by Sarah Wynde
“Wood floors,” muttered Mona. “Beeswax. Or linseed oil.”
Behind the hedges was a small farmhouse style building, with two stories, gable windows and a wide front porch. It looked freshly-painted, the trim a polished white. Plants surrounded it, colorful bougainvillea and hibiscus shrubs, sprawling ground cover, beds of early spring flowers.
Avery, the innkeeper, was kneeling in one of the beds, trowel in hand. They rocked back onto their knees. “Good morning,” they called out, voice friendly.
Noah didn’t react immediately, walking up the brick sidewalk toward the porch.
Avery scrambled to their feet. Their dark hair was short, close-cropped to their head, and they were wearing a plain blue button-down shirt, sleeves casually rolled up, and faded jeans with dirt on the knees. But their eyes were lined with black and their ears held gold stud earrings.
“Checking in?” the innkeeper tried again. They headed to catch up with Noah. “Did you have a reservation?”
Noah swung around, looking startled. “Sorry, what?”
Dillon narrowed his eyes. Sometimes it seemed like Noah didn’t hear anyone, not just the ghosts. “Do you think Noah has a hearing problem?”
“Maybe it’s a listening problem,” Rose murmured. They exchanged glances.
Nadira might be convinced that Noah couldn’t hear them, but Dillon wasn’t so sure. And it wasn’t just because of his grandfather’s unexpected words.
Dillon had spent long enough trapped in his car, his words always lost on the people who drove it, to know that living people couldn’t hear ghosts. He didn’t expect anything he said to reach their ears. But something about Noah — the way he sometimes flinched when they got too loud, the way he stared fixedly into space when they talked about him, the way his jaw clenched when Sophia started crying — was different.
Akira was pretty good at ignoring ghosts. Maybe Noah had had to learn the same skill.
“How did you get him here?” Rose murmured to Dillon. “You said it took a while.”
“I said he would listen if we talked to him when he was sleeping.” Misam squeezed between them.
“We took turns chanting at him all night long. For days,” Dillon said. If Noah was ignoring them, he wasn’t just pretty good at it, he was extremely good at it.
“Weeks,” Sophia added, pausing next to them.
“Last night it finally worked,” Dillon said.
“We were all so happy.” Misam bounced.
“Road trip.” Sophia rolled her eyes and circled a finger in the air. “Woo-hoo.”
“Interesting.” Rose tapped a finger against her lips, but let it drop as Avery approached Noah, hand outstretched.
Joe frowned. “Is that a guy?”
“No.” Nadira absently brushed a finger against the edge of her eyelashes as if testing that her own dark eyeliner were intact. “That is a woman, of course.” But she sounded doubtful.
Saying something incomprehensible, the man in the apron, Chaupi, shoved his way through the other ghosts as if they were insubstantial. The ghosts ignored him.
“Avery doesn’t believe in the gender binary,” Dillon told the others. “They think it’s limiting.”
“They’re a they,” Rose added helpfully. “But they don’t get mad if you get it wrong.”
Chaupi was gesticulating, pointing at Avery, speaking volubly but still unintelligibly to the other ghosts.
“What’s he on about?” Dillon asked Joe, thumb indicating Chaupi.
Joe shrugged. “No idea.” He made as if to clap Chaupi on the shoulder, but his hand passed through the other ghost. “If a guy wants to wear make-up, it’s his business, dude.”
“Or if a girl wants short hair and blue jeans,” Sophia corrected him pointedly, tugging at her own feathery locks.
“Right, yeah, whatever,” Joe said agreeably.
“They’re not a girl or a guy. They’re just Avery,” Rose said.
Chaupi said something else, speaking more slowly.
“Hey, that’s Spanish,” Dillon said with interest as he recognized the language. He hadn’t interacted much with Chaupi. The older ghost was one of those with little interest in the others, although not nearly as faded as some of them.
“Can you understand him?” Nadira asked.
“Um, no.” Dillon had only finished his first year of Spanish in school and it hadn’t been his best subject. He could maybe ask the time of day and make change if he concentrated.
Chaupi tried again, his voice louder. Dillon spread his hands and shrugged to indicate his lack of understanding.
Meanwhile, Avery was introducing themself to Noah. They waved a careless hand in the air, then seemed to notice the dirt on it. “Ah, excuse me.” They rubbed it roughly along their denim-clad leg and extended it to Noah who took it, looking wary, before following the welcoming Avery down the path and up the porch to the door.
With a sigh, Chaupi turned away, looking dejected. For a moment, Dillon wondered if he should try harder, tell Chaupi to talk slower, something, but Misam was bounding up the steps after Noah, Nadira hurrying after him, so Dillon abandoned the thought. They’d figure out what Chaupi wanted later.
6
Grace
Grace picked up the ringing telephone, pressing the button to connect the line. “General Directions,” she said in her warmest, silkiest voice. “How may I direct your call?”
Her sister, Natalya, walked in the front door of General Directions just in time to hear her. She paused at the reception desk, shaking her head. When Grace hung up, Nat said, “Practicing your phone sex voice?”
“Why not?” Grace answered, amused. “It’s fun. Brightens everyone’s day.”
“Don’t you have better things to do?”
Grace clasped a hand over her heart, widening her eyes. “Better things to do than be the outward-facing front of General Directions, ensuring that our public interactions are smooth and polished—”
“Stop, stop.” Natalya put a hand up in protest. “That PR guy really got to you, didn’t he?”
Grace wrinkled her nose. “He was a sleaze. We don’t need publicity.”
“I don’t think that was really what he was selling.” Natalya perched on the edge of the desk. “We do need to deal with the SEC, like it or not.”
“Not,” Grace muttered. “Can’t we just buy a senator or two?”
“Or ten or fifteen? No, and you probably shouldn’t be saying that out loud.”
“It’s not a crime to be psychic. If the SEC doesn’t like it, they should pass a law.” Grace leaned back in the comfortable office chair. “It’s not as if Max is a hit-and-run day trader, going for the easy scores. We invest in the companies whose stock we purchase. Our profits are based on products, not short-term gains.”
“You don’t need to argue with me, love.” Natalya’s smile was sympathetic.
Grace sighed. “I know. It’s an informal inquiry. Chances are it will turn into nothing. I’m just annoyed that I have to waste my time with the whole thing.”
“So says the CEO who’s answering the phones at reception.”
Grace laughed. “SEC paperwork is duller than dull. Sitting at the front desk? One never knows what adventures might lie in store.”
“About that…” Natalya frowned. She glanced toward the door, opened her mouth, then closed it again, before sliding off the desk. Standing next to it, she said, “I believe I’ll leave you to it.”
“Hey, wait.” Grace half-rose out of the chair but Nat kept moving, waggling her fingers at her, and heading through the door that led to the elevators. Grace sank down again.
Did Nat know something? Her sister could see the future, but she avoided sharing what she knew. Grace had long ago given up on asking her questions, but that frown… what had it meant?
Grace had sent Olivia, the usual receptionist, off to inventory their office supplies. Technically, it wasn’t a job that needed to be done — Grace knew they were stocked with all the basics.
But it couldn’t hurt to be sure.
And Grace was curious. Would Noah Blake use the map she’d given him?
She should look busy, she decided. It would be more professional. She poised her hands over the computer keyboard. Maybe she should write a memo.
All personnel: Do not send mysterious strangers to lurk at Maggie’s. It destroys your boss’s productivity.
Ha. ,
But she had a better idea. Quickly, before she could overthink her decision, she sