Ghost Guy: Hell to Pay (Ghost Guy Series Book 1), page 9
"I'm the worst detective in the entire world," she moaned.
"Nah," Tucker shrugged. "You can just hold on to hope longer than most people."
She laughed bitterly and slumped down onto the top step with a sigh.
"So it's always been you?" she questioned.
"Ever since the explosion," Tucker confirmed.
He wanted to leave it at that, but he sat beside her and waited for her to say something else.
He wanted to ask questions of his own, wanted to know more about Nevin, but he wasn't sure she would want to share Nevin with him. Once more, Tucker was an interloper, trespassing where he didn't belong.
"What happened?" Darcie asked.
Tucker wasn't in the mood to talk about it, but for her sake, especially if it would get her off his back, he would relive that stupid day once more.
"I ditched school," Tucker said. "I shouldn't've. Sissy didn't like it when I skipped."
"Your sister," Darcie stated.
"Yeah."
"I'm sorry," she said without saying why.
"Me too," he said. "She promised to protect me, and she was just trying to find me. But I didn't leave like she thought I had. I was too scared to leave. If I had known that Sissy would… Well, anyway, maybe then I would've left."
That wasn't what Darcie wanted to know about though, so Tucker calmed his heart and said, "I was sorta on the way to school, but some guy stopped me and asked me to deliver a package to this building. He said he was running late and offered me twenty bucks. Twenty whole bucks!" Tucker said wonderingly, still feeling the awe of that moment.
He was carrying over three hundred dollars in his wallet right now, so the idea that he had died for twenty dollars was sort of ridiculous. But at the time…
"We could've eaten for a week off twenty bucks," Tucker said softly. "So yeah, I didn't even think about it. I took the money and the package, and I ran.
"Nevin must've been somewhere watching, because after I had delivered the package, when I was coming back outside, he grabbed me and asked where it was. He thought there was a bomb in it, but I didn't believe him. It seemed stupid and random. And anyway, it wasn't that big of a package. How much damage could it have really done?"
Just enough to kill two people, Tucker thought before saying out loud, "I told him where I'd delivered the package, and he dashed into the building. He pulled the fire alarm and started going floor to floor telling everyone to get out. I think he got the whole building cleared."
"He did," Darcie said softly.
"Good. It's hard enough… I mean… I killed him," Tucker admitted. "It's my fault. Nevin's dead because of me."
"He's dead because he did his job," she countered.
"He's dead because of me," Tucker insisted. "I didn't believe him, so I went back in, and just when I had reached the package and torn it open, Nevin grabbed me and started pulling me away. But then…"
That moment still haunted him. The explosion had been so loud, that it had crossed back over into silence; and it had been accompanied by a violent flash of white; the kind of white that crawled inside your brain and took residence. It was all he had been able to see. It had consumed him.
And when he had been able to see again, he and Nevin were just sort of standing there, staring down at their bodies.
"And then we were dead," Tucker said. "Nevin said, 'Let's go,' but he didn't know where, and I didn't wanna go. So I didn't. He left me behind, and I was standing there screaming, staring down at my mangled body, afraid I would never see Sissy again. My body wouldn't let me back in, so I tried Nevin's… And, I guess that's about the size of it."
He still felt that guilt. It was like a building was sitting on top of him; that was how guilty he felt. He should have been the one to die. But Nevin had already gone, and he had left his body behind. Tucker didn't regret taking it. It had been going to rot anyway. What he regretted was getting Nevin killed in the first place.
"He would have gone back in anyway, to try to disarm the bomb," Darcie said softly.
"That's stupid," Tucker insisted. "It was just a building."
"But he couldn't have known for sure that he had gotten everyone out," she claimed. "He would have always gone back. It's not your fault."
"But I delivered the bomb!"
"Did you know it was a bomb?"
"No!" Tucker snapped.
"If you hadn't done it, someone else would have. And then maybe Nevin wouldn't have been there to save all those people. God, I miss him."
Tucker could relate. He didn't miss Nevin; he hadn't even known Nevin, but he did miss Sissy.
