Five
Ben was just lockingthe street-level door to his office when he heard a sound like a frustrated cry, followed by a dull thud-like clunk—like someone had kicked something metal. Possibly the side of a car.
He looked around, and to his shock and amazement saw Callie Quigley standing on the sidewalk glowering at a car parked on the street. Presumably hers.
The wind had begun to pick up and the sleety, thick snow that had been forecast was falling with a vengeance—hence the reason he was heading home at just after five o’clock. He could work there in front of the fireplace with a glass of wine and not have to worry about digging out his car to drive home at eight or nine.
“Callie? Is that you? Everything okay?” he asked, tugging the hat down over his head and huddling against the blizzard.
“Oh, Ben,” she said, and when she turned her face to look at him he gasped.
“What happened to you?” He didn’t even think about what he was doing when he took her by the chin to look at her face. “Are you all right?”
She looked at him funny, then pulled her chin away—not like she was mad he’d touched her, thank goodness, but because she seemed confused. “Well, no, I’m not, but—”
“What’s all over your face?”
“My face?” She reached up with a gloved hand to touch her cheek, which was pink with cold but also speckled with dark red streaks.
“It looks like—like blood or something. Are you hurt?” He was shaken, just looking at her with all those ugly streaks on her face.
“I—oh my God, really?” Horrified, she put her hands to her face and began to scrub at it. Her eyes were wide and terrorized. “It was her. Oh my God, it had to be her! That’s what all the wetness was!”
“Her who?” Every one of Ben’s instincts screamed at him to pull her close and hold her—or to bundle her into his car and drive her to the emergency room. He did neither—though it was supremely difficult—and instead simply reached over to brush away some of the wild snowflakes that had fallen onto her cheeks.
“Brenda Tremaine.” She dropped her hands from her face and looked up at him.
Under the streetlamp, her eyes were wide and impossibly, beautifully blue. The bluster of snow swirled around, landing on the tips of her coppery eyelashes and nose, scattering among the splash of girlish freckles that still brushed her cheeks and forehead at the age of thirty-two. Despite the horrifying splatters of blood—or whatever it was—on her nose and chin, Callie looked simply beautiful: glowing and soft and just so feminine. Her lips were full and puffy and pink, and when a cluster of snowflakes landed on the upper one, it was all he could do to keep from kissing it away.
Then her words sunk in. “Brenda Tremaine?” he repeated, then stopped. “Let’s back up. First, are you hurt?”
“No. I’m—”
“Just…one thing at a time, all right?” he said, holding up his hands to slow her down. “There’s a lot going on here…like, why are you kicking your car?”
“I can’t find my keys. I think—I think they’re back there.” She thumbed toward the village square, and he realized she meant the Clock Tower. “I think they must have fallen out of my pocket during…during…” Her voice suddenly seemed to stop working and she looked up at him wordlessly.
Now he could see tears filling her eyes and that the tip of her nose was turning even darker pink.
“All right. All right. It’s all right. You’re okay now, right?”
She nodded, and he put an arm around her. He allowed himself to give her a brief squeeze, then prudently let go. “How about…what do you think about getting out of this blizzard and settling down for a—a drink or something, and you can tell me about what happened. But first…how about if I go over and see if I can find your keys? If you dropped them in the snow—”
“I didn’t drop them outside. I’m s-sure it was in the room up there, when Brenda kind of went ballistic at me. Like what h-happened before, you know?”
He understood that she meant what happened sixteen years ago, not last week. “All right. I’ll go over and see if I can find them—you think you dropped them in the room?”
“I didn’tdropthem—I think they must have fallen out of my pocket. But I’m going with you! I was just about to go back over there when you came out. I was just somadthat I got all the way here and realized I didn’t have my keys. I’m not afraid to go back there,” she added defensively.
“No, of course not,” he said, wondering if he would be saying the same if it had happened to him. “Come on, I’ll go with you. We’ll find your keys, and then you can be on your way back home.”
To your fiancé.
Ben gritted his teeth and was glad he hadn’t indulged himself in more than a brief hug.
They were nearly to the edge of the square when suddenly Callie stopped short. “Ohmigod,” she said. She sounded furious.
All at once she was unzipping her coat—there in the middle of the blizzard—and moments later she produced a jangling keyring from deep inside. “I forgot that I put them in the inside pocket because I had to have my phone and my flashlight in my other pockets, and I didn’t want the keys to fall out when I took out my flash—never mind. Ugh. I never do that—put my keys or anything inside there. I have no idea why I decided to do it this time. Sorry, Ben. That’s what happens when you’ve got too many things on your mind and too many balls in the air and a freakingghostis trying t-to ruin everything.” Her voice wavered, but she managed to get all the words out.
