This was 100% true.
The ghost bellowed, steam rising from his bare arm and his pale skin turning brilliant red. His cold, beefy hand jerked away, and he ducked into the darkness.
The moment he let go of me, I lost my balance and fell.
I had a brief moment of weightlessness, my feet drifting in slow motion above my head, and then skinny arms caught me. Vespers and I fell in a tangle of limbs on the floor, my skull bouncing off the aged carpet.
“You were supposed to run!” I snapped at her, starbursts dancing in my vision as we hurried to our feet.
“I wasn’t going to abandon you, idiot!” Vespers snapped back, grabbing her bag off the floor.
“Shit,” I said, pointing at the bag. I looked up at the black hole above us. “The recorder. I left it on the floor.”
“Leave it.” Vespers grabbed my arm. “We’re out of here.”
“I can’t leave it!” I said, jerking away from her grasp. “That’s three hundred dollars on the floor up there. Do you have an extra three hundred laying around for a new one?”
Vespers gazed into the hole above us. “Well, he hasn’t come down. Maybe he’s gone?”
“Earthbounds are never ‘gone,’” I said grimly, my water gun gripped tightly in my hand. “They can’t just ‘go.’ They’re stuck. I’m going back up.”
I stepped onto the bottom rung, the gun held out but my hand shaking so hard I couldn’t hold it steady. Sure, I’d been ghost hunting as a living for years now. I’d been seeing ghosts for longer than that. But this guy was bad news. I was fully aware if I hadn’t blasted him with magnetic filings, he would have hurt me.
A low growl, almost like a dog’s, drifted from the attic. He was waiting for me to come back. He knew I would.
Shit.
Before I could take another step, there was a scuffle from the attic: heavy footfalls and the slap of skin on skin. A moment later, the recorder came soaring from the darkness and into my hands.
I stared at it, perplexed. Had the Earthbound knocked it off on accident? What was going on up there?
“Was that…?” Vespers didn’t finish her question.
I nodded, holding up the recorder. “Yeah. The flashlight I can live without. Let’s get out of here.”
*
With our usual haunt, Starbucks, closed for the night, Vespers and I headed for the twenty-four hour diner, Bees-Knees, on Beecher Street, to decompress.
The place was a staple for Tory teenagers on the weekend, so as usual, it was overflowing with hormones. Vespers and I took a table in the front, blessedly devoid of kids nearby. Good, because my head still throbbed from impact on Albert Street.
I accepted a steaming mug of coffee from our server with a grateful smile. “Thanks.”
“You wanna order food?” Her nametag said Whitney, and she looked like she’d had too many rounds with a live wire. Her boy cut dark hair stood on end above eyebrows that had been plucked a little too high.
I nodded. “Yeah, I want waffles and lots of syrup. I need a sugar high after what we just saw.”
The server, to her credit, didn’t question or ask me to elaborate. She just lifted an already-surprised brow and turned her gaze on Vespers. “You?”
“Just a fruit cup, thanks.”
After she walked away, I started dumping sugar packets in my cup as I said, “You okay, Ves?”
“Could be better.” She shuddered, cupping her hot tea.
“No real harm done!” I chirped, going for a mood-lightener.
Vespers pursed her lips. “Yeah? And how’s your head feeling?”
I gingerly pressed my palm to the back of my skull, and frowned. “Tender.”
“You probably need to go to the hospital.”
“I’ve had a concussion before. It was worse than this.”
I’d been somewhat of a high-strung tomboy as a kid. I was pretty sure I’d broken every major bone in my body at least once, all before ten years old. So Vespers accepted my answer at face value.
“What are we going to tell the owner?” she asked.
“We tell him to stay the hell out of that house.” I took a drink of my coffee, the caffeine a calming elixir. “He’ll get himself killed if he goes in there alone.”
“Or he’ll get someone else killed if he rents it.” Vespers stared into her glass as if it held the meaning to life, wisps of steam curling towards her pink cheeks. “It’s so scary. We’re always told that ghosts aren’t real, and even if they are, they can’t hurt you.”
