Cadaver Lab 2, page 11
“Why would we mind?” Gabe asked.
“Because you can’t eat.”
“You not eating won’t change that,” he pointed out.
“All right.” Feeling less awkward, she stood and waited for the minutes on the display to count down.
“So what did you and Romeo here want to talk to us about?” Gabe asked.
“I can hear you now. Remember?” Liam scowled.
Gabe winced. “Oh, yeah. I forgot. Sorry.”
Liam pouted but said, “It’s okay.”
“So, Natalie. The reason he invited us?” Gabe reminded.
“I would have invited you myself but you never came into the shop,” she pointed out.
“We were busy.” Gabe shrugged.
Hiding her hurt, she said, “Oh. Yeah. That’s what I figured…”
Liam shot her a sideways glance but remained silent.
“I just thought we could talk about stuff.” She shrugged again.
“Ghost stuff?” Gabe asked.
“Sure. And other stuff too. Whatever.”
At the ding, she was grateful for the interruption. She knew Millie didn’t like talking about her death and that’s exactly what Natalie was going to ask her about.
Taking advantage of the reprieve, she slid one microwaveable dish onto the cocktail table in front of Liam with a fork and a paper towel in lieu of the paper napkins she’d run out of.
She placed her own down on the side table before sitting in the empty chair.
“Gourmet meal, I see,” Gabe snarked.
Emerald eyes beneath one dark raised brow cut to Natalie. “He always like this?”
“Yup.” Natalie nodded.
“I guess I wasn’t missing that much when I couldn’t hear him,” Liam said while lifting one steaming bite of Salisbury steak on his fork.
“I told you that you weren’t.”
“Um, still here. Thanks. And still can hear you,” Gabe said.
Meanwhile Millie just watched the action, like she was in the stands observing some Victorian lawn tennis match. She was definitely a quiet one as she sat next to Gabe, her posture upright and her ankles crossed.
Prim. Proper. Quiet. Pretty much the opposite of Natalie. Is that what Gabe liked about her?
Natalie cleared her throat and decided to get the conversation back on track before it devolved any further. “So, Gabe, Millie, it was me mostly who wanted to talk.”
“And I’m still not sure about what,” Gabe said.
Natalie turned her gaze on Millie. “You.”
Her lipstick reddened mouth formed a surprised oh before she asked, “Me?”
“Yes. You’ve fascinated me since the first time I set eyes on you.”
“Why?” Millie drew back like this was an unwelcome discovery. As if this—or any—attention focused on her was unwelcome.
“She’s a little shy,” Gabe explained.
A little? Ha! That was the understatement of the century—
That thought knocked some sense into Natalie. Millie wasn’t from this century.
She’d been born and raised at the turn of the last century when all youth spoke when spoken to. And women went from their father’s house and control to their husband’s where they remained subservient—financially, socially, politically—for the rest of their lives.
Except, judging by her youthful appearance, Millie hadn’t lived long enough for all that.
And if the style of her short flapper dress and bobbed hair was any indication, she’d died right when things for women had just begun to change, even if slightly and slowly, when they finally were allowed to vote.
As Natalie tried to craft a question that wouldn’t send the girl fluttering away like a frightened bird—because she really did look ready to bolt—Gabe turned to face Millie.
“I think she probably wants to know how you died,” Gabe began as the girl’s eyes widened. Holding both of Millie’s hands in his now, Gabe looked up at Natalie. “But that’s because I haven’t had a chance to tell her yet that you don’t remember.”
“Oh. I understand.” Natalie nodded hiding her disappointment even though she should have expected it. Gabe didn’t remember the exact moment of his death either.
“Here’s a question you might be able to answer. Why are you in a party dress?” Natalie asked.
“Oh. This.” The slightest smile curved her mouth. “It was New Year’s Eve nineteen-nineteen. That new law banning alcohol—”
“Prohibition,” Liam said softly.
“Yes.” Millie nodded. “That was to start January first so the owners of the house threw the biggest party. My friend invited me. I didn’t even know anyone there. I had to lie to my parents and tell them we were staying in Sharon Springs. They never would have let me travel all the way to Mudville. The party was amazing. There was so much food and drinks and music and dancing. They hired a whole jazz band from Binghamton,” she added with awe.
“And that’s why someone carved the date nineteen-twenty into the woodwork in the bedroom?” Natalie guessed.
Millie shook her head. “I don’t know anything about that. I would never. And if I saw any of the college boys doing it I would have told them not to.”
“College boys?” Gabe looked slightly horrified as he asked, “Were you in college?”
“Oh, no. My family wasn’t wealthy enough to send me.”
“So exactly how young are you?” Gabe asked.
“Twenty.”
“Jeezus.” Gabe let go of her to run his hands over his face.
“You dog, you.” Liam grinned.
Natalie sent Liam a glare. “Stop. She might look twenty but she’s actually like a hundred.”
“One hundred and twenty-four,” Liam corrected. “If she died that night.”
“Whatever.” Natalie frowned at Liam for using math against her. He knew she hated numbers.
