A Triple Scoop of I Scream (3 page)

Who is this guy?

Toni’s insides fluttered and she struggled to feign nonchalance. She extended her hand and watched it disappear into his.

“I make a ruckus at every opportunity. Toni Bianchi, your new neighbour.”

Liam held her hand just a beat too long.

“Welcome to the neighbourhood, Toni.”

He lifted her hand to his mouth and kissed it.

Seriously?

His lips were so warm, and so soft. Toni couldn’t help herself. She leaned in and smelt his hair.

God, he smells amazing.

“Do you investigate every ruckus, Liam?”

Liam lifted his head and let go of her hand.

“Just trying to dissuade vandals. The kids get in here—mostly on dares—see who can last more than five minutes in the dark.”

Toni’s skin prickled again—this time not in response to the bookseller’s good looks.

“You too?” she asked.

“Me too what?”

“Ghosts,” Mike said from the back of the shop. Toni had forgotten he was in the room. He was behind the display case looking over the rows of candy-filled apothecary jars lined up on the shelves.

“She wants to know if you too believe this place is haunted.”

Mike plucked a jar of jelly beans from the shelf, set its lid on the display case and dug out a handful of colourful candy.

“It is,” Liam responded.

Toni set her right hand back on her hip.

“How do you know? Have you seen the ghost?”

“Ghosts—plural. And yes, I’ve seen them and heard them.”

“Are you saying you know who they are—I mean—were?” Toni asked.

Liam nodded. “I’d be happy to tell you all about it, but first—if you don’t mind—I’d like to come around back and clean off my boots. Looks like I’m standing in melted strawberry ice cream.”

* * * *

“Found it,” Mike called from the front of the shop. Toni heard a
whoosh
as the air conditioning came on. She sighed as cool air started to flow from the exposed ductwork overhead.

Mike joined Toni and Liam behind the counter. Liam rested his hand on the stainless steel sliding lid atop the ice cream freezer.

“Do we dare?” he asked.

“We’re already dirty,” Toni replied with a wink.

Mike slid back the lid and the three peered in. Their hands immediately shot to their noses as the sickly sweet/sour smell wafted up. Seven disintegrating round waxed cardboard cartons—and an empty hole where the strawberry should’ve been—were lined up four-by-two inside. The walls of the cartons had drooped and flopped over.

Liam stepped out of the way while Toni hunted under the counter until she found a box of industrial black plastic trash bags. She held open a bag while Mike deposited the sticky cardboard remains. The two looked down at the congealed mess at the bottom of the ice cream freezer.

Mike turned to Toni. “Clean or explore?”

Toni glanced towards the shadowy doorway at the back of the shop. She wondered about the entity that had disappeared there a moment before Liam had emerged. “Let’s clean until Bridget gets here. Then Liam can tell us what he knows about our ‘boarders’ and we’ll go poke around the rest of the place.”

Mike nodded. He retrieved the grey plastic wash tub and hauled it behind the counter. He sorted out the garbage, then put the dishes and utensils into the wash sink and filled it with soapy water. He filled a bucket, grabbed a sponge, and began scrubbing the inside of the freezer. Toni set to work on the dishes.

Liam located a radio behind the counter and turned on the power. He adjusted the dial until a drawn-out electric guitar chord burst from the little speakers. As the note began to fade, a bass drum picked up, followed by a snare. A bass guitar
thunked
out a heavy series of notes. The band came together in a sudden burst of sound and the ice-cream parlour was filled with classic rock ‘n’ roll. Mike paused long enough to thrust one arm in the air, fashioning his index and pinkie fingers into horns, before returning to his work. Toni tapped her foot to the beat and nodded her head in time to the music while she scrubbed the dishes.

Liam let out a rock-band front-man, “
Owwww
!” and Toni turned to see him jut out his pelvis and play a few licks of air guitar. Her eyes were involuntarily drawn to the bulge at the front of his jeans.

Oh my.

Toni got caught looking. Liam gave one more windmill strum of his air guitar—in perfect time to the music—winked at Toni then dropped the rock star bit as abruptly as flipping a switch. His attention remained on her. He jerked up his eyebrows in a look that clearly said ‘I know that you know that I saw you looking at my crotch’. Toni’s face heated. She watched Liam’s tight ass as he walked around to the front of the counter.

