“Okay,” I said, tossing the directions on the table. “What am I supposed to do?”
If she answered me in a complete sentence, I would pass out. She didn’t. It looked like I was going have to go at this trial-and-error style—just like everything else in my life lately.
A ghost floated into the kitchen and seated herself at the table. She had kind eyes and wild curly hair. She was in a lighter state of decomposition than the group that had lost their heads. I guessed her age to be somewhere in her eighties, maybe early nineties. She had a delightful air about her and I wondered why I hadn’t noticed her sooner.
It was possible they came to me when they were supposed to. I hadn’t started the sign-up list yet, but it might just happen organically. I had a big backup here. Hopefully they were aware of that and would play nice. I prayed using a Ouija board wasn’t going to be as painful or tiring as dead man mind-diving. I wasn’t exactly twenty anymore.
“Hi,” I said.
She smiled. It wasn’t pretty, but it was nice. She placed her hands on the Ouija board and glanced up at me expectantly as if she was waiting for me to do the same. I really regretted not asking Gram about her Ouija board use. It occurred to me that I could drive over and ask her real quick. I hadn’t remembered to take the stuff to forge postmarks either. It could be a two-fer. God, Tim would crack in half like Rumpelstiltskin if he knew I had plans to commit mail fraud. The thought actually made me laugh, and the gal sitting across from me giggled too.
“You don’t even know what I’m laughing at,” I told her with a grin.
She shrugged and continued to giggle. She really was adorable in a dead kind of way. I was sure she would go toward the light. No one this sweet was destined for darkness.
Glancing over at the clock, I sighed. It was ten-thirty. Gram would nap until noon. I couldn’t even call her right now. Fine. I’d figure it out myself.
“You want me to touch the board?” I asked my new friend.
She nodded her head and continued to giggle. I couldn’t help but smile as I placed my hands on the board.
“Suzy Jones,” she said inside my head as my eyes widened and she shuddered with happiness.
It wasn’t like a dead man mind-dive. It was very different. Suzie’s voice was distant and slightly off. However, I understood her. This wouldn’t do for a long, in-depth conversation, but it would work well enough for me to send a note to someone.
“Okay, Suzy Jones, do you have an address that you want me to send something to?” I asked.
She quickly reeled it off. Keeping one hand on the Ouija board, I wrote down the address with the other. She was from New Hope, New Jersey. Her address confirmed the squatters weren’t all from around here.
I also realized that the penmanship I just used wasn’t my own. Was it Suzy’s?
“Is this your handwriting?” I asked and showed her the page.
She nodded. Well, that certainly solved a multitude of potential problems. I wasn’t sure if the people who received the cards and letters would believe it was from their dead loved one if it was in the wrong script. The weird voodoo just kept rolling in. It would take some work, but I could forge their writing style as well. My list of crimes was increasing by the minute.
“Got it,” I told her. “What am I sending and what should I say?”
“Birthday card. Granddaughter,” she said. “Bought one. Forgot to mail. Died,” she explained.
“Umm… okay,” I said. “Is it cool if I don’t break into your house and try to find the one you already bought? You lived pretty far away from here.”
“Yes. Loves Power Rangers. Power Ranger card please.”
“Your granddaughter loves Power Rangers?” I asked with a smile. “She sounds like a neat little girl.”
“Yes. Neat. Five,” Suzy said. “I love you, Maddie. You are my special girl always. Love, Mimi.”
Making complete sentences had taken a toll on Suzy. She became more transparent with each word. Thankfully, I just needed one more piece of information.
“When did you die, Suzie?” I asked. “I need to know when to postmark the card so it makes sense and doesn’t scare your granddaughter.”
“Two weeks,” she said so softly, I wasn’t sure I heard her correctly.
“Two weeks ago?” I asked, still making notes.
She nodded and smiled.
“Okay, I’ll postmark it for three weeks ago and send it in the morning. I have to go get more superglue. I can buy a Power Rangers card then.”
