Echoes of the Past (29 page)

Tony felt his anger rise.

“Don’t go all
caveman
on
me again. I said liked. Something about him didn’t feel right this afternoon. I
believe Ron knows more about what’s going on than he’s shared with me. I got
some strange vibes from him today. As pissed as I am about my crime scene, I’m
even more irate about the fact someone’s messing with my bodies and lab
reports. Why don’t you cook the steaks while I nuke the potatoes, and then I’ll
tell you about the straw that broke the camel’s back—what made me realize the
truth—over dinner?”

* * * *

Michelle put the potatoes in the microwave while
Tony carried the meat out to the grill. She placed the blanket back on the bed.
Joseph was right. It had been a lot easier than she’d thought it would be. The
events at the morgue had infuriated her, and she’d needed to know the truth.
She hadn’t been able to wait any longer for the spirits to open her eyes or
whatever the hell they had planned. Now, Tony understood his destiny and hers,
so perhaps they’d be able to figure out the truth.

The microwave beep pulling her back to the
present,
and she returned to the kitchen to check the
potatoes. After placing the salad on the table, next to the rolls she’d
purchased and the butter and sour cream, she grabbed two wine glasses out of
the cupboard and added them to the table next to the chilled bottle of wine.
How would this night end? She hoped it would end with the two of them in the
bed in the next room, but he’d given no sign that he felt the same way. Was
this too big a shock for him? Maybe the spirits were wrong, and his love hadn’t
survived two hundred years apart.

The door opened, and Tony came in. The smell of
the steaks made her mouth water. She walked over to him, took the platter from
him, and placed it on the table. Behind her, she heard him lock the door and
put on both security chains.

“Smells delicious.”
She
was suddenly nervous alone with him.

“You know, I did some thinking while I was out
there. There’s one way I can tell if what you’ve told me is true.”

Michelle’s heartbeat increased. She turned toward
him and chewed her lower lip as she always did when she was nervous.

“What’s that?”

Quickly, he pulled her unresisting body into his
arms, bent his head, and claimed her lips. He kissed her with a savagery she
hadn’t expected but welcomed. The kiss demanded her response, and she readily
gave it. Unlike with Ron, she was on fire for this man. His tongue sought
admission to her mouth, and she opened to him willingly, reveling in waves of
sensations so much stronger than the ones she’d experienced in her dreams.
Their tongues battled, both claiming victory and ceding it.

He fed from her, like a man deprived of
life-giving sustenance. The kiss was full of frustration and need, but it was
also tender, feasting from her with holy reverence. He pulled away slowly, his
breathing as ragged as hers. His aquamarine eyes burned with desire just as
they had in the vision earlier in the day. If she’d had doubts, the comparison
between her reaction to Ron’s kiss and this one sealed it. This was Gowanda.
This was the man she loved.

“Well, I guess that answers that question.” He
bent his head and kissed her again, tenderly this time, and she could feel his
love. She responded with all the love she’d carried within her for so long. He
slowly pulled away, and the bulge in his pants showed he was as moved as she
was.

“As much as I’d like to take you into that room
and do everything to you I’ve done in those dreams, I think we have to talk.
I’ve waited two hundred
years,
I can wait a couple of
hours more. I want to know about this camel with the broken back.”

She chuckled wryly. “Okay, but you have to promise
not to get angry. Let’s eat, and I’ll tell you all about it.”

She served the food and while they ate, she told
him about her near-drowning, the ghost who’d come to her in Thunder Bay, and
the shock she’d gotten when she’d seen his photograph. She described her
encounter with Audra, and then moved on to the tour of the winery, the truck
going to Happy Valley, and had just started on events at the morgue.

Tony leaned back in his chair and shook his head.

“Did Aaron, or rather Aaron’s ghost, recognize the
man?”

