Ghost Walk

Chapter Three

June 21, 1789- JMR is quite the handsomest man in town. He’s also charming, energetic in his love-making, and willing to spend his gold on pretty things. Such a shame he isn’t in some respectable trade or I’d convince him to marry me, regardless of what Mother and Father had to say.

But no respectable girl can have her good name linked to a pirate!

From the Journal of Miss Lucinda Wentworth

For the first time since he died, things were looking up.

Jamie smiled at Grace, hoping he appeared as nonthreatening as a specter could possibly appear. The girl was a jumpy little thing. He didn’t want to scare her into ignoring him again. “Feeling better?”

“Well, I’m still seeing ghosts, so I’m certainly not doing great . ” Grace sat across from him in an overstuffed floral arm chair, drinking wine straight from the bottle, and eating ice cream for dinner. (Low fat vanilla, of course. The girl truly needed to expand her horizons.) A patchwork mountain of pillows was piled around her. They matched the rest of her mismatched furnishings. “God, this is just the worst night of my life.” She muttered and drank some more wine. “Which is really frigging saying something.”

“You’re well rid of such a man, lass.” Jamie detested her ex-boyfriend with a passion he’d once reserved for Red Coats. The bastard had tried to steal what was rightfully Jamie’s and had not even treated her well. He wouldn’t soon forget the sight of the man shaking Grace, his hand leaving angry red marks on her arm. Back in his day, Jamie would have run the wanker through with a sword. “That Robert is a waste…”

“Oh who cares about him?” She interrupted. “Jesus, Robert’s the least of my problems. I watched Grey’s Anatomy . Seeing ghosts? It usually means a brain tumor.” Grace’s dark curls were drawn up in a messy topknot and a few more tendrils fell around her shoulders as she shook her head. “I can’t deal with a brain tumor. I don’t even have health insurance anymore.” She reached up to rub her forehead. “Darn it, I cried through that whole season.”

“You donea have a brain tumor.”

“That’s probably just what a brain tumor would say.” Grace flashed him an impatient glare. “Look, I need some time to think, alright? Why don’t you go warn someone the British are coming or something? Either that or just shut up for once.”

At least she was looking at him now. Jamie counted that as progress. “Of course.” He agreed. He would have agreed to whatever she asked, at this point. Getting the woman to like him was of paramount importance.

“Good. Because if you’re not a brain tumor, then you’re real. I think that might even be worse.”

“There was a time in my life when I’d take a pretty girl home and she’d like everything I had to say.” He told her in his most charming tone.

Grace didn’t look charmed. “She must’ve been even drunker than I am to fall for your crap.” She muttered and ate a spoonful of her ordinary-flavored ice cream. “And you’re still talking to me. I told you, it freaks me out when you talk to me. At least wait until I finish the whole bottle.”

“I apologize. I’ll wait for you to become inebriated.”

“Good.” Grace nodded firmly and washed down her ice cream with some more wine. Then she hesitated. “I don’t normally approve of excessive drinking, you know.” She tacked on in a prissy tone. “Don’t think I do this kind of thing all the time. I’m a very moral person.”

Jamie nearly grinned. “Oh, I donea doubt that. ”

“Uptight” was the modern word for her condition, if he wasn’t mistaken. He’d yet to hear her mummer so much as a mild oath and she drank wine with her pinkie extended. The woman might as well wear a sign declaring herself a Sunday school teacher. She’d also changed into the most unappealing, matronly bathrobe ever sewn, so it was a real mystery to him how she managed to be so alluring.

Perhaps, it was the magic in her blood.

Even before he became a ghost, Jamie had always believed in the supernatural. He’d experienced it himself, growing up in Scotland. Fairies and spirits flited through the green hills of his homeland. They would glow in the dark night, enchanting him. As a boy, he used to point them out to his parents.

