It's A Wonderful Midlife Crisis : A Paranormal Women's Fiction Novel: Good To The Last Death Book One

by Robyn Peterman

  “Is she trying to blackmail you into being her friend too?” I asked with a pained grimace.

  “No. Thank God,” Heather muttered. “She came to give me a piece of her tiny little mind while she still could.”

  “Okay. Not following,” I said, lying down on the couch and petting her big fat cat, Frank. “Explain.”

  “I’ve been offered a job as a lawyer at the firm,” she said, running her hands through her hair and making it stand on end.

  “That’s great!” My brilliant buddy would breathe some new life into the fuddy-duddy firm.

  Heather raised a brow and snorted. “Maybe. Clarence Smith made me an offer that would be stupid to refuse.”

  “So, what’s the problem?” I asked.

  “I guess there isn’t one,” she said, shrugging.

  “I still don’t get why Clarissa came here.”

  “Since she won’t be my boss much longer, she needed to rub a few things in,” Heather said with a disgusted look on her pretty face. “Soon, I’ll technically be her boss.”

  “That is such poetic justice, I might cry,” I said, grinning from ear to ear. “You should be happy. This is the best news ever. We need to celebrate.”

  “I’m not taking the job.”

  “What? Why?” I asked, sitting up. The office without Heather would feel wrong. I mean, I knew she’d be a lawyer, but thought she’d still be there.

  “The thought of doing real estate and wills for the rest of my life makes me want to claw my eyes out.”

  I nodded and groaned. “I feel you. I get it, and I think you’re smart. What are you going to do?”

  Heather finally smiled—a real smile. “I’m opening my own firm.”

  “That’s freaking fantastic,” I said, raising up my hand for a high five.

  “And all of you are coming to work with me,” she informed me, and then finished off with the cherry on top of the sundae. “Everyone is getting partial ownership options, benefits and a raise.”

  I was pretty sure I screamed with joy. No, I was positive I screamed. And then I was absolutely sure I tackled Heather and hugged her until she shrieked for me to chill out. Of all the changes happening in my life, this one was welcome and incredible.

  “So, I take it you’ll come with me?” Heather asked, shoving me off of her and laughing.

  “Yes,” I told her. “I would think my athletically juvenile reaction would have been sufficient, but if you need actual words—then yes. Have you talked to Jennifer and June yet?”

  She nodded and grinned. “I have. Just before I called you earlier. I knew you were coming over so I wanted to see your face and tell you in person. I didn’t expect to be attacked.”

  “Sorry, not sorry,” I told her with a sigh of happiness.

  “No worries. It makes me feel great that all of you trust me.”

  “The gals said yes?” I asked, feeling tingly and excited. No more Clarissa and no running into Gideon. That part left me unsettled, but it was for the best.

  “Damn straight. June cried so hard I had to get Charlie on the phone to understand what she was trying to say. But yes, June is in. Jennifer told me in great detail what she planned to do to her face and back fat with all the extra money she’ll be making,” Heather said with an eye roll. “So yes. Ms. Botoxicated will be joining us as well.”

  “Can you afford this?” I asked with concern.

  Heather raised a brow and gave me a half-smirk. “Yes, Daisy, I can. I have a trust fund and a very healthy stock portfolio. It won’t be difficult to get us set up. And I could always take on a partner if I wanted to.”

  I stared at my dear friend for a long moment. “Why were you working as a paralegal?”

  Heather didn’t need to work. I mean, I knew she had family money. Of course, I had no clue how much she had access to. I’d also never met anyone in her family. Heather didn’t talk about them much.

  “Because work is honest,” she said. “Laziness is a boring trait.”

  I’d heard the same line from Gideon the first day I met him. I almost told Heather, but I was afraid if I brought his name up, I’d blush. Heather didn’t miss a beat, and I wasn’t prepared to tell her I’d kissed him. It was a non-issue. Although, I’d love to see her reaction if I told her he was the Grim Reaper. I never would. She’d never believe me anyway.

