When Walt first spied Olivia on the staircase, he assumed she was a ghost, whose energy had turned on the overhead light. He didn’t find the rifle threatening, believing it was nothing more than an illusion. But if Brian could see her, he wasn’t so sure she was a ghost, despite seeing her spirit over at Marlow House. Was it possible the spirit who had interrupted their dinner was actually the ghost of the woman Heather had seen with Betty? Had someone murdered Olivia’s look-alike?
“I want you to put that gun on the floor,” Olivia demanded, her rifle still aimed at the two men.
Brian lowered the gun, yet instead of setting it on the floor, he said, “We’re not here to hurt you. I’m a police officer. Please lower your rifle.”
“I don’t care who you are. You broke into my house, and you pulled a gun on me. I could shoot you now, and I would be justified.”
“Walt?” Brian whispered.
“It’s okay. I’m watching the rifle,” Walt whispered back.
Brian set the gun on the floor, never taking his eyes off Olivia.
“This is a misunderstanding,” Walt said.
Olivia arched her brows while shifting the aim of her rifle, pointing it directly at Walt. “Misunderstanding? You breaking into my house was a misunderstanding?”
“We didn’t break in. Your back door was unlocked and—” Walt began, only to be cut off by Olivia.
“I locked all my doors tonight. I checked them before I came upstairs. And even if it had been unlocked, which it wasn’t, that doesn’t mean you can just walk into someone’s house.”
Walt resisted the temptation to point out that many of the neighbors on Beach Drive had no shyness about walking into Marlow House uninvited. But he didn’t think now was the time for levity. While he felt confident he could remove the rifle if Olivia got trigger-happy, he didn’t want to take any chances. Danielle was quite serious that she didn’t want to raise their children with a ghost. Because if he got himself killed, he’d be a ghost again, and while he would, of course, stick around, it was not the family life Danielle had envisioned.
“We noticed someone lurking around your house,” Walt lied. “We were next door, having friends over for dinner. After we took them upstairs to show them the work we were doing on the house, Brian looked outside and noticed someone.”
“It’s dark out. How could you have seen anything?” Olivia demanded.
“I thought I saw someone going over your fence,” Brian lied.
“Considering all that had gone on, Brian wanted to come over and check it out,” Walt said.
“Why not just call the police?” Olivia asked.
“I am the police,” Brian said.
“Yes, I’m aware of that. But do you always break into people’s houses because you thought you saw something?” Olivia now pointed the rifle at Brian.
“We didn’t break in. Your door was open,” Brian lied.
“No, it wasn’t. I said I checked it before I came upstairs.”
“Brian called the police before we came over,” Walt told her.
Olivia shifted the rifle, again taking aim at Walt. “So when are the police cars going to show up?” she snarked.
“They aren’t, because we told them we were going to come over here and check it out and call if there was a problem,” Brian said.
“Then I’ll call the police station and ask them. But I need you both to sit over there on the floor, and don’t try anything.” She pointed to where she wanted them to sit.
“What are you going to do?” Brian asked.
“I’m going to call the police station and check out your story.”
“I spoke to Police Chief MacDonald. He’s at home. You won’t reach him at the station this time of night,” Brian explained.
“You didn’t call anyone, did you?” she snapped.
“Yes, I did. But I called him at home. I tell you what, I can give you his number, and you call him,” Brian offered.
“And how do I know it’s really the police chief’s number?”
“How about this, you call the police station,” Walt suggested, noting her rising agitation. “Explain it’s an emergency and you need Police Chief MacDonald to call you about Officer Henderson’s recent phone call.”
Olivia considered the question for a moment. She eventually said, “Fine. But I want both of you over there in the corner, and don’t touch that gun.”
After Brian and Walt sat in the corner, Olivia started down the stairs, the rifle still pointing at the men.
“Can I ask one favor?” Brian called out.
Olivia stopped walking. “What?”
“While you’re coming down those stairs, can you please not point that thing at us? If you trip, you might shoot one of us.”
Olivia frowned at Brian but lowered the rifle while coming down the stairs. But once she reached the landing, she again pointed the firearm at them while making her way to the coffee table near the sofa, where she had left her cellphone before going upstairs. It was one reason she hadn’t called the police instead of coming downstairs with a rifle when hearing someone breaking into her house.
She sat on the sofa, resting the rifle on the coffee table while reaching for her cellphone. With one eye on the men, she looked up the number for the police station on her cellphone and then placed her call. When she got off the phone, they waited in silence for the chief to return her call.
But instead of her phone ringing, Brian’s cellphone rang. Walt, who held Brian’s phone, glanced down at it. “It’s the chief.”
Olivia frowned. “Answer it.”
Walt handed Brian his cellphone.
“Hello, Chief,” Brian said dully.
“I just got a strange call from the station. They claim Olivia Davis just called and wanted me to call her. Do you have any idea what’s going on? Have you gone over there yet?” the chief asked.
