Seeing the Light (A Marie Jenner Mystery Book 1) (20 page)

“Son of a gun.” I put my shoulder to the door and it finally popped open.

Farley was waiting inside. I knew it before I saw him. He was glowing even more brightly than he had up in Mr. Latterson’s office.

“When was the last time you opened that door?” I asked, stepping inside and quickly shutting the door behind me. It closed more easily than it had opened, but I hoped it wouldn’t jam again. That door was the only way out of the room.

Farley didn’t answer me. He stood, staring, as though waiting for another outburst from me. Good.

The reception area was empty, except for a table and chairs, covered by a tarp. Two offices backed onto to this area. Both doors were open, and I glanced inside both. One was empty, but the other one still had a desk, a chair, and a computer. I frowned. That was odd, leaving a computer in an abandoned office.

I walked back to the reception area, and grabbed a chair under the tarp. It was leather. Felt good under my fingers as I pulled it out and then sat on it. I left the tarp on the table, though. I didn’t need the table. I wasn’t sticking around.

“Are you going to stay mad at me forever?” Farley finally asked. He sounded so afraid, my anger crumbled. However, I had to be strong.

“I made a mistake with you, Farley.”

“A mistake?” he asked. He sounded even more afraid. “Jesus, you sound like you’re going to give me the ‘it isn’t you, it’s me’ speech. What, are you actually going to break up with me?”

I couldn’t look at him. If he thought we had some kind of relationship past me moving him on, I had waited too long for this conversation. “I should have treated you more like a ghost and less like a person from the very beginning,” I said. “But I found you—”

“Intriguing. Yeah, I remember.” He walked a couple of paces closer to me, his hands clutched together like he was praying. He tried to speak, then stopped and sighed, waiting for me.

“Yes. You were intriguing. And when you were having those dreams or whatever they were—well, that was weird. Death is much more straight forward. A person dies, they gain some understanding about themselves, make a few decisions, bing-bang-boom, and they leave. But you! Man! You just keep sticking around.”

“I don’t want to leave,” he said. “I told you that.”

“I know,” I replied. “That was wrong of me. I let you think that you could. That we could be like Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson or something, and figure out how you had died when we probably won’t. Even though I was positive Ian Henderson had nothing to do with your death, I let you talk me into breaking into his office—I mean, what is wrong with me?”

My throat tightened. What
was
wrong with me? I felt one tear after another slip down my face, and I brushed them away impatiently. Now was not the time to cry.

“I was giving you hope when there shouldn’t be hope,” I whispered. “Hope’s not what this last bit of time is about. It has nothing to do with that at all, and I’m sorry, Farley. I shouldn’t have done any of that to you. You didn’t need an adventure. You needed to move on. I held you back. It was probably all my fault, the blinking out and the fading, and everything. I really let you down.”

“No, you didn’t,” he said. “I think you’re helping me, you know, gain some understanding, or whatever it is that you said I needed to do. Really.”

“No, I’m not,” I said, shaking my head. “I know that much, anyhow. I
have
to talk to my mother. I really don’t know how to handle this at all.”

“Your mother?” Farley’s tone changed, became more clipped.

“Yeah. My mother,” I said. I was surprised at his sudden anger. I’d talked to him about my mother. Hadn’t I?

“Why are you going to talk to your mother about me?”

“She has the same gift I have, plus loads more experience.” I frowned. “I’m sure I told you about her. I’ll just find out what I should do next from her. She’ll know.”

“Oh.” He stared down at the floor for a long moment, then up at my face. I hadn’t told him about my mother before. I hadn’t mentioned a word. “Oh.”

“I’m sorry,” I said quickly. “I thought I could handle this, but it has gotten too weird. You know?”

“Yeah, I guess, but why didn’t you, oh I don’t know, touch base with your mother before this?”

His hands started to tremble. He stared at them for a moment, then looked back up at me. He wasn’t just angry. He was furious.

“You’re right, Farley,” I said, hoping I could fix this mistake before it too backfired on me. “I should have. I’ll call her tonight, and get this whole thing cleared up. I promise.”

“Yeah, well, okay. We’ll see.” He stood up and paced. I could see he was getting angrier by the moment. “So, how much do you really know about this gift of yours, anyhow? Seemed like a lot of what went on was a surprise to you, know what I mean?”

“Well, I watched Mom when I was growing up and I thought—”

“You thought what? You’d wing it? What the hell, it’s just Farley—”

“No! No, that’s not what I meant,” I said. “I meant—”

“You thought you could handle it.”

“Well, yeah.”

Farley turned on me, fury leaping from his eyes and stopping my words in my throat. “Jesus Marie, it was my eternal soul or some damned thing you were playing around with! Why didn’t you tell me? Warn me?”

Now, maybe he was right, but darn it, I’d been trying my best. He was doing strange stuff. It couldn’t be all my fault. I wouldn’t let it.

“Warn you about what?” I asked, suddenly as angry as Farley looked. “My ineptitude?”

“Why don’t we call it your amateur status?” he snapped back.

I was ready for a good fight, and so was he, I think. That’s when another key pushed into the door, and another shoulder popped it open. A large shadow hung in the doorway and I recognized it. James.

My anger collapsed into abject fear. My God, James was going to catch me in an office that had been locked. What was I going to say?

James strode into the room, stopping when he saw me, a confused look on his face. “Marie,” he said. “What are you doing in here?”

Before I could give him a story, a line, something that would explain why I was in a room that was supposed to have been closed off to everyone for a long time, Farley hissed, “We are not finished with this conversation yet.”

