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“He seems fine…right?” What did he know about kids?
She gave a tight nod. “The car didn’t hit him. I made sure of that.”
It struck him then that he’d failed to take note of the license plate on the Lexus. He made a face.
The woman inched away from him.
Great. He’d scared her. “Sorry. I just thought of something…important.”
She scooted away a little more. “Please. Don’t let me keep you. I’m sure you have somewhere to go. We’re fine.”
Considering they were sprawled all over the middle of the street, David didn’t agree. But she did have a point—one, only one. “That reminds me…”
He thanked the Lord for the lack of traffic, pulled his cell phone from his pocket, and dialed his grandmother. In a few, terse sentences he let her know an emergency had come up and that he’d be late. She knew him well enough not to doubt the tone of his voice.
As he turned back to the victims, he heard distant sirens. He breathed a sigh of relief.
“You’re going to be okay,” he told the frightened two.
The little boy’s eyes looked like huge dark holes in the poor light. “You a doctor, mister?”
David grinned. “No, but my mother sure wanted me to be one.”
The tyke frowned. “Did she make you time-out ’cause you dinn’t ’bey?”
“No, not for that. But I spent hours and hours doing time-outs for all kinds of other things.”
A spark of mischief rang in his “Really?”
“Don’t bother the nice man, Marky. I’m sure he has to get going.”
“Aunt Lauren! You know you shouldn’t call me that.”
The sirens wailed louder even than the boy’s complaint.
Lauren tsk-tsked—nervously, to David’s ear. “I’m so sorry, dear. Aunt Lauren forgot this time. It won’t happen again. I promise.”
Mark aimed narrowed eyes at his aunt. “Double-dip promise, with a cherry and whip cream on top?”
“Double-dip promise, with a cherry and whipped cream on top.”
David was charmed, but not so much that he forgot what had to come next.
“Don’t you think you’d better call his parents?” he asked. “The investigating officer will be here soon, and he’ll want to ask you a million questions. The boy, too. The police will need parental permission to question him.”
The smile the banter had brought to Lauren’s face vanished. “Oh, dear. We don’t need the police. I’m fine, and so is Mark. Nothing happened here.”
“What do you mean, nothing happened here? That idiot ran right at you—and hit you! Then he pulled a hit-and-run. In my book that’s two for one. Crimes, that is.”
Alarm again filled her face. “Oh, no. Really. I’m sure the driver just skidded on the wet pavement. It gets slippery when it starts to snow like this.”
David snorted. “Look, lady—Lauren?” When she nodded, he continued. “The guy started out behind me. The minute you stepped into the crosswalk—on a green light for me, mind you—he hit the gas good and swerved around me. He was heading for you, and there’s no other way to call it. This was no accident.”
“You must be mistaken,” she argued in a shaky voice. “It couldn’t have happened that way. I’m sure it was the snow and…”
She stopped.
Shook her head.
Tightened her hold on Mark.
“Please,” she whispered. “Send them…all of them—” she gave a little wave “—away. I’m fine. Nothing happened here….”
Despite her urgent denials, David heard no conviction behind Lauren’s words. Something wasn’t right. Why was she so determined to avoid the paramedics and the police?
What had really happened before his eyes?
“Look, lady. I know what I saw. And I investigate crime for a living. My powers of observation are pretty sharp. So why don’t you stop all this nothing-happened nonsense, and tell me what’s coming down?”
“Nothing—”
“I’m a witness to your stepping into traffic with a child. I can press charges for child endangerment.”
“No…” Her voice broke on a sob. “Please. I’m all Mark has left. His mother died three years ago, and it’s only been three weeks since we buried my brother.”
David gave a brief nod. “I’m sorry to hear that.” He took a deep breath and withdrew his ID. “But that doesn’t change what I saw. I’m with the FBI. Please tell me what just happened here, why you’re so determined to avoid an investigation.”
Another sob ripped through her. Fear left her features drawn, pale, eerie-looking in the weak glow of the streetlight on the opposite corner across the street. Unless he was much mistaken, her shivers intensified.
She began to shake her head.
He glared.
Mark reached up to pat her cheek. “You ’kay, Aunt Lauren?”
She tried to smile at the boy, but failed. “Fine, Marky. I’m fine.”
“Lady—”
“My name’s Lauren, Lauren DiStefano.”
“Okay, Lauren DiStefano. I’m David Latham. Now why don’t you tell me what you think happened here? What you really think happened here.”
She took a deep breath, forced a…maybe she meant it as a smile, but from his point of view, it looked more like a grimace. She met his gaze.
“My brother’s—” She shut her eyes, shook herself, then squared her shoulders. When she looked at him again, some corner of David’s mind took note of her clear green eyes.
But it was her words that took him by surprise.
With a heavy dose of audible determination, she said, “My brother’s ghost just tried to kill me.”
TWO
David rolled his eyes. “Let me get this straight. Nothing really happened here, you say. It was just a driver who slid on wet pavement. And that driver was…your brother’s ghost?”
Lauren bit her lower lip. Then she squared her shoulders and nodded. “Yes. That’s what I said.”
But she didn’t meet his gaze.
