Seeing is Believing (13 page)

Her voice was a little shaky.

“You can stay here if you want,” Brady told her. “Just point me in the right direction.” Though with his luck he would walk straight through the dead dude.

“No, I’m okay.” Piper was lying to Brady. She wasn’t okay. Something about the fact that a ghost had traveled, well, it felt like he was following her. Which was more than unnerving. She also felt weird that throughout her whole life she had heard Shelby tell stories about the Blond Man, a ghost who wore a suit and smiled and waved at everyone. No one had ever associated him with the fiancé who had been murdered, and that such a cheerful spirit had been bludgeoned to death, and was a cheater, felt strange. It also seemed horrible that Rachel and Brady were trapped in the afterlife together, though Piper had never seen the two of them at the same time.

What would it be like to be stuck here, on earth, unable to communicate with living humans? Unable to touch or eat or feel? It sounded horrible.

“What direction are we going in here?”

“Over there. Second row. About five in from the fence.” Was it her imagination or did the man start waving more enthusiastically?

“How do you know they’re ghosts? What do they look like to you? Are they translucent or something?” Brady asked her curiously as they walked through the bushy grass.

Piper pondered the question. “I just know they’re dead. It’s obvious to me the second I see them. There is a . . . wispy quality to them. And a coldness. There is no body heat, no breathing, nothing that indicates they’re alive. I guess it’s like a reflection in a mirror. You just know the difference.”

She thought about the man who had appeared in her dream that morning, the older guy in plaid who had a rope around his neck. She hadn’t remembered him at all until the dream, but now she couldn’t shake the memory. She had seen him half a dozen times outside her trailer as a kid, sitting under the big oak tree, his knees up to his chest. Had he hung himself in that tree? Had he been a victim of a sinister crime? So many people, so many stories, so much pain and loss . . . Why did they show themselves to her?

It was a burden she didn’t understand.

“Let me know if I get too close to him, okay? I don’t want to be the douche bag who walks into a spirit.”

“You did punch him a couple of days ago.”

Brady stopped scanning headstones as they walked and gave her a sheepish look. “I guess until that very second I didn’t actually believe you were seeing anything.”

She couldn’t blame him for that. She probably wouldn’t believe it either if she wasn’t the one seeing it. Reaching out, she touched Brady’s arm. “It’s this one.” The man, who she had a hard time thinking of as Brady, was pointing to a small, weathered stone. It had fallen over at some point and was partially sunken into the hard red clay soil.

The Blond Man smiled at her and nodded.

“Oh, my God, that’s freaky as hell,” Brady said, his face losing some of its color as he knelt down and ran his fingers over the headstone. “Brady Stritmeyer, January 7, 1860 to August 12, 1887. Talk about feeling someone walk on your grave. Staring at my own name on a headstone is a little disturbing, as you predicted.”

Piper squatted down beside him. “There’s a quote there, a long one. What does it say?”

Brady read carefully, “‘When he shall die, Take him and cut him out in little stars, And he will make the face of heaven so fine, That all the world will be in love with night, And pay no worship to the garish sun.”

Piper felt the goose bumps start at her fingertips and gallop up her arms. She shivered in the warm sun, reaching out, needing to touch the stone herself. “It’s Shakespeare. From
Romeo and Juliet
.” She had been romantic enough as a teenager to remember such an overblown assessment of a man. But here, in death, it had a poignancy she hadn’t understood before.

“Really? I guess someone was really grieving for him when he died. That sucks.” Brady sat back. “I feel like we should have brought flowers or something.”

Piper watched the bliss on the man’s face as he hovered near them, watching their actions. “I don’t think it matters so much. I think he’s just happy someone is here to see him.” She tried to make eye contact, emboldened by his serene nature. He wasn’t frightening at all. “Did you love her?” she asked in a whisper. “Like Romeo and Juliet loved one another? Too much passion, too much rashness?”

But his eyes wouldn’t meet hers. Instead he stared down at his headstone, his smile drifting off his face, like he had remembered death was no cause for joy.

Piper followed his gaze, and what she saw made her start, falling out of her crouched position when she lost her balance. “Oh, my God.”

“What?” Brady took her arm, trying to help her back up, but she just sat on the grass, drawing her legs in towards her, away from the headstone.

