Mr. Neely stood rigid when I glanced back up, and I was eighty percent certain he had a steel pole wedged into his spine. Ninety percent certain he needed a drink. “Champagne?”
“Yes, please.” Dots of sweat bubbled across the forehead of his flushed face. If he was that much of a nervous wreck by simply showing up for the initial consultation and watching the receptionist duke it out with a computer monitor, then it was going to be a complete disaster when we got to the first date.
Match with an extrovert, I noted. This one would never be a conversation starter and opposites attract—right? I gestured to the plush reception chairs, and Benjamin, after a horrified look at Computer Screen—okay, okay, I may have been a little rough with the poor monitor—took a seat. He sat next to Miss Prim, and didn’t seem to notice her. Which was fine because he wasn’t supposed to see her. She didn’t acknowledge him either. Which was odd. She’d had a running commentary on every single one of Maude’s clients since the first day showing up in the office.
But right then, Miss Prim sat with her legs drawn up to her chin, displaying a face so pale, I’d mark her as dead. That was, if I hadn’t already known she was. Her unblinking eyes stared straight at Hellhound, and I was pretty certain she hadn’t moved since the beast followed me into the office that morning.
“I don’t like him,” Miss Prim whispered as I handed Mr. Neely his champagne. I was a hundred percent certain she spoke of Hellhound, and not Mr. Neely because really, Mr. Neely had only uttered six words since his arrival. But her whispers didn’t make sense unless, of course, one prim ghost was scared of one flame-lit beast and didn’t want said beast to hear her. Still, Hellhound hadn’t so much as sniffed in Miss Prim’s direction so I still didn’t understand the whispers. I gave a smile to Mr. Neely, an eye roll to Miss Prim, and a sigh to Hellhound who was sprawled by the front door grooming himself. Then I returned to my desk and turned on my computer for the first time that morning.
The day ticked by and I didn’t need the clock to tell me it moved slowly. Father Time must have been controlling the mechanisms on a day when his arthritis was acting up. Ghosts not requiring restroom breaks during those never-ending minutes was a perk for Miss Prim because she stayed glued to her seat, even when Brooke Pullman sat on her. Miss Prim must’ve turned on the energy for that one because Brooke didn’t last long before she began trying to Salsa dance her chair into a seat for comfort. It had taken her three minutes before she’d given up and moved to another.
“Relax,” I said to Miss Prim after Maude’s three o’clock left. “He’s harmless.”
Her gaze finally tore away from the beast and landed on me. I could read disbelief loud and clear from three feet away.
“Okay, he’s harmless to you.” With facial features contorted into a reassuring expression, I cocked a brow. “Better?”
“Why is he here?” Miss Prim asked.
“To make me do my job.”
In a blink, Miss Prim disappeared before rematerializing in front of me. She leaned across my desk until it felt as if my face were stuck inside a fridge. “You said you weren’t a Praedator.”
“I’m not… exactly.”
“I don’t understand.” Her hands came down onto her hips, and her energy revved up. “Are you a Praedator or not?”
“Technically, yes. And it’s your fault!” I clamped a hand over my mouth and glanced at Maude’s office. If she appeared in that doorway demanding to know who I was speaking to—or rather, yelling at—I couldn’t use the play try-out excuse again when she’d specifically forbidden me from practicing lines at work.
“How is that my fault?” Miss Prim asked.
“Red Coat.” I thought about the last page of the contract. “Actually, her name was Olivia. She somehow named me as her successor when you killed her.”
“I didn’t kill her.”
“You already admitted you did. It was your fault Olivia fell into the street.”
“It was your leg she tripped over so I shouldn’t take the blame!” Thin layers of ice had formed over the irises in her eyes, and it became Antarctica inside Maude’s office. The damn ghost was trying to kill me with hypothermia. Sneaky, that one.
“Listen.” I leaned away from her cold. “The devil’s after me with some ironclad contract because Olivia named me as her successor. I’m trying to get out of that deal, but until I do, I guess I’m a Praedator.”
Miss Prim’s eyes remained narrowed. “How are you getting out?”
“My friend’s a law student. She’s looking into it.”
