Emily's Ghost by Antoinette Stockenberg

hated herself for every sniffle, but she couldn't help
it.
    "My God, Emily ... all
right." His voice sounded alarmed but firm. "I'll be at your place
tonight. Expect me late. Give me the address."
    She did, in a halting
voice, and they rang off. Instantly she felt like a fool. She tried
not to think about it for the rest of the day and instead forced
herself to go through the motions of her next assignment for
the Journal : a
dull little expos é of a defaulting builder who'd submitted false bond securities
to the city for a playground he never built. Luckily the builder
had an ego as big as the John Hancock Tower; he was more than
willing to talk in a phone interview, so half the story wrote
itself. Nonetheless Emily worked late, not because the piece was
giving her trouble, but because she couldn't face Fergus O'Malley
alone.
    And she wasn't sure why.
She was basically terrified of him, that went without saying. And
she was weirdly sorry to disappoint him by coming home
empty-handed. But mostly her pride was smarting because she'd been
forced to call in the marines. She stalled a little longer by
eating dinner out, and then at about nine o'clock she headed home
to what was bound to be a no-win night. Tired and preoccupied, she
had to park her car well up the street and then force herself to
stay alert for muggers.
    She made it in one piece
and saw the senator's BMW parked squarely in front of the rambling
Victorian of which she was making payments on such a very small
part. He was here! The question was -- since there was no lobby --
where? She let herself in and found him sitting on the top stair
outside of her apartment, looking rumpled but at ease.
    "Senator! I'm sorry! You
said you'd be late!"
    "I meant don't hold
dinner, that's all." His smile was captivating. It bowled her over,
that ability to be almost intimately reassuring and yet not quite
pushy.
    "How did you get in?" she
asked. "Wait, don't tell me; the outside door wasn't locked. Darn
college kids. They're renting the first-floor condo and they treat
the whole building like a dormitory. Just about anybody could get
in here."
    The senator nodded towards
her apartment and then turned back to her. "Apparently just about
anybody did," he said, without humor.
    She'd been fumbling with
her keys. Now she dropped them. "I can't begin to imagine what you
must think of me," she mumbled, stooping to pick them up. "A nut
case, right?"
    But the senator was there
before her. Scooping the keys up in his hand, he stood up as she
straightened up. They were very close, very tentative. "An
intriguing case, maybe," he said. "But not a nut case."
    He was near enough that
she felt the sweep of his breath across her cheek. There was
something about him so warm, so vital --so completely in contrast
with Fergus O'Malley -- that she lifted her face to him, as a daisy
orients itself to the sun. The senator touched his finger to the
tip of her nose and said, "Now. Shall we see what's behind that
locked door of yours?"
    He selected a key, the
right key, from her ring and slid it into the lock. Immediately
Emily had misgivings.
    "He could do something --
could hurt you," she whispered suddenly. "He has a horrible temper.
He threatened me last night."
    The senator threw her a
glance of real concern and turned the key. He pushed the door open,
then paused at the threshold.
    Emily grabbed his arm and
said, "No! You shouldn't have come."
    "Too late now," the
senator said, and flipped on the light just inside the
door.
    Emily was right behind
him. The condo looked the way she'd left it -- a mess. There were
yellow pads everywhere, and loose sheets of paper littering the
room. Clothes were left where they fell, a pizza box covered the
small dinette, and empty cracker boxes were sprouting like
mushrooms from the floor. Juice cans, Coke cans, a saucer piled
high with dried brown tea bags --the place had the look of a dorm
room after an all-night cram. And the television was on! Had she
left it on