“I apologise for earlier but as I said, I was concerned about the bond.” He flopped down in the righted deckchair, sure the canvas would hold him.
“You called me fat to test whether that would upset me? I should’ve slapped you harder.”
“Me calling you fat doesn’t bother you, but being called fat to see if it bothers you, bothers you?” He blew out a breath and rubbed his eyes with his thumb and forefinger. I had the impression he mumbled something derogatory about women. I didn’t say anything. I sat in the chair, my hands demurely clasped in my lap. He wanted to talk, he could talk. “Do you have any questions?” he asked after a few moments of silence.
Yes. A million. “No.”
“None at all? You know it’ll be easier for you if you talk to me?”
“About what?”
“Anything. Everything.” He rubbed the cheek I’d slapped, his fingers rasping against the bristles of his stubble. He waited for me to say something. I didn’t. “Are you okay about finding the body?”
I stretched my eyes innocently wide and fluttered my eyelashes at him. “You mean do I need a hug?” I rested my head on the back of the canvas chair and closed my eyes. “Thanks but I think I’ll get by.”
“Are you always like this?”
“Dead? No, once I was alive and happy.”
“It’s not so bad here.”
“Oh, I’m sure it’s just lovely.” I didn’t think it was possible to heap any more sarcasm into my tone. Maybe he’d take the hint and be quiet.
“Do you want to talk about finding the body?”
I turned to face him. “Look. I’m sure your handsomeness opens a lot of doors for you and greases the wheels when dealing with women, but personally I find you domineering and misogynistic. And that’s bypassing the fact you dragged me down off the fence, which is technically physical assault, and insulted me to test my emotional fortitude. I don’t like you. So, oddly, no, I don’t feel like having an emotionally intimate moment with you. And since you can snoop on my emotions any time you like, why don’t you just do that and stop talking to me completely? Thanks.”
“I’m sensing …” He paused and titled his head, listening for that different frequency. “Anger. Yeah, it’s definitely anger.”
I couldn’t lean over and slap him again. Not because it was wrong but because I wouldn’t be able to get enough momentum to really knock the smug out of him from this angle. I’m not sure there was any angle that would enable me to knock the smug out of him.
“Okay, look. Whether you want to admit it or not, it has to have been a long and stressful day for you so how about we just call it a night and we can pick this up tomorrow?”
I waved him away and closed my eyes, slouching further down in the deckchair. “Sure, you head on inside. I’m just going to take in the evening air.”
Oz pushed himself up and stood over me. “Y’know, this will be much easier for you when you realise that you’re not the one in charge here.”
I squinted up at him through one eye. “No, no. You’re totally in charge.”
“I am. I’m glad you understand that.” Oz reached down, grabbed my hands and pulled me up. He grinned into my startled face, bent and tossed me over his shoulder in a fireman’s lift, then strode towards the house.
It was so unexpected it took me a second to find my voice. Screaming it was undignified would just make it more so, and telling him to put me down wasn’t going to help. I toyed with kicking him in his most private of places since my foot was at about the right height, but I felt that might be pushing the boundary. So I hung there. In silence. Plotting my revenge.
He stepped up onto the patio and as he opened the back door of the house a clatter of voices assaulted us. Oz paused briefly and sighed before we walked in. He closed the door behind us and placed me back on my feet next to the centre island in the kitchen. Plates and dirty pans covered all of the units and the blue-tinged air reeked of burnt food.
Four people argued loudly on the other side of the centre island. A pretty blonde who reminded me of Jenny was shouting and gesturing wildly at the other three with a wooden meat tenderising hammer. A man in his late forties with a shocking comb-over kept trying to interrupt but an elderly lady in a pastel blue summer dress and floppy straw hat kept tapping him with a wooden spoon to stop him. Another woman with a short, blunt dark bob and dressed as a 1920s flapper had her arms folded and tapped her foot impatiently.
