Chasing Rainbow Read online

  He sat on the couch facing her. “I didn’t come because I didn’t want to be elected.”

  “Oh.” Her smile deepened. “That was a mistake. I don’t think they’d have elected you if you’d come to the meeting and kicked and screamed.”

  “Probably not.” He sighed and passed his hand over his face, trying to wipe away the fatigue. “I’m sorry. I must seem awfully dense, but I’m still recovering from jet lag and I’m exhausted.”

  “I don’t want to keep you. I just felt, since you’re the president now, that I had a duty to tell you that I’m going to be working on the haunts.”

  Now Jake became absolutely sure that he was having some bizarre dream. People in real life weren’t named Rainbow Moonglow, and they didn’t say they were “working on the haunts.”

  He sat back on the couch, feeling its reassuring solidity, and closed his eyes a moment. He wasn’t dreaming; of that he was reasonably certain. It only felt like a dream, possibly because he was so fatigued.

  Nevertheless, he half-expected that when he opened his eyes, the beautiful young woman with the tempting figure would be gone, and he’d find himself all alone in the messy apartment.

  But she was still there, still sitting across from him in his uncle’s easy chair, her knees primly together, her hands folded. Since she wasn’t going to go away, he had a feeling that neither would this business about haunts.

  “I don’t believe in ghosts,” he said finally.

  “Neither do most people.”

  Well, at least she wasn’t totally disconnected from reality, although he felt he was. “What I’m trying to say is, I don’t understand why you’re here.”

  “Because you’re president of the association. I thought you should know what I’m going to be doing. The association asked me to look into the haunts.”

  “What haunts?”

  “There have been some apparitions and cold spots, and some movement of objects when no one was around. It warrants investigation.”

  “Why? Because some person is telling tall tales?”

  “More than one person is telling these ‘tales,’ Mr. Carpenter. The residents are very uneasy.”

  “And just what is your role?”

  “I’m a psychic.”

  “Oh.” To say he was disappointed would have been an understatement. That this beautiful young woman should be a fraud struck him as thoroughly disgusting. Those wide, innocent eyes hid the heart of a huckster. “So, these people are frightened, and you’re going to take advantage of them.”

  She looked as if he had just slapped her. “I’m going to do no such thing!”

  “Spare me.” He rose and walked to the door, throwing it open. “So-called psychics are a dime a dozen in this state, every one of them making a living off the grief and loneliness of old people. Take a hike, Miss Rainbow Moonglow. And you can be sure of one thing: no matter what it takes, I’m going to see that you don’t swindle these people out of whatever little life savings they have left!”

  She opened her mouth, as if to argue with him, but then closed it, pressing her lips together. Back stiff, head high, she walked past him and stepped into the hallway.

  He closed the door in her face, turning the dead-bolt with noisy finality.

  Joe looked at Lucy and spoke. “Yes, Jake certainly does seem taken with Rainbow, doesn’t he?”

  Lucy smiled to herself, and just kept on stitching. “You’ll see,” was all she said.

  Joe figured that even two eternities weren’t going to be enough to understand the workings of the female mind.

  Rainbow stood in the hallway for several minutes, feeling angry and offended. What a nasty man! He was leaping to conclusions about her based on nothing but misapprehensions. She had the worst urge to kick his door until he came back to open it, then tell him exactly what she thought of him.

  But she didn’t behave that way under any circumstances, not even these. What did it matter what he thought of her? The only thing that mattered was what she could do for these frightened people, and she was going to do it come hell or high water or Jake Carpenter.

  Her chin set, she marched down the hallway to the elevator and punched the button. The doors opened almost immediately. Stepping inside, she pushed the button for the ground floor, then sagged as her anger deserted her.

  It hurt, she realized. She didn’t know Jake Carpenter from Adam, yet his opinion of her had hurt— even though he couldn’t possibly know her well enough to have an opinion.

