That Old Flame of Mine (11 page)

Stella could hear John saying he would go, protesting as Ricky ended the call. It was just as well—her grandfather was coming to check on her and her cell battery was running low. She didn’t care which of them came for her.

“You’re not leaving us already,” Carson said. “I thought you could stay for a tour of the house, give us some time to get to know each other.”

“I really need to get back and get my Harley out of the ditch. I appreciate all you’ve done, but I have a few things I have to check on.”

It sounded a little lame. She could hardly tell him she felt overwhelmed by this new family and its obvious relationship problems. She didn’t know them well enough to understand their dynamics. She wasn’t sure that she wanted to. And she needed to talk to her mother somewhere private on a phone that wasn’t about to quit.

“I understand. I don’t want to lose you either,” he said with a smile. “I have your cell number from your phone. If I call, will you meet me for lunch or whatever time you have?”

It was all still a little new for her, but her mother had wanted her to get to know them. “Sure. That would be fine.”

“You know, I would’ve had someone take you home. You didn’t have to call for help. You were never a prisoner here.”

“Thanks. They offered—”

Felicity came toward them. “There’s a police officer at the gate, Mr. Carson. Shall I tell Bernard it’s all right to let him in?”

“That’s fine,” Ben said. “It sounds like Officer Trump didn’t want to waste any time getting up here.”

Stella smiled. “He’s a good friend.”

“Let me know if he becomes
too
much of a good friend. I’ll handle it for you.”

Her grandfather had issued the proclamation with a steady voice and a ruthless twist to his lips that told Stella he would gladly do exactly as he promised. Maybe this was what had sent her mother packing, never looking back for all these years.

Someone was pounding on the front door—Stella assumed it was John. She smiled at her grandfather. “I’ll talk to you later. Thanks again.”

It surprised her when he suddenly hugged her, unshed tears glittering in his eyes. “No. Thank
you
for giving me the opportunity to meet you. You don’t realize how much it means to me.”

Felicity showed Stella to the large double door. John was getting ready to pound on it again. He stopped in midswing, fist raised high. His face immediately changed from anger to concern. “Chief! Stella—are you all right? Do you need to go to the hospital? I can call an ambulance.”

“I’m fine.” Stella thanked Felicity and took the three boxes of shoes from her. She handed them to John, who put them in the trunk before opening the passenger-side door of the police car for her. “I don’t think I need an ambulance or the hospital.”

John closed her door and ran around to the driver’s side, sparing a moment to glare up at the big house. “I realize you probably were pressured to say you were fine. It’s only me and you now. I’ll take you to the Mayo Clinic, if you need to go. Don’t let them overwhelm you, Stella.”

She was surprised by his attitude
and
his driving as he burned rubber getting away from the house. She would’ve liked to have had a better look at the place. It was reassuring to her, though, that he and Ricky didn’t seem to know about her relationship with the Carson family.

“Have you been taking driving lessons from Ricky?” she asked with a smile.

“Was it Marty, the stepson?” John questioned. “Did he run you off the road? Do you want to press charges?”

“It’s not like that,” she said.

“The Carson family has gotten away with too much for too long. Say the word and I’ll take care of it.”

“The word would be that Ben Carson is my grandfather, John. What are
you
talking about?”

Chapter 12

J
ohn pulled the car over to the side of the road and stepped hard on the brakes. If she needed any further convincing that he didn’t know, his face was it.

“Hit me with that again?”

“My mother is Barbara Carson Griffin. Apparently she left Sweet Pepper when she was very young. She never told me that she had family here.”

He shook his head and stared out the side window for a few seconds before turning back to her. “So all of this, you getting the job as chief and all, all of it was because Ben Carson needed someplace for you to work while he gets to know you.”

Stella didn’t like his tone. “I thought that too, at least to begin with. You changed my mind about it. Or at least I thought you did. If you didn’t know, maybe no one else knew either.”

“Maybe,” he scoffed. “I’d be willing to bet next month’s salary that the town council knows.”

“You might be right. But I didn’t know.”

He looked skeptical. “The Carsons have run this town from the get-go. Why shouldn’t one of them be the fire chief?”

“I understand. You don’t like them. Why would my grandfather go to all the trouble to set this up so I’d stay for three months?”

“Because it would give him a chance to talk you into staying here permanently. He doesn’t have a real heir, you know. Marty is Vivian’s son from her first marriage. Maybe he wants to keep the money with the blood.”

“None of that makes any sense to me.” She wasn’t happy about defending her position. “I’m still going home when my three months is up. I hope that makes you feel better. Can we go on to the firehouse now so I can get my bike?”

“Yes, ma’am.” He looked annoyed.

Stella didn’t care. She was annoyed too, and none of it made any sense to her. John had liked her and respected her—at least she’d thought he had—until he found out she was part of the Carson family. Another reason her mother had left Sweet Pepper?

