Seeing is Believing (3 page)

“That was too easy,” he told her.

“It dries clothes just as well as it would if it were complicated.”

Brady laughed. That was a Cuttersville kind of comment if ever he had heard one. Piper sounded like his grand-mother.

Not that she reminded him of his grandmother at all. Nope. His grandmother was old, for one thing, but Jessie Stritmeyer was outspoken, bossy, calculating. There was none of that in Piper. Nor did he ever see her wearing those bedazzled baseball caps his grandmother had always favored. Which made him nostalgic, and glad he’d decided to come back home. It had been five years since he’d seen Gran.

“Good point.” He leaned on the dryer and crossed his ankles, feeling a little vain. He wanted Piper to steal another glance at his bare chest. But she wasn’t even looking at him.

“Did you see that?” she asked, taking a step closer to him as she studied the far corner of the basement.

He didn’t see anything but plastic storage containers and cobwebs. “What am I supposed to see?”

“Something moved.”

“A small something, like a mouse, or a big something, like a cat?” Either way, he wasn’t sure it mattered. It was a dirty old basement. All kinds of shit was probably living in it.

Piper shook her head. “Like a person size.”

Brady strained to see into the dark. “I don’t see anything.” If a homeless bum was squatting in Shel and Boston’s basement, even the shadowy corners wouldn’t cover that up, so he figured they were safe.

“It went under the stairs.”

She sounded afraid. Her voice had dropped down to a whisper and she had maneuvered herself so that she was on the opposite side of him from where she had seen whatever she had seen. This would be an excellent opportunity for him to show that he was no wimp. He could go under filthy stairs and face down a fictitious ax murderer. Maybe even a real ax murderer. Then maybe she would fall into his arms in relief and press her braless breasts against his bare chest.

What he should not do was try to punch another ghost. That little impulse had clearly upset her. He wasn’t sure he believed in ghosts exactly, but then again, he had certainly seen enough evidence of them, especially in this house when he was a teenager. There was no other explanation for some of the things that had happened, and Piper clearly saw something. Which meant there were either ghosts or she was insane, and he really didn’t think that the latter was the case. So if a living person running around the basement was unlikely, the logical conclusion would be that Piper had seen a spirit. He’d certainly believed in ghosts when he was fifteen, so it surprised him a little that he even had any skepticism. Maybe the city had taught him that.

He wasn’t sure he liked it.

“What did it look like?” He found himself whispering back, though he wasn’t really sure why they needed to whisper. All they needed was a creepy music soundtrack playing, and they’d be in a horror film.

“A black blob.”

That was specific. “Have you seen it before?” Brady moved forward, his gym shoes crunching on the old shifting and dusty tiles.

She hesitated.

He looked back at her. “You can tell me.” He meant that. He wasn’t going to judge her. He did think it was cool that she saw something other people couldn’t. What happened to someone to allow that? Were they born that way? Was their mind somehow more elevated or open than other people’s? Whatever it was, it was cool to be able to do something most people couldn’t. He wished he could say that about himself.

“When I was a teenager, I saw something down here like that, just a black blob. It really scared the bejeezus out of me. I don’t come down here unless I have to.”

Which made her taking his shirt to the dryer a very sweet gesture. Brady was genuinely touched. At the same time, he was pissed that something dared to scare Piper. What kind of an asshole ghost was this guy? “Don’t worry. I’ve got it.”

Big man in the basement, that was him. He mentally eye-rolled himself. About the most danger he’d ever been in was when he’d fallen out of his girlfriend’s bedroom at fifteen to avoid getting caught by her father. He dodged traffic, not bullets.

Piper made a sound in the back of her throat as he took a step forward. She looked torn between not wanting to go with him and not wanting to be left behind. Brady figured he might as well take advantage of the opportunity. “Come on,” he said, and took her hand in his. Not even her father could object to a little hand-holding in the face of malevolent spirits.

Her hand was tiny in his, and she squeezed back with a pressure he wasn’t expecting. It had been a long-ass time since he had held hands with a woman, because most women he knew were too independent for it, and he had to admit, he kind of liked it. He dug feeling like the big strong man next to her instead of the loser who couldn’t buy a career woman dinner and a night on the town. As he walked, Piper inched in even closer to him, until their hips were bumping.

