Not Dead Yet

by Jenn Burke

  Not Dead Yet

  By Jenn Burke

  Dying isn’t what it used to be.

  Wes Cooper was dead. Then he wasn’t—though he’s not exactly alive, either. As an immortal not-ghost, he can transition between this world and the otherplane, which makes him the perfect thief for hire. For seventy years he’s made a “living” returning items to their rightful owners, seeing his fair share of the bizarre in the process. But he’s never witnessed murder. Until now.

  His latest mission brings him more than he bargained for: a very-dead actor who is definitely going to stay that way. It’s just Wes’s luck that his ex-boyfriend, Detective Hudson Rojas, is assigned to the case. Hudson broke Wes’s heart years ago—and could again, given he’s rocking a hot silver-fox look that shouldn’t be legal.

  As they work together to track down the murderer before anyone else gets hurt, it becomes clear Wes and Hudson have unfinished business. And when a secret Hudson’s been keeping threatens more than just their happiness, it might mean the end of their not-life together—permanently.

  This book is approximately 91,000 words

  To my family, who are so supportive even when my ideas are really weird. Love you all.

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Acknowledgments

  Excerpt from Chaos Station by Jenn Burke and Kelly Jensen

  About the Author

  Also by Jenn Burke

  Chapter One

  You’d think I’d recognize murder when I saw it, but I didn’t always put two and two together quickly enough.

  Like that job to retrieve an ill-conceived contract from a downtown Toronto office building. After hours, no one around, and I heard a woman’s passionate cry of “Do me harder, cowboy!” It wasn’t until after I stuck my ghostly head through the office door that I clued in what it meant: my target and his secretary getting their freak on. Twenty years later and I still couldn’t scrub their pony play from my brain.

  Or when, on a bright afternoon in 1933, I’d blithely accepted my lover’s invitation for a daylight meeting—something he’d never asked for before. My only thought was that I’d get extra, unexpected time with Michael.

  In hindsight, I should have expected the gun.

  Murder was the last thing I thought I’d witness in the home of Meredith Montague, an actor and one of Toronto’s elite. The entire Forest Hill mansion dripped elegance, with pale neutral colors accented with white furniture and tons of natural light from giant windows.

  The study in particular was a beautiful, serene space...except for the figures on the floor.

  I remained frozen behind Meredith’s rolltop desk, despite the fact that neither figure would see me. I was invisible, incorporeal, one step removed from the living world, as insubstantial as a ghost. Hell, I was a ghost—just one who had a living body most of the time.

  The bigger figure was on top of the smaller one—and, well, the first place my brain went was sex. Duh. Except...the language of loving wasn’t there. Their bodies didn’t undulate. They didn’t flow. There was no familiar rhythm, no distinctive butt-thrusts, no grunts of exertion, nothing. Only a man on top of a woman, though I couldn’t be sure. When I was in my ghost form on the otherplane, living beings seemed shrouded in cotton and fuzz, indistinct and detailless. But I could tell he was straddling her, his hands on either side of her head, his arms braced...

  Wait—his hands weren’t on either side of her head. They were around her neck.

  I never proclaimed myself to be a hero or even a good guy. For fuck’s sake, I sneaked into people’s private spaces as a ghost to “recover” items for interested parties—heirlooms my clients wanted back, contracts they shouldn’t have signed, or, occasionally, information they could use for leverage. I wasn’t ashamed of it. My abilities were a tool, and anyone else would use them the same way. On top of that, I found that most of my targets had done something not-so-nice to put them on the radar of the folks who knew how to acquire my services.

  All that aside, deep down I’d thought that if I was ever faced with a life-or-death situation, I’d find some tiny thread of heroism rooted somewhere inside my psyche and act.

  But fear—shock—rooted me to the spot. Logic said nothing could hurt me. They couldn’t see me, couldn’t feel me—other than a cold breeze if I got too close—and they damn sure couldn’t touch me. But I remembered dying. I remembered the disbelief, the fear and the pain before the shock of nothing.

  That’s what she’s feeling. That thought broke the bonds holding me, and I lurched upward with a vague notion I’d grab something, anything, to use as a weapon—

  Except it was too late. The woman’s legs kicked once more and she went limp. I held my breath, waiting for her to move again, but the life faded from her, peeling away the obscuring layers of the otherplane to reveal her features as she became as dead and inanimate as the furniture surrounding us.

  Long golden hair. Iconic red cat-eye glasses sitting askew over dull, lifeless blue eyes. A fifties-style white blouse with tiny red polka dots and red stitching, one button popped at her neck.

  My target—Meredith Montague.

  I’d never been around someone at the moment of their death, so I had no idea if her spirit would join me on the otherplane. I didn’t know if I wanted that or not, to be honest. There should be something more than her body on the ground, as inert as the chair beside her, but what would I say? I didn’t want to be the one to explain to her that her life was over. But there was no mystical light and no indication that Meredith’s soul would come shake my hand on its way to her final destination.

