Mary O'Reilly 09 - Twisted Paths Read online

  She stepped closer. “Really?” she asked, her eyes wide and hopeful.

  “Yes, baby,” he finally breathed, “I’m your daddy. And I love you.”

  Throwing herself against him, she wrapped her arms around his neck and buried her face in his shoulder. He hugged her tightly, inhaling the sweetness of his little girl, his heart bursting with joy. Finally, he looked up and smiled at Mary, “Thank you,” he mouthed.

  Wiping stray tears from her own cheeks, Mary nodded back at him. “I love you,” she mouthed silently.

  “Have to admit, they look good together,” Mike said to her.

  “Yes. Yes, they do,” she agreed.

  Katie came over, put her arms around Maggie and hugged her tightly.

  “How come you’re crying, Mom?” Maggie asked.

  “Because I love happy endings,” she said, kissing Maggie on the top of her head.

  “But, mom, this isn’t an ending,” Maggie explained. “This is just the beginning.”

  Chapter Eight

  Mary parked the Roadster in front of her office building, took a deep breath and opened the door. She scanned up and down the street, and seeing no one, hurried to the door with her key already in her hand. After unlocking the door and entering the building, she checked to be sure the alarm was still working and then deactivated it before she moved into the room. She still took a few minutes to check the bathroom, the supplies room and the back door to be sure everything was safe. Finally, she dropped her briefcase and purse on her chair, dialed the phone and held it between her ear and her shoulder as she shrugged out of her coat.

  “Well, hello again Mary,” Bradley said when he answered her call.

  “Hi, I’m at the office,” she replied. “I checked the alarm and all of the rooms and doors. I’m secure.”

  “Good girl. Did you lock the front door behind you?”

  She rolled her eyes and then walked back to the front door and flipped the lock. “Yes, I am now officially locked in,” she said. “And if I didn’t love you so much, you would be a little annoying.”

  “Lucky for me that you do.”

  Walking back across the room, she went to the small refrigerator and pulled out a Diet Pepsi and popped the can open. “How are you doing?”

  “I still feel like I’m dreaming,” he admitted. “I called Jeannine’s parents and told them about Clarissa.”

  “Oh, wow, that was quite a wake-up call for them,” Mary said. “How did they react?”

  “They’re in Florida, taking the first vacation they’d had in years,” he explained. “They immediately decided they needed to pack and drive to the airport until I suggested that Clarissa might need a little time before she meets everyone. I thought we could get together next week.”

  “That’s a good idea,” Mary said. “Clarissa needs to get to know her dad first.”

  “I can’t believe it. My daughter is getting ready to go shopping with me. I get to shop with my daughter.”

  Mary took a sip of Pepsi and smiled. “Well, we’ll see what you say once the three of you hit the mall.”

  “I can’t wait,” Bradley said. “Besides, how much could two little girls spend on a shopping spree?”

  Laughing, Mary rolled her eyes. “Just be sure to keep your credit card handy,” she said. “And let Katie take the lead, she’ll let you know if they’re taking advantage of your ignorance.”

  “My ignorance?” he asked, slightly offended.

  “You’ll see,” she replied.

  “Wait…Mary…what do you mean?”

  Mary grinned. “You’ll figure it out,” she said. “I have confidence in you.”

  “But Mary…”

  “Sorry, Bradley, I’ve got to go…there are mysteries to solve and ghosts to bust,” she laughed.

  “Mary…”

  “Love you. Bye!”

  She hung up the phone and laughed, picturing him sitting in a chair with that slightly panicked look in his eyes, worrying about shopping with Clarissa. Hopefully that will keep him from worrying about her. Yes, this was going to be a good day!

  A half hour later her office phone rang.

  “O’Reilly Investigations, Mary speaking,” Mary paused to listen. “Yes, actually I do investigate paranormal activities, but I’m not part of a paranormal investigation team. I don’t use equipment to catch electronic images or sounds. Is that what you’re looking for?”