They didn’t say another word to each other. John dropped her off at the firehouse, where half of her volunteers were looking at her mangled Harley in the front parking lot.

He left the firehouse the same way as he had the Carson property, giving the car too much gas and leaving a rubber trail behind him.

Everyone turned to greet Stella. Ricky and Tagger were up front as they reached her. “You look better than your bike,” Tagger said with a grin. “What the hell happened to you?”

“Never mind that. Anyone can have a wreck. What did you do to
John
to make him drive like that?” Ricky laughed.

“Let’s talk about it later,” she suggested, hoping everyone wouldn’t have John’s reaction. She’d worked too hard with this group to lose it all now. “How’s my bike?”

“Chief, maybe you should have that head wound looked at,” Banyin said. “You probably shouldn’t be up and around yet.”

“I saw a doctor last night,” Stella told her. “I’m okay. Thanks.”

She was actually feeling a lot better—until she saw her bike. It had taken months of working every spare moment to get it up and running again. Now the fenders were messed up and the crash bar was bent. It would need a new paint job. Hopefully all that mud, water, and grass hadn’t hurt the engine.

“I think she’ll be okay with a little work,” Ricky said. “I’ll help you get her going again, Chief.”

“Thanks,” Stella mumbled, her head starting to ache again.

“We’ll all help, Chief,” Tagger said. “You’re looking a mite pale. Head wounds can be tricky. My best buddy got shot in the head during the Big One. He didn’t even know it until he fell over dead.”

Petey glared at him as she put her arm around Stella. “Maybe we should take you home for a while, Chief. You could lie down. We’ll spend some time practicing. Don’t worry about a thing. We’ll figure out something for you until your Harley is fixed.”

“I’ll take her,” Ricky volunteered. “You all get started.”

Stella got willingly into Ricky’s pickup. Standing up for that long had made her feel dizzy and sick again. She’d had a concussion before—she knew the drill. “Thanks for the lift.”

“Yeah, well, how else was I going to ask you about being at the Carsons without everyone else butting in?” He started the old truck. “That’s why John was upset, right? He hates the old man. I suppose he didn’t like seeing you there.”

“Ben Carson is my grandfather.” She told him about her mother. “Now John thinks I got this job because of them.”

He shrugged as the truck hugged the side of the road. “So what? You probably did. It’s not like there was someone from Sweet Pepper with your kind of knowledge.”

“I guess that’s true. I wonder how many people know about my background and hate me for it.”

“It won’t matter. There probably are some who know. They won’t say anything if the old man told them not to.”

It was hard for Stella to imagine that one man could have that much power—until she thought about all the powerful men who’d ruled Chicago at one time or another. It was probably easier here to get everyone on the same page. There were no unions or other groups to give her grandfather a hard time. Besides, he employed most of the people in the area. That gave him some leverage.

“Is that why John hates him so much?”

“You could hear this from anyone, but if it comes up, you didn’t hear it from me. John’s father worked for the old man. He was fired for stealing. He shot himself in the face after it happened. John has some understandably hard feelings about that.”

“So he blames my grandfather for his father’s death,” Stella said, more to herself than to him.

“Yep. That’s about the size of it.” Ricky stopped the pickup as they reached the cabin. “You need some help getting inside?”

“No. I’ll be fine.” She faced him. “How about you? How do you feel about me being related to the Carsons?”

He laughed. “I feel pretty good about it. No problems with funding the fire brigade with the old man on the team. In fact, if you’ll consider staying on after your three months are up, I’d be proud if you’d agree to marry me.”

Stella was stunned—until she realized he was joking. “Marry into the wealthiest family in the area, right?”

“Yes, ma’am. I could get me a new pickup and hang around the mansion all day watching TV and having someone else shine my boots. No more dishes or trash at the diner. I think you should consider it, Chief. I’d be a good, rich husband.”

She laughed until tears rolled down her cheeks, which made her head hurt more. “I appreciate the offer. Rich family or not, I have a life and a job to go home to. You’ll have to find some other member of the family to marry.”

“That’s the problem. You and your mama are the only ones left who really sprang from the old man’s loins, so to speak. We all know about his pre-nup with Vivian. Who’s gonna get all that money if it isn’t you?”

Stella got out of the truck, thinking about the two very different reactions from John and Ricky. Whether everyone else hated her or not, when word got around, it would certainly change her status in Sweet Pepper.

She let herself into the cabin and shut off the alarm. The phone call to her mother was going to have to wait until she could get to another phone. She plugged in her cell phone to charge it for the next time she went down the mountain. It seemed she and her mother had plenty to talk about.

In the meantime, there was her laptop. She had Internet service there, though it was spotty at best. She sat down at the table and turned on the computer, waiting impatiently for the welcome screen to come up.