  The man sat back on his heels, his hands resting on his thighs, as he looked at the body on the floor. Then he got up. I watched him warily, shrinking back as he got close. His shape was...weird. On the otherplane, most people’s figures were muted and obscured, as though they were wrapped in layers and layers of translucent gauze.

  But this man...his figure was the dark, slate gray of an impending storm. It had jagged edges, as though a thousand razors extended from his clothes and skin. An aura of danger surrounded him—not an actual, visual aura, since even in the otherplane I had no ability to see that kind of thing. It was more of a sense. A warning that this was someone I did not want to mess with, a warning that went beyond what I’d witnessed.

  He gave no indication he saw me as he made his way to the side bar, looked out over the grounds lit in the late afternoon sunshine for a moment, and then poured himself a drink.

  With a dead body on the floor behind him, he poured himself a drink.

  In some ways, the casualness was more horrifying than the murder. I mean, I could be callous and self-centered, but not on the level of ignoring a dead body in the room. But the murderer
—the monster—sipped his drink slowly. As though he had the right to be there.

  I shook with the need to leave, to go, to pretend the past hour hadn’t happened. Rising from where I was hunched behind the desk, I started for the wall with the big window overlooking the gardens—only to freeze as I realized the murderer’s eyes were locked on me.

  They were blacker than black, fathomless pits that would have probably looked like normal, everyday human eyes were I not in the otherplane. But they sent a chill racing through me—fear, horror, wrongness. I begged my feet to move, and this time, they did. I raced through the wall, out of the house, and away, welcoming the numbness that spread through my brain and body.

  I managed to make it a block away before I threw up.

  “Nine-one-one, what’s your emergency?”

  My grip tightened on the payphone’s receiver as I tried to force the words out, but they wouldn’t come.

  “Hello?”

  C’mon, Wes. Don’t fuck this up too.

  “Murder,” I whispered.

  “Sir? Please speak up.”

  “Someone was killed. Meredith Montague. At her house. He strangled her.”

  “I’ll alert paramedics and police. Is she breathing?”

  “She’s dead.”

  “What’s the address?”

  I knew it—I’d researched it and memorized it, memorized the house itself for the job that had just turned tits up in a spectacular way. But could I think of it in this moment? Not a single digit. “It’s Meredith Montague.”

  “I’ll need the address, sir.”

  “Forest Hill.”

  “Sir—”

  I hung up, shoved my gloved hands in my jean pockets and walked down the street, trying not to look as guilty as I felt. Moments later, a cacophony of sirens slashed through the afternoon bustle, competing with the regular sounds of traffic, and I shivered. Despite the sun beating down on me with an intensity that seemed too much for a late spring day, my innards were nothing more than a block of ice.

  I wondered if I’d ever be warm again.

  I didn’t remember how I got back to my apartment. I mean, I must have retrieved my car and driven back, but the specifics hadn’t imprinted on my brain. Normally, coming home to the character and serenity of the converted manor house was cause for a sigh of relief, but not now. Time skipped and jumped, and the next thing I knew, someone was pounding on my door.

  “Wes?”

  The voice was muffled but I’d recognize it anywhere. Lexi Aster, my best friend, confidant, platonic soul mate, and perpetual pain in the ass. I glanced at my phone and cursed—she’d texted five times and I hadn’t heard a single chime. No wonder she’d come to check up on me. “I’m fine!” I shouted.

  “Open the door!”

  “You have a key.”

  “Open the goddamned door, Wesley.”

  Groaning, I dragged my ass to the door and checked the peephole out of habit. Lexi’s image was skewed by the fish-eyed lens but still stunning. Her multitude of microbraids were smooth and impeccable, and her sienna skin gleamed under the hall lighting that never made me look that good. But then, I was as pasty white as you could get, while Lexi took after her black father rather than her white mother—in looks, anyway. Her form-hugging fuchsia T-shirt and jeans showed off her ample curves. Lexi had never been one to follow the admonition that tight-fitting clothes were only for girls with thigh gaps.

  The outside world saw a professional woman of color. I saw my best friend, the latest generation of the Aster family, a powerful line of witches.

  Her hazel eyes narrowed as I opened the door. “You were supposed to meet me an hour ago.”

  I shrugged and shuffled back to the living room, her words barely sinking in.

  “What’s wrong? Are you okay?” Lexi’s voice was soft and filled with concern.

  I thumped back onto the couch and slid down to lie on my side. “Shitty day.”

  Lexi’s brows rose. “Appropriate, since you look like crap.”

  I flipped her the bird.

  “Classy.” She tossed her purse onto the end table and sat on the opposite side of the couch. It was automatic for her to pull my feet onto her lap—how many times in the past ten years had we sat like this, watching a movie or sharing bits and pieces about ourselves and our lives?

