The Ghost and Miss Demure Read Free

left rear tire had flattened something large in the road. She checked her side-view mirror but the mud was too thick to be certain of what she was leaving behind. Whatever it was, it was long and tubular.
    Damn! She should stop and pick it up. This was littering, and spare parts were so expensive, even for cars as old as hers. On the other hand, the car was still running and it might not stay that way if she took her foot off the gas, especially with the battery being as old as it was. And, there was nowhere to turn around. And it couldn’t be anything important, like the transmission or engine, or the car wouldn’t still be working. She’d check the muffler later. Her father was always warning her about that.
    Karo felt a different sting of guilt as she sped away. Dad loved this old Honda. He would die when he saw the way it had deteriorated. Maybe she could get it to a paint shop before he came to visit. It was only money, right? And how much could a coat of cheap paint be? But Dad would never be fooled by paint, no more than either of her parents were fooled by her carefully worded answering machine message. Mother had called back immediately, and her recorded sigh, captured by Karo’s machine, said all too clearly thatshe did not believe her youngest daughter’s explanation about an exciting career opportunity. If Karo truly needed to dress up in costumes in order to enjoy her work, at least Williamstown had maintained a certain cache. If she wanted a change, why didn’t she just come home? They had jobs in California where she could wear a costume, like Sam’s Lobster House, where she had worked her last year of high school.
    “Go home? When pigs ice skate,” Karo muttered, wiping at the window. Her defogger was on the fritz again. She’d promised to get it fixed last March but never got around to it.
    Dad had called, too. As he did whenever he was concerned with one of his children, he gave detailed instructions on auto maintenance and road safety. He was discussing the muffler when time ran out, and now Karo felt doubly guilty for her car abuse and for worrying him enough to fill twenty minutes of recording time.
    Well, why shouldn’t he worry? Karo asked herself as she swerved around a chunk of road detritus and scraped some more paint from the bottom of her passenger door. She was a little worried, herself, but this job was one of those gift-horse things. A job in her field, more or less, that she was qualified for? That was a rare thing indeed. Who could refuse, even if the pay was minimal? At least she got room and board while mending her very sketchy resume. She might be a while, waiting for the Smithsonian to call with a real job offer now that she was notorious. Besides, Tristam English sounded like a very nice, very calm, very British, very honest employer. Everyone knew that theEnglish—in general, and hopefully in specific—were trustworthy, unemotional people. That was just what she needed.
    After all, hadn’t she had enough of the romantic delusion that love in the form of a tall, handsome man with a reasonable degree of intelligence would come sweeping into her life and conquer all? Wasn’t her present predicament proof of the damage brought on by trusting someone because they had lovely eyes and were flirting with you and there was hope they might be able to fix your computer? Career and romance didn’t mix! That two-in-one economy pack was usually as bad as a sexually transmitted disease, and a hundred times more disastrous to the heart and wallet.
    It didn’t matter that she had meant well by dating F. Christian, or that he’d spun her a sad tale about being so wrapped up in work that he had no time to meet interesting women. He never dated people in his office, he’d said; he was doing it just this once, because she was so smart and fascinating. She hadn’t suspected a thing when, after discussing the piece she was working on for an architectural magazine, F. Christian had