She wasn’t sure if she’d find the information she was looking for about her new family, but an Internet search was at least a place to start. She was also thinking she should input her findings on the fire at Tory’s house.

Her head almost hurt too much to think, and her bruised ribs ached. She went to the fridge for a Coke. Caffeine would help—along with a few aspirin.

“That stuff isn’t good for you,” said a now familiar, though still disembodied voice.

Stella took out a can, popped the top, and remembered her security camera setup with the alarm company. “Go away. I have a headache. And when I find out who you are, I’m going to prosecute. Got it?”

Laughter shivered through the cabin. “I don’t think that will make any difference to me at this point. Do what you have to do.”

“We’ll see.” She washed down three aspirin with a long swallow of Coke. It took only a few minutes to log in to her site with the alarm company. “I’ve got you now.”

There was nothing there—literally. She’d forgotten to drop off her laptop to have the software installed. She groaned and put her head down on the table.

“Not working?”

“Go away.”

“Sorry. I can see you’re hurting.”

“You need a phone up here, Eric. I guess you must be Eric, right?” She succumbed to the ghostly conversation. “I guess there was a phone sometime, but it’s been a while since you’ve had a permanent resident.”

“That’s true. Most people don’t like haunted cabins. I wonder what makes you so different.”

“I don’t know. I’m going to work for a while. Wake me up if I fall asleep, huh?”

There was no reply.

She started entering the information from the folder Tory had given her about her husband’s terrible death. Reading through it, Stella could see why the police, and then Fire Chief Eric Gamlyn, didn’t press any harder into the idea that Adam’s Presley’s death was anything but an accident.

What made Tory think he was murdered?

Stella thought back to their conversations on the subject. Tory hadn’t been too clear about it either. She’d said it had become an obsession down through the years. There were notes and maps. Tory was sure her husband had quit smoking and wouldn’t have smoked behind her back. She also said the cigarette found at the scene, a menthol variety, was not the kind Adam had smoked.

Of course, there was no DNA testing going on back in the 1970s. The police and fire chief had signed off on the dead man being Adam because he was wearing Adam’s jewelry and was about the same height, weight, and coloring. There was no mention of having compared dental records.

Stella closed her eyes and saw Tory’s face as she’d handed over the folder just hours before she died. She would do what she could to research Tory’s claims. The older woman had been a good friend to her, even if only for a short time. Stella couldn’t save her, but she could do this for her.

An hour later, Stella got up from the computer and staggered to the sofa near the fireplace. It was a little chilly in the morning, though the afternoons warmed up enough for most people to wear shorts.

“A fire would be nice,” she said as she closed her eyes. “Could you do that with your ghostly powers?”

* * * 

The wood clock with the carved animals on it was ticking on the mantel. Stella heard that and another sound that she couldn’t identify. She knew she’d been asleep for a while. Her head hurt less. She was comfortable on the well-worn sofa.

It was the smell of smoke that brought her upright quickly. There was no other smell like it. In her line of work, it was never a good smell.

Then she realized that the sound she’d heard was the popping of logs burning in the fireplace. That’s where the smell had come from too.

And someone had pulled a blanket over her while she’d been asleep.

“I’m either crazy or there really is a ghost here,” she said out loud.

“I’m not totally convinced that you’re not crazy,” he said. “But I’ve been trying to tell you that you’re not alone.”

“I think I should go and stay at Flo’s place again.” Was the old cabin really haunted? No. It wasn’t possible—was it? It was crazy. Unreal. Against everything she was brought up to believe.

Well, not exactly.

Her father’s Irish heritage included plenty of stories about ghosts and the little people. But those were just stories. At least she’d always thought so.

“That’s up to you, of course. I’d rather you didn’t. You’re the first person I’ve been able to talk to in forty years.”

Stella’s eyes roamed around the empty living room. She wasn’t sure how to address the whole cabin. “I thought the idea was to scare everyone away. You’ve done a good job of it for a long time.”

The cabin made its familiar sighing sound. “I didn’t start out to scare anyone. It just happened. I don’t regret it—I didn’t want to have a bunch of tourists up here. You’re different.”

“How?”

“Maybe because we have so much in common. I want you to succeed in bringing the fire brigade back to life. And there’s the selfish reason—the sound of your own voice gets old after a while. Before you got here, all I could do was push things around and mess with the electricity. It’s different now.”

Stella didn’t know if she should be happy about that or not. “This is kind of weird. I don’t know if I can stay.”

“Sorry. I didn’t think about it like that. It’s been a long time since I had real company. I miss it.”

“Why don’t you go on into the light or whatever?” She felt stupid even asking. She also felt stupid talking to a ghost in the first place.

“If there’s a light to go on into, I haven’t seen it. I’m trapped here, I guess.”

Stella sighed too. Not only was he a ghost, he was a sad, forlorn-sounding ghost. How could she leave him? It might be another forty years before someone else stayed here long enough to talk to him.