“No. He didn’t, but it had to be someone who knows
his way around, someone who thinks I’m a bloody idiot. When I looked at the
blood results for Lindsay, I was confused because those weren’t the results I’d
expected, but they got sloppy. Obviously, they switched the samples, but they
didn’t do their homework. I don’t know where they got the blood, but not only
was the level of meth way off, they didn’t check the blood type closely enough.
She’d had to have been a long time user for results like those. I had Lindsay’s
medical records from Toronto, and she went through her mandatory tests six
months ago. She was clean. I brought those results with me. I checked them when
I got the ones from the lab. That’s when the biggest inconsistency hit. Lindsay
was O negative. The results they gave me were for someone with O positive
blood. The Rh factor doesn’t lie. I’ve drawn more blood and taken more tissue
samples, and I’ve sent them to Kingston with an RCMP officer
who’s
part of a task force investigating a meth lab they believe has been in
operation here on the island for almost a year. He’s the one who has the canoe
and Aaron’s car. I also gave him the chunk of rock Isaac’s head was bashed in with.”

“How can the lab be a year old? The lake was clean
three weeks ago.”

“I know. I asked him that. He thinks they may be
sinking the waste in weighted sealed containers and one of the containers
leaked. This could be huge. Far worse than anything you imagined.”

“Decaying meth waste containers would be an
environmental disaster of enormous proportions. You think these guys killed
Isaac too?”

“I don’t think it; I know it. There were skin and
hair fibers imbedded in the rock and rock crystals in the wound. The angle was
all wrong for a fall, and if he had hit his head falling, it wouldn’t have hit
hard enough to kill him. The stone was brought down on his head with a lot of
force, by someone stronger and taller than him. I haven’t met a likely
candidate yet, but when I do, I’ll recognize him. Most people don’t realize you
can learn a great deal from a murder weapon. There may be fingerprints on it.
We’ll see.”

“So that was the straw?” He reached across the
table and took her left hand in his.

She reached for her wine glass, sipped, and then
shook her head.

“No. Those things raised a dozen red flags, but
I’d gone to the morgue to speak to Aaron. I wanted to know about the wine
bottle. I pulled open the drawer. I need to touch the body to release the
ghost. I guess it’s a way to keep from being flooded with demanding voices the
way it was when I was a child. The first thing I saw was that his clothing had
been disturbed. Someone had searched the body. When I touched him, he told me a
man had been in the morgue. He’d described him as a short, olive-skinned man
with a scruffy beard and mustache. He searched him, searched all of Lindsay’s
belongings. They were scheduled to go to the police forensic lab—I thought
they’d gone—but apparently the request wasn’t filed. I don’t know if it was
Milo or Jamie, the guys helping me, or if the papers disappeared further up the
food chain. I think they were looking for the cork.”

“Did Aaron have a cork too?”

“I don’t think so, but they weren’t looking for
anything on Aaron. They were putting things there, things that hadn’t been
there before.”

Tony frowned. “You mean they were trying to plant
evidence?”

“Yes, evidence to implicate you.”

He choked on his mouthful of wine. His eyes
watered.

“Me? How? Why?”

She held out a piece of paper. “This is one of the
things.”

He reached for the note. The paper had been in the
water, and the ink was blurred. As she expected, he paled when he read it.

“I didn’t write this! It’s my signature, but I
swear to you, I didn’t write it.”

“I know you didn’t, and so does Aaron.”

“This note is enough to get me convicted.”

If you want to graduate so you can support
the bastard your girlfriend is carrying, you’ll keep your mouth shut or else.
The results are what I say they are. Meet me by the lake at midnight. Bring
Lindsay with you. Don’t be late.

Tony.

She reached for the note he’d written this
morning, the one she’d shoved in her jacket pocket. Would it have vanished if
she’d left it on the counter?

“I’m trained to look for what’s there as well as
what isn’t. Look at them carefully. On the surface they look the same. The
forger is very good, and since the paper was wet and then dried, the words and
letters are slightly blurred, but there are slight variations.”

He stared at her in amazement.

She smiled. “I told you I’m thorough. Plus I know
it was planted. There was this too.” She showed him a few long hairs. “They
placed them on his jacket and on his sleeves. Yours, I assume. When did you
have your hair cut?”

“Saturday morning. I guess it makes me look even
guiltier.”

She nodded.

“Where would they have gotten these?”

She could see his confusion, and her heart went
out to him.