…Until he’d realized that not everyone had a kinship with the unseen world

He learned quickly that it was better to hide his gifts. To lie about what he saw. He even tried to block it out entirely, but it was impossible. He’d always felt the magic around him. Always known things that others didn’t. His mother said he was kissed by the fay. His father said he was cursed by demons. Whatever you wanted to call it, Jamie had a twinkle of knowing about him.

And so did Grace.

There was a smidgen of the otherworldly about her. Something that hinted of feminine mysteries and untapped enchantments. Something that drew his eye and held it like no one else ever had.

She was the woman he’d waited several lifetimes for. The deepest part of him recognized her. Grace was the one. He knew it with a deep and unshakable belief that was growing stronger all the time. If she had been born in his time, he would have been certain she was his bride.

She belonged to Jamie.

The girl wasn’t beautiful in the glittery, bawdy way that he’d been attracted to in life. She was far too thin, and scrubbed free of makeup, and her nails had been chewed to the quick. With her upturned nose and petite frame, she looked a bit like a fay herself. A repressed, timid little fay. The woman would probably faint if a man tried to kiss her. And she clearly didn’t have much of a backbone, if her dealings with her harridan boss and dickhead boyfriend were any indication. Jamie had always liked strong, flashy women, who knew exactly what they wanted.

But he’d been captivated by Grace from the first moment he’d laid eyes on her.

Almost like he recognized her.

It was why he’d switched tour guides and joined Grace’s Ghost Walk instead of following Nadine like he usually did. Time stretched on and on and on when you had an eternity to fill. Jamie spent every night wandering around Harrisonburg, listening to costumed idiots get history all wrong. Nadine did better than most. She was an elderly lady, who knew how to spin a yarn. For nine years, he’d been taking her tours. It gave him something to do. When Jamie saw Grace, though, his standard evening plans with Nadine had been abruptly cancelled.

That twinkle of knowing had told him to follow Grace.

That she was special.

She was also a bloody horrible tour guide. Grace missed the romance of the ghost stories, delivering the information like she was lecturing to bored twelfth graders. She was uncomfortable under all the attention, uncomfortable with the Colonial dress, uncomfortable in her own skin. Jamie had been offering her advice, because talking to himself was the only way to break the unrelenting solitude. He had absolutely no idea that she’d even know he was there.

No one else ever had. Not since 1789.

When Grace lost her temper and snapped at him, it had been the most wonderful moment of his life. And death. She saw him. For the first time in over two hundred years somebody saw him. If that didn’t prove this neurotic girl had magic in her blood, he wasn’t sure what did.

“Overall, I think you’re taking this quite well.” He assured her. “Many people would be having vapors if they saw a specter.”

“Last time I had ‘vapors,’ they put me in a straightjacket.” She muttered dourly.

Jamie had no idea what that meant. “A what?”

“Never mind.” Grace ate another spoonful of ice cream, apparently forgetting that he wasn’t supposed to talk to her. “I come from a family that’s used to weirdness. My cousin Faith once tattooed her face because a hibiscus told her to. This is probably a lot less freaky than it should be.”

“Fortunate for me.”

She grunted. “So, what’s it like being a ghost? Is it terrible? I bet it’s terrible.”

“It’s terrible.”

Grace nodded as if she’d expected as much. “What’s the worst part? Never being able to change out of that outfit?”

Jamie frowned and glanced down at his ensemble. It had been the height of fashion when he died. “What’s wrong with my outfit?”

Chocolate-brown eyes widened. “Oh… Nothing.” Grace said quickly. “Nothing, at all. It’s very… bold . Colorful.” She took another gulp of wine and licked a drop from her lower lip.

The woman had bloody perfect lips. Lush and pink and delicately shaped. She clearly had no damn idea what to do with them, given she was forever chewing on them and twisting them into frowns, but Jamie could think of at least a dozen places he wanted to feel that soft, unpainted flesh. Sadly, there was no way that would ever happen.

Dying played hell with a man’s sex life.

Not being able to touch women was so fucking unsatisfying that he’d given up voyeurism back in the 19 th century. It was too depressing to watch what he couldn’t have. Grace Rivera was making him reconsider that stance.

