by Nan Higgins
The Mortician’s Daughter
Synopsis
On the night of her twenty-second birthday, Aria Jasper discovers the family secret: she comes from a long line of people who communicate with ghosts. Now that she’s beginning to see and hear the newly dead, she’s expected to pledge her service to her father’s company, AfterCorps, and help rookie ghosts get their earthly affairs in order so they can make their final transfer. Angry about having to give up a music career that’s on the verge of exploding, Aria reluctantly begins her training.
The only other student, Sloane, is a sexy AfterCorps devotee determined to join the most dangerous branch of the organization: the Criminally Demonic Unit. As Aria and Sloane grow closer, they begin to suspect all is not as it seems. A terrified ghost claims that Aria’s father is evil and keeping her earthbound against her will. She begs for their help to cross over, but Aria and Sloane may not be prepared for the consequences of defying an organization powerful enough to exert influence in both the land of the living and the dead.
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The Mortician’s Daughter
© 2020 By Nan Higgins. All Rights Reserved.
ISBN 13: 978-1-63555-595-0
This Electronic Original Is Published By
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P.O. Box 249
Valley Falls, NY 12185
First Edition: April 2020
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.
Credits
Editors: Barbara Ann Wright and Stacia Seaman
Production Design: Stacia Seaman
Cover Design By Tammy Seidick
eBook Design By Toni Whitaker
By the Author
London Undone
The Mortician’s Daughter
Acknowledgments
This book is a result of unending support from my fiancée, Misti Simmons, and my sons, Ben and Edison. Without their constant belief in me, and their generosity in creating time and space for me to write, none of this would have been possible.
My two great writing buddies and best sounding boards are Octavia Reese and fellow BSB author Annie McDonald. I can always count on them for advice and clarity.
Finally, I must thank everyone at Bold Strokes Books for their constant care and guidance. I’m especially grateful to my editor, Barbara Ann Wright, for all of her wisdom and skilled guidance.
For Gabe and Jason, and a lifetime of our legendary bad movie nights.
Chapter One
I was trying to make the best of my birthday party.
What I wanted was a chill night out with a few friends to celebrate turning twenty-two. Macy had organized a party where we’d meet some other friends from high school at Dewey’s Pizza and end up at the fire pit in her backyard, probably with beer and stuff to make s’mores.
What I got was a formal dinner at an upscale restaurant with my parents. I’d talked Macy into coming since I couldn’t get out of it. I could barely stifle a giggle every time I looked at her.
Macy didn’t wear dresses. Even in high school, when we had a choir concert and the standard uniform was a white blouse and black skirt, Macy always wore pants instead. But when she came home from college to celebrate my birthday, she hadn’t foreseen having to bring dress pants. She’d had to borrow a dress from her mom to adhere to the dress code at Mitchell’s Steak House. Seeing her cross and uncross her legs beneath the burgundy floral-print skirt made me grab my napkin and press it to my mouth to cover a snicker, but not before she heard me. My laugh turned to a grimace when she gave me a sharp kick under the table.
“Serves you right,” she muttered.
“What’s that, dear?” my mother asked.
“This steak is just right,” Macy said.
My mom lifted her glass and smiled broadly. “So glad you’re enjoying it.”
“Shall we have a toast?” My dad raised his glass too and peered around the table until Macy and I held our glasses in the air. “To Aria, my amazing and talented daughter. I can’t believe you’re twenty-two already. Anyone who denies how quickly time passes surely must not be a parent. I’m so proud of the young lady you’re becoming. You have the voice of an angel and the heart of a lion. Happy birthday.”
“Cheers,” my mom said. The four of us tapped our glasses, my parents’ filled with champagne, mine a strawberry daiquiri, and Macy’s a rum and Coke.
“Thank you,” I said. This was nice. It wasn’t what I had in mind, but it was nice of my parents, and Macy had rearranged our plans so the pizza and bonfire could still happen tomorrow night. It was right that I be with my parents on my actual birthday. I knew they’d missed having these occasions when I was in New York in school. “Thank you all so much.”
“This seems like a good time to do presents,” my mom said.
“Now, Joanna?” My dad arched an eyebrow.
“I can’t wait anymore,” she said, laughing. “Do you want to go first?”
He stroked his beard and gazed toward the ceiling, nodding in a way that was meant to seem absentminded but was clearly choreographed. Macy elbowed me and giggled. She could never get over my parents’ theatrics.
“I think I will.” He rubbed his hands together and grinned at my mom. “You won’t have the best gift this year, I guarantee it.”
My mom swept her arm out across the table, smiling back. “Let’s see what you’ve got.”
Dad reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a navy-blue box the size of his palm. “The best gifts come in small packages, my dear. Everyone knows that.” He set the box in front of me, still smiling.
I heard the jingle of keys inside. It couldn’t be. I opened it and found the keys to a Honda Civic. “A car!” I screeched.
