Ghost Walk

Chapter Five

June 22, 1789- I saw Agatha Northhandler punch a man for stealing twine from her shop today. I think it was quite common. Women need not resort to violence. We can get our own way by using subtler means. The only time a true lady should be around blood is when she’s thanking the Good Lord not to be pregnant.

From the Journal of Miss Lucinda Wentworth

“This is a total waste of time.” Grace had been repeating that all morning, but a certain jackass ghost wasn’t listening. “I’m telling you it won’t work.”

In an effort to not look like a crazy person when she talked to him in public, Grace wore a Bluetooth earpiece. Hopefully, it would seem like she was really pissed off at someone on the other end of the phone line… rather than being really pissed off at someone invisible to everyone else in the room. So far it seemed to be working, which made her feel kinda smug. Like she was accomplishing something.

Wait… was she actually proud of succeeding at craziness? This was seriously getting out of hand.

Jamie shrugged, looking gorgeous and inflexible. Did ghosts sleep? He certainly seemed well-rested, which just irritated her more. “I have nothing but time, so it matters not how much of it we waste. It’s one of the perks of being dead.”

“One of the perks of being alive is sleeping in on Saturdays. Or at least it should be.” She slanted him a glare. “Yet here I am.”

“It’s Friday, lass.”

“Oh shut up. ”

The two of them stood with a group of twenty tourists in the grand parlor of the Wentworth mansion. It had been meticulously restored to its Colonial era glory, complete with shiny antique furniture, plenty of status-symbol silver on display, and vivid floral-patterned wallpaper. It really was one of the nicest homes in Harrisonburg.

Jamie was quick to point out every inch of fabric and piece of flatware that the restoration got wrong, of course. The man was impossible to please. …And really, really handsome. It was amazing how handsome he was. Even more amazing to her than his ghost-ness.

That didn’t mean he was her Partner, though.

“Just in case you need to know for our investigation, the room looked nothing like this when the Wentworths were alive.” Jamie informed her, not shutting up. He never shut up. “The mantle was different, the furniture was different, and the walls weren’t this god-awful powder blue.” He snorted. “And Lucinda would be shrieking her head off if she knew they’d chosen that portrait to hang here for all eternity. She never did like it. Said Eugenia’s glower ruined the whole canvas.”

Grace glanced at the painting of the Wentworth daughters. Lucinda had a point. Her sister was glowering. Probably because poor, plain, pinch-lipped Eugenia was being completely upstaged completely by the beautiful debutant sitting next to her.

Lucinda had blonde hair and an aristocratic nose, her curvy figure cinched into a décolletage revealing period gown. In the modern world, she no doubt would have been president of her sorority, dedicated to keeping the Eugenias and Graces on campus away from all the football players. There was a knowing gleam in Lucinda’s blue eyes that told you she was secretly a bitch to all the other girls in town. A smug glint of malice, like she had a dirty little secret she wasn’t telling.

That secret was probably what Jamie looked like naked.

Just the idea of that pissed Grace off.

…Not that she would ever seriously consider dating a pirate, of course. Grace was only interested in serious relationships and James Riordan was not a serious relationship kinda ghost. Hell, he could star in a PSA about why smart girls should stay far away from anti -husband material men. Plus, he was dead. A woman would have to be nuts to get mixed up with him, no matter how gorgeous he was.

And he was really, really gorgeous.

Grace glanced up at him, trying not to notice all the star-spangled angles of his American Hero profile. She wasn’t sure about Lucinda’s picture, but that portrait of Jamie in the history book did him no justice, at all. It missed the golden sheen to his hair and the perfect tan of his skin. Weren’t ghosts supposed to be more see-through?

It would be a lot easier to deal with him if he wasn’t so darn visible.

Her phone buzzed in the pocket of her sundress, indicating that Robert had sent her yet another text. Grace rolled her eyes. How was he not getting the hint? It was over . She was actually relieved to be free of him, so the last thing she needed was the jackass stalking her, now. She had so many more important things to focus on than his whining.

