by JL Bryan
With that, the case was finally closed. We drove home along the coastal highway, salt wind in our hair. I felt the first cold hint of the coming fall, and I shivered. I kept the windows open anyway, as if to insist it was still summer.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Tom and Ember were somewhat distracted with the hospital and the birth of their first child, Brayden Kozlow. Stacey and I visited them at home a few days later. As we sat in the living room, the little newborn yawned and slept in his mother’s arms, swaddled in one of those ubiquitous baby blankets striped with pink and blue. Both parents looked exhausted, Tom unshaven, Ember’s hair more wild and tangled than I’d ever seen it.
I gave them a quick rundown of the case, along with a written report, some CDs with images, sounds, and video we’d picked up along the way, and (ahem) our invoice. We’d made plenty from the old currency, discreetly sold to a coin dealer for about thirty thousand dollars, and that would keep the lights on at the agency for a few months. We take on a lot of clients who can’t pay much, stuck in their haunted houses precisely because of financial reasons. But Tom drove a seventy-thousand-dollar Lexus, and I figure anybody who can afford to spend seventy thousand bucks on a car can afford to pay his ghost-removal bill.
I quietly hoped the little windfall from this case would change Calvin’s mind about selling the agency. He did give me more than enough of a bonus to buy a new jacket. Ember also gave me a box of pralines and mixed chocolates, so I was getting bonuses all over the place.
After some mutual recovery, Michael and I finally had our date—plantains and crab cakes by the ocean, followed by an actual long, starlit walk on the beach. Some things are cliché because they’re true.
He said the guys at the firehouse had seen his black eye and accused him of having an abusive girlfriend. I promised myself not to ask for his help on future cases. It wasn’t like he dragged me to fires and car accidents.
We talked about everything but ghosts. Our lost parents. His sister Melissa’s carefully played ascent to captain of the soccer team. Which Muppet would win in a fight, Animal or Cookie Monster. I was strongly in the Cookie Monster camp, because when he wants something, he’s relentless.
I did not talk about the strange otherwordly glimpses I’d seen, not to him or to anyone. The train rolling through the endless green landscape, under a sky made of color and music. The hellish monster that had finally snapped Kroeller in its jaws and taken him southward on rails made of bone. Nobody had seen these things but me, so the logical explanation was that they’d only happened in my mind.
Some part of me wanted to believe, though. It was tempting to believe that a little of the veil had been lifted, that I’d been given a glimpse of the strange inner workings of the soul and the cosmos. Or, as the man says, maybe it was just an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, or a fragment of underdone potato.
Looking out on the visible universe high above the ocean, I thought it might be nicer to believe.
THE END
From the author
Thanks for continuing the story of Ellie and her mission to rid the world of unfriendly ghosts! I continue to enjoy writing them, so I’m glad to hear such a positive response from readers so far. If you’re enjoying the series, I hope you’ll consider taking time to recommend the books to someone who might like them or to rate it or review it at your favorite ebook retailer.
The fifth book should be out in August or September 2015! Sign up for my newsletter to hear about new Ellie Jordan titles as soon as they come out. (You’ll immediately get a free ebook of short stories just for signing up.)
If you’d like to get in touch me, here are my links:
Website (www.jlbryanbooks.com)
Facebook (J. L. Bryan’s Books)
Twitter (@jlbryanbooks)
Email ([email protected])
Thanks for reading!
Also by J.L. Bryan:
The Ellie Jordan series (urban fantasy)
Ellie Jordan, Ghost Trapper
Cold Shadows
The Crawling Darkness
Terminal
(The fifth Ellie Jordan book will be available by fall 2015)
The Jenny Pox series (supernatural/horror)
Jenny Pox
Tommy Nightmare
Alexander Death
Jenny Plague-Bringer
Urban Fantasy/Horror
Inferno Park
The Unseen
Science Fiction Novels
Nomad
Helix
The Songs of Magic Series (YA/Fantasy)
Fairy Metal Thunder
Fairy Blues
Fairystruck
Fairyland
Fairyvision