“And she’s good enough to break a contract with Satan?”
“Of course.” Hadley was the best. She’d always been the best in school, in debate club, on her LSAT scores… but how the heck did a human being take on Satan? Defeat washed through me, and it was bitter. “Well, she’s going to try, anyway.”
“Okay, I’m going to help you.”
“What?” I fell forward, and my chair attempted to flee.
“I said I’m going to help you. I can’t be friends with a Praedator. They’re evil.”
You’re one to talk, I bit back. “How are you going to help me? Can you negotiate with the devil?” I glossed over the we’re not friends thing because desperate times most certainly called for desperate measures. Every ounce of instinct inside my body informed me this was one of those times.
“Who are we after?” Miss Prim’s eyes shifted away, and I suspected she had some great I can’t hunt another ghost. Yes, I can. No, I can’t. turmoil thing going on inside her head. I was thankful to not be privy to the details.
“Logan Bradley.”
“No way.” Her gaze snapped back to mine. “Maude’s missing client?”
I nodded. “That’s who Olivia was after when you killed her.”
“I didn’t—”
“Whatever.” I held up a hand, not wishing to create a sequel to our argument. The original had been a box office failure. “I missed my three days to find Logan, and now Hellhound’s attached to my heels. There’s some sort of countdown clock for me to get Logan’s soul to Hell. If I don’t, that beast lying over there takes mine.”
“I knew he was evil.” Miss Prim glared at Hellhound, who stared back at her with a grin upturned on his black muzzle. His tail thumped hard against the floor, and sparks flew. A second tail thump followed the first, and I worried the rug would catch fire.
“So,” I continued. “I have to find Logan unless Hadley gets me out of this contract first.”
“Where is he?”
“Logan?”
Miss Prim’s head nodded.
“I have no idea. I checked out his office yesterday, but he wasn’t there. What did you do after you first… uh, died?”
“That was…” her voice trailed off before her chin thrusted out. “I hung around with my mother. She was so sad, and there wasn’t anything I could do to cheer her up. She just cried.” Miss Prim shook her head hard enough to lose the memory. “Maybe Logan is with someone special?”
I shrugged. “Maybe. He could be hanging around a parent or a sibling. He wasn’t married. At least, I don’t think he was.”
“What does that mean? He was a client, so, of course, he wasn’t married.”
“He was a liar.” With a click of the button, I popped his info back up on my computer screen. “He said he was upper management at the company I visited yesterday, but he wasn’t. Logan was only an employee. He wasn’t even high enough on the totem pole to score his own office. You know who had an office? The guy Detective Wilcox followed at the mall last week.” Miss Prim’s face went red, and I felt my eyes narrow. “Wait a sec, where were you yesterday?”
Her shoulders stiffened. “I don’t have to be here every day.”
“But you’ve shown up every day since you found this place. Except for yesterday.”
“So?”
I realized she wasn’t meeting my eye, and pink seemed to tinge her cheeks a lot whenever the topic involved men. Her resp
onse left only one thing I could think of. “Please don’t tell me you were stalking Wilcox all day.”
“I wasn’t stalking.”
Relief whooshed through me at her words.
“I was following,” she said.
Ah, crap. Relief was long gone, and Headache moved in. “I told you, he doesn’t know you exist. Get over him. I’ll find you a ghost.”
“I wasn’t doing it for me.” Her nose tilted up. “I did it for you.”
“Wait—what? What does that mean?”
“Well, since I can’t have him, I decided you should get him. Besides,” Miss Prim huffed, “you’re cranky all the time. Maybe if you went on a date with a boy, you wouldn’t be so cranky.”
“That isn’t how it works.” I rubbed at my face. “And I’m not cranky.”
“Then why do you yell a lot?” she asked. “I probably shouldn’t tell you this because it’ll make you even crankier, but there’s a woman at the police station who likes him.” Miss Prim leaned against my desk. The expression on her face turned intense as she stared down at me. “She brought him cookies yesterday, but he doesn’t like her.”
“How do you know?” I looked back to Logan’s information on the computer screen, skimming the words for clues that weren’t there since I wrote the damn thing. “Maybe she was Wilcox’s girlfriend?”
