The Misadventures of the Laundry Hag: All Washed Up: (Book 3 in the Misadventures of the Laundry Hag series) (9 page)

 I stuck out a hand and tried not to notice his scrutiny of my burns. “Not personally. I’m Maggie Phillips and this is my husband, Neil.”

 Two scraggly brows drew together in thought, and then went up as though to say, eureka! “Phillips you say. Be ye the new owners of the old lock house?”

 “We’re kin to them, aye.” I had a habit of adopting other people’s accents and patterns of speech. Too much time watching television as a kid instead of being out in the world forming my own identity, or some such psychological claptrap. The more time I spent around Penny, the more I drawled. Luckily, I’d never taken up the Boston intonation, but Mr. Grant’s brogue fell right out of my mouth like a piece of poisoned apple.

 Neil shot me an amused glance but didn’t comment.

 “Well, it’s nice to be meeting ye both in any case. Come on up to the house and meet the missus.”

 The missus stood on the porch, the picture of classic Americana. White hair pulled back in a tight bun, spectacles perched on the end of her hawk-like nose, crisp white apron over her long sleeved housecoat. She was plump and looked exceedingly competent. She had the same surprised reaction as her husband, though she recovered faster. I stared at her and wrestled with a sense of
déjà vu
.

 Neil actually did a double take.

 “What’s the matter?” I hissed.

He looked from her to me and back again, his lips curling up in a smile. “Behold my future.”

I scowled at him and then sucked in a breath as I realized what he meant. Same bright blue eyes, same squared-off set to her shoulders, same pointed chin and a ready smile lurking at the corners of her mouth. The one I’d seen in the mirror only a few hours earlier.

Mrs. Grant could have been my grandmother. Or at the very least, a distant relation.

“Agnes, these be our new neighbors.” Mr. Grant made the introductions.

“Maggie, is it?” Mrs. Grant greeted me in the same forthright manner as her husband. She said something incomprehensible and waited for a response.

“I’m sorry?”

“I asked if you had any of the Gaelic about ye, but ye don’t. A lowlander then?” She looked disappointed by the thought.

“My grandmother McIntyre was from Saltcoats.” I named the Scottish seaside town I’d once Googled but had never seen.

Though she looked disappointed, she waved it off. “Aye, well, nothing tae be done about it now. Would you care to come in for a spot of tea?”

We accepted the offer of tea, which was the fresh leaf kind instead of from a tea bag. Mrs. Grant served it with lemon iced teacakes and fluffy rolls smothered in delectable honey butter. I rolled my eyes and barely stifled a moan at the taste. Fan-freaking-tastic, just like Alex Ruiz’s pancakes. I’d be so flipping fat if we lived here fulltime. This town was a carbgasm looking for a place to happen and my ass was volunteering as the venue.

I’d half expected Neil to just take over the proceedings, but he cast me a sidelong glance that said,
this is your show, Uncle Scrooge.

I set my tea cup aside and smiled at our hosts but before I could think of what to say, Mrs. Grant took the reins. “Forgive us, lass, but you gave us quite a start.”

“Oh?”

 “You bear a startling resemblance to our granddaughter, Gillian.” She picked up a photograph from the wooden mantle and handed it to me.

I stared at the picture, which did look like me, although this time a younger, thinner me. Though the resemblance to Mrs. Grant was noticeable, the photograph I held actually could have been one of me a few years earlier. Same sprinkle of freckles across the nose, same unruly brown hair, same bit of mischief in the eyes.

Neil whistled. “They say everyone has a twin, somewhere.”

“Do you happen to know if there’s a Guinevere Grant anywhere in your family tree?” Mr. Grant asked. “She was my three times great aunt, who ran away on her wedding night. ‘Twas an arranged marriage and her disappearance caused quiet the hullabaloo at the time. Vanished into thin air. Some said she was taken by the fairies. Still others speculated that she drowned herself in the loch rather than wed Connor McBride. We never did find out what had become of her. I’m wondering if she may have been kin to ye several generations back.”

“I have no idea.” The sheer amount of personal history the Grants rattled off by rote boggled my mind. I barely knew my grandmother’s middle name, never mind a three generations removed great aunt’s love life. I handed the picture back over to Mrs. Grant. “Wouldn’t that be something?”

