Seeing is Believing (Cuttersville #3)(37)
Author: Erin McCarthy

When she looked up, the Blond Man pointed to the stone, to that heinous word, then to himself.

“I know,” she whispered. “I’m so sorry. I’m very, very sorry.”

There was a pause, like he was considering this. Piper didn’t know what else to say.

Then he pointed to the word again. Then to Brady. Her Brady. Living, breathing Brady.

Piper said, “No!” Even though she knew it didn’t mean anything, she couldn’t help but blurt out the dispute, because Brady was much too alive to think of as dead. And who would want to murder him anyway?

But the man in front of her just nodded. Then he smiled, like it was fine. All was fine.

Then, like an electric lightbulb dispelling darkness with a switch flip, he was gone. Like he had never been there.

The headstone was dirty and worn, a grimy layer of age coating it, but there was no blood. No “murder” on it.

“Are you okay?” Brady asked. “Is he talking to you?”

She shook her head, her heart pounding at a rate that could not be healthy. “He’s gone.” Bracing herself on the grass, she stood up so quickly her head swam. “We need to leave.”

“What the hell just happened?” Brady scrambled to his feet.

“I don’t want to talk about it.” Which was the understatement of the decade. She felt like she’d fallen into a B-grade horror film. Was she insane? There was no way that headstone had read “murder.” That was just not possible.

Yet she’d seen it. And she knew it was real. Or as real as the spirit world could be. Maybe not real in the sense that you could reach out and touch it, but real in that there had been a message for her. She just didn’t know what to make of it. Obviously, the ghost wanted her to acknowledge that he had been murdered. She imagined any spirit who had been taken from this world so brutally would want people to know that.

But why had he pointed to Brady? Did he know they shared a name?

Or was it a warning?

“Piper. Sweetheart.” Brady reached for her hand again, but Piper just walked faster.

She wanted out of this cemetery. “I never should have come here. It’s not the kind of place a freak like me should hang out in.” Immediately she hated how juvenile she sounded, but damn it, she hated being different. Abnormal. She wanted to belong, to fit in. She wanted to not be afraid.

The Blond Man had just terrified her.

Because he had communicated with her in a way that felt threatening. Yes, he was smiling, and yes, he seemed benevolent, but the warning felt frightening, personal. Her interactions with ghosts had never been personal before.

And she couldn’t imagine something happening to Brady.

“You’re not a freak. Don’t say that. Please talk to me.”

Once she had rushed past the front gate and was next to her truck, Piper finally felt like she could breathe again. “The headstone was bleeding,” she told him, patting the pocket of her skirt to make sure her keys were there. The truck wasn’t locked, but she needed reassurance that she could get away. She didn’t want to stay for another minute.

“Bleeding?” Brady looked at her blankly.

“Yes. Bleeding. I think he was warning me.” It seemed obvious to her now. “I don’t want to do any research on Rachel or the original Brady Stritmeyer. I think we need to let the past lie.”

“But how do you know that’s what that meant? Maybe he wants you to investigate his murder.”

“There’s nothing to investigate.” If Rachel hadn’t killed Brady or Brady hadn’t flirted with the maid, well, Piper didn’t see how they were ever going to find that out a hundred and twenty years after the fact. “We’re not going to find anything other than biased newspaper articles.”

“But you don’t know that.”

Piper yanked open her truck door and climbed in. Anxiety was boiling up inside her and she needed to leave. “I’m not doing it.”

“Hey.” Brady stepped into the door, preventing her from closing it behind her. “I’m not trying to push you. Don’t run away.”

Run away? That was a little insulting. She wasn’t running away. She was just quickly exiting a situation that made her uncomfortable.

If he didn’t understand the difference, that was his problem.

“I’m sorry. I don’t want to be here. I can’t.” There wasn’t any way to say it any clearer, and if she had to stick around and spell it out for him, she was terrified she was going to start screaming.

“Okay. I understand.” He reached out and tugged a curl. “Drive home safely. Can I call you?” With a smile he added, “Say I can call you.”

There really wasn’t a whole lot of hope that she could tell him no. She wanted to hear from him. She wanted to know that he was interested in her. And she wanted to steal whatever time with him she could before he left town. “You can call me.”

“Good.” Brady kissed her forehead and then shut her door.

It made her feel like she was sixteen and her dad was sending her off for her first solo driving adventure.

That wasn’t how she wanted to feel around Brady. At all.

Coupled with the burbling anxiety creating pressure in her chest, it made her just want to go home.

Which made her feel that maybe she wasn’t as grown-up as she liked to think she was.

* * *

BRADY WATCHED PIPER PULL AWAY, THE TENSION ON her face evident as she swung her truck around. What the hell had she seen in the cemetery? She’d said blood, but he was sure there was more to it than that. Though seeing blood on a headstone would be disturbing enough, he imagined. Yet her reaction had been so strong, it seemed there was more to it. Then again, from what she’d said, Piper normally just saw spirits. A bleeding headstone sounded like something different altogether, something more . . . sinister.

He didn’t like it. Glancing back at the cemetery, wishing he could see what she did, he found himself frowning. He wanted answers but he wasn’t sure where to start.

A sandwich was in order.

Then he supposed he needed to stop up at the hardware store and get the painting supplies for Gran’s house. He’d been over there to assess what was needed and had discovered a previous tenant had been fond of L bracket shelves. There were about a thousand holes that needed patching.

Food first, though. It was a two-minute drive to the Busy Bee Diner, a restaurant that had been around longer than he had. Brady didn’t recognize the hostess, since she was in her late teens, but the waitress who approached him with a glass of water was as much a staple of his childhood as Frosted Flakes. “Hey, Marge,” he said with a grin. “How goes it?”