Just when I was about to whistle Oz, for no other reason than I didn’t really know what else to do, Sean burst through the door of the induction suite. He was filthy. Sooty. Sweaty. And a little bit singed. And smoking. As if he’d been so close to an open flame and it was still trying to devour his clothes.
“Are you … okay?” I asked. A couple of newly transitioned turned to glance in his direction but otherwise no one took any notice.
Sean’s face split into a disturbingly wide smile. I wasn’t sure if it was genuine happiness or hysteria. “I have had the best day ever!” Then he lunged forward and hugged me. I had no hope of fending him off. “I am so glad you’re dead.”
∞
“Now, everyone please remember what I said.” Eleanor glanced around our garden and made eye contact with each one of my housemates and Sabrina. In fact, she might have looked Sabrina’s way more than once. “These are self-defence moves only. None of you are proficient enough to take on an attacker, so your first choice should always be to run.”
“One at a time, can you all please repeat that.” Oz spoke from behind us and pointed to Lucy, who was at the far left to start. He’d been observing Eleanor’s self-defence lessons from the patio in silence.
After I’d made the excellent point that we all needed to be able to defend ourselves and that Eleanor had some crazy-ninja skills, Oz had agreed to let me ask Eleanor to teach us. I’d approached her after our GA meeting and Eleanor had nearly fallen over herself to help. It seemed I was all about making people happy today. Made me feel a little queasy. As if I was setting a behaviour bar at a level I was worried I might never hit again. Or the queasiness could just have been dried apricot overdose.
Eleanor drew the session to a close. It had mostly been stretching and some strength training exercises, but the way my housemates were limping toward the house you’d have thought she’d put us through a full workout.
There was a mass of hugging that neither Kate nor Anna took part in and then Eleanor tunnelled Sabrina home despite Sabrina’s protests that she could get herself there.
“That went well,” Oz said to me as my housemates traipsed past him into the house.
I nodded. “I thought so.”
“You don’t seem to be in any pain.” Oz gestured to me in general. “Maybe it’s time to dial down the apricots?”
“I think that’s the reason I’m not in pain.”
“Did you have a good day?” Oz asked, not commenting further on the prospect of taking my apricots away as he pushed up from the deckchair and headed toward the kitchen with me.
I shrugged. “It was okay.”
“Okay,” he said with a smile. He didn’t push me for details. “Early night?”
“I think so,” I said with a nod and stepped into the empty kitchen. “Looks like everybody else had the same idea. Need me to help you lock up?”
“I can do it. You head on up,” Oz said as he bolted the kitchen door.
I made it up the stairs, gave my face the quickest wash ever and then dived into bed. I woke what felt like seconds later with the nagging feeling someone was watching me. At first, my groggy mind thought it was one of my housemates, but they would’ve just climbed on the bed. They wouldn’t be watching me from the shadows. Since I was in my room and couldn’t really run anywhere, as Eleanor had directed, I opened my mouth to scream for Oz.
“Don’t freak out, Bridget, it’s only me,” Tommy said and I choked my impending scream off.
“Yeah, I am actually going to freak out, Tommy, because it’s the middle of the night and you’re in my bedroom.” I sat up and pointed a finger at him as something came back to me. “And I saw you standing over Jeremy’s body. With Edith. Edith, who turned up directly after I’d been strangled and then disappeared, which made me think I didn’t see her but I totally did. I swear, if you two have been murdering people this whole time and super cleverly managing to pin it on other people I’m going to be so mad at you both.”
“Why do you always think I’m a murderer?” Tommy asked.
“Because you’re sneaky. And oh-so-likeable. And I notice you not denying Edith’s involvement.”
Tommy laughed quietly and nodded as if I’d scored a point. “Well, this is work related.”
I nodded. “Sure it is. Are we talking about your work as a multi-murderer?”
“It’s time to change assignments, Bridget,” Tommy said.
“I’ve only started at Arrivals. How can it be time to change already?” I was just getting used to Sean.
“I know the GB you know as Treble mentioned the I.A.,” Tommy said, but it was more of a statement than question.
“I know that Fredrickson said it wasn’t real.”
Tommy inclined his head. “We like to try and keep covert.”
I made a noncommittal noise. “So what is the new job? I know you don’t want me to get up and go to work now.”
“The I.A. is—”
“Is Edith I.A.?”
Tommy nodded. “She is. She’s one of our best operatives. She was the one who suggested we vet you.”
“Vet me?”