The pirate in him wanted to seize every piece of her that he could get. Jamie had always been a possessive man. What he’d stolen, he didn’t give back. Grace was his now. Every instinct in his ghostly body wanted to claim her before some other Robert showed up and tried to steal her away. His eyes slipped down to the collar of her robe, already picturing what was underneath.

“Right. Um. So,” she cleared her throat, not even noticing that he was mentally undressing her, “why are you still here? Like on Earth, I mean. You’re not --like-- a vengeful spirit or something, right? Out to destroy the living, like in Poltergeist? ”

“Of course not. I couldn’t hurt anyone, even if I wanted to. I’m not corporeal.” He waved a hand through the arm of the hideous chair to prove his point.

Grace appeared relieved. “Did you not walk into the light or something? Like in Ghost? ” She paused. “That’s a movie. You know that, right?”

“I know. I’ve seen it.” For a man born before electricity was harnessed, Jamie had a fairly good knowledge of films and television. Over the years, the flickering images had kept him sane. “And I also saw plenty of lights when I died. ...But, only because the mob that killed me carried torches. Otherwise things stayed dim and quiet that night.”

And had remained that way ever since.

If there was a Heaven, Jamie clearly hadn’t been invited to the party. No angelic guides setting him on his new path. No glowing beams drawing him upward. Nothing but Jamie, all alone in an endless pit of time. He’d been a selfish, irresponsible bastard in life, so, for several decades, he’d been sure that he was in purgatory. That this was all a test or a penance. As the years passed, he began to see that it was so much more horrible than that, though. He wasn’t being punished.

He’d simply been forgotten.

Jamie was forsaken in a misty realm between one plane of existence and the next. No one could see him or feel him or hear him. He didn’t exist.

…Except he did .

He was there , goddamn it. Trapped and invisible, but there . No matter how loud he yelled or how hard he tried, he couldn’t get anyone to notice that he was still a part of this world. The solitude had been never ending. Suffocating. A thousand times worse than dying. He’d given up hope of ever escaping his endless loop of days.

But now he had Grace. God had finally remembered Jamie Riordan and sent him someone who could listen . Sure, she lacked spirit and seemed irrational as hell, but that was a small matter considering she was also his savior.

Grace’s dark brows tugged together. “It must’ve been terrible for you. Dying, I mean.”

“Nah, t’was over in a flash. One minute, I was hanging by my neck and wishing I could breathe. The next, I was standing outside of my own body. I never felt a thing.”

That was a lie. Ghosts didn’t sleep, but sometimes Jamie still dreamed of murderous faces and twisting flames. In life, Jamie drank a bit, and stole a bit, and tupped more than a few willing women, but he’d never been a truly bad sort. At least he didn’t think so, no matter what his father had claimed. Not even spending his childhood under that asshole’s thumb had prepared him to witness the mindless savagery of Harrisonburg’s lynch mob, though. The hatred and evil and fear. Even in death, he couldn’t escape the nightmarish memories.

Grace stared at him, as if she understood the shadows passing over his face. As if she’d seen the darkness, too.

Jamie cleared his throat and glanced away from her. It was a crying shame that he couldn’t have some of that merlot. …Even if it was a shockingly inferior vintage. “The hardest part of being a ghost is not being able to touch anything.” He said abruptly. “You’re powerless to change or interact with a single bloody thing around you.”

“Well, you’re sitting on that sofa.”

Jamie looked down at the floral cushion. It appeared to be one of the few items in her home that hadn’t been rescued from a dumpster or purchased at a yard sale. The woman was clearly on a mission to save everyone else’s broken-down, forgotten, and/or homely castoffs.

The soft, flowery upholstery suited her, though. Grace Rivera struck him as a very feminine creature. The kind of lady who would’ve never consorted with Jamie, back when he was alive. In his day, she would’ve carried a dainty lace parasol, and poured tea for well-bred gentlemen callers and worn cream-colored pearls.

