There's Always Plan B (16 page)

“I guess I should have phoned first,” he told her. “Life is complicated here.”

“It is. Especially now.”

“No problem. I'll give you a call in a couple of days and we can pick a time to go to dinner.”

With Adam standing so close, she felt awkward. What was the correct response? What did
she
want to say? Nothing occurred to her, so in the end, she nodded lamely and watched him walk away.

Adam crossed his arms over his chest and leaned against the railing. “This is getting interesting,” he said.

“Maybe for you, but I find everything about this situation a nightmare.” She started to walk past him.

He grabbed her arm. “Carly, wait. I haven't seen you in two days.”

“I know. I've been sorting some things out.”

“What did you decide?”

“I haven't a clue.”

“Maybe we should go to dinner sometime.”

“Maybe.”

“You could try to sound a little more enthused.”

Probably, but the concept was beyond her right now. “I have to go deal with Tiffany.”

“Okay. We'll talk later.”

She wasn't sure if that was a promise or a threat. She nodded and walked into the house. It wasn't that she didn't want to be with Adam—of course she did. Except for his refusal to believe in Mary—which made sense, considering she liked everything about him. But there were difficulties. And right now her daughter was a priority.

She took the elevator to the third floor, then climbed the stairs to Tiffany's tower rooms. She knocked once and waited for a reply. When there wasn't one, she pushed the door open.

Tiffany sat in a chair by the window. She stared out at the view, although Carly doubted the beauty of the ocean was really on her mind. Her expression was closed and Carly had a feeling this wasn't going to go well. Which was fine with her—she was in the mood for a fight.

“You know better,” she said, keeping her voice low. She might be ready to take her daughter on, but she always tried not to scream. “You were extremely clear on the rules and you disregarded them. Just as bad, you played your father against me. You took advantage of the situation for your own personal gain. I'm not only angry, but I'm deeply disappointed in you. I thought you were more mature, but I can see I was wrong.”

Tiffany glared at her. Carly wanted to think the part about her being disappointed had made an impact, but she couldn't tell.

“I don't know what you're so mad about,” Tiffany said.

“Really? From your perspective, you did everything right?”

“Dad said I could get my belly button pierced. Doesn't he get to make rules, too?”

“Not that one.” Carly narrowed her gaze. “You went behind my back, then you acted as if I would be happy about it.”

“I'm not going to feel bad,” Tiffany said, coming to her feet. “Your rules are stupid.”

“In your opinion.”

“In everyone's opinion!”

“Not mine, and I'm the most important someone in your life.” Carly moved closer to her daughter. “You're fifteen years old. While I'm interested in your opinion on some matters, this isn't one of them. You will follow my rules and you will pay the consequences for not doing so when you know better. You deliberately defied me, Tiffany. I won't stand for that.”

“Yeah? What are you going to do about it?”

“I'm so glad you asked. First, I want you to take out the belly button ring right now.”

“What?” The teen's eyes filled with tears. “No! You can't make me.”

Carly shrugged. “You're right. I
could
call your father back and have him and Adam hold you down so I can take it out myself. If that's what you'd prefer, let me know. Your dad is heading back to San Francisco and I'd like to catch him before he gets too far.”

“You're mean.”

“About this. Oh, yeah. Take it out, Tiffany.”

“No.”

Carly walked to the phone sitting on the nightstand. She picked it up and dialed Neil's cell number.

“Hi, it's me,” she said when he'd answered. “I'm sorry to bother you, but I need your help with something.”

“Here!” Tiffany thrust the belly button ring at her.

Carly took it and held in a sigh. She hadn't wanted to ever have this conversation with her daughter.

“What's up?” Neil asked. “Carly? Are you there?”

“I am. Never mind. Sorry to bother you. See you in two weeks.”

“Okay. Bye.”

She hung up the phone and turned back to her daughter. Tiffany stood with a tissue pressed against her belly button.

“I'll probably get an infection and die,” she said dramatically. “Then you'll be sorry.”

Carly ignored that. “Put some antiseptic on the holes,” she said as she bent down and unplugged the phone.

Tiffany shrieked. “What are you doing?”

“Taking away your phone for a week. This one and the cell.” She held out her other hand. “Give it to me or I'll get it myself.”

Tiffany grabbed her backpack and held it to her chest. “No. You can't…” Her voice trailed off. She reached inside and pulled out the phone.

“I hate you,” Tiffany said, her voice low and angry. Rage burned in her eyes. “I hate you.”

Weariness settled over Carly. She took the cell phone and tucked it in her pocket. “Right now you're not my favorite person, either.”

 

Carly put the confiscated phones in her office, then walked into the kitchen. It was time to set out the appetizers and wine. As her mother was off for the afternoon, it was up to Carly to take care of it.

She opened several bottles of red and white wine first, then poured herself a big glass of cabernet sauvignon. After drinking about a third of what she'd poured, she turned on the oven and got out the puff pastries Maribel had left for her.

Adam walked into the kitchen. Without saying anything, he walked to the sink, washed his hands, then took the covered plate from her and put the rest of the pastries on the cookie sheet.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“Helping.”

“Why?”