“There’s a utility sink in the kitchen. I’ll get some fresh water,” Liam said, wheeling the bucket towards the back, using the mop handle to steer.

“You really don’t have to,” Toni said.

Liam stopped and looked over his shoulder.

“I don’t mind. That’s what neighbours are for. And, besides, it’s in the best interest of my business to have this place thrive. Hell, I’d be happy to have it stay open under the same owner for more than a few months.”

Toni watched Liam turn and push the bucket into the back room. Mike had said the place was haunted. She wondered what he was leaving out.

Chapter Three

The tarnished brass bell above the door jangled as Bridget O’Malley stumbled into the shop balancing a grocery sack atop a case of beer. Toni turned over the last chair and placed it on top of a bistro table. She nodded towards the bank of booths against the wall of windows.

Bridget set down her load where Toni had indicated. Mike slid up behind her and pulled her against his body. He spun her around and pressed his mouth into hers. Toni smiled. Her last haunted business venture had brought those two together. Mike had been a guest at Toni’s bed-and-breakfast inn—visiting the tiny town of Soldiers Orchard to take part in the annual Civil War re-enactment. Bridget had been at the inn to investigate Toni’s resident ghost as part of the television show
Paranormal Research Team
. They’d been together ever since.

Mike released Bridget and asked, “Where’ve you been?”

“Got hung up when I stopped to get supplies. What have you two been up to?”

“Three,” corrected Liam Greco as he wheeled his fourth refreshed mop bucket from the back room.

He let go of the mop and strode towards Bridget, his hand extended.

“Liam Greco. I’m the neighbour.”

Bridget returned the handshake. “Bridget O’Malley, friend, girlfriend and beer-getter.”

“And ghost hunter. I’ve seen the show,” Liam said.

Liam released Bridget’s hand and turned back to the bucket. Toni heard the wet slap of the mop hitting the tiles behind her. Bridget caught Toni’s eye and raised her eyebrows in appreciation. Toni answered with an eye roll, but the implication thrilled her. She hadn’t been with anyone since she and Thomas had parted ways. She imagined Liam’s full lips on hers and her pussy dampened.

Oh thank God! I’m back.

Toni’s libido had taken a serious plunge after Thomas had left. To be precise, it had suffered after the dreamlike ménage with Thomas and the ghost of John Buckman. Toni had feared that the intensity of that ghostly three-way had somehow damaged her sex drive. Her primal, sexual response to the gorgeous bookseller was a relief.

Toni shifted, pressing her soft thighs together. Bridget looked like she was about to say something when Mike squeezed her waist and pulled her into him.

“Your timing is perfect, babe,” Mike said, kissing the spot where Bridget’s flame-red hair met her creamy white temple. “We’re going to finish up here and then take a tour.” Toni smiled as the chaste peck escalated to a full-fledged lip-grinding kiss. Bridget slapped Mike on the ass and pulled away. He frowned. She winked.

“So, what’s the story here?” Bridget asked.

“Plenty of paranormal activity,” Mike said. “It’s been enough to scare away half a dozen owners in the past few years.”

Toni’s mouth dropped open. “Six owners! You’re kidding, right? Are the walls bleeding or what?”

Liam leaned the mop handle against a booth and walked to where the three stood. “No bleeding walls, but plenty of other weird stuff. Most people just see a blur when Vinnie is out and about. Daisy is the rowdy one.”

“Vinnie and Daisy?” Mike asked.

Liam nodded. “The ghosts. Vinnie’s dad owned the soda fountain back in the twenties and Daisy’s family ran a tailor’s shop next door, where my bookshop is now. Every day after work Daisy would come over here and sit at the counter and Vinnie would make her an egg cream. They fell in love. The story goes that they were going to elope, but Daisy got cold feet and didn’t show up. Vinnie drove his truck into a tree that night. He died instantly. Daisy was so overcome with guilt she just lost it. She would sit at that counter for hours and write in her journal and at six o’clock every evening she’d drink an egg cream. Vinnie’s dad was so grief-stricken he’d close up the shop and let her make it herself. She’d wash the glass, put it back on the shelf and then leave. She wouldn’t eat anything else, just that egg cream and that’s only, what, two, maybe three hundred calories. She just wasted away.”

