Saving Kitty - completed

Chapter 11

When her phone alarm rang at 6.30 am, Phoebe groaned, her head pounded, already she knew today was going to be a long day! She stared at the ceiling remembering her evening with Ben and then the row with James after, surely this couldn't get any more complicated. To say Phoebe felt confused was an understatement. She liked Ben and their unexpected date had been truly nice, but nice was all the word she could muster; she liked Ben a lot, there wasn't anything not to like, he was good-looking, in a nice, sweet sort of way, charming, funny and confident. But there was no spark, their brief farewell kiss had been ... again the word nice, came to mind. And then there was James, now, he stirred feelings within her, feelings and emotions that Phoebe had never felt before... for lack of a better expression he made her quiver.

Phoebe turned over and buried her face in the pillow she wanted to scream! She came here to get away from it all, she felt like she had left one storm behind, only to go head full on into a catastrophic full force hurricane.

Dragging herself out of bed and into the shower, Phoebe resolved that perhaps she should not see either of them, finish her time here and go home.

It was only after the shower that Phoebe remembered Kitty, her head had been filled with Ben and James, and she had quite forgotten about the previous ghostly encounter. Funny, but Kitty always seemed to appear when Phoebe was either upset or angry. After her duties were done at breakfast she would investigate under the floorboard. However, she was quite certain that she would find nothing but dust and creepy crawlies.

Phoebe found her aunt in the kitchen frying up several breakfasts at once, "I'm sorry about last night aunt," Phoebe uttered again feeling ashamed that she had put her aunt through such worry.

"Oh hush, I was just a little worried about you that's all, I think James was more so though, he refused to leave until you came home."

"Really? That's not the impression I got from him... by the way he acted you'd think I had joined some sort of terrorist group." Phoebe was confused, he had made out that her aunt was distraught with worry, there was no indication that he was the worried one.

"He's been under a lot of stress lately, what with Jackie and all." Aunt Martha served up: eggs, bacon, sausages and fried bread "take those to table three will you?"

"Yeah sure." Phoebe wanted to question her aunt further, but it would just have to wait until after the breakfast rush.

Two hours later, Phoebe sat with her aunt at the kitchen table, it had become quite a ritual they had fallen into. A pot of tea sat between them as did hot buttered toast and homemade marmalade. Finally, Phoebe could get some answers.

"James did look tired last night, what's going on with Jackie, has she been found?"

"Yes... I suspect it will be on the news this morning, but James found out last night, he's been with the family all week."

"Oh ...? I had no idea," Phoebe was shocked, no wonder he looked exhausted. Then another thought occurred to Phoebe, he must love Jackie, suddenly her heart hurt.

"Well, they had been engaged, I think James felt he owed them something, and of course, he's been helping the police with their enquiries." Aunt Martha poured the tea.

"Is she ok? Where was she found? Are they back together?" Phoebe had so many questions.

"No chance of that, unless on a spiritual level her body was found in Padstow Quay, she'd been there a while, according to James, and they think it looks like foul play."

"Murder? Noooo... really?" Phoebe almost dropped her mug of tea, "but they don't think that James did..."

"No, at least I don't think so, but it came as a bit of a shock as you can imagine, that's why James came over last night, he'd just left the police station."