Chapter Two
I left Sam sleeping on my bed in the next morning and walked out for my day of work at the office. I was late and I knew Tucker would be already there. I had at least three top priority cases to be solved that day, but I knew it was going to be impossible to concentrate on anything else than the soft image of the woman who had once been my best friend, breathing softly on my bed, clutching the pillow.
"Danny, I was worried about you, man!" Tucker said as soon as I stepped inside the office. I lifted my eyes to see a pile of paper on his desk and three people standing around, waiting to get information about their cases. "We've been busy and you're two hours late!" Tucker kept talking and I just nodded and sat on my desk, organizing it so I could start calling the clients. "I mean, I wasn't even supposed to be here. I couldn't find a nanny for Cole today and I had to leave him with my mother. She's sick as a dog and she can't handle a small kid anymore."
When Tucker said that I had a brilliant idea. I didn't know how long Sam was staying, but she could keep an eye on Cole while we worked, unless she had business in town that didn't concern that ghost husband of hers.
The hours flew by very quickly and fifteen minutes before lunch break I had time to talk to Tucker about the events of the night before. I lay back on the chair and placed both of my feet on the desk, stretching my numb legs. Tucker had noticed by my odd silence the whole morning that I was keeping a secret to myself, so he folded his arms and stood by the window, watching the people rush through the sidewalk on their busy days.
"Are you going to tell me what's going on?" He asked out of curiosity, not really expecting a truthful answer. Tucker was like a brother to me and he knew me well enough. He knew that when I had something going on in my head that I didn't want him to know I'd just make something up to shut him up. He'd know I was lying and I'd know he knew I was lying, but that would satisfy both of us for weeks until I was ready to talk or until the subject was forgotten.
"You better sit down." I said, rubbing my hands over my face. I could tell Tucker was caught by surprise when I said that. He quietly pulled a chair and sat two feet away from me. "Yesterday when I was going home I saw Sam."
"Sam?" Tucker echoed, not controlling his surprised reaction. "Sam, you mean… our Sam? Our best friend?"
"I don't know any other Sam." I answered, letting the sarcasm I learned from her come out spontaneously out of my lips. Tucker frowned at my answer, but he didn't retort, letting me go on with my story. "She's well. Nothing happened to her in Africa and she's living in Venice now."
"Venice? But, what is she doing back in Amity Park?" Tucker asked, his arms were still folded and I could tell they were a bit too hard. Tucker had been as hurt I had when Sam left.
"That's the weirdest part of it all." I sighed, standing up and walking around the room. "She's having ghost problems. She's not here to visit her old pals, but to hire us to get rid of the ghost who has been haunting her. Apparently she can't handle him by herself." I didn't know if I wanted to tell Tucker about the ghost attacking her last night, but I surely would tell him who the ghost was.
"She's here for formalities?" Tucker looked indignant at the thought. I supposed he'd start looking for her at that same moment and give her a piece of his own mind. I'd like to have given her a piece of mine the night before, but that would require opening the door to our past and with it the old scars.
"And there's more." I added and Tucker stopped pacing angrily around the room to look at me. "The ghost she needs us to get rid of is her husband."
There was the dramatic pause I was expecting from him. I wondered if mine had lasted more than fifty seconds just like his. He stared at me with his mouth hanging open and with a thousand thoughts running through his head. There were emotions crossing his features as well. I could distinguish shock, sadness and disgust.
Indeed, neither of us was happy for our former best friend.
"When did she get married to a ghost?" Tucker asked and I felt my mood light up a little. Obviously Sam had married the guy when he was alive and somehow he died and his ghost became obsessed with her. That was the only logical answer because there was no way a mentally healthy person would marry a ghost.
"She married him while he was alive." I said and Tucker just stared at me. I understood that he meant to ask when she had gotten married in the first place; he didn't care who she had married. "I didn't ask much about him. I was intending on going home earlier today so I could interrogate her. Would you like to come with me?"
"Yes." He answered immediately, but then he stopped and asked again. "Wait. Is she in your place right now?"
"Let's just say she passed out on me and I didn't have the heart to take her to a hotel." I answered firmly. Sam hadn't passed out on me, but after she told me she was married I couldn't bring myself to continue with the questions. I had stood up and showed her my room where she slept the whole night while I took the uncomfortable couch.