“Like I told you earlier, I saw what I thought was someone going over the fence to her house, which is why I called you, considering the recent attempt on her life,” Brian began.
“Someone is there? Aren’t they?” the chief asked.
“Yes. And we took your advice; we came over to check it out. Everything was dark, the door was wide open, and we thought it best to go in, in case she was being attacked. But when we got inside, there was no one downstairs, and then the lights turned on, and Ms. Davis was there, with a rifle pointing at us.”
“And she’s not dead?” the chief asked.
“Obviously not,” Brian said.
“Crap.” The chief immediately caught himself and added, “I don’t mean crap, she’s alive, I mean—”
“Yeah, I get it,” Brian answered. “I feel the same way.” He then looked to Olivia and asked, “Do you want to talk to the chief?” Still sitting on the floor with Walt, he reached out his hand, offering his cellphone to her.
She frowned at the cellphone and shook her head. “No. What guarantee do I have that you are talking to the police chief? Anyone could have called you.”
Brian turned his phone around for her to see the screen. But she was too far away to make out the caller’s identification.
“You tell him to call me. He should have my number; I gave it to the person I spoke to at the police station.”
Brian put his cellphone back to his ear. “Chief, she wants you to call her.”
Seconds after Brian ended his call with the police chief, Olivia’s phone rang. She answered it. Walt and Brian sat quietly while listening to her side of the conversation. When the call ended, she looked at Brian and asked in a shaking voice, “Was the door really open?”
“You can look at it, see it wasn’t forced,” Brian said.
“But someone got it open,” she said, looking nervously around the room. “Does that mean someone might be hiding somewhere in this house?”
“I understand you checked the lock,” Walt began. “But I also remember when Pearl had this house, she sometimes had a problem with the lock on that door. The wind could have pushed it open, and it is entirely possible what Brian saw was a cat going over the fence, not a person. But we can check out your house and make sure there’s no one here.”
Still sitting on the sofa, Olivia nodded. Gingerly, she moved the rifle to the coffee table, no longer pointing it at the men.
“Can we stand up now?” Brian asked.
Olivia nodded again.
As Brian and Walt got to their feet, Brian said, “We’re sorry we scared you. But someone tried to kill you the other day, and we were just trying to make sure you were safe. When we found the door open, we were concerned someone was in here with you. We really couldn’t call out your name or knock, and risk someone hurting you.”
Olivia nodded. “I understand that now. And I am sorry for pointing a rifle at you.”
Brian walked over and picked up his gun. He looked at Olivia and said, “I tell you what, Walt can stay here, and if it’s okay with you, I’ll check out the house and make sure no one’s hiding.”
“This was such a mistake to move here,” Olivia muttered after Brian left her alone with Walt.
Walt, who sat on a chair facing the sofa, smiled weakly at Olivia. When first seeing her on the staircase and realizing she was not a ghost, he speculated the spirit they had seen earlier must have been the ghost of the woman Heather confused for Olivia. The double was dead, not Olivia, Walt decided.
Yet now, having the chance to study Olivia, he realized it was more complicated than a mere doppelgänger. The spirit he had seen in the dining room wore the same outfit as Olivia currently wore. Why?
Was it possible she was really a spirit and not a living person? Was she manipulating her energy to show herself to Brian? But then he remembered she had called the police station, and they obviously heard her voice since the chief had returned the call. Could a spirit use a telephone? He certainly couldn’t when he had been one.
He could only think of one way to rule out the possibility Olivia was a ghost. Focusing his energy, he studied her. The next moment, she let out a little yelp and grabbed hold of her arm.
“What’s wrong?” Walt asked innocently.
After rubbing her arm, she looked down at it and frowned. “It felt like someone just pinched me. Dang, did I get bitten by a spider? Can this week get any worse?”
“The lies just roll off our tongues,” Brian told Walt after they left Olivia’s house and were well out of earshot.
“We didn’t have a choice.”
“You were certainly quick on your feet, making up crap,” Brian quipped.
“Something I learned from my wife. But you didn’t do too bad yourself.”
“Now we have to figure out who in the hell you saw in the dining room. It obviously wasn’t Olivia.” Now at the gate, Brian paused. He looked at Walt, who stood in the darkness. “It must have been that woman Heather saw with Betty. She must be dead now.”
“I considered that too. But what’s odd, the ghost was wearing the same outfit Olivia was wearing tonight.”
“Really?”
“Yes.”
Brian considered Walt’s words for a minute. “Well, the first time Heather saw her, she was wearing the same thing Olivia wore later that day. This must mean something.”
“But what?”
Brian opened the gate. “Is it possible Olivia is really a ghost? Maybe I’m a medium now.”
The two men walked through the gate into Marlow House’s backyard.
“I don’t think so,” Walt said.
“Why do you say that?”
Walt shrugged. “Because I pinched her.”