No piano music, no banging on the door.
Apparently it was over for the night.
But when she got back in bed, she took the dog with her.
“I saw it all so clearly. The mirror, then the room on the other side. The people in it. I think I could draw them. Not my strongest skill, but I think I could draw them.
“I watched two babies being born—the first so beautiful, the second so tragic—but I saw, and heard, and felt. I saw a woman die, a woman who fought so hard to bring her babies into the world. I saw her just … fade away.”
She stroked the dog, grateful for that sweet, warm body against hers.
“I saw Hester Dobbs. I saw that bitch take Marianne’s ring while her husband grieved. And she saw me. She saw me, spoke to me. Marianne saw me, spoke to me as she died. But no one else did.
“I was the ghost there. Hester Dobbs had that right. On the other side of the mirror—or whatever the hell it is—I was the ghost.”
Chapter Fifteen
Considering the night she’d had, she might have slept through the morning. But she dragged herself out of bed for the dog. A walk in the brisk wind did a lot to blow the cobwebs away.
Determined to stick with routine, she sat down at her desk—a little late, and in her pajamas—but she sat down at her desk.
The first order of business: adding the mirror dream/incident to her log.
Once done, she got out a sketch pad and did her best to draw the figures in that dream/incident.
She didn’t have Cleo’s skill with illustration, but she thought she managed decent likenesses.
Then she set them aside.
“A girl and her dog still have to eat,” she said, and got to work.
Nothing and no one disturbed her. She no longer counted the musical iPad greetings, as she’d grown used to them. She shut down at three-thirty.
“I’m not meeting Trey Doyle—man and/or potential client—in my pj’s and with a naked face.” She tapped Yoda’s nose and made him wag. “Gotta be professional. Plus, he always looks so damn good. You haven’t met him yet,” she added as they walked over to her bedroom, “but take my word on it.”
She stopped short at the sight of the short, sort of sassy red dress laid out neatly on her bed.
“Okay, that’s new—not the dress, but the gesture. And, ah, thanks? But this is more for date night than client meeting. It’s a great dress though.”
And now, Sonya thought, she talked to ghosts as well as to herself.
Holding it up, she turned this way, that way in the mirror. “And who knows when I’ll have a reason to wear it again. But not today.”
She hung it back in the closet.
She hadn’t thought of wearing a dress, but she could. Client meeting and all that. But not anything suit-y. Something casual.
She pulled out a slim ribbed knit dress in a dark, deep green. Simple lines, long sleeves, and the midi length looked good with booties.
“And done.”
When she’d changed, she studied herself in the mirror again. “Okay, this works. It’s like I take my work seriously, but I’m still friendly and easy.” Amused, she pointed at Yoda. “Not that kind of easy.
“Although, God, I do miss sex. No thinking about sex during a client meeting,” she told herself, and went into the bathroom to deal with makeup.
Same rules applied. Professional, but casual and friendly.
As she debated just the right eye shadow, she asked herself if she really intended to carve in a six hour–plus round trip to visit her longtime hairdresser.
The sensible thing? Give the local salon a try. If they screwed it up, she’d never return.
She added earrings—just studs—and took a last look.
“I think I hit the mark, and it only took me three times as long as it would have if I’d tossed on jeans and a sweater like I figured I would. But this is better.”
Her iPad let out with Roy Orbison’s classic “Oh, Pretty Woman.”
“Thanks. I’m getting pretty comfortable here, despite everything. It doesn’t hurt to remember how to take some time. The whole self-care thing. Now, I should make coffee.”
She’d use the coffee service in the butler’s pantry, set it up in front of the library fire. Or would the kitchen suit better?
No, the library.
“I’m thinking about it too much. And not,” she admitted to the dog, “just because he’s a potential client. He’s just so damn attractive. The way he looks, yeah, but also the way he is. What I know of the way he is, because I hardly know him really.