“Is this the right way?” he asked her.

“Yes. There.” She pointed to the corner under the stairs.

All Brady could see was a stack of boxes and old shelving with floral contact paper on it in avocado green and brown. An ancient blender rested on one, but the others were empty. “Okay, let’s just take a closer look.”

He didn’t think he was going to see anything at all. It was a matter of whether Piper was going to see anything or not. All he could do was just look around and wait for an all clear from her.

“So, do you see anything?” he asked, turning to see her face.

What he didn’t expect was her eyes to go wide and a bloodcurdling scream to leave her mouth.

Chapter Three

“WHAT? WHAT’S WRONG? WHAT DO YOU SEE?”

It took Piper a second to slow down her heart rate as she pointed behind Brady to the blender on the shelf. “Oh, my God, that is the biggest spider I’ve ever seen in my life!”

She hated spiders. They eased into places you weren’t expecting them, like silent, furry intruders, and this one was huge. A silver dollar was smaller than that arachnid. She could slap a saddle on it and ride it to the back field for God’s sake. It was so enormous that she forgot about the black shadow and the fact that she was holding hands with her childhood fantasy.

Brady’s mouth dropped and he loosened his grip on her hand. “Are you kidding me? You’re screaming over a spider? Jesus, I thought a killer clown was under the stairs or something.”

That startled Piper out of her fear. “A killer clown? Why would there be a clown down here?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. But what’s scarier than a clown? Not much. Be honest.” He shook their mutually clasped hands to emphasis his point. “A painted-on smile? Come on, that’s messed up.”

Piper fought a smile at his decided opinion. Clowns didn’t particularly scare her, but if one was under the stairwell with a butcher knife, she certainly wouldn’t be amused. “I’ve never been to the circus.”

“Well, don’t go. And when you have kids, don’t take them either,” Brady said vehemently. He looked behind him, scanning under the stairs. “But other than a spider, is it all clear? I don’t see anything, but the question is, do you see anything?”

She shook her head. Whatever it was, it was no longer hanging around. “But do you think you could kill the spider?” She hated to ask, but she hated the thought of that thing crawling towards her even more.

“I don’t even see it.”

“It’s on that shelf next to the blender. It’s moving.” An involuntary shudder coursed through her. She knew it was an irrational fear but she couldn’t stop it. That was why it was called irrational.

“You grew up on a farm. You must have seen lots of critters running around.” Brady obligingly moved towards the spider.

Piper forgot her fear when he bent over, his jeans pulling taut over his backside. She really appreciated the way that denim hugged every inch of his firm butt. “Um . . .” What was the question? She forced her attention back to the matter at hand. “We had five dogs running around. Plus a barn cat. They take care of everything moving.”

“Five dogs? Geez. Please tell me they are not all teacup poodles.”

“No. Baby, my mom’s first dog, is a senior, but still kicking. There’s another poodle, Samson, who is twelve. Then two golden retrievers and a beagle mix.” Her mother liked dogs. Her father liked to make her mother happy. “Do you see it?” Piper wasn’t coming any closer until that bug was under Brady’s boot.

“Yeah, I see it.” Reaching way under the stairs, Brady picked up a stack of papers and used it to shove the spider to the edge of the shelf. It dropped to the floor.

Piper looked away out of guilt. The spider really shouldn’t have to die because she was a wimp. “Maybe you can take it outside,” she said.

“Oops.”

Her heart sank. He’d already killed it. “Is it dead?”

“No, it ran under the bottom shelf. I can’t reach it.”

Piper felt instantly better. “Oh, okay, that’s good. I shouldn’t have asked you to kill it anyway. It didn’t do anything.”

Brady didn’t answer. He was studying the papers he had used to shove the spider off the shelf. “Hey, check this out.”

“What?” She moved towards him, well aware that she had nothing on her feet but flip-flops. If that spider came back and ran over her with its fuzzy appendages, she was going to faint.

“It’s an old photocopy of an even older newspaper article. 1887. The headline is ‘Scorned woman kills fiancé.’” He held it up. “It’s too dark down here to read the actual article, but doesn’t that sound like Rachel’s story?”