"Do you really help ghosts?" Darcie asked.
"Yeah."
"That's pretty cool. I didn't know ghosts were real, but Nevin would like that. I mean, well, you know what I mean. Except for the Graves," she snapped, slapping him on the shoulder. "What the hell business do you have with them?"
Dog with a bone. She just couldn't let anything go.
And how could he explain it to her? There were too many secrets, and he wasn't that great at lying.
"I'll take this one, Tucker," Tessa said from behind him.
Tucker swallowed a shriek. He hadn't heard her coming, and apparently Darcie hadn't either because she stiffened, but then she stood and faced Tessa, her expression indignant.
"Would you like to come inside, Detective Parker?" Tessa asked, her tone rather more insistent than suggestive.
"Do I have a choice?" Darcie snapped.
"Of course you have a choice. Just like you have a choice not to ticket my fucking car whenever you see it."
"It's not like they ever stick," Darcie spat.
"It's not like I'm breaking any laws," Tessa retorted. "Badri's already set out the tea. Come inside, and we'll have a nice, cozy chat."
Her tone sent shivers down Tucker's spine.
Darcie must have had a similar reaction because she snarled, "They know where I'm at, so if I disappear—"
"They would never find you," Tessa interrupted, her tone flat. "And no one would ever come knocking here. But if I wanted to kill you, I wouldn't be wasting precious time talking to you. This is Ollie's night, and I deeply resent the fact that you're interrupting it."
Just once, Tucker wished the Graves would try to make sense.
Darcie must have understood at least part of Tessa's statement though because she snarled, "Did you just threaten me?"
"I never threaten," Tessa said easily. "And I only kill people who pose a threat to my family, which now includes Tucker," she added firmly.
She was like some kind of scary guardian angel. Only she wasn't very angelic, so maybe he didn't deserve a guardian angel; maybe he had a guardian demon instead.
"If I'm going to be up this fucking late and not for any good reason, I want whiskey," Tessa went on. "So get your ass in the house. Now."
Her tone was so commanding and so unarguable that Darcie rushed inside without a single protest.
"You too," Tessa said, pinning Tucker with a hard stare.
"You're really scary," Tucker told her.
"She's lucky I didn't set Ollie on her," Tessa snapped. "She's not in a very forgiving mood tonight. Now come on; we're wasting time."
When Tessa and Tucker reached the sitting room, Darcie was already sitting awkwardly on the skinny couch thing. She was staring nervously at her hands, and Tucker felt a little sorry for her. But only a very little. Part of him thought it probably served her right for the hell she had put him through over the years.
"Tessa, dear, a guest at this hour?" Gisele murmured.
She was sitting across from Darcie, an oddly sharp smile on her face; and Ollie was sitting on the other side of the room, slowly and meticulously cleaning a gun that was three times the size of her hands. She didn't seem to notice Darcie, but since Tucker was certain Gisele would have normally said something like "no gun cleaning in the sitting room, dear," he suspected that Ollie was putting on a show of force. And it was clearly working because Darcie looked so nauseous that Tucker took pity on her and sat beside her.
As soon as Tessa sat, Gisele started to pour the tea, and Tucker watched her in disbelief. These women really were something else. They poured tea like the queen of England while simultaneously acting like a mafia family.
D-Dog was right. Tucker never ever wanted to be on the wrong side of the Graves women. In the future, if they invited him to dinner, he would come to dinner.
"Now," Tessa said after she had passed Darcie a cup of tea, cream, no sugar. "About all those parking tickets…"
"Your family is responsible for—"
"You don't need to tell me what my family is responsible for," Tessa broke in. "I know. There are more skeletons in my family closet than even you could imagine, Detective Parker. However, my personal closets are squeaky clean. I may not handle things the same way you would, but if your goal is to stop assholes from hurting people, then you and I are on the same team."
"You don't just get to make your own rules," Darcie sputtered.