I also had to stop by Grams and figure out the finer points of mail fraud. I hoped to hell and back that there weren’t differences for each state or country. That could get wildly complicated. However, I was great with spreadsheets and compiling information. It’s what I did for a living.
Suzy smiled and reached across the table to me. I took her frail dead hand in my own and smiled back at her.
“Don’t worry about a thing, Suzy. I promise I’ll take care of this for you.”
All of a sudden, I witnessed Suzy morph from a decomposing cadaver into the cutest little old woman I’d ever seen. The very same ethereal and somewhat blinding golden glow that had surrounded Sam, now wrapped Suzy in its silky loving arms.
“Thank you, Daisy. I can go now.”
“Have a good trip,” I whispered as Suzy Jones faded away with a serene smile on her wrinkled and lovely face.
I sat at the table for a long moment and absorbed what had just happened. I checked my notes and made sure everything that Suzy had wanted was legible and clear. I didn’t want to mess anything up for her. I’d given her my promise and I kept my promises.
It was curious that Gram never saw anyone go into the light. Maybe she didn’t stick around long enough. It was truly beautiful. Looking down at the paperwork from the office, I shook my head and sighed. I’d have to get it done later. I had a big backup of dead squatters in my house at the moment and now that I knew how to help them, I felt compelled to do so.
With an eye roll aimed at myself, I got a fresh piece of paper out and got comfortable in my chair.
“Next,” I yelled as a very excited ghost floated into my kitchen.
It was going to be a long day. It was a good thing I had a lot of coffee on hand.
A very good thing.
Chapter Seventeen
“If anyone else wants a ticket to the afterlife, grunt now or hold your peace till tomorrow,” I called out, glancing at my watch and blinking my eyes to make sure I was seeing the time correctly.
Had I really sat in the same chair for five and a half hours straight and talked to dead people? It was four o’clock. I hadn’t eaten lunch and I hadn’t even gotten up to pee.
A stack of fifty sheets of paper sat neatly in front of me. I’d made sure to use a new sheet for each of my dead friends. I was being anal, but the stakes were high. It had been the most fascinating day I’d had in a long time—maybe ever.
Propping my elbows on the table and resting my chin in my hands, I thought about James and Randy and Sondra and Kyle and the many others. There were so many wonderful people living in my house, and I hadn’t even known. To me, they’d become the nuisances who were leaving their body parts lying around and needed their heads glued back on.
But they were more than that.
The dead were all people with stories and histories. It surprised me how long many of them had been dead. I suppose it shouldn’t have. They’d been hanging around for a month before I even admitted they weren’t a figment of my imagination.
James Walton—seventy-four, a doctor in life who had three grown kids, a wonderful wife and adored meteor showers—had died ten months ago. He was able to tell me in a stilted way that he’d had a hard time finding me—or rather, Gram, since she was running the show ten months ago. No one had been able to clue me in as to why my little sleepy Georgia town was the place for the dead to gather. I’d have to remember to ask Gram.
“Crap. Gram,” I said, picking up the phone
and dialing her number. I couldn’t wait to tell her about today. Considering she was the only one I could talk to about it, I needed her take. I’d skip the part about mind-diving into John’s head. Worrying her was unnecessary.
After five rings, her nurse picked up.
“Hey, it’s Daisy,” I said, wondering why Gram hadn’t answered her phone.
“Oh, hi, sweetie,” Gloria said warmly.
“Can Gram talk?”
“She sleeping, honey. Just nodded off after watching Bob Barker do his thing for the past three hours,” she said with a chuckle. “She kicked my ass good in the big showcase.”
“Okay,” I said, feeling calmer. Gloria was always straight with me. “Should I come over tonight or wait until tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow,” she told me. “She’s gonna sleep for a while now. She’s doing good. Ate all her lunch today.”
I was disappointed, but the news was terrific about her eating. “If you’re still there when she wakes up, tell her I love her, please.”