“It does.” Piper shivered, and she wasn’t sure why. “I guess we can go upstairs and check it out.”

The idea of hearing Rachel’s story in truth, not from passed-down, potentially exaggerated ghost stories, both intrigued and frightened her. If she read about Rachel, and she sounded evil, Piper might find herself scared of her ghost. If she sounded innocent, then, well, Piper would feel guilty that she couldn’t help her. But it didn’t sound like she had a choice in the matter. Brady was studying the paper as he went towards the stairs.

“This is so cool. I mean, she was who you saw earlier, right? This is an awesome coincidence.”

Piper followed Brady, debating the existence of coincidence. There seemed to have been an awful lot of that in her life, and she wasn’t sure what it meant, exactly. Nor did she really want to consider it at the moment. She just wanted to enjoy the fact that quite unexpectedly Brady had shown up at Shelby’s when Piper was the one there. Coincidence? Or fate? Either way, it was a good view and she intended to enjoy it while it lasted.

In the kitchen, Brady hopped up onto the kitchen counter, his legs swinging below, banging the cabinets. Using one foot on the other, he pushed off his boots, letting them drop to the vinyl floor with a soft thump. His legs were spread apart, and she found herself wanting to step in between them and kiss him. The thought made her thighs burn. To avoid temptation and humiliation in the form of throwing herself at him, Piper took a seat at the table.

Brady was holding the paper right in front of his face. “This is faded and filthy. This photocopy must have been made thirty or forty years ago. But I think I can make out most of the article.”

How lucky for them. Piper just sat and waited.

“Aren’t you curious?” he asked her, dropping the paper so he could see her.

She shrugged, propping her chin on her palm. “That’s a complicated question. I am curious, but at the same time, I’m not sure how much I want to know.”

“Just dive in—that’s what I always say.”

Easy for him. Brady had always had the confidence to do that. Piper? Not so much.

“Scorned woman kills fiancé. Okay, let’s see what went down. ‘Mr. Jonathon Stradley got the shock of his life two evenings prior when he set about the ordinary task of fetching his mother a sack of flour from Peterson’s Grocery and instead encountered a bloody young miss wandering out of her house at 317 Elm Street.’” Brady looked up and made a face. “Okay, why do we need to know the name of the grocery store? Or her address?”

Piper shrugged. “Maybe the reporter owns the grocery store, too. I personally like the phrasing ‘bloody young miss.’ That’s not something you hear every day.”

“Agreed.” Brady cleared his throat and continued. “‘When questioned by Mr. Stradley, the young lady, whose dress was splattered with fresh blood, admitted that, in fact, her fiancé was quite dead inside the parlor, bludgeoned with a candlestick. Upon entering the house of doom, Mr. Stradley found a comely maid with a pleasing figure screaming in the parlor and the gruesome scene of a young gentleman on the floor bleeding about the head and face. He was quite dead, Mr. Stradley determined.’”

Quite dead. As opposed to sort of dead?

“Huh,” Piper said, when Brady paused, giving her a look that showed he thought the writing was as ridiculous as she did. “If this wasn’t a real story, I’d have to laugh. I’m not sure what the attractiveness of the maid has to do with anything. And how does the reporter know? He wasn’t even there.”

“Good point. But it’s a small town. Everyone probably knew everyone, so I guess he was trying to score a date with her pleasing figure. Okay, let’s see what went down next.” Brady picked up reading where he’d left off. “‘Mr. Stradley sent a passerby to fetch Mr. Harrison Bingley, the proprietor of the Bingley Funeral Home, who arrived to a scene of chaos. The sweet maid, one Miss Betsy Chambers, who had suffered such a grievous shock upon discovering her mistress soaked in blood over the body of her fiancé, had fainted into Mr. Stradley’s arms. The bloody and coldhearted woman, well-known in our community as Miss Rachel Strauss, daughter of Henry and Alice Strauss, appeared to have murdered her fiancé by repeatedly hitting him on the head with a candlestick.’”

Brady rolled his eyes at her.

Piper made a face back at him. “How do they know that?” she asked, feeling incredulous. “They didn’t even call the police. Or the sheriff or whoever was in charge in 1887.”