Ignoring the two men—Gabe, who still looked a bit shell-shocked he was dating a girl young enough to be his daughter, and Liam, who was being his usual smart-ass self—Natalie turned back to Millie.
“You’re still in your party dress—and you look absolutely lovely, by the way. Just beautiful—but that makes me think, did you die that night? At the party?” she asked, keeping her voice gentle.
Millie’s eyes dropped away before she brought them back up.
“I don’t remember anything past midnight.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
“We spent like an hour at the last LADS meeting discussing what that nineteen-twenty scratched in the woodwork could mean and how it got there. And now that I’m pretty sure it happened at that huge pre-Prohibition New Year’s party, I can’t even tell Harper.”
The frustration of it was robbing Natalie of all enjoyment of her post-dinner tea and book now that Gabe and Millie had gone.
Liam glanced up from the television, a bottle of beer, his after-dinner beverage of choice, in his hand. “Why is that? Why can’t you tell Harper?”
“Um, hello. Ghosts.”
What was she supposed to say to explain how she knew that information? Without proof. Short of finding a diary or news article or some written documentation how could she possibly know if not from her ability to ask someone who’d been there? Died there…
With a distinct look of annoyance, Liam said, “That’s what I mean. Why haven’t you ever told Harper you can talk to ghosts? You’re friends.”
“Um, because she would have thought I was losing my mind.”
“You told me,” he reminded.
“Yeah, well, at the time I didn’t care if you thought I was delusional. And I was trying to make up for reporting you to the sheriff.”
He bobbed his head to the side. “I’ll concede that point, but don’t you see? Things are different now. There’s proof. She’ll be able to actually hear Gabe and Millie. She’ll know it’s true.”
“She’ll also know I’ve been lying to her since last summer.” Natalie could barely count all the times she’d lied to Harper. One of her best—one of her very few—living friends here.
“You can just explain—” Liam began.
“No,” she interrupted.
“Fine. Suit yourself.” He raised the bottle to his lips as his gaze moved back to the television.
If she weren’t so engrossed in the newest bestselling book the reading world was all agog over she might have been more annoyed with Liam for watching sports on her television even after his new game-watching buddy Gabe had left.
Gabe and Millie were heading back to the house where they’d all sheltered during the exorcism scare.
Now that they could be heard when they touched—and they were almost always touching—it was better they didn’t hang out at Agnes’s house where they might spook Harper again. Natalie didn’t have the energy for another cleansing session with Madame Letisha.
Apparently the house on the hill was not only huge, but the older couple who owned it had plenty of rooms that they rarely if ever used. And they had a dog.
According to Gabe, Millie liked dogs. Much more than she liked Agnes’s pet pig Petunia, which scared her and was, she was told, sometimes allowed inside the house.
After hearing Harper and Alice Mudd both talk about the dead body the pigs on the farm had so efficiently disposed of years ago, Natalie was going to look at pigs a little differently herself.
With her internal ruminations about pigs concluded, Natalie reopened her book and was about to lose herself once again in the story of one young woman’s life-and-death battles in a land of dragons and magic when Liam’s cell phone pinged.
Frowning she glanced up. Who could be texting her boyfriend at this hour?
He stood so he could extricate the cell from the pocket of his pants. She watched as he sat again and read the screen, before typing in a reply. Then he tossed the cell—face down—on the coffee table in front of him and picked up his beer again.
No explanation. No answer to who it was. Of course, she hadn’t asked, but still…
The book and its complex plot, immense cast of characters and sweeping world-building held no interest for her any longer. Not when real life intrigue was playing out before her.
Finally, when she could no longer stand it, she asked, “Who was that texting so late?”
“It’s not late.” He shot her a frown. “It’s not even eight.”
That was not an answer. Her heart began to pound as her imagination went wild.
“All right, it’s not that late. But who was it?” she asked again.
He glanced at her and said, “Stone. Why?”
“No reason. Just curious.”
Stone? They weren’t friends. They’d never texted each other in all the months since they’d met. At least as far as she knew.
“Since when do you and Stone text each other?” she asked, laying the book down and completely abandoning any hope of being able to concentrate on the story after this. “How does he even have your number?”
“We exchanged numbers when we were at the house for that… ghost thing,” he said, the frown creasing his brow.
“So why is he texting you now?” she asked, unable to let this rest.
Liam let out a sigh. He reached for the remote and muted the television, finally, then turned to her. “I’m meeting him at the Muddy River Inn tomorrow.”
“Oh. That sounds fun. Maybe I’ll join you.”
He shook his head. “We’re meeting early. At four-thirty. The shop will still be open. And with Jules out sick, you’ll have to work.”
“I’ll come over at six after I close. You should still be there, right? Or I could close early if it’s slow.”
“I doubt we’ll hang out past six. He’ll want to get home to Harper for dinner.”
“Harper can meet us. We can all have dinner there together.”
Liam grimaced. “Nat. We just want to have a couple of beers. Just us guys. Okay?”
Secret texts. Meet-ups she wasn’t invited to. That’s it. She was certain. Liam was cheating on her.
“Oh… Okay,” she said, tasting bile in the back of her throat.