Gloria laughed. “She told me to tell you the same thing when you called. Relax, sugar. Gram’s in good hands.”
“Thank you, Gloria.”
“Welcome, honey. Bye now.”
Hanging up, I realized I wasn’t hungry or tired at all. Although, I did have to pee. What I wanted to do was run. I felt so energized. Maybe helping people, even dead people, was good for me. I felt younger than I had in a long time. The past year had been difficult. Missing Steve and trying to reenter the world of the living without crying at the drop of a hat had taken a huge toll.
The only thing that made missing Steve more tolerable was time. Time marched at its own slow pace no matter how badly I had wanted it to go faster. The pain never completely went away, but it was a duller ache now than it was in the beginning.
“Okay, I’m closing up shop for the day,” I called out to the remaining guests.
They were no longer freaks to me. They were my guests. I would always affectionately refer to them as squatters, but I would treat them with the kindness and respect they deserved.
I was wildly relieved that every single person I’d helped today had gone onto the light. Unsure how I would feel if I knew someone was going to the darkness, I was happy it didn’t happen. I was sure it would eventually, and I wasn’t looking forward to it.
At one point, John had come in just to chat. It was nice. The conversation was far more stilted than when I was inside his mind, but he reassured me that if it was possible, he wanted his estate to go to the Humane Society—but only after we’d had an argument of sorts. He truly wanted to give me all his money so I could basically be a stay-at-home mom to Donna, Karen and the squatters.
While the sentiment was lovely, I convinced him that it wouldn’t work for me. It had taken me months to leave the house after Steve died. I couldn’t go back to the life of a hermit. He understood and let it go. I was going to miss him when he left even though I didn’t know when his time would come.
“We’re down to ten squatters,” I told Donna and Karen, who were doing the I have to pee dance in the kitchen. “I’m sorry, guys,” I told them, opening the back door so they could go out.
It was gorgeous outside. The late-day sun shone bright on the red and orange leaves and a chilly breeze blew. A few puffy clouds danced across the sky and cast shadows on the soon-to-be-naked trees. It sounded like the maples and oaks in my yard were whispering secrets in the wind. I paused and listened. Honestly, I would have freaked out if I’d understood a single word. It was more than enough to accept that dead people hung around. If trees could talk, I was in trouble.
“I’m peeing and going for a long run,” I announced to my dogs and the ten remaining ghosts.
Donna and Karen had done their business and came back in to watch The Voice with the squatters in the family room.
“Home sweet home,” I said with a laugh as I took the stairs two at a time to pee and get changed.
My life was bizarre, but it was mine. Parts of it were completely out of control, but I didn’t want to think about those parts—or Gideon. I would focus on what I could handle, and I could handle life much better after a run. Maybe I’d go for fifteen miles today.
“Are you done with the exam?” I asked into the phone as I stretched my hamstrings and pulled on a fleece hoodie.
“I’m done,” Heather said with a huge sigh of relief. “Do you want to come over now? I could use a friend to hang out with.”
“Absolutely,” I replied, and then had a great idea. “I’m going to run to your house, so it might take a bit.”
Heather was silent on the other end of the call for a few seconds.
“Daisy, I live about twelve miles away from you. Is your car not working? I can come to you.”
“Car’s fine,” I reassured her. “I need some air and to move my legs. I worked the entire day. I’m almost cross-eyed.”
“Great. You can pick up another pile in the morning. With both you and me out, the backup is terrible, according to Jennifer,” Heather said and then laughed. “Of course, Jennifer always thinks the backup is bad, but she’s probably correct this time.”
Heather thought I meant I was working on stuff from the office. That was perfect, and I realized I was going to have to be more careful in the future about what I said. I was also going to get slammed with a shitload of paperwork. That was fine. It was my paying job, and I had to do it. I’d work over the weekend if I had to get caught up.
“I’ll be there soon,” I told her as I sprinted back up to my bedroom and retrieved John’s phone from the safe.
