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“Oh.” Kay didn’t want to consider the other things her mother might know. “Yes,her.She called in a haunting to Damon and said she wasn’t strong enough to deal with the mean spirit. She wanted us—well, Damon to help. She thinks it’s too dangerous for me.”
“And you’re staying away because you believe that?”
“No,” Kay scoffed. “I don’t believe any of it. Jessie is clearly trying to steal Damon away from me the way she took Brad Winiarski.”
“Goodness,” A chair scraped on the floor as Eileen pulled it out to seat herself at the table. “You had a thing with Brad that summer too?”
“No.” Kay shook her head. “Corinne told Jessie I did so that she’d be distracted and I could focus on Damon.”
“Ah, the red herring. Got it. So you’re mad because Damon went to help her.”
“Yes. I told him this was a classic Jessie scheme, but he refused to believe me.”
Eileen studied her daughter as she took a sip of tea and thought the situation over. “That would make me angry, too. Having the man I love choose to believe Jessie over me would be a hard pill to swallow,ifthat’s what he was really doing.”
“Wasn’t he?”
Her mother shrugged. “Doesn’t sound like something a man as in love with you as Damon is would do. My guess is he feels an obligation to make sure Jessie is okay, even if he thinks she’s crying wolf.”
“Snake.”
Eileen frowned.
“She’s being a snake trying to slither her way into his heart, Mom.” But Kay could see that Damonmightfeel an obligation to make sure Jessie wasn’t in danger. Now that she thought about it, he had actually said as much.
“Ah,” her mother said. “Well, it doesn’t matter so much what she’s doing here. What’s important is how you’re going to handle it. Are you really going to let Jessie win this one?”
“Win? What do you mean?”
“Seems to me that you not showing up is exactly what Jessie wants so that she can have Damon to herself. But even worse, what if she’s telling the truth? You’ve just let the man you love go off on a dangerous mission without your backup. And the danger could be more than a ghost.” She took another sip of her tea, letting her words sink in before adding, “You sure this is how you want to play it? Because your conscience is going to kick you hard if anything bad happens.”
Kay hadn’t thought about the possible danger Damon could be in. Or the fact that she couldn’t prevent Jessie from spelling her handsome witch if she weren’t there. Her heart stopped beating for a moment. Damon could be walking into a trap! What the heck was she doing banging things around in her kitchen when the situation could be spiraling out of control? “Damn it, Mom. I was working on a really good self-righteous snit here.”
Eileen chuckled. “That you were.” She reached into her pocket and pulled out a slip of paper. “I googled Jessie’s address for you.”
Kay narrowed her eyes at her mother. “You were listening.”
Eileen smiled over her mug at Kay. “You were yelling.”
* * *
The engineof Kay’s pickup truck hummed softly as she sat in it staring at Jessie’s house. She’d driven as fast as she’d dared to get there, a little fearful that Damon might be in danger, but more afraid of what she might find. Now that she was sitting in front of Jessie’s cute little Cape Cod with a view of the river, she wasn’t sure if she should go inside.
It was silly to think Damon would do anything awful, but she couldn’t help feeling as if Jessie could, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to find out what the woman had done. The old insecurities from her childhood were messing with her mind. But Kay was too old to let a mean girl get away with destructive behavior. She took a deep breath and got out of the truck.
Kay had been to enough hauntings lately that she automatically put out her sensors for any lingering spirits. She was a little surprised when she felt the stirrings of one. A ghost, she thought as she approached the front door, but it didn’t feel like an evil one, although evil was clever, and she couldn’t trust first impressions. As she got closer, she realized the door was slightly ajar, and she inhaled sharply as fear spiked in her. Not wanting to call attention to herself she nudged the door open slowly, keeping all her senses on high alert as she entered the house.
Voices were coming from down a hallway, and Kay walked as silently as she could toward them. She recognized that Jessie was speaking and paused to listen.
“—hard to understand, but you’ve been bewitched. But don’t you worry. I’m going to take care of everything.”
That sniveling witch is up to something, Kay thought.
“You are mistaken,” she heard Damon say. “Is this the real reason you called me here?”
“No, I’m being haunted. Can’t you sense the spirit in the house?”
Kay had heard enough and moved to step into the kitchen where Jessie and Damon were. The first thing she saw when she turned the corner was Jessie standing in a short robe that was open to reveal sexy lingerie, and Kay clenched her fists as she took her next step. “Ooff!” Pain radiated through her nose and chest from bumping into an invisible barrier. “What the heck?” The woman was prepared for her, and Kay was angry that Jessie was doing exactly what she’d feared. “Jessie!” Kay cried. But Damon and Jessie didn’t appear to hear her.
