Page 69 of Ghost Walk
Grace wasalive. She was passionate and shy, smart and full of self-doubt, pessimistic and shining with idealism… A mass of perfect paradoxes, with strange taste in furniture and a smile that could drop a man to his knees. Jamie loved her beyond all earthly boundaries. Everything magical about this universe was held inside of her small frame. It had been worth hanging and spending two hundred years in isolation, just to have these few days with her. He would do it all again, without a second’s hesitation.
Grace was the very best part of existence and she should have the very best Partner that the world had to offer. Someone far better than a dead pirate.
And so he had to let her go.
And so he was angry and resentful and defeated andgrief-stricken… and being a jackass.
Jamie looked over at his brunette reason for everything. “You can call me as many names as you like, but I’m not changing my mind. Your time traveling adventures are too dangerous, Grace. You need to stop. It’s over.”
“It’snotover.” She snapped and then remembered her tour group was watching her. Her eyes widened and she glanced back at her confused guests. “The tour, I mean.” She told them quickly. “The tour’s not over. We’re walking this way.” She pointed down the street, waving at them to follow her.
Jamie sighed and hopped off the fence rail where he’d been sitting. Grace’s Ghost Walk was turning into performance art, mostly because she kept forgetting to ignore him. The tourists were growing more and more baffled, as she repeatedly interrupted the halfhearted ghost yarns to complain at someone they couldn’t see. If Jamie been in a better frame of mind, it would have been amusing. As it was, he took it as further proof that he was standing between Grace and the living world.
“Grace.” He fell into step beside her. “You’ve saved Anabel. You’ve done what you set out to accomplish. There’s no more need for you to go back in time. You can return to your crime investigation job, knowing that you’re no longer burned up.”
With her face swollen up like a bowling ball, Anabel Maxwell had understandably skipped her trip to the governor’s party back in 1789. Instead, the girl had traveled down to Jamestown to see her doctor uncle about her broken nose and spent the rest of the summer in hiding. Consequently, she didn’t die in the hedge maze. Jamie had recollections of her growing to be a very old woman, with a crooked nose and a successful horse farm. She’d eventually helped with the Underground Railroad. That was all thanks to Grace.
“It’s burnedout. And I plan to helpallthe victims, not just Anabel.” Grace hissed back. “Clara Vance still dies. More importantly,youstill die.” She shook her head. “I’ll stop when Isave you, Jamie. Not before.”
Jamie brushed a hand over her hair, wishing he could feel the dark strands. “Maybe you could go back and stop me from hanging,” he admitted quietly, “but I’ll still be dead, Grace. There’s nothing you can do to change that.”
She sent him a fuming look. “I’msupposed to be the one saying that the plans won’t work. You’re supposed to be the one who’s super-optimistic, remember?”
“I’m the one beingpractical. What will happen, even if you discover the real killer? What good will it do me now?”
“We have no idea what the rest of your life might have been! Clearing your name will change the whole timeline. It’ll make things the way they were alwayssupposedto be. That’s the whole point of this! You won’t get lynched by the mob, so you could go on living for decades. You could have a successful life, with a happy marriage and some kids.”
“I won’t.” He told her seriously.
“You don’t know that.” But her eyebrows tugged together, as if she didn’t much like the idea of him living out the Early-American dream without her.
Jamie understood the feeling all too well. Without Grace beside him, he would have nothing. “Saving me from hanging would do me no favors.” He knew it with as much certainty as he knew his own name. “I see that now. We’re stopping this investigation.”
“We’re not stopping, Jamie!” Grace bellowed. “No matter what it means for us, I’mnotleaving you back there to die!”
The tour group was staring at her again.
Grace didn’t seem to notice. Or perhaps she just didn’t care. “There’s gotta be a potion or something to fix the rest of it.” She insisted. “I can figure it out. IknowI can. We just need to keep you alive.”
“There’s no potion to turn a ghost back into a man!”
She winced and looked away from him.
Whatever was left of Jamie’s heart cracked in half, but he kept going. If he didn’t, he would never be able to finish what had to be said. “Reanimating the dead is beyond even theRiveras. I’mgone, Grace.You’rethe one who’s still alive and I mean to keep you that way.” Jamie loomed over her, willing her to understand. “There is akillerloose in my time.”
“No kidding.” She snapped, swiping at her eyes. “We’ve been investigating him for days, so I don’t get why you’re so upsetnow.”
“Um….” A tour guest in tube socks and sandals hesitantly raised his hand. “Excuse me? Were we supposed to get a pamphlet or something to explain this part?”
A blonde woman in a Lakers cap nodded. “Yeah, I’m --like--totallyconfused. Is this --like-- a dinner theater thing? Because I’m vegan and I’ll need a special menu.”
“Damn it, I already ate.” Someone else complained. “No one told me there was free food on this tour.”
“We’re not eating.” Grace snapped at them. “What are you guys talking about? Just zip it and let me have a conversation here, alright?” She made a slashing motion across her lips.
Jamie winced a bit. It was at least the fourth time she’d told the guests to shut up since the tour began. The woman had inherited her family’s lack-of-talent for customer service.
“That’s it. I’msofiling a complaint. I skipped the candlelight harpsichord recital for this and it’s totally not whatTrip Advisorpromised.” The blonde muttered, reaching for her phone.