“Oh, aye, it wouldna be the first time a distant relation showed up on our doorstep.” Mrs. Grant offered me the tray of cakes and I took another one so as not to seem rude. Plus, they were phenomenally delicious.

“Really? Who was that?” Neil asked. The picture of self-control, he waved away the offer of more cake. Showoff.

Mr. Grant leaned back in his chair and nodded. “Aye, my wife’s second cousin read about us in the papers after—” His lips clamped together abruptly.

“After what?” I asked, smelling a lead.

The Grants exchanged a loaded look. “Gillian’s mother, our daughter Aileene, died. It was during a party at the Grey estate. Poor wee lass.” Mrs. Grant turned her head away, but not before I saw the sadness on her face.

“I’m so sorry for your loss.” Though I wanted to ask if Aileene had died in childbirth, I thought better of it. No need to ask when either. If the death had made the papers, I could find it.

“The Greys are your employers?” Neil nodded out the pristine front window toward the mansion on the bluff.

Mr. Grant nodded. “Just so. They’re weekenders though so you won’t be seeing them until Friday at the earliest. My wife is their cook and housekeeper and I tend the grounds. Even Gillian helps out when she’s home from school.”

We chatted a little longer about Gillian’s schooling. She was twenty two and studying to be a veterinarian. When I was twenty two my life was a toxic wasteland so I admired her diligence. It became clear that the Grants were as proud of their granddaughter’s ambition as they were of their heritage.

“You must come back again soon, perhaps when Gillian is home. We’ll show ye a proper welcome.”

 We promised to bring the boys along with our company on Saturday night. I exited the cottage with a warm feeling and a full belly.

 “So, what do you think?” Neil asked.

 “You’ll have to be more specific.”

 “I mean, what are the chances that the bean nighe is the Grant’s daughter Aileene?” Neil asked as he put the truck in gear.

 “Probably fairly decent. There was definitely something hidden there. Did you see that look they shared? My bet is there’s something more than the tragedy of losing a child.”

 “As if that wasn’t bad enough. So, back to the library?”

 “It’s after five. They’ll be closed.”

 “The diner then. Maybe you can ask Alex or Gustav about it.”

 “Nope, they shut down for dinner too. Looks like we’ll just have to call it a day.” I beamed at him.

 He shook his head, a small smile playing around the corners of his mouth. “You sound all broken up about that, Uncle Scrooge.”

 I shrugged my shoulders. “We worked hard today and I don’t know about you, Slick, but I’m definitely ready for some down time.”

 Heat flashed across his face and he looked at me. “Oh yeah? What did you have in—?”

 A woman appeared in the road right in front of us.

 “Look out!” I screamed and pointed at the woman standing in the middle of the road.

 Neil spun the wheel, the truck rolled with an earsplitting shriek of metal dragging across the ground, and the world went dark.

Chapter Nine

 Something was burning.

 The smell woke me out of the haze of aching confusion where I’d lingered. I coughed, the acrid tang of smoke coating my tongue. If I’d had any saliva I would have spat but my mouth felt like I’d been licking a lint screen.

 Though it was a struggle, I got my eyelids open and took in the carnage. The truck was totaled, and from the view out the windshield cracked with spider web-like fractures, rested on its side. My body was held fast against my seatbelt, though gravity tried to pull my weight to the left.

 Neil.

 I turned my head and saw him, slumped with his head turned away from me. A dark red stain ran down the side of his neck. The airbag on his side had deployed. I could see the deflating mass as it hung from the wreckage of the steering column. I called his name, coughing on the single syllable. Panic loosed adrenaline in my system and it jangled through my body like a fistful of coins in a jogger’s pants pocket.

 I fought to free myself from the seatbelt, but it was jammed good and tight. From the other side of the car, Neil groaned but didn’t respond to my prompts. I had to get him the hell out of there, like ten minutes ago.

 
Think, Maggie, damn you, think
! I scanned the interior of the truck for a way out. My gaze landed on the broken rearview mirror that hung at an angle. Without any further consideration, I reached for a shard of glass, pulled it loose and went to work on my seatbelt.