“She starved herself to death?” Bridget asked.

Liam nodded again. “That’s the story. She died right behind the counter.”

“I wonder what was in that journal,” Mike said.

Liam shrugged. “Nobody knows. They never found it.”

“That’s so sad!” Bridget said.

“And creepy,” Toni added.

“Totally!” Mike said, not sounding at all creeped out. The prospect must have turned him on, because he gathered Bridget into another lip lock. Liam laughed and went back to his mopping.

Toni turned to check on the dishware drying behind the counter when something brushed against her bare calf, just below the hem of her capris. She jerked up her knee and took a long step away from the touch. She looked down at the floor behind her, fully expecting to see a stray cat coming in for another leg rub. There was no cat. Toni pivoted a complete three hundred and sixty degrees. Mike and Bridget were ten feet away still locked in a kiss. Liam was even farther away—his back to Toni—bobbing his head and mopping in time with the music coming from the radio.

Toni reached down and rubbed her calf, trying to smooth away the disconcerting tingle the mysterious touch had left behind. Her arms broke out in goose bumps. The lights surged brighter and static crackled from the radio. Toni straightened. Her head jerked backward as her ponytail was tugged from behind. She shuddered. The room took on a red glow, as if bathed in light from the setting sun. The radio continued to crackle and movement in the mirror drew Toni’s complete attention. A black smudge had developed in the exact centre of the glass. Its edges were smoky and reminded Toni of the spots one saw upon coming indoors after standing out in the sun. The smudge began to grow. As it expanded, it became a vertical oval. The bottom of the oval split in half, forming legs. Arms and a head took shape. Toni’s stomach knotted as a young woman came into focus. It was the ghost from the alleyway.

Daisy,
Toni thought.

Daisy was small and delicate, pale with huge charcoaled eyes. Her wavy hair was cut in a bob and she wore a loose, dropped-waist dress that fell just above the knee and low Mary Jane pumps. The scene behind her was the reflection of the soda shop, but in a very different time. It was clean and bright and hung with advertisements for hair tonic, pipe tobacco and headache powder.

Daisy’s movement was unnatural—jittery like an old silent film. For every step she took, her form advanced twice the distance it should have. When the figure was nearly to the plane of the mirror, Toni realised she’d been holding her breath. She blew out all that her lungs had been holding and concentrated on breathing slowly. She waited for the ghost to pass through the mirror. Instead a transparent palm flattened as if pressing against a pane of glass.

Toni hugged herself against the sudden chill that swept over her skin. The static from the radio intensified then gathered into a piercing squeal of feedback. Toni’s heartbeat thundered in her ears. She willed her feet to move and felt disconnected from her body as she passed between the halves of the counter. She reached over the syrup dispensers and pressed her hand against the mirror. Daisy crouched down and carefully lined up her fingers with Toni’s. Their eyes met. A prickling buzz vibrated through Toni’s hand. It travelled up her arm and across her chest, finally radiating over her entire body. Toni stiffened. She tried to pull away, but felt as if she were bound by an electrical current. The energy in her body built and it was at once exhilarating and terrifying—pleasurable and painful—flirting with being unbearable. Her mouth was frozen open, but she couldn’t make a sound.

Daisy’s eyes flared with icy blue light. The static feedback from the radio reached a crescendo then abruptly faded as an amplified breathy whisper burst from the tiny speaker. “I want to tell you my secret!”

Toni was detachedly aware that the current left her body in the exact reverse path of its entry. Her palm remained bound to the mirror, but her muscles loosened as the current drained away. When the last of the energy left Toni’s body, her hand was released. Her body slid to the floor and her mind slipped under a black blanket of oblivion.

Chapter Four

Thomas Becker set down his tackle box beside the Jeep and unplugged his cellphone from the solar charger on the hood. The cabin had no water, no electricity, no critics, and no adoring fans. And that was just the way he liked it. It also had next to no cell reception. He’d be able to pick up a couple of bars once he’d rowed out from the shore. He slid the phone into his pocket, grabbed his fishing gear and headed down to the dock. He’d check his messages, make sure no one in his family was dead or dying, then switch the thing off again until tomorrow.