“What was that?” Jamie asked.

“Nothing.” No way was she telling him about the twenty-eight unanswered messages on her phone. Jamie would seriously not appreciate Robert begging for another chance. His hatred of her ex was as clear as the Liberty Bell.

He didn’t look convinced by her quick denial. “I think your portable telephone is chiming?” It came out sounding like a question. Technology seemed to confuse Jamie. No doubt because the closest his time period had come to a global communications network was “one if by land, two if by sea.”

Grace ignored his confusion and went back to his earlier complaint. “And of course the house has changed.” She told him, wanting to keep the conversation away from Robert. The morning was stressful enough without Jamie’s complaints about her lack of spirit and long rants full of Gaelic cursing. “It’s been two hundred years . That’s what I’ve been trying to get through to you. It’s crazy to think we’re going to find any evidence of Lucinda’s disappearance.”

“Nonsense. I have great faith in you.” He insisted with the stubborn mindset of someone who had no clue what forensic work really entailed. “TV shows always begin their investigation at the scene of the crime. We must do the same. Now, you promised me three days of investigation, so search for clues, woman.” He waved a hand around, like all she needed to do was whip out a Sherlock Holmes-sized magnifying glass and shout, “Elementary, my dear Watson!”

Grace shook her head in frustration. A couple of reruns of Criminal Minds and suddenly everyone thought they could do her job. No. Her ex -job. “Fine. Whatever. But I’m only doing this to humor you, because we’re not going to find anything.”

“You’ve a very negative attitude, Grace. I prefer to live in hope.”

“You’re not living, at all .” Grace muttered, but she grudgingly refocused on their goal.

Lucinda Wentworth’s former home was owned by the Harrisonburg Historical Society, which gave tours every day at nine, twelve, and two. Since it was the only one of the murder victims’ houses opened to the public, it seemed like the best place to start. It was simple enough for Grace to join the group of morning tourists eager to see a Colonial era mansion. A lot of people worked for the town, so no one recognized her as an employee or asked why she was buying a ticket to a historic home on her (forced) day off.

Actually two tickets.

Grace had accidently bought one for Jamie, too, before it occurred to her that he wouldn’t need it. It seemed to simultaneously amuse and charm him, which was embarrassing. It was just hard to remember that he was a ghost. Not just because it was frigging impossible that he was a ghost, but because Jamie seemed incredibly alive.

He was clever, and charming, and curious about everything. As a conversationalist, he was way better than Grace had ever been and he’d been dead for two-hundred plus years. When she wasn’t fascinated by some anecdote he was telling, it kinda pissed her off. She was a social disaster these days, but Jamie could no doubt host his own talk show: Undead and Awesome.

“Bloody listen to this nonsense.” Jamie shook his head in dismay as the tour guide droned on about the furnishings. “This town must strive to hire the worst storytellers in Virginia.”

Grace slanted him a glare.

Jamie didn’t seem to notice. “We need to begin our investigation now, because I donea know how much longer I can endure this madness. The man has been talking for ten minutes about floor cloths. And those aren’t the Wentworths’ floor cloths. They look nothing like them! It’s like I’m in hell, only it’s boring.”

Grace felt the need to defend the poor guide from Harrisonburg’s biggest tour critic. “We’re visiting a historical house. What do you want him to talk about? The Super Bowl?”

Jamie wasn’t appeased by that logic. “And --Jesus, Mary, and Joseph-- why are floor cloths even on this tour? Why would anyone waste a glorious summer morning looking at some old piece of canvas we used as a rug? Have you all so much time to spare that you can just squander it?” He sighed, like he was the only one in the room with any common sense. “Life is wasted on the mortals of this era.”

Grace wasn’t in the mood for a “my century is better than your century” debate. Not without even her customary four hours of sleep to bolster her. Grace never slept well. The dreams were too overwhelming. Last night, though, she’d just stayed awake, staring at her ceiling, panicked and full of doubt.

Not over the fact that she’d made a deal with a frigging ghost.

