Distrust ...Finale ...Laying a Lie to Rest

I was at an impasse—the cheating wife that Wilde Prescott hired me to surveille was totally innocent—the real cheater was Wilde himself.

And to further ccomplicate matters the man she was supposedly seeing was a ghost…literally! He was an otherworldly spirit guide who obviously had compassion on her plight.

Arabella must have felt so alone and helpless and then to discover I was hired by her husband to pry into her private life, well, it was too much for me to bear.

I felt responsible and guilty for adding to her grief. She deserved better.

As I stood with the two of them in the mansion’s great room Arabella looked totally defeated and confused.

She turned to her ghostly confidante and moaned, “You told me, only I could see you, Richard.”

The ghost looked bewildered, and offered his open palms to her, “ He must be a sensitive dear heart—a damnable coincidence, if I must say so.”

I felt my knees turn to jelly, so I quickly sat down.

I had no idea this assignment would be so complicated.

“Well, now you know the truth, Mister—”

“It’s Edwards—Jonas Edwards, Mrs. Prescott.”

“It’s Arabella,” she whispered.

Richard Carson, or his spirit to be precise, had been staring into the fire. Now, he turned to me, sighed and leaned one arm against the mantel.

“You know, one thing being deceased affords you, is a better perspective on time. This whole business of infidelity—it used to just apply in the religious or political sense—and I suppose it was because husbands in the past always had affairs—it was considered normal.”

“Well, I don’t consider it normal,” Arabella said firmly, “Wilde is a traitor in my eyes. First he betrayed me by his silence, then by his absence and now finally by his actions.”

“He’s a rotten man,” I blurted out, “he doesn’t deserve you.”

“Aha,” smiled the ghost. “What have we here—a knight in shining armor?”

Arabella colored slightly, then was hit by an inspiration. “If that’s the case, Jonas—will you help me—will you help prove it’s Wilde who’s cheating on me?”

“I will help you.”

She smiled and my heart melted the way ice dissolves in the heat of the sun.

It didn’t take much to prove Wilde Prescott’s philandering. He readily came to terms outside of court and Arabella received a just and fitting settlement.

Richard continued as Arabella’s mentor and guiding muse, although I also began to play a supporting role—as Richard put it, as ‘her dashing paramour’.

I sometimes think it was more than coincidence that drew the two of us together, but when I mention it to Richard, his cheeks turn pink and he merely winks knowingly.

Bella and I decided to use the money from the divorce settlement to purchase Carson House and Richard couldn’t have been happier.

It seemed overnight as if all legal obstacles disappeared and the moment the title was freed up, we put in an offer that was immediately accepted.

Now we’re living there, the three of us, in our idyllic retreat—husband, wife and ghost, with one of us unfortunately deceased.