Waiting For You (4 page)

He motioned toward the door for her to leave. “Miss Carlisle, if anything, it was a pleasure meeting you. You’ve made me laugh, which is something I haven’t done in a while.”

She grumbled, turned on her heels, and marched out. The gentle sway to her backside—was that a bustle she wore?—made him widen his eyes. He shook his head. Miss Carlisle moved as if she had been born in that dress, as if it was second nature for her to walk without getting the skirt caught in her legs. His friends had certainly gone to a lot of trouble on his behalf to find such a well-trained actress.

He shut the door and ambled back to his desk, shaking his head. Now he had to wait for his friend’s phone call. Nick had been one step ahead of them the whole time.

Sitting behind the desk, he glanced at the voice recorder. He clicked it off. Perhaps he’d missed something in their conversation, something that might give him a clue as to who the real joker was.

He clicked rewind. When it stopped, he pressed the button to turn it on and leaned back in his chair, folding his arms in back of his head. His voice boomed clearly, but only dead air space lingered in places where he knew Miss Carlisle spoke. Jumping to an upright position, he glared at the recorder. He turned up the volume and listened harder, but her sweet voice did not come through.

His attention snapped back to the door.
A ghost?
No way!
He didn’t believe in them. Besides, hadn’t she felt real? Thinking back, he realized he hadn’t touched her, but there had to be something concrete to latch onto, something to explain the whole thing.

Nick scowled. Fancy dressed women usually smelled fabulous. He inhaled, but didn’t detect a scent. He jumped up from his desk, ran to the door, and pulled it open. The hallway was deserted and the elevator door closed.

There had to be an explanation, because no way was that woman a ghost.

Chapter 2

“Your mother is a witch!”

Nick snapped to awareness from a deep sleep. Cold sweat covered his body from the nightmare, and he sat up in bed, running his hand across his moist forehead. Memories haunted him of his mother concocting liquids and herbs together when he was sick instead of taking him to a doctor like normal mothers would, and as he grew, she tried to predict his future telling him about strange dreams she’d received. When he was young, the other children teased him because of his mother’s strange lifestyle. Nick thought he’d repressed that part of his life a long time ago. So why had he dreamed of it now?

He fell back on the mattress, flinging his arm over his head and inadvertently hitting the headboard. Pain shot through his wrist. He flinched,
then
rubbed the pain shooting through his arm.

Why had the taunting echoes from yesteryear about his mother’s way of life bothered him after all this time? He’d tried to forget the craziness of his youth. His parents’ divorce hadn’t helped him to let go of the confusion he felt over her so-called psychic powers. Good
ol
’ mom hadn’t referred to it as “psychic powers.” No, nothing so mundane, instead she’d called it her
special gift
. No wonder most everyone thought she was a witch.

Nick shook his head. Gift
or not, people still thought she was not in her right mind. And because of what happened yesterday at work, Nick wondered if his mother’s “gift” was hereditary.

He glanced at the bedroom window. Through the closed shades, the light of the rising sun was starting to peek inside the room. He might as well get up. There was no way he could go back to sleep now.

Throwing off the covers, he swung his feet to the floor before climbing out of bed. Why let those memories of long ago rattle him now? If he could wipe them from his memory for good, he would. He just had to figure out how.

After a warm shower, Nick dressed in a navy blue Armani suit and ate a breakfast of toast and scrambled eggs. Yesterday, after the mysterious crazy woman had left his office, he’d acquired his first three real clients. Not the power brokers he’d had while working at
Burns, Copeland, and Whiting
, but Nick wasn’t looking for that kind of influence again. During those years, he had careened down the road of life at full speed. Women and money came quickly, and left just as fast. Nick had been a pawn in their game, and he vowed he never would be again.

He drove to work with the convertible top down, letting the cool morning air slap against his skin and bring him fully awake. By the time he arrived at his office and parked his car, dark clouds formed in the sky, predicting rain. He lifted the top of the car before heading into the building.

Shoulders
back,
chin up, and walking with confidence, he felt prepared for whatever challenge the day could bring. Nothing could be as odd as his encounter with the old-fashioned beauty with the remarkable—unforgettable eyes—the day before.

