“I did, but I’m back to give Stephanie a hand,” Ryder said. “And, of course, if I am trying to impress a friend, I bring her here.”
They chatted for a few more minutes and were then seated at an inside table. Casey hadn’t cared where they sat when offered inside or outside seating. Then again, Ryder hadn’t asked her. He had pointed to the table he wanted, causing Felice Barone to laugh. “This one, he thinks he’s Italian. The old mob men, they had to make sure they were facing the door. You never have your back to the door.”
“She’s right. I like my back to the wall,” Ryder said.
“An FBI thing?” Casey asked him.
“No.” He chuckled. “I think I saw The Godfather at an impressionable age. But yeah, just a smart thing when you never know who you may run into—or who may be looking for you.”
Felice had given them a corner square table so both could have their backs to the wall and then left them, assuring them that their waitress was one of her best.
“You can’t honestly believe anyone is after me in an off-the-beaten-path restaurant, do you?” Casey asked when Felice was gone.
“No. If you go through that kind of trouble to make a murder look like suicide, you probably wouldn’t ruin it by publicly attacking someone.”
“Good. It will be great to eat without...watching the door,” Casey said.
Their waitress arrived. She was pleasant and knew Ryder and greeted him warmly. She gave them the list of specials, suggesting that one have a Creole dish, and the other an Italian specialty so they could split them.
Ryder looked politely at Casey.
“I don’t care what I eat,” she said. “I mean, I’m sure it’s going to be wonderful, whatever it is.”
“Crawfish etouffee—it’s the best here. And...”
“Lasagna!” Casey said.
“You’re fond of Italian food?” Ryder asked her.
“I watched a lot of Garfield cartoons.”
“Pardon?”
“Garfield! The cat, from Jim Davis.”
“Oh, right. The fat cat that loves lasagna.”
“You watch Garfield?” She smiled.
“Two-year-old little cousin,” he reminded her with a grin.
“Ah.”
The food came quickly, and it was wonderful. They both tried to be polite and wound up trying to put helpings of each dish on each other’s plates at the same time, touching, apologizing, and then spilling food. But they finally got it together.
Casey was especially enjoying the crawfish etouffee when she looked up.
Someone was coming in the front door—someone who slipped in as a man was exiting.
Someone who wasn’t alive.
“Ryder, I see her. She’s just coming in. Do you see her?” Casey whispered.
He did. He almost stood, but apparently controlled himself quickly enough. He watched as Lena came up, gave Casey a quick smile, and leaned across the table to envelop Ryder in her arms.
Then she sat across from him.
Chapter 5
Ryder felt a wave of emotion rush through him. He’d wanted to see Lena, even in death—her spirit rather than the angelic and still form of her body. He initially hadn’t thought her spirit had remained.
And mature adult or not, he’d not been able to fight the feeling of hurt and anger that had swept through him when he realized that her spirit had remained, but she’d chosen to go to someone else.
She had known he saw the dead. She’d been the one to help him not feel crazy when they were kids. She hadn’t seen what he had, but she’d sensed things. And she had believed in him.
Now, she looked at him across the table.
“First, Casey, thank you,” Lena said. “Ryder, I’m sorry.”
“Why didn’t you come to me?” Ryder whispered. “I was there in the house...right after. I was at the autopsy. The funeral. I stayed...”
“Ryder, I’m sorry,” Lena said again. “But...well, frankly, it’s not easy becoming a ghost. Maybe we don’t want to accept it. Perhaps we just don’t want to believe we’re dead. Or maybe it’s like a new birth, and we need to figure out how to exist in the world. It took me a while to...to understand that I could move and try to speak with people. At first...it was like sleep—a deep, deep sleep. Then I was in the cemetery and so afraid and alone...and, well, I finally made a few friends. Um, dead ones. And they helped me. By then...you were gone. And then I saw Casey. I’d met her at her store, and I knew she was kind and honest and...I’m afraid I sent her to the hospital from fright. But then I tried again, and I heard you were back, Ryder.”
“I’m here, and we’re working hard on this,” Ryder assured her. “Casey has filled me in. Lena, I won’t let it go. I will not let anything happen to Stephanie or Annette, I promise. But can you tell me anything about your attacker at all? Casey said you’re sure it was a man. Do you know how he got in?”
“I have no idea. I keep the door locked. Gail keeps the door locked. Ryder, I was so scared, but not for myself. If anything had happened to Annette...”
As she broke off, he noted Casey was furtively looking around, possibly wondering how Ryder was conversing so easily without worrying about looking at Lena.
Experience. He toyed with his food and glanced her way now and then.
He knew she likely realized it looked as if he were just talking to Casey.
“I will not let anything happen to Annette,” Ryder said firmly. “I swear it—on my life.”
Lena smiled at him. “I believe you. You’re my Superman, cousin. ‘Truth, justice, and the American way,’” she quoted. “And I know you, Ryder. You’d be in this if it had been me or someone else—it’s what you do. And I’m grateful for you.”
“Well, let’s see where we get,” he said. “I need help from you. I need to find whoever did this to you.”
“And Anthony,” Lena added bitterly. “I never believed he just stretched too far to look at something and fell off a twenty-story building. And he definitely wasn’t the type to commit suicide. But then again, neither was I—though we know what happened there. Ryder, you’re my only hope,” she said softly. “I mean,” she added quickly, looking at Casey, “Casey, you were wonderful. I know you went to Stephanie. You must have since Ryder is here with you. And I’ve tried. I love my sister so much. I think she might have sensed something when I tried to speak with her, but she just doesn’t...she doesn’t see...the dead.”
Ryder almost forgot himself, reaching out across the table to touch Lena’s hand. But he winced and then drummed his fingers and glanced Casey’s way again. She gave him a forced smile as if she were learning the art of conversing with the dead in public.
“Stephanie has put her trust in me. She’s still at such a loss. You were her only sister.”
“Maybe you can convince her I’m...okay. I mean, I’m here, but I will be able to find peace. They’ve been telling me—my dead friends—there comes a time when we all go, and there is goodness and something after. A light. They claim they’ve seen loved ones come for other loved ones. I mean, I haven’t, but...I’ll be with Anthony. I must be able to tell him Annette is going to be fine. Ryder... How could anyone want money so much they’d kill like this? Elijah would never have handed control of the company to Anthony if he’d known it was a curse. Elijah was a good man, such a dear man. He believed in business, but he was also fair. And he made things people desperately needed easily available to them. But...is that it, Ryder? This was all over money?”