them.
 

I rose and went to meet Roy. Right now, I needed him badly. Hugs and kind words, maybe a kiss or two, would help me more than any doctor.

But there was still a lot to think over. Maybe later I would find a way to thank the ghosts for helping me defeat Matt Pennington. From what the paramedics had told me, he was on his way to the state mental facility twenty miles to the north. In the meantime, I was still tasked with the job of deciding what to do with this house. What was I going to recommend?
 

But I would think about that later. Right now, I didn’t need anything but Roy’s arms around me.
 

Roy had other plans. Not much later I found myself stuffed into his car and heading for the hospital, my protestations ignored.
 

“I know you think you’re fine,” he said wryly. “But I when I look at you and see dried blood, I get a different opinion. Let’s just see what the professionals have to say in the matter.”

I swallowed hard and glanced at him sideways. “Are you going to stay with me?” I asked, half embarrassed that I really did feel like I needed that.
 

He pulled into a parking spot, turned off the engine and turned to look at me. I saw a new, wavering tenderness in his blue eyes and for just a second or two, I thought he was going to say something….I don’t know. Something special. Something intimate. Something I might be able to count on.
 

But then I saw the impulse fade as he thought better of it. He smiled instead. “Sure I’ll stay with you,” he said, his voice kind of husky. “Just as long as you need me.”

He kissed me, but he hadn’t said it. What it was I didn’t really know. But I couldn’t help but think it would have bound us closer, bound us deeper. So I felt its loss.

Still, he kissed me.
 

I was okay, of course. Banged up and bruised, but nothing very serious. And Roy did stay with me—sort of. He tried hard, but every three minutes his cell phone buzzed with another “very important” call and he had to go out in the hall.

That was alright, though. I knew I was just being a baby, so I gave myself a talking to and let it go. And anyway, his absence produced some space for Dante to come in and visit.
 

He was just saying goodbye. He made that clear from the first.
 

“Where are you going?” I asked after I’d thanked him for what he’d done for me at the Pennington House. He’d barely come back and now he was going again. I was already feeling the ache of an emptiness inside. He’d been gone so long this last time. It seemed like losing a part of myself when he wasn’t there.

He hesitated, giving me that long distance stare he was so good at. “It’s hard to explain,” he said. “I’ve got work to do. There’s a sort of war going on in the part of the spiritual world I belong to. I have to be there for my leader. I have to be there for my side.”

“Your side? You mean, sort of like a gang war?”

He grinned. “Sort of. There are factions struggling for power. It’s always that way. The cycle of being.”

I nodded. There was something about him that was making me smile. “One day you’re up, the next you’re down. Like that?”

“Sort of.” His smile softened and he touched my cheek. I could feel it, but when I reached up to put my hand over his, there was nothing there.

“Is it dangerous?” I asked, and I didn’t feel like smiling anymore.

He hesitated. “Not so much,” he said in a way that let me know it was much worse than he was going to admit.
 

A shiver went through me. “Be careful,” I said urgently.
 

He gave me a wink and began to fade away. A sob caught at my breath, but he was already gone.
 

The doctor came back in and so did Roy, looking distracted. His mind was on other things and so was mine, so I didn’t bug him about it. We went to dinner but we had to cut it short when he got a call and had to provide backup for another officer.