Rachel stared down at the array of cameras, metal boxes and tripods,
the electronic sophistication incongruous in the old-fashioned
surroundings. All that gadgetry against one poor, little ghost? It hardly
seemed fair.
Zach dropped an arm across her shoulders and she fought the urge to
nestle. Once again she noticed how perfectly they fit together. There was
a symmetry to their joining, a clockwork perfection about the fit of legs
and hips and arms. With no other man had she felt so physically attuned.
It was a blessed shame that in every other way they were poles apart.
"What would you like explained first?" he asked.
She pointed to a small cylindrical object, that looked like a camera
lens. "What's that?"
"A spectrometer."
Her mouth curved down. "Of course it is."
He chuckled. "It's an attachment for the camera. If I photograph an
object, say a bird, the spectrometer refracts the light, which breaks the
bird into its spectral, or color, composition."
"Uh-huh."
To her intense disappointment, his arm fell away. "Here, let me show
you." He opened his camera bag and rummaged through it. Extracting a
number of photographs, he handed them to her. "These are pictures taken
with a spectrometer."
She gazed at the blur of colors. "Lovely," she said. His arm returned
to her shoulder and she wondered how to react. It went counter to her
natural inclinations to resist something so irresistible. Acting on
impulse, she relaxed.
He leaned into her, pointing to one of the blurs. "This is an eagle.
See the outline?"
"Yes," she lied, willing to agree to almost anything if it meant
remaining exactly where she was.
"Let's say I snapped the picture, not realizing I'd captured the bird
in the frame. I'd want to know what I'd photographed, so I'd send the
picture to a lab for identification. They could classify it from its color
pattern, or spectra composition."
She settled herself more firmly in his arms, her interest snagged.
"What has that got to do with ghost debunking?"
"Theoretically ghosts are made of energy that would leave a spectra
trace I can photograph. So, we set up cameras in strategic locations. A
few will have spectrometers attached, others will be standard 35
millimeter models, still others will have infrared film. If Francisca
shows, we should be able to get an image of her through one of those
means. We search for anything out of the ordinary."
Intrigued, she asked, "How do you decide to take a picture?"
"We use sound and motion detectors. If the detectors are set off, the
cameras will take a series of photos which we later analyze. Something
that doesn't show up on the spectrometer might show up on infrared.
Anything we can't explain, gets sent to the lab for analysis."
"Makes sense." She returned the spectrometer to the rug and indicated a
black metal box with a set of dials and switches on the outside. "What's
that one?"
"A cathoderay magnetometer."
He picked it up and she nodded. "I knew that."
"Good. Then I don't have to explain its function."
She peeked at him through a wispy curtain of sun-bleached bangs. "Not
unless you feel like it."
His eyes gleamed, the color a bright mix of jade and gold. "I feel like
it."
He slid his arm around her waist and tugged her close, handing her the
magnetometer. He lowered his head, his jaw almost brushing the curve of
her cheek. She closed her eyes and inhaled, drawing in the scent of him.
He smelled of soap, clean and fresh with a slight floral undertone. He
smelled of cologne, the fragrance laced with a hint of cedar. And he
smelled of something else. Something wonderfully sweet that filled her
with a velvety warmth and made her feel protected and--
A laugh rumbled close to her ear. "You're going to have to look, if you
want to understand what this does," he told her in a husky murmur.
Her eyes snapped open and she stared blindly at the device in her
hands. "I knew that," she repeated.
"Of course you did." His arm moved further around her, a long finger
tapping the box. "This is a cathoderay magnetometer."
"You told me that already."
"Glad you were listening. Another theory is that ghosts create a
deviation in the magnetic field when they appear. This device would
measure that deviation, no matter how minute."
She stared at the dial. "The needle's not moving."
"No, it's not."
"Is it broken?"
"No."
The machine must be broken. Her magnetic field had to be deviating all
over the place. "You have anything that actually works?" she asked.
He took the magnetometer from her and returned it to the rug, picking
up another box. The one he chose was square, with a large window and a
roll of paper inside. Taking it to an electrical outlet, he plugged it in.
"This is an ink-pen thermometer. It graphs the temperature variance
over a period of time. I thought we'd set it up in here since this is
where Elsie MacDonald reported the cold spot." He flipped a switch on the
box and an ink-tipped needle swung across the paper. After a moment, it
stabilized at eighty degrees.
"Eighty?" Rachel questioned doubtfully, kneeling beside the box. "It's
much warmer than that in here."
Much, much warmer. And getting warmer by the second as Zach dropped to
her side. They watched and the needle dipped into the mid-seventies, then
plummeted to sixty. Rachel caught the scent of his aftershave again. Cedar
and that other sweet, elusive fragrance. She frowned. The scent was
familiar. Her eyes widened. Gardenias!
She struggled to contain her excitement. "Zach?"
He tapped the side of the thermometer. "I'll have Kurt check the
calibration. It could have been damaged during transport."
"Zach! What's that smell?"
