Gem of a Ghost: A Ghost of Granny Apples Mystery by Sue Ann Jaffarian Read Free Book Online Page A

eyes, a perky nose, and full rosy lips. An awkward girl, she’d grown into a beautiful woman. Only the girl’s eyes belied the fear she was suppressing.
    “Lainey, do you actually hear someone telling you to do these things?” Emma glanced up. Max was still in the tree, but his legs were motionless as he listened to his daughter.
    “You think I’m nuts, don’t you? Like everyone else.” Lainey straightened. “And maybe I am.”
    “I’m not judging you, dear. I just want to know if you really hear the voices.”
    After crossing her arms again, Lainey turned her back on Emma and stared out at the blue horizon. “No, not audibly anyway.” She turned back. “It’s like I’m two people, and one of me is trying to destroy the other.”
    “Do you still get those urges?”
    “Not since I’ve been here.”
    “And what about your fiancé? What does he think of all this?”
    At the mention of her fiancé, tears started dripping down Lainey’s cheeks as if on cue. Emma got up and went to her. The young woman sobbed against Emma’s shoulder.
    “I love Keith so much, Mrs. Whitecastle. But how can I marry him like this? How could he ever want me, knowing how unstable I am?”
    Kelly had filled her mother in on Keith Goldstein, Lainey’s fiancé, when she’d told her about Lainey’s engagement a few months earlier. A premed student, Keith had met Lainey at a party last fall. Kelly had met him when she was home for the holidays and had found him both smart and likeable.
    “What does Keith say about all this?”
    Lainey pulled away. “At first he was very concerned and thought maybe I had blacked out while driving. He’s premed at UCLA.”
    Emma nodded. “Kelly told me that.”
    “He nagged me into getting a complete physical, but my doctor found nothing physically wrong with me.” She took a deep breath. “When it happened a second time, the doctor ran more tests, and I also went to a therapist. The therapist thought it might have something to do with my father—some sort of delayed reaction, especially since it involved running a car off the road.”
    Emma shot a look at the tree, but Max was gone. “Had anything like this ever happen before?”
    Lainey shook her head quickly back and forth, her long dark hair swaying. “I was destroyed when my father died. It was horrible. And after my mother sent me away, I was miserable for the first year; I was so lonely. But I’ve never thought about killing myself.”
    Lainey took a seat back at the table. This time she sat facing out and leaned back against the table top. “Through all this Keith was great. He was so concerned about me. But when I stabbed myself—” She stopped and looked down, her hair covering her face. Emma could hear sniffles.
    “After the stabbing,” Lainey continued, “he said it was obvious to him I didn’t want to get married.” She looked up at Emma, her face streaked with tears. “He said whether I knew it or not, I’d rather die than marry him.”
    “Why would he think that?”
    “Because it started right after we got engaged. The first accident happened less than two weeks after he gave me the ring. Oh, Mrs. Whitecastle,” Lainey wailed. “Keith said horrible things to me after the stabbing.”
    Emma sat down next to Lainey, who was now sobbing into her hands, and put an arm around the girl.
    “He said I was like one of those animals … you know … the ones who’d rather chew off their leg than be trapped. I got so mad I threw my engagement ring at him and told him to go to hell.”
    “Did you feel trapped, Lainey?”
    She dropped her hands and looked up at Emma with genuine surprise. “Absolutely not. I loved Keith; I still do. I knew I wanted to marry him two weeks after we met.” She wiped her face with the back of her hand and sniffed. “Ask Kelly. I told her that when I saw her in December.”
    “Where’s Keith now?” Emma dug into her purse and pulled out a tissue and handed it to Lainey.
    After cleaning