  Plus, I couldn’t use up her willingness to believe the unbelievable about Gideon. I needed to save all of that for John’s case.

  “What kind of law will you be practicing?” I asked, wondering how Clarence Smith would feel about Heather poaching all of his paralegals.

  “Criminal prosecution,” Heather said, watching for my reaction. “I’m in the mood to send bad guys to jail.”

  I almost screamed again, but I held myself in check. It was all working out too easily. The other shoe was about to drop—probably when I told her the story about John with a bunch of holes in it.

  “Wow,” was all I could come up with.

  “And I was hoping you were about to give me my first case,” Heather said casually. “Would you like to explain what you started last night?”

  “Umm… are you ready to hear just part of the story?” I asked, closing my eyes and waiting for her to laugh.

  She didn’t. “I’m ready to hear whatever you can tell me.”

  “Promise you’ll still be my friend in an hour?”

  “Daisy, I’ll be your friend forever. Nothing can change that. I promise,” Heather told me.

  God, I hoped she didn’t change her mind. Her friendship meant the world to me.

  Chapter Eighteen

  The video on John’s phone was over and we sat in silence. I hadn’t watched it. I’d already seen it in John’s mind. I couldn’t watch my dead friend die a second time. I’d gone to Heather’s kitchen and ran the water so I couldn’t hear it. When it was done, I came back in and sat next to her. Heather was crying.

  “You can’t tell me where you got this?” she asked quietly.

  I sighed and decided to tell her as much as I could so she would know if she could do anything about it.

  “I stole it from his house,” I admitted, staring at the bruise on the back of my hand. “I pretended I was part of a widow’s support group and found it while John’s piece-of-shit wife got me a glass of water.”

  “That’s pretty brilliant,” she said.

  “Thanks,” I replied. “I was scared out of my mind.”

  “Why did you do it?”

  I answered without thinking. “I had to. It was the only way.”

  Shit. I should have made notes and read from a piece of paper. Winging it wasn’t working—at all.

  Heather stared at me and waited for more. There wasn’t much more I could tell her without her thinking I needed to be institutionalized. I was backed into a corner with no realistic way out. I just hoped she could do something with the video and the small amount of information I could provide.

  “Did you know John Dunn when he was alive?” she asked.

  I glanced up in surprise. “No, I didn’t. How do you know his last name?”

  My friend sighed and wiped a tear away. “He was my banker. He was a really nice man.”

  “I know,” I told her.

  “Wait. I thought you said you didn’t know him.”

  Damn it, Heather didn’t miss a beat. She was going to be a kick-ass lawyer and I was going to be a kick-ass patient at the mental institution.

  “Umm… I don’t. I just heard he was.”

  Heather inhaled slowly and exhaled just as slow. “Did you go to his funeral?”

  Heather knew about my morbid habit just like Missy did. I didn’t know exactly what she thought of it since she was nice enough to never tell me. I hoped she didn’t feel the need to discuss it now.

  “I did,” I answered. “It was bizarre. Only three people were there.”

  “That’s because his wife didn’t put the announcement in the paper until after the funeral,” Heather said w
ith a grunt if disgust. “I’ve run across her as well. I was never able to wrap my mind around why John married her. She’s nothing but a gold-digging bitch.”

  “She dropped his dog off at the pound after he died,” I said before slapping my hand over my mouth so hard it stung.

  What the hell was wrong with me?

  I knew I was a horrible liar, but it was like I drank a freaking truth serum so my crazy would leak out. I needed to superglue my mouth shut. I wished like hell I had a tube in my pocket.

  Heather glanced over at me with an odd expression on her face. I couldn’t tell if she was going to laugh or yell or tell me to get out of her house. I closed my eyes and willed myself not to say another word. If John’s afterlife wasn’t on the line, I would have made an excuse and left. I sucked at this.

  “Is that the other dog you adopted? John’s dog?” Heather asked, curious.

  No judgment in her voice. No change in tone that implied I was insane.