Then, he looked distraught, and blinked away. Disappeared, before my very eyes. Again.

I guess I looked fairly stricken, because James walked up to me and took one of my hands. “What’s wrong?”

With all my heart I wanted to say, “I’m trying to move a ghost on, but all I keep doing is making him disappear, and one of these times, he’s not going to make it back and it will all be my fault,” but I couldn’t.

“I almost lost my job,” I said, instead. “I managed to talk Mr. Latterson into keeping me on, but man, I can’t lose this job. Not yet.”

I was hoping for a little bit of sympathy, but I didn’t get it. Not even close.

“Why not?” he asked. “I know you have a better offer—why do you have to hang on to this job?”

Oops. I’d forgotten about his job offer.

“Your offer is just for a month, James. You know that.”

He said, “All right. All right.” However, he didn’t sound all right with it. Not at all.

“I thought I had until tomorrow to make my decision,” I said, a little more snippily than I should have if I was till trying for the sympathy bid.

“I know,” he replied. “It just feels likes a no-brainer to me. Latterson’s a jerk who’s trying to rip absolutely everybody off—including you, I might add—and I’m a nice guy who will treat you better than you’ve ever been treated.” He shrugged. “Like I said, a no-brainer.” He looked suspicious. “Are we even still on for tonight?”

“Of course we are.” I tried to smile. “I picked the restaurant. Remember? The brand new place my friend recommended. Why? Is there something wrong with it?”

“You gave me the wrong address,” he said, and laughed, sounding uncomfortable.

“I what?” I gasped. My shock was real. I’d given him the exact address Jasmine had given me. Hadn’t I?

“You transposed the street and avenue.” He laughed again, less uncomfortably this time. “I thought maybe you didn’t really want to go with me.”

“I must’ve written it down wrong,” I muttered. “I’m sorry.”

“Instead of you meeting me there, how about if I pick you up?” he asked. “Then if we get lost, at least we’ll be together.”

Yay, I thought. What I said out loud was, “All right.”

I walked toward the door, hoping I could get out and away from James before he asked me the big question, which was—

“How did you get into this room?” he asked. Darn it. “I was told it’s been locked up for a long time.”

I stood with my hand on the door knob. So close. “The door was unlocked,” I finally said. “I needed a quiet place to think, and figured no-one would mind.”

“It was unlocked?”

“Yes. Why?”

He hmmed a bit before he answered. “I thought I’d checked it . . . Next time, if you want to come in here, let me know. I’ll let you in.”

“All right.” I turned back to the door, then stopped again.

“How did you know I was in the room?” I asked.

“I heard you speaking.”

This surprised me. These offices were quite soundproofed. “Where were you?”

“Down in the furnace room, putting away my tools. I could hear you clear as a bell. Who were you talking to?”

I looked at him, and for the second time in as many minutes, wished I could just tell him the truth. Instead, I lied. What else is new?

“I was talking to my mother.”

“Oh.” James looked uncomfortable, the way most people do when a dying person is mentioned. “Well, next time, ask me and I’ll find you a private place to talk to her. Okay?”

“Okay.”

I snuck a glance back into Carruthers’ old office, just before James herded me out and closed the door. I needed to check out that computer. There might be something there that would help Farley.

If he came back. If he still trusted me enough to listen to me.

God, he was right. I was definitely an amateur. I was wrecking everything.

Farley:
Back to Hell, with a Twist

“Mr. Samosa, Edmonton could be Las Vegas north, Las Vegas north, Las Vegas north . . .”

Oh my God. I’m back.

Marie:
Setting Up the Non-Date

The door to Mr. Latterson’s inner office was ajar and I could hear him speaking to someone on the phone as I snuck to my desk and pulled out some paperwork that needed finishing. Mr. Latterson did not sound happy. Not at all.

“I don’t understand what I’m reading here,” he said. The papers crackled and swished as they were moved around on his desk by his angry, and I imagine, sweaty hand. “I’m an honest business man, I’ve fallen on some hard times here, I can’t believe she thinks—that you think—that any of these are anything more than harassment, a joke, a bad joke on Good Old Don, and do you have any confirmation, I mean real confirmation, and how dare that bitch— Yes, I’m sorry. How could your client assume I had this much money hidden from her? I wouldn’t do that, we had a life together, she’s the one who wants to leave me—I
know
I started the proceedings, but for the love of God, the writing was on the wall, she’s been treating me like crap for years and—”

I heard his hand slam down on the top of the desk, and couldn’t stop myself from flinching. He was talking to his soon-to-be-ex-wife’s lawyer.

Being the one who had supplied the information to that lawyer, I felt justified in being flinchy and jumpy. Mr. Latterson wasn’t a person to cross. Not when he was signing my more than likely nonexistent paycheques. Not when I needed to remain in this office for a few more days, at least, to figure out Farley’s deal.

I stared down at the top of the desk, and reminded myself that I was making some real money by helping James, money that could help my mom, and help me. It didn’t make me feel any better. I’d actually broken into Mr. Latterson’s office and stolen those documents. Thinking about that made me feel unclean, on top of everything else.

I listened to Mr. Latterson hammer the receiver down on the phone, and storm toward his door, and tried to put an expression on my face that did not radiate my culpability so completely.

“Mr. Latterson!” I said, sounding like I was gushing. I toned down and tried again. “Anything I can help you with? I’m finishing these reports. Maybe fifteen more minutes.”

Mr. Latterson didn’t act like he was really hearing me, which was good for me, I thought. He was staring at the far wall as he walked for the door out to the hallway. “I don’t know if I’ll be back today. Lock up, will you?”