by Amy Boyles
“It wasn’t that hot. There’s something weird there, something sketchy. I don’t trust Homer Hicks.”
“That’s why I gave him an STD.”
Susan had returned.
Roan slid from the parking spot. “So you think, based on a little perspiration, that Homer Hicks killed Susan and Neal Norton.”
“Maybe. It’s worth investigating.”
He was silent.
“Listen, I’m going to look into this whether you approve or not. Frankly I don’t care if you do. I’m not living my life to make sure Roan Storm gives me his blessing.”
“But it would be so interesting if you did.”
I stared at him. He grinned. We burst into laughter.
He turned down a street I didn’t catch the name of. “Okay, I admit, the sweating was weird. But we don’t even know how Neal was murdered.”
“Prescription drugs.”
His hand slipped, and the steering wheel dipped right. “Whoa!” Roan leveled the truck on the road. “How do you know that? Prescription drugs? Kency wouldn’t release that information.”
“I have inside sources.”
“You know more than you should.”
“I’m not arguing. I don’t know what drug, but I know it was prescription. That could mean anyone or anything.”
“Yeah, anyone who hordes prescriptions.” He shook his head. We drove for another minute before I realized Roan was headed back to the bed-and-breakfast.
“Wait. We’re supposed to interrogate the pastor next.”
He cocked a brow. “Oh, you think? I didn’t realize we had an agenda.”
“Of course we had an agenda. Homer Hicks and George Robertson.”
He slid a thumb over his mouth. “Let me think of the best way to talk to the pastor.” He snapped his fingers. “Wait. I’ve got it. Do you have a dress?”
“A dress?”
“Yes, it’s a not so foreign type of clothing. Instead of pants, it’s open at the legs.”
I glared knives. “I’m aware of what a dress is.”
“Do you own one?”
“Maybe.”
“Find one. I’ll pick you up tomorrow. We’ll talk to the preacher.”
“About what?”
We parked. I hopped out, and Roan came around. When he neared me, Roan reached out and tipped my face to his. He bent his head toward me and grazed his lips against my ear.
A fissure of desire raced down my spine. I wanted nothing more than to claw his shirt and pull me to him. Instead I stood paralyzed as he whispered in my ear.
“Wear a dress and you’ll find out exactly what we’re going to talk to the good preacher about. See you then.”
He kissed my ear. The heat from his lips startled me, wrapped me in a towel and wrung me dry. I stood paralyzed. Next thing I knew, I was walking toward my rental house. Roan was calling after me.
“You forgot your car!”
So I had.
ELEVEN
Thanks to Roan, I jumped in my truck before I ditched it at the B AND B. However, I didn’t let Roan get close to touching me again. I couldn’t trust myself around him. The reaction my body had was…terrifying.
But I didn’t want to think about that. What I wanted to do was go home, shower, get in some comfortable clothes and see if Lucky had discovered anything about the sheet of paper. Hopefully there’d been a secret message on it revealing Susan’s killer.
Fingers crossed.
I made it home and raided my fridge. I was starving. All this investigating had revved my appetite. The best thing I could find was a tub of Moose Tracks ice cream, celery and baby carrots.
Somebody needed to visit the grocery store.
I moaned, annoyed. The last thing I wanted to do was head over to Haunted Grocery, but I also couldn’t stuff my face with ice cream and expect not to gain about a thousand pounds by tomorrow.
Once again, short people problems.
So I slid my jacket back on and headed over to the village grocery store. As usual there were tourists covering the place, picking up toiletries they forgot to pack or a bottle of wine for a romantic evening or camping supplies for one of the grounds outside town.
I shotgunned toward the vegetables, where I picked up lettuce, then I headed over to meat for chicken thighs because breasts were outrageously expensive, and lastly to the condiment aisle for dressing. Chicken salad would be perfect.
I’d just gotten everything together when I heard a woman scream. I darted toward the front of the shop. When I reached it, a crowd had gathered around a young woman, early twenties, who was palming her cheeks as if her hands were the only thing keeping the flesh attached to her face.
“Where was it?” someone asked.
She pointed to the park. “Over there. I saw it over there.”
The place she pointed was the honeysuckle bush in the park where Neal Norton had spent his last few minutes on earth.
I elbowed my way in. “What did you see?”
Her watery gaze dragged to me. She licked her lips. Her voice trembled. “A…a ghost. I saw a ghost.”
I zipped away and paid for my groceries. It was too coincidental that the girl saw a spirit in the same area that Neal had perished. He was still here. I knew it. As I climbed into the Land Cruiser, I had the rest of my evening planned out—eat and then come out and hunt Neal Norton. Find out what that man had taken with him to the grave.
By the time I returned to the park for a bit of night stalking, the moon was high and Haunted Hollow was quiet.
Well, to most people it was probably quiet. I could hear spirits in the distance, those that haunted the houses and stores, talking with each other, arguing about this or that, generally being active. Which was what happened at night—spirits are more active once the sun goes down.
Usually.
Haunted Hollow wasn’t your usual town, however.
