Ghostsnaps (Knead to Know Book 4) (6 page)

Oh, cakeballs. I couldn’t keep putting this off. “There’s something I need to tell you,” I said, forcing myself not to bolt from the vehicle. “I’m seeing someone.”

He opened his mouth a couple times and settled for a nod. “Is it serious?”

“I don’t know, maybe. We haven’t really discussed it, but I felt like I needed to tell you before...” I leaned toward the door, hoping for an escape. “I really like you, but Phoenix and I—” I couldn’t put what we had or didn’t have into words. Sure, we were on a break, but I’d been thinking about him all day. Obviously it wasn’t over between us. No more secrets. Everything had to come out. Maybe it was a passing fling or maybe it would turn into something else. I wanted to find out which.

“I suspected as much when he came to the fairytale world with us.” Boone stared at the dashboard. “It doesn’t really change anything, though, does it? If you don’t know how you feel about him, then is it safe to assume you don’t love him?”

My mouth went dry. I had been trying my damnedest to not think about Phoenix in those terms. His words from the night before echoed in my mind. He had feelings for me, beyond just using me. That was what he said, but did he mean it or was he telling me what I wanted to hear? As much as I tried to doubt him, I knew the truth in my heart. He was upset when I told him we needed to take a break. He had admitted to having feelings, that he wasn’t ready for us to end, and that he did care that I went out with other people, and then I crushed him without even trying to resolve the issue. My head dropped into my hands. God, I made such a mess of things. But did I love him? The last person I had even considered the “L” word with was Baker, and as much as I wanted Baker to be out of my system, feelings for him still lingered in me. I couldn’t love anyone else while I was still in love with him.

“I’m not in love with Phoenix,” I said with more certainty than I felt.

Boone nodded, his eyes sparkling even in the darkness. “Then perhaps we could give dating another shot.”

I took a deep breath. “I’m not saying I couldn’t love him, just that I haven’t let myself. One of the things I like most about Phoenix is that everything is very casual. I don’t know that I’m ready to be in love again. When I moved here, Baker was one of the first people I met. I didn’t know who he was or why he found me. I mean most people don’t think about things like that. When you meet someone in a coffeehouse, your first thought isn’t why did they find me? You just assume it’s kismet. But it wasn’t, not with Baker. He sought me out. He worked for Holden at the time.”

“The jinni who took care of the reporter?”

“Yeah, that’s him.”

“Why would he send Baker to find you?”

I shifted so I could better face him. “He didn’t send him. Olivia did because it was Christmas and she was looking for Holden’s family. Anyway, long story short, I’m related to Holden. However, I had no idea any of them existed—and at the time, I didn’t realize that one event was going to change my entire life forever. I started dating Baker.” I smiled a little, remembering what it was like. “He was different from other guys—like Humphrey Bogart brought back to life. I couldn’t quite put my finger on what was so unique about him, but I fell hard for that man. And I fell fast. I didn’t protect myself because I didn’t know that I needed to. That’s part of what makes this time different.”

I crossed my legs, tapping my foot in the air, gently rocking the truck with my movement. “The relationship wasn’t perfect—as Izzy likes to remind me—but there were times it was close to that. Then everything came crashing down and this world was exposed to me. Baker kept trying to push me away, and I didn’t understand. He didn’t want what happened to happen. He didn’t want me exposed to this world, and he didn’t want to be tied to me because he was already tied to someone else: Holden. That’s how the Abyss works. Holden and Baker had a partnership that meant more to him than I did. I couldn’t understand that for a long time, but I’m starting to see why. I was just another human, like countless others he had probably known throughout his long life. I was going to get old and die and all he could do about it was watch. The pretty picture of us that I had painted in my mind wasn’t something we could ever have. His purpose was bigger than mine.”

Sympathy washed over his face. “How did he die?”

“We had recently split and, of course, there was some major fiasco going on that Holden and Olivia were in the dead center of. Basically, there was this pathway to hell that needed to be closed, but required a sacrifice.”

He whistled. “He sacrificed himself.”

If only it were that simple. Baker couldn’t kill himself. That wasn’t the way it worked. I had to kill him. I had to watch him die. I was supposed to carry him out, but I couldn’t. The moment he died he burst into flames and I couldn’t withstand the pain. I froze and we almost lost him for good. For far too long after that night, I thought we had and that it was my fault. “Yeah. But what all this has to do with what we’re talking about is . . . well, I don’t know if I can ever love someone like that again. Just the thought of it makes my stomach churn. And if I’m being completely honest with you, I still love Baker. I know it’s pathetic. He’s gone. I’ve changed his diapers, for crying out loud, but in my heart, that isn’t Baker. My Baker is still in here.” I pressed my hand to my chest. “I think part of me is still waiting for him to come back. I will get over it and I’m headed in the right direction, but I’m not ready for anything serious. I don’t want to jump into anything again until I’m positive about the other person.”