  Picking up a pen and sliding her notepad closer to the edge of the desk, she jotted down the woman’s name and address. “Sure, I can come out to see you in an hour or so, if that will work for you,” she replied and then a smile spread across her lips. “No, it doesn’t need to be dark outside. I can do my job in the daytime. Okay, I’ll see you in an hour.”

  She hung up the phone and reached over to turn on her computer. In a few minutes she found the address she’d been given and whistled slowly through her teeth. The house was more like a mansion, sitting on five acres of land. She mentally upgraded it to an estate. The real estate listing showed that it had only been sold a few months prior and had been on the market for quite a long time. She glanced at the clock and wondered if she had enough time to swing by the newspaper before she drove over to meet with her new client.

  Grabbing her coat and purse, she hurried out the door to her car. The paper’s offices were only two blocks away, she had time for a quick stop and then she’d drive from the paper directly to her appointment. After parking, she entered the building through the front door. The receptionist was new, Mary hadn’t seen her before.

  “Hi, I was wondering if Jerry Wiley was in?” she asked.

  The receptionist snapped a piece of gum in her mouth and rolled her eyes. “Can I ask who wants to see him?” she asked slowly.

  “Yes, please tell him Mary O’Reilly is here,” she replied.

  The sullen eyes of the young woman snapped open. “You’re Mary O’Reilly?” the girl asked as she slid her chair back away from the desk.

  Mary nodded. “Yes, I am.”

  “Do you really see ghosts or are you crazy?”

  Mary bit back a grin. “I suppose that depends,” she said.

  “On what?” the girl asked.

  “On if you believe in ghosts or not,” Jerry Wiley responded from the door that led to the newsroom. “And since I don’t, she’s a nut.”

  Mary grinned. “Just don’t tell Anna Paxton you don’t believe,” she said, referring to the dead society columnist who haunted the building, and watched with delight as he turned and looked over his shoulder.

  “Anna isn’t here,” Jerry said firmly.

  Mary walked over to him and smiled. “That’s only because she’s out on the back dock taking a cigarette break,” she whispered to him. “So, can we talk?”

  He nodded and raised his arm in the direction of his office. “Sure, it’s not like I have to get a paper out every day or anything like that,” he growled. “You want me to send out for tea and cookies?”

  “No, sorry, I really don’t have time for that,” she replied with a smile.

  She sat down in the chair in front of his desk and waited until he sat seated himself. “So, O’Reilly, to what do I owe the pleasure of your company?” he asked, not trying to mask his irritation.

  “What do you know about the Foley mansion?” she asked.

  “It’s way above my pay grade,” he replied. “Hell, it’s above my pay grade to be their gardener.”

  “Someone seems to be able to afford it,” she said.

  “Yeah, I heard it finally sold,” he said, unwrapping a piece of gum and sticking it into his mouth.

  Mary glanced at the pile of gum wrappers heaped on his desk and then looked back at him.

  “Trying to quit smoking,” he explained. “Been chewing this crap for two weeks now.”

  “Is it working?”

  He grinned at her. “I learned I could smoke a cigarette and chew gum at the same time.”

  She laughed. “Throw in walking at th
e same time and I will be impressed.”

  He chuckled. “Funny, O’Reilly, funny. So, the only reasons I figured someone like you would be interested in the Foley mansion is that you and our illustrious Chief of Police are looking for a honeymoon cottage of your very own. But I know what his salary is, so you can’t afford it. Or some poor misguided soul thinks there’s a ghost hanging out there, right?”

  Nodding, Mary leaned forward. “Off the record.”

  She waited for his acknowledgement.

  “I got a call from the new owners,” she explained. “They’ve been hearing strange sounds and they want me to check it out. I just want to know what I’m walking into.”

