The Curse Keepers Collection (109 page)

“Fine!” she huffed, throwing her hands into the air. “You don’t have to work the night shift anymore. Ever.”

“No shit, I don’t,” I said. “Because I just quit.”

I stormed out the back door and walked until I got to the parking lot of my old apartment, sucking in deep breaths.

What had I done?

I pulled my phone out of my pocket and dialed my best friend, Claire.

“Ellie, I thought you were working today,” she answered. “Is everything okay?” I didn’t usually bother her when she was at her housekeeping job at the Tranquil Inn, so she knew it had to be important.

“Actually, I don’t have a job anymore since I just quit.”

“You did
what
?”

“I think I’m going to hyperventilate.” I walked over to the wooden steps leading up to my third-floor apartment and sat down, running my hand through my hair.

“Ellie, it’s just a job and your new boss is a bitch.”

“But it still paid the bills. And Darrell’s Restaurant will never take me back after all the times Tom showed up to question me while I was working.” We’d grown up with Tom. That, along with his respect for my father, was why he cut me some slack even though there was plenty of evidence that I was tied to the strange things happening on Roanoke Island. Still, his patience was wearing thin. Especially when his intuition told him I knew more than I pretended to know. Too bad he was right.

“I thought you said David
wanted
you to quit.”

“He does, but this means I’m totally dependent on him. I’m supposed to be a strong, independent woman and now I’m just what Collin thought I was when he first showed up at the New Moon.”

“An easy mark?”

“No! An opportunistic gold digger. Now David will end up paying my bills and helping float the inn.”

“Oh, Ellie. There’s a difference. David loves you and wants to help you.”

“It’s still not right.”

“Okay,” she murmured. “So you’ll get another job. It’s not the end of the world. Now tell me what’s
really
going on.”

My head jerked up in surprise. Sometimes I wondered if Claire knew me better than I knew myself. “Something’s wrong with Myra.”

“With her new job?” she asked, surprised.

“I don’t know. She was fine until the day before she left, and then she started to act . . . distant. She hasn’t called me in over a week, and she acts like I’m bothering her whenever I call her.”

“That doesn’t sound like Myra at all. Could she just be nervous about her new job? She hasn’t taught in a long time and classes started this week.”

“Maybe.” But she’d never blown me off before, no matter how busy her schedule. “David and I are going to Chapel Hill this weekend. I think I’ll drop by Durham to see her.”

“Are you going there to pack up David’s house?”

“Yeah, and one of his colleagues might have some information about the Ricardo Estate.”

“Really? That’s great.” Her voice lowered. “Listen, I’ve got to go. I think my boss is coming down the hall. Are we still cleaning your apartment after I get off work?”

“Yeah, see you at three.” I hung up and glanced up toward my apartment. Now that I didn’t have a job, I could go up and clean it myself. But I’d only seen Claire twice since her return from her honeymoon in Charleston, and I couldn’t ignore the fact that she’d been acting different too. While she hadn’t blown me off, she
had
been more subdued than usual.

With nothing to do for several hours, I went back to the inn to help Becky. I called David to tell him that going out of town wouldn’t be an issue since I quit my job. I hung up as I walked into the inn, finding Becky at the office desk.

She looked up in surprise. “Ellie! Why aren’t you at work?”

I shrugged. “I guess inn keeping is my new full-time job.”

Her face fell. “Does that mean you don’t need me full time anymore?”

Oh, crap. I hadn’t considered that. The inn could barely pay her salary and the mortgage along with the other expenses of running the place. But I couldn’t count on being here all the time with my new Curse Keeper responsibilities. “No. I still need you. Tell me what still needs to be done today.”

Relief washed over her face as she told me what she’d accomplished while I was gone.

After I did laundry and some long-overdue deep cleaning, I realized it was almost time for me to meet Claire. I grabbed a bottle of water and stepped out into the August heat to walk to my apartment.

When I stepped onto the third-floor landing, I stared at the now-bare front door. It looked naked without all the symbols Collin and I had marked on it.

Claire was waiting for me in one of the plastic chairs on the front porch, watching me with a wistfulness I hadn’t expected.

