Chapter 19

"This is stupid," he muttered under his breath. "Who does she think she is? Wonder Woman?"

He tromped up the stairs, but there was no satisfaction of shoes slamming into the treads. Not with his ghostly feet. It didn't stop him though from all but throwing himself through the upper doorway and out into the pantry once more.

"Why am I doing this? It's stupid," he repeated, more to hear himself talk. Not unlike when he was preparing for a big court case. He used to practice the inflection of each word until he had it down perfectly. "I mean, it's not like I have any reason to help her again, yet here I am, wandering around a castle where vampires—" he flung his hand toward a group of said vampires standing off to one side, "—are running the show. How in the world does she think she's going to escape all of them? She'd need more than me. More than that thug downstairs. More than the fish woman."

He threw his hands into the air, and when he looked forward again, he saw the same ghost he'd run into on his first foray into the castle. The man was sitting on a stool as if waiting for him. "Ah. Trying to help your wife?"

"She's not my wife," Alan barked. "But yes, I am trying to help her."

"So interesting. Why again?"

Alan glared at the old man. "You know, you got us to the music, but now what? It's not so easy to just knock out the right tune!" He turned right, heading into a section of the castle that he hadn't explored on his initial investigation. That was a good word. He was like an investigator. Like the detectives he worked with…well, when he'd been alive.

"I think you are doing this because you know you wronged her. I should know, I wronged the woman I loved too."

His whole body froze up. "I did not?—"

"I believe you did. And this is your chance to make right for all the things you did wrong. For being cruel to her. Abusive. For stepping out on her with all those women. For lying to her. When you knew she loved you. You abused that love, Alan. That's why you're trying to do things differently now. Just like me."

He spun around, one hand raised, but the other ghost was gone. If he'd had a heart or a pulse, they'd be racing. That old ghost had been saying all the things that had been running through his own head. Which he promptly shook off.

"No, I was not…"

Abusive? Cruel? A cheater? He all but ran from the room, barely noticing the architecture or anything else, for that matter, as he moved through the castle. Guilt slithered through him, and no small amount of shame. But he did find a room that was locked. He pressed his ear to it, choosing to focus on the current moment rather than what he'd just experienced. There were voices inside—muffled—but he distinctly heard, "Bastard Remy! You are the worst of all the gilken fish in the sea!"

Alan stepped through the door and found the fish woman pacing a small bare room. She wasn't caged like Bree.

The fish woman paused. "Who is there?"

Alan slumped, dropping to a crouch, knowing this fish woman couldn't hear him. "She wants to save you, but she can't. It's not possible. She can't even save herself!"

The fish woman frowned, her gills flapping. "Someone is in here with me. Better not be bad ghosts, I've had enough of bad stinking people!"

She clapped her hands as if that would scare him away.

"I'll tell Bree I found you. Maybe…maybe that will free me of feeling tied to her," he said, though he knew she couldn't hear him. He also doubted it was true. It would be too easy.

What was it that would untether him from his ex-wife?

He backed out of the room and turned, walking through the woman who looked so like Bree they could have been twins. The vampire shuddered and her eyes narrowed. Her face was…

Actually, the more he looked at her, the less he thought she looked like Bree.

Her eyes were mean, her mouth tight with anger, and her face looked like she was pinched up with the desire for revenge. Hardened criminals who had been through the system looked like this. On the outside charming, on the inside, not so much.

"You don't look like her at all," he commented.

Her eyes narrowed further. "Richart," she called out. "You said you can see ghosts. I had them cleared out of this place. Why do I sense one now?"

Richart stepped forward in a fresh long sleeve shirt. His eyes drifted over Alan as if he weren't there. "There is no ghost, my lady. Perhaps a cold draft is all you feel."

"I know what a ghost feels like, Richart," she hissed his name, and again, Alan reflected that she looked less like Bree than he'd initially thought. Her eyes never looked like that—like dark things moved within them.

He forced his feet to move, stepping further away from the two vampires. Richart stepped past him and swept his hand where Alan had been. "Residual haunting, my lady. Those can be harder to dispel. But it's gone. Not intelligent at all."

Alan sniffed but managed to keep his mouth shut as he kept moving along. He didn't like that woman. Evangeline. As if she were an angel of anything…

"What do you plan to do with the river maid?" Richart asked.

"She will be leverage if our little friend in the dungeon proves difficult. Until then, she can rot in this room. Lack of water will slow her down." Evangeline laughed and hooked her arm through Richart's. "Come. We need to inspect all the others here. Someone tried to help her…and I mean to find out who by the end of the night."

Alan didn't try to catch Richart's eye. He hurried back to the pantry, through the doorway, and down the stairs to where Bree and Ivan waited.

"What did you find out?" Bree asked.

He looked at her, really looked at her. Even now, through all of this, kindness still shone in her eyes. Kindness and hope.

And maybe even forgiveness.

He cleared his throat, which suddenly felt strange. Thick, like he was coming down with something. "I found her. She's in a room, not a cage like you two."

He described how to get to her. Told them that there were no windows in her room, only the door for entering and exiting.

"They don't think she's dangerous," Ivan rumbled. "Foolish. A river maid when riled up can be a deadly enemy."

Bree nodded to Alan. "Thank you."

Her thanks cut into him, and he stumbled back as if she'd hit him. "Don't. Don't thank me."

"Why not?" She almost reached for him, pausing at the edge of the cage. "Alan, what happened?"

He closed his eyes and felt memories swim over him. The night when he'd first met Bree. He'd thought she was pretty and sweet, and…he'd never thought a girl like her could love a boy like him. Because even then, he'd known that he didn't deserve…

So when Celia had offered him money to marry her cleverly disguised as a nest egg, to take her far away, it had been too good to be true. He'd get the girl, the money, and they'd leave Savannah.

"I can't do this," he whispered, stumbling away as if he were being battered on all sides. His memories kept reminding him of what could have been. Of the life he could have had but had thrown aside…

For what? For a belief that she wasn't good enough, when in truth he'd always been the one who wasn't good enough. He'd never been good enough for her.