Ghost Writer by Alison Bruce
To my ghosts, seen and unseen, for their inspiration,
and to my children, Kit and Sam, for cheering me on.
Acknowledgements
I’d like to thank the Deadly Dames: Catherine Astolfo, Janet Bolin, Melodie Campbell, Joan O’Callaghan and Nancy O’Neill for their support, constructive criticism and occasional kick in the butt.
I’m also very grateful to my publisher, Cheryl Tardif, who asked for something completely different at exactly the right time.
Chapter One ~ Ghosts of the Past
When I was six years old, I woke to find my grandmother standing at the foot of my bed. She wore her habitual expression of worry blended with faint disapproval. Her eyes narrowed, and I waited to find out what I had done this time to annoy her. Then she nodded and disappeared.
In the morning, my mother came to tell me that Grandma Allard had died. She had a heart attack in the evening, and my father had been called to the hospital shortly after my bedtime. I could stay home from school if I wanted, which of course I did. It wasn't that I was shocked or particularly grieved to learn my grandmother was dead, but a day off school was not something you turned down. I wasn't even worried that I had apparently seen a ghost.
When my mother left me, I tucked up in bed and went back to sleep. I dreamed of Grandma Allard. I saw her in bed asleep. Then she stood and looked down at her dead body. What followed was a montage of her life, peeled back like an onion: Grandma Allard, the stern Catholic widow, insisting on order and piety in her world; Madame Allard, the widow with three daughters and a son to care for, hiding her mixed emotions under funereal black; Elise Allard with three young children and one on the way and an abusive husband—brave one moment, cowering the next; Elise Goderich finding out she was pregnant at age fifteen, in succession devastated, excited, anxious, and determined.
My six-year-old self was interested, but couldn't appreciate the scope of my grandmother's life. I could understand a day off school. So could the young girl in pigtails, dressed in a faded blue dress and a crisp white pinafore. She smiled and waved to me before skipping off.
That was my first ghost.
My last ghost was Uncle Allen, my mother’s younger brother. My father’s side of the family had issues with him, but I loved him so much that when I was too young to know better, I declared that when I grew up I would be gay too. My ignorance of sexuality was a source of great amusement in the family for years after.
Like my grandmother, Allen appeared at the foot of my bed one night. I could barely see him, but I knew what it meant. I rushed out to find my mother. I couldn’t explain what I saw. I couldn’t get the words out. She found out soon enough. Her brother had been beaten to death outside a gay bar.
For weeks after I was afraid to go to sleep in case I saw how it happened. I never wanted to see a ghost again.
Chapter Two ~ Dora the Explorer
My name is Jen Kirby. I have several things going for me including great hair, nice eyes, and an ability to turn experts' research into readable prose.
I have a few weaknesses. I enjoy chocolate too much. I hate enclosed spaces. And I prefer to experience open bodies of water from a distance. One sailing trip with my cousins made me swear off boats for life. So, you'll understand how much I wanted the job when I said I'd go to the Arctic Ocean to look for a sunken underwater base.
The offer came from Dr. Dora Leland, a forensic psychiatrist and my good friend. Dora is a professor at the University of Toronto, a consultant to various law enforcement agencies, and author of seven books which I have ghostwritten with her. Her idea of a vacation is volunteering her skills to researchers who would never have thought they needed a forensic psychiatrist on their team, let alone afforded one.
Her latest project was helping out a team who were bent on raising US Navy's Arctic Station Alpha and finding out what happened to its crew. AFFA, which stood for “Answers For Families of Alpha”—not the Hell’s Angels motto “Angels Forever, Forever Angels,”—included now grown children of the crew. Other family members contributed funds or in kind services. But it was Dora and her agents that made the expedition possible.
As the only team member who wasn't paired off, Dora anticipated needing a buddy to play cards with in the evening. She sold the deal by offering me co-author credit on the book we were going to write.
It was an offer I couldn’t refuse.
So, after leaving my son with my ex, I started a journey that involved a series of aircraft, each one smaller than the last, to the dock where the émil Gagnan was berthed. Compared to the fishing boats, it was a fair size, but it still took a lot of will power and a not-so-gentle push from Dora to climb the gang plank.
“Bienvenue à bord. Welcome aboard. I am your captain, Guy Franchot, fondly known as the Skipper. You will be happy to know there is no Gilligan aboard to strand us on a desert island. You must be the illustrious Theodora Leland, MD, PhD, award winning author, a veritable star of screen and page.” He punctuated his welcome with a flourishing bow.
As well as being charming, Franchot was rakishly handsome in a Douglas Fairbanks style. He pronounced his name in the French way, but his English was unaccented, unless you counted the stagey, gentleman pirate lilt. I could easily imagine him swashing a buckle or swinging down from the yardarm, if we had one. I wasn't sure. There was something like one up there, but I was pretty sure it was some kind of an antenna.