The bleeding headstone. The name of Brady Stritmeyer was leaching blood from the bottom of each letter, like fat red tears trailing down over the pain-filled words of loss, running faster and faster.

“Do you see that?” she whispered. Of course he didn’t see it. No one ever saw any of it but her.

“See what? Are you okay?”

She shook her head. No. She wasn’t okay. Because the blood was forming a word as it rolled towards the end of the headstone, one lone, horrible word . . . “MURDER.”

Swallowing hard, feeling like she needed to scream, but keeping it in, she pulled her hands in, too, not wanting to touch any of what she was seeing. Was the blood real? Would it dampen her fingers? She wasn’t brave enough to test it.

When she looked up, the Blond Man pointed to the stone, to that heinous word, then to himself.

“I know,” she whispered. “I’m so sorry. I’m very, very sorry.”

There was a pause, like he was considering this. Piper didn’t know what else to say.

Then he pointed to the word again. Then to Brady. Her Brady. Living, breathing Brady.

Piper said, “No!” Even though she knew it didn’t mean anything, she couldn’t help but blurt out the dispute, because Brady was much too alive to think of as dead. And who would want to murder him anyway?

But the man in front of her just nodded. Then he smiled, like it was fine. All was fine.

Then, like an electric lightbulb dispelling darkness with a switch flip, he was gone. Like he had never been there.

The headstone was dirty and worn, a grimy layer of age coating it, but there was no blood. No “murder” on it.

“Are you okay?” Brady asked. “Is he talking to you?”

She shook her head, her heart pounding at a rate that could not be healthy. “He’s gone.” Bracing herself on the grass, she stood up so quickly her head swam. “We need to leave.”

“What the hell just happened?” Brady scrambled to his feet.

“I don’t want to talk about it.” Which was the understatement of the decade. She felt like she’d fallen into a B-grade horror film. Was she insane? There was no way that headstone had read “murder.” That was just not possible.

Yet she’d seen it. And she knew it was real. Or as real as the spirit world could be. Maybe not real in the sense that you could reach out and touch it, but real in that there had been a message for her. She just didn’t know what to make of it. Obviously, the ghost wanted her to acknowledge that he had been murdered. She imagined any spirit who had been taken from this world so brutally would want people to know that.

But why had he pointed to Brady? Did he know they shared a name?

Or was it a warning?

“Piper. Sweetheart.” Brady reached for her hand again, but Piper just walked faster.

She wanted out of this cemetery. “I never should have come here. It’s not the kind of place a freak like me should hang out in.” Immediately she hated how juvenile she sounded, but damn it, she hated being different. Abnormal. She wanted to belong, to fit in. She wanted to not be afraid.

The Blond Man had just terrified her.

Because he had communicated with her in a way that felt threatening. Yes, he was smiling, and yes, he seemed benevolent, but the warning felt frightening, personal. Her interactions with ghosts had never been personal before.

And she couldn’t imagine something happening to Brady.

“You’re not a freak. Don’t say that. Please talk to me.”

Once she had rushed past the front gate and was next to her truck, Piper finally felt like she could breathe again. “The headstone was bleeding,” she told him, patting the pocket of her skirt to make sure her keys were there. The truck wasn’t locked, but she needed reassurance that she could get away. She didn’t want to stay for another minute.

“Bleeding?” Brady looked at her blankly.

“Yes. Bleeding. I think he was warning me.” It seemed obvious to her now. “I don’t want to do any research on Rachel or the original Brady Stritmeyer. I think we need to let the past lie.”

“But how do you know that’s what that meant? Maybe he wants you to investigate his murder.”

“There’s nothing to investigate.” If Rachel hadn’t killed Brady or Brady hadn’t flirted with the maid, well, Piper didn’t see how they were ever going to find that out a hundred and twenty years after the fact. “We’re not going to find anything other than biased newspaper articles.”

“But you don’t know that.”

Piper yanked open her truck door and climbed in. Anxiety was boiling up inside her and she needed to leave. “I’m not doing it.”

“Hey.” Brady stepped into the door, preventing her from closing it behind her. “I’m not trying to push you. Don’t run away.”

Run away? That was a little insulting. She wasn’t running away. She was just quickly exiting a situation that made her uncomfortable.

