Page 7 of Ghostlighted (Ghost Townies #2)

Chapter Four

T wo hours later, I stood and arched my back with a satisfying crack.

The knees of my jeans were caked with mud, as were the fingers on the gardening gloves Ricky had lent me.

Granted, I hadn’t done much but dig where Ricky told me and carry the pots of vegetable starts from his pickup truck, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t share the satisfaction of neat rows of leggy tomatoes, spiky chiles, clusters of cucumbers and melons, the leafy floofs of lettuce, cilantro, and parsley.

I eyed the scarecrow, wondering whether I could convince a few birds to dive-bomb it or do a head-poop fly-by on Avi’s behalf. Sadly, I doubted it. I could rarely control my own cat, let alone random neighborhood wildlife. Crap.

Ricky finished watering the last row of cantaloupes and joined me at the edge of the enormous garden patch. “Thanks for the help.”

“I didn’t do that much. Just call me Minion.”

“Still, I finished in half the time, so it’s all good.”

“I’ve been meaning to ask you.” I pointed at the scarecrow. “Who made that?”

Ricky chuckled, a little evilly. “I did. Felicia helped, and so did our cousin Eliana. She’s studying art at Northwest College of Arts and Sciences up in Portland.”

“It’s epic.”

“That it is.”

“Enrique?” Sofia called from her back porch. “You are finished already?”

“Yes, Tia,” Ricky said. “Everything went much quicker with Maz helping. Come see your garden.” He gave her a stern look. “But only to look. You’re not allowed to do any work. Not even to pull a single weed. I’ll take care of that for you.”

“Ah, bah,” she said as she made her way down the porch steps, one hand on the railing. “A little bending is good for me.”

“A little bending can set off one of your episodes. Which reminds me. I refilled your prescription. It’s in my truck.

I’ll bring it in once I’ve cleaned up a little.

” He hurried across the lawn and held out a hand to help her down the last step, grinning at her.

“I wouldn’t want to track mud into your nice clean house. ”

She patted his chest. “If you did, you would have cleaned it up, just as you always do. You take such good care of me, you and your sister and your parents, just as Guillermo would do if he could be here.”

Ricky slid me a glance. “Of course.” He escorted her to the edge of the garden plot. “What do you think?”

She clasped her hands under her chin. “It is lovely. And even more lovely will be what I will cook in the fall.” Her crown of white braids shone in the sun as she smiled up at me.

“I will make special salsa for you, Maz, for helping.” She leaned forward and lowered her voice.

“Spicier than what Maria serves in the restaurant. The kind just for family.”

“Tia’s salsa is the best,” Ricky said.

“Then I look forward to it.”

Sofia sighed and her smile faded. She was still looking at the garden, but I don’t think she saw it—her gaze seemed distant.

“Tia? What’s wrong?”

She patted Ricky’s arm. “It is Guillermo.”

“What about him?”

“Now that he cannot come home after his graduation, I do not know how I will get his gift to him, or the check for law school.” She turned her smile back on as she faced me. “He is staying at Harvard for law school, you know.”

“I didn’t, but that’s pretty impressive.”

She chuckled. “He thought about Yale, but he said he couldn’t betray Harvard that way, so he is staying.”

“Can you mail everything to him?” I asked.

She shook her head. “His address is changing, but even it had not, Guillermo does not trust delivery services with such large checks. He says their employees cannot always be trusted. He has studied many cases of theft in his classes, he told me. But I can no longer do what I used to.”

I exchanged a glance with Ricky, whose expression had gone suspiciously blank, so I had to ask. “What did you used to do?”

“Oh, I would give the check to Carson to take to Guillermo. He often attended real estate conferences in Boston, so they both assured me it was no trouble. But now that Carson is away, I don’t know what to do.”

Carson was away, all right, although ten years wasn’t nearly enough, in my opinion. It should have been twenty-five to life.

“I planned to throw him a graduation party,” she said to me.

“Yes, Ricky told me.”

She sighed. “That would have been so perfect. His friends and family could have celebrated with him, and I could have given him the tuition check and his gift as well.”

“You’re giving him more money, Tia?”

“Bah. Money is not the important thing.” She beamed. “In my scrapbooking group, I have been working on a special album for him, with many memories from his life. It is very large, though, so I am not certain how to get it to him.”

Ricky draped an arm across her shoulder and gave her a sideways hug. “Don’t worry, Tia. We’ll figure something out.”

“You are such a good boy, Enrique.” She gave his chest a pat and then shook out her apron. “Now I will get you two some iced tea. You’ve been working hard and must be thirsty.”

“You don’t have to do that on my account, Sofia.”