  And she’d thought she had long since grown past being concerned with the opinions of people she didn’t know …

  Worse, on her walk-through of the building, she hadn’t sensed anything at all. Either her psychic powers were out of whack tonight, or nothing was going on. At least, nothing ghostly.

  Except in Jake Carpenter’s apartment. There she had felt a definite presence, a sense of warmth and love and even humor.

  Whatever ghosts were dwelling with Jake, they were the kind anyone would like to have around. She might have mentioned them if he’d given her the chance. But considering his reaction to her, it was better to say nothing about it.

  At home, she kicked off her shoes and exchanged her stifling suit for white shorts, and a yellow T-shirt. A walk on the darkened beach would be nice, she thought longingly, but the beaches closed just after sunset—although she supposed the worst that could happen was that one of the local police officers would ask her to walk elsewhere.

  Sighing, she gave up the idea and made herself a cup of tea instead. She took it out into her garden behind the cottage, her little garden with its high privacy fence and its profusion of tropical blooms. The flowers scented the night air, even though the plants were beginning to look a little wilted as they always did in the August heat.

  Sitting in the near-dark, with only the soft light of the moon and the yellow glow from a lamp inside to light the night, she drank her tea and wondered why she felt as if she were on the cusp of something important.

  The night was muggy and unusually still. The sea breeze which had blown all day had died, and the land breeze hadn’t yet begun to send its cooling breath toward the sea. Not even the highest frond stirred on a nearby Washingtonian palm.

  Finally, feeling sticky and hot, Rainbow carried her cup into the house and let the air conditioning dry her damp skin.

  Just as she was about to dump the dregs of her tea into the sink, she hesitated. Then, following a custom she had learned from her mother as a child, she turned the cup upside down on its saucer. She turned it three times, then lifted it and looked into the leaves in the bottom of the cup.

  The leaves seemed to unlock a door in her mind that the cards had earlier failed to open. Looking down at them, she saw that the winds of change were already blowing through her life.

  Nothing would ever again be the same.

  Rainbow was just falling into an uneasy sleep when the phone rang. Reaching out blindly with one hand, she found the receiver and put it to her ear.

  “Oops,” said the smiling voice of her beloved Uncle Gene, “I keep forgetting the time difference. Did I wake you?”

  “You know perfectly well you did.” But Rainbow was already smiling and pushing herself up higher on the pillow. “You’re just a night owl, Uncle Gene. You can’t get used to the fact that I’m not.”

  “Well, it’s really not that late out there, Rainy. It’s not even midnight.”

  She glanced at the glowing numerals of the clock on her bedside table. “Not quite by three minutes. But that’s okay. You know I always love to hear from you.”

  “Of course you do! How could you not? I’m an exciting, lovable old rogue, aren’t I?”

  “You don’t need me to tell you that,” Rainbow said, her voice full of laughter and love. “You’ve worked very hard on your image.”

  “So I have. Image is everything, dear child.” He paused. “You know I don’t go in for all this stuff you and your mother do.”

  “I know.”
>
  “Not that I disbelieve it, Rainy. You and Roxy have both taken my breath away on more than one occasion. But I don’t seem to be afflicted with the family psychic abilities to any great degree.”

  “Lucky you,” Rainbow said with uncharacteristic bitterness.

  There was a brief silence from the other end of the phone, then Gene said, “I knew it.”

  “Knew what?”

  “Even I, the most psychically disabled member of the family, occasionally have twinges. I knew something was wrong. I kept getting an overwhelming urge to call you.”

  “Nothing’s wrong, Uncle Gene. Really. I just had an unpleasant encounter this evening.”

  “An unpleasant encounter having to do with your abilities? Give me the name of the swine, and I’ll straighten him out.”

  Moody as she was feeling, Rainbow couldn’t help but laugh. “It’s not that big a deal.”

  “Of course it is! It must be. If it weren’t a big deal, you wouldn’t have been so upset that I was able to pick up on it. Tell me what happened.”

