It's a Ghost's Life

by Erin McCarthy

  Distracted, I wasn’t really paying attention to my surroundings when I left the coffee shop and stepped onto a side street toward my car. Amateur mistake. But I had shoved my hands in my pockets out of instinct against the cold, and felt my phone in the pocket. Wait a minute. I had put my phone in my purse, I was sure of it. I pulled it out of the pocket and it wasn’t my new could-have-taken-a-cruise-for-this-price phone. It was the one that had disappeared at the funeral.

  That realization made me whip my head up and around.

  Just in time to catch a fist in my face.

  It was so painful and shocking I didn’t even have time to react. I just crumpled to the ground, and made a half-hearted attempt to cover my face, some deep-seated survival instinct telling me if they had hit me once, they would hit me twice.

  The ground was hard and cold and all I could see was stars dancing in front of my eyes.

  Then I heard yelling and footsteps pounding. Scared, I tried to sit away, realizing whatever the hell was happening I needed to attempt to get back inside the coffee shop.

  “Bailey, are you okay? Oh my God, that was just… crazy.”

  My vision had cleared and I saw it was the barista squatting in front of me, staring at me with concern. There was a woman a few feet away on the phone, saying I had been mugged. I guess she was calling 911.

  Still stunned, I tentatively touched my nose. “Ow.”

  “I can’t believe that guy hit you,” the barista said, sounding outraged.

  “How did you know I was in trouble?” I asked, stable in a sitting position, my ass starting to get really cold on the wet snow-covered sidewalk.

  “I didn’t.” He held my fuzzy hat up. “You forgot your hat.”

  “Thank God,” I said, giving a shaky laugh. The found cell phone was still in my hand. My purse was laying on the ground next to me. “I don’t think they stole anything.”

  “That’s good.” He tried to put my hat on my head, but he was being appropriately cautious and my curls don’t accommodate cautious. The hat just rose to the crown of my head, a cherry on the whipped cream of my curls.

  I reached up and yanked it ruthlessly down to my ears, grateful for the warmth. “Can you help me up?” I said, studying his chest to see if he wore a name tag. I felt guilty for not knowing his name. No tag.

  “I think you should wait until someone gets here.”

  “I’m sitting in snow,” I said, even though that was obvious.

  A cop car came around the corner and stopped in the middle of the street, lights flashing without sound.

  My heart sank when I saw the driver get out. Damn it. I knew him. He was around my age and he golfed sometimes with Jake. Officer Brian Martin.

  His seemed as equally displeased to see me given the way he swore without compunction. “You okay?” he asked me.

  I nodded.

  “Call Detective Marner,” he told the other cop.

  “Why?” the guy asked, clearly questioning why call homicide in when I was sitting there quite alive, thanks.

  “This is his girlfriend,” Brian said.

  “Can we not call Marner?” I said, finding my voice. “I’m fine.”

  “You’ve got blood all over your face. I have to call him or he’ll kick my ass.”

  “I do?” I touched my nose. My hand touched dampness. I pulled it back and saw blood. A lot of blood.

  My eyes rolled back in my head and I went down with zero warning.

  Nine

  “Well, this is familiar,” Jake said, after he’d pushed his way into the ER room I was in, flashing his badge for admittance. The worry on his face eased the second he saw me sitting up, intact. “How do you manage to find trouble everywhere you go?”

  That annoyed me but I wasn’t going to argue about it. “I’m just lucky that way.”

  Except it came out all muffled because there was dressing jammed up my nose. I had a wicked headache and I just wanted to close my eyes at home. My grandmother was blowing up my phone, worried about me, and I was worried about her. Plus I was worried that I had been targeted, not by a pickpocket, but by Tight Sweater Guy. Lots of worrying all the way around.

  Jake frowned. “Did you break your nose?” He came forward and eyed my nose warily.

  “I didn’t break my nose,” I said, more a little testily. “Some jerk who punched me in the face broke my nose.”

  “He punched you?” Jake asked, his fist clenching. “Who punched you?”