“You deserve it, sweetheart,” Dad said. “You work so hard. And it’s a used car, nothing fancy, but it’s safe and reliable, and it’ll get you where you’re going. As long as you pay for the insurance, you’ll be all set.”
I’d had an old beater in high school, but when I got my acceptance letter to NYU, I’d sold it for cash to buy books, knowing I’d never drive when I was there. “I don’t know what to say,” I said, the box shaking in my hands. “Thank you. I didn’t expect this.”
“You’re welcome.”
“Well,” my mom said, a stage frown pulling her dark eyebrows together, “it seems you have won this year, Nathan. I’m afraid I can’t compete with a new car or even a used one.” She pulled an envelope out of her purse. “Maybe I shouldn’t even bother giving you my gift.”
I set the box on the table and held my hands out. “What is it, what it is, what is it?”
Mom set the envelope gently in my hands; she had tears in her eyes. I took a deep breath and, hands still shaking, opened the envelope. A piece of stationery from MoodWave Media fell onto the table. I looked up at my parents. My dad smiled broadly and put his arm around my mom, who now had a few tears on her cheeks. I picked up the letter from Angela Osborn, the producer to whom I’d sent my demo.
I’d gotten phone calls and emails from Ms. Osborn’s office for quite some time now. She had come
to some of my performances at NYU and had already attended a few of my gigs around the city. Things had seemed to be going well, but a couple weeks had gone by, and I hadn’t heard anything else from her. This letter confirmed Angela would be at my big performance next month at the Vern Riffe Center. If all went well, I’d be moving out to LA this summer to try to get started on my music career.
“How long have you known?” I asked.
“It came yesterday, but we wanted to surprise you for your birthday,” Mom said, dabbing at a tear with her napkin.
I was lucky I wasn’t required to sing in that moment. My throat was thick—almost chokingly so—with the combination of gratitude and disbelief that bubbled inside me. The dream that had consumed my life since my earliest memories was on the edge of coming true, and it felt so unreal. Images flooded my vision of all the times I’d stayed up late practicing, forgoing sleep, parties, and dates in favor of learning new music for a gig or working on getting a song perfect or just improving my technique. Every moment had been a step toward what would soon be my dream realized, and it seemed both perfectly right and completely impossible. I tried to swallow, which only seemed to enlarge the lump in my throat.
“Congratulations, Aria.” Macy leaned in to give me a hug, and I squeezed her hard. “You earned this.”
“Thank you,” I said. I hugged the letter to my chest.
Chapter Two
Macy leaned against the counter in the bathroom at Mitchell’s and bared her teeth into the mirror, looking for food. When she didn’t find any, she closed her mouth and tucked some of her dreadlocks back into the high ponytail she wore whenever she dressed up.
“It’s going to be weird this summer without you.” She picked up my purse and rummaged through it. She grabbed the mauve lipstick I always carry because it’s one of the few shades that looks great on both of us—with my nearly Casper-like skin and hers the hue of brown autumn leaves, it’s difficult to find a lip color that suits us both—and began applying it.
It would be the first time she and I had spent more than a day or two apart since we met in kindergarten. Miss Caldecott prepared us for the rest of our elementary school careers by seating us alphabetically by last name. We weren’t always in the same class, but when we were, Macy Holmes sat next to Aria Jasper. We’d been inseparable since day one. We hadn’t even been apart for college since both of us had dreamed of going to NYU since we were little.
“I’ll be back and forth.” I looked in the mirror and ran my fingers through my own dark, shoulder length hair. “You know I’ll always visit.”
Macy pouted. “It’s not the same. Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy for you. I know how hard you worked for this. But there’s going to be literally nothing for me to do here when you’re gone.”
I snorted. “There’s going to be plenty to do. This is Columbus, Ohio, not Siberia.”
“Compared to Los Angeles, this is BFE.” She dropped the lipstick back in my purse with a clatter. “You done primping?”
“Yeah. You?”
“Yep.”
We stepped out of the bathroom, arms linked, and walked back to our table. The opulent bar twinkled on the opposite end of the restaurant. I glanced over and stopped. My dad was at the bar talking to a distraught older man. Or rather, the man was talking while my dad glanced around. There had only been a handful of times when I’d seen my dad look anything other than self-assured and steady. Now he appeared nervous and jittery. He said something to the man, who became more animated, hands gesturing wildly.
“Oh my God,” I breathed.
“Um, is your dad okay?” Macy asked.
“I don’t know. Should we check on him?”
“My mom says not to interrupt someone who’s talking to themselves. She thinks it’s rude.”
I jerked around to face her. “What? My dad’s not talking to himself.”
Macy looked from me to my dad. “I was just joking. I mean, I’m sure he has a Bluetooth thing in his ear or something.”
Mouth agape, I turned back to the bar. The stranger had a hand on my dad’s shoulder and was standing inches from his face. Even so, my dad was looking directly at me, and he’d gone very pale.