  “Nothing, really. A local condo association asked me to look into some haunts in their building. Then their new president accused me of trying to bilk all the elderly residents out of their life savings.”

  “He did, did he? Well, clearly he doesn’t know you.”

  “No, he doesn’t,” Rainbow agreed.

  “Why are you taking it so much to heart?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Hmm.” Gene paused a moment. “Can you pick me up at the airport tomorrow afternoon?”

  “Of course I can. Are you coming for a visit?”

  “Well, not exactly. I agreed to be a spokesman for an environmental group out there, but they don’t need me to film the ads until late next week. I might as well combine business with pleasure and visit you and Dawn.”

  “Dawn went on a cruise with Roxy.”

  “Your mother went on a cruise? I didn’t think she was the type.”

  “She got hired to do a seance at sea.”

  That made Gene chuckle. “Now that does sound like Roxy. Well, I can visit them when they get back. In the meantime, I’ll have you all to myself.”

  Rainbow smiled into the phone. “Sounds like a plan.”

  She hung up the phone and rolled over, hugging her pillow and smiling into the dark with pleasure. She loved it when Gene came to visit. He was always full of amazing stories drawn from his twenty years as a CIA agent, and from his second career as an actor.

  Sometimes she envied him the exciting life he’d led. He’d traveled widely, and although he never spoke of such things, she suspected he’d had some hair-raising adventures. But he was inclined to dismiss his CIA career with a shrug and the comment that he’d “done his time in the three-piece-suit gig.”

  He was always vague about what exactly he’d done for the CIA, and that vagueness had filled Rainbow’s head with all sorts of excited imaginings. She knew there were things he could have done for the organization other than spy, but in her heart she believed he must have been a covert operative. If he hadn’t been, wouldn’t he have said so?

  This time, she promised herself, she was going to get the truth out of him.

  And maybe, she thought, the change she had been anticipating was nothing but Gene’s impending visit.

  It was a comforting notion, and she carried it with her into her dreams.

  Three

  Jake slept through his alarm and was awakened finally around ten in the morning by the sound of his doorbell. Dragging himself out of bed, he pulled on a pair of jeans and staggered to the door, half-hoping it was that witchy little psychic again so he could give her another piece of his mind.

  It was not such a welcome sight. Two older men, both of whom he vaguely recognized, stood there with hand trucks stacked with cardboard document boxes.

  “Good morning,” said the taller of the two. “I’m Ellis Webster, and this is Abe Levinson. We’ve chatted in the past, when you were visiting Joe.”

  His sleepy brain made some sluggish connections, and suddenly he remembered. “That’s right. I think I played shuffleboard with you.”

  The men looked pleased. “That’s right,” said Ellis. “I didn’t think you’d remember.”

  “You beat me soundly, too, as I recall.”

  The older man waved a deprecating hand. “I had the advantage of a lot of practice. Listen, would you mind if we brought these boxes in?”

  Jake automatically stepped back, letting them wheel the hand trucks in, wondering even as he did it, why. “What is this?”

  “Association records. You were elected president last night.”

  Jake was suddenly wide awake. “I wanted to talk to someone about that.”

  “Where do you want these?” Abe asked. “In the spare room?” He headed that way without awaiting instructions.

  “About this election—”

  “It’s quite an honor, isn’t it?” Ellis asked, as he wheeled his truck into the office. “You don’t have to tell me how flattered you are.”

  Flattered? Jake stood where he was, wondering why every conversation he’d had in the last two days seemed to be coming at him sideways.

  A minute later, the two men reemerged from the office. Abe paused to shake his hand.

  “We really appreciate you taking this on,” he said warmly.

  “But—”

  Ellis interrupted. “It’s not a terrible job,” he said. “Not even especially hard. I’m the outgoing president, you know. I’ll be glad to help you all I can, so don’t hesitate to call me if you have any questions.”