  Now it was my turn to frown. I touched the sides of my nose gingerly. The doctor had given me some kind of numbing gel before he had started messing around in my nose, but it still hurt like hell. “Yes. I got mugged. What did they tell you happened?”

  “That you had an accident but you were fine. I thought they meant a fender bender.” He put his hand up like he wanted to touch me but then dropped it again. “What happened? Who do I need to arrest?”

  “I don’t know. I was looking down at my phone because the weirdest thing happened. I was in the coffee shop and there was this guy there that I saw at Vera’s funeral and last week at a different coffee shop. I swear. Alyssa can verify this.” I paused for breath.

  I wasn’t sure he was even listening to me. He was stroking my arm, staring at my nose, and looking very upset.

  “Does my nose look that bad?” I asked, starting to get concerned.

  “It looks… painful. You already have bruising under your eyes.” His thumb gently ran over the skin below my lashes. “I want to kill whoever did this.”

  “I doubt we’ll ever figure out who did it.” That was more than a little infuriating. “Which sucks, because if my nose ends up crooked, I need to know who to sue.” I didn’t want to end up looking like Owen Wilson. He can pull it off because he’s tall, charming, and funny as hell. I couldn’t pull it off.

  Jake kissed my forehead. “We’ll figure it out. There is probably CTC footage. Is the doctor coming back? I want to hear what he has to say.”

  “He’s going to say my nose is broken.” I wanted to ask Jake to hand me my purse so I could look at my compact mirror, but at the same time I was too scared to. My entire face felt swollen and I didn’t think I could handle seeing my battered face. I don’t think I’m overly vain, but I like to put my best foot forward. Or best face forward.

  “Did you eat dinner?” Jake asked.

  “No.” I rubbed my temples. “But I just want to go home.”

  I felt tired, testy, and in pain, and my cranky voice made that pretty obvious.

  He gingerly petted my hair. “Okay, sweetie. I’m going to go find the doctor.”

  “Thank you.”

  While Jake was gone I couldn’t resist. I swung my legs over the side of the bed and went for my purse. I dug my compact mirror out and flipped it open. And immediately slapped it shut again.

  Oh my word, I looked like an alien version of myself. Exaggerated and distorted. There was bruising under my eyes already but it wasn’t that bad. What was hideous was my honker. I have a tiny Irish nose, which fits my fairly small face. I have thin-ish lips and a dusting of freckles. The wide nose from the swelling made my cheekbones and mouth virtually disappear.

  The packing in my nose was protruding from my nostril and was smattered with blood.

  I was not my best self at the moment.

  Sighing, I shoved the mirror back in my purse.

  Since I was Marner’s girlfriend, the cops had brought me to the hospital. I could hear them talking to him outside of my room, expressing concern for me. He assured them I was fine, at which point they shifted to giving him crap about needing to keep me safer.

  “She should conceal and carry,” Brian said. “And I’m being serious.”

  “Are you out of your mind?” Jake asked. “Have you seen what she gets into? She’d shoot herself in the foot.”

  Well, that seemed a little insulting and exaggerated.

  I’m not clumsy. I just get attacked a lot.

  “I can hear you,” I said, lou
dly. There was nothing but a curtain between us.

  The curtain ripped back. My boyfriend’s sheepish face appeared, his free hand tugging on his tie at the neck. “The nurse is coming in with your discharge paperwork.”

  I didn’t even bother to answer him. I hadn’t been required to put on a gown since it was obvious what the issue was, so when the nurse popped in with a smile, all that was needed was her reading the discharge instructions and having me sign them.

  “Is that your boyfriend out there?” she asked in a low voice. “Very cute.” She gave me a wink.

  “Which guy?” I asked, and I didn’t mean that testily. For all I knew, she was talking about Brian.

  She laughed. “The hot one in the suit who stormed in here ready to rough up whoever hurt you.”

  “Oh. Yeah. That’s him.” That made me feel a little better. It’s never a bad thing for another woman to think your boyfriend is hot. “He thinks I’m accident prone. Which maybe I am.”

  Or maybe I’d just been exposed to a lot of murderers lately. That ups the risk factor.