“From your hairbrush, probably.
As I learned earlier today, people seem to be able to come and go from these
places quite easily. The only reason anyone would want to frame you this badly
would be to protect
themselves
.”

Chapter Fifteen

Michelle read confusion and dismay on Tony’s face.

“I know the mayor thinks I did this, but I swear I
didn’t. What reason could I possibly have? I cared for those kids as if they
were my own.”

“I don’t know why, but Ron’s confident that you’re
his man—too confident. He’s made it seem as if anyone else committing these
murders is impossible. He even tried to blame it on
Lissa
and that’s ridiculous. Then he suggested you might have been playing fast and
loose with Lindsay.”

The color drained from Tony’s face.
“That bastard.
You know it’s not true.” His tone begged for
support. “I’d never do anything like that. I’d love to get my hands around his
throat.”

“Don’t worry. I didn’t believe him. I think that’s
what made me suspect something was off—well, one of the things. I think he
knows something, and we’ll figure out what it is. If the mob’s involved in the
meth production, they could be blackmailing him into helping them. This was the
last thing they’d planted.”

“What is it?” He stared at the tissue she held.

“I’d guess it’s some of your blood. It was on the
back of his hand. He’d have gotten it if he’d punched you. Who saw that mark on
your cheek when it was fresh? The one you probably got running away from your
pursuers.”

“The mayor, his dragon
secretary, anybody who saw me Friday.
I must have scratched myself in my
sleep. It bled like the dickens too. I mean those dreams felt real, but…”

Michelle giggled. “I don’t know. I’ve had some
interesting bumps and bruises too. I found leaves in my hair one night, and
that scared the daylights out of me until I realized I’d left the window open
and they’d blown into the room. As far as Mildred goes, she does look mean. She
reminds me of a particularly nasty substitute teacher we had when I was a kid.
Whoever went into your room to get the hair might have found the bloody
tissues. As far as frames go, it’s one of the best I’ve seen. If it weren’t for
the fact I speak to the dead, they’d have you cold. It might all be circumstantial,
but without an alibi, and the one Jackson could give you would be worse than
none, you’d be screwed.” She felt her cheeks heat at the double meaning in the
word. “It’ll be interesting to see how things work out tomorrow morning when
the evidence they planted isn’t there. Give me that.” She reached for the
letter, the hairs, and the tissue with which she’d removed the blood someone
had rubbed onto Aaron’s hand. She placed the items on her plate and reached for
the lighter she’d used to light the candles. “Now you see them, now you don’t.”

They watched the items burn and she crinkled her
nose at the stench of the burning hair as did Tony.

“That stinks. You’re incredible, you know. Won’t
you get in trouble for that?
For destroying evidence?”

“What evidence? It was planted. Aaron knows it, I
know it, you know it, and the one who planted it knows. Otherwise, it doesn’t
exist and never did.”

“Did Aaron know anything about the wine bottle?”

“No, he had no idea where it might have come from,
but I suspect whoever did this
drugged
him with
scopolamine, the zombie drug. It’s a date rape drug popular because it prevents
memories from forming in the mind. It isn’t a case of not remembering. There
simply isn’t anything to remember. The Columbian authorities are having a real
problem with it too. Tourists are being drugged and used for everything from
sex to murdering others. I’ll know for sure when the blood tests are in. I sent
all new samples to Kingston with Chad. Things don’t add up when they’re handled
here.”

She smiled and stood. “Let me get this cleaned up
and then, I’d like to talk about us.”

He nodded. “I’d like to talk about us too. Come
on. I’ll help you clean up.”

* * * *

Tony carried the dishes into the kitchen. He
glanced at his watch. How could his life and everything he’d believed about
himself have changed in such a short period of time? He didn’t doubt a word of
what she’d said about them being reincarnated spirits. And as for her talking
to ghosts, too many of the things she’d told him couldn’t have come from anyone
but Aaron himself. Hadn’t Joseph said he spoke to the spirits—if Joseph did,
why shouldn’t she? Why should the one be harder to believe than the other?
Besides, if she couldn’t speak to ghosts, he’d be in deep trouble.