…And crossed the street to avoid pirates.

In this age, she was stuck in a cramped apartment with no one to challenge that wanker Robert for treating her badly. Sometimes he wondered how people like Grace endured the modern world. The meek were undefended here. Left to flounder alone, as others sped past at impossible speeds. The strong and selfish survived, while weak-spirted girls collected chipped pottery and remained nearly as forsaken as Jamie.

“I’m not sitting on this sofa.” He assured her. “I’m just… hovering. Like a mist. I can’t actually touch things or interact with anyone.”

Although, when Grace had walked through him at Robert’s house, Jamie had experienced something . Some electrical jolt that zinged through him like nothing else ever had.

He’d felt her.

Grace arched a brow, like she was reading his mind. “Then how do you explain what’s happening between us?”

“I can’t explain it and donea even want to.” Jamie wasn’t one to look a gift horse in the mouth. He had somebody, now. Another person in this world was talking to him. Seeing him. Calling them an “us.” That was enough. “For whatever reason, you’re the one, Grace Rivera.”

“The one for what? I’m never the one. Why is this happening to me?”

“I donea know. There must be something special about you.”

“There’s not.”

“To me, you are the most special person in this world.” Jamie assured her. “I need you to help me clear my name.”

This uptight woman was his only hope. For over two hundred years, he’d been branded a murderer. More than even dying, he hated that everyone, everywhere thought he was a killer. That, throughout history, he was disparaged and reviled. This was his one shot to prove his innocence.

Grace stared at him for a long moment. “You’re out of your invisible mind.”

Of course she couldn’t make this easy.

Frustrated, Jamie got to his feet and restlessly moved to look at the books on her cluttered shelves. Not one romance or fairytale. Just dry historical tomes, guaranteed to bore the hell out of anyone with an ounce of passion in her soul. “Do you not own a paperback, love?”

“I’m a stable and practical person,” she shot back, “except when I’m being haunted by condescending jerks.” She shifted on the sofa, so she could glower at him. “Don’t try to change the subject. How do you expect me to clear your name?”

“Does that mean you’re drunk enough to listen to all I have to say?” Hopefully so, because Jamie was eager to fix his unlife. He had no doubt it would take some convincing to get such a timid lass to lend a hand, so he’d like to get started.

Luckily, there was quite a bit to appreciate about Grace while he waited for her to acquiesce.

His gaze flicked to the long length of her legs. The fuzzy robe had slid up to her knees when she turned, so the view was suddenly spectacular. Of the many things he admired about this century, women’s fashions were high on the list. Whoever it was who’d convinced them to do away with long skirts and petticoats was a bloody genius.

“Drunk or not, I’m not sure I want to listen to you.” Grace muttered, still not noticing his distraction. It was as if the woman didn’t even consider her own appeal. “If you’re not a brain tumor…”

“I’m not a brain tumor.” He was bloody sick of repeating that fact.

“…then you’re James MacCleef Riordan.”

Finally, she was getting it. “Yes!” He moved to stand in front of her. “I’m Jamie Riordan.”

“Captain of the Sea Serpent …”

“Yes! ”

“…Patriot…”

“Yes!”

“… and notorious serial killer.” Grace watched him with a brooding expression. “Did you hurt those girls?”

“ No. ” He crouched down, his eyes locked on hers. “I’ve never hurt a woman, Grace. I give you my word of honor.”

She didn’t look convinced. Hell, he didn’t blame her. Even when he was alive his word of honor hadn’t meant much. The girl was right to be skeptical of a cad like him.

“Gregory Maxwell, the hero of Yorktown, wrote a whole book about your crimes and his poor murdered sister.” She said with an obstinate expression on her face. “ Horror in Harrisonburg . My aunt has an original copy.”

“Gregory Maxwell was the biggest moron alive, outside Parliament. I doubt he could write his own name, let alone an actual book. And he certainly wasn’t a hero at Yorktown. He ran at the first sign of battle. Believe me, I was there.”

