Ghost of a Chance (6 page)

“It’s dirty and run down and looks like it’s
going to fall into the sea,” Pixie said, looking around the room.
“I like it.”

“Hush, you. You’re not helping.” I took a
firmer grip on the dog statue. “My husband bought the house at some
sort of a foreclosure sale, I believe. A couple of days ago.”

“I haven’t even been home for the last ten
days, so I don’t see how…” The sentence petered out as a look of
horror crept into Adam’s eyes. Without another word, he ran out of
the room, loud footsteps quickly fading into nothing.

I sat down heavily on the nearest chair, a
sick feeling of sympathy gripping my stomach. I no longer had on
any blinders to the less-than-sterling morals of my husband. It was
entirely possible that he had bought the house out from under Adam,
without so much as giving him time to clear out his belongings.

A moment later, Adam burst back into the
room, shaking a paper beneath my nose and yelling in a way that was
anatomically impossible, even for a third-generation polter.

After allowing him to rage at me for a few
minutes, I managed to pry the paper out of his fisted hand. “That
bastard! That royal bastard.” He stormed, pacing up and down the
length of the sitting room.

I smoothed the paper on my knee and gave it
a quick once-over before looking up at where he now loomed over me,
his face dark with emotion.

Pixie leaned over my shoulder to read it.
“Foreclosure. That’s not good, is it?”

“No.” I watched Adam for a moment. “Where
did you find this?”

“It was in my mailbox. Look at the
date!”

I glanced back at the foreclosure notice. It
was dated six months before. “I gather from your colorful
suggestions of what your mortgage company can do with themselves
that this is the first you’ve heard of foreclosure
proceedings?”

“It is!” He snarled an obscenity and stomped
over ro a small keyhole desk, then yanked a phone book from a
drawer. “This is bullshit. I may have been late on a few mortgage
payments, but not foreclosure late. No one at the bank ever
mentioned that I was at risk to lose the house—no one! I’ve
certainly never had any letters stating the house was going into
foreclosure.”

The sick feeling in my gut grew. “Perhaps
there’s been some massive mix-up…”

“Like hell there is,” he said, his eyes cold
with fury as he snatched up the phone. “Meredith had better tell me
what’s going on if he knows what’s good for him.”

“Meredith?” I asked, the sick feeling in my
belly turning to outright horror. “Meredith Bane?”

The look Adam turned on me would have likely
sent any sane person screaming from the room, but I was not known
for my rationalness. “You know him?”

“No, not personally. But I’ve heard his name
mentioned. He’s my husband’s business partner. Meredith runs the
local bank… Oh. Pixie, come over here.”

“Des-de-mona! It’s not that hard to
remember!”

Slowly, Adam hung up the phone, his face a
frozen mask. I got to my feet, my hand on Pixie’s arm, prepared to
shove her out the door and race for the car if Adam took even so
much as one threatening step toward us. “Karma…
Marx
. Your
husband is Spider Marx, the real estate agent?”

I pushed Pixie behind me, backing us up
three steps toward the door. “I believe we’ll be on our way now. I
have a few things to do before tonight—” My lips clamped down on
the sentence. I had a feeling Adam wouldn’t appreciate hearing
about Spider’s plan for the house that night.

“Like finding an outfit to wear at the
séance,” Pixie said from behind me.

“What?” Adam asked, still coming toward us,
his face red with anger. “What séance? What the hell are you
talking about?”

“Run, you idiot,” I said, spinning around
and shoving Pixie none too gently out the door. She must have
decided it was wiser to lip off to me than Adam, because she raced
for the car.

“You can tell your husband that it’ll be a
cold day in hell before I let the likes of him take possession of
my home!” Adam bellowed from the verandah.

Despite his anger, I felt an odd sort of
kinship with Adam. I knew what it was like to be on the recipient
end of Spider’s immoral actions. Although Adam’s problems weren’t
mine, a horribly annoying compulsion to help him refused to be
squashed.

I stopped in front of the car and looked
back at him. “Look, I’m really very sorry about this whole mess.
Clearly something is going on that’s not at all right. I don’t know
what I can do, but I will be happy to talk to Spider about it—”

“You can talk all you like! The house is
mine, and it’s going to stay mine!” he yelled, his eyes blazing
with a cold blue anger.