  “Okay, well, it ain’t pretty,” he said, leaning back in his chair. “About twenty-ish years ago, you got the Foley family. Dad’s a high-powered attorney, the mom’s a trophy wife and there’s two kids…daughters…twins. ‘Cept even though they’re supposed to be identical, not fraternal twins, something happens when they hit their teens. You know puberty ain’t kind to most of us. So one of the twins turns out to be a real looker, the other one’s an ugly duckling. The story is, the kid decided she couldn’t live up to the Foley reputation and figured they’d be better off without her. She hung herself in her bedroom.”

  Mary shook her head. “Oh, that’s awful,” she said. “What happened to the rest of the family?”

  Jerry scratched his head for a moment, displacing some of the thin strands of his comb-over. “The other twin, I think her name was Faith, was shipped off to some expensive boarding school in Europe somewhere,” he said. “She didn’t even make it to the funeral. The mom had some kind of breakdown at the funeral. She was never the same. I think she ended up going to some live-in facility. You know, the kind where they serve you your meds in cut crystal glasses.”

  Mary nodded. “And the dad?”

  “He still has his offices here in town,” he said. “The surviving twin got her law degree too and she works with him. She’s quite a looker. Does a lot of work with teenage suicides.”

  “That’s nice of her,” she said.

  Jerry shrugged. “Some people, who ain’t so nice as you, say that she caused her sister’s death. Said she used to like to tease her and make her look bad. So, could be she’s nice, could be she’s guilty.”

  “Do you think some people are right?” she asked.

  Rubbing the back of his neck, he stared off across his office for a moment. “Funny thing, actually, more woo-woo creepy than funny.”

  “What?”

  “A couple years after her death, one of the girls who used to hang out with the sister killed herself,” he said, “on the same date as the first suicide.”

  Sitting forward on her chair, Mary pulled out a pad of paper and a pen. “That is weird,” she said. “What was her name?”

  “Mandy…something,” he replied. “I’ll look it up and send it to you.”

  “Thanks, I’d really appreciate it.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” he replied absently, not concentrating on Mary’s response. “There was something else. Something I should tell you.”

  She waited.

  Finally, he turned back to her. “Something’s niggling in the back of my mind,” he said. “But I can’t put my finger on it. I’ll let it percolate for a little while and it’ll come to me. I’ll send you an e-mail when it does.”

  Mary stood up. “Thanks, Jerry,” she said. “Once again, you’re a fount of information.”

  “Yeah, just remember, you owe me, O’Reilly,” he replied as she walked out of his office.

  Chapter Nine

  Mary was just on time to her appointment. The house looked even more impressive in person than the virtual online tour had shown. She parked her car at the top of the circular drive and walked up the narrow pathway to the house. The door opened before she had a chance to knock.

  “Mary O’Reilly?” the young woman asked.

  Mary nodded. “Yes, I’m Mary,” she replied.

  “You don’t look like…I was expecting, something, someone different,” she said.

  Mary smiled. “A turban around my head and a flowing caftan?” she asked.

  The woman smiled slightly and nodded. “Something like that, I suppose. Please come in, I’m Faye Vyas.”

  Yes, it certainly was fancy, Mary thought as she entered the foyer.

  Decorated in muted shades of peach, from nearly white to nearly brown, everything in the home suggested the influence of a skilled interior designer. The highlight of the foyer was a large sweeping staircase of polished wood that smelled slightly of lemon polish. It was a nice touch and Mary looked around for a plug-in air freshener, because she knew the woman next to her had never held a polishing rag in her professionally manicured hand.

  Unopened boxes sat alongside the staircase and, as she looked through the open doorways from the hall, Mary could see a large number of unopened boxes throughout the house.

  “Did you just move in?” Mary asked.

  Faye, following Mary’s gaze, shrugged and sent her an unrepentant glance. “After the incident, I don’t like being here alone,” she said, “so we’ve been living at a hotel since the first week we moved to town. We don’t know if we’re going to be staying here yet.”

  Comprehending immediately, Mary nodded. “Other than the ghost, is there a problem with the house?” she asked.