 I ignored the sting in my palm and sawed the glass shard over the nylon until the strap across my chest came free. My upper body shifted down closer to Neil and I managed to slither mostly out of the lap belt so I could assess his condition up close.
 He groaned as I touched his face, the blood stemming mostly from his nose, which looked broken. “Neil,” I said again, half frantic and on the verge of going ape shit. “Talk to me, damn it!”

 His eyelids lifted a mere fraction of an inch. “Maggie?” he rasped.

 “Right here. Can you move? Something’s burning and we need to get the hell out of here.”

 He shifted, groaned and bit off the sound. He swore and then looked to where I hung almost upside down like an overgrown opossum. His eyes slid closed. “Go without me.”

 “Don’t be stupid,” I snarled at him. I was scared, especially at the thought of burning to death. I’d already had a taste of what burns could manage. Leaving him to that fate wasn’t an option. “Your choice, hero. Either help me get you the hell out of here or we’re both going to die.”

 I saw him take my statement in, accepting that I meant every word. “Tell me what to do.”

 He squinted at me and shook his head, fighting the fog that threatened to consume him. He lifted his hand to stem the flow of blood from his nose. “Can you kick out the windshield?”

 It took some maneuvering but I finally got free of the seatbelt, wrapped my arms around the headrest to keep from falling on Neil and got my feet up on the glass. Luckily for me, I wore Caterpillar work boots that day and not my usual sneakers. The windshield popped out on my first mule kick and left an easy exit.

 Since my feet were already out, I shifted myself down to the ground and then reached back in for Neil. His seatbelt came loose right away and I wrapped my arms under his and tugged. He didn’t budge. I tried again, but there was no way I could lift him up and out on my own.

 “Help me, damn it,” I growled at him. The blood from his nose dripped on me.

He shoved up when I wasn’t ready and his shoulder connected with my jaw. I saw stars and gave real consideration to vomiting, but we didn’t have time.

“My leg is trapped.” He gave a halfhearted tug.

I was afraid to look, to see what else we had to deal with. “Neil, look at me,” I commanded him.

He did and it was a look I never wanted to see again. “Go, Maggie, please. Save yourself.”

If he didn’t stop saying that I was going to kill him. “No.”

Our gazes locked, a silent battle of wills.

“Okay,” he said.

No time to celebrate. I adjusted my grip on him. “I pull, you push, on three.”

Our heartbeats synced up as we stared into each other’s eyes and it was only natural to follow that rhythm.

“One,” pause. “Two,” pause. “Three!”

He pushed, I pulled and we both landed in the mud in a heap of limbs. His face had been bruised by impact with the airbag and his nose still bled.

“Are you all right?” he asked at the same time as I said, “Are you okay?”

“Fine,” we said in unison, then turned our attention to the truck.

The back end was ablaze.

Neil hauled me to my feet and pushed me down the road in front of him. After the accident we’d survived, our top speed was a fast limp, but we plodded onward, pushing and pulling one another.

I’d lost all track of time, but the sun had set when the truck fire balled behind us.

The sound of it made us both turn and face the direction we’d traveled. I leaned into Neil as we stood and contemplated the blaze. The stench of it was awful. Scorched metal and burnt rubber carried on the breeze in our direction. One flaming tire popped off and rolled several feet away before it circled and lay down to burn in the dirt.

Exhaustion swamped me and I sat down, right there in the road. Neil stared down at me, then shrugged and settled in next to me. He tried to put an arm around me but I shoved him.

“What?” He had the nerve to look surprised.

“Leave you,” I growled low in my throat. “What the hell was that? You were gonna quit on me?” Tears threatened but I forced them away, too angry to deal with a crying jag.

He stared at me for a moment, then reached for me again. He pinned my arms to my sides so he could draw me in close without losing an eye.

“Hey! I’m angry with you.”

 “Too fucking bad,” he snarled back. “I need to hold you right now so just suck it up and deal.”

With an utter lack of grace, I did.

****

My hand needed stitches. Not a big shock, I’d figured that would be the case. My knee bounced nervously as the resident sewed up the mangled mess as best he could.

“Those are some serious burn scars,” he muttered in that creepy doctor small talk kinda way.

