Emily's Ghost (15 page)

"Excuse me," she said,
amazed by his arrogance, "but I was there too."

He turned and looked at
her, and his expression blurred and softened for an instant. "I
remember."

"Then why do you act as if
it was all your idea?"

"Because I was the one
with the runaway testosterone. You asked me for help, Emily. I
betrayed your trust."

Her eyes slanted
suspiciously. Having been satisfied, suddenly he was talking sorry.
Surprise, surprise. Now she
was
feeling betrayed. "You're not my psychiatrist,"
she said, just to be perverse. "You didn't breech any code of
ethics."

"Speaking of
which--"

Her eyes widened. "I don't
believe it!" she cried, jumping out of the bed, wrapping the sheet
around her. "You've slept with me, and you still don't believe me
about Fergus! Do you! You want me to see a shrink! Don't
you!"

In reply he blew air out
of puffed-up cheeks, got out of bed, and began to dress. Neither of
them spoke. Emily stood clinging to her sheet, a Statue of Liberty
minus the torch, and fumed over this newcomer to her
shores.

After he finished tucking
in his shirt and buckling his belt, he took Emily's tattered pink
chenille robe from the back of a chair and wrapped it around her
and her J. C. Penney sheet. "Come into the living room, fully
clothed, and we'll talk," he said with a heart-wrenching smile. "I
guarantee I cannot be trusted under any other conditions. I don't
know if I believe in Fergus or not. But I do believe in you." He
kissed her on her cheek, then went into the living room to
wait.

Left alone, Emily became
rational once more. The facts were pretty straightforward: she had
summoned him, she had seduced him, and she had picked the fight.
Apparently it was the newswoman in her. She'd treated every man she
ever knew like a guest on "Meet The Press." Once they'd got her
number, most of them had backed away from her politely. A few had
bolted outright. Maybe because Lee Alden was a bona fide
politician, he seemed to be able to hang in there better than
most.

Or could it be that he
really did want to believe in Fergus? If there was a Fergus, then
there would be a Nicole. Somewhere.

Emily dressed quickly into
a pair of jeans and a cotton sweater of pale apricot, then went out
to talk. All things considered, she decided it was best not to
mention the sex. She needed time to sort that whole thing
out.

Lee was staring at his
bound document, but he didn't seem to be concentrating. Emily
curled up in a side chair and wrapped her arms around a chintz
throw pillow, propping her chin on it. "I'm glad you didn't run out
on me," she confessed. "I wouldn't blame you if you
had."

Lee tossed his pen down on
the document and leaned back in his chair, locking his hands behind
his head in an isometric stretch. "And miss all the fun? Never," he
said with a half-smile.

"I don't have a clue how I
can prove he exists," she said, cutting straight to the heart of
the matter.

"I've been thinking about
that. For starters, maybe give me the necklace after
all."

She hesitated. "I don't
think I should, Lee. What if that breaks the contact and forces him
back to the other side of the veil?"

"Would that bother
you?"

She thought about it for a
moment. "Yeah," she confessed, "it would. Fergus O'Malley deserves
a break."

"It doesn't sound like
he's giving you much of one."

She gave him an ironic
smile. "You've only heard my side of the story so far."

"Sure, but journalists are
supposed to be impartial."

She nodded absently, a
little taken aback by the answers she heard herself giving
him.

Lee got up, walked the few
feet over to the kitchen area, and poured himself a glass of water.
"Not to put too fine a point on all this, but: you could have
declined to give me the necklace on other grounds. You could've
just said, 'Fergus doesn't exist, so what's the point?'"

She looked at him blankly
for a moment while his remark sank in. "You're right," she agreed,
stunned. "But that possibility no longer occurs to me. You're
right," she repeated, impressed with his fine logic. "I'm talking
about Fergus the way I would a man unjustly held in prison: He's
there, it's wrong, let's get him the heck out. That's all there is
to it."