As I kept a keen eye on the area, my brain flitted back to the kiss with Roan. I touched my lips. The taste of him was long gone, but I yearned for part of him to remain. I wanted my lips to at least be swollen to prove I’d had a monumental make-out session.
But it had only been one single kiss.
I sighed.
Thinking about it wouldn’t help. But I was going to anyway. Here was the thing—meeting Roan was like meeting another me, in a good way. He challenged me, made me laugh and understood me.
Yes, I know that sounded stupid, but in my experience whenever I met someone who shook my world so profoundly, they left. Bolted. Exited stage right.
So I pulled my heart in closer, covered it with a coat and buried it deep beneath ribs and muscle. For goodness’ sake, my own parents had put me up for adoption. The only man I’d ever known who hadn’t deserted me was my adopted father—and he was now dead.
Pain crushed down on me. I raked my fingers through my hair, pushed it back, away, tried to stop the emotions from flattening me. I inhaled a deep, staggered breath. I choked as I pulled it into my lungs, but I needed air.
A sound like glass breaking startled me. I knuckled tears from my lower lids and rose, whirling to pinpoint the location.
Another crash came from a house behind me. A scream. I sprinted toward it. Of course I had no idea what I was doing. I didn’t even know if the commotion was spirit related. This was basically a wing-and-a-prayer reaction.
Turned out, I didn’t have to do anything because a second later a ghostly form shot out from a house and floated across the street.
He was dressed in a tweed jacket with a T-shirt underneath and Converse on his feet.
Neal Norton!
I launched myself toward him. “Neal!”
The spirit stopped. He stared at me. His face twisted into a mask of anger.
“What am I doing here? Why am I here?” He darted toward an iron bench, hooked his ghostly hands on it and flipped it over.
Oh crap. Haunted Hollow had a new, vengeful spirit.
Lucky me, he was all mine.
I patted the air like I was petting a dog. For some reason that gesture meant, Calm down; I’m here for you, crazy person. “Neal, I know this is a lot to accept.”
He flexed his fingers and twisted his face in rage. “Accept? Accept? I’m dead. My life is gone. Done! Wasted!”
“No, it isn’t.”
But Neal didn’t listen. He kicked a birdbath onto its side.
This was one of those times when I still wished to be on the Ghost Team. The team had all sorts of awesome equipment for containing spirits. I could’ve incapacitated Neal in about five seconds.
But I wasn’t with them anymore. I did have a lasso that could hold him, but that was at Southern Ghost Wranglers central. I couldn’t leave and expect him to be here when I returned.
Besides, the way Neal was attacking the park, there wouldn’t be anything left by the time I got back.
“Listen to me.” I jumped in front of him.
He crossed his arms. “What do you want?”
“I can help you.”
“Can you bring my life back?”
Why did ghosts always ask the impossible? “No, but—”
“Then I’m not interested.” He yanked a shrub from the earth and threw it across the lawn.
Neal had gone full-on crazy. This sometimes happened after someone died. If they didn’t cross and found themselves stuck on earth, often they became bitter, enraged that they were caught in limbo. Think about it—they couldn’t finish a certain task because they were dead, but they couldn’t reach the light because they were lost.
Limbo was hell. Literally.
I chased Neal, who was picking up and tossing shrubs like they were feather pillows.
“I want to help you. I can figure out who killed you. Neal!”
He stopped. “Who murdered Susan Whitby? I know that’s the answer.”
His face crumpled. When he righted himself, he dropped the bush he was holding. “I can’t think. Everything is a mess. I just want to rest.”
Sadness welled in me. Not Neal’s, mine. Agony at losing my dad and frustration that Lucky had revealed that my father had masterminded the ghostly disturbances the team had been sent to investigate. It all bubbled inside and spewed out in a single sentence that surprised even me.
“I’ll help you find the light.”
Neal blinked.
“The light,” I stressed. “I can help give you peace.”
“How?” The vacant stare in his eyes told me he was baffled.
Well, let me just unbaffle you. “Trust me. Do you trust me?”
He scowled.
“Never mind.”
I closed my eyes and concentrated. When I opened them, the atmosphere parted and a slice of light beamed from the heavens.
I placed a hand on Neal’s back. “All you have to do is walk into it. There you will find the peace you seek.”
As he slowly stepped forward, it took everything I had not to scream at him to return, tell me who killed Susan, give me an inkling of who murdered him.
But it was for the best. Neal didn’t belong on earth. He belonged elsewhere.
He took one final step. The beam engulfed him. Sparkles of light flitted around like floating glitter. The grin that beamed on my lips couldn’t be helped. Neal gave me one final look and disappeared. The light clicked off, and the heavens closed.
I smiled, satisfied with myself. I’d done the right thing. At least, that’s what I thought until a voice cut the darkness.
“Turn around slowly and with your hands up.”
Kency Blount. Didn’t she ever take a night off?
I did what she asked. When I faced her, I realized she’d pulled her sidearm on me. Great. This night just got better and better.
“What is it? What’s going on, Kency?”
She stared me down with dark, worried eyes. “Blissful Breneaux, you’re under arrest for vandalizing the park.”
My heart sank. I glanced at the mess. Bushes with tangled roots lay scattered across the grass. A birdbath lay on its side, and a bench had skidded over the lawn, raking the grass free.
