Shifting Shadows

He turned his hand over until he held Lisa’s. “But I’ve already agreed to this, haven’t I? She was a real piece of work, my mother. Psycho of the Year who was married to the Worst Husband of the Year. But it’s not my mother who is haunting me, it’s my wife.”

But his dead wife touched his cheek, looked at him with her big, sad eyes, and said, “It’s his fault. It’s his fault. I can’t leave.”

He flinched and let out a gasp—and I couldn’t see her anymore.

“Did you see something?” asked Lisa.

“She was here,” he said, “just for a moment.”

“But you didn’t see her.” I double-checked with Lisa.

“No.”

“Me, neither,” Zack said. “But I smelled something. Just for a second.” His mouth twisted a little, and I knew that whatever he smelled hadn’t been pleasant.

“Did you hear what she said?” I asked Rick.

He shook his head. Beyond that quick gasp, he hadn’t reacted at all.

“I’ve heard her say two things, over and over,” I told him.

“It’s your fault,” he said tiredly. “I can’t leave.”

“When I saw the head in the hot-tub room, she said, ‘It’s his fault,’” Lisa told me.

“That’s what she tells me, too,” I said. “You didn’t kill her. So why isn’t she haunting whoever did?”

Rick looked around as if he’d never been out on his porch before. Then he walked over to the steps and sat down. He patted the stairs beside him, and Lisa joined him.

Zack folded his arms, nodded to them, then turned away. His body language was a promise to stay in the background. He was right; Rick would talk more if I was the only stranger he was talking to.

I hopped over the porch railing and walked in front of the stairs. The porch was high, so sitting on the top step as they were put their heads and mine on a level.

“First,” I said, “you know who my husband is—so you know that if I wanted fame and glory, I wouldn’t have to use you to get it. I am not about to sell your story to the newspapers or tabloids. Second, Zack and I have very good noses—and for me scent is sometimes the first indication that there is a ghost in the room. Third, your wife doesn’t have the . . . energy it would require to follow you for all these years. If I hadn’t known that she was this active, I’d have told you she’d leave in a few months.”

I paused and waited. Lisa patted his hand, and he turned his over and grabbed hers hard.

“You think my mother is behind this?”

“I know that there was something else in that room when I pulled us all outside. I know it was not Nicole—it didn’t have the same feeling at all. It felt like some weird combination of fae magic”—some fae magics smell like ozone to me—“and danger. And Zack and I both smelled bubble gum. You say your mother smelled like bubble gum, and she committed suicide two days after your wife died.” Even I remembered that headline. I paused for effect. “Tell me, Rick. How did she and your mother get along?”

Lisa whispered, “You think his mother killed his wife, then killed herself?”

“I don’t know anything about his mother,” I said.

“I’ve thought about it before,” Rick said starkly. “She could have done it. My mother was . . .”

“Batshit crazy,” said Lisa, and moved until her body leaned against his. She looked at him for permission, and he nodded for her to continue. “She pulled Rick out of school when he was twelve because she thought he was associating too much with the wrong kids. He was playing with one of the groundskeeper’s kids a few years before that, and she shredded the kid’s face with her fingernails—” Lisa made a claw out of her free hand. “Kid had to have cosmetic surgery, which Rick’s dad paid for.”

Rick cleared his throat. “My mother was sixteen when she met my father, and he was forty. Her father had abandoned her and her mother when she was thirteen. Her mother committed suicide when my mother was fifteen. She told me that her father’s family took care of her—but I can’t confirm that because no one, and I mean no one, ever talked to them but her. She was too rich to go into the foster system, so she was left in her home and watched over by a series of caretakers who were hired by trustees and lawyers.”

He took a breath. “My father was handsome, rich, and far older than she was. She was beautiful, rich, and young, and had no one. If my father had been a different man, it might have worked. He really loved her at first—and she adored him. Adored being his wife and adored being the mother of his child. When she was pregnant with me, she found out he was having an affair. And our home was a battle zone from then on.” He smiled one of those smiles that mostly point out that the person wearing them is not happy, and said, “For most of my life, she alternated between being Supermom and a crazy woman. Sometimes both in the same ten minutes. So, do I think she could have killed my wife and cut her into pieces?” He looked over my shoulder at nothing and swallowed. “Yes. I’ve always thought so.”

He returned his gaze to me. “She found Nicole for me. Introduced us, encouraged me to ask her to marry me, then after the wedding, the day my wife was murdered, Mother came to my office with a folder. She showed me proof that my wife had been sleeping with another man throughout our engagement.” He cleared his throat. “Nicole got a butterfly tattoo on her shoulder blade two weeks after we started sleeping together. The photos clearly showed her tattoo.” He grimaced. “My mother had had Nicole followed. She knew about the affair before Nicole and I married. She chose to show the photos to me that day and told me that it was for my sake. So I would understand that my mother was the only one I could trust.”

“Crazy bitch,” growled Lisa.

“And that night your wife was killed,” I said.

“Murdered,” Rick corrected me like it was important. “If anyone had known that my mother had showed me that file that afternoon, I wouldn’t have walked out of the trial a free man. I was always pretty sure my mother had done it—it had all the marks of one of her frenzied, violent moments. Though as far as I know she’d never killed anyone before. I could never have convinced anyone she’d done it, not once she was dead. Only my father and I ever saw her at her worst. Most people thought she was this little porcelain doll.”