Chasing Rainbow Page 5

  Rainbow looked up at him in shock. “You’re kidding!”

  His green eyes, so very like hers, twinkled a little as they returned her look. “I’m not kidding. It was a long time ago, sweetie, nearly forty years—and needs must when the devil drives. Plus, it makes a great story for the ladies. But not for this woman. Anyway, I’m not squeamish, but—”

  He broke off and shook his head. “It was the stomach pump part that got to me. The gory description of the tube running down her throat and the—well, never mind. I’m sure you don’t want to hear about it either.”

  “Not really.”

  The woman in pink hadn’t caught up to them when the tram departed for the main terminal.

  “You’re safe,” Rainbow said.

  “Not yet. There’s still the baggage carousel.”

  When they reached the baggage claim area, they found chairs from which they could see the carousel and sat together.

  “Tell me about this fellow who thinks you’re a fraud,” Gene said.

  “I’ve decided to ignore it. He just seems to be an unpleasant person.”

  “Really?”

  She felt a burst of irritation. She hated it when Gene started reading between the lines. “Don’t say it that way, Uncle Gene, as if you think I’m lying.”

  “I don’t think you’re lying to me,” he said, a sparkle in his eye. “You might be guilty of deluding yourself, however.”

  “Well, I’m not. He’s an irritating, nasty man, and the only thing to do is ignore it.”

  “Possibly. You do seem to be having a rather strong reaction to a mere idiot.” He looked toward the carousel and sighed impatiently. “If they don’t hurry up and that woman finds me, I’m going to make this airline sorry they ever sold her a ticket.”

  Rainbow didn’t believe him. Gene often liked to speak extravagantly, but she’d never seen him do anything to hurt another soul. “She won’t bother you again. You’re with me now.”

  “I just wish I hadn’t checked my bags. We could already be on our way.”

  “Aren’t you overreacting? All she can do is talk to you.”

  “Her voice sounds like a buzz saw—whine, whine, whine. My ears are still hurting. Oh, damn, there she is.”

  Rainbow turned in time to see the woman in the pink pantsuit coming down the escalator. She was a very attractive woman of about fifty, and all of a sudden Rainbow had a sneaking suspicion that her uncle wasn’t innocent in all this. She looked at him.

  “What did you do, make a pass at her?”

  He shifted uneasily. “Not exactly.”

  “Not exactly? You’re saying you encouraged the poor woman, and now you’re trying to duck responsibility for her interest?”

  “I’m saying that I was wrong to be interested in the first place. There is nothing interesting about her.”

  “Which is why you should get to know people before you make a pass.” Rainbow shook her head. “I’m disappointed in you, Uncle Gene. Thinking with your hormones at your age.”

  He gave her a sour look. “I maybe be sixty, but I’m still alive and male. All my hormones are intact. It’s a damn shame the woman’s package is deceptive.”

  Rainbow looked away, hiding her amusement. Gene Holder would be a rake until the day he died—a day which she hoped was in the very distant future. “Just watch your behavior in Paradise Beach. I have to live in that town.”

  “My dear, I promise to be on my best behavior.”

  The first suitcases showed up on the carousel, and much to Gene’s relief, they belonged to the woman in pink. She picked them up and departed without a glance in his direction.

  “Saved!” he whispered.

  “You could hardly have been more obvious about avoiding her.”

  “Naturally. I wanted no further misunderstanding.”

  His bags weren’t far behind the woman’s, and they made their way to the elevator, and from there to the fifth level of the parking garage where Rainbow’s car was parked.

  “You know, Uncle Gene, it’s not just a matter of me being embarrassed to have a sixty-year-old uncle who acts like he’s twenty.”

  Gene looked at her as she unlocked her trunk for his suitcases. “No?”

  “No. You have to consider that you might have hurt that woman’s feelings.”

  “I don’t know her well enough to hurt her feelings.”

  “That’s a good excuse, I suppose, but if you ask me, she must have been hurt by the way you seemed to be interested and then ran away like she was the Gorgon.”

