The Ghost of Christmas (Ava James FBI Mystery Book 6) Read online

  The Ghost of Christmas

  Copyright © 2022 by A.J. Rivers

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Chapter Fifty

  Chapter Fifty-One

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  Chapter Fifty-Four

  Chapter Fifty-Five

  Chapter Fifty-Six

  Chapter Fifty-Seven

  Chapter Fifty-Eight

  Chapter Fifty-Nine

  Chapter Sixty

  Chapter Sixty-One

  Chapter Sixty-Two

  Chapter Sixty-Three

  Chapter Sixty-Four

  Chapter Sixty-Five

  Chapter Sixty-Six

  Chapter Sixty-Seven

  Chapter Sixty-Eight

  Epilogue

  Author's Note

  Also by A.J. Rivers

  The bed was hard. The room was pitch dark and quiet. Too quiet. And why was it so damn hot in there when snow was threatening outside?

  EB Ward sat on the edge of his bed and glowered into the darkness. He thought about turning on the TV just to have some light and noise. The house was just too quiet, too empty.

  Finally, he got to his feet, paced to the window, and pulled back one panel of the heavy blackout panels. The curtains were the only things about the house that was different. Only things that had been changed in the last decade, probably. Other than EB himself.

  As soon as the street scene below was revealed, he regretted opening that curtain and promptly closed it again, groaning in disgust.

  Thanksgiving had only been celebrated a few days ago. His brother had insisted on having the traditional get-together at EB’s house. Edward Brian—EB, as he’d always been known, eventually shortening to just Eb—didn’t want to have the dinner. He was perfectly happy eating alone. In fact, he was perfectly happy being left alone completely. He could tolerate Don, and actually enjoyed his brother’s company on occasion. But he preferred his solitude instead.

  “Stupid holidays. Stupid lights. Damned decorations cluttering up the streets and the sidewalks and town square. Who the hell wants to walk down the sidewalk and have a fat plastic Santa grinning his idiot grin at them?” Eb walked away from the window. “Should be one holiday for all of ‘em. Wrap ‘em up all in one day of ignorant, grinning, touchy-feely crap so the masses can get it all out of their systems and then get on with the rest of the year.”

  He often found himself speaking aloud to absolutely no one. He didn’t care, though. His voice was the only one he could tolerate for very long these days. He flicked on the TV. The light was too bright and the canned audience laughter from the late-night talk show was too obnoxious. He turned it off, cursing at the offensive thing. Why had he even bothered putting a TV back in the bedroom?

  “Because there was a TV in here when Emilia and the kids were here. That’s why.” His shoulders drooped and he trudged back to bed. It was midnight. He knew because the clock in the town square bonged out the hour with twelve loud, low bongs. Just another reminder that his life was slipping through his fingers and there was nothing he could do about it.

  The bed still felt hard under his back, and he flipped to his side, facing the deep, impenetrable darkness of the master bathroom’s open door. He stared hard into that darkness, recalling a special night when Emilia had run from that bathroom to him and thrown her arms around his neck. She was smiling, beautiful, radiant. She’d covered his face with kisses before stepping back and holding out a small, slim pregnancy test for him to see.

  Eb had looked at the positive sign in the little window, his heart tripping up in his chest and trying to climb into his throat. “Really?” he had asked all those years ago, and now whispered aloud.

  “We’re pregnant, Eb,” Emilia had said, losing her poise and throwing her arms around his neck again with a delighted squeal. “We’re going to be the happiest family in the world.”

  He had been swept up in her unhampered exuberance. “Yes. Yes!” he’d cheered, and now whispered, as he had lifted her and swung her around in a circle, kissing her over and over.

  A tear was dangerously close to falling. It first doubled his vision, then trebled it, making the oh-so-real vision fade to black again. He closed his eyes. Squeezed them tight. Tried to hold onto that happy, joyous moment when Emilia had been in his arms, kissing him, looking at him as if he were a god. Her big blue eyes had shone so…

  He didn’t know how long he lay there before finally dozing off, but it was after the town square clock rang for the half-hour. He didn’t fight sleep. He welcomed it. It was a release. Who was it that called sleep ‘the little death?’ He didn’t know, but if the big death was anything like it, maybe it wouldn’t be so bad.

  “Eb, wake up,” a soft, feminine voice called to him.

  “Huh?” he croaked, forcing his eyes open.

  “Wake up, love.” A cool, silky hand slipped from behind him and brushed his cheek.