I still didn’t know how I was going to tell Heather about John’s murder. I wasn’t even sure I was going to tell her anything at all. Helping John might be impossible, but I had to do something. He couldn’t stay with me forever. It wasn’t fair to him. He’d been through too much to have to live out his afterlife in my house watching reality TV. I knew he was happy being with Karen, but it wasn’t enough.
“If your legs give out, call me and I’ll pick you up,” Heather said with a chuckle as she hung up.
I knew she thought I was nutty to run to her house. She might be right. Tucking both my phone and John’s into the zip pocket of my hoodie, I locked up and started my run.
“Are you okay?” I asked a frazzled-looking Heather as she opened her door and scanned the street warily.
“Get in here,” she said, grabbing my arm and yanking me into her house.
Her condo was in a nice section of town—actually not too far from John’s ritzy neighborhood. God, she might have actually known John. I hadn’t considered that possibility. It could potentially be a problem or an asset. Running my hand over the back of her black leather couch, I started making a pro and con list in my head. The con side filled up fast. The pro side? Not so much.
The color of the couch matched my bruised knuckles. The couch was pretty, but it would look terrible in my house. Heather preferred sleek, modern furniture, but it wasn’t cold at all. Her entire living space was welcoming and warm. Heather usually was too, but not right now.
“You want to tell me what’s going on?” I asked, going to the kitchen and snagging a bottle of water from her fridge. “You were fine on the phone an hour ago.”
“Why aren’t you sweating?” she asked, cocking her head to the side and staring at me.
“I’m not?” I asked, looking down at myself. She was right. I’d just run twelve miles and hadn’t broken a sweat. “Well, it’s pretty chilly out.”
I was surprised she didn’t comment on how fast I’d gotten here. The twelve miles today were an unbelievable personal best for me. I couldn’t believe I’d run twelve consecutive five-minute miles. A freaking marathon could be in my future. Forty was definitely the new thirty. Bragging was ugly behavior so I kept my mouth shut about my silly new superpower.
“I guess so,” Heather said, dropping the subject and peeking out of her front window while keeping most of her body hidden from the outside
view.
“You’re acting weird,” I pointed out, standing behind her and glancing out at the street. “What exactly are we looking for?”
“The question is who. Who are we looking for?” Heather corrected me.
“Okay. I’ll bite. Who?”
Heather pressed a button on the wall and all the shades in the room closed.
“Oh my God,” I said, impressed. “That is so cool.”
Heather gave me a distracted smile, then locked and chained the front door.
“Umm… did you commit a crime or something?” I asked, beginning to adopt her panic.
“You would think so,” she said cryptically as she flopped down on a leather chair and pressed her slim fingers to her temples.
“Do you have a stalker?” I asked, pulling out my phone to call the cops.
“No. I was looking for Clarissa,” she hissed. “The bitchy cow was just here, and I want to make sure she’s gone.”
That was not nice news.
“She showed up at my house the other day too,” I said, bending over to stretch out my legs post-run. “She wants to be friends.”
“Are you serious?” Heather asked with a horrified expression on her face. “Did you tell her to shove it up her ass?”
I laughed. “Nope. I can’t lose my job. But I did lay down some ground rules. She can’t come over to my house ever again. She has to be nice to the paralegals—stuff like that.”
“And she went for it?” Heather asked, still shocked.
“She said she would,” I told her with a shrug. “She hasn’t shown back up at my house yet. Oh my God, she over-shared that she’d banged one of the lawyers—some older-than-dirt guy. Told me not to bang him.” I rolled my eyes and laughed.
“Did she give you a name?”
“Nope. Told me I knew who he was,” I explained, taking my hoodie off and tying it around my waist. “She’s a nasty piece of work and totally nuts. I’d become a nun before I’d bang an eighty-year-old lawyer.”
“I’d use more profane language to describe her, but yep,” Heather agreed.
It's A Wonderful Midlife Crisis : A Paranormal Women's Fiction Novel: Good To The Last Death Book One Page 17