  He cocked his head and smiled faintly. “You always did have a kind heart.”

  Not really, Rainbow thought as she climbed into the car. Not when she could think murderous thoughts about a certain Jake Carpenter. For all her protests that she was going to ignore it, the fact was, she could have cheerfully tied him to the railroad tracks and watched him beg for mercy.

  That satisfying image put a smile on her face as she turned the car toward home.

  Four

  Gene went for a swim in the Gulf before dinner. He owned a house on the California coast, and Rainbow always found it amusing how eager he was to swim in the Gulf of Mexico.

  “The water’s warmer,” he told her, “and the waves aren’t usually as big. It’s a more user-friendly experience.”

  After he showered off the salt-water and changed into shorts and a T-shirt that claimed “Divers do it deeper,” they ate steak and salad on Rainy’s little patio, amid the flowering azaleas, hibiscus, and bougainvillea.

  “I’m afraid I’m going to have to go out for a couple of hours after dinner,” Rainbow told him. “I promised to check on that haunting at the Towers, and I really ought to get going on it.”

  “I thought you checked it out last night.”

  “I did, but I didn’t sense anything then. I’d like to go back and try again.”

  “No problem,” he said with a smile that left her feeling uneasy, though she couldn’t say why. “I’ll tag along. Who knows, I might meet a ravishing widow.”

  “Uncle Gene, you promised you’d behave!”

  He held up a hand. “I will. I’m a man of my word, but I’m a romantic, too, Rainy. I’m still waiting for the woman who will sweep me off my feet. Who knows? She might be living at the Towers, just waiting for me to appear.”

  Rainbow didn’t know whether to be amused or concerned. Generally speaking, the only way to deal with Gene was to be amused. Anything else only led to frustration. “If you see someone interesting, just don’t make any passes until you’ve gotten a chance to know her.”

  Again he laid his hand over his heart. “I’ve learned my lesson.”

  “Right,” Rainbow said drily. “At this late date.”

  Gene feigned a hurt expression. “I pride myself on being an old dog who can learn new tricks.”

  “Well, come along if you want to, but I’d appreciate it if you’d wear a different shirt. This is business, after all, and some people might consider that a little bit too suggestive.”

  “I’ll take care of it,” he assured her. Five minutes later he reappeared, wearing a red T-shirt that announced, “Dead bungee jumpers come with no strings attached.” When he saw the look on her face, he spread his hands and said, “Hey, at least it’s honest.”

  “Where do you find these shirts?”

  “Neat, aren’t they? And comfortable, too. Nobody’s ever going to get me into a tie again.”

  “Not even the lady of your dreams?”

  He shook his head. “I’ll get married in a safari shirt. Or maybe a Nehru jacket.”

  “If you ever get married.”

  “The woman of my dreams won’t expect me to wear ties, Rainy. That’s the whole point, isn’t it? To find someone who doesn’t want you to change.”

  She had to admit he was right. But then, Gene was like that. Amid all his outrageousness were pearls of genuine wisdom. Before they left, she put a bag of short-grain rice into her straw shoulder bag. Gene raised an ey
ebrow, but didn’t say anything.

  She had called ahead earlier that morning, making arrangements to visit the affected condos that evening. Their first stop was with the Herschfelds, Olive and Zach, in their ground-floor unit.

  Tonight Olive was wearing a black caftan that showed off her iron-gray hair beautifully. Her husband was wearing stained white overalls that looked as if he’d just been working.

  “My boat is having engine trouble,” he said, by way of explanation. “I’ll just go wash up.”

  Olive offered them iced tea and lemonade. Gene, dripping charm, said he’d love some lemonade. Rainbow declined. “I just need to walk around a little, Mrs. Herschfeld, and get the feeling of the place. Like I did last night.”

  “Go right ahead,” Olive said.

  “I’ll keep Olive company,” Gene promised Rainbow. She didn’t like the gleam in his eye, but consoled herself with the knowledge that Zach Herschfeld was just in the next room.