No, she was handling that part with surprising ease, all things considered. Jamie might befuddle her, but she wasn’t frightened or freaked out by his presence. Rivera DNA meant she accepted the supernatural far too easily. In fact, it was kind of almost a little bit …nice having someone around. Even if he was a jackass.

What terrified her was going back to work as a forensic tech, even if it was just for a few days. The job had nearly broken her last time. She didn’t want to give it another chance. But unless she wanted to listen to Jamie whine for the rest of her life, she didn’t really have much of a choice. Grace had promised him three days and she kept her promises.

Also, she hated to admit it but a tiny part of her believed him when he said he was innocent. Maybe she always had. That picture of him had been drawing her in since she was fifteen, after all. Something in his face convincing her that he hadn’t really killed those girls. Clearing his name was the right thing to do, for Jamie and the victims.

But that didn’t mean it was going to be easy.

“We need to ditch the rest of the tour and get upstairs.” She lowered her voice, hoping none of the tourists overheard her. Luckily, they now seemed enthralled with the original floorboards. “We have to look in Lucinda’s bedroom. That’s where she disappeared, so we need to start there.” She paused meaningfully. “I’m guessing you know where that is.”

“You’ve a prurient mind, Mistress Rivera. I like that in a lass.” Jamie glanced towards the stairs, which were through an archway behind them. “They’ve a velvet rope erected in front of the steps. You’ll need to get around it. Then I can lead you to her room.”

“ Sneak around it, you mean.” Grace could already feel her blood pressure rising at the idea. “I’m probably going to be arrested and thrown in jail for this. I hope you know that.”

“Oh, it’s not merely prison for an offense so grave as leaving a tour. T’would be the stocks for sure.” He smiled widely at the glower she flashed his way. “Oh, donea be so cantankerous. Just walk up the stairs as if you’ve every right to do it and all will be fine.”

“That’s a terrible idea.”

“No one will stop you if you seem confident. They’ll be too afraid of looking a fool if they question you. Always act as if you know exactly what you’re doing and you can get away with anything. T’is the secret of life.”

“Yeah, that probably works great for attractive, pirate-y scoundrels, but --I guarantee-- it won’t work for a normal person like me.”

His face brightened. “You think me attractive?”

“Oh shut up .” Grace eased towards the door, hoping to slip out of the room unnoticed. Instantly, it felt as if everybody was staring at her, even though she could see they were all focused on the guide. Grace’s grip tightened on her bag, her body barely moving.

“Good Christ, woman. You’re stiff as a board and your eyes are darting about like you’re expecting the devil himself to be after ya. Relax . You could not be looking more suspicious if you were trying.”

“You’re really not helping.” She couldn’t do this. The longer she stood there, the more she realized it was impossible. She would be caught. She’d go to jail. She’d lose her job. She’d be thrown out of her apartment and have to live on the streets. She’d…

“Grace.” Jamie’s voice broke through her escalating panic and she automatically looked his way. He caught hold of her eyes and didn’t let go. “It will be alright.” He said quietly. “I promise you, I’ll keep you safe.”

Drat.

Grace moved. Without making the conscious decision to take even a single step, she was suddenly halfway across the room. She made it to the doorway and tried to remember how to breathe. So far so good. Now how was she going to do the rest of this? “Go check if anyone is coming down the hall.” She got out frantically. “I don’t want to get caught.”

Jamie rolled his eyes like she was being silly. “I used to make my living sneaking about the seven seas, you know. And a ship is a great deal harder to hide than a wee girl. I think I know how to…”

“Just go do it!”

Jamie held up his hands in surrender. (God, he had beautiful hands.) “Fine.” He strolled his invisible self into the hallway and made a production of looking around. “You see? No constables are coming to arrest you. I told you, I will let nothing happen to you. ”

Peaceful green cornfields.

Peaceful green cornfields.

Peaceful green cornfields.