If he didn’t understand the difference, that was his problem.

“I’m sorry. I don’t want to be here. I can’t.” There wasn’t any way to say it any clearer, and if she had to stick around and spell it out for him, she was terrified she was going to start screaming.

“Okay. I understand.” He reached out and tugged a curl. “Drive home safely. Can I call you?” With a smile he added, “Say I can call you.”

There really wasn’t a whole lot of hope that she could tell him no. She wanted to hear from him. She wanted to know that he was interested in her. And she wanted to steal whatever time with him she could before he left town. “You can call me.”

“Good.” Brady kissed her forehead and then shut her door.

It made her feel like she was sixteen and her dad was sending her off for her first solo driving adventure.

That wasn’t how she wanted to feel around Brady. At all.

Coupled with the burbling anxiety creating pressure in her chest, it made her just want to go home.

Which made her feel that maybe she wasn’t as grown-up as she liked to think she was.

* * *

BRADY WATCHED PIPER PULL AWAY, THE TENSION ON
her face evident as she swung her truck around. What the hell had she seen in the cemetery? She’d said blood, but he was sure there was more to it than that. Though seeing blood on a headstone would be disturbing enough, he imagined. Yet her reaction had been so strong, it seemed there was more to it. Then again, from what she’d said, Piper normally just saw spirits. A bleeding headstone sounded like something different altogether, something more . . . sinister.

He didn’t like it. Glancing back at the cemetery, wishing he could see what she did, he found himself frowning. He wanted answers but he wasn’t sure where to start.

A sandwich was in order.

Then he supposed he needed to stop up at the hardware store and get the painting supplies for Gran’s house. He’d been over there to assess what was needed and had discovered a previous tenant had been fond of L bracket shelves. There were about a thousand holes that needed patching.

Food first, though. It was a two-minute drive to the Busy Bee Diner, a restaurant that had been around longer than he had. Brady didn’t recognize the hostess, since she was in her late teens, but the waitress who approached him with a glass of water was as much a staple of his childhood as Frosted Flakes. “Hey, Marge,” he said with a grin. “How goes it?”

The older woman’s eyes narrowed, causing all her wrinkles to undulate. Her orange lips pursed. “Do I know you? Or are you just reading my name badge and being a smart-ass?”

“It’s Brady Stritmeyer. Jessie’s grandson.”

Her eyes widened in recognition and she gave him what could pass for a smile. “Well, I’ll be dipped. Didn’t know you were back in town. How are you doing?”

“I’m good enough, I guess.” He figured that was the truth. He wasn’t exactly thrilled with his life, but he didn’t have cancer either, so he was sort of in neutral. “I got laid off so I’m visiting my gran and my cousins.”

“Sorry to hear that, but the economy does suck.” Marge nodded in sympathy. “I have arthritis from waitressing for forty years, but this diner paid my rent and helped me raise four kids when that worthless piece of shit ran off on me with the tart from the bowling alley, so I can’t complain. People always want a two-dollar breakfast even when jobs are scarce.”

“That is true.” He gave her a smile. “They hiring here?”

She laughed. “No. And even if the answer was yes, I’d tell you no. You’d be bad for business. We’d have all those young girls in here nursing a coffee for two hours mooning at you. You’re too good-looking for your own good, always have been.”

“Thanks,” he said, rolling his eyes. He was not too good-looking. There was no such thing. He didn’t fall out of an ugly tree, but he was no underwear model either.

“Please, false modesty doesn’t suit you. I’m guessing before you leave town you’ll have frosted a few cupcakes.”

Brady’s eyebrows shot up. Good God. He was speechless and trying hard not to examine that phrasing too carefully. Did she mean . . .

“Brady Stritmeyer! What the hell!”

He was saved from having to reply to Marge by a woman swooping down on him and enveloping him in a hug, smothering him in dark hair, dangling earrings, and a strong scent of patchouli. “When did you get to town?” she demanded, pulling back so he could actually see her face.

“Abby.” He smiled, genuinely pleased to see his high school girlfriend. Unlike his first big romance, Joelle, who had been a cautious girl, Abby had been far too much like him for either of their own good. They had gotten into quite a bit of trouble together. “How are you?”