Free JanesPrize by Margrett Dawson Page A

Pierce
went on in that friendly yet respectful voice that seemed to be enchanting her
mother. “Of course we would have met. I am only sorry that I never had the
opportunity to know you. I have missed a treat.” Jane remembered what he’d said
about dealing with mamas. Talk about catching more flies with honey than with
vinegar!
    “I have thought so much about someone like
Jane and when I met her she was everything I’d imagined.”
    Elaine didn’t seem to realize that he
hadn’t really answered her question.
    “I guess you met at college. Jane never mentioned
you. It sounds as if you knew each other pretty well.”
    “We are very firm friends and l—”
    Jane’s heart lurched. Not lovers!
Please, God, let him not say “lovers”.
    “Like so many of the same things.” Yeah
right. The only thing they’d shared so far was wild sex. Jane pushed open the
kitchen door.
    “Ah, Jane,” Pierce said as if she were the
guest and he the host. “Come and sit with us.”
    Elaine poured some tea from the glass jug
and Jane perched on a stool at the breakfast bar.
    As she sipped her tea she watched Pierce
operate his charm on her mother. She was putty in his hands, just as Jane had
been for the last two nights.
    Their conversation faded to a murmur as she
thought back. Pierce had said that whoever touches a ghost and brings it back
to life becomes responsible for it. She had swallowed the story at the time but
then she got to thinking about it. There were questions she still had to ask
when she had him alone.
     
    A couple of hours later she drove Pierce
back to his motel. He settled back in the passenger seat and gave a big sigh.
“Great cake!”
    “You should know.” He’d taken three pieces
of Elaine’s pound cake, cementing himself even more into her good books.
    Jane signaled the left turn at the
intersection. “Pierce,” she began.
    “Yes, my love?” He put his hand on her knee
and her head did the emptying trick like pulling a plug from the bathtub drain.
    She forced herself to concentrate. “I have
a question.”
    “If it’s what I think the answer is yes.
Yes I want you to stay with me. Yes I think you’re wonderful. Yes I’m having a
great time in my new life.”
    “Be serious.” She frowned. The mention of
the new life had brought her back to solid earth. “You said that when someone
touches a ghost, the ghost comes back, or whatever you want to call it, and
then starts to live again.”
    “That’s right.”
    “How do you know that?”
    “It doesn’t happen often.” His hand slid up
her thigh. “But I’ve heard about it. Ghosts can get together to talk sometimes,
you know.”
    She frowned again. Next he’d be telling her
that there was a “ghost line” for communication.
    “Really? Supposing the ghost is a murderer
like your stepmother? Could someone bring her back?”
    “I guess so but I’m not sure. She’s a
condemned spirit and I’m a victim. Most ghosts are poor helpless creatures,
doomed to walk around the place where they died because…”
    “Because?” She stopped for a red light and
glanced at him. His face was serious for once.
    “There can be lots of reasons. They might
not believe they’re dead so they have to realize they can move on. Or they need
to warn someone. Or the event in which they died was so sudden and fraught with
emotion they are trapped together with others. That’s the saddest.”
    “That was your situation?”
    “Right.” He nodded. “Imagine all eternity
reliving the same murder.”
    She shivered despite the warmth of the day.
The light changed and someone hooted behind her. She drove on.
    “So your stepmother is alone now?”
    “I guess so.”
    “Could someone release her by touching
her?”
    “Theoretically it might be possible but I
think she’s gone now she no longer has a victim.”
    “Let’s hope she has. Otherwise she might
want to try again.”
     
    She pulled into the motel and found a slot
near his room. The back of his hand