“All I know is I’m glad I wasn’t accused of a crime back then. This is nuts. This is barely two days after the murder and they’re essentially telling you Rachel did it in the paper. I guess they hadn’t invented the phrase ‘person of interest’ yet.”

“Obviously.” Piper felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand up and she glanced around the kitchen, suddenly feeling like they weren’t alone. But she didn’t see anything. She wondered whether it was possible for Rachel to hear what they were saying and how she might feel about their conversation.

Brady didn’t seem to notice her sudden discomfort. “‘While as shocking as this may seem, one will only be more shocked when the full tale of that horrific night is revealed. Upon questioning Miss Chambers and Miss Strauss, it would seem that Miss Strauss’s fiancé had forced his unwanted attentions on the beleaguered Miss Chambers and that Miss Strauss, upon discovering her fiancé’s perfidy, lifted the brass candlestick off her mother’s mahogany fireplace mantle, and struck the head of her fiancé one dozen times until he fell to his death, his lifeblood spilling on the hardwood floors and ruining the sprigged muslin gown of Miss Strauss as it sprayed her with each blow.’”

Piper wasn’t sure where to start on the bias in journalism contained in that article. It was written like a gossip column, not a reporting of the facts. “Did the maid count the number of times Rachel hit him? Who stands there and counts while they’re watching an assault? That’s ridiculous.”

“It’s also ridiculous that we’re being told the mantle is mahogany and what kind of freaking dress she was wearing.”

“And I always thought the maid was a party to the fiancé’s attentions. That’s the way I always heard the story from Shelby.”

“Me, too. But remember the maid went on to marry a lawyer or something. It seems pretty obvious from this article that she had some skill in manipulating men. Or that she was attractive enough she didn’t even need to do anything more than smile and they thought the best of her. Hell, maybe she married this reporter.”

“Some women can definitely do that, bend men to their will.” Not her. Piper had never mastered the art of flirting. Of course, that implied she had tried. But the only man who had ever melted when she smiled was her father, and she had tried not to take advantage of that fact.

“Don’t you go trying it,” Brady teased. “Though I think you could definitely pull off the innocent look if you wanted.”

Piper wasn’t feeling very innocent looking at his bare chest and the inseam of his jeans. Nor did the label feel like a compliment. She didn’t have a lot of experience with men, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t willing to get down and dirty with the right man. Because she thought she might actually like that. With the right man. Who was not Brady.

“Before or after I hit someone with a candlestick?” she asked.

Brady laughed. “I can’t see you doing that no matter what some guy did to you. Wait, though—I thought Rachel did the hitting. But you know, now that you mention it, did Rachel ever actually confess? Or did they just conclude that she did it?”

“What does the rest of the article say?”

“‘Though some might say that the fiancé got what he deserved for his offensive treatment of women, I think most would agree that there are nothing but victims here. Poor Miss Chambers has had the scare of her life, Miss Strauss will be spirited off to prison, I am certain, and Mr. Brady Stritmeyer . . .’”

Brady’s voice trailed off and Piper started on her chair. “What? Brady Stritmeyer? Are you serious?” The dead fiancé had the same name as Brady?

“Yeah.” Brady looked over at her, his expression stunned. “That’s weird. Creepy. I share a name with a murdered guy. ‘Mr. Brady Stritmeyer paid the ultimate price for his transgressions, with his life! He will now spend eternity lying in the St. Michael’s Presbyterian Church cemetery pondering where he went wrong.’”

The clawing unease was creeping over Piper’s skin again. Another coincidence. A huge one. “Did your parents ever say anything about being named after an ancestor?”

“No. And who would name their kid after a dead guy who was whacked with a candlestick for putting the moves on the maid?”

Piper couldn’t imagine. “Maybe they didn’t know? Maybe they just knew it was a family name but didn’t realize he had been killed?” Though that didn’t seem likely either. Gossip ran rampant in small towns.

“I don’t even know what to say.” He frowned at the paper in his hand. “It’s just . . . weird. And here I thought my name was mine and mine alone.”

“Is that the only article?” It looked like he had more than one piece of paper in his hand.

Brady shuffled the papers. “This other one is just a very short obituary for Miss Rachel Strauss. It just says she died at the Cuttersville Lunatic Asylum and is survived by her parents.”