Grace took a deep breath and skirted into the hall. She ducked under the velvet ropes cordoning off the steps and hurried up the steps two at a time. It only took five seconds, but by the time she reached the upper landing, she was pretty sure she was having a heart attack from panic. No one had seen her. Or at least no alarms and sirens were blaring. That was good news. Right?

God, she was losing her mind.

How in the world had he convinced her to do that? Why had she felt safe enough to try? Grace never felt safe with anyone , but now she was willing to trust an adrenaline junkie ghost? Maybe she was sick. She paused in the shadows to take her pulse, already expecting the worse. See? Her heart was going too fast. First she’d keel over of a coronary and then she’d get tossed in a prison cell, all because of Jamie.

The oblivious moron wore an encouraging grin. “You’ve done it! And faster than I ever expected, given your natural pessimism. I knew you had it in ya! It can be quite fun to break the rules, when you give it a go.”

Satisfied she wasn’t having a heart attack (yet), Grace focused on the idiot ruining her life. “This is not fun, Jamie.” She hissed. “I just want to get it over with as quickly as possible, so I can go home and take a Valium.”

He made a tsk sound. “You’ve got to overcome your weak spirit, lass. It’s stifling all your potential. There’s nothing wrong with being a bit of an odd-duck. Live your truth.”

Grace rolled her eyes. He did love his pop-psych crap. She seriously needed to call her cousin Blessing for an anti-ghost spell.

…Or maybe not. The last spell Blessing cast gave Grace green hair for three weeks. Spells always went wrong. They were the worst kind of magic, in her opinion. Totally unpredictable. She’d probably just end up with two Jamies bitching at her.

“I’m not weak spirited or an odd-duck.” Grace scowled at him. “I just like to follow the speed limit, pay my taxes on time, and obey the law. That’s being a responsible adult.”

“It’s being a smashingly dull adult.”

“At least no one’s lynched me, yet.” Grace headed down the upstairs corridor. “Is her room this way?”

“Aye, last one on the left.” Jamie followed along behind her, looking irritated. “I wasn’t lynched for anything I did , ya know. My having a bit of fun with Lucinda and dancing at a ball didn’t kill those girls. Hardly fair to blame me for the town being so bloody stupid.”

“You were a convenient scapegoat, given your reputation.” She glanced up at him. “I don’t suppose you have an alibi for any of the disappearances?”

“I was getting drunk at The Raven when Lucinda disappeared. I was there late into the night and then I was passed out in my cabin on the Sea Serpent .”

“None of your men could verify that.”

“Because they were drunk, too! They were bloody sailors!”

Grace rolled her eyes again. “What about when the other girls went missing?”

“How the hell should I know where I was back then? It’s damnably hard to recall all the details, when I’m not even sure exactly when they vanished.”

“Well, the ‘details’ mean the difference between solving this case or not, so I suggest you try to regain your memory.” She arched a brow, just to needle him. “Unless you have a reason for your amnesia. The murders stopped after you died, after all. Gregory Maxwell’s book tells us that no other girl’s disappeared after you were gone. The Hero of Yorktown found that very coincidental.”

Jamie’s expression darkened. “Gregory Maxwell was not the sodding Hero of Yorktown and I did not kill anyone, Grace.”

“The first serial killings in America all happen within a week of each other.” She pointed out, warming to her topic. “That’s the behavior of a perpetrator who’s gotten a taste for it. Someone who’s going to keep escalating, until he’s caught.” She paused. “Then you’re hanged and there were no more killings.”

“Except I. Didn’t. Bloody. Do it .” Each word was bit off like a bullet. “What can I say to make you believe that?”

“I do believe it.” Really, she did. She’d met killers and this man wasn’t one of them. “It’s just hard to separate these crimes from seeing…” Grace trailed off and shook her head. “Never mind. Forget it.”

Jamie didn’t look ready to forget it. “Separate them from seeing what?”

“Bad things.” Anyone with half a brain would’ve heard the finality of those words.

