Dying For Redemption Read online

  Dying For Redemption

  A Working Shadow, Inc. Novel

  by C.A. Freeburn

  Copyright 2011 by Christina Freeburn

  Content Editor: Lynn O'Dell

  Cover Art by Stephanie Mooney

  http://www.stephaniemooney.blogspot.com

  All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including photocopying, recording or by any information retrieval and storage system without permission of the publisher. This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only and may not be re-sold or given away to other people.

  Names, characters and incidents depicted in this book are products of the author’s imagination, or are used in a fictitious situation. Any resemblances to actual events, locations, organizations, incidents or persons – living or dead – are coincidental and beyond the intent of the author.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One - Hell, they were dead.

  Chapter Two - If I was alive, I'd be dead.

  Chapter Three - Be careful about assumptions.

  Chapter Four - Abby

  Chapter Five - Abby

  Chapter Six - Hell was still an option.

  Chapter Seven - A soul in turmoil wasn't one to shake up.

  Chapter Eight - Why wouldn't you believe the one you loved?

  Chapter Nine - It was all based on perceptions.

  Chapter Ten - Ain't murder the biggest one.

  Chapter Eleven - Abby

  Chapter Twelve - Never speak ill of the dead.

  Chapter Thirteen - Abby

  Chapter Fourteen - Silence made the tongue rattle.

  Chapter Fifteen - Abby

  Chapter Sixteen - Do you remember how well that turned out?

  Chapter Seventeen - No sneaking necessary.

  Chapter Eighteen - Abby

  Chapter Nineteen - Couldn't get much easier than that.

  Chapter Twenty - Abby

  Chapter Twenty-One - Crimes don't come from nothing.

  Chapter Twenty-Two - It looked like my dance card was filled for the night.

  Chapter Twenty-Three - Abby

  Chapter Twenty-Four - Even innocent acts were suspicious.

  Chapter Twenty-Five - Calling it a lie doesn't make it not the truth.

  Chapter Twenty-Six - Abby

  Chapter Twenty-Seven - Ignorance is simpler.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight - Abby

  Chapter Twenty-Nine - You never asked.

  Chapter Thirty - Abby

  Chapter Thirty-One - I'm not holy, and I'm no hell.

  Chapter Thirty-Two - Abby

  Chapter Thirty-Three - Well, besides that.

  Chapter Thirty-Four - You're a lawyer. Lie.

  Chapter Thirty-Five - Abby

  Chapter Thirty-Six - She left the same way she had entered.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven - Sometimes a lie is easier to live with.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight - Abby

  Chapter Thirty-Nine - Abby

  Chapter Forty - Dead, buried, and gone.

  Chapter Forty-One - Abby

  Chapter Forty-Two - Sometimes you have to wallow in your own dirt.

  Chapter Forty-Three - Can we keep her?

  About the Author

  CHAPTER ONE

  "Hell, they were dead."

  "The name is Callous."

  That sign greeted potential clients when they walked into my private office of Working Shadow Incorporated. My name sounded better in this realm than when I operated my shop in the living world where investigating the sleeping-with-someone-other-than-hubby-or-wife cases was the bread and butter of my job.

  I earned my keep by helping the recently murdered discover who shook the sands of time. Some believed finding out who killed them was worth the same as Confederate money—nothing. Hell, they were dead. Others didn't want to spend eternity in Limbo with their unquiet spirits keeping them tied to the painful past rather than the hopeful future. Those needing answers came to me.

  I preferred Limbo to what lay beyond, but that probably rested in the fact that my final greeter would more likely be Satan than Saint Peter. I also ran the risk of destroying my baby sister Jenny if I launched a search into the question that kept my soul rattling in the between. With over a half-century of attendance, Limbo edged out my time spent among the living.