  I nodded and didn’t make eye contact. I couldn’t. I didn’t want to see pity, disbelief or any other sort of concerned look in her eyes. God, she wasn’t going to want to hire me after this. I wasn’t sure I would hire me after this either. I sounded like a whack job.

  “I understand all of this sounds crazy,” I said quickly. “But it’s all true. I don’t think you should say I stole the phone. It won’t be admissible in court. And I can’t be a witness because I didn’t know John Dunn. I never saw him alive.”

  “But you saw him dead?” she asked.

  “Umm…” Did she know? There was no way. “Only on the video,” I mumbled.

  “Right,” Heather said. “Are you psychic?”

  Oh my God. It was an out… of sorts.

  “Is that how you know this? Can you speak to those on the other side?” Heather pressed.

  “Kind of,” I said as my hands shook.

  I wanted to puke. It was close enough to the truth without being the truth and Heather could believe me now.

  “Have you spoken with Steve?” she asked softly.

  My breath caught in my throat, and I realized I could tell the whole truth on this one. “In a dream. Once. It was awesome.”

  “That makes me happy,” she said, putting her hand on my back and rubbing it.

  “You believe me?”

  “Let’s just say I don’t not believe you and leave it at that,” she replied.

  “Okay. I have another question.”

  “Is it illegal?” Heather asked with a wince.

  “Completely,” I told her.

  She laughed. At least she didn’t hate me… yet.

  “Did John Dunn have his will drawn up with our firm?” I asked.

  Heather nodded and stood up. She walked over to her desk and picked up a file. “He did.”

  “Is that his file?” I asked, feeling my stomach churn.

  “It is.”

  “Umm… is it the only one?” I questioned, feeling light headed.

  “No. There are copies.”

  “Shit,” I muttered. My plan wouldn’t work.

  “But I happen to have all of them here,” Heather said with a devious little grin.

  “Why?” I asked, squinting at her.

  “He was my friend, and I didn’t believe it was a suicide. I wanted to see what the bitch thought she was getting. Which, by the way, is totally unethical—and illegal.”

  Did I dare? Yes. I did.

  “How would you feel about a little more illegal activity… if you weren’t directly involved?” I suggested in a whisper.

  If she was going to throw me out and rescind the job offer it was going to be right now… or never.

  “Give me a little more information, please.”

  “Mmkay,” I said. “I think that in the chance his murderous wife happened to be put away for life, he would want his estate to go to the Humane Society in honor of his dog Karen. It’s just a thought.”

  “Did he not make provisions for the death of himself and his gold-digger dying at the same time?”

  “Umm… not sure,” I said, realizing I was on shaky ground here as far as what I might know from a vision. “But I don’t think so.”

  “I see,” Heather replied, going through the will. “He didn’t. Odd—very odd. Daisy?”

  “Yes?” I asked, still not looking at my friend.

  “I’d like you to add John Dunn’s will and the copies to your pile of work. There are a few unacceptable omissions in it. It’s to be read next week, and I’d like the changes that John wanted made immediately.”

  I’d never loved Heather more. She knew I was nuts, but she didn’t care. She believed me. Well, she thought I had visions. Lots of people had visions. I did have visions, but not the kind she thought I had.

  “Yes, boss. I would be delighted to,” I told her, meaning every word.

  “I like being called boss,” she said with a laugh, handing me John’s files and the copies.

  “Can you do anything with the video?” I asked, hoping to have something to tell John.

  “Honestly, I’m not sure,” Heather said, wrinkling her brow in thought. “But if I can come up with a way to, you better believe I’ll take Sarina Dunn down.”

  “Thank you,” I said, giving her a hug.

  “Get your crap together,” she said. “You’re not running twelve miles home in the dark. I’ll drive you.”

  The drive home was quiet, but not awkwardly so. Heather was in deep thought. If anyone could find justice for John, it was Heather. I’d done my part and hadn’t lost a friend. It was the best I could do. I’d explain to John what was going on, and then I would change his will to please him.