  With a gasp, Eb sat up, the covers pooling around his lap. He floundered away from the delicate form under the covers on the other side of his bed.

  “Who are you?”

  But he knew already. The light brown hair with the slightest bit of curl cascaded off the pillow just as it always had. But that hair hadn’t been there for five years. He was confused as Emilia began turning toward him. His heart thrilled and dared to hope that maybe she had returned to him. That would mean his children were in their beds as well. His breath hung up in his chest as the first glimpse of Emilia’s face came into view.

  A hissing, sputtering sound emanated from the first floor just under the bedroom. Yellow-reddish light flickered and grew from behind him, but he dared not take his eyes away from the slowly moving shape in his bed.

  A scorched strip of skin peeled away from Emilia’s cheek and fluttered into the air. The blackness beneath was shot through with veins of pulsating lava.

  “Please, don’t,” he begged in a breathy voice that was nearly drowned out by the sound of the flames licking at the stairs.

  “But I must, Eb. You need to see what happened while you were taking care of your money-making factories. Look what happened to me when you left me alone,” her voice rose steadily as she turned to fully face him. Her mouth stretched open and smoke boiled out with the ear-splitting scream she released.

  His legs finally responded, and he sprang from the bed, turned, and started to run for the door. Damn the deadly flames and suffocating smoke on the stairs. He would rather face them than the horrible, ravaged visage of his wife.

  Two figures emerged from the flames at the top of the stairs and held their arms out to him. Eb swooned against the wall, a scream tearing out of his throat like a freig
ht train out of a too-small tunnel. The all-too-real images of his beautiful eight-year-old daughter Rose and ten-year-old son Korvyn, the loves of his life, were more than he could bear.

  “Daddy, why did you leave us on Christmas Day?” Rose wailed, fiery tears burning trenches in her cherubic cheeks. Her grasping fingers drew closer to her father as he cowered against the wall.

  “Because he had to go make money, money,” Korvyn accused, his hair smoldering, his snowman night-shirt beginning to flame. “He was thinking about his money, money, money!”

  They were only inches from him, and he was still screaming, his soul wounded, his heart wrenching around, twisting in his chest painfully as he watched the flames consume the children, and they kept moving forward. Toward their father. Their heat was unbearable as they bent forward, reaching, pleading, accusing.

  Rose’s finger brushed his ear. The burn was instant, deep, all the way to the core of his being.

  “Take me if you must, but prolong this torture no longer,” Eb wailed, opening his arms, hoping his children would fall into them.

  Rose’s hand singed the back of his neck, and the scream he loosed was a terrible thing like broken glass tearing at his throat.

  Korvyn growled and grabbed Eb’s face between his hands. He thrust his face close to his father’s. “You deserve the torture to go on and on!” His breath was sulfurous. “On and on!” he screamed. “On and on and on and on!”

  The pain was more than Eb could handle. He thrashed backward into the wall and beat his arms against it, pedaling his feet uselessly against the hardwood floor.

  Eb hit the floor beside his bed, flailing his arms and legs wildly even as he banged the back of his head against the chunky nightstand hard enough to topple the lamp to the floor with a loud thump. It took a few seconds for him to realize that he was back in the real world.

  Panting, he looked around wildly for his wife and kids. They were not there. The house was empty again, save Eb Ward and his guilt.

  After a few minutes, his breathing returned to normal and he stood on shaky legs. He wiped the sweat from his forehead and face and eyed the spot in the bed where Emilia had been only moments before.

  “You’re back in the real world, Eb, get a grip,” he ordered himself gruffly, wiping sweat again.

  In the back of his mind, a voice laughed. It wasn’t a pleasant, joyful laugh. There was no humor in it. You don’t even know what the real world is anymore.

  Eb shoved his fingers into his hair and gripped hard, screaming as loud as he could toward the middle of the room and then at the ceiling. It was a visceral, animal-like scream full of pain and confusion and guilt.

  At seven that morning, the wonderful little town of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania woke up. Much to EB’s dismay. Soft Christmas music wafted from the town square, and he grimaced as if tasting something spoiled. He would have turned on a radio, but all the stations would be blaring that same annoying holiday fare.

  He jabbed absently at a couple of buttons on the coffeemaker and yanked open the fridge. His belly grumbled as he looked at the Thanksgiving leftovers. Again, he grimaced. He could barely tolerate the traditional holiday foods anymore. Turkey was bitter, ham was like vinegar, and the sides, all made with special care and love, were flat, tasteless, bland, and disgusting.

