Stolen Dreams (10 page)

Mary carried the large tureen of chili back into the kitchen.
“Rosie, that was amazing,” she said. “You’re going to have to give me the
recipe.”

Rosie, standing at the sink, her arms in soapy water up to
her elbows, looked over at Mary and whispered, “Well, my secret is just the
right combination of cumin, chili pepper and cocoa.”

“Really?
Cocoa?”
Mary asked.

“
Shhhh
,” Rosie whispered back.
“That’s just our little secret.”

Mary mimicked locking her lips and throwing away the key. “Your
secret is safe with me.”

“No!” a scream erupted from the living room. “Not again.”

Mary and Rosie both looked over in that direction.

“I can’t pay for another stay at your hotel,” Maggie cried.
“Please give me a break.”

“Sorry, darling, as cute as you are, the rules are the
rules,” Ian said. “You land on my property and you pay up.”

“But if I pay you, I won’t have any more money,” she
complained.

“Aye, well, you can always sell me that wee piece of
property I’ve had
me
eye on,” he replied and pointed
to a spot on the game board.

“No, don’t sell him that,” Clarissa begged. “If he gets
that, he’ll have all three of them and then he’ll start putting houses on
them.”

“Not houses, darling, hotels,” Ian replied and added a
nefarious laugh.

Bradley leaned over and whispered into Maggie’s ear.
 
She smiled broadly and nodded. “Selling my property
is an excellent idea,” she said in her most grown up voice. “But I’m going to
sell it to Bradley, not you.”

Ian looked over at Bradley. “So, trying to outsmart me, eh?”
he asked in his best bad guy imitation.

“You’re a little dog, not a gangster,” Stanley stated,
pointing at Ian’s playing piece. “Start acting like it.”

Ian turned to Maggie and Clarissa and winked. Then he picked
up his playing piece and trotted over to one of Stanley’s pieces of property
and tilted the dog sideways so it looked like it was urinating on a little red
house. “Better?” he asked Stanley.

“You watch your step, you young whippersnapper or I’ll show
you what for,” Stanley replied, his eyes twinkling with laughter.

“How?
Are you going to thimble me
to death?” Ian asked.

While Maggie and Clarissa giggled, Andy just rolled his
eyes. “Can’t you guys just play the game like normal people?” he asked.

Ian trotted his little dog around the board to Andy’s
marker, tilted it once again and made a streaming sound.
 
Then he looked up at Andy and shook his head.
“No, I guess not,” he replied.

“You are so weird,” Andy said, biting back his laughter.

Rosie chuckled and shook her head. “It’s so wonderful to see
full grown men taking the time to play with children,” she said to Mary.

“That’s what families do,” Mary replied and then she
shrugged. “Well, that’s what my family always did.”

Rosie turned and walked back to the sink. “That’s not what
my family did,” she said. “As you know, my father was abusive and my mother
left when I was a small child.”

“Rosie, I’m sorry,” Mary said. “I wasn’t thinking.”

With Rosie’s back turned to her, Mary thought she could hear
sniffling. Finally Rosie spoke, her voice thick with emotion. “I don’t think
you will ever understand how important your friendship has been to me,” she
said. “You gave me a family.
 
You opened
your arms and your heart to me. I searched for acceptance for years, and I
finally found it when you became my friend.”

A little overcome by her friend’s emotional outpouring, Mary
felt tears form in her eyes.
 
She brushed
them away and took a deep breath before she replied. “Rosie, you taught me how
to be a good friend and how to laugh off my troubles when I felt overwhelmed,”
she said. “You have been my best friend and my example since I’ve been here in
Freeport. I never would have made the transition from home to here without
you.
 
So, I understand how important this
friendship is, because I feel exactly the same way.”

Rosie turned, tears streaming down her cheeks and her arms
coated with soap suds, and hugged Mary.
 
They both burst into tears as soap suds dripped from Rosie’s arms, down
Mary’s back, and onto the floor.

“What the…?” Ian asked, looking over his shoulder into the
kitchen. “They were fine just a few moments ago.”

“Women,” Stanley grumbled, picking up the die and tossing it
down for his turn. “Don’t even try to explain ‘em.”

“I think it’s a hormonal thing,” Bradley said.
“Something about being pregnant.
She does this all the
time.”

“Is Rosie pregnant, too?” Clarissa asked Stanley.

Turning red as a beet, Stanley shook his head. “No, she’s
not,” he muttered.

