“You’re about as stable as they come,” Trey said half to himself.
“So I always thought. I always found Cleo’s crystals and white sage, and her easy acceptance of, let’s say woo-woo, just charming and harmless. Now I’m going to be particularly glad when she’s living here and has that viewpoint.”
“How soon?”
“She hopes another week or so. She had a yard sale at my mom’s over the weekend, and told me she sold a lot. She’s packing up some things, and my mom will bring what she can. And she’s already got someone who’ll take over the apartment. Bad breakup.
“The thing is, I’m not afraid here.”
He looked her in the eye. “Ever?”
“All right, there are times. The Marianne dream, the business with the Gold Room, the banging, and the blizzard that wasn’t. But now I have Yoda.”
At his name, Yoda pranced over. Mookie followed.
“That’s right, I’ve got you. And you, too, when you’re around.” She rubbed both dogs. “And I should let them out.”
“I’ve got it. Are you trusting him on his own?”
“I’ve let him out a couple times. Watched him like a hawk. He stays close.”
“And he’ll stick with the Mook. He doesn’t wander off.”
Trey opened the door, but watched while the dogs played in the snow.
“Yoda sees them—or someone I don’t—now and then.”
Trey glanced back at her. “Mookie did whenever I brought him over to see Collin. Jones, too.”
“You said you saw a woman on the widow’s walk. A woman in white. I didn’t believe you then. I do now.”
“It wasn’t Astrid. She was blond, and the woman I saw had dark hair. I couldn’t really see her face. My father says I used to babble at ghosts when I came here as a toddler. I don’t really remember.”
Because she hoped he’d linger, she topped off her wine, got him another beer. “Anything else?”
“I was five. I know that because I’d just started kindergarten. I remember—it’s a little blurry, but I remember seeing this guy in Collin’s office. Wearing a tux. I knew it was a tuxedo because Owen—well, his parents—had a dog, and his markings looked like a tuxedo. It’s why they called him Tux. Anyway, he was sitting there with a glass in one hand and a fat cigar in the other.
“I could smell the cigar smoke. He blew smoke rings and laughed. ‘Young Oliver,’ he called me. He said I was a good boy for visiting a lonely man. And to watch out for the witch or she’d gobble me up.”
He glanced back. “I said that witches were for Halloween, and he said: ‘Not around here.’ I mostly remember because that one sent me running back to my father to tell him. And that’s how the story goes.”
“Did they check it out?”
“Apparently I wouldn’t have it otherwise. But no one was in there. I’m going to let the dogs in the mudroom. Got an old towel?”
“There’s one in there.”
She rose to go with him, grabbed a second towel so they dried off the snow-coated dogs together.
“Kids and dogs then, I guess.”
“I guess. One other time, and this I do remember.” He straightened to lay the towel over the rod. “I was about twelve, and just taking up the guitar. Dad and Collin were in the game room—the one just beyond the library—playing chess. I didn’t then nor do I now have any interest in chess.”
“He left the chess table and pieces to your father.”
“Yeah, he did.”
The dogs followed her back into the kitchen, where she got them both treats.
“I was bored, so I went down to the music room. Collin told me I could practice on the guitar in there anytime. I knew how to strum a few songs. Didn’t have any fingering down, but I could strum a couple.”
He picked up the beer. “So I’m working on it, trying to play Tom Petty’s ‘Free Fallin’’—an oldie, but Tom Petty, and the chords are pretty basic. I tell myself I’m jamming it, and I look up, and there she is. Really hot babe.”
He took a swig of beer.
“My twelve-year-old system’s a lot more jolted by really hot babe standing there, smiling at me, than where the hell did she come from.”
“Did you recognize her?”
“Not then.” He shook his head. “Long blond hair, waterfall long and straight. She’s wearing these jeans that ride low and tight on the hips and flare out below the knees, and this little white top, short enough that I can see—holy shit—skin.”