  I liked my job, sticking my nose into other people's problems and business. I liked brushing away the dirt to set the truth free… or at least shaking up the lies to see if a semblance of fact shifted out of the muck. Invited, of course. Messing around in people's lives—or deaths—without permission bordered on gossip. And dead men didn't tell tales outside the pages of novels or politics.

  Slow. The definition of today. Good for the living, bad for a restless spirit. No-eye-for-an-eye, tooth-for-a-tooth, haunting-for-a-murder philosophy to put into motion.

  "Here are some potential clients." My secretary, Ann, dropped a few sheets of paper onto my desk.

  "You know my rules." I pushed them away as I had every day since she floated into my office twenty-five years ago after answering the job placement ad I had posted with the Successful Dead Employment Agency for an assistant. I had explained that I needed a beautiful, leggy blonde to do filing, answer calls, and look beautiful. I later modified it to female, beautiful, leggy, and blonde, as Hallie, the owner of the agency, had a wicked sense of humor.

  Ann filled all of my requirements. A reminder she repeated whenever I complained about her lack of listening and obeying skills. She said those were not listed in her job description.

  She had found herself residing in Limbo after her boyfriend accidentally killed her on their first rock-climbing excursion together—something about a cable between him and her coming loose, but the one attaching him to the rock had been snugger than a bug in a rug, an excuse the court, but not Ann, bought. Revenge boiled in Ann's soul, keeping her tied to the living world.

  Fortunately, Ann cared about herself enough not to seek revenge. Dying is sometimes chosen on our behalf, but Hell is entirely up to us.

  "We could expand our services into helping the newly dead have a smoother transition into the afterlife." Ann batted her baby-blues. "You know, advertise our services."

  "We? Our?" I leaned back in the chair and ran my fingers through my still-thick dark hair as I rested my wingtips on the desk. Lack of aging was the greatest benefit of our predicament. I had stopped at thirty-five, and Ann at twenty. "Until they walk in, we don't know if they have accepted their new phase of existence."

  "We can expand our services into helping them understand."

  I waved off her words. "Then I'd have to hire one of those shrinks."

  "You need to evolve, Calamar." Ann rested one rounded hip on my desk.

  The disadvantage in arguing with the dead was that threats didn't work. Ann knew that I hated my given name. I swore I'd be dead before any woman ever uttered it. Calamar Louise Demar. My mother and father had fancied themselves poets. For some reason, they were never published.

  "Callous, Anastasia."

  She eyed me like a hungry dog would a steak on a counter—one jump and a quick snap of the teeth, prey caught, then devoured whole.

  "Ann." The shortened name oozed from her throat. Hips swaying back and forth, she strutted out the door. The show finished with a toss of her pale locks over her shoulder and the flash of a victorious smile.

  I waited a few minutes to make sure she wasn't going to throw open the door and Ah-ha me. I pulled the sheets of paper toward me to acquaint myself with the new residents. Okay, Ann knew my plan. I refused to chase down clients, but I liked knowing who entered our world. There were a few people who deserved to spend et
ernity pondering their undeserved afterlife in Limbo.

  The third entry caught my eye—Willow Flannery, thirty-two, an independently wealthy businesswoman, married four months, died in a car accident. The dame had left a nice sum of dough in her bank account for the grieving widower. Woman. I really needed to watch my nouns. She had driven her red BMW into a tree, causing her to fly through the windshield. Ouch. Neither status nor wealth saved a person, but a seatbelt could do the job. Common sense seemed to have passed her right by… or else a certain husband knew about cars and dabbled in a little tampering.

  "I found her," Ann crowed, throwing open my day.

  Ann made up her own rules to suit the season, the day, the hour, or just her mood. Since the day she arrived, I had been trying to explain the difference between 'boss' and 'secretary.' She looked at me as one does a child; I was here for her to see and not hear. I let it slide. The other choice didn't suit my fancy—alone for eternity. Most ghosts didn't want to work. They wanted leisure.

  And, Ann was easy on the eyes.

  "Found who?" I know darn well who.