Jamie frowned, not pleased with her refusal to confide in him. Centuries of isolation had obviously left him desperate for some kind of human connection and she was his only option. The man wanted to know everything about her. If he was corporeal, he’d no doubt be reading her diary and searching through her underwear drawer. “You know, there’s no harm in telling me your secrets. I’m the very best friend you have.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“It’s true! You are more important to me than anyone else, alive or dead. It would be safe to need me back, just a bit. I wouldn’t mind, a’tall.” He paused and tacked on with a suspicious amount of innocence: “I truly could be a grand partner.”

“You’re not my Partner, Jamie.” He couldn’t be. “You don’t even understand what it really means.” The Riveras were the ones who gave the word all its capitalized subtext. It was their family shorthand for the best kind of magic. Even Grace respected Partners and she worked hard to distance herself from the supernatural.

“Well, explain it then! What’s the point of keeping things from me? It’s not as if I can share your confidences with anybody else, is it?”

“Not everyone likes to blurt out every thought in their head. ”

“Usually, that’s only because they’re hiding something.”

Grace pointedly ignored that, because there was nothing to say. She reached Lucinda’s door and pushed it open with a bit more force than necessary.

The bedroom was being used as storage, with piles of cardboard boxes and random furniture. Grace hoped they weren’t planning to throw out any of the old knickknacks that were haphazardly arranged on every surface. A little glue and paint and most of them could be saved. She hated to see old things just tossed away, like they’d never meant anything to anyone. Like they had no purpose, just because they’d gotten a few dings.

Everything deserved a second chance at life.

Jamie looked around, an amazed expression on his face. “It looks so different.” He whispered.

Grace cleared her throat. “So this is the last place Lucinda Ann Wentworth was seen. Sunday, June 28 th , 1789.” She began, like it was any other crime scene. “Did you meet with her at all that day?”

“Aye. I saw her in the morning, while the rest of the household was at church. She pleaded a headache and begged off. I stopped by to pay my respects and inquire after her well-being.”

Grace sifted through that garbage. “She played sick, so you could sneak in and have sex?”

He shot her a sideways look, amused by her bluntness. “Aye.”

“What time did you leave?”

“Just before ten. It was the last I ever saw her.”

“You’re sure?”

“I was nearly caught pant-less by her sister Eugenia, so I recall it well. The pinched-lipped little thing came back early and I had to hide in the kitchen, with only a flour sack to cover me.” He made a face. “Believe me, that part sticks in my mind.”

Despite herself, Grace’s mouth twitched upward. “ You’re completely blowing my image of staid and respectable Olde Harrisonburg, I hope you know that.”

Jamie shrugged unrepentant. “Lucinda had a laugh over my predicament, too. She finally tossed me my clothes out the window and I saw her wave goodbye. The next day, I heard she’d disappeared in the night.”

“Were you worried?”

“Yes and no. At first, I wondered if she’d left with some man. We all did. Eugenia heard her sneaking out, sometime after midnight. There’d been whispers of Lucinda seeing someone far more important than me.”

“Do you have any idea who?”

He shook his head. “No, but she was conscious enough of her place in society that she wouldn’t have settled for anything less than marriage. Even eloping would have been out of character for Lucinda. She would have insisted on a large wedding, to show off a bit. When I considered that, I knew she hadn’t run away.” He paused. “Besides, she never would’ve left all her frocks and jewelry behind.”

“Did she have any enemies?”

“Lucinda had dreams to marry a rich man and move to the biggest house his money could buy. Have fancy balls and exclude half the town.” He shrugged. “Maybe she’d pissed off a few other lasses with her flirting ways, but no one would want her dead for it.”

“Seems like someone did.”

Jamie’s jaw ticked. “I’ve always supposed it was some bastard she’d turned down. Figured he’d just take what she wouldn’t give.” He looked around as if he was still remembering the cluttered bedroom as it had once been. “She deserved more than being dragged away in the night.”

“Lucinda probably never left this room alive.”

He frowned as if that idea hadn’t occurred to him. “What?”