In the middle of all the drama, a giant of a man was sitting at the island, eating a bowl of cereal and reading a three day old paper covered with large black shapes. At first glance it looked like the paper had been censored. Which was ridiculous.
“Stop.” The lady in the floppy hat checked her watch then pointed the wooden spoon at the flapper. The younger girl protested but passed the wooden mallet to the flapper.
Oz cursed under his breath and grabbed a saucepan and metal ladle from the rack suspended over the island. He banged the ladle on the bottom on the saucepan so hard I could see the ladle reverberating in his hand. All five of them turned to stare at us.
“Oh great,” Comb-over snarled. “Another bloody woman.”
“Oh great,” I mimicked. “Another bloody misogynist.”
The flapper gestured to me with the meat tenderiser. “I like her.”
Comb-over snorted. “Yeah, you would.”
The flapper whirled around and thumped the hammer against her open palm. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Everyone.” Oz spoke loudly to regain their attention. “This is Bridget. She’s newly dead so be nice to her and help her out if she asks. This is Lucy,” Oz said and directed his ladle at the flapper, who smiled widely and waved at me, the beads on her black dress swishing with her movement. “Clem.” Comb-over inclined his head the barest amount he could and still be civil. “Pam.” The older lady in the summer dress smiled warmly. “Mark.” The guy eating the cereal waved his spoon at me in greeting then carried on unperturbed. “And Petal.” Oz gestured to the younger girl who had tears in her eyes.
Comb-over Clem threw his hands up and turned his back on the table. “Oh, here we go.”
“Clem, that’s rude,” Pam scolded and put an arm around the girl. “It’s okay, Petal.”
The girl nodded at the encouragement and wiped her eyes. “I’m really sorry you’re dead.”
“Thanks, me too,” I said.
Oz waved the ladle at me. “Now for the rules. I’m telling you in front of them so everybody knows that everybody knows. For your time here, you have no socialising privileges outside of this house. No sleepovers, no dates, no spontaneous shopping trips. Any socialising we do will be done as a group. You’re not allowed out except for work, mandatory meetings and group activities that we have previously arranged. Any special food, personal hygiene products or newspaper requests go in the red book on the wall over there. Shopping is done once a week—”
“So. You’re basically telling me I’m a prisoner,” I said.
“No. I’m telling you the rules.” He gestured around the room. “Everyone abides by them.”
“Your rules?”
Oz shook his head. “No. These are the basic rules.”
“Oz is very lenient. He only enforces the ones we all have to follow,” Petal said.
“Now I know why you didn’t tell me this outside,” I said and Oz arched an eyebrow for me to explain. “Because I would never have let go of the fence.”
Oz dumped the ladle in the saucepan and discarded them both on the central unit. “I’m going to show Bridget to her room. She’s had a long first day so please try and keep the arguing down to loud rather than deafening.”
“Sure thing.” Clem nodded.
Lucy gave me the sweetest smile while she twirled the meat tenderiser. “Absolutely.”
Oz leaned in and whispered. “Do I need to pick you up or will you walk?” He leaned back a little to look into my face. “Like a good girl?”
A good girl?
My eye twitched. Could he be more patronising? “I really am going to kill you in your sleep.”
Oz sighed dramatically. “I’m going to take that as a no.” He hefted me back up over his shoulder and walked out of the kitchen, the housemates calling a chorus of goodnights without even a tiny amount of concern for my wellbeing.
I caught a fleeting peek of the first floor on my way past. Pastel pink carpets and flowery wallpaper. I winced. Maybe we could redecorate. We passed the exit to the second floor, plain pastel blue everywhere. The boy’s floor then. I dreaded to think where I was headed.
We’d reached the top floor. All I could see from my limited vantage point were the stairs back down. It looked like mine was the attic room. Too high up to jump out of the window? Oz rattled something and the door opened. He walked into the centre of the room and placed me lightly on my feet.