“Thanks,” I said because really, what the hell else could I say to that?

He finished bandaging my hand and looked at me. “Did you consider grafts? You’d be surprised—”

I rose to my feet. “Do you know where my husband is?”

He pursed his lips, but chucked a thumb down the hall. “The stitches will need to stay in for about ten days. You can go to your regular physician to have them removed or come back and I’ll take them out.”

“Thanks,” I said, because even if I was fresh from a car wreck and nervous as a long tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs in this small county hospital, my mother had raised me right.

Tired dark brown eyes took in my scared rabbit mien and nodded. “Down the hall to your left.”

I found Neil in another curtained off partition that served as a semi-private consultation room. He lay back on the cot with his eyes closed while another doctor—who looked to be about fifteen—examined him. Sheriff Ruiz was also there, staring down at my husband with a frown in place.

“You look like you’ve been rode hard and put up wet,” I said to Neil as I took his hand in my—relatively—unscathed one.

Doogie grinned at me as Neil muttered, “I wish.” But he clasped my hand to let me know he was glad I’d sought him out.

Neil’s nose was broken. I winced when Doogie pressed his thumbs to either side and set it with a wet sounding crunch. Though the bleeding had stopped, it started gushing again in protest. Hero that he was, my husband didn’t make a peep, though he did turn white underneath all the blood. I gripped his hand and squeezed and sent him the silent message that I was still there.

“Tell me again what caused the accident,” Sheriff Ruiz ordered in his melodic voice.

Neil, with an ice compress pressed to his face, swayed a bit but answered, “A woman appeared in the road in front of us.”

 Sam’s brown eyes narrowed. “Define, appeared.”

“Poofed in out of nowhere,” I said helpfully. “As in, one second the road was empty and then she was there.”

Sam blinked. “Well, there’s no sign of another vehicle and other than the Grants and the Greys, there are no other houses up that stretch of road. Where do you suppose she came from?”

“The other side,” I muttered.

“Of the river?” He frowned.

“Of the grave.” I corrected.

The frown deepened. “So, what you’re saying is that a ghost appeared in front of you.”

I sighed. “Look, I know how it sounds, but there’s no other explanation for it.”

“And do you agree with your wife’s assessment of the situation, Mr. Phillips?”

Neil lowered the ice pack. “It was dark.”

“Really?” I screeched. I couldn’t help it. Here I’d gone and saved his life and he wasn’t going to back me up?

Neil shrugged, but then grimaced. “I didn’t get a good look, just noticed that someone was standing there and reacted. It couldn’t have been more than a few seconds.”

“Can you describe the woman?”

I closed my eyes and drew up the image I’d had in my head. “It wasn’t the bean nighe.”

Sam shook his head, the picture of bewilderment. “I’m sorry, the what?”

“The ghost that haunts the lock house property.” I succinctly described the legend of the washer woman at the fords.

The sheriff stared at me as though measuring me for a straitjacket. “One nostril?”

“I know it sounds nuts, but I swear that’s what she’s supposed to look like.”

“But the woman who appeared in front of your truck was different.” He didn’t use finger quotes around the word appeared, which I appreciated.

“The bean nighe is supposed to be hideous, but this ghost was sort of pretty. Long dark hair, pale skin, tall for a woman, at least I think she was tall, and thin, too.”

Sam scribbled in his notebook just as the privacy curtain was shoved aside to reveal Leo and Sylvia.

“My God.” Leo’s eyes were the size of soccer balls. “Are you two okay?”

“Mostly.” Other than Neil’s nose, a few cuts from the glass and various bumps and bruises, we were pretty much unscathed. “How did you know where we were?”

“The town grapevine,” Sylvia said. “I was up at the diner when I overheard Becky Fitzgibbons telling Margery Fuller about the accident. I swear, it’s better than a police scanner.”

I had no idea who Becky Fitzgibbons or Margery Fuller were, and didn’t particularly care at the moment. I had about twenty minutes before my energy reserve gave out and I lapsed into unconsciousness. “Can we go home?”

Leo nodded. “I checked with the nurse on our way in. They wanted to keep the two of you overnight for observation but I convinced them that wouldn’t be the best idea, since Maggie would make them rue the day.”