“According to Eugenia, Lucinda went to bed around nine.” Grace set down her oversized bag and took out her makeshift forensic kit. She’d never thought she’d be using any of it again, but she’d kept a lot of her tools. “Her parents were already asleep down the hall. Around midnight she heard a noise that she thought was her sister sneaking out. In reality, it was probably someone sneaking in . The next morning Lucinda was gone and so were the bed linens, but nothing else. Add it altogether and it sounds like murder, not kidnapping.”

Jamie’s head tilted. “What makes ya think so? We all believed someone had taken the girls to defile them.”

“Then he wouldn’t need the bed linens.” Grace pointed out. “No, the linens tell me that there was a clean-up in here.” She looked out the small window. “This room is on the second floor.”

“Aye.”

“And no one heard the front door open. That leaves this window as our probable point of entry.” She craned her neck down. “It’s a straight drop into the garden. Was it like that back then, too?”

He shrugged. “I suppose. I never climbed through her window, but I donea recall a porch below.”

“Was Lucinda sleeping with anyone but you? This mystery man you were talking about maybe?”

“Probably.” Jamie said easily. He clearly didn’t buy into the “semi-frigid or pizza-tramp” double standard. “She liked to pass a good time.”

“Would she sneak out her window to see him?”

“Scale down the side of the house, you mean?” He actually laughed at that idea. “Lord have mercy, no . Lucinda wasn’t quite so agile.”

“So that means someone came in here.” Grace looked around. “And it means they left the same way. They must have taken her body with them.”

But why?

“Lucinda might not have been dead.” Jamie insisted. “He could’ve just knocked her out and made off with her. Taken her someplace, while she was unconscious.”

“ Carrying a live girl out a window is a lot more difficult than pushing a dead one out the window. It would be easier to rape her here, if that was his plan. ”

Jamie winced a bit at that image.

Grace barely noticed. Her mind was back in the familiar rhythms of collecting evidence. She looped her camera around her neck, documenting everything she saw. As hopeless as this assignment seemed, she wanted to do everything she possibly could to solve Lucinda’s murder. Grace was good at her job. (Her ex -job.) Maybe there was some scrap of evidence left that she could find.

Only what kind of evidence lasted two centuries?

“DNA and fingerprints won’t help us at a scene this old.” She mused out loud. “Who could we compare it to? Fibers are going to be useless, for the same reason. That’s assuming anything even survived twenty-three decades of cleanings and furniture changes. Window’s new, so we can’t check the lock.” She looked down and blinked. “Hang on.” Grace crouched to examine the floorboards. Some of the planks had been replaced, but, like downstairs, most were original. Her brain went “cha-ching!” “Jamie, was there a rug in here?”

“Why are the living in this town so fixated on floor cloths?”

“Just answer the question.”

He sighed like a martyr. “I donea know if Lucinda had a bloody rug.”

“How can you not know?”

“It was two hundred and thirty years ago!”

Grace made an aggravated sound and moved towards the alcove by the window. It was the natural place to fit a mattress. “Is this about where the bed was?”

“Aye.Right there.”

“Of course you remember that part.” It irrationally annoyed her that he’d had sex with Lucinda in this very room. The floor here looked good, though. It had mostly been protected by various beds, so there had probably never been a rug covering it. “Hand me that screwdriver, will you?”

Jamie didn’t move.

It took Grace a second to realize why.

“Crap. I keep forgetting the whole ‘you can’t touch anything’ thing.” She quickly got it from her kit herself. “Sorry about that.”

He ran a hand through his hair, looking frustrated. “No, I’m sorry. It’s my failing, not yours. I’m sorry I can’t help you do this. I’m sorry I’m not really here.”

She blinked at that phrasing. “You are helping and you are here. Trust me, I spent all night trying to convince myself otherwise, but there’s no denying that you’re standing right in front of me.”

“Or I could still be a brain tumor.”

“You’re way too handsome to be a brain tumor.” She said before she thought better of it. Something about Jamie had her blurting out things she’d normally keep to herself. Like she could just say anything and it would be okay.

Like he made her feel… safe.