"I just hope you know what you're doing." Tucker sighed, placing both his hands on his pockets. I wished I could say something to make the situation easier for both of us, but I just couldn't. We both were going to walk straight into the claws of the woman who had abandoned us five years before. And we were stupid because we knew we would be hurt again, but we both gladly walked into her trap. "You know what?" Tucker suddenly was taken over by a passionate fury and looked very determinate to find out everything about Sam at that moment. "Let's just close the office today. We HAVE to talk to her and NOW."
"I am as anxious as you are to talk to her, Tuck." I tried to out some reason into his thick head. Tucker nowadays was much like I was in my teen day. He'd let his heart take over his sense and he'd get himself into stupid situations because of that. "But you must realize that we have a very important case – there's someone who's paying a great amount of money for it to be solved this week, we can't just abandon it and go see a girl."
"You're right." A female voice said at the door and we both turned around to see Sam, in the same clothes from the day before, fixing her hat in the reflection of the glass window. I hated it instantly when she did that. To me it looked like she wasn't caring about our feelings and was there just a client. It felt like she was treating us like employees who didn't even deserve be looked in the eye as she spoke. "You shouldn't close the office to go see a girl. The girl has come to you."
"Sam…" I heard Tucker whispering and I turned to see him. I was shocked and so was Sam when he let her name come out of his lips with such gentleness that I could swear that tone only belonged to a lover. Sam was in shock, too, but she held her façade until he took three rushed steps across the room and swept her over in a tight embrace.
Her face was turned in my direction, but she was too stunned from Tucker sudden hug that she didn't even notice me staring at them with my heart burning in jealously. I had no idea what that had come from, but I didn't like it.
And then I noticed she had a bruise on her neck, a mark that only someone who had been with her intimately would place. Was her husband following her or had she found someone else during this morning when I left her alone? I also noticed she wore the same clothes from the night before, which made me wonder if she hadn't brought a bag with something to change. It was a hot day and it didn't seem very suitable for her to be wearing pantyhose.
"I thought you had died!" Tucker suddenly said, not letting go from her and I could have chuckled at her uncomfortable position if I wasn't so busy analyzing the situation. "I missed you so much!"
"I missed you, too." She finally said and he seemed to be satisfied with the answer and set her back on her feet. She straightened her clothes and she gave him a small smile that looked very sincere, actually, it had been the first sincere emotion I had seen on her face since the night before. But that smile didn't last more than ten seconds. She looked at me with her uptight expression and slowly walked to me, clutching tight to her necklace, hiding the diamond in her hands. "Thank you for letting me spend the night in your place. That was very kind of you."
"I told Tucker about your ghost husband." I said to attack her, to take her aback and maybe get something else out of her that seemed genuine, but she didn't even flinch at my words and I realized she didn't care whoever knew about it. She didn't want to hide her problems with her husband, like I thought she would.
"Good. It saves me the trouble to explain it all over again." She said, taking a chair and sitting down right in the other side of my desk, crossing her legs slowly, in a tempting manner. If I didn't know her, I'd believe she was trying to seduce me. Later I'd realize she was just trying to take my attention from her necklace to somewhere else.
Tucker moved to sit down on my chair while I sat on my desk. We were both very interested in the story, but we were even more interested when she opened her purse and started writing down a pay check.
"Fifty thousand dollars should pay for your services, right?" She didn't look over from the check she was writing and I was glad she didn't because I was caught by surprise. That amount was enough for six months of work; nobody had ever paid that much for a case. She must really have been desperate, or she simply liked to throw her money away. I didn't say anything and neither did Tucker. We just exchanged a glance and accepted the check.
"Do you want to sign the contract as well?" I asked her, but she shook her head. "All right. Now we need to know everything you can tell us that will help. When does he show up? How does he show up? Do you do anything that can lure him out or make him angry?"
"I'll tell you everything." She leaned against the chair and picked a cigarette and a lighter from her purse. I was surprised that she took the habit of smoking when in high school she was against everything that would result in smoke and whatever was dangerous for the environment. Even that leather she was wearing. The Sam I knew would never wear something like that. "I met him in Africa. He told me he was working for the UN as well, as a doctor, but only after we were married that I found out it was just an excuse to keep him in Africa so he could find diamonds and gold and take them off the country to sell them in the black market."