  And from now on, I would speak less in public. It was going to get me into too much trouble. If I ended up in the psych ward—or, God forbid, jail—it would be really hard to talk to dead people and solve their problems. I was pretty sure Ouija boards weren’t allowed there.

  One important thing down, many more to go. First on the list for tomorrow was educating myself on mail fraud. Maybe working at a criminal law firm would be smart. I could learn enough to keep myself out of jail… or maybe not.

  Chapter Nineteen

  The old farmhouse was strangely empty. None of my squatters were in front of the TV that seemed to be on 24/7. I paused and watched as two completely naked people yelled at each other about not holding up their end of some kind of bargain about firewood. The woman dangled something in the air that looked like a charred frog then took a huge and unladylike bite out of it while the man looked ready to smack her in the head.

  Naked and Afraid was one of the ghosts’ favorites. It made me want to gag. However, I did find it ballsy that a bunch of women walked around tits to the wind and didn’t care. As nice as my girls still were, I didn’t have that kind of confidence.

  It made sense why the ghosts loved reality shows—there was nothing real about them. No one died. Everything worked out in the end. Someone won a crapload of money or some kind of recording or modeling contract. People got their houses redone—fantasy at its finest. Even though there were people ridiculous enough to get naked and go on television to try to survive in the middle of the jungle for money, they weren’t really alone. There were camera crews and producers. If something really bad happened they would be taken care of.

  The news was real—people died and tragedies happened every day. I didn’t even like watching the news lately and didn’t blame the dead for not liking it either.

  Turning off the TV, I sighed. A brief wave of sadness washed over me as I realized how many had left.

  “Daisy, get a grip,” I muttered as I took Donna and Karen out to the front yard to do their business. “You’re doing good things. Getting attached to deceased people and being upset when they move on is not smart. Plus, more will come.”

  Karen did her nightly zoomies around the massive oak tree and Donna dug a hole in the flowerbed next to my withering purple mums. The moon was full and the stars looked small and faded in
the night sky. Glancing up at the moon, I smiled. I used to swear as a kid that I could see the man on the moon. Gram and I would search and search. She always let me find him. Steve had played the same game with me. Right now, I couldn’t find the man on the moon. My childlike imagination had disappeared.

  Donna finished with her destruction of the mums, sat at my feet and barked.

  “I know,” I said, squatting down to pet her. “It’s time to go to bed. Gotta get my beauty sleep. I’m not getting any younger.”

  Donna wagged her bottom. Karen sped over like she was sprinting to put out a fire, knocked me on my butt and covered my face with wet kisses. John was nowhere to be found tonight. I couldn’t tell him about my visit with Heather or that I could change his will.

  “Tomorrow. I’ll tell John tomorrow,” I said aloud as I wiped the Karen slobber off my cheeks. “Karen, you have really bad breath.”

  She wagged her tail with pride and did one last round of zoomies. I watched and laughed. My dogs were a perfect addition to my life. Me and my fur-girls. We would be just fine.

  Sighing loudly, I thought about Gideon’s kiss and his cryptic parting words. In another life—someone else’s life—maybe he and I would work, but not in this one. I was too old to change. And I was too broken to fix.

  “Come on, girls,” I called out. “We’re hitting the hay.”

  A lone male ghost sat on the couch in the darkened family room. The moonlight coming through the window bathed him in an eerie glow. The lines of his body were so familiar. Even in his decomposing state, I felt like I knew him.

  Had someone I knew died? Or was it that I was just getting to know what my squatters looked like?

  Squinting my eyes against the darkness, I wondered if I had it in me to sit down and chat for a few minutes. The Ouija board was on the kitchen table. I could grab it and bring it into the family room.

  I also needed to find a safe place to hide it. I didn’t need my friends seeing it. Heather would probably understand, but the rest would get worried.

  “Hi,” I said to the ghost on the couch. “Give me a second and I’ll grab the Ouija board.”