“I forgot about those chairs,” I said as I moved toward her. “I’m not sure I want to drag them several blocks to the house.”

Claire shrugged, lifting a bottle of beer to her lips. “Toss ’em in the Dumpster. They cost less than ten bucks at Walmart, not to mention they’re tacky.”

“What are you doing outside? You have a key.”

She stared at the door for several seconds. “It’s too sad and creepy in there now that it’s empty.”

“Creepier than my father’s house?”

She cocked an eyebrow, her dark brown eyes bright with amusement, but there was some heavier emotion behind them. “That’s a telling phrase right there—your
father’s
house.”

I released a sigh. “You know what I mean.”

“Why are you doing this, Ellie? You hate that house.”

“I don’t hate it. It just makes me uncomfortable.”

“Well, no shit!” she shouted, waving her hand in the air. “Maybe you should listen to your instincts. Your mother was murdered there. You recently found out that the killer had you trapped in your closet. You were eight years old, Ellie. Eight!” she said, her eyes blazing. “Why are you doing this?”

“Because someone needs to take care of the inn.”

“That’s bullshit. What’s the real reason?”

“Because Daddy hid notes to me in the house and I have to find them.”

“And have you found any since you banished those evil badgers?”

I scowled. “No.” I turned toward the door and put the key into the doorknob. “We need to clean my apartment. I want to be home when David gets back from work.”

“Ellie. It’s me, Claire. I know you better than probably anyone alive. What’s the real reason?”

Tears filled my eyes. “I let him down, Claire.” My voice broke. “I have to try and save it.”

She leaned forward and grabbed my wrist, guiding me to the chair next to hers. Then she reached under her seat and grabbed a paper bag that I hadn’t noticed. After pulling out a second bottle of beer, she popped the top off and handed it to me. “Here.”

I took a long sip, then placed the cold bottle against my chest to help me cool off. “You came prepared.”

She took a drink from her bottle and shrugged. “I was going to make you talk one way or another. Getting you drunk was Plan B.”

“And Plan A?”

She grinned. “
Asking
you.”

I chuckled softly and took another drink. Claire was right. She knew me better than anyone. Being best friends with someone for fifteen years wasn’t for nothing.

“You seriously think you let him down?” she asked.

“Of course I did. In every conceivable way. I refused to relearn the curse after Momma’s murder. If only I’d listened to him—”

Her hand covered mine, her eyes pleading. “Ellie. Enough. We’ve rehashed this every which way left of Sunday.
Woulda
,
coulda, shoulda.
We all have things we wish we’d done differently, but what good does it do us to dwell?”

“Maybe Marlena wouldn’t be dead right now if I’d known enough to figure out what Collin was up to. Maybe Daddy would still be alive too.”

“That’s bullshit and you know it.” She took another drink. “How in the world could you have stopped Okeus’s lackey from killing Marlena? And Ahone demanded a sacrifice—your father. All the knowledge in the world wouldn’t have prevented either of their deaths.”

“I have to blame someone, Claire.”

“Fine, then blame Collin. Blame Okeus. Blame Ananias Dare and his cohort, Manteo. But stop blaming yourself, because that’s just bollocks, as your Brit likes to say.”

I grinned. “I’m quite fond of my Brit.”

“No wonder. He’s hot and he’s great in bed.”

My mouth dropped open in protest. “I
never
said he’s great in bed.”

“I know. I’m reading between the lines. You’ve told me all about all the awful experiences you’ve had. The fact that you won’t tell me a thing about sex with David speaks volumes.”

“I never told you about sex with Collin either.”

She lifted her beer bottle in salute. “Exactly.”

I laughed and we drank the rest of our beers. Once we were done, Claire pulled out two more bottles, then stopped, her gaze drifting down the landing toward my neighbor’s door.

“What are you looking at?”

She shook her head and handed me the drink. “Nothing.”

“We’re supposed to be cleaning,” I said, taking the proffered beer and checking out the door that had caught her attention. Claire was lying to me, but for the life of me, I couldn’t figure out why.

“Your apartment isn’t going anywhere,” she said, but she didn’t sound happy. “I seriously think you should reconsider.”