Tessa cast a glance at Gisele; Gisele shook her head. Tessa rolled her eyes, but when she returned her attention to Darcie, she was smiling. Tucker had never seen anything quite so terrifying.
"I can tell we're not going to be able to see eye to eye," Tessa said. "And that's fine. But I want you to leave Tucker alone."
Tucker had the strangest urge to argue. It wasn't that he didn't want Darcie to leave him alone. He did. Fervently. But he also wanted to know more about Nevin.
Maybe that wasn't smart though. Maybe he needed to let Nevin go. Maybe he needed to stop trying to somehow make Nevin proud. After all, Nevin was dead. He had left his body behind, and Tucker had taken it. It hadn't been theft. No more than it was theft to take food out of the dumpster and eat it.
"You've been harassing Tucker for over five years now," Tessa said. "I want you to stop."
"I didn't know he was…" Darcie trailed off and looked at Tucker as if seeing him for the first time. "I didn't know he wasn't Nevin."
"But now you do," Tessa said.
There was a derisive edge to Tessa's voice, and the implication was that Darcie should have known. And Tucker agreed. How could she not have known?
"And this little hatchet you have to grind with the Graves family," Tessa went on. "Let's go ahead and bury that."
"You can't tell me what to do!" Darcie spat.
"I'm not trying to," Tessa said. "I'm merely suggesting that if you continue to dig into things that are none of your concern, you might be deemed a threat."
"I thought you were all about stopping assholes from hurting people?" Darcie accused.
"I am," Tessa said. "And only an asshole puts a ticket on someone's car when they're legally parked. I can only imagine what other rules a person like that might be willing to break in order to fulfill their so-called justice."
"You're a cold bitch, aren't you?" Darcie snarled.
"Yes."
Just then a loud metallic click resounded through the room, startling Tucker, and he gulped when he realized that Ollie had just racked the slide on her gun.
Darcie had jumped too, and now she was staring at Ollie with a mutinous look on her face, but Tucker could tell Darcie was frightened.
"It's ok," Tucker said softly. "They're just trying to protect me. Like Sissy would. And you're trying to protect Nevin, but Nevin's gone. I'm not him, and I'll never be him. I can't go back to a family and a life that's not mine. As insane as it seems," Tucker said, glancing at each of the Graves women, "this is my life."
Gisele beamed at him, and he quickly looked away from her. Joy was weird; it always made him feel itchy.
"I don't know how to let go," Darcie whispered.
"I don't think you can," Tucker admitted. "Nevin will always invade your thoughts and shift your actions. You'll always want to tell him things. You'll always glance to the side expecting to see him."
Tucker closed his eyes; and Sissy's face gazed back at him, her beautiful smile chasing away all of his fears.
"Nevin will always be part of you," Tucker whispered. "And nothing will change that. Just like nothing will change that I'm not him. You and I have no connection. I haven't marked you."
He heard a muffled sob, but he kept his eyes closed. He hated that he had caused Darcie grief, but he had also done everything he could to soothe it.
"I'm sorry," she choked out.
He heard her rush from the room, and only when he was certain that she was gone did he open his eyes.
Tessa was smiling at him, and it even looked genuine. It also looked… affectionate?
"I like you," she said.
Tucker dropped his eyes to the floor. What a weird thing for her to say. And could she really mean it? Maybe she meant it right now, but he was certain the emotion would fade, maybe even by tomorrow.
So instead of acknowledging Tessa's statement, Tucker said worriedly, "Would you really kill her?"
Darcie was a pain in the ass, but he thought she was mostly a good person, and he didn't want anyone to hurt her, especially on his account.
"If she asked me to," Tessa shrugged.
There she went again, talking in the Graves' code.
"You handled that majestically, Tessa dear," Gisele praised. "I'm so proud of you."
"I just tried to think of what one of your heroines would do," Tessa replied as she popped the cork on a whiskey bottle she had pulled out from under her chair.
Gisele smiled widely, and Tucker could see that Tessa's statement had really pleased her.
Tessa looked Tucker's way again and said, "I have a job tomorrow that I want your help with. And you can't ditch me this time because I know where you're sleeping tonight."