“You look like you could use some.”

Did that mean
pathetic?
She wasn't sure she could stand that.

“You're dealing with a lot right now,” he said.

“You noticed.”

“Hard not to. I don't want to add to that.”

“I appreciate that, but why do I know you're still going to?”

He shrugged and carried the cookie sheet over to the oven. “What's next?”

She set him to work cutting up cheese, while she diced fruit.

“I'm surprised Neil isn't a believer—in Mary,” he said.

“For a man who worked in advertising for twenty years, he has a surprising lack of imagination.”

“Is that required for someone to believe in ghosts?”

“No. Seeing one can make even a cynic a believer.”

He looked up from the cheese. “I've never seen one, Carly. And while I appreciate the effort you're making, it's not working.”

She froze, knife poised to slice through a papaya. “What does that mean?”

He gave her a smile that could only be interpreted as tender, which, under any other circumstances, she would have appreciated.

“Raising the temperature in my room so the thermo-imaging wouldn't read the people rearranging the furniture was original. I give you full points for that. I keep a temperature monitor in my room. I know how fast it went up and back down again. I also have a motion-activated videotape set up. It caught the whole thing.”

Carly felt her cheeks flush. A camera. So he'd seen everything.

“The misting was interesting. How did you get it so cold?”

“I don't know what you're talking about.”

He put down the knife and circled around until he stood next to her. “I like you a lot. I think I made that clear when we were in San Francisco. You're sexy as hell and I won't deny that I'd like to do something about it. But this isn't personal. It's about science and how the universe works. There are no ghosts.”

“You're wrong,” she said, feeling weak at the knees, and not because he stood so close. This was about watching her life disintegrate right before her eyes.

“I wish I was,” he said as he touched her cheek. “I don't want to do this to you.”

But he would. Because that was his job, or at least his hobby.

“You should go,” she said as she stepped away from him.

“Are you asking me to leave the kitchen or the house?”

“Just the kitchen.” There was no point in him leaving the B and B until she was able to convince him to keep quiet about the place or make him believe in Mary.

“Okay.”

He bent down and kissed her cheek. She did her best not to react to the physical sensation, but apparently her body had already hardwired itself, where Adam was concerned. Every nerve went on alert and parts of her were very interested in something more physical.

She ignored the sensations of need and hunger and turned her back on him. After a couple of minutes, she heard him walk out of the kitchen. Only then did she move to a chair and collapse.

There had to be a way out of this. There
had
to be. Unfortunately she couldn't see what it was.

 

The group seemed less cohesive than it had before, less confident. Carly knew part of the problem was that Tiffany was still angry with her. They were only three days into the weeklong grounding, which would have been okay if Carly hadn't taken away phone privileges. She accepted that, for a teenager, not having a phone was close to death. But Tiffany had to learn there were consequences to her actions.

Rhonda was also there, but her interest in the fake-ghost project seemed to be wavering. Only Jack was excited and happy, no doubt because he got to spend some time with Tiffany.

“Adam wasn't convinced by anything we've done,” Carly said when everyone had found a seat in the small, back parlor. She'd already closed and locked the door, just in case Adam returned from his walk early.

“Not even the furniture moving?” Jack asked.

“Nope. Apparently he had a video camera set up and saw the whole thing.”

“Well, that's just ridiculous,” Rhonda said angrily. “Isn't there a law against taking pictures of people without their permission?”

Carly shrugged, not sure how to answer the question. She figured there was no point in mentioning that going into Adam's room for the sole purpose of tricking him wasn't exactly aboveboard, either.

“We're going to have to come up with some other ideas,” Carly told everyone. “Any suggestions?”

“We should just give up,” Rhonda told her. “We tried and we weren't successful. We can make this place work without the ghost.”

Carly shook her head. “We can't, Mom. I wish it were different. About seventy percent of the new bookings are because of the ghost. One of the culinary weeks is devoted to food from Mary's era. We can't make it on thirty percent of full. Without Mary, we're not worth visiting. If we give up, then we might as well simply close our doors and sell.”

Jack looked stricken. “You'd do that?”

“We wouldn't have a choice.”

He looked at Tiffany who seemed to be equally unhappy at the thought.

“There has to be something,” her daughter said.

“I'm open to suggestions.”

“Magnets,” Jack said as he sat up straight in his chair. “Isn't Adam checking on electromagnet energy?”

“I think so.”

“Then we can rent a big magnet—an industrial-size one. We can bring it up in the elevator, plug it in and turn it on. That will zap his equipment in a huge way.” He paused. “It's going to be noisy, though. I think a magnet that big would require a generator. It couldn't run off house currents.”

Carly saw the possibilities at once. “Why don't you take that one?” she said. “I think it's a great idea. Find out where we can rent one and all the stuff we need to make it work. But it can't be bigger than the elevator.”

“Good point.” He made a couple of notes.

Carly considered other options. “I wonder if there's a way to create cold spots in his room,” she mused. “I'll look for that on the Internet. Maybe in some joke shops.”

“Locks,” Tiffany blurted. “Remote locks. We could activate them somehow and lock him in a room. Or out of it.”

“That's great!” Carly said.