  Rainbow stood for several minutes at the sliding glass doors that opened onto the patio, watching the steady rhythm of the waves as they rolled toward shore, seeking the inner stillness that was necessary to what she did. It would have been easier if she hadn’t been so aware of her uncle and Olive murmuring in the background, and hadn’t been so worried that Gene would charm his way into some serious trouble.

  But after a while, the sound of their voices seemed to fade, and the rhythm of the sea entered her, making her feel relaxed and somehow removed from everything around her, as if she were floating gently.

  Little by little she began to feel a presence, as if there were another person in the room with her, Olive, and Gene. She turned slowly, not wanting to disturb her mood, and saw that Zach had not yet rejoined them. No, she sensed him still in the other part of the unit, could feel the gentle flow of his thoughts as he followed the routine task of cleaning up.

  She felt Olive and Gene, too, felt the surprisingly bright flow of their mutual interest. But that was all right, she decided, as she let herself absorb the feeling. There was nothing in that she needed to worry about. Apparently her uncle was keeping his promise.

  She turned a little more, toward the fireplace, and felt herself drawn toward it, to the corner beside it. Here, she thought, feeling a cold draft snake over her skin. Here. She felt sadness and loss and a totally unexpected sense of amusement. Amusement? From a ghost?

  An instant later the feeling was gone. Blinking as if she were waking from a long sleep, Rainbow looked at Olive and her uncle. “It’s here,” she said.

  They stopped talking immediately and looked at her.

  “Really?” Olive looked uneasily at the corner. “It’s here right now?”

  Rainbow shook her head. “Just for a few moments. It’s gone now.”

  “Thank goodness! Live and let live, I always say, but ghosts don’t belong in our world!”

  Gene regarded her almost soberly. “What did you learn?”

  “Nothing much. I felt sadness, loss … and a sense of humor.”

  “Humor?” Olive looked shocked.

  “I’m afraid so,” Rainbow said. “It’s certainly not an angry ghost. At least, not judging by what I felt there.” She looked at Olive. “You don’t need to be afraid of it, Mrs. Herschfeld. It doesn’t mean any harm to you. In fact, I’d be surprised if it comes back again. I got the feeling it just wanted us to know it was around.”

  Olive regarded the corner of her living room with distaste. “Fine. Let it go bother someone else. Please.”

  “I can’t say for certain that it will,” Rainbow told her, “but that’s the impression I got.”

  A few minutes later she and her uncle were on their way to Nellie Blair’s apartment.

  “You need to lighten up, Rainy,” he told his niece. “Break out of that little shell you’re in and enjoy life more.”

  She pressed the button for the elevator and looked at him. “That’s easy for you to say, Uncle Gene. You don’t have to fight to get people to take you seriously.”

  He looked sadly at her. “Why on earth would I want anyone to take me seriously?” “You do, as an actor.”

  “Actually, my acting career took off only after I stopped being so serious about myself. My dear, you used to be such a happy, carefree child. Now I find you living alone and worrying about silly things like how people might react to my Tshirts. And back there, you didn’t even want to take a few minutes to enjoy Olive and Zach.”

  She felt stung. “That’s because I’m working. Besides, I was intruding on them and I wanted to get out of their way as quickly as possible.”

  He shook his head. “Dear child, that’s where you’re wrong. Olive and Zach would have really liked it if you’d stayed a little while to chat with them. They were enjoying your visit, and they’d have enjoyed it a whole lot more if you’d relaxed a little bit.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  Gene sighed, reading the hurt in her face. “I’m not criticizing you, Rainy. Just suggesting you should have more fun.”

  “I have lots of fun,” she lied stoutly.

  “I don’t think you’ve had any real fun since Walter broke off your engagement because—what was it he said?”

  “I creeped him out,” Rainbow replied stonily. “I was too weird to be around.”

  “You were never weird,” Gene said firmly. “But trying to be perfect and so straitlaced isn’t going to convince anyone that you aren’t weird, you know.”

  Rainbow looked to one side, swallowing a sigh. “I know.”