  Until Lexi inserted herself into my sphere of existence, I hadn’t really known what it was to have a friend. I had plenty of acquaintances, people who up until then I would have deemed friends. But Lexi’s unwavering acceptance of me, her devotion to seeing me smile and making me happy, and the urges I felt in return to keep her safe and sound and content made me realize that my previous friendships had been empty and unbalanced. One night, after drinking way too much tequila for some forgotten reason, I’d declared my undying love for her and asked her to marry me. The wrinkle in my masterful plan was that Little Wes only perked up for men—and only infrequently at that—and Lexi liked boobs. So best friends it was.

  “Want to talk about it?”

  “Pfft. No.” I tried to sound nonchalant, but the blanket wrapped tight around me gave away how I was really feeling.

  Lexi started rubbing my feet through the covering. I relaxed into her touch and hoped she wouldn’t push. I didn’t want to relive what I’d seen. To relive the guilt.

  “We had tonight planned since last week. I was counting on you.”

  Tonight? Tonight was—“Oh, shit, Lex. I’m sorry.”

  She shrugged, but there was nothing casual about it. “Too late now.”

  Second serving of guilt. Order up!

  For the past couple of weeks, Lexi had suspected her girlfriend was cheating on her. Little things—an endearment in a text that Marissa never used with Lexi, not being where she said she was going to be, an unfamiliar perfume on her clothes. Not enough to confront Marissa, not yet, and Lexi’s witchery wasn’t at all reliable when used for personal gain—one of the weaknesses of magic. So she’d arranged for a night off from her job as a nurse at Toronto General without telling Marissa. After Lexi departed for her shift, I was supposed to have followed Marissa if she left the house.

  “We’ll figure it out,” I assured her.

  “Yeah, maybe.”

  I hated hearing Lexi sound so...diminished. And I hated worst of all that I’d let her down.

  Eighty-five years ago, Lexi’s great-grandmother, April, attempted a spell to resurrect me after my murder. It was supposed to give me back my body and my life as it had been when I died—and it mostly worked. I wasn’t dead any longer—but I wasn’t a normal human, either. I was grateful, beyond grateful, for April’s spell, and I’d promised to repay her. It wasn’t something I’d managed in the years of April’s life, nor of her daughter’s, or her granddaughter’s—or her great-granddaughter’s, so far. In fact, the Asters always seemed to be helping me more than I helped them, but they still stuck with me. I had no idea why they did, but I was thankful for their constancy.

  Fuck. I took a deep breath. “I saw someone get murdered this afternoon.”

  Lexi sat up, her arms and legs uncrossing. “What?”

  I told her everything, in broken fits and starts. My eyes were squeezed shut for most of it, which was probably a mistake—I kept seeing the moment Meredith became visible, then the empty holes where the murderer’s eyes should have been.

  By the time I was finished, I was sitting against the arm opposite Lexi, facing her. She mirrored my position.

  “Did you call the cops?”

  “Yes. Anonymously.”

  “What did you tell them?”

  “That she was killed.”

  She sighed. “Wes.”

  “What was I supposed to tell them? I couldn’t say I was ghosting through Meredith’s house, and I can’t even describe the man who—who—who did it, other than
to say he was taller than me and had broad shoulders.”

  “Everyone’s taller than you. It’s not much of a description.” She pursed her lips for a second, her thinking pose. “There has to be something more you can tell them.”

  I tucked my knees closer to my chest. “Not without giving away that I was there.”

  “Yeah, and that would be tough to explain.”

  “Exactly.”

  Lexi squinted at me and tilted her head. Uh-oh. I knew that look. “Didn’t you date a cop once?”

  Aw, crap. I should have known that drunken confession would be held against me. “You’re not supposed to remember that. It was before you were born.”

  “You shouldn’t have told me about your adventures then.”

  Adventures. Pfft. If by adventures she meant day-in and day-out worry that Hudson’s job would get him killed, sure. Or maybe she meant how we’d argued constantly over how I used my abilities. That had been fun. “I don’t know if he’s even still in Toronto.”

  She arched a brow.

  “He’s probably retired. He’d be—” I tried to calculate the numbers in my head, but my mathematics was thrown off by pictures of Hudson’s crooked smile, overwhelming all the thoughts of what had gone wrong with our relationship. A hell of a lot had gone right, and my brain was too happy to remind me of that. Goddamn it. My memories of him were so clear. With an effort, I banished them. “He’d be older.”

  “So?”

  “I’m not calling him.”

  “You could give him a truthful statement about what you saw and let him figure out how to incorporate it into the investigation.”

  “If he’s still a cop. If he has any influence on the investigation. If—”

  She grabbed my phone from the coffee table and chucked it at me. “You’ll never know if you don’t call.”

  I smacked the phone back on the table. “No. Damn it, Lexi, I did my civic duty. I called them, told them she’d been killed. What more do you want from me?”

  “I want you to do the right thing.”

  I suddenly found the coffee table very interesting as she pushed to her feet and grabbed her purse.