  Shaking her head, Faye looked overwhelmed. “No,” she said, her voice shaking slightly. “No, I love this house. It’s everything I ever wanted. But, I can’t…”

  She clasped her hand over her mouth and took a deep shuddering breath. “I never, ever, believed in things like this,” she confessed. “I mean, when you’re dead, you’re dead. Right?”

  Mary shrugged. “Well, unfortunately, not always.”

  “Can you get rid of it?”

  Looking squarely at Faye, Mary shook her head. “You do understand that I’m not an exterminator. I’m not a ghost buster, like in the movies. If you have a ghost, it’s generally because something happened to someone in your home and they haven’t found their way to the other side yet.”

  “Well, can’t you hurry them on?” she asked, shooing her hands forward as if Mary could herd the ghost on.

  Sighing, Mary nodded. “Well, let’s see what I can do. Where does the phenomenon manifest itself?”

  “Upstairs, in the bedroom,” Faye said, climbing the stairs without waiting to see if Mary would follow.

  Jogging up behind her, Mary wondered just how involved her client wanted to be. “When I walk into the bedroom, I will potentially be able to see what happened in there,” she said. “Do you want me to tell you what I find?”

  Faye stopped at the top of the stairs and faced Mary. “Oh, no, good grief, I don’t need those kind of details,” she said. “I just need you to tell me if you can make it go away, or cross over, or whatever.”

  Faye hurried down the hall, pushed open a door and stepped back, allowing Mary to enter.

  Mary stepped inside the room. The sun was filtering in through the paned windows, the lace curtains enhanced the view of the countryside, and the light sage colored walls were accented perfectly with the soft gray carpeting. The room had yet to be furnished, but everything was ready and lovely, except for the teenaged girl hanging from a thick extension cord from the ceiling fan in the middle of the room.

  “Hello?” she said quietly as she approached the ghost. “Can I talk to you? Why are you still here?”

  There was no response. Mary understood that this ghost was merely a shadow of an event, not an interactive or intelligent ghost that would be able to speak with her. If there was a chance of contact, it would happen when the ghost was active and reenacting her death. “When do you hear the ghost?” she called out.

  “We hear it every night at ten p.m.,” Faye called back to her, not entering the room. “Every single night of the week. We hear a shuffling sound, then a door slams shut and then something drops.”

  Mary thoug
ht about Clarissa and Bradley, and knew this mystery was going to have to wait one more day.

  “Well, I know what your problem is,” Mary said, coming out of the room. “But I won’t be able to help you until I can witness the event myself. I can’t come back tonight, but I could make it tomorrow night.”

  “You have to come back? You can’t just use some electrical equipment and get rid of it?” she asked.

  Mary shook her head. “No, I will have to interact with her and find out what’s keeping her here.”

  “Her? It’s a girl?” Faye asked.

  Mary nodded. “Yes, a teenaged girl. It looks like…”

  “Stop,” Faye demanded, placing her hands over her ears. “I don’t want to hear about it. It will just freak me out. Fine, we’ll spend another night at the hotel. You can come back tomorrow night and then, hopefully, you’ll be able to fix things.”

  “Yes, hopefully, I will,” Mary replied. “For all of our sakes.”

  Chapter Ten

  Mary drove back to her office, her mind on the list of things she’d need to get ready for dinner that night. She wondered what Clarissa liked to eat. If she was anything like Mary when she was her age, macaroni and cheese and fish sticks would have been a treat. Going through her mental checklist she realized that she’d have to cancel lunch with Ian and run over to the grocery store instead. Maybe she should pick up cookies at Cole’s Bakery. Why, oh, why did Rosie have to choose this week to go on her honeymoon?

  Mary pulled into her parking spot and smiled, thinking of both Rosie and Stanley. Well, just getting married probably had something to do with it.

  She reached over to the passenger seat to get her purse and froze. The hairs on the back of her neck raised and she knew she was being watched. She slowly turned around and scanned the sidewalk. There, at the end of the street, a man was watching her. Or at least he was watching her office building. She squinted to get a better view. Even though he was wearing an oversized jacket and a hat, she knew it was Gary Copper.