"Then there's no longer
any ambiguity in your mind. Fergus O'Malley is real."

"For better or worse,"
Emily answered with a grim smile. She watched Lee's reaction, aware
that she'd just put their relationship -- such as it was -- on the
line. By denying that her problem was psychological, she was
offering him a good excuse to bolt and run.

He walked over to the
window and stared into the deserted street below. "Hoo-eee," he
murmured without turning around. "The evening is not going quite
the way I pictured."

"How did you picture it
would go?" she asked, curious.

He shrugged. "I guess I
thought I'd find the loose wire that was making your lights blink;
or trap the squirrel in your attic that was sounding like a dead
body being dragged across the floor. Or fix whatever innocent thing
was going on here. And then I thought we'd laugh about it, and
share a bottle of wine, and --"

He turned around and
lifted his glass of water to her in a toast that was only
half-ironic. "Come to think of it, maybe I did have a pretty fair
picture."

Emily winced. She had
vowed not to bring up their torrid liaison, and here was Lee Alden,
already happily reminiscing. How did men do it? No remorse, no
guilt, no second-guessing. Clearly it was genetic.

She was about to open her
mouth to say so when Lee pressed a forefinger to her lips. "Just
kidding. But I would like to know where we go from
here."

She wasn't self-centered
enough to assume that he was referring to the two of them. "I guess
I try to solve the crime," she said simply.

"You don't need me for
that."

She thought he sounded
disappointed, but who could tell? "Don't be too sure," she quipped.
"I may need a sponsor for a presidential pardon for this
guy."

He laughed his easy,
intimate laugh, and Emily realized that she was becoming addicted
to the sound. It was painfully obvious why the man was on
everyone's Favorite Singles List. She couldn't help wondering: Who
would finally win him? Surely the only fair thing would be to hold
a lottery.

In the meantime, she was
trying very hard to ignore the fact that she'd just become another
notch in his gun-handle.

He trailed a finger along
the line of her chin. "One last time: are you sure you don't want
me to take the necklace?"

"Sure as shootin'," she
said with a brave smile. "I don't think the darn thing comes off,
anyway."

"I'd like to look at it,"
he said suddenly, and when she didn't object, he stepped behind her
and lifted the clasped ends from her neck for a closer
look.

Emily held her hair up out
of the way while he puzzled over the intricate lock. After a bit,
her hands began to tremble. Everything about him seemed to set her
on fire: his voice, his touch, his warm breath on the back of her
neck.

"There doesn't seem to be
a way to open this," he said, stymied. "It looks like a typical
barrel mechanism where one half should screw into the other. But
these two halves make up a seamless whole. It's as if they were
fused together. Did you just slip this over your head when you
bought it?"

"No; my friend Cara Miles
fastened it."

"Your friend Cara has a
genius I.Q., in that case. Would she like a job as a campaign
strategist?" he asked lightly.

The idea filled Emily with
quick cold panic.

Jealousy? Is that what it
was? She let out a gay laugh; it sounded horrible and false in her
ears. Cara would be perfect for Senator Arthur Lee Alden III:
sophisticated, clever, rich, well-born, and a dilettante. The
perfect politician's wife. It would only be a matter of time before
they merged dynasties. She could picture Cara's calling card in
discrete raised lettering: Cara Miles-Alden.

"Cara lacks the killer
instinct," she said, clenching her jaw.

"To be a campaign
strategist? Isn't that a little cynical, m'am--even for a
journalist?" He released the necklace and Emily felt the familiar
weight on her neck again.

"I don't think I'm being
cynical," she protested. "It's the campaign strategists who're
behind all the mud that's been flying so thick and fast -- and the
primaries are still months away. I don't mean your campaign," she
said grudgingly. "You'll take the high road; everyone knows you
always do."

"But then," she couldn't
help adding, "you have an eighty per cent approval rating and a
challenger with all the charisma of a pencil sharpener. You can
afford to take the high road."