  "Willow Flannery, the millionaire businesswoman whose husband happened to inherit her business when she died. Not to mention the sizable insurance."

  "How sizable?"

  "One hundred million."

  I whistled. That kind of money could make a nun kill. "Besides the moola, any reason to believe it wasn't her forgetting to look in front of her? Maybe she was…" I wiggled my fingers in the air.

  "Texting."

  "That. Texting. Seems to be a bad habit with the living."

  "Brakes were cut."

  That raised suspicion. "Police have a hunch?"

  "They believe the butler did it."

  I laughed. Ann eyeballed me again. I continued to voice my mirth. Fifty years later and police still fell for blaming the butler. I wondered how much cash exchanged bank accounts for the butler to accept the rap.

  Sobering, I rested my crossed arms on my chest. "What does she know about being here?"

  "She knows she died, but doesn't understand why she's in Limbo."

  "Heard that story before." I let out a sigh and sat up, removing my cracked, brown leather shoes from the desk. A good detective never looked nonchalant when interviewing the recently killed. "Send her in… since she's already in the reception area."

  Ann's pearly whites flashed as she swung her hips, and then exited my private office. Didn't matter the decade, women always wanted men to look, they just didn't want men acting like they liked what they saw… unless the woman wanted that acknowledgement.

  Willow Flannery glided into the room.

  Take a note: Names can be deceiving.

  Willow definition: graceful, tall, slender. Glide definition: move smoothly, effortlessly—think swan swimming across a pond. Of course, that was after the ugly duckling phase. Part two had to have part one in order for completion. This new entry into the afterlife proved everything had an exception.

  Willow was raven-haired and well-rounded. If she was about four inches taller, she'd fill out nicely. Her hair hung straight down to her chin, the locks circling around her head like a cover for a beekeeper's bonnet. A portion was cut out to leave her features exposed, an opening in a picture frame. Large gray eyes looked at me with no hint of wonderment, confusion, or even interest. She knew where she was and why. Confidence vibrated with every step. She was at home in her body, mind, and spirit.

  And some SOB had sent her away from the living. I had to find out whom. She held her hand out to me. I stood and accepted the offering, allowing her fingers and palm to rest on top of mine. I drew her hand toward my lips and kissed it. "Willow Flannery, I presume."

  She yanked her hand back quicker than it took a mosquito bite to itch. "You presume too much."

  Her voice was deep and raspy. Enticing, if not for the eyes that said I had treaded where I didn't belong.

  "I didn't come to be assaulted." Her eyes held a challenge.

  "Assaulted?"

  "You grabbed my hand."

  "I was saying hello."

  "By placing your lips uninvited on my hand?" Her eyes turned into tiny slits on her round face. "That is sexual harassment."

  Sexual? Harassment? What was the dame talking about? That was a quick, harmless kiss of greeting. I looked toward the door and saw Ann grinning in amusement.

  "Listen, Ms. Flannery, there's some mistake here. A peck on the hand doesn't fall under assault."

  She looked around the room. I tried to see it through her eyes. The desk was a massive piece of faux oak, like the fabric chair and marred bookcases pressed against the wall behind it. Mismatched lamps stood in strategic corners. The only type of furniture I could afford when I lived remained my style of decorating… hand-me-down chic. My only upgrade was a nice cherry wood hat rack, polished to a high shine, where my collection of beloved fedoras hung with pride.

  She nodded once, sat down in a threadbare chair, and crossed her legs, one rounded knee on top of the other. "I'm either in hell or purgatory."

  "Limbo," Ann chimed from outside my office.

  I walked over to the door. Casually, I stuck out my left foot and pressed it against the wooden door. A good shove and bang—right into the frame. And if luck existed, against the tip of the nose of Ann.

  I pulled two notebooks from my jacket pocket, one black and one blue. The black one was for notes on cases; the blue was to write down the special phrases and ways of the new decade coming in. Kissing without asking is considered sexual harassment.