When he hurried through the door of his office, Nick half expected to see Miss Carlisle waiting for him. He might be paranoid, but talking to self-proclaimed ghosts made him feel as crazy as his mother was reputed to be.

Two winged-back chairs on the other side of the desk remained empty.
Thank heavens!
He still couldn’t figure out why he hadn’t seen Miss Carlisle when he entered the room with Vanessa. He recalled glancing at the Persian rug, the cabinets that matched his
desk,
and the coat rack to the side of the door, but not her—not until she stood, anyway. That deep purple hat she wore should have grabbed his immediate attention, so why hadn’t he seen it when he entered the room?

Strange, but he hadn’t heard from Steve or Travis, either. Had they been the ones in charge of this creative joke?
If not them, then who?
It was definitely someone who wanted him to think he was losing his mind.

Nick sat behind his mahogany desk and pulled out the file of his first client. The appointment wasn’t for another two hours, and he knew he should study up on his other clients, but his mind wouldn’t stop wandering. He pushed away from his desk, went to the window, and pulled the cord to lift the blinds. A light drizzle of moisture hit the morning rush of bumper-to-bumper cars on the street, and people scurried up and down the sidewalks to get out of the rain. Thank goodness it wasn’t raining when he drove to work. The wind in his face this morning had relaxed him somehow.

“Excuse me, Mr. Marshal.”

Nick swung around so fast it knocked him off balance. He fell against the window. The woman from yesterday stood in the same spot he’d noticed her the first time, wearing the same clothes. But today, she held a newspaper. He switched his attention from the closed door to where she stood. Why hadn’t he heard her enter?

When she smiled it seemed
forced
, since no sparkle lit her lovely blue eyes like it had yesterday. “Forgive me once again for startling you, Mr. Marshal.”

He straightened, moved to his chair, and sat. “You have a talent for popping out of thin air.”

“Yes, I’m rather light on my feet. Ghosts usually are.” When she chuckled, the tone of her voice chimed with merriment.

He couldn’t stop the smile from pulling at the corners of his mouth. “Have you returned to convince me of your ghostly state?”

“Yes, Mr. Marshal, and I have brought proof with me.”

She tossed the newspaper on his desk, and he glanced at the front-page headline:
Heiress found dead.
Suicide.
A large black-and-white photograph was plastered beneath the headline, and it appeared to be an image of the very woman who now stood in front of him—except wearing different clothes of course. Nick ran his finger over the curled, brown edges of the newspaper. It looked authentic, but he automatically assumed it was a fake. Strange to think his friends went through so much trouble to convince Nick he was crazy.

The woman pointed to the top of the paper. “Notice the date, if you will. April 27
^th
, 1912. Also notice that name in the article. Does it not say ‘Abigail Carlisle, the heiress?
’”

Nick lifted his head and arched an eyebrow. “Miss Carlisle, do you really expect me to believe this paper was printed in 1912?”

She scowled. “But of course it was. Why would they have that date otherwise? Besides, where else would I find a newspaper with that date on it except for the very building that used to print them?”

“If this really is a paper from that era, where did you get it?”

“The attic.
That’s where I stay.”

He glanced back at the newspaper again. It did look like the paper used was old, but…
Nah, it couldn’t be.

“Miss Carlisle, there are many ways a person can create a newspaper, add a historical date, and make the paper look antique. In Hollywood, I met plenty of two-bit prop men who could make up something like this for twenty bucks.”

“You don’t believe me?” Her voice came out small and tight.

He shook his head, realizing that he
wanted
to believe her. Sadness removed the gleam that had been in her eyes earlier. She frowned, and the anger lines disappeared from her forehead. Liquid gathered in her eyes as she bit her bottom lip. Nick’s heart wrenched from her broken display. Instinct urged him to take her in his arms and comfort her, since that’s what he’d always done with pretty women.

When he caught the path of his inappropriate thoughts, he stopped them from continuing. The
old
Nick would jump at the chance to comfort a pretty, female client. The new, professional Nick would stay behind his desk and keep at arm’s length.

“I thought for certain you would believe the newspaper.” She sank into one of the brown leather chairs, dabbing the corner of her eye with a gloved finger. “Now I will never pass over. I will remain in this state forever.” Her voice broke.