  Why did Don insist on always having the stupid dinner at EB’s house? Why had he thought it would be okay to disrupt his younger brother’s day, eat up his time, and waste what little bit of tolerance he had left by visiting overly long? It was just Thanksgiving. Nothing special about that day. So some people got together and had a meal. Whoop-dee-doo. Big deal. How long ago had that happened? Way too long ago for it to still be affecting life in the twenty-first century.

  He wanted his plain oatmeal and toast. The frivolous spending on the big dinner had upset him, and even if it had been any other time of the year, EB couldn’t have enjoyed any of that food knowing how much money and time and effort had been wasted on it. What was wrong with plain oatmeal and toast? It had served him well over the last few years.

  “Left me with a damn mess to clean up and clear out. Who do they think’ll end up having to clean all those dishes? Assholes,” he grumbled, setting the many dishes on the counter beside the fridge. “Be nice if Kate hauled her preppy ass over here and took it all back to their house. Bitch. She didn’t want to have to wash dishes for an hour, either.” He stacked casserole dishes, plates, and bowls covered with the clingy plastic wrap he hated so much, cursing after each one.

  There was a knock at the front door. He shut the fridge, a chill running up his spine. Was he still asleep? Was he locked in some different facet of his nightmare?

  The knock came again, followed by a trilling, distinctly feminine laugh.

  “Emilia,” he whispered, his legs going rubbery. “Please, not now.”

  “Yoo-hoo, Mr. Ward,” a woman’s muffled voice called from the other side of the door. “It’s Shelly Wooster from Christmas Angels. Yoo-hoo!” She knocked again.

  EB’s strength returned to his legs and he glared at the clock. Straightening his shirt and smoothing back his hair, he strode to the front door. He jerked it open, scowling down at the diminutive woman.

  “Oh, Mr. Ward,” she said, smiling too broadly. “Wonderful, wonderful. Happy holiday season, sir. I am Shelly Woo—”

  “I heard you when you were yelling your name at the top of your lungs,” he cut her off. “Did you think you had to announce your arrival at my door at half-past seven in the morning to the entire world?” He wasn’t yelling, but it was close. He gripped the door hard with one hand.

  “Well, no, sir,” she stammered, looking a bit scared and put-off. “I was just… I just… I’m here from the Bethlehem faction—”

  “I think there might have been one Australian who didn’t hear you the first time. I know who you are, I know what time it is. I also know which faction of what charity you represent. What I don’t know is why you’re at my door, unsolicited, at half-past seven in the damn morning. Have you nothing better to do than to interrupt my morning?”

  Her cheeks flamed red and her smile faded away as she shook her head. “I’m sorry. I’m just looking for donation pledges for the Christmas Angels charity. We volunteer our time to ensure that children all over Pennsylvania, no matter their family’s financial situation, can have an enjoyable, memorable Christmas morning. Would you—”

  “A donation pledge?”

  She nodded. The smile twitched at one corner of her mouth as if unsure whether to come back in full force or not.

  “Christmas,” he said flatly, his own memories of the horrible holiday playing out in his mind. His grip on the door tightened and he could hear the slight squeak of skin against solid wood.

  “Yes, sir. Every child deserves a happy Christmas morning. Every child deserves to have something under the tree.” The smile made it to the other corner of her mouth, but not to her eyes.

  His own children had deserved a memorable Christmas, too. So had his lovely wife. They would never have another Christmas Day, and he was stuck with the dreadful memories of that last holiday.

  “You’re a volunteer?”

  “Yes, sir,” she said brightly. “And proud of it.”

  “Why? Why would you be proud of wasting your time knocking on doors and annoying people? You’re not being compensated for your time, and time is money, I’m a business owner, I know. And, you are interrupting the responsible, upright people of the community as they are getting ready for their day at work. You know, the thing responsible people do—they work a job to support themselves and their families. Do you have a job, Ms. Wooster? Or is this what you do all day?”

  That finally got her bright demeanor to crack and she furrowed her brow. “Mr. Ward, I don’t have to stand here and take this kind of abuse—”

  He laughed. It was dry, harsh, and humorless, much like the voice in his head had been earlier. “Good. That’s the best thing you’ve told me thus far.” He stepped back and slammed the door in her face.

  “Mr. Ward,” she pressed angrily. “You should try doing some good with all your money. Just think how many children you could make happy this Christmas!” She pounded the door once for good measure.

  He went to the kitchen window that looked out to the driveway and grinned as the woman stomped toward her car. “Get a job!” he shouted at her.