"I take him very
seriously," Lee answered somberly. "He has more PAC money than I
do."

"Lee, I'm serious.
Political campaigns have become dirty little mud-slinging contests.
I'm sure I speak for voters everywhere when I say --"

Emily stopped
mid-sentence. She sounded desperately prim. And hostile. Where was
it all coming from? After all the emotional highs and lows of the
night, was it really going to end up in a boring political
harangue?

It was the sex. The sex
was just too good. Why hadn't he asked her to move in with him
immediately? Wasn't that why she was in a snit?

"--when you say what?" Lee
asked at last, his eyes alight with good-natured
curiosity.

"When ... when I say it's
three in the morning and the last thing you need is a filibuster.
You've got a plane to catch in a couple of hours, Senator. You
should try to get some sleep." She padded barefoot back towards her
bedroom, then paused at the door. "You don't have to worry about me
any more, Lee," she said softly. "I'm going to be all
right."

He had his hands in his
pockets and a bemused smile on his face. "I'm sure you will," he
agreed. As she turned away she heard him say, "It's Fergus O'Malley
I'm worried about."

When she woke up the
senator was gone. There was no sign that he'd pulled out the sleep
sofa or curled up for a quick nap in the easy chair. Emily had to
assume that he'd read until dawn, preparing for the upcoming Senate
vote on day care. The television was on, which was no surprise to
her; all politicians were news junkies. Emily wolfed down a bowl of
Cheerios while she watched a snippet of the
Today
show, then picked up the phone
and called the
Boston
Journal
. She left the message that she
wouldn't be in until later because she was tracking down a lead on
a great new story.

Even for Emily, it was
brazen bluffing. If she was wrong -- if someone named Hessiah
Talbot had never been murdered and someone named Fergus O'Malley
had never been hanged for the crime -- then she'd better have some
other great new story lined up to present to her boss. But despite
the fact that Fergus was still nowhere in sight, Emily was filled
with confidence, the result somehow of the incredible time she'd
spent with Lee Alden. It was impossible to sort out the connection;
she needed quiet and serenity and a pot of tea to do that. Right
now she had to find the Newarth Library. Any other thoughts -- they
were all of Lee Alden -- she pushed resolutely from her
mind.

After an hour's drive she
found herself on the main street of Newarth, a mill town that had
seen better days. Emily was vaguely familiar with Newarth's
history: it had peaked in the late nineteenth century and then
languished until the late twentieth, when the long-empty textile
mills were converted one by one into discount outlets that
attracted busloads of tourists. But there ended up being too many
outlets and not enough busloads and lately Newarth had begun, once
again, to languish.

Emily drove through block
after block of triple-decker tenements once filled with
millworkers, searching for the downtown district. What she found
was a mile of shabby, anonymous storefronts erected in the
nineteen-fifties, no doubt replacing much more charming Victorian
shops. She wondered whether she'd find any historical records at
all: Newarth did not seem much in love with its past.

The sun had been in a
fitful mood during the drive from Boston, but it decided to come
out for good just as Emily pulled up at the Newarth Library, a
block or so off the downtown path. Blinking in the day's
brilliance, she stared at an architectural gem, a small Gothic
fantasy of turrets and slate and diamond-paned windows. The
building was almost hidden behind towering lavender rhododendrons
and flowering cherry trees that dropped their pink petals onto a
tiny pond on which two white swans floated, serenely unaware that
they were the highlight of a vision too pure to be true.

A narrow brick path ended
at a varnished door that opened into a chapel-like interior filled
to the rafters with the sweet, musty smell of books. Emily was
surprised and oddly distressed to see that except for an elderly
man half-nodding over his morning paper, the library was deserted.
Even the check-out desk was unattended. A door behind the desk was
left open to the outside; Emily went up to it and spied a stocky
old woman on her hands and knees, weeding a tulip bed.