  Faced with that, Jake couldn’t quite bring himself to say that he didn’t want to be president and they could take all the boxes back where they came from.

  “And don’t worry about the hauntings,” Ellis said on his way out. “We’ve already taken care of that problem.”

  The hauntings. Jake had to do something about that before things got out of hand. Suddenly galvanized, he hurried to the bedroom to dress.

  He’d never gotten around to unpacking anything last night, so he had to tear through boxes in search of fresh clothes and underwear. At last he found a pair of khaki shorts that weren’t too rumpled, underwear, and a blue polo shirt that would lose its wrinkles in a few minutes of wear. The only shoes he had were work boots, so he laced them up over a pair of socks, thinking that he probably needed to go shopping for something more suitable for his new home.

  The kitchen was bare, of course. He’d ordered out for pizza last night—and how he’d missed pizza whenever he was out of the country!—but he’d been too tired to deal with stocking his refrigerator. He’d better handle that today.

  Five minutes later, feeling the morning sun on his cheek, he was driving to the Paradise Beach police station.

  Going to the police about Rainbow Moonglow appeared to be his only legitimate option. He doubted he could persuade the residents that they were being taken, and he doubted he could persuade that little witch to back out when there was undoubtedly a lot of money at stake. That left the police as the only ones who could protect the elderly Towers residents. There was certainly nowhere else to turn.

  He was just pulling into the police parking lot when a purple golf cart bearing an elderly woman with a crown of white hair turned off the street and followed him. It had always amused him that some people around here used golf carts instead of cars for transportation, and in spite of his cranky mood this morning, he got out of his car with a smile.

  She looked at him sharply, her dark eyes taking in every detail. “I imagine you’re Jake Carpenter,” she said.

  “Yes, ma’am.” He was beginning to wonder if everyone in town knew who he was. He certainly couldn’t remember having met this lady at the Towers.

  “I thought so. You look a lot like your uncle.”

  He took that as a compliment. Even in his seventies, Joe had been a good-looking man. “Thank you.”

  “I’m Mary Todd,” she sai
d. “Miss Mary Todd. I was a friend of your uncle’s.”

  “It’s nice to meet you.”

  She cackled merrily. “That’s a polite social lie, boy. Don’t say it if you don’t mean it.”

  “Polite social lies make the world go around.”

  “Only for small minds. Joe didn’t think you had a small mind.”

  Jake found that he was enjoying Miss Todd’s outspokenness hugely. This old woman was something else. “I guess that remains to be seen.”

  She laughed again, her dark eyes as bright as a bird of prey’s. “You’re going to do something about the ghosts, of course.”

  “Ghosts?” He wasn’t willing to even admit he’d heard of them.

  “You know perfectly well what ghosts I mean,” she said tartly. “And now you’re president of the condominium association, so that makes them your responsibility.”

  “I have to disagree with you, Miss Todd. Since I don’t believe in ghosts, they can hardly be my responsibility.”

  “Hah! What a disappointment. You have a small mind, after all.”

  “No, I simply have a scientific, rational one.”

  “There’s nothing rational about dismissing something simply because you haven’t seen it.”

  He opened his mouth to argue with her, then thought better of it.

  She pointed a finger at him. “Whatever you believe, my friends at the Towers are frightened. You’re president of the association, which means you have to do something about it.”

  “I am doing something about it.”

  “Humph. The Paradise Beach police may be damn good, but they aren’t good enough to arrest a ghost!”

  “What if it’s not a ghost, Miss Todd?”

  She paused, looking thoughtfully at him. “What do you mean?”

  “What if someone is trying to frighten the residents?”

  “Why on earth would anyone want to do that?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. Maybe to get them to sell cheap.”

  She frowned. “You know, I’d rather have it be ghosts. It would be so much more original.”

  Jake felt an impulse to laugh, but restrained it. He didn’t want to offend this woman needlessly.

  She wagged her finger at him again. “Just be sure you don’t let your beliefs blind you, boy.”