“You’re an ideal candidate. All of your friends are well placed to help you with—what are you doing?” Tommy asked as I dragged a dressing gown around me, then climbed out of bed. I held up a finger and crossed the room. Tommy stepped in front of me. “Where are you going?”
“I’m going to get Oz.”
Tommy shook his head. “This is covert, Bridget. He can’t know about this.”
“Uh-huh, and how are you going to keep it from him? That man is like a magnet for secrets. Or a hoover. Maybe hoover is a better description.”
“I’m not going to keep it from him. You are. You’re going to pretend you’re going about your normal VTP life. You’re going to hide this from everyone.”
I folded my arms. I did not like the sound of this. “What if I say no?”
“Bridget, I wouldn’t be extending the offer if I had any doubts that this is what you’re looking for. What you need to feel fulfilled.”
“Uh-huh. And what exactly does the I.A. do?”
“We investigate things.”
“Like?”
Tommy shrugged. “Things.”
“Ohhhh, you investigate things? Awesome, I’m totally up for investigating things.”
“Come on, Bridget, you know what I mean,” Tommy said with an indulgent smile.
“Oh, do I? You mean like Watson or Kate’s escape or Jeremy’s death? Those things? ’Cause you guys did an amazing job there.”
“No, but you did.” Tommy inclined his head. “With some help from well-placed friends.”
“No, that was—is Officer Leonard I.A.?”
Tommy shook his head. “I can’t talk about I.A. officers to non I.A. officers.”
“Are you making these rules up as you go because you just told me Edith was I.A.?”
“Are you interested?” Tommy asked.
“Let’s just say I am …”
“I feel like there’s a qualifier here.”
“You’re right. I’m interested but I need to discuss this with Oz first. And probably Sabrina.”
Tommy shook his head. “No.”
“Oz is not going to tell anyone and neither is Sabrina. And both of them are horrifically adept at ferreting out secrets. Sabrina was a private investigator and Oz—I don’t even know what he was—but, honestly, I have no secrets from that man no matter how hard I try. And I try.”
“They can’t know, so if you want in I suggest you try harder,” Tommy said.
“Then I suggest you let yourself out the way you came in.” I turned my back on him and was about to climb back into bed when something occurred to me. “You aren’t going to kill me now, right? Because you offered and I declined and you have to keep it super secret?”
“Are those your terms? Your parole officer and Sabrina?”
I felt like Tommy was caving. “Yes. And I reserve the right to tell anyone
about this if them not knowing will put them in danger.”
“So, basically, you want to tell everyone you know?”
“Not everyone,” I said. “But Oz and Sabrina are deal-breakers. You can’t agree to that then …” I let the sentence hang while I shrugged.
“I’ll concede to one.”
“No. It’s both or nothing, and don’t think I don’t know how negotiations work. You already knew they would be my demands before you came in, so you pretending that you’re not sure whether you’re going to agree or not is embarrassing for you and wasting my sleepy time.”
“I do like you, Bridget.”
“Will you please stop saying that? I keep thinking you’re going to murder me.” I walked across the room.
“Where are you going now?”
“To get Oz,” I said and opened my door to find Oz waiting on the other side. His hair was mussed and his shorts and T-shirt were rumpled as if he’d been sleeping. “Who is already here.” I turned back to Tommy. “Do you see what I mean about a secret ferreter?”
“You should’ve come to me first,” Oz told Tommy as he stepped past me into the room.
“I knew Bridget would want to tell you and you know it has to be her decision. So, are you onboard?” Tommy asked me.
I looked to Oz. I liked the sound of investigating things. In a semi legal way. Of new and exciting challenges. But I didn’t know enough about this stuff to make that decision for myself. Oz was always telling me this and for the first time I could almost see that he had a point.
“We’re going to need to talk this through,” Oz said.
Tommy shook his head. “That’s not how this works. I need an answer before I leave. There’s no leeway on that.”
Oz gestured to the chair by my dressing table. “Then take a seat because I have a lot of questions.”
“I’m not answerable to you.”
“Maybe not but I’m pretty sure that you have to answer my questions,” I said. “This is the afterlife, after all. I’m pretty sure there’s a heap of protocols you have to work through.”
Tommy pulled the chair out and sat down. “Okay, Bridget. What are your questions?”
I turned to Oz. “What are my questions?”
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Dead and Buried: A Bridget Sway Novel (A Paranormal Ghost Cozy Mystery Series Book 4) Page 27