Jamie slowly smiled at her. “I like it when you call me handsome.”

Grace self-consciously swept her hair behind her ears. “Well, we both know it’s true.” She muttered, feeling her cheeks heat up under his intense stare.

For some reason her blushes always seemed to fascinate him. He studied her for a long moment and then shook his head. “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, Robert must be daft to want another woman.”

Grace appreciated that sentiment, even if outrageous flirting was his default setting. “The compliments are pretty, but not necessary.” She knelt by an original section of floor. “And I’m already doing what you want, so there’s no need to badmouth Robert to win points.”

“I’ll badmouth the wanker for fun, then.” Jamie decided good-naturedly. “I wish nothing but curses upon his bland and balding head.” He paused. “And you’re surely not doing everything I want, lass. You closed your bedroom door last night.”

“Because you would have watched me get undressed.”

He didn’t even bother to deny that. “I think ya even locked it, which is bloody adorable. ”

She made a face, because that had been kind of brainless. “Yeah, I keep forgetting the ‘you can walk right through walls’ thing, too.”

“I like that you forget.” He crouched down so they were at eyelevel. “I like that you see me as a man. I sure as hell see you as a woman.”

“Probably because I’m the first one you’ve talked to in over two hundred years.”

“No. That’s not the reason a’tall.”

Grace cleared her throat and looked away. Since high school she’d been fantasizing about the painting of this pirate and now he was gazing at her like she was the most magical being he’d ever met. It was no wonder she was losing her mind. How was she supposed to think straight when he was so incredibly… Jamie?

“Can we just get back to our crime spree, please?”

Jamie chuckled at the subject change. “You know, I donea think I’ve ever fancied a shy lass before. ‘Tis quite a delightful thing to see you get discomposed.”

“I don’t even think that’s a word anymore.” Grace pried up the floorboards, refusing to be taken in by his Scottish-accented appeal. He’d no doubt honed it on every girl in the Revolution, from Betsy Ross on down. “And I’m not shy. I’m just cautious around womanizing ghosts.”

“No need to be cautious. It’s not as if I can do much more than talk to you.”

“With you, talking is plenty.”

“Kind of you to say so.”

Grace shot him an exasperated look. “Would you be quiet and let me do this?”

“Alright, alright.” He obediently left her alone, watching her work. “What in Christ’s name are you doing?” He asked after about thirty seconds. That was the longest he’d stayed silent since they’d met, so it must have taken some real effort for him.

“This is the same floor Lucinda died on. The surface has been cleaned a thousand times since then, but not the sides. Wood is porous.” She finally wrenched a board loose and set it sideways, so she could look at the unfinished edge. “You see?” She pointed at the telltale black stains. “Blood seeps through the cracks and gets absorbed. Two hundred years and it’s there.” She began yanking up more boards, trying to see how big the pool had been.

Jamie’s teasing smile faded. He stared at the growing size of the hole, looking grim. “It might not be blood.” He decided a little desperately. “It might be old varnish. Aye, it looks like varnish. There’s too much for it to be blood.”

Grace didn’t take offence. Victim’s families and friends often went into denial, at first. Somehow it was easier for Jamie to imagine that Lucinda was alive when she left the bedroom. Maybe because of their time together. His mind kept trying to find a way to escape the truth.

She knew the feeling.

“The human body has more blood in it than you think.” Grace kept her voice calm. “Trust me. She bled to death right here.”

Jamie squeezed his eyes shut. “Fucking hell.”

“I’m sorry.” And she was. Lucinda might have been a mean girl, but Jamie had cared for her and she died far too young.

Grace reached over to touch his hand in comfort. Her palm passed through his and she left it there, linking them as best she could. The sizzle of energy sparked, again. She couldn’t feel his skin, but she could feel Jamie . The little jolts of power ran up and down her arm, growing stronger the longer they stayed linked.

His gaze slashed up to hers. “How do you do that?” He whispered in awe.

“Don’t ask me. You’re the ghost here.”

