Ghost of a Chance: Redemption

Chapter One

The door opened onto a dark hallway that terminated in a flight of stairs.  “Suite two,” she breathed, and reached for the railing.  The building was old, but the stairway was clean and there was no smell of garbage or mildew, so she filed those good points on the plus side of the ledger.  Ahead, at the top the stairs, burned a single lightbulb, but she did have to admit that the antique fixture was attractive.  Someone is trying, at least, she thought.  

The stairs ended, and she walked down a narrow hall, the light fixture cast little in the way of illumination.  She saw two old-fashioned doors, wooden with frosted glass.  One of them was dark, but the second had a cheerful looking glow and black letters that read “Suite 2.”  She knocked on the wooden frame of the door, and on hearing, “Come in,”  she opened the door and entered.

Teddi closed the door and turned to greet the person seated at the desk across the room.  She leaned backward, holding onto the brass knob behind for support when she recognized the man who rose to greet her.  “Dominic Parker,” she breathed.  

Dominic stood up, his dark eyes locking onto hers, intense and sudden, like a mid-summer thunderstorm.  Teddi turned and fumbled at the door knob as he approached, wishing she hadn’t worn heels, wishing she hadn’t worn a skirt, wishing for clothes made for running.  

“Teddi Reese,” Dominic said.  He moved around his desk in a smooth glide and was beside her, leaning on the door, preventing her from opening it, before she knew what had happened.  “Please, Teddi, hear me out.”

“Hear you out?  You killed Jenny, you monster.  She was my best friend, and you killed her.  Now let me out of here or I’m going to scream!”

Dominic touched her shoulder, causing her to tremble.  “Screaming would be unwise, Teddi.  Please, listen to what I have to say.  You know what happened was not my intent.  You know that.”  

“What happened in that quarry was your doing,” Teddi accused, and pushed both hands against Dominic’s chest, catching him off balance; he fell back a step, and she pulled the door open.  She lunged through without answering, and made her way down the stairs as fast as she could go.  Although Dominic did not follow her, she was sobbing by the time she exited the building onto the sidewalk.  

Why shouldn’t I be happy?  This time, the thought was hot and bitter, and she tasted the rusty taste of blood on her tongue.  There’s a thousand reasons.

Teddi dropped on the hard plastic seat.  The Metro trains pass each station on the system every eight minutes, so she had been able to board immediately.  She turned a bit to look behind her, but the car was nearly empty, the doors were shut fast, and they were already picking up speed.  She glanced up at the lighted destination sign; she was on the orange line heading west.  The train descended into darkness, shaking and swaying, before slowing again.  Teddi watched the nameplate of the next station come into view; she had not got comfortable enough in Washington to relax and not fear missing her stop.  At metro center, the great underground crossing where the trains were stacked two deep, she exited the orange line.  Teddi thought of this intersection as being ‘the Death Star.’  She changed trains and rode the Red Line to Brookland.  

Teddi’s apartment was only a few blocks from the Metro Station, and near the Francsican Monastery and it gardens and catacombs.  Washington offered artists subsidised housing, and Teddi had been glad to find it.  The rent was cheaper than anything else she had seen, but after two months with no income, it did not look so inexpensive anymore.  She didn’t want to ask her parents for more money, but knew her prospects were growing dimmer.

Her apartment was on the second floor; she bypassed the elevator and took the stairs, her curly blond hair bobbing as she went.  She slipped into her apartment and put her things in the closet to the left.  She lifted her leg, quickly flipping first one shoe and then the other from her foot and into the closet.  She padded down the hall, past her kitchen area, to the large living and work area.  Absently, she pulled a few photographs down from her bulletin board, glancing at them as she walked toward the window before dropping them to the floor.  She dropped down in the battered leather chair she had angled to catch the morning sun, just before leaving with such high hopes.  Gone now.  All gone.  

So Dominic Parker is alive, she thought.  She had not been sure. 

Jenny Myers had been a physics student, and she, along with Teddi and two friends, had worked on a local cable show in Pennsylvania called Paranormal Destinations.  In the course o and investigation, they became aware that the world of the dead, the world of ghosts and hauntings, was true.  Some part of the dead did linger, but only so long as they were remembered by the living.  To be forgotten was to fade and to pass utterly from the world of shadows to wherever that final destination was for each soul.  Jenny Myers.  And Dominic had killed her.

Teddi hugged the picture and replaced it on the table, pushing it forward a bit, away from the base of the lamp, where the full warmth of the sun fell on it..  There’s only me, she thought.  I have to remember, Jenny and Timothy.  Timothy Peach, Jenny’s ghostly lover, who had existed between worlds for ninety years until making, had been killed in locomotive accident long before Teddi, or Jenny, was born.  Now, though, they were together, and Teddi had promised to remember them.

Her phone rang, and Teddi jumped inside, not realizing how keyed up she was.  She quickly sorted through her purse, finally finding the phone on the fourth ring.  She noted the number displayed and flipped it out.

“Hi Darrin.”

“Hi Teds.  What’s the good news?”  Darrin Kingfisher’s voice was thin, and his signal was breaking up a little.  Teddi pushed the phone tighter to her ear, trying to understand him.

“There isn’t any.”

“Oh.  Well, that’s too bad.  You’ll get the next one.”

Teddi heard the disappointment in Darrin’s voice, and pictured his blood hair and boyish face, and realized she only heard from Darrin after failed job interviews.  After Paranormal Destinations had gone dark, Darrin Kingfisher had gone native.  He started his own paranormal investigative team, working out of his garage, showing up in his battered Jeep at old house after old house, cemetery after cemetery, anywhere he thought he might establish contact.  He had always been a believer in phenomenon of any sort; his meeting Timothy Peach had verified everything he had ever thought; so his life had become a whirr of activity.  None of it, though, was bringing in any money.  

All this passed in a moment through Teddi’s mind.  “I saw Dominic.”

“Parker?”  Darrin’s voice raised.  “Hold on a sec.  Let me park.”

“No, it’s all right.  Darrin, I think I’m coming home.”

“You’re giving up?  Are you serious?  Is it Parker?”

“No.  I’m just sick of being here.  Seeing him brought everything back, and I want to come home.”

There was a moment of silence on the other end.  

“Are you still there?”

“Me?  Oh, yeah.  I’m here.  Just thought I saw something in the woods there.  I’m pulling over.”

Teddi sighed.  No doubt Darrin had mistaken a deer for Bigfoot.  Again.