“She practically begged him for a date, and he didn’t invite her on one. That’s how I know. But he was a perfect gentleman and smiled politely when he thanked her for the cookies.” Miss Prim let out a dreamy sigh and frowned. “She was such a hussy. Girls didn’t act like that when I was alive.”
I snorted. “You didn’t act like that when you were alive. My aunt probably bribed the hot guys with Scotch for backseat dates when she was young since she couldn’t even bake toast.”
Miss Prim leaned forward and whispered, “The hussy checked out his butt.”
“Yeah? You checked out his butt—actually, you did more than check it out.”
“He’s got a nice butt.”
“Yeah, I noticed.”
“See.” She hopped up from her perch, her eyes sparkling. “You do like him.”
My eyes narrowed. “You’re as bad as my Aunt Kate. I can check out a man’s butt without planning future kids. Did you at least learn anything useful about the investigation while you were stalking him?”
“Ms. Welch was strangled to death. I peeked at a few reports laying around on his desk, and there was some kind of report explaining how she died.”
“The coroner’s report?”
“I guess.” She shrugged. “What are you going to do now?”
“Try to find Logan. I don’t really care about Gina’s death.”
“What if the deaths are connected?” Miss Prim asked. “What if figuring out her death leads you to figuring out Logan’s?”
“I don’t care how he died,” I said. “I care about finding his ghost and…”
“Send him to Hell.” Miss Prim studied the floor.
I shut my mouth on the real reason I sought Logan. But since I might actually need to send him to Hell in order to save myself… “So, how do Praedators send ghosts to Hell?”
“Seriously?” Her mouth dropped. “You’re a Praedator, go figure it out yourself.”
“I told you, I’m not a Praedator. I only have to do this until Hadley can get me out of the stupid contract. So do you, or don’t you, know how to send ghosts to Hell?”
Her mouth clamped shut and her chin angled in a stubborn tilt.
“I’m not going to send you to Hell.” The fact that I’d previously entertained the thought was irrelevant. I held up my hand. “Promise.”
“That’s the Vulcan salute. I do watch television, you know.” She walked back to her chair. “I’ll tell you after you stop being a Praedator.”
Lot of good that was going to do for me. I knew Miss Prim would be difficult about this. “So any ideas where I can find Logan? Did the cops have any leads on him? Maybe he’s still with his body, in shock or something?”
“No. Detective Wilcox seemed upset he hadn’t found much information. The cops still think he’s alive.” Miss Prim scrunched her face in thought. “Didn’t you say the man at the mall was from Logan’s workplace?”
“Yeah, the one Wilcox followed. His name’s Eric, and he wasn’t too happy with finding me at Logan’s desk.”
“He might be a suspect in the case. The guilty ones are always unhappy.”
“How do you know?” I leaned forward, refusing to voice my own thoughts on Eric. “Just how many times have you been arrested for murder?” I smiled as her face darkened before a thought struck. “Hey, are you certain Logan was murdered? Maybe it was a murder-suicide, and the cops haven’t found the suicide part.”
Miss Prim shrugged. “I don’t know, but I still think we should tail Eric. He might give us a clue to finding Logan.” She didn’t seem at all convinced that Eric would lead us to Logan, but when she glanced back up, I noticed a challenge reflecting in green eyes. “Do you have any better ideas?”
“No.” I sighed and studied Logan Bradley’s smiling face on my computer screen. “I thought about checking out his home address, but right now I’m game for anything.” Miss Prim was pacing circles, her face tight in concentration. I said, “You’re really into this, aren’t you?”
“You get to stalk people for love, so I’ll stalk them to solve crimes.” She nodded her head. “Like Joe Friday.”
“Works for me.” I stood and grabbed my purse, wondering who the hell Joe Friday was. “So, where to?”
“Now we go to Logan’s work and follow Eric when he leaves.” Miss Prim’s short trek to the door came to an abrupt halt after only one step. She turned back to me with panic etched on her pale face. “Can you call off this… this…?”
“I simply call him a beast.” I watched the fiery mass as he rolled onto his back. “I think he wants his belly rubbed.”