Jamie shook his head. “I’ve tried to touch more people than you can imagine over the years and you’re the only one I’ve ever been able to feel. It’s you , Grace.” He curved his long, elegant fingers around hers, like he wanted to hold on. “I was meant to find you .”

She stared back at him, dazed and a little scared. Holy cow but the man was trouble. He could make her forget that he was actually dead. Forget that they were at a crime scene. Forget that she was normal . Forget everything except the blue of his eyes and the musical sound of his voice.

She swallowed hard. “Do you want me to be sure about the blood?” She blurted out, desperate to get them back on track.

“I do, but…”

“Good.” She pulled her hand back from him, refusing to notice the way his fingers made an instinctive move to cling to hers. “I might be able to tell for sure if it’s blood or varnish. I don’t think it’s ever been tested on anything this old, but theoretically it should work.”

He sighed and gave a jerky nod. “Do whatever you can.”

“Alright.” Grace got to her feet and pulled down the window shade, so the room got darker. She grabbed her squirt bottle full of luminal and sprayed an even coat across the wood. The chemical reacted with biological materials, making them glow. If someone had bled onto this floor, they were going to be able to tell pretty quickly.

Grace clicked on her UV flashlight and wasn’t surprised at all when the wood lit up like Harrisonburg’s annual fireworks display. “Blood.” She said simply.

Jamie cursed in Gaelic.

The evidence was unmistakable to anyone who’d ever watched Dateline . Lucinda had died right there, bleeding onto the floor. The pool of blood had been several feet across, running under the bed and straight back to the wall. The wound that killed her must have been deep and massive. Either that or she’d suffered dozens of smaller wounds, before she’d finally succumbed. Someone had then used the bedclothes to clean up the mess and dumped her body out the window. It was all tragically, terribly, irrefutably clear even to an ex-forensic investigator.

Apparently, Grace been wrong earlier. Even two hundred years later, there was still evidence of murder left in this house. She snapped some pictures of the scene, falling into the familiar rhythm of the job.

“It’s like magic.” Jamie glanced at her. “You can do something like this and you choose to give dull tours of this dull town? Why?”

Grace focused on the camera controls. “I told you, I burned out.”

That answer didn’t satisfy him. Huge surprise. “And I told you , I have no idea what that means. Were you injured?”

“No.”She hesitated.“Not physically.”

Jamie’s head tilted, seeing far too much. “So much brutality must have been hard to witness.” He finally said. “Hard to forget.”

Her lips compressed, refusing to be lulled in by his gentle tone. “The job was important and I was good at it. The stress just got to be too much for me. I started… seeing things.”

“Seeing things?” He tried an encouraging smile. “Like ghosts?”

“Kind of.” For no reason except she had a hard time guarding what she said around this man, Grace found herself telling him the truth. “I saw a victim before she died. I relived the whole crime scene, just as it was the night of the murder.” Her eyes flicked up to his. “I was there , Jamie.”

His brows compressed like he didn’t have an answer for that.

He wasn’t the only one floundering for a response. Grace crouched down, her fingers turning the board so she could get a better look at the Luminal-y glow. Her thumb touched the ancient bloodstain and she barely noticed. “For the past year, I’ve been trying to explain how it happened, but I keep coming up…”

She stopped short as Lucinda’s bedroom vanished around her.

Grace was suddenly outside. Like outside outside.

It was night, with candle-lit lanterns flickering along cobblestone streets, and no sounds except the quiet chirping of insects.

Grace’s lips parted in amazement. It seemed like she was still in Harrisonburg, but no hybrid cars or signs for WiFi hotspots were in sight. This was Harrisonburg with all the plastic, hipster, tourist-mania burned away.

Harrisonburg when it was new.

The building right in front of her looked exactly like a dirtier, smellier, high-def version of The Raven. In fact, it was The Raven. …Or at least how the tavern must have appeared, just a few years out of the Colonial era. Because she knew in her heart that’s where she was:

Smack dab in the middle of 1789, on the night Lucinda Wentworth died.