"What smell?"
"The flowery one."
He unplugged the box and returned it to the rug. "Perfume, maybe?"
She jumped up. "It's gardenias, isn't it?"
"I don't know." He shrugged. "Could be."
"Oh, my gosh, she's here." Rachel whirled around in a circle, striving
to look everywhere at once. "Francisca's here, Zach. Quick, do something!
Use your ghost detecting machines. Start spectramagnetizing your
cathometers!"
She ran to the rug and snatched up the magnetometer, shaking it. "Start
deviating, you stupid machine. Francisca's here!"
"Rachel! Be careful with that. It's delicate."
She smacked the box with the palm of her hand. "Delicate in a pig's
eye. It's not working. Do something." Desperate, she spun
around in another circle. Tripping on the corner of Zach's rug, she landed
on her backside. Hard. Francisca's earring popped out of her ear, hit the
wooden floorboards with a ping and rolled away. It came to rest at Zach's
feet.
"I didn't do that," Rachel informed him. "She did it."
He made a sound of disgust. "It fell out of your ear."
"Francisca knocked it out," she insisted stubbornly. "Like she tried to
do with Elsie MacDonald."
He bent down and picked up the earring. "First you expect me to believe
in a ghost. Now you expect me to believe in a ghost with an earring
fetish?"
"Okay."
"Not okay." He crossed to her side and offered his hand. A quick tug
had her on her feet once more. He held out the earring. "Put this on and
give me the magnetometer."
Reluctantly, she obeyed. "What does Francisca have to do to convince
you she's real? Your own instruments registered her presence. Or at least
one of them did. But do you believe it?"
"No."
"No." She did a double take, glaring at him. "No? I thought you lived
by your facts and figures and absolutes."
"I live by calibrated facts and figures and absolutes." He sighed in
exasperation. "This is how ghost rumors start. You take a few simple
coincidences and blow them out of proportion."
"The odor of gardenias, the drop in temperature--" she yanked on her
ear "--Francisca's earring falling out. Those are coincidences?"
"Yes."
"Says you! They're identical to what happened to Elsie."
He grabbed her shoulders and gave her a gentle shake. "Stop and think,
Rachel. I plugged in the machine and it recorded an erroneous temperature.
Did you notice a chill in the air?"
She set her mouth in a stubborn line. "How could I, when you were
almost smothering me?"
"Smothering you?"
"You were hanging on my neck. With you all over me like that, I
wouldn't have noticed the second coming of the Ice Age."
"You don't say?" His eyes smoldered with bright golden lights. "And the
odor you detected?"
She swallowed. "Well...at first I thought it was you."
"Me?"
"Your aftershave." She stirred uneasily. "It had this woodsy scent to
it. And I noticed this other, sort of flowery odor. I thought maybe it was
from the soap you'd used."
He moved closer. "You were smelling me?"
"Sort of." She shifted in his grasp. "Just in the line of duty, you
understand. I was trying to decide if it was gardenias."
"Can you smell me now?"
She sniffed. "Yes."
"Do I still smell flowery?"
She sniffed harder. "Essence of Zach" filled her lungs and for a
minute, she thought she'd keel over from the sharp pleasure it gave her.
"No flowers," she admitted in a strangled voice.
He edged closer. "No gardenias?"
"Not a one."
"And after smelling me, you became agitated. Is that right?"
She licked her lips. "I think agitated would be a slight exaggeration
of the facts."
"You tripped over the rug and landed on your keester."
"Okay. I was agitated. So what?"
His hands settled on her hips and he tugged her into his arms. "So you
landed hard enough to knock out your earring, isn't that how it happened?"
"No!" she moaned.
His hands slid around her, pressing her closer still. He lowered his
head, his mouth inches away from hers. "I think that's exactly how it
happened," he murmured. And kissed her.
His lips moved persuasively, drowning out thought, drowning out reason,
drowning out everything but the swift thrumming of her heartbeat. She
caught at the front of his shirt, the soft cotton bunching in her fists.
Heat rose within her once more, this time fast and urgent and reckless.
And then desire hit her with a kick so hard, it wrenched the breath from
her lungs.
It felt right to be in his arms. Right to be kissed by him. Right to
give herself over to the exquisite touch and taste and feel of him. Part
of her slipped away, merging with the man who held her clamped to his
chest. And in that instant, she knew she'd changed, that she'd never be
quite the same person.
The very last thing she heard as she lost herself in the glory of his
embrace was a tiny ping as Francisca's earrings once again hit the deck.
From the Book:
TO CATCH A GHOST
by Day Leclaire
Harlequin Romance #3285–October '93
ISBN: 0-373-03285-4
"Day Leclaire gives her unique characters an irresistible charm that keeps
me turning the pages with anticipation and leaves me with a smile on my
face." Paula Detmer Riggs
"There's no end to the delightful
misadventures Day Leclaire's spitfire heroine manages to get herself
into-each better than the last and all meant to savor." Romantic Times