“Why not?”
Maggie asked. “She’s
married.”

Ian grinned and looked at Stanley. “Yes, Stanley,” he said,
widening his eyes to try and look innocent. “She is married. Why isn’t she
pregnant?”

Narrowing his eyes and tightening his lips, Stanley glared
at Ian for just a moment and then turned back to the game. “Look, I rolled
doubles,” he said. “And I landed on go. Looks like I win all the money.”

Ian studied the board and shook his head. “Not unless you
somehow rolled thirteen, you old scallywag,” he said. “I think that rather than
landing on free parking, you are spending the night in one of my luxury
hotels.”

“Am not,” Stanley said.

“Are so,” Ian replied. “That will be two thousand, seven
hundred and fifty dollars. And I’ll be happy to take cash.”

“This is highway robbery,” Stanley grumbled as he started
counting out his play money.

“No. It’s simple capitalism,” Ian replied. “And I can see
why you Americans find it so rewarding.”

The house was much quieter. Clarissa had been tucked into
bed. Maggie and Andy, who had been allowed to stay later than the rest of their
siblings, had been walked home.
 
Rosie
and Stanley were standing by the doorway, getting their coats on and saying
their goodbyes. “Oh, I almost forgot to mention,” Stanley said. “I did a little
checking on that Sol fellow who was so rude to you the other day.”

“Yes?” Mary asked.

“I spoke to some folks I know up Pearl City way and they
ain’t
fond of him at all,” he replied. “He’s always
fighting some ordinance or the other at the city council meetings.
Don’t give nothing
back to the community, and he’s behind on
his taxes but got some lawyer issuing petitions to slow the tax sale down. He’s
generally a pain in the butt to all of his neighbors and he’s the worst tipper
the gals at the café have ever met.”

“He sounds like a spoiled brat,” Rosie said.

Mary nodded. “Yes he does,” she agreed.

“Well, I
ain’t
gonna
tell you how to run your business,” Stanley said. “But
iffen
it was me, I’d cash that fellow’s check and make sure it’s good before I’d be
doing any work for him.”

“Thank you, Stanley,” she replied. “That’s good advice. I
appreciate your information.”

“No problem, girlie,” Stanley said with a slight shrug.
“That’s what friends do for each other.”

A few minutes later, Stanley and Rosie had left for their
own home and Mary, Bradley, Ian and Mike were sitting around in the living
room, a fire softly crackling in the fireplace.

Sipping on a cup of tea, her feet tucked underneath her,
Mary leaned back on the couch and stretched. “This has been a great evening,”
she said turning to Ian. “I’m so glad you escaped from Chicago to be with us.”

“Aye, it was a grand time,” he agreed. “And not just because
I won a tidy bit playing the game.”

“It was because you beat the pants off Stanley,” Mike said
with a chuckle. “Admit it.”

“Yes, I admit it,” Ian laughed. “I love to get him all
worked up.”

“And he loves getting all worked up, too,” Bradley said. “I
don’t think I’ve seen him happier in weeks.”

“And how’s our Rosie?” Ian asked.

“I think she’s happy,” Mary said. “She loves the feeling of
family she has with all of us.”

“Well, she is family,” Mike said. “Family isn’t about
bloodlines. It’s about love and shared experiences.”

“I agree,” Bradley said. “Rosie and Stanley are just as much
Clarissa’s grandparents as her blood grandparents are.”

A log snapped in the fire, causing a small explosion of
sparks against the grate. They all watched the fire in silence for a moment, enjoying
the peace of the night.
 

“Well now,” Ian finally said, interrupting the quiet and
glancing over into the kitchen. “I believe it’s time for phase two of the
evening’s festivities because I believe you might have a visitor, Mary.”

Mary glanced over and saw a shadow dart back into
hiding.
 
She reached over and took hold
of Bradley’s hand. “Ready to meet another guest?” she asked him.

He nodded. “Sure, it’s always interesting to meet your new
friends,” he replied.

“Marty?” she called. “Marty, it’s all right, you can come
out.”

Hesitating slightly, Marty glided out of the kitchen towards
the living room, his head still bent over parallel to his shoulder. “I hope I’m
not disturbing your evening,” he stammered.

“No, actually, I asked everyone to stay so they could meet
you,” Mary replied. “I was hoping you’d come by.”

“Really?
They wanted to meet me?”
he asked, a slight smile playing on his face.
“How nice.”