“Can we go back to the diaper bit? What does that mean?”

I laughed to cover up my slip. I trusted Boone, but it wasn’t my secret to tell. Baker was a chol, which was like a phoenix. Whenever he died, so long as his ashes stayed together and weren’t lost, he was reborn. This last time, he had been given to Olivia and Holden when he was reborn as a baby. The main problem with other people knowing about him was that consuming his ashes could provide immortality. So it was information that risked his life if shared with the wrong person, not that Boone was the wrong person, but still . . . “Olivia and Holden named their baby Baker after him. It was a poorly timed joke.”

“Okay, so let me make sure I’m hearing you. You’re still in love with your ex and because of that you fear you can’t let yourself fall in love with anyone else.”

“Basically. At least for right now.”

He smiled and reached across the seat, covering my hand with his and stilling my obsessive foot tapping. “Then there isn’t a problem. Look, Maggie. I’m not saying I’m in love with you—just that we have a connection. Meeting you changed my life like meeting Baker did yours. My visions started and everything in the universe seemed to point me toward you. It wasn’t the same with Nicole. We were comfortable, but we hadn’t been in love for a long time. And I didn’t question it until I met you. Even then though, I resisted being drawn to you. So on some level I do understand what you’re talking about. In the fairytale world, Phoenix had a point. We were fighting the night she was taken. She could see I was drifting away, even if I couldn’t. The life I thought I wanted before I met you, more and more became the opposite of what I needed. I wouldn’t have chosen for things to turn out like this, but I’m willing to see where this road takes us. Maybe we aren’t meant to fall in love, but then again, maybe we are. Don’t you want to know for sure?”

I wanted to say yes. My brain was practically begging me to say the words, in fact, but my heart stood in the way. “Let me think about it.”

“Fair,” he said. “And if nothing ever happens between us, that’s okay. I’m not going anywhere. You’re stuck with me. We’re friends, no matter what.”

I grinned back, but then the ugly voice in my head reminded me that was only true until he got old and died. I pulled my hand out from beneath his. “I should change. Be right back.”

At the library, Izzy headed up the computer search for Josephine’s obituary and any other leads she could find on her life. Boone went to look for the property assessments. And that left me to go through the 1923 newspapers, looking for anything that mentioned her or the house. It was tedious work, but it paid off.

I printed the article I found on the shooting and went in search of Izzy and Boone. Izzy met me about halfway across the library with a grin. “I’ve got stuff on your girl.” She waved papers at me as a couple people gave us dirty looks.

I stopped at an empty table and she sat next to me, laying the papers out. “First, Josephine is an identical twin. Her sister’s name is Jeanette and they were born in 1901 right here in Chicago. Jeanette died in 1999. Josephine, however, died in 1923—the same year you said she got the mirror. That’s sort of weird.”

“Twins,” I said. “That’s why they had on different dresses.”

“Who?”

I blinked. Crap. What was wrong with me today? I shook my head, setting out my own discovery. “Josephine was shot during a party at her home, but they never found her body. There was enough blood at the scene that they assumed she was killed. Apparently the music was loud and no one heard the gunfire, and that wasn’t unusual. Jeanette and Josephine were known for their wild parties. Later, after the party had ended, her sister went to look for her and found the pool of blood, but no body. The police arrested a man named Floyd Clifford.”I tapped his picture one the print out. It was the same man who I had witnessed running out of the room in my vision. “He was apparently a professor of ancient history and classics, but then I lost track of him. I couldn’t find anything about the charges or a trial.”

“Crazy.” Izzy picked up the article and started reading.

“There you are,” Boone said, joining us. “I have news about the house.”

“It wasn’t owned by Josephine?” I said.

“How did you know?”

“She was killed at a party in 1923.”

He glanced down at the table. “Jeanette Quinn owned the house, then left it to someone named Henry Quinn who eventually sold the residence to my client.”

I brought Boone up to speed on everything we knew up to this point.

“I’m going to search for Floyd Clifford.” Izzy hopped up. “This could totally be a great story.”

When she was out of earshot, I turned to Boone and tapped the grainy photograph on the printed off sheet of paper. It showed the exact same woman I had spoken to just the night before. “This doesn’t have to happen. I can save her.”

“You don’t know what sort of damage it could do,” he said, repeating his earlier worry. “There has to be someone we could ask about this. Megan and Stephanie might have an opinion. Phoenix? Holden?”

I nodded. Out of all of those people, there was only one I thought could potentially give me the right answer.

****

Back at my house, I prayed for Olivia to guide me (perks of being semi-related to an angel of death) and waited. Usually she answered within minutes, but this time an hour, then two, passed with no word. I thought about praying again, but I didn’t want to be a pest so I paced around the living room instead.