  Gene reached out and touched her cheek. “You need to learn to love yourself, Rainy.”

  She blinked back an errant tear and gave him a crooked smile. “And you need to go back to being the outrageous Gene we all know and love, so I can get on with my work.”

  He studied her a moment. “So be it. You should have let me wear the T-shirt I had on earlier. Olive would have loved it.”

  “Probably. But Mrs. Blair might not.”

  “What is taking that damn elevator so long?” Gene asked, punching the button again. As soon as he did, the doors opened, revealing a sweating, plump, balding man in his middle fifties who was accompanied by a large chair on a hand truck.

  “Sorry,” the man said, trying to turn the chair around so he could pull it out of the elevator. “This thing is giving me fits.”

  “Let me help,” Gene offered. “I’m Gene Holder, and this is my niece, Rainy Moonglow.”

  The man nodded to them both and wiped his brow with his forearm. “Thanks. I appreciate it. I’ve been meaning to get rid of this damn thing—”

  Rainbow felt a wave of ice wash over her and she was suddenly dizzy. Stepping to one side, she leaned against the wall and fought for balance. Something was wrong.

  Gene stepped into the elevator, and helped the man pull the chair around. Moments later the two of them were pushing it toward the back entrance, probably to leave it beside the trash bin.

  As they walked away, Rainbow felt the ice drain from her body and the world stabilize once more. Still, she leaned back against the wall, afraid the sensation might overwhelm her again.

  But no, it was gone. The world was back to normal, the hallway once again seventy-eight degrees. Even the dizziness had vanished as if it had never been.

  Gene returned a few minutes later. “Are you all right?” he asked. “You look pale.”

  “I’m fine. But I’m not so sure about that man.”

  He raised one eyebrow. “Harvey Little? What did he do?”

  “Not a thing. I just felt… death around him.”

  Gene shook his head. “That wouldn’t be surprising, given the shape he’s in. The man needs to work out, or something. He was gasping like a beached fish by the time we got the chair into the parking lot.” He patted his hard stomach with satisfaction. “Five miles a day makes all the difference.”

  Rainbow couldn’t help laughing, but she looked back toward the door where Harvey Little had disappeared.

&n
bsp; “Don’t say anything to him, Rainy,” Gene said gently. “There’s nothing you can do about it.”

  “I suppose not. It’s just that… I’m not sure what I felt was him. Not exactly.”

  Gene punched the elevator button again, and this time the doors slid open immediately. They stepped in.

  “The ghost?” he asked.

  “Maybe. Maybe not.” She shook her head. “It wasn’t very clear, I’m afraid.”

  “What floor?”

  “Eight.”

  He leaned back against the handicap railing and folded his arms as the elevator rose. “Remember that time your high school principal had a heart attack?”

  She nodded. She would never forget it. All morning long, anytime she had been near the man, she had felt cold, dark waves of nausea and dizziness wash over her. By the time she had been sure it was related to him, it was too late.

  “And remember how it felt after he died?”

  She nodded again. “All light, as if a terrible dark pressure was gone.”

  “And what did you say when you told me about it?”

  “That I’d never be afraid of death again, if that’s how it felt.”

  He nodded. “So if it’s Harvey’s time, it won’t be long before he’s feeling a whole lot better. But there’s nothing you can do to change what’s going to happen.”

  “I know, but I might have warned him.” That was the most troubling part of being psychic, deciding whether or not to raise issues. “I would have said something to him—maybe he’d go to the hospital?— but I wasn’t sure it was him.”

  “Maybe not. But if it is him and he doesn’t have the sense to get himself to a doctor, nothing you say will change anything.”

  She knew he was right; long ago she had discovered that people who didn’t ask for her help didn’t want it and wouldn’t listen. In fact, they could get downright nasty about it.

  Nellie Blair was eagerly awaiting their arrival and seemed impatient to get the introductions behind them—except when Gene, ever the gallant, bowed over her hand. Nellie blushed and Gene smiled his winningest smile. Rainbow gave him a warning look.