“It’s too late, Claire. My landlord has already rented it out.”

We were quiet again, the silence more heavy this time. “Tell me more about your honeymoon,” I finally said. “You’ve been home for two weeks and every time I ask you about it, you change the subject.”

She shot me a grin, but she looked somehow nervous, a first considering that she was a chronic oversharer. “Now who’s trying to get sexual exploit details?”

“
Please
. You’re the queen of TMI. But that’s not what I’m asking and you know it. Tell me about Charleston. You’ve been dying to go there your entire life and you finally got to go. What was it like? Were the ghost tours fun?”

She took another sip from her bottle. “We need to take care of your apartment.”

“Claire. You and Myra have something in common: you’re both acting strange. Her since she moved and you since you came back from your honeymoon. If I wasn’t full of so much self-confidence, I might start getting paranoid,” I teased.

She was silent for several seconds, her face turning pale.

Oh, shit
. Something was wrong. “Did you and Drew have a fight?”

She shook her head with a wry smile. “No. Drew is perfect.”

“Then what happened?”

She leaned forward, fear in her eyes. “Promise me that you won’t think I’m crazy.”

“Are you serious? You’re one of the sanest people I know. You keep
me
sane. How could I think you’re crazy?”

She nodded, pressing her lips together in concentration.

“So tell me what happened.”

“Drew and I went on a ghost tour the second night we were there. The tour guide was lame. In fact, I was kind of bored. I kept thinking how I would have done it differently.” I didn’t find that surprising since Claire ran ghost tours in downtown Manteo. Hers were always quite entertaining.

“And which part of that is crazy?”

She took a long pull on her beer. “The Unitarian Cemetery was part of the tour, but we didn’t even get to go in. The tour was at night and the cemetery was closed. When we were about ten feet away from the gate, something happened.” She paused and chewed on her thumbnail. “One minute I was in the hot, muggy evening air, and the next a cold chill hit me, like I’d walked into a freezer.”

Fear crawled up my spine.

“The closer I got, the colder it became. The tour guide’s voice faded and a figure appeared. A woman. But she wasn’t really there.”

Oh, God. Were the demons going after Claire now? Had they actually followed my friend on her honeymoon? “Did she try to hurt you?”

“No.” She swallowed, refusing to look at me. “She was wearing an old-fashioned dress, long and flowing, and her hair was pulled back. She was pretty, but she looked sad. She was watching me from the other side of the locked gate. As the guide started to lead the tour away, I approached the gate, and . . . that was when she spoke to me.”

“What did she say?”

“She said, ‘It’s time to wake up.’ Then she vanished into thin air.”

“What does that mean? Wake up?”

She didn’t answer my question. “I was pretty shaken up, but we were still on that stupid tour. Drew knew immediately that something was wrong. He even stood at the gate next to me, but he didn’t see her—the ghost.”

“You think you saw a
ghost
?”

She stiffened. “You don’t believe me.”

My eyes flew open in astonishment. “How can you say that? After everything that I’ve seen, that you’ve seen with me. Of course I believe you. I’m just scared for you. They’re coming after you now.” My worst nightmare was coming true. I should have made Claire leave Manteo like Myra. Everyone close to me was in danger.

“No, Ellie,” she said, shaking her head. “She didn’t want to hurt me. She was trying to help me.”

That didn’t make sense. “Why do you think it was a ghost? And what did she mean about it being time to wake up?”

She sucked in her top lip between her teeth. “When I was little . . . I used to hear things. Voices.”

Something stirred deep inside my head. The flutter of a memory trying to break free. Then it dove below the surface, out of reach.

“I heard them when I was little, but soon after we moved to Manteo, they went away.”

“Around the time Momma was killed.”

Claire’s face paled. “How did you know that?”

I shook my head, feeling light-headed. “I don’t know.” But I knew it was true.

“I told you about the voices when we were little,” she whispered. “The day you told me about the curse after school. Your mother got a phone call that made her upset. She was crying. You’d told me the truth about the curse before she came home, and I felt like I should share something with you too. I hated to see you so upset. So I told you, scared to death you’d think I was crazy or lying, but you didn’t. At least not that day.”