Chapter Three
Macy and I were in our sleeping bags in the basement, a bowl of popcorn between us. We were watching an old B-horror movie from my parents’ collection: Killer Klowns from Outer Space. We had the volume turned down to almost nothing so we could voice our own version of the dialogue. It had been a slumber party tradition since we were little.
I’d been turning over the events at the restaurant in my mind, trying to make sense of what had happened. Maybe Macy hadn’t seen the man speaking to my father? But how could that be? He had been fussing and making quite a scene…except that wasn’t quite true. I’d been trying to put my finger on what had been strange about the situation, aside from the fact that Macy couldn’t see someone who had been only a few feet away from her. I realized that even though the older man had been gesturing wildly and seemed quite agitated, nobody had been paying attention to him. Even my father had appeared to be pretending not to see him. But why?
A soft knock at the door interrupted our dialogue riff. “Come in,” I said.
Dad stuck his head in. “How’s it going, girls?”
“Good,” we said in unison.
“Excellent. Ah, Aria, can you come help me with something for a minute?”
“Sure. Let’s pause this.”
Macy pushed a button on the remote, and the killer klown froze in his tracks. I followed my dad upstairs to the kitchen where my mom sat at the table, her eyes red and puffy, and her face shiny with tears. I sat in the chair next to her, scooting close so I could rub her back.
“Mom, what’s wrong?”
My dad sat across from us and cleared his throat. “Aria, your mother and I have something we need to tell you.”
“You have something you need to tell her,” my mother said, spitting the words as if they were poison. “I don’t have any part of this.”
“Tell me what?” My heart pounded so fast, I thought it might leap from my chest. My father raked his hand through his thinning hair. “Dad, what is it?”
“You…you saw the man talking to me at Mitchell’s tonight.”
“Yeah?”
A cry escaped from Mom’s throat, and she covered her face with her hands. “Dear God, no,” she said.
“You guys are really scaring me,” I said. “Who was that guy?”
As the child of morticians, I’d seen my share of grief-stricken people. Until I’d realized Macy couldn’t see the mysterious stranger at the bar, I had assumed he was a mourning widower who wanted his wife to look just like she had when she was alive and healthy or a devastated father who needed someone to be angry at for his son being gone too soon. It hadn’t been the first time one of my dad’s grieving clients approached him in public.
Now I wondered who it could be that had my mother so upset. And the question that had been nagging me all night, as Macy and I made our popcorn and picked out a movie and enacted all our slumber party rituals, was front and center in my mind: Why didn’t Macy see him?
My dad cleared his throat again.
“That man is dead, Aria. And the fact that you saw him changes absolutely everything.”
Chapter Four
“What do you mean he’s dead?”
“I mean, he’s a ghost, as of late yesterday, and he’s quite understandably unhappy and confused about it.”
“But…but people can’t just…see ghosts.”
“I can. And now, so can you.”
A feral-sounding wail escaped from my mother, and I turned to see her pressing a napkin to her mouth, her chin trembling.
“We’ll talk about this more tomorrow, when we have more time and…privacy.”
“Tomorrow? But, Dad, you can’t just drop this on me and not explain. Why can we see ghosts? What did that man want with you? What is going to change?”
He shook his head and held his hand up in a gesture he’d used to silence my endless questions so often when I was little. “Tomorrow. Macy is waiting for you, and with her level of patience, I expect to see her coming up here any moment to find out what’s holding you up.”
I looked at my mother, pleading with my eyes for her to change my dad’s mind or to tell me something, anything, that would help me make sense of what was happening. Her vacant eyes and downturned mouth told me I shouldn’t press it.
I stumbled back to the basement in a daze, got into my sleeping bag, and pushed play on the remote. Before the killer klown could even raise his knife, Macy pushed pause and sat up.
“What’s wrong?”
I considered lying and saying nothing, but I’d never been able to keep a secret from my best friend. Instead, I held out my pinkie, and she curled her pinkie around mine in return. We completed the binding contract that signified that what was about to be said must never be shared with anyone else. I paused, put a handful of popcorn in my mouth, and after I swallowed, I told Macy what had transpired.
“Ghosts?” Her enormous brown eyes seemed to take up her whole face. “Are you sure they’re not doing some bit that’s only funny after you figure out they’re messing with you?”
I shook my head. “You should’ve seen my mom’s face. She looked like somebody died.” I pressed my lips together when I realized my phrasing was all too appropriate. More than seeing a dead man, I was scared because of my mother’s reaction. I’d never seen her the way she was tonight: vacant, devastated, and defeated. Bile churned in my stomach, which was cramping with the pain of trying, in vain, to digest what was happening.
“What happens now?” Macy asked, and I loved her for not questioning the validity of seeing a ghost at Columbus’s swankiest restaurant. She and I had been horror movie buffs since we were very small. In middle school, we had even organized a small group of friends to go on “ghost hunting” outings, which had pretty much amounted to us staying up late at someone’s house and searching the darkest places with our flashlights and taking notes in spiral notebooks. I’d expected a lot more questions, but she had taken me at my word that I told her everything I knew.