There was no doubt about it. I was in a heap of trouble.
TWELVE
“I didn’t do this.”
Kency Blount did not look convinced. She frowned so deeply I thought her bottom lip might touch the ground. “Right. I don’t know how you did it, but I watched you and then I saw a bush fly through the air. No one else is around, Blissful.”
I cringed on the inside, exhaled a breath and thought, here goes. “As crazy as this is going to sound, a spirit did this.”
“Yeah, right.”
Incredible. It never ceased to amaze me how so many people could live in a town infested with spirits and deny the abilities that ghosts possessed.
“I promise you, Kency. It wasn’t me.”
“Why don’t you come along with me to the station? You can tell me the story there.”
If I went with her to the station, I would be charged. I had a deep, dark, intuitive feeling about that.
“Do you know Neal Norton?”
Her eyes narrowed. “What about him?”
“It was him. He did this—well, his spirit did. He was confused. He didn’t understand why he was trapped here, so he started destroying things.” I pointed to the house. “Ask them. That’s where the whole thing started. Neal wreaked havoc there and then came here.”
She did not look convinced.
“You don’t know me from Eve, I get that, but I promise you, I’m innocent.”
“If you’re so innocent,” she scoffed, “where’s the ghost now?”
“He transitioned to the other side.”
She hitched a brow. “And how do you know that?”
I sighed. This was the part I hated most. “Because I see dead folks. I see them, talk to them, help them cross into the light. You got me. Now you know my secret.”
She crossed her arms and rolled her eyes.
Oh, no ma’am. She wasn’t going to get away with that. “What makes the whole thing a real pain in the tush is that because I can see them, I often get accused of doing the things they do. Which is why this particular situation totally blows. You see bushes flying through the air, then you see me and assume I’m some sort of telekinetic goddess, which couldn’t be farther from the truth. I’m just a simple clairvoyant gal with violet hair who happens to often be in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
Her jaw plummeted, which I took to be at least a hint that somewhere deep in Kency’s hard heart, she actually believed me.
Would miracles never cease?
Kency lowered her weapon. “I don’t know whether to think you’re crazy or the sanest person I know.”
I howled with laughter. “I’m completely sane, and trust me, I use my ability to try to help. I asked Neal who murdered him.”
“And?”
“He didn’t know. Then I asked him if he remembered who he was going to pin Susan Whitby’s murder on—he never said. You don’t know how frustrating that is.”
Kency said nothing. I considered pressing her about the case, but that wouldn’t get me anywhere. It wasn’t like she was going to share that information. But I could at least throw in two cents.
“All I know is that Alice Cassidy is innocent. Completely innocent. She didn’t do it.”
“I’m not discussing this with you.”
I had to push. “Why would she? To protect a brother that’s dead? It’s more likely that Susan Whitby’s killer was afraid that he’d be discovered, so he did what any murderer would do and eliminated the possibility that he’d be discovered. Mission accomplished.”
Kency raised a palm. “I won’t discuss this with you.”
“Fine. I’m only stating facts.”
She flicked a long strand of red hair over one shoulder. “You need to state the fact that you’re going home and will keep your nose out of it.”
Now how much fun was that? My gaze flickered to the disaster that littered the park. �
��About the mess here, I can help clean it up.”
She shook her head. “I’ll have to get Parks and Rec on it. Go home, Blissful. Get some rest.”
She waited while I retreated. I had the feeling Kency would watch me until I was out of sight. I got into my truck and drove off, not bothering to make sure that the sheriff was keeping an eye on me.
I didn’t have to. Some things you just know.
I awoke the next morning and remembered I had a church date with Roan. I raided my wardrobe but didn’t see anything appropriate, so I called Ruth.
“Come on over,” she said.
I arrived at her house fifteen minutes later. She immediately shoved a slice of banana bread and hot coffee in my hand.
“How’s Alice?” I said.
“Laying low.” She watched me with such intensity I wanted to crawl out of my skin.
“What is it?”
“What’d you find on the paper?”
Oh crap. I’d forgotten. I nibbled the bread to bide time. “Nothing yet, but hopefully we’ll have something soon.” I felt awkward telling her I’d handed the slip to a ghost for forensic examination. Seemed weird.
“Oh, but I spoke to Susan.”
Her brows peaked. “Whitby?”
“Yes. She told me one of the last things she remembered seeing was an anchor.”
Ruth poured herself a cup of steaming coffee. “An anchor? What’s that mean?”
“I was hoping you could tell me. Where there any shops in town with anchors on them? Any signs? Anything? Did anyone own a boat and drive it around?”
“Well, lots of folks own boats as there’s the lake nearby. I don’t reckon that would do much good. Besides, it’s been years and I wouldn’t be able to recall everyone in town who owned one.”
I frowned. “What about the suspects? Were any of them wealthy?”
Ruth nodded. “The Robertsons were wealthy. You know George is the son of a preacher.”
I smiled. “Preacher’s kids are always the worst.”
“They can be. Do everything wrong but manage to get away with it because who would believe Pastor So-and-so’s child could be such a little devil?”