The room was exactly everything I remembered Scarborough bed and breakfast rooms to be. A comfy looking double bed rested against the right wall, covered in a colourful handmade quilt. A dark oak, three door wardrobe stood against the back wall facing the two large sash windows that looked out onto the next street over and then the ocean. The closed door to the left, next to a tall chest of drawers, I very much hoped was my en suite.
I hadn’t realised how tired I was until I saw the bed. Pyjamas. I needed pyjamas. And a toothbrush. And a comb. And my makeup. “When will my things get here?”
“What things?”
“My personal belongings?” I wandered over to the wardrobe to check no one had shoved a suitcase inside. “Hair straighteners. Underwear. Shoes. My things.”
“You don’t have any ‘things’. You have what you’re wearing.”
I stared down and my oh-so-stained suit. “What?”
Oz tilted his head again. “Huh. So that makes you angry too.”
I stretched my arms wide to display the extent of the stains on my suit. “I cannot live like this.”
“Well, I guess it’s a good job you’re dead then.” Oz backtracked to the bedroom doorway and I followed. “Nighty night.” He closed the door in my face. Metal rattled against metal then the unmistakable click of a lock snapping closed echoed around the bare room.
“Did you just lock me in my room?” This could not be happening.
“Yes.” Oz’s voice came through the door, heavy with a smile. “I’d rather not wake up tomorrow with the heel of your shoe through my eye.”
Footsteps retreated down the staircase and I looked around my room. No clothes, no makeup, no pyjamas, a ridiculously handsome alpha male as a jailor who could snoop on my emotions as and when he liked, an unfulfilling job, an acclimatisation meeting every night, a house share with six other people and a dead ghost in my locker on my first day.
I didn’t care what anyone said. This was definitely Hell.
∞
I was staring into my locker when Bertha stormed in. Any ill effects from the fainting fit yesterday appeared long gone. The ill temper from the tumbler of water to the face remained, though.
“You’re late. Again,” she snapped, all compassion. “Get dressed and get outside.”
I shook my head. “I can’t.”
Bertha’s face drained of colour and her eyes darted to my locker. “Why not?”
I reached into the locker and Bertha cringed back. I pulled out my uniform, a shapeless mauve jumpsuit. My misspelled name was embroidered in bright red on a white badge over the right breast. I held it up against me. Bertha’s attention darted from my uniform to my locker and back again.
“The colour does nothing for me. Mauve? Really? And the cut is shocking.” I pulled up one of the legs to show her the totally unflattering classic cut. “I might as well be wearing a sack. You know the phrase ‘I wouldn’t be caught dead in this’? Well, that literally applies here.”
“Just get it on and get out here,” she said as she stormed back out a few shades paler.
Sighing, I changed into the purple sack and pulled my hair into a ponytail with a tie Petal had loaned me. I checked my reflection in the small mirror in my locker. I’d kept my hair out of the shower spray this morning but I’d have to wash it with something tomorrow. I was not looking forward to that. A lack of hair styling tools and makeup were not conducive to a happy Bridget. I’d have to place my requests with Oz later. Being dead was bad enough, but an eternity with frizzy hair and no makeup? I’d rather die. Again.
“Finally,” Bertha mumbled as I emerged from the locker room. “Fenton, this is your new trainee.”
Fenton was tall, slim with a cocky smile and dressed in a grey jumpsuit. Grey. Not mauve. Grey. And his, like Bertha’s, had definitely had some alterations.
He smiled and held my hand just a fraction too long. “Hi, Birget.”
“It’s Bridget,” I corrected with a tight smile, taking my hand back and wiping it on the leg of my jumpsuit.
“Says Birget on your suit.”
I looked pointedly at Bertha who pretended not to notice. “I know.”
“Here are today’s assignments.” She slapped a clipboard into Fenton’s waiting hands and marched off down the corridor.
I followed Fenton to the tunnelling room. He didn’t speak but nodded to several people we passed.
“Okay, let’s get to it.” Fenton positioned himself on one of the white circles and disappeared.
I stared at the space where he’d been. Was he expecting me to follow? I didn’t even know where he’d gone. Two men in grey jumpsuits appeared on the other side of the room and eyed me curiously as I hovered in the middle of the room trying not to look like I was new.