“It is no trouble. I will be back inmediatamente.”

Ricky and I stood shoulder to shoulder, watching her climb the porch steps and disappear into the house.

“Let me get this straight,” I said slowly. “She pays for his tuition—his Harvard tuition—out of pocket and he can’t even be bothered to come here to pick up the check?”

“He claims he doesn’t want to incur the expense of the flight. Since that would be paid by Tia too.”

“Why can’t she just pay the school directly? It’s all electronic now, anyway.”

“He says he doesn’t want to bother her with bills, and she doesn’t even have a credit card anymore after her last one got hit with thousands of dollars of charges from a resort in Belize.”

“Damn. Did her card get stolen at the same time as that jewelry theft?”

“No. It was several years ago, and the card was never out of her possession. The number just got spoofed.” He shrugged. “It happens. Saul took care of it for her, no charge. It was one of the last things he did before he retired from his law practice.”

“So she pays cash for everything now?”

Ricky lowered his chin and gave me a get real look, and I got it.

“Ah. She doesn’t have to. Because you do her grocery shopping.”

“Me or my sister, although Felicia isn’t eighteen yet, so there are some things she can’t buy.”

“Does Sofia reimburse you?”

He snorted. “I’m not going to demand money from her for trivial things.”

“Right. Trivial things, like food and medicine.”

It occurred to me again that I had no idea what Ricky’s actual job was.

He always seemed to have time to fill in at Taqueria Vargas if the restaurant was short staffed, spend an entire morning in the middle of the week planting his godmother’s garden, or show up whenever hapless ghostwriters needed their locks cleared out.

Nobody knew better than I did that being self-employed meant that you could arrange your working hours to suit you, but when exactly was Ricky doing work for which he’d get paid? He sure wasn’t accepting any money from Sofia or me.

I sucked in a breath.

“Maz?” Ricky peered up at me. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. Nothing at all.” In fact, things had just taken a turn for the awesome, because I could see how I could solve three problems at once. “We talked about holding Sofia’s party whether Liam was here or not, right?”

“Yeah.” He drew the word out, suspicion clear in his tone.

“We’re not thinking big enough. You won’t let me pay you?—”

“Non-negotiable.” Ricky folded his arms, his chin set in an obstinate angle at odds with his round face. “I’m not taking money from you.”

I patted the air. “Yeah, yeah. I get it. Hold on for a minute, okay?” I pulled out my phone and dialed Taryn, putting the call on speaker. “Hey, Taryn. You’re on speaker with me and Ricky.”

“This had better be good, Maz, or Haley’s going to have your scalp. We’re heading for a lunch reservation she’s had for a week.”

“Are you driving?”

“No. She is.”

“Then listen up.” I held Ricky’s gaze over my phone. “If you’d had to pay somebody for the house’s upkeep between when Avi died and when I moved in, how much would it have run?”

“At the going rate?”

“Let’s say a generous going rate.”

“Just a second. Let me crunch some numbers.”

I heard her murmuring something, after which Haley called “Hi, Maz. You have precisely ten seconds before I ban you from Jae-Seong’s Vietnamese coffees for a month.”

I chuckled. “No need for such dire threats. All I need is a number.” Taryn gave me one and I whistled. “Perfect. Thanks. Enjoy your lunch.” I disconnected the call.

Ricky scowled, an expression that rarely crossed his face. In fact, the only time I’d seen it was when we were talking about Liam.

“What was that about?”

“Since you won’t let me pay you, and Avi and Taryn are busting my chops about spending lawsuit proceeds, how about using that money to send Sofia to Cambridge for Liam’s graduation?”

He blinked, his scowl disappearing. “You… You’d do that?”

“Absolutely. Based on the estimate Taryn gave me for a decade’s worth of yard maintenance, it’ll be first class all the way.

Airfare, swanky hotel, car service, the whole nine.

” I had a check for $125,000 burning a hole in my desk at this very moment, and this could carve a very nice chunk out of it in a totally guilt-free way.

“Maz. You can’t spend that much on… on…”

“On making Sofia’s dream come true? Why not?

” I held my hand out. When he clutched it, I brought our joined hands to my chest. “I don’t want the relationship we’re building to be the kind that keeps score.

” I’d had one of those with Greg, and one was more than enough.

“Even if we never progress any farther than really good friends, I’d like to think we’d still be family. ”

“Yeah.” He cleared his throat again. “Okay.”

“Good. Then I’m taking that money and spending as much as it takes to make sure Sofia sees the results of what she’s been paying for over the last four years.” I smiled down at him. “The trip of a lifetime. What do you say?”