“You’re understandably angry now, but if we
could just sit down and talk this out—”

“There is nothing to talk about. I’ll warn
you right now, Karma Marx: I protect what is mine. Stay out of my
house!”

“That’s going to be a little difficult
considering she’s supposed to be cleaning the house tonight,” Pixie
pointed out from the safety of the car.

I wanted to strangle her on the spot.

“Clean? You want to clean my hou—”
Understanding dawned in his eyes, chased by rage. “You’re a damned
exterminator, aren’t you? You’re here to destroy my wards!”

The use of the word “ward” was interesting.
It told me there was more to the man in front of me than was
readily apparent.

“It’s not my choice,” I said simply, meeting
his furious glare with one that I hoped expressed sympathy. “I will
see if there’s something that can be done to straighten up this
mess. I don’t know what I can do, but I will try. Perhaps if you
talked to Spider—”

“I don’t need your damned help! If your
husband tries to step foot in my house, he’ll regret it. So help me
god, you’ll both regret it!” he bellowed, marching back into the
house and slamming the door.

Pixie looked thoughtfully at the house as I
got into the car. “He really was pissed, huh?”

“Understatement of the year,” I murmured as
I turned the car around.

She sat back with a faint, satisfied little
smile. “Tonight’s going to rock. I can’t wait to see what he does
to the flower chick.”

Spider was home when we returned an hour
later.

“Keep your cape on until you’re in your
room,” I warned Pixie in a low voice before she got out of the
car.

“Why. Is he another bigot?”

“Spider can be extremely unpleasant when he
puts his mind to it. I’d rather you were under his radar.”

She pursed her lips, but nodded.

“Leaving so soon?” I couldn’t help asking as
Spider carried two large suitcases out to his car. I leaned against
the garage door, suddenly too tired to move.

Spider ignored Pixie, who clutched her cape
around herself as she hurried past him to the guest room I’d given
over to her.

“I thought it would be best, given our
agreement. Or perhaps you’ve changed your mind about that?” he
asked, pulling me into an embrace. He rubbed his hips against me
and murmured suggestive words as he nibbled a spot on my neck.
“Could it be you realize what you’ll be missing by giving me
up?”

The headache that had been drugged into
submission pulsed to life again. I put both hands on Spider’s chest
and pushed him back, idly wondering if the nausea that accompanied
the migraine was entirely due to the pain or if my husband wasn’t
the cause of at least some of it. In fact, lately, the headaches
seemed to increase intensity, too, whenever he was around. “Stop
it, Spider. Despite your wishes, I will be quite happy on my own.
This may come as a shock to you, but you’re not irresistible
anymore.”

“Just because you don’t get wet at the sight
of me doesn’t mean there aren’t plenty of women who do.” He laughed
as he slapped me on the behind before reentering the house. “Who’s
the prime bit in black?”

I dug my knuckles into the pressure points
between my eyebrows, praying the migraine didn’t flare up into its
full glory. After a few seconds, the pain faded enough for me to
make my way into the house. “I told you I was taking in a girl from
the children’s home. Her name is Pixie, and she is just fifteen,
hardly old enough to be considered a ‘prime bit.’ ”

“You’d be surprised,” he said, waggling his
eyebrows at me. “If I’d known you meant such a sweet young thing
when you said ‘girl,’ I wouldn’t have been so quick to leave.”

“That’s not even remotely amusing,” I
snapped, slamming down my things onto the hall table.

Spider disappeared into the bedroom. I
leaned against the door frame, watching as he emptied the contents
of a dresser into a large duffel bag. “I went out to the Walsh
house today.”

“It’s a mess, isn’t it? But it’s going to
make us a lot of money. A few fixes here and there, a bit of
polish, and it’ll do.”

The pain and nausea were back. I slid along
the wall to a chair that sat a few feet from the door. “The owner
isn’t very pleased, you know.”

“Owner?” He looked up from arranging socks.
“The previous one, you mean?”

“Yes. He didn’t know the house was in danger
of being foreclosed upon.”