“Do you need any help, Miss?” Guess the mauve jumpsuit gave it away. The older of the two smiled down at me. He had deep crow’s feet from a lifetime of laughing that crinkled up when he smiled. I liked him.
“She’s fine, Charlie. She’s with me.” Fenton spoke directly behind me, startling me so badly I leapt forwards and into Charlie. I may have even squealed. Awk-ward.
Charlie scowled at Fenton but smiled down at me, patting my shoulder. “If you need help with anything, Birget, you just come find me, okay?”
“It’s Bridget,” Fenton corrected in a possessive tone I didn’t much care for.
“I will, Charlie, thank you.” I gave Charlie my best “my hero” smile because, well, because he seemed like a nice guy and the jury was still out on Fenton. Charlie threw me a wink as he and his friend walked away. I got the impression he would’ve liked to have ruffled my hair. I was immensely glad he hadn’t. It would have been a quick end to our friendship.
“I’m guessing you can’t tunnel yet?” Fenton’s tone equally divided between self-importance and irritation.
“I can walk.”
“Yeah, you’ll want to learn to tunnel. Fast. It’s been a long time since I was a passenger but I still have nightmares about it.” He took my hand, yanked me to a white circle with no more polite small talk and tunnelled me.
We landed on the pavement in the city centre of Scarborough. Him on his feet, me on my knees trying desperately not to gag. A hand fisted in the back of my overalls and yanked me to my feet and back a step, out of the direct path of a harassed looking mother with three young children hanging off her.
“Try and keep out of their way.”
“Can they see us?” My attention flitted from mums to children to students to office workers who filled the street.
To be surrounded by people and be invisible was a very odd feeling. And a little bit freeing. I had the urge to do something crazy, or at least socially unusual.
“Go ahead.” Fenton sighed and folded his arms in resignation. “I can wait.”
“This isn’t going to be classed as haunting, right?” I sat on a bench next to a boy in his late teens who was checking his watch.
“This?” He shook his head. “No.”
I waved my hand in front of the boy’s face. Nothing. I glanced back at Fenton, who was too busy checking out a twenty-something girl in a
skimpy summer dress.
“Okay.” I took a deep breath and yodelled at the top of my voice right into his ear.
“Hey!” The boy leapt up off the bench. In a blind panic I did the same, scrambling backwards.
There was no way this was not going to be classed as haunting. I frantically scanned around my surroundings, looking for that ominous white flash. Fenton winced at something directly in front of me. I swallowed hard and turned to face my fate. It wasn’t the GBs; it was the boy. And he walked right through me.
I dropped to the floor, my stomach clenching and churning, my vision clouding as the most intense tsunami of nausea crashed over me. I wasn’t in pain exactly, but my limbs twitched as if I were being electrocuted. Somewhere in the tiniest part of my brain that was still functioning, I could hear the boy telling someone off for being late.
“Deep breaths.” Fenton rubbed what I assumed he thought were soothing circles on my back but the contact made my skin feel raw. I managed to knock his hand away and curl up on the floor, gasping for breath. “You okay?”
“I am so very far from okay,” I choked out even though I was already starting to feel better. I felt like I should be laid up for a week, but as quickly as it had come it seemed to fade.
“It passes quickly,” Fenton said as he pulled me up and draped an arm around my shoulders. “For future reference, it’s best not to let them touch you.”
“For future reference, those sorts of tips will be more helpful beforehand,” I snapped, shoving his arm away. It wasn’t his fault but his smirk and condescending attitude was making it easy to blame him.
“Some lessons you can only learn through your own mistakes.”
So far, I was not liking Fenton as my trainer.
“You ready for our first assignment then?”
No. “Sure.”
“Excellent. Let’s go haunt somebody.”
Chapter Four
Beyond Dead: A Bridget Sway Novel (A Paranormal Ghost Cozy Mystery Series) Page 5