Inky black smoke appeared in front of my television and I waited nervously for Phoenix to appear. I wasn’t ready to talk to him yet. I still didn’t know what I was going to do. That was another thing I wanted to talk to Olivia about. She had somehow gotten over who Holden was and the things he did. She would have some insight about dating a jinni. But as the smoke took form, it wasn’t Phoenix.

“What crisis has your normal life gotten you involved in this time?” Holden asked, a sigh in his voice.

That hardly seemed fair. It wasn’t like I sought these things out. Okay, maybe I did just a little bit, but as crises went, I was nowhere near the level he operated at. I considered whether or not I could wait for Olivia, but I really couldn’t. I had to be at the bakery soon, and I really wanted advice before I met Josephine tonight.

“Maggie.” Holden snapped his fingers, making me blink.

I frowned. “I can’t tell you how happy I am that Olivia sent you.”

At this, he smiled. Of course he did. Only Holden would appreciate rudeness more than someone being polite. “What do you need?” he said more gently.

“I don’t know if you can help. What do you know about time travel?”

He took a seat on the ottoman. “I’m going to need more information.”

I told him everything I knew, which wasn’t a lot. “So you see, I don’t know if I should help her or if doing so would be like accidentally using salt instead of sugar in a recipe. I don’t want to ruin the world, but at the same time, it sort of feels like I’m meant to stop the killing. What if time is like a loop and the future depends on me stopping the killing, but I don’t because I’m scared of how it will change the past.” My head spun. This was what happened when I was forced to wait. Hello, overthinking.

Holden rubbed hard at his eyebrows. “Things like this make me wish we still had Baker as a resource.” That was something I could very much agree with. “Why did you think Olivia would know?”

I shrugged. “I figured as an Angel of Death she would have an idea of how time worked and how much it can be skewed by interference.”

He held up a finger and looked to the right of me. After a few seconds, he blinked and looked back. “She says a person’s destiny can’t be changed. If the girl is meant to die that night, you can’t stop it from happening. She also said she agrees with you that if you’re conversing with someone from the past and saw yourself there, it means you have a role to play and should do what feels right—but change as little as possible because you don’t know how it will play out.” He crossed his arms. “If you want my opinion, you’re better off letting the chick die then trying to meddle.”

I nodded slowly. “No, Olivia’s right.”

Holden gave me a stony look. “Just because she agrees with you, doesn’t mean she’s right. Olivia’s plans have a tendency to fail. Her saving grace is she can think on her feet. How are you at doing that?”

If my ability to lie was any indication, then I was getting better. That didn’t mean I was ready to be tested though. “Let’s hope we don’t have to find out.”

He shrugged. “Is that it? You don’t want to talk about anything else?” He raised an eyebrow, already standing back up.

“No . . . I’m good.”

He took a couple steps away, then sighed and turned back around. “Is there something you would like to discuss about Phoenix?”

“No,” I said automatically, slightly horrified he’d asked. He wouldn’t have asked, though, had he not already known something. Did Phoenix tell him about last night? I had the urge to cover my face, which I could feel getting warmer.

He smiled faintly. “Maggie, this is none of my business. Both of you are adults. I don’t care who you date, so long as it doesn’t bleed over to my life. It doesn’t have to be a secret.” He patted my shoulder. “We good?”

I nodded.

“I’m going to go.”

“Wait,” I said, standing too and ignoring the fluttering in my stomach. Holden was right; I was being ridiculous. Who better to ask about a jinni than another jinni? Plus, he knew Phoenix better than anyone and he wouldn’t sugarcoat anything. “Do you think I should go out with him?”

“I literally don’t care. If you want to, do it. If you don’t, he’ll survive.”

I shoved Holden’s shoulder. “Will you stop with the not-caring act? I know you care. If you didn’t, you wouldn’t be here and you wouldn’t have brought it up.” His lips thinned and he gave me a dark look. “I actually do want your opinion. You know jinn and you know Phoenix. Those two things make you uniquely qualified to help me figure this out.”

Holden’s eyes flicked to the side like he was listening to someone else, then a moment later he was back with me. “What’s the problem you’re having?”

“Well, it’s hard to put in words. You see, Phoenix and I have been casually seeing each other, but then I started noticing certain things that make me think maybe we aren’t as casual as I hoped.”

Holden just stared, making me want to squirm, but I kept going.

“And then he came to the bakery last night and things happened, and I realized that I can’t do this with him. Being with him will change me, and I don’t know that it will change me for the better. Izzy—that traitor—thinks it will, but I don’t know. I mean I can feed from him, so obviously he’s evil. Or at least he leans toward a morally ambiguous position. And then there’s Boone. All of a sudden, he wants to date too.”