Spider shrugged. “His loss, not mine. He
should have paid closer attention to his affairs.”

“He swore you wouldn’t take the house from
him, Spider. He sounded like he meant it.” My sense of fair play
demanded that I warn Spider of Adam’s intention. Fat lot of good
that did me. Spider just laughed it off.

“He’s all bark and no bite. Don’t you worry
your pretty little head about old Spider. I can take care of
myself.”

I flinched when he tried to pat my cheek. My
head throbbed so horribly for a few seconds I seriously thought I
was going to pass out. When the feeling lessened, I followed Spider
out to the living room, where he had packed up various trophies and
awards from his sporting days. I collapsed onto the couch, using my
knuckles to hit every pressure point on my head that I could
recall. “Did you somehow steal the house from him?”

“ ‘Steal’ is such a very nasty word,” Spider
said, pausing before our wedding picture. He shook his head and
passed on, moving behind the entertainment center to begin
unplugging the stereo equipment. “For six months I’ve made him very
attractive offers on the house—offers that far exceeded what the
antique junk pile is worth. He refused to negotiate.”

The feeling of dread returned to my belly. I
had a suspicion I didn’t want to hear what Spider was going to say
next.

“Did he tell you that he’d been late with or
missed several house payments? The bank has the right to foreclose
after so many missed payments, you know. They also have the right
to sell the mortgage to others. There was nothing illegal in what I
did; I simply waited until his carelessness left the property in a
position where I could acquire his mortgage in an expedient manner,
then did so. And before you accuse me of conducting any more
illegal acts, I did send him the legal notice informing him of the
change. I even went so far as to say that unless he paid the
past-due amount on the house, I would have no recourse but to
foreclose.”

I thought seriously of vomiting on him but
knew that would provide only temporary satisfaction. “You did all
this when? While he was out of town and unable to respond? Unable
to save his house? How much time did you give him to pay you? A
week? A day?”

Spider grinned. “He had the legal
forty-eight hours to respond. He chose not to do so.”

“You’re an evil man, but you know that.”

“It’s not evil to be savvy, darling. Be a
love and grab the DVD player, would you?”

I gritted my teeth against the pain, picking
up the DVD player and following him out to his car. I hated to see
the electronics go, since movies and music were two of my few
pleasures, but it was worth losing them to see the last of the
monster I’d married twelve years before.

“What are you looking so down in the dumps
about?” he asked when I silently handed him the player. “You’re
getting everything you demanded.”

“At the expense of an innocent man, who is
going to lose his beloved home.”

Spider rolled his eyes and tossed the duffel
bag into the car. “He’ll find another. I’m doing him a favor,
really. The house is a dump, and it’s full of evil spirits. Better
to get it cleaned out and taken care of than let it rot. Besides,
you know who used to live there?”

I followed him back into the house.

“Poltergeists.” He made a face as if he’d
bitten something sour.

“What’s wrong with polters?”

“They’re evil.” He looked around the house,
clearly scanning for anything else he wanted to take with him.

“Judging by the pictures my father took of
your nocturnal activities, I’d have thought you had an affection
for polters, not hated them.”

He grinned again, giving my butt a squeeze.
I slapped his hand away and moved to the other side of the dining
room table. “Just because I’m not blind to their true nature
doesn’t mean I hate them. There are many times when it’s quite the
opposite. The young ones are particularly delectable. Naomi—she’s
the redhead in the picture—was as limber as the rest of the
poltergeists I’ve known. And just as insatiable. Lots of energy.
She just kept going and going and going. Oh yes, they can be
very
tasty in the right circumstances.”

“You really are contemptible; you know that,
right?”

“Jealous?” he asked with a loathsome
leer.

“Hardly. My tastes don’t run to
eighteen-year-olds the way yours do. I just hope that someday
you’ll be caught by an irate father.”

“Won’t happen, sweetheart. I’m very, very
careful. I don’t leave loose ends.”

I frowned, wondering what the hell that
meant. I’d known for the last few months that some of Spider’s
lovers had been inappropriately young for him, but I assumed they
had been just as willing as he had. Certainly the participants in
the photos my father had shown me looked enthusiastic.