"Sounds like you got yourself a bad guy from the start." I chuckled, trying to tick something off that indifferent face, but she just shrugged like it didn't really matter to her and went on with the story.
"We got married in Africa and when my duty on UN was over he convinced me to move with him to his castle in Venice. I was very much in love. One year later he died in an accident and somehow his ghost comes after me. I was glad at first because I wouldn't miss him, but eventually he turned much possessive and he'd hurt me if I left the castle. He was jealous even of the butler and the maids and he scared all of them away. He keeps following me around now." She took a deep drag to finish the cigarette and put it out. "I can't live like this."
"All right…" I managed to say after hearing that quick story. I should have known the tale was too quick to be complete, she didn't want to give details of her relationship with him and I really didn't want to hear it, unless it was very important, so I just pretended I knew everything from that two minutes story. "He's not here right now. Why?"
"He doesn't seem to show up in daylight." She said and I knew instantly that her husband's ghost was a powerful one. Night ghosts are stronger than daylight ones, but those who can walk in night and day are the most feared ones. I was glad he didn't seem like that type of ghost or else I'd have bigger problems. "And there's more." She suddenly said. I was already taking notes of what she had said, but I set down the pen to pay attention on whatever was to come. "There are more ghosts in my house. I want them gone, too. I'll deal with travel and housing expenses so you won't have to worry about going there with me."
I was stunned for lack o better words. Not only Tucker and I were going to get fifty thousand dollars to solve a simple case, but we'd be traveling to Venice for free. I could study all those ghost cases that people talked about for hundreds of years.
"I'm sorry Sam I can't go." Tucker suddenly said, standing up and walking around the room nervously. "I'd love to go and help you, but I have my son. I can't just leave him with my mother; she's sick." I suddenly felt panic, as if I was being asphyxiated with a pillow. I realized I couldn't go to Venice alone with Sam. I couldn't put myself in a foreign territory, inside her house with only her and the remembrances of our past to haunt us.
"You can take your son with us if you want." Sam said. I almost recognized the commanding tone in her voice. She wasn't just offering to take Cole as well, she was demanding both Tucker and I to go with her and there would be no other choice. It was at that point that I realized she didn't want to stay alone with me.
Tucker eventually agreed to take Cole with us. When lunch time was over, Sam stood up from my office chair and walked out of the door. Tucker told her she could go and meet Cole if she wanted and I found it really odd that her only response to that was a small nod. "Be ready to leave tonight."
"How long do you think it will take to capture the ghost?" Tucker asked me, whipping his forehead in a handkerchief. "If the office stays closed for more than three weeks…"
"She's paying a lot for our services. I wouldn't think about the office now." I stood up and grabbed my wallet, putting it in my pocket. I put on my jacket and walked to the door. "I'm going to get a coffee at Starbucks, do you want anything?"
"A strong coffee for me, please." Tucker mumbled. He sat on his desk and started putting his papers in order. Since we didn't know when we were coming back, he took the job of calling our clients and making an excuse for our trip.
When I returned with his coffee fifteen minutes later I had much more information about Sam. I had seen her entering a store across the street while I was buying the coffees. She walked inside and ten minutes later she came out wearing business clothes. The tight baby blue skirt went down to her knees and the matching jacket she wore was open at the front so I could see a white shirt with a black butterfly tie on top. She was wearing a smaller hat and black gloves with black high heels.
I wondered what had happened to my Goth best friend. She looked so uptight and so ladylike she reminded me of one of those princesses who had to dress formally all the times to cause an impression on the public, to make themselves look respectable. I smiled when I realized I was comparing her to princesses. In my mind not even Grace Kelly had been a fairer princess than Sam.
She was carrying a small bag on her hands in which I thought she had put her other clothes in. That made me wonder why she hadn't brought a bag since she was traveling to another continent. It wasn't possible that she had lost it at the airport was it?
I watched her until she elegantly climbed into a taxi and went away. I wanted to go ghost and follow her, but at that exactly moment the lady behind the counter on Starbucks gave me the cups of coffee and I lost sight of her cab.
Tucker had just called the last client when I gave him his cup and I could see he was very disturbed by the recent events. The clients weren't happy that their cases were put on hold for several weeks and some of them even threatened to look for another ghost hunting office.