Her tone and words were threatening, and there was a strange glimmer to her smile when she said it; but, for some reason, she didn't scare him. Not anymore.
Oh, she was terrifying, and he would hate to be in Darcie's shoes, but he knew without a doubt that Tessa wouldn't hurt him. Not when she had made up her mind to protect him.
"What do you say to a little light reading to settle us for the night?" Gisele offered.
Tucker felt his cheeks begin to heat up, and he wanted to say no, absolutely not, but his mouth had dried out and his tongue couldn't seem to move.
"Look at his face, Grandma," Tessa sighed. "He can't handle it."
"If we're bringing him into the fold, he's going to have to learn," Gisele retorted.
Tucker's first thought was to announce that he could leave, but he suddenly didn't want to. These women were nothing like Sissy, but in some ways, they were everything like Sissy. Each of them had shown up to protect him. And he thought that was kind of nice.
"What about one of your less racy novels?" Ollie suggested. "The ones you used to read to me?"
"Oh!" Gisele exclaimed. "I haven't read one of those in years! What a fantastic idea."
Tucker wasn't sure what racy meant, and he added it to his growing list of words to look up.
"I know just the one!" Gisele announced. "It's called The Maiden's Flower."
Tessa groaned.
"I remember that one," Ollie said. "It's perfect."
"But, Ollie—"
"It's alright," Ollie insisted. "That was before her double entendre stage. She literally meant a flower."
"Oh. An actual flower?" Tessa asked dubiously.
"Yes."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes," Ollie laughed.
Tessa shrugged, moved over to sit beside Tucker, waved her whiskey bottle Gisele's way, and said, "Carry on."
Tucker started blushing again.
"It'll be alright," Tessa whispered. "The first five or six times are painful. But then to your horror, you realize that you like it and life would seem a little drabber without it. Sort of like your hair. Or Gisele's penchant for redecorating."
Tucker wasn't sure if he had just been insulted or complimented, but since the Graves women seemed to insult each other regularly, he was beginning to wonder if perhaps an insult was their version of a hug. They were one twisted family, certainly not anything like the TV family he had always imagined.
"Ah-ha!" Gisele exclaimed. "I found it!"
She pulled a novel from a shelf that was absolutely packed with novels and gazed at the front cover rather fondly.
"I remember writing this one," she sighed. "Your father had left me at the estate for the summer, Olive; and I was feeling rather dull. You were in your horse stage and didn't have much need of me. I've never been good with horses."
"I remember," Ollie said.
"The garden was so lovely that year," Gisele said dreamily. "It was my inspiration, you know. Oh, I do miss the garden."
"It's not blooming yet," Ollie told her. "Soon though."
"Yes, dear, soon."
They smiled at each other, and Tucker saw a glimpse of the genuine affection they felt for each.
Then Gisele sat back down and said, "The Maiden's Flower. You're going to like this one, Tucker dear."
Tucker glanced at the door.
"If you run," Tessa whispered, "she'll punish us all."
"That's not fair," Tucker protested.
"No," Tessa agreed. "It's Gisele."
"Magnus is waiting for me," Gisele said smugly, "so let's get on with it."
Tucker couldn't remember Sissy ever telling him he couldn't listen to romance novels, and this seemed to be really important to Gisele, so he shrugged and waited for her to do that thing she did with her throat.
She did it. Twice. And then she said, "I'm starting with the assembly. An assembly is a dance, Tucker. Sort of like a ball, but it happens in an assembly hall in a smallish town instead of in a ballroom in a large house. Do you understand?"
He didn't, but he nodded anyway.
"This book is set in the mid-1800s in England. Lords, ladies, dukes, duchesses. You know?"
He didn't, but he nodded anyway. He would Google it later.
"We're following a man named Oscar Cornwallis. He's a second son with no inheritance whatsoever. He's a barrister, which is a type of lawyer, dear. It's not of any importance," she added with a delicate shrug. "A man's occupation is hardly ever of any importance."