  "So, this is the afterlife. For some reason, I expected something…" She paused and scanned the office. "More."

  "It's a mimic of the world a person lived in, without the worry of dying. Everything is pretty generic here. The buildings, the scenery. The ghosts that stick around start to see their environment take on a sense of who they are."

  Her eyebrows rose and a smirk broke out on her face. "That explains your office."

  I liked the dame. Spunk. Fighting spirit.

  "Can they see us?" She leaned forward, eyes displaying fascination with her new existence. "The living?"

  "Some can. Some can't because they don't have the ability. Some refuse to acknowledge our existence, and there's nothing we can do to force them to see."

  "Does that work in your favor or against it, Callous?"

  I fought back a grin. "You've heard of me already."

  She rolled her eyes. "It's on your door."

  Take a note: A name on the door works.

  I pointed at the wall of books behind me.

  Her eyes wandered to them, and then returned to me, one eyebrow raised quizzically. "Reference manuals?"

  "Books written on the afterlife. The latest findings the living world believes they have mastered on the spiritual world. They're wrong, of course, since no one ever bothers to consult the real authorities."

  "Nothing on crime techniques? They have changed in the last few decades." Her voice dipped and rose like a freighter on the ocean—up with amusement, down with wariness, up with playfulness.

  Too bad she wouldn't be around long. I'd enjoy the company of a dame like her. "I've been here for over half a century now. I've learned time changes, but people never do. All that DNA stuff and newfangled profiling doesn't do us a lick of good."

  Wicked delight danced in her eyes. "Do you merge into the bodies of the criminals and make them confess?"

  Now, that would make my job easier. "No."

  It was time to get down to business. The tour of the place she'd call home for a few days could be conducted later. I had to find out who she suspected had tampered with her brakes.

  She was a straightforward dame. She wouldn't beat around the bush to get to the other side—she'd trample through it. I took that same route. "Willow, who'd want you dead?"

  "The butler."

  Someone had done a good job on her. Of course, a smart dame like her wouldn't want to admit that she hadn't done her homework on picking th
e man of her dreams. No woman ever did.

  "I understand this is hard to accept but, the truth of the matter is, the butler didn't do it."

  Eyes blazing, Willow sprung to her feet. "How the hell do you know what the truth is?"

  I scooted back a few feet in case the desk caught on fire. This woman was hot-tempered.

  "Did you see who did it?" It's possible she didn't think a detective who had died in 1955 was good enough to solve her case. "It's my job to know. My deductions come from experience. And believe me, sweetheart, I've had a lot."

  "And what experience…" the word sounded like it got caught between her teeth and was yanked out, "is that, sweet cakes? Treating women like they don't know anything? That they need a big, strong man to take care of them? To tell them how things are in the real world?"

  "No, ma'am. Dames—" The murderous look returned to her eyes, reminding me to watch the verbiage. "Women are no worse than men. Probably better than the whole lot of us. No one wants to believe that a loved one would want to hurt them. Murder them. It's not an easy concept for anyone to grasp."

  What I wanted to say was that women put all the details into feelings, not facts. How the words were said was more important than the actual dictionary definition of said words.

  As tears pooled in her gray eyes, I thought of a rainstorm beginning to brew. She wiped at the moisture with the back of her hand. For a brief moment, the large diamond on her I'm-married finger flashed, colors kaleidoscoping from the jewel.

  It caught her attention. She spun the band around, making the patterns and colors swirl and dance. She looked at me. The colors reflecting in her eyes reminded me of a rainbow. I wondered what pot of gold was at the end.

  "He left it with me." She developed that distant gaze one gets when they look into the past and relive cherished moments. In her mind, that beloved ring on her finger spoke of the depth of her hubby's love.

  Her assumption placed me in an awkward position. Should I tell the truth about the ring, or let Ann tell her? If a possession owned at the time of death was treasured in the heart, it retained its form and came with the owner—whether it was buried with the body or not.