“I’ve read that book at least a dozen times.” Grace insisted. “It lays out all the evidence against you in a very convincing way.”

“If it was even halfway comprehensible, then someone ghostwrote the damn thing for him.” Jamie sighed and got to his feet, again. “No pun intended.” What could he say to persuade her to help? Nothing brilliant popped to mind, so he went with the truth. “Look, whoever killed those girls put a great deal of effort into the crimes and it netted him nothing but blood. I am not a fellow who puts a great deal of effort into my crimes, unless I’m going to gain a great deal of coin .” Jamie arched a brow. “I was a business man . I cared about money and all the nice things it bought me.”

He cared about having enough that no one would ever hold him prisoner, again. For thirteen years, he’d been a hostage to his father’s hatred and the memories of it still shook him to the core. Ian Riordan had been a righteous and God-fearing pastor, with a dark hatred for his only child. Jamie’s twinkle of knowing had damned him forever in his father’s eyes. He was an odd-duck, when Ian wanted a swan. Nothing could have convinced him than Jamie wasn’t the devil, so “spare the rod” hadn’t even been an option. He’d been determined to beat the magic right out of him, the way he had with Jamie’s mother.

Fiona Riordan had been a shell of a woman by the time Jamie came along. Once she’d been pretty and lighthearted and saw fairies dancing in the hills, but those parts of her died in Ian’s captivity. For so long, Jamie had been angry at his mother. With no way to support herself or her son, she’d squandered her life on that sadistic bastard. She’d stayed with Ian until she finally escaped into death. Maybe his mother was just afraid to leave her comfortable house and servants. Or maybe she’d made the right choice and saved them from dying on the streets. Either way, money had killed her. The lack of it, anyway.

Jamie had left Scotland the day she died, determined that he would somehow acquire enough gold to keep himself free forever. And he had … for all the good it did him. Damn treasure was lost, now. Buried with no map to find it, again. Stuck in the darkness.

Just like Jamie.

“You were a pirate.” Grace corrected. “Not a businessman.”

True enough, but he’d rather she not focus on that part of his biography. It wouldn’t help to convince her he wasn’t a criminal, if she knew he stole for a living. “I prefer the term ‘privateer.’”

“Except you weren’t a privateer. You were a pirate. Granted, you missed the Golden Age of Piracy by about fifty years, but you made up for that in the sheer amount of stuff you stole. You got rich by robbing merchants up and down the Eastern seaboard. And the rest of Harrisonburg thought you were guilty of far worse.”

Lord, she could be a stern little thing. “They also burned a few midwives as witches. Harrisonburg’s justice system wasn’t exactly foolproof.”

One black eyebrow arched. “No one was burned as a witch in Virginia. ”

He made a face, because she was technically right. “Well, it wasn’t for lack of trying, I assure you. The people of this town would’ve convicted a melon of a crime, if it came from the wrong family. All they cared about was having a respectable name.”

Grace rolled her eyes. “Tell me about it.” She muttered. “Still, Horror in Harrisonburg points out there was overwhelming evidence against you.”

“So you said in that slanderous Ghost Walk you gave. But the evidence was wrong .”

She kept talking. “You romanced all three of the victims, and you couldn’t give an alibi for any of the disappearances, and you had a temper…”

Jamie cut her off. “I’m Scottish. Of course , I have a bloody temper! But I didn’t hurt those girls .” He carefully spaced out the words. “Those ‘reports’ of yours were given by the very fools who hanged me. You think they’d admit that they were the actual murderers? I did nothing and the wankers killed me in the street!”

“The victims…”

He cut her off. “I danced with them at the Summer Ball, but I had no reason to harm any of them. I danced with quite a few girls that night. Not all of them died!”

“Maybe these girls spurned you.”

Jamie snorted. “Lucinda Wentworth was the only one I spoke to for more than a few moments. And I assure you, she didn’t spurn me at that ball. Or later that night.”

