I wasn’t alone.
There on my right was the statue of the President at the center of the rotunda. There was me. There on my left…
On my left was the misty image and I’d bet anything that Jake thought it was nothing more than a reflection.
I knew better. I saw an imposing man with a beard. And I wondered what Jake would say if he knew he’d taken a picture of the ghost of President James A. Garfield.
It took a while for my paperwork to be approved, and that meant I had time to fret and worry and second-guess myself.
I did a pretty good job of it.
But then, it’s not like I had a lot of other things to think about. We wrapped up Cemetery Survivor, and I was back at work at Garden View, and there was no sign of a presidential ghost or any other restless spirits. I didn’t have my team to keep me company, and I was sleeping alone. What else did I have to occupy my time?
Remember that old saying I’ve mentioned before? The one about being careful what you wish for? I guess it pretty much came true. I was leaving for the airport when I found a bouquet of flowers outside the door of my apartment. Like anyone can blame me for thinking-for one, brief, shining moment, anyway-that they came from Quinn?
No such luck. No sign of Quinn, and no sign of a signature on the card that came with the flowers, either. Which doesn’t mean there wasn’t a message:
No TV show. I’ll have to watch you in person.
“Creepy.” On my way to my car, I took both the card and the flowers down to the Dumpster in back of my apartment building, and if I hadn’t been avoiding thinking about what I’d been avoiding thinking about for as long as I could remember, I might have convinced myself that the flowers were a fluke.
The case was wrapped up, and thanks to the careful questioning of the police (not to mention the fact that he was hoping to get a little something back in exchange for any information he gave the cops), Mad Dog had admitted that he’d sent that mugger after me and that the same man-Bud-was the one who came after me at the Lake View and killed Sammi instead.
But he’d never said a word about flowers.
Like a scene in a cheesy movie, my memories flashed over everything that had happened that summer: the flowers, the lipstick, the cheap chocolates.
“If it all didn’t have something to do with the case…” I murmured to myself, and a slow chill shimmied up my back. Like anybody could blame me for glancing over my shoulder?
Thankfully, there was nobody around, but that didn’t stop me from getting in my car as fast as I could, and from locking the doors once I was in there.
I gripped the steering wheel and let my brain follow the logical progression.
“If the flowers are still coming, they had nothing to do with your case. If they had nothing to do with your case, that means somebody you don’t know about is sending them. And that means…” I swallowed hard. “Stalker?”
Even though I wasn’t looking forward to where I was going, I was grateful to be getting out of town.
When I finally arrived at my destination and parked my rental car, I was far from home, and I wasn’t thinking about my stalker any longer. That didn’t keep my heart from beating double time. I blamed it on the altitude. It was better than admitting I was nervous.
I’d taken a flight to Colorado and driven from the Denver airport with a voodoo doll on my front seat next to me. I gave the doll a pat for luck, got out of the car, and went inside the prison to visit my dad.
Casey Daniels