“Most people don’t believe in ghosts enough to care.” I grimaced, absently rubbing my arm where the Albert Street ghost had grabbed me. Pale red fingerprints stood out on my skin as if he’d branded me. “And most ghosts aren’t Earthbound.”
“We don’t know that,” Vespers argued. “Earthbounds have the power to hide from us all they want. There could be a dozen in a single house and we would never know they’re there.”
“You would never know they were there,” I said softly. I tapped my temple. “I don’t have a choice.”
Vespers bit her lip. “Yeah. You would always know.”
The sound of crickets chirping erupted from my phone. I dug into my satchel and found it nestled between a paperback and my wallet.
Pick me up.
I groaned.
Vespers laughed. “Alan?”
“Who else?”
Vespers shook her head. “You need a boyfriend. A real one that’s not Alan.”
“Tell me something I don’t know.” I extracted a few bills from my wallet and laid them on the table. “This should cover my half. Just pack up my waffles and bring them to meet me tomorrow afternoon.”
“Whatever. Have fun on your date.” The tilt of her lips let me know just what she thought of it.
“If you want to call it that,” I said dismissively. “Mutual companionship is preferred.”
“Mutual companionship, my ass. You wouldn’t know companionship if it tied you up and made you its bitch.”
“Love you, too.” I planted a kiss to her dreadlocks and headed for the door.
Chapter Nine
Alan Chaswell wasn’t husband material. He wasn’t boyfriend material. Hell, he wasn’t even material enough to tell anybody but Vespers that I was sleeping with him. He was thirty-five and had been serving tables since he was twenty, though he couldn’t hold down a job at a single restaurant long enough for it to be considered a career. He spent all his money on beer, cigarettes, and pot, and usually bummed off me for food on the nights he couldn’t grab something dead from the kitchen window.
I met Alan through a mutual friend at a barn party way out off Highway 89, though she’d warned me about his playboy reputation before she even told me his name. Fat lot of good it did. Within thirty minutes of being introduced, Alan had charmed my clothes off in the woods behind the bonfire, and almost every night since.
In the tumultuous three months we’d been seeing each other — key word: boffing — I’d broken it off with him three times. Once, when I heard another server had done some “favors” for him in the bathroom. A second time when he left me at a party without a ride home, and a third when called me a bitch.
Yet still, here I was, parked in front of the steakhouse waiting for him like I did every time he texted out of the blue. A glutton for punishment.
The heavy wood and glass door opened, and Alan strolled out with the rest of the closing crew. His gaze flashed in my direction, and my body temperature ratcheted just a notch. Even though his face was in shadow, I knew those eyes. They were so abnormally green in his tanned face, almost out of place. An old friend of mine from high school noticed my Jeep and waved. Alan said something, just a mumble through my open window, then the two men slapped a high five.
Lovely. I was the brunt of locker room talk.
Then Alan’s attention was solely on me as he stalked across the lot, his apron rolled up in one hand, strings dangling over asphalt. His uniform shirt was unbuttoned and u
ntucked over a dirty white T-shirt. His black hair was getting shaggy, just the way I liked it. My fingers itched to run through those baby fine locks, though equally, I wanted to throttle him for telling me to pick him up at the last minute.
Or throttle myself for going to waste time on this clown.
He slipped in the passenger door, slamming it behind him. He didn’t say hello; he just took the back of my head in his hand and yanked me to him.
Kissing Alan was a full-on assault: lips, teeth, tongue. He kissed me so hard I would be bruised for days, as if he were marking his territory; so hard that my desire was immediate and I almost came out of my seat.
There was nothing sweet or loving about Alan Chaswell. He didn’t kiss any other way, and he fucked with the same sense of purpose and ownership.
For a brief moment, I remembered the feeling of fingers on my neck earlier that day at my sister’s place. That was the kind of touch I needed in my life. A lover’s caress, gentle and kind in a completely different display of possessiveness. You’re mine, and I cherish you.