  “Just don’t take up roller blading. I’ve seen more broken bones from that than anything else.”

  “I don’t see that happening, trust me. I’m not athletic.”

  “Can I come in?” Jake asked, as he was walking in.

  The nurse gave him a brilliant smile. “She’s all yours.”

  “Lucky me,” Jake murmured and I couldn’t tell if it was sarcasm or not.

  I stood up, paperwork in hand. “I need to go get my car. It’s at the coffee shop.”

  “I’ll go get it later. You shouldn’t be driving tonight.” He took the paperwork out of my hand and lifted my purse up and gave it to me. “Are you hungry?”

  “No.” The thought of chewing with my throbbing nose and head was very unappealing. “Though I wouldn’t turn down a milkshake.”

  That made him laugh. “You will always eat like a nine-year-old, won’t you?”

  Hey, I like what I like. “Not always. Just when I’m in a hurry. Or on a road trip.” Or on any day when he wasn’t cooking for me.

  “Okay, let’s get you a milkshake.”

  The cops had waited to see that I was okay. I knew they were all serious about finding out who hit me but I already knew who it was. Tight Sweater Guy. I just needed to put the pieces together as to who he was, given he had been at Vera’s funeral.

  “Hey, Rocky,” Brian said to me when he saw me come toward the lobby. “Next time duck.”

  “Got it. Thanks for making sure I was okay.”

  “No problem. Glad it wasn’t more serious.”

  When we stepped outside, the wind made my eyes water, but the cold actually felt good on my swollen nose. I kept touching it, and then catching myself doing it. I needed to leave it alone. The doctor said it would heal fine, but I was a little terrified I might look like a prize fighter who lost.

  “Jake, my phone magically reappeared in my pocket,” I told him, pulling it out as a visual aid. “It wasn’t there before, I swear it.”

  He gave me a look and I knew exactly what he was thinking. That it had been there all along and I was a ditz who had been looking for it all over that funeral home when it was legitimately on my person.

  “At least you have it back. Maybe you can sell it and recoup some of that money.”

  That was not the point. I made a noncommittal sound. “We need to get Grandma a milkshake too or she’ll be furious with us. She loves dairy.”

  “Whatever you say, babe.”

  The street we were crossing was icy and I was holding my nose just in case I fell. I’m not sure what that was going to do, but I didn’t want further damage. Logically, it would make better sense to have my hands free to protect my booty if I fell, but I can’t say I’m always the most logical person.

  So I was looking at my feet and covering a portion of my face and not really looking at my surroundings until I happened to glance up.

  There he was. Tight Sweater Guy.

  It was like an old movie. I swear my mental camera zoomed in on his face and we made eye contact. I was tempted to hiss, “You,” to make the cliché fully complete but I’m not that cinematic. Instead I screamed and hit my boyfriend’s arm. “That’s the guy in the coffee shop! I think he’s the guy who punched me.”

  Fortunately, Marner is not your average, regular-guy boyfriend who might have said, “What?” and asked for further explanation. Instead, with zero hesitation, he went straight up to the guy.

  “Hey! What are you doing here?” he asked the guy. “Are you following this woman?”

  “What? No. Of course not.” The man had gone pale and as I got closer, and more importantly, Marner got closer, he started glancing left and right for an escape.

  It was obvious he was going to bolt and it took about two seconds for Marner to get him down on the ground.

  Once he had him secure, he called Officer Martin on his cell. “Need you in the parking garage to question a suspect.”

  “Is this who hit you?” he asked me. “Can you positively identify him?”

  “I can positively say he was in the coffee shop and left right before I got attacked. But I didn’t see who hit me.”

  This guy was obviously not used to being in a supine position on a parking garage floor. He wasn’t really resisting. But he did say, “I’m calling the cops. Then I’m suing you.”

  “I am the cops,” Marner told him. “And so are they.” He gestured to Brian, and the other officer, whose name I couldn’t remember.

  “What’s up?” Brian asked.

  “Bailey said this guy was following her at the coffee shop.” He hauled the guy to his feet and handed him over. “I think you should ask him some questions.”

  “This is insane,” the guy said.

  I was plagued with doubt. So the guy had been in the same place at the same time as me three times. That could happen. Just thinking that made me realize most likely, no, that could not happen. Sure, a coffee shop I frequented a lot. But the ER? An hour after the coffee shop? Highly doubtful. I would let Marner and the other cops do their job and if this guy was totally innocent then that would be that. But I strongly suspected not only was he the guy who had punched me, he was the person who had put the phone back in my pocket.

  Time for a milkshake.

  We went to a place that had alcohol-infused shakes and I chose the vanilla, apple pie, and bourbon one. I got a virgin version for Grandma.

  As we were walking into my house, me sucking the final delicious remnant of ice cream up through the straw, Jake’s phone rang. I was used to him answering calls so I just went into the living room and found Grandma watching TV.

  “I got you a milkshake,” I told her, handing it over. “Vanilla and apple pie.”

  “Thanks. That nose is something and none of it is good.”

  I sighed. I was going to get a lot of double takes in public the next few days. “I know. But the doctor says it will heal fine.”

  “I’ll say a prayer.”

  I needed it. “Thanks.”

  Jake shut the front door and kicked his dress shoes off. “Do you know a guy named Devin Whittaker?”

  The name meant nothing. “Nope.”

  “That’s the guy in the garage’s name. They’re running background on him, but without any witnesses and you unable to point the finger at him, we’ve got nothing to hold him on.”

  I would be more outraged at the fact if I hadn’t been kidnapped before, hit by a car, and held at gunpoint. A fist to the face seemed not that bad, all things considered. “Thanks for trying.”

  He said hello to my grandmother and asked her and me both if we needed anything.

  “I’m good. They gave me ibuprofen in the hospital.”

  “I could use some water,” Grandma said.

  I had sat down next to her and I started to get up, but Jake held out his palm. “I’ve got it. You just take it easy.”

  “He’s a nice boy,” Grandma said as he went i
nto the kitchen. “You really should marry him.”

  “He’s Italian,” I reminded her, hoping that would change the subject away from marriage.

  “So? At least he’s Catholic.”

  Living together, the three of us, was going to be so much fun. Not.

  I was sitting on the living room floor the next morning with my eyes closed when I heard the shuffling of slippers.

  “What are you doing?” Grandma asked.

  “I’m meditating.” Trying to learn to control my thoughts as they pertained to the spirit world, per my handy-dandy guide to spiritual mediumship.

  “I guess that’s better than doing drugs.”

  “I one hundred percent agree with you.” Though so far I wasn’t sold on this concept. Nothing much of anything seemed to be happening. “I’m supposed to devote several hours once a week to letting the dead come to me, and the rest of the week ban them so all our needs are met.”

  “I don’t see any ghosts.”

  “Me either.” I squeezed my eyes tighter as I concentrated, which only made spots dance behind my lids. Nothing. Not even Ryan. Where had he been? If we had this quota shouldn’t he be around more?

  When I opened my eyes, my grandmother was standing in front of me wearing a retro track suit. Sweatband and all. It was a glorious shade of burgundy with pink stripes down the pant legs. “Are you an extra in an eighties movie?” I asked her. I mean, it was possible. Films are frequently being made in Cleveland because it’s cheaper than New York.

  “What? No. I have Jazzercise.”

  That confused me, as did the sweatband. Was she really going to work up actual perspiration? “Where?”

  “The rec center. I go every Thursday.”

  “Oh, okay. Let me make sure I close this portal or whatever that I attempted to open then we can go.” She was working out more than I was, so I really couldn’t deny her that right.

  “Gotcha. If you see Vera tell her thanks for the cheddar. I appreciate her thinking of me.”

  “Of course.” I realized I hadn’t asked Grandma what she planned to do with her five grand, but that could wait for the car ride. I had a portal to close and all. I grabbed the book and scanned the chapter again but it wasn’t particularly clear to me how to tell the dead to back off once I was doing being “open.”