She was going to vomit Salisbury steak, mashed potatoes, green beans and apple cobbler all over the floor if the panicked churning of her stomach was any indication.
Liam laughed. “Natalie. You don’t have to look like that. I just asked if I could have one guy’s night out with Stone. Am I not allowed to?”
“You’re allowed.” Her voice sounded way too high. She consciously lowered it as she said, “I’ll be happy if you and Stone become friends. Why wouldn’t I be?”
If it was Stone he was meeting…
She had to know for sure. She couldn’t survive with the doubt if she didn’t know.
And she knew one surefire way to find out.
Chapter Twenty-Three
The following morning was torture for Natalie.
She opened the store at ten, but no Gabe. She unpacked a delivery of wine and rearranged the front table’s books, but still no Gabe.
Lunchtime passed, but she felt too sick to her stomach to even eat one of the granola bars she kept stashed under the counter. Her morning coffee hadn’t set too well in her belly either.
Customers came and went. The cat disappeared and reappeared again, all while generally ignoring her as usual. The crow made an appearance to harass her from the roof for a bit but still no Gabe.
As the afternoon wore on she began to panic. No Gabe meant no one to spy on Liam for her.
She’d have to close the shop and drive over to the bar. Then peer through the window to see who Liam was actually meeting there. If he was there at all and not meeting his lover in some pied-à-terre—some love nest—somewhere nearby.
But the windows of the bar were high. She’d never be able to see in through them.
She’d have to put on some sort of a disguise so he wouldn’t recognize her—at least a hat and sunglasses—and peek in through the doorway.
“Hey, Nat.”
She spun to see Gabe had sauntered through the door and was currently taking a moment to peruse the new front display, as if her whole world wasn’t currently ending.
“Oh my God. What took you so long? I thought you’d never get here.”
“What’s wrong? What happened?” He moved immediately closer, looking concerned.
“Liam is cheating on me.”
“What? What happened? How do you know?”
“He got a text last night.”
“And?”
“And when I asked him about it he acted all…cagey. Finally he said it was Stone.”
“Okay…” Gabe said slowly.
“He said they’re meeting for a beer. Just the guys,” she said in an unflattering imitation of Liam’s voice.
Gabe hesitated, waiting. Finally, he said, “That’s it?”
“What do you mean, that’s it? I asked if I could come too and he basically said no.”
“And that means he’s cheating on you?”
“He could be. That’s why I need you to find out for sure.”
“Why me? Can’t you just ask Harper if Stone is meeting Liam?”
She drew back in horror. “And admit to a woman in a perfect relationship that I’m such a loser that my boyfriend is cheating on me? Besides, men lie for each other. Liam might have told Stone to tell Harper they were together.”
Gabe scowled. “None of that logic makes any sense. But if you don’t want to ask Harper then just call the bar and ask if Liam and Stone are there.”
“Maybe he bribed the bartender to say he’s there even if he’s not,” she suggested.
“How would that even work? You could ask to speak with him or show up there.”
“If I did that, then the bartender could just say, sorry, he just left.”
“You have an incredibly active imagination.” Gabe huffed out a breath. “You could be completely wrong about this and Liam is actually just going to hang out with Stone.”
“And you are in the perfect position to prove to me that I’m wrong, so why don’t you do it? Go over and see if they’re at the bar. You like being right. I’ll even let you say I told you so as often as you want if I am wrong. I promise.”
Gabe shook his head. “I really don’t feel comfortable—”
“Gabe! Please.”
“Natalie, think about it. What if he is? Cheating. And I’m not saying he is because I don’t think he is but if by some wild stretch of the imagination he is, then I have to be the one to tell you and break your heart. Is that fair to me?”
“Fair to you? This has nothing to do with you.” Didn’t he see that she was a mess?
“It has everything to do with me,” Gabe countered. “Think about it. If you somehow found out Stone was cheating on Harper, would you want to be the one to tell her?”
“I wouldn’t want to, but I’d know I should so I would do it. I’d have to. It would be hard but it’s the right thing to do. She has a right to know.” Natalie’s eyes flew wide. “Wait. Is Stone cheating on Harper? Did you see something? Did Millie tell you?”
“Jeezus. What goes on in your mind, woman? Do you always jump to the worst possible scenario?”
Gabe pressed both hands to his head as if this conversation was giving him a headache.
Welcome to the club, buddy. Her head had hurt since last night after that text came in.
“And no. Stone’s not cheating. He’s a farmer. Do you know how hard they work? I don’t think he’d have the energy to have an affair and handle Harper, who’s a handful, I can tell you. I know. I spent some time in that house.” Gabe shook his head. “You need to relax.”
Natalie folded her arms across her chest. “I will relax. After you go to the bar and see for yourself that Stone and Liam are there and this is all as innocent as you say it is. And if you tell me what they’re talking about.”
Gabe’s eyes flashed. “No. That’s pushing it too far.”
She scowled. “Fine. So then I guess asking you to look around the warehouse for any evidence is out of the question?”
Breathing in through his nose with his lips pressed into an unhappy line, Gabe narrowed his eyes at her in a glare that gave her his answer to that question.