And honestly, even if I’d imagined those fingers, an imaginary lover would have been a better choice than Alan.
“Your place or mine?” Alan murmured. He wiggled his eyebrows, his fingers still dancing across my jaw line. He slid a hand down my chest, around my navel, and dipped it into the hot core between my legs. “Or right here?”
A little groan slipped from between my lips, and I arched into his touch, despite the blue jeans hindering his fingers from getting any further than the surface. “Parking lot’s too bright.”
He smirked. “What’s your point?”
I leveled a steely glare at him. “The last time we did it in a parking lot, the cops found us.”
“Take those jeans off and get on top of me.”
Thank God for bench seats, I thought as I complied with his demand.
He unbuckled his own jeans, pulling out his sizeable erection. As I was climbing on top of him, ready to sink down and let him fill me up, he said, “Oh, hey, can you take me to my mom’s in Jenkins County when we’re done?”
“Shut up, Alan,” I told him, though I already knew I’d drive him the forty minutes to his parents’ house. I always did everything he asked of me, and quite frankly, I was sick of being a Yes Girl.
I needed a new man STAT.
*
Even rolling around with Alan for an hour, then driving him to Jenkins County, I still managed to be in bed and sound asleep before six, so when my cell burst to life with the theme song from “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” at four in the afternoon, I at least felt rested.
I swiped it from the nightstand, noting Sherrie in the corner flipping through a magazine. The caller ID told me it was Trevor.
“Hey, bud,” I said, collapsing back to the pillow.
“Boston! Did you miss me?” Trevor had a deep voice like hot chocolate with a raspy undertone that made me think of smoky bars and whiskey straight up. He was my age, but sometimes I felt like he was miles ahead of me. Like Vespers, he’d been one of my best friends since we were kids.
“Of course I did. Are you back?” As I asked the question, I could hear the garbled message of an intercom system in the background.
“Yeah, I’m at the airport. My car’s dead in the lot. I jumped it with no luck, and I tried finding an open mechanic, but frankly, I’m ready to come home. I’ve already got a tow truck coming to pick it up.”
“That’s some bad luck.”
“I don’t roll any other way.”
I laughed. So true.
“I called Vespers,” he went on, “but she isn’t answering her phone. Can you come get me?”
“I’m always the second call,” I grumbled playfully. Trevor had been in love with Vespers for years, ever since he realized she had breasts. “I’ll leave now. Be there in an hour, depending on traffic.”
“I owe you one.”
“Trevor back?” Sherrie asked as I hung up the phone.
“Yeah, and stuck at Savannah-Hilton Head. Car trouble.”
“He is a man of significant income,” Sherrie said, flabbergasted as she floated sideways, the magazine dangling from her fingertips and her curled blonde hair bouncing around her face. “Why on earth does he grasp so tightly to that unreliable car?”
I shrugged. “Because he’s a man, and it’s a ‘67 Shelby.”
I pulled a clean pair of blue jean capris from the closet, and a loose purple tank top over a sports bra. Weatherbug told me it was a steamy ninety-nine degrees outside, so I skipped the boots and went straight for flip-flops.
“Don’t forget new books!” Sherrie called as I grabbed my messenger bag from the counter on the way out the door.
I turned around as she zoomed into the hallway, a piece of paper fluttering in her hand. She handed it to me and then pressed a feather-light, very cold kiss to my cheek.
“Be careful, sweetheart.”
I waved and locked the door behind me.
Nobody was around in the hall; unusual in that Bernie was almost always a standard piece of furniture. Their apartment was silent, which meant he and his wife were probably out and about. I always seemed to sleep better when I wasn’t listening to them putter around and bang cabinets. They were worse than live-in poltergeists.
I flip-flopped down the steps and pushed outside, physically gasping as the humidity hit me. I’d lived in Tory my whole life, yet I didn’t think anyone could get used to Georgia’s humid heat. I read somewhere recently that heat stroke killed nearly seven hundred people annually nationwide. I’d place bets most of them were in Georgia.
