Someone to Love Read online

Jace looked down at her and seemed to be debating what to tell her. After a while, he looked back out the window and said, “Yes, it does.”

  Nigh started to ask more questions, but he turned to her with a scowl on his face.

  “That’s it. That’s all I’m telling you and if you want to keep this so-called job, you won’t ask me any more questions. I’m cold. I’m going down.” He turned and started down the stairs.

  Behind him, Nigh smiled. She felt as though she’d just won an award. She had pierced his armor! It was a tiny hole she’d made in it, but she’d widen it.

  If she knew how to whistle, she would have whistled as she skipped down the old stairs, and when she got back into the chintz room, she was smiling.

  “I was right. We must find Danny Longstreet,” Jace said.

  “You mean his grave?”

  “His last place of residence, or the place he loved. Something about him. But we need to find him.”

  “Good idea,” Nigh said. “But what’s made you so fierce about it?”

  “This.” He turned his laptop around so she could see the screen. In big red letters, it said, Find Danny Longstreet.

  Nigh rubbed her forearms because the hairs had stood up on them. “I guess that’s clear enough.”

  “What do you know about him, other than his death and illegitimate child?”

  “That’s about it. What I know comes from the vicar’s diary. He didn’t write anything about Danny until he told of his death, then he backtracked and told about the baby that was being raised in Margate by its mother. It’s been years since I read it, so I don’t remember if he told where Danny was living at the time. I know that after Ann died, Danny’s father didn’t buy Priory House.” She shook her head. “Sorry. I don’t know any more than that.”

  “Where’s the diary?

  “Guess.”

  “In your house, the one that’s surrounded by paranormals with machines.”

  Nigh’s head came up. “Did you ever think of—”

  “So help me, if you suggest that I allow those charlatans into Ann’s room to muck about, I’m going to toss you out in the rain, from that window.”

  Nigh blinked at him. “Good thing you’re not in love with her.”

  “Would you cut that out? You cannot be in love with someone you’ve ‘met’ three times.”

  For a moment they looked at each other, then Jace looked down at the computer.

  “I’ll call Jerry,” Nigh said. “Maybe he’ll know something about his ancestor. What?” she asked when Jace started shaking his head in wonder.

  “Only in England,” he said, “would someone know that far back on his family tree.”

  “If he knows, it’s my guess it’s because Danny’s father had bags of money, but his descendants have none. Wonder what happened to it? Gambling? Racehorses?”

  “My guess is women,” Jace said, then saw one of the glass bottles fall off the dressing table and hit the floor.

  “Don’t do that!” Nigh said to the room at large. “Maybe he can take seeing ghosts, but I have a weak heart.”

  Jace picked up the telephone on the bedside table and held it out to Nigh. “If Longstreet’s not home, you’ll probably reach him at your house.”

  “Funny,” Nigh said. “You’re a real scream.”

  She called information, got the number for Longstreet’s Garage, then pushed the buttons. Jerry answered on the fourth ring.

  “Jerry? This is Nigh. Remember me?”

  “Nightingale, baby, honey, of course I remember you.”

  Even though she put the receiver close to her ear, Jerry spoke as loudly as if he were standing in the room, and she knew that Jace could hear every word. She turned her back to him.

  “I have a question for you,” she said.

  “Oh, sweetheart, I have some questions for you too. And some ideas about this new business you started. I was thinking of a ghost car. One of those big American things with the fins. I could fix it up for you so it would scream when you sat down in it. Like the idea?”

  “Love it,” Nigh said. “We’ll have to discuss it in detail. What I wanted to ask you about was an ancestor of yours, Danny Longstreet.”

  “Randy Danny?”

  At the derogatory term, she looked back at Jace just in time to see one of the ceramic figures start to slide off the mantel. Jace caught it before it hit the floor.

  “Listen, Jerry,” she continued, “do you know where Danny was living when he died?”

  “Oh yeah. A house named Tolben Hall. It’s in Hampshire. It’s a B and B now. My mother used to tell us kids that that house should have been ours. Danny’s father bought it after he had to get his son out of Margate. Danny left too many bastards behind. It was too hot for them to stay here.”

  Jace caught another figure before it hit the floor, but he couldn’t catch one of the perfume bottles that went flying off the dressing table.

  “What was that?” Jerry asked.

  “Nothing. Rain hitting the window.”

  “So, Nigh, honey, when am I gonna see you again? I’ve missed you. Seen you on TV some, but that ain’t the same as a little snog in the backseat, now is it? You still got that heart-shaped mole on—”

  “Jerry!” Nigh said loudly. “You’ve been a really big help, and I can’t thank you enough. I’ll see you, uh, sometime, I’m sure. Say hello to, uh, whoever your girlfriend is now.”

  “Ain’t got one.”

  “I know,” Nigh said tiredly. “You don’t have one, you have a hundred.”

  “You do remember me, honey bear. Give me a call about that car. I think it’ll be a hit at your Ghost Center.”

  She said good-bye, then hung up—and dreaded the look on Jace’s face.

  But he was at his computer and didn’t look up. “Here it is. Tolben Hall in Hampshire. Shall I give them a call?”

  “Sure,” Nigh said tentatively, waiting for him to say something. “About Jerry…”

  “None of my business,” he said, concentrating on the screen.

  “It’s just that we dated in school, and we were friends, that’s all. And now because of you and this Ghost Center—”

  “You made that up, not me.”

  “All right, my Ghost Center, then. He’s pretty excited about it and, well…”

  Jace looked up from the computer. “We’ll stay at this place and have a look around. Like the idea?”

  She held out the bulky gray fabric of the sweatpants she was wearing. “Unless I go back to my house, this is all I have to wear.”

  He looked at her. “That is a problem. Think you could slip in the back door of your house and get some clothes?”

  “And not be seen? Not even in the middle of the night.”

  “Hey! I know. Why don’t you call your landlord and ask him to get some things for you. He must have a key.”

  She looked at him as though he was daft. “You are my landlord.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “Do you really not know that? Why in the world did you buy this enormous house that you obviously know nothing about?” She’d meant it as a rhetorical question, but the look on his face made her know she had made yet another dent in his armor.

  Before she could say anything, they heard a sound from downstairs. Voices.

  “You don’t think Mrs. Browne has let them in, do you?” Jace asked.

  “She’s probably angry about that remark you made about shooting the English.”

  “Or she’s angry because she thinks you’re showing off your heart-shaped birthmark to yet another man.”

  “I knew you were going to badger me about that. Danny is full of himself, but he can be a lot of fun. At least he knows how to laugh.”

  “Jerry.”

  “What?”

  “You said Danny.”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  They stopped talking because they heard footsteps on the stairs. “Someone is coming to get us,” Jace said. “One of us is going to have to face the l