“Is that the one I met?” Holden managed to say.

I nodded. “He’s single now and…I mean, I’ve always liked him. But I’m drawn to Phoenix. I don’t know if he’s manipulating me or if my feelings are real, but I can’t imagine cutting him out of my life. However, he’s also secretive and he lies and the fact that I don’t know if I’m being manipulated by him is really worrisome.” I cleared my throat. “So given all of that, I need your educated opinion. Am I making a mistake letting Phoenix insert himself into my life? Or should I give him a chance? A real chance.”

Holden sighed toward the ceiling, his jaw flexing. “I don’t understand most of what you said. What things happened? How do you think you will change? Who is Izzy? How do you know you can feed from him?” Then he shook his head. “You know what? Don’t answer any of that. I should’ve recognized Olivia’s trap a mile away.
Ask Maggie about Phoenix. I think they like each other, but she’s too scared to tell you. Be more open
.” His jaw tightened as he imitated her.

I smothered a smile at his rant. Olivia had her ways.

“This isn’t a problem for me. Talk to Olivia. And though this should go without saying,” he crooked a finger at me, “stop feeding off of jinn. You’ll attract too much attention.”

“I still want to know what
you
think.” I crossed my arms. Holden knew Phoenix as a jinni. Phoenix was a fantastic liar, alarmingly so. Olivia was perceptive, but Phoenix wasn’t the same person around her. She had an effect on jinn that was hard to understand, and Phoenix was far from immune to it—an effect that I didn’t have. So whatever person she saw when she looked at him wasn’t the person I was going to get. Plus, she saw the best in other people. Holden didn’t suffer from that trait. He’d give me the starkest view, which I needed to hear.

He glared at me.

“I probably get my stubbornness from your side of the family, so rather than resisting it, maybe we should be admiring it.”

He rolled his eyes, but they had a slight crinkle that looked pleased. I knew he cared. “It’s up to you. I can’t tell you anything you don’t already know. It sounds like you’ve already thought this to death. Yes, jinn lie. We push boundaries, we manipulate, and we don’t play fair. And none of that is what you should want. I don’t think you belong with a jinni. Then again, neither did Olivia, but we make it work. I can’t tell you what will happen or won’t happen. Nothing is that easy. Olivia and I could have asked a thousand people if they thought we should be together and every one of them would have rightfully said no.” He shrugged. “We never cared what anyone else thought. If you do…”

He didn’t say it (ten points to Olivia for teaching him tact), but his meaning was clear. They didn’t care what anyone else thought because they were in love and nothing would keep them apart. I didn’t feel like that about Phoenix. I wasn’t so in love that I couldn’t see the mistakes I was about to make. I liked him and I was reasonably certain he liked me, or was, at least, fascinated by me for the time being. But I didn’t love him. I didn’t love anyone. Not yet. But that didn’t mean I couldn’t love him given the chance.

“To be fair, she didn’t know what I was when we met. She fell in love with me while I was still lying.”

I nodded. “I’m not in love with him, not yet, but maybe I could be and that scares the hell out of me. I keep going back to Baker.” Holden raised one eyebrow. “Not like that. I’m not waiting for him. That ship sailed. As soon as you hold someone as a baby and change their diaper, they cease to be viable boyfriend material. Plus, it’s hard to look at him now and even think of him as the Baker I knew. But here’s the thing. Everything was easy with him. It was like I had grown up with him and we could talk for hours and hours and never run out of things to say to one another. I think, more than anything, I miss him being my friend. I don’t know that Phoenix is my friend. He’s easy to be around, but that’s because I can just be me with him. He doesn’t care about anything else.”

Holden nodded ever so slightly. “But Baker was lying to you too. And the position you’re in now is completely different. Baker researched you. He came to you already knowing everything he could find out about you. And, yes, Baker could bullshit with the best of them. He even managed to infiltrate my life. Had you known who and what he was when you first met him, would you have felt the same? In a lot of ways, your relationship with Phoenix is more honest than the one you had with Baker. You know exactly what you’re getting with Phoenix.”

I shook my head. I wouldn’t have turned my life upside down had I known what being with Baker meant for my future and what I would have to do. I would have chosen the red pill or the blue pill, whichever one kept me blissfully ignorant. And maybe Holden was right. Maybe I did actually know Phoenix better than I ever knew Baker. Phoenix wasn’t pretending to be who he thought I wanted. That was worth thinking about. Falling in love with anyone was bound to change my life again. It was inevitable. But I wasn’t ready to be in love, not yet. I was just getting a grasp on the new life I had. But that didn’t mean I wanted to be alone either. “Maybe someday I’ll meet a man who won’t feel the need to lie to me about everything having to do with his life.”