“Marty, this is Ian,” Mary said. “He is a professor in
Paranormal Research.”

“They have professorships for crap like that?” Marty asked.

Mike snorted and then coughed to try and cover his laughter.

“Evidently, yes they do,” Ian replied curtly.

“Oh
my gosh
, he can hear me?” Marty
exclaimed. “I’ve been spending so much time with folks that can’t hear
me,
I guess I just blurt stuff out.”

Hiding her amusement poorly, Mary grinned in Marty’s
direction. “Yes, Ian can hear you,” she said. “Actually, everyone in the room
can see you and hear you. And we all want to help you.”

Marty looked from face to face and stopped when he reached
Bradley. “You look familiar,” he said. “Who are you?”

“I’m Bradley Alden,” he said, not sure how much he should
tell the ghost. “I’m Mary’s husband.”

“So, you got a kind of husband and wife thing going on
here,” he said, nodding his head. “That’s okay. I wish my wife had worked with
me.
 
Looks like she
didn’t even come to my funeral.”

“Marty, I need to talk to you about that,” Mary said. “I
checked with the county today and there is no record of your death.”

“But I died,” he replied. “I’m sure of it.”

“I’m sure of it, too, Marty,” she replied. “But your body
was never recovered and no one ever reported your death.”

He shook his head slowly. “That can’t be right,” he said.
“Sol was right with me when I died. He would have told someone. He would have
called an ambulance.”

Mary glanced at Ian. She didn’t want to accuse Sol and upset
Marty.
 
She needed him to come to the
conclusion on his own that Sol might have committed his murder. But in order to
do that, Ian needed to put into play the plan they had devised earlier that
afternoon.

“I’m sorry,” Ian said, nodding slightly in Mary’s direction.
“But since I’m new to the story, can you fill me in on who this Sol fellow is?”

“Sure, sure,” Marty said. “Sol is my business partner.”

Ian nodded slowly. “Well, excellent,” he said. “And what
business were the both of you involved in?”

“We bought a haunted house,” Marty said with an excited
smile. “We bought the house, updated it so we could use it like a bed and
breakfast and then we spent the rest of our money marketing it.”

“Well, how exciting,” Ian remarked.
“And
the ghost.
What was it like?”

The smile faded away. “Well, yeah, that was the problem,” he
explained. “After the first couple of bookings, people started figuring out
that the place wasn’t haunted at all.
 
We
did everything to get ghosts, séances, Ouija boards, stealing…
er
, I mean,
borrowing
stuff from
other haunted houses.
 
But nothing worked.”

“So, you had a haunted house that was losing money because
it wasn’t haunted,” Ian repeated. “What were you going to do?”

“Well, Sol had a plan,” Marty said. “That’s why we went to
the house on the day I died.
 
He was
going to do something about the whole haunted thing.”

“What?” Ian asked.

Marty lifted up his hand and rubbed the top of his head.
“Well, see, I don’t really know because I died before he told me.”

“So, what you’re telling me is that your partner had a plan
to get a ghost. He met you at the house.
 
You ended up dead and he never reported your death to anyone,” Ian said.

“Yeah,” Marty said slowly. “Yeah, that’s right. Why?”

Ian shot a frustrated look at Mary, took a deep breath and
then looked back to Marty. “Well, I don’t know your partner and I hate to cast
doubt on a good man,” Ian said. “But it seems to me that your death could have
been the answer Sol was looking for.”

“What?” Marty asked, still confused.

“If you died, then the house would be haunted,”
          
Ian carefully pointed out.

Marty’s eyes widened. “Are you saying you think that Sol
killed me?” he asked.

Ian shrugged. “As I said, I don’t know the man, so I hate to
cast any doubts,” he said. “But you have to admit, it sounds like a good plan.”

Marty nodded slowly. “Yeah, it does,” he said softly. “It
sounds just like the kind of plan Sol would concoct.”

He looked at Mary. “Do you think he killed me?”

She nodded. “Well, I have some suspicions,” she said. “I
think he might have buried your body in the house so you would be stuck there
and have to haunt it.
 
That’s why there
was no funeral.”

“What did he tell my wife?” Marty cried. “Does she think I
just deserted her?”

“We won’t know until we discover the truth,” Mary said. “And
in order to discover the truth, we need your help.”

“You just tell me what you need me to do,” he said
decidedly. “Now I’m angry.”