Something changed in me when I saw her walking out of the store wearing that Chanel attire because suddenly I didn't care if we lost all our other clients, I didn't even remember her paycheck that was forgotten on my desk's drawer. My goal from that moment on was to find out who she had become.
"We'll have to install the Ghost Portal in her house." Tucker said bringing me out of my daydream. "We need to stay close to Walker just in case we need reinforcements. She said there were 'ghosts' in her house and we don't know how many there are. We may not have enough Fenton Thermos for all of them."
"I can install one in three days." I said and that was true. My abilities at building ghost hunting devices and installing portals were my best skills. "Maybe we should just go home and pack. She said we'd leave tonight."
"I have a bad feeling about this." Tucker said quietly. He wasn't expecting me to reply so I just put a hand on his shoulder and we both exited our beloved office not knowing when we'd be able to return.
We walked for about three blocks until we reached his mother's house. I wanted to see Cole and make sure Tucker's mom was feeling better. Tucker opened the door with his spare key and we walked inside to find cookies and milk in the kitchen table. Laughter was coming from the living room and we followed it to find Mrs. Foley sitting comfortably in a chair covered in a blanket while Sam played with Cole on the floor.
I had never seen that kid so happy and Sam's smile and laugher sounded like music to my ears. Something heavy I was carrying in my heart since I saw her again was lifted and I took a deep breath, enjoying my moments of freedom before she encaged me with her dark expression once more.
Cole giggled when she caught him and lifted him up in a hug, spinning from around. Mrs. Foley laughed at their goofiness as well and I watched Tucker's reaction from the corner of my eyes. He was smiling happily at the scene and I could tell his heart was swollen in happiness.
But the laugher died down when Sam turned around and saw both of us standing on the threshold. She put Cole on the ground and straightened her clothes. Cole hugged her legs and she put a hand on his head, absently caressing his hair.
"Are you ready to go?" She suddenly asked and we both shook our heads immediately. "Well then you better hurry, the plane leaves in four hours." Neither Tucker nor I dared to complain.
Sam had already explained to Mrs. Foley what we were up to and I called my own mother to have it confirmed that Sam had already paid her a visit as well. When Sam's parents passed away my mother and Tucker's mother were the ones who helped her through the difficult times more than we did. Maybe it was girls' stuff that Tucker and I would never understand, but the three of them became closer, like foster mothers. Eventually I realized our mothers had being placed in Sam's heart to fill the hole her parent's deaths had opened. Sam would go for their shoulders to cry on and I often found her crying on my mother's arms when I came home late from school.
Often I caught myself wondering why she would go for my mother and not me, who had been her friend for years and had proved my loyalty many times. I never got an answer for that question.
"We'll meet at ten o'clock at the 18th gate." She said, giving us both our tickets she had bought on her name. She walked right past us, gave a Mrs. Foley a hug and walked out of the door. I saw her diamond necklace start shining brightly and she quickly grabbed it, hiding it under her shirt. What was wrong with that necklace anyway?
I wanted to reach for her out of their sights, I wanted to ask her about the diamond and the meaning of her cold heart towards Tucker and me, but I couldn't because at that moment Mrs. Foley decided to speak up and what she said only added one more odd event to the list of odd events that came with Sam.
"That poor child." Mrs. Foley said, standing up from her chair to limp with her cane in her right hand towards the kitchen to check on the cookies. "You wouldn't believe how many tragedies have been following her over the years. When she saw Cole her first reaction was to hug him and cry her eyes out." Mrs. Foley put the cookies in a plate and put them on the table. Cole quickly jumped from Tucker's arms to fill his little mouth with three cookies at once almost choking trying to swallow them. "She must have seen some horrible things in Africa to start crying like that."
I had no doubt Sam had seen horrible things, but I needed to understand better what exactly had happened to her, but it seemed Mrs. Foley had ran out of information. If I wanted to know what was wrong with Sam I'd have to walk into her house in Venice and put myself on her mercy. I'd have to play submissive and obedient so she could trust me again like old days.
AN- Thanks for the reviews and the PM Messages everyone! I've read every single one of them and I was so happy! I'll post the next chapter in two weeks maybe, I'm not sure. It depends on my filming schedule. Anyway, did you know it's my birthday? I think I deserve some reviews in this special date... LOL.