Miss Prim poofed, and when I found her, she was seated back in her chair, knees drawn and eyes wide. Apparently, she didn’t want to give poor Hellhound a belly rub. Honestly? I couldn't blame her.
“Whenever you decide the hellhound’s not scary, just know we don’t have to follow Eric,” I said, recalling the previous day’s conversation between Mr. Donut and Co-Worker. “I know where he’ll be.”
“This is a bar.” Miss Prim whispered.
“Stop with all the whispering, I’m the only one who can hear you. It’s a sports bar.” I took a sip of my Guinness while eyeing the back corner table. The place was filled with most of the guys I’d seen at Health-Tech Systems the day before. Eric sat at the head of the table, glowing from the attention. Barely past five o’clock, and his group was already halfway to drunk.
“What’s the difference?” Miss Prim asked.
I pointed to the flat screens hanging from the ceilings, all switched to various sports games. “TVs.”
“But this is a bar.”
I set down my mug. “You can leave, you know?”
Miss Prim’s head shook with determination. “No, we have a murder to solve.”
“We’re not solving a murder, only locating a missing ghost.”
“But we have to solve the murder. We’re a team now. I’m Sherlock Holmes, and you’re Watson.”
“Oh, for the love of… wait. Why am I Watson?”
“Because Watson’s the sidekick, and you’re not investigating this murder. I am.” She looked downright gleeful as she snuggled back in her chair.
What happened to Joe Friday? I took another sip of my beer. A long one. “So, Sherlock, what mystery clues have you discovered the entire—” I looked at my cell phone. “—ten minutes we’ve sat here?”
“They all seem focused on Eric.”
“Yup.”
“I don’t think it’s because he killed someone. That isn’t the sort of thing you celebrate.”
“Nope.”
“Excuse me?” A woman carrying a tray of dirty glas
ses paused next to me. “Did you need something?”
“Yes.” I pointed to my mug. “Can I have another one?”
“Sure, I’ll have that right out.”
“It isn’t very ladylike to get drunk,” Miss Prim said.
“It isn’t very ladylike to sit in a bar, but here you are.”
She craned her neck, attempting a better look at Eric’s table, which was located behind her. “I’m trying to solve a murder.”
The waitress returned with my drink and placed it on the table with a puzzled smile.
“I can't talk to you in public,” I said after the woman walked away. My focus returned to Miss Prim, but her face was frozen. She stared at something over my left shoulder, and I knew that whatever could plaster an Oh, shit look on a ghost’s face couldn’t be good.
Logan Bradley stood two feet behind me. Now that I saw him, I vividly recalled the day he came into Maude’s office. He’d been all smiles and full of flirt, which should have been my first clue that something was off. I’d witnessed how lifeless he was in social settings. But I didn’t notice the off-ness that day, and I confess, he may have been on the receiving end of a flirt or two himself. But the adrenaline pulsing through me at the sight of him had nothing to do with the way his broad shoulders showcased a Henley, or the way his wavy hair falling boyishly across his forehead. No, my palms itched in sweat as I gawked at the symbol so vibrant on his right cheek. Now was my chance, since I’d lost it with New Target. Maybe, for the first time in eleven years, I’d get some answers. Mind jumbled as it raced through scenarios of how to approach a ghost in public.
The room chilled, leaving goosebumps chasing down my arms. What the hell? Miss Prim had better not be freaking out over a hussy flirting with some guy. Fortunately, Wilcox was nowhere in sight, but if he wasn’t around to instigate her crazy, then who was? My eyes snapped back to my partner in crime, and it wasn’t a hormone-driven rampage I saw her gearing up for. She remained, sitting and frozen, wide-eyed… not because of Hellhound. And if it wasn’t Miss Prim taking me on a free Swiss Alps ski vacation… Something else was wrong. Very, very wrong.
White noise hummed in the room, and I realized one by one all of the televisions lost their signal. The HD sharp images turned into fuzzy screens of gray static instead of the blue screen of a lost signal. Voices filling the bar never lessened as patrons continued eating and drinking. Must not have been any good games on.
Reaping Havoc: Kiara Blake Book 1 Page 12