Grace blinked owlishly. “You slept with Lucinda Wentworth?”

Despite himself, he smiled at her shocked tone. “My time was not so puritanical as your time would like to believe. Miss Wentworth fancied bold men and wasn’t shy about revealing her predilections.” He paused, recalling Lucinda with a wry grin. “She wasn’t shy about revealing anything , actually. Once she even…” He trailed off, because, deep down, he struggled with lamentably honorable impulses. He tried to ignore them, but they were always whispering in his head, telling him not to be a jackass. “Well, Lucinda was a lovely girl.”

For once, Grace actually looked interested in something he had to say. Her pretty face lit up. “I’ve seen all the layers women dressed in back then. How did she get in and out of her clothes? Did she take everything off when you two met for your dates? It seems like a colossal bother to deal with all the petticoats and stays. How did it work?”

Jamie stared at her for a beat. “Do you really wish to hear what Lucinda wore to our assignations? That’s what you want to be discussing?”

“No.” She reluctantly murmured, even though she clearly wanted to discuss just that. “We can talk about something else.” She paused. “I just… I mean… Did you love her?”

His lips curved at that innocent question. Perhaps there was a bit of whimsy in the girl’s soul, after all. “No. T’was never a romance between us, just a bit of sport.” Lucinda had never been his and he’d never been hers. They were both waiting for other people. “We were friends, though. I liked her and I have no desire to gossip about her undergarments.”

Grace’s head tilted. “Okay.” She said with far less hostility than she’d been showing him thus far. “I respect the fact you’re a gentleman.”

Jamie frowned. “I’m not a gentleman.” God, he’d nearly rather be called a serial killer again. “I just never harmed a hair on Lucinda’s head. Or Anabel’s or Clara’s. That’s what I’m saying.”

“You’re so touchy. I was giving you a compliment .” She paused. “And they didn’t have hair on their heads. That’s some kind of evasion thing, right? All of you wore wigs back then. Even the women. Shaved heads and wigs all tallowed into place.” She wrinkled her nose in a way that was quite delightful. “The smell must have been God-awful.”

The Good Lord save him from this daft woman. “Can you focus on what actually matters here? We need to clear my name.”

She made a face. “Except I’m still half-convinced you’re guilty.”

Jamie shook his head. “You wouldn’t have been sent to me if you weren’t the one I was waiting for. I can’t rest until I’ve proven my innocence. Perhaps it’s why I’m still here.”

“Maybe you’re just not trying hard enough to leave.” She retorted. “All this happened over two hundred years ago. Maybe you need to just… let it go.”

“ I can’t let it go !” He roared. “I was hanged , woman! They put a rope around my neck and they fucking hanged me on the very street you walk along every day. They left my body strung up for three days, with a sign around my neck calling me a murderer! That’s not something I can let go of!”

“You’re not even trying to…”

He cut her off before she could offer another denial. “You have to help me, Grace.” He scraped a hand through his hair, pacing up and down the length of her small parlor. “I need to know who’s responsible for killing me. Because whoever murdered those girls? He was the one who should’ve died at the hands of that mob. Not me. Him . He killed me too and I want to know the bastard’s name.”

“That’s impossible…” The phone rang, interrupting her protest.

Jamie shot it an annoyed look. Telephones were not a part of modernity that he enjoyed. They were forever making shrill infernal sounds and, more importantly, it was damn hard to eavesdrop on only one side of a conversation. That seriously impacted his social life. With no one to talk to, Jamie spent most of his time listening to other people talk. That was much harder to do when one of the parties was only there via a plastic contraption. It was like only seeing half of a movie. Phones, texting, email… They were all a pain in the ass.

He arched a brow when Grace sat there and let the phone ring, again and again. Odd. In his experience the living always jumped at the chance to play with their technology. “Not going to get that?” He prompted.

“Nope.” Grace drank some more wine.

“Why not? ”

“Because I already know who it is and my night’s been lousy enough without anyone reading my mind.”