The ambulance shrieked up and came to a complete stop a few inches from David’s feet. Two squad cars careered around the corner behind the siren-blaring, light-flashing, foot-threatening white-and-yellow menace. He scrambled upright, if for no other reason than to protect his feet.
But it was good. Reinforcements just when he needed them. He didn’t know what to make of his accident victim.
Two officers approached. David nodded at them. “Glad to see you guys.”
Officer Radford, as per his name tag, returned the nod. “Can you tell me what happened? The dispatcher wasn’t long on details.”
David withdrew his ID and turned it over to the two cops. “I was on my way down the street when a gray Lexus swerved around me and aimed straight at the woman and child. It hit and ran, and although she says she’s fine, I think she might have a concussion or something. At the very least, she must’ve rattled her head.”
The EMT who’d come up behind Officer Sherman, Radford’s partner, waved her own partner toward Lauren then said, “Why her head? Did you see evidence of trauma?”
“No, but she’s talking crazy.”
With a puzzled look for him, the medic turned to Lauren.
Radford took out a notepad. “What do you mean, talking crazy?”
David snorted. “I feel stupid just telling you what she said. She tried to tell me her brother’s ghost was behind the wheel. And that’s after she insisted again and again that the driver had only skidded on the damp road.”
Radford didn’t look up from his scribbles, but his right eyebrow rose. “So we’re talking criminal ghosts, are we?”
David ran a hand through his hair. He’d known better than to agree to come after Gram. Now he was making a fool of himself thanks to a pretty blonde who might have rocks in her head.
“That’s what she said.”
“Did you get a good look at the driver?”
“It happened so fast, I didn’t even get a good look at the license plate, much less the driver.”
“But you’re sure it was a gray Lexus?”
“That I’m sure. My grandmother just traded in one just like it only in pink.”
The eyebrow rose higher. “A pink Lexus. What’d she get? A pink Caddie instead?”
David’s cheeks flamed. “No. A purple Hummer.”
Radford’s left eyebrow joined his right. He turned to Officer Sherman. “Is that ID for real, or did he get it in a gumball machine?”
Sherman scanned it again. “Looks plenty kosher to me.”
David glared at Lauren. “Call the office. I’m for real. I’m just not sure what she is.”
“She,” said the female EMT as she returned, “is just fine. Oh, she’ll have a doozy of a bruise on her hip by tomorrow, all right, and I’ll bet she scraped her knees good under those pants, but otherwise she’s fine. Not even a bump on her head.”
“Then she’s nuts,” David said before he could stop himself.
Lauren glared back. “I’m not crazy, but I am fine, as I told you over and over again.” She turned to Radford. “He shouldn’t have made such a fuss. I’m sorry he bothered you, sir. But as you heard, I’m fine. You can all go home now. It’s getting late, especially for my nephew.”
Radford glanced at David. In that quick look, he saw the same alarm he’d felt at Lauren’s urgent objections. Something was up with this woman. And he wasn’t about to let her go until he had a good idea what it might be.
David crossed his arms and pinned Lauren with his stare. “Listen. I don’t buy a word of your ghost story, so why don’t you try telling me the truth? What’s going on here? What are you trying to hide?”
At his side, Radford cleared his throat.
David winced. He was stepping on the locals’ toes, and he was off duty, but by now he’d lost his patience. He had to know what Lauren DiStefano was up to.
Instead of answering, though, she helped her nephew stand before she stood, as well. Only then did she meet David’s gaze. “I’m sorry. I’m absolutely exhausted. And I’ve been under a great deal of stress these last few weeks. I’m sure it’s all taken its toll on my sanity.”
David caught himself before the spontaneous “Yeah, right” popped out. “So in your world exhaustion and stress lead to hit-and-runs and ghosts.”
She had the decency to blush. “I suppose it does sound stupid when you put it that way.”
“What way would you rather I put it?”
The shrug made her wince. She was hurt, no matter how hard she tried to deny it. What he wanted to know was why she was so determined to do so.
“Well?” he prodded.
Radford’s pencil scratched across paper.
The ambulance pulled away, this time minus the theatrics.
Officer Sherman joined them.
Still, Lauren didn’t speak. By now, she’d grown visibly uncomfortable with the triple scrutiny—just what David had hoped for. Maybe that discomfort would make her decide to talk.
She took a deep breath, clasped her nephew’s shoulders, pulled the boy close to her side. “The last three weeks have been very hard on us. My older brother Ric died twenty-three days ago. A car accident.”
That did explain stress, and the stress probably explained the exhaustion.
“But how do we get from grief and mourning to a Lexus-wielding ghost?” he asked. “Are you sure your brother’s dead? That you didn’t…uh—”
“No, Mr. Latham,” she cut in, her green eyes bright with indignation. “I didn’t imagine my brother’s death. I could never have done that. Besides, I have plenty of evidence of his passing.”
“I didn’t mean that you might have imagined his death.” David shifted his weight from one to the other foot. “That evidence you mentioned would be…?”
“The usual,” she countered. “I have a death certificate, the obit from the newspaper, the tasteful gravestone I had to order, a casket and fresh burial plot, the unending funeral bills I still have to pay and none of those is even the most heartbreaking bit of proof you could ever want. I have a grieving five-year-old nephew who only wants to know where his daddy went.”