Nick sat forward in his chair and linked his fingers together on the mahogany desktop. He just had to know what was going on, and it looked like the only way to make her talk would be to play along. “All right, Miss Carlisle, for the sake of argument, let’s say you’re from 1912 and you’re dead. Why would you seek a lawyer?”

“On my eighteenth birthday, my maternal grandmother spoke to me about my future. She was a spiritual gypsy woman, and had a lot of visions about her family.”

A crazy woman like my mother?
How fascinating.
Nick’s interest perked up.

She sniffed. “The dream she’d had about me was that I’d been lost and looking for help. A man with the initials N.M. would be the only person who could help me find my way.”

“What do you mean when you say your grandmother is ‘spiritual’?’” Nick asked.

“Grandmother believed God talked to her in her dreams. Whenever she had a dream about someone in her family, she thought God had given her this vision for a purpose.”

He nodded. “Go on.”

“Anyway, she also told me that her dream foretold of something terrible happening to my family just after I turned twenty-five, and that would be why I was lost. She said the man who could help me would be a solicitor.”

He couldn’t understand it, but the longer he watched the helpless emotion in her eyes and heard the forlorn tug of her voice, the more he wanted to believe. He noticed that she nibbled on her bottom lip when she hesitated, and he could feel her frustration.

“My grandmother mentioned that this particular man would not be from my time.” She shrugged. “Back then, I had no idea to what her words meant. Now I do.”

“This is because I can see you?” Yesterday’s conversation came to his mind, and a chill ran through him.

“Yes. After my death, I realized I was still alive in a sense, but nobody could see or hear me.” Miss Carlisle pulled her chair closer until she could rest her hands on the desk. “Since that time I have been searching for a solicitor with the initials N.M. I have come across a few, but they could not see or hear me.”

Drawn into her story, Nick studied her expression. Her longing gaze penetrated deep into his soul, crying out for help.
Am I crazy?
A feeling of unease settled into his spine. Her story mirrored one his mother had told him, one in which he would meet his soul mate. His mother had come to see him during the time he’d represented Leslie Blake, the almost ex-wife of the famous movie producer. His mother had given him a warning. If he had listened to her then, his life might not have become so miserable.

Through his mother’s so-called psychic inspiration, she’d told him that if he didn’t change his lifestyle something bad would happen. But Nick’s ego wouldn’t believe it. He wanted to believe Leslie knew what a good lawyer he was and wouldn’t do anything to jeopardize their working relationship. His mother had also told him to stop looking for women in bars. He wouldn’t find his soul mate there. Instead, his soul mate would be a woman who had traveled a great distance for his help.

A coincidence?
He doubted it. Now he wondered if his mother was somehow behind Miss Carlisle’s unbelievable story.

He scratched his head. “How did you know where to find me?”

“I knew you would come to this building.”

He widened his eyes. “You did?
How?”

“Because I was killed here.”

Another cold chill ran through him and he tried to shake off the eerie feeling sneaking over him. “Here, in this room?”

“No. This was my father’s building in 1912. Although the original building has been renovated many times, this is still the very same structure, and a few pieces of furniture and such still remain. That is why there are things in the attic from when this building had been the newspaper office.”

He nodded. “Is this building haunted with other ghosts, then?”

Releasing a fake chuckle, she shrugged. “As of yet, I’m the only ghost I have seen here.”

“So, Miss Carlisle, do you know who killed you?”

“No. That’s why I think I haven’t passed over yet.”

“Do you remember the events leading up to your death?”

She straightened in her chair. Her gaze dropped to her hands as they smoothed out the material of her dark brown skirt. “My father, Edward Carlisle, died of a heart attack two weeks before my demise. Needless to say, I was devastated. I came here to be near the people who had meant the most to him.” She paused, as her bottom lip trembled.

Miss Carlisle moved away from the desk to the window and touched the rain-streaked glass. “I had closed myself in his office and didn’t want to talk to anyone. I felt so alone, like I had never felt before.” She glanced over her shoulder. “My mother passed on when I was five, and other than my grandmother, I had no close family.”

The young woman switched her attention to something outside and stared. “Anyway, about an hour later, my uncle knocked on the door.”

“Your uncle?”
Nick interrupted, arching an eyebrow. “Didn’t you just say you had no other family besides your grandmother?”