On the bright side, my Jeep had a great AC system, and by the time I hit the highway, it was nice and cool. I flipped on the radio and cranked it up on my favorite station, then settled in for the drive.
*
Trevor waved as I coasted over to the curb in the arrivals terminal and threw the car into park. He was casual in khaki shorts, a t-shirt, and flip-flops, with his black hair slanted sideways over his dark eyes. He had the gorgeous naturally dark skin of a man born from an ebony-skinned mother and a white dad, and the kind of upper body definition most men only dreamed of. I’d always thought Trevor was gorgeous, but his heart belonged to Vespers. She just hadn’t quite figured that out yet.
“Thanks, Boss. This was great of you,” Trevor said, wrapping me in a hug that smelled of coconut oil and last night’s tequila.
I squeezed back, glad to see him. “Anytime. I left a message for Vespers that we would be back around seven for dinner. Are you too tired?”
He stepped back, one hand on his carry-on suitcase. “No, I’m great. I slept until noon.”
“Yeah, but how late were you guys up?” I said with a laugh as I opened the trunk of the Jeep so he could stow his bag.
He grinned sheepishly. “Ah, maybe five?”
“My point is made.”
After we got on the highway, Trevor asked, “How’d the Morton investigation go?”
I grinned. “Fabulous. We caught an obvious audio, a couple still shots, and one pretty freaky video.”
“Safe to say it’s Bonnie Morton?”
“Nearly one hundred percent positive. Speaking of,” I went on with a grimace, “we have a new job. And it’s kinda close to home.”
“How so?”
“It’s my sister’s new house.”
Trevor’s eyes lit up, and he literally bounced in his seat like a child. “Horeland Estate. The Horeland Estate?”
I nodded.
“I’m in. When do we start? After the hardware store gig?”
“No, before. Tonight.”
He groaned, his head falling to the headrest. “You’re killin’ me, Boston.”
“You don’t have to go.”
“As if I’d miss a chance to investigate the oldest damn estate in the county.”
The opening howl of the Buffy theme filled the car, and I reached for my cell in the cupholder. Vespers’s smiling face blinked at me from the
screen. “Hey, Ves. Did you get my message?”
“Sure did. Did you pick up the nerd?”
“Nerd acquired.” I shot a grin to Trevor. “Wanna meet at that Italian place downtown?”
“Man, I need coffee, though,” Vespers whined.
I signaled to get over into the fast lane. “I don’t think Trevor wants dinner at Starbucks.”
The man in question piped up. “If that’s what Ves wants, we can go to Starbucks.”
I gagged, earning a glare in return. “He says Starbucks is fine.”
Vespers cheered. “Meet you there!”
“You’re so transparent,” I told Trevor as I hung up the phone.
He shrugged. “I’ve made it no secret that my goal in life is to marry that woman.”
“Secret or not, she hasn’t picked up on the hint yet.”
Trevor just smiled. “I’ve got time.”
*
When we got to Starbucks, Trevor went inside, and I whipped out my cell to call Madison.
She answered on a burst of sound, the clink of glasses and murmur of voices. “Boston? What do you want?”
I pursed my lips. How quickly she forgot she’d been begging my help just the day before. “We want to come out and investigate tonight. Did you clear it with Jacob?”
The background noise faded, as if she were walking away to quieter locales. Finally, she murmured, “Tonight isn’t good.”
“Why not? We just talked about this yesterday, Madison.”
“I’m not sure when our guests are leaving.”
“Guests?”
“We’re having a dinner party.”
Well, that explained the noise. “We wouldn’t want to start until after eleven. Are a bunch of society goons really gonna stick around till then?”
“Please do not call my husband’s associates ‘goons’,” Madison said irritably.
“Do you want me to figure out what’s going on at your house or not?”
There was a pause, albeit a brief one. “Yes.”
“We’ll be there at quarter after eleven.” I hung up the phone before she could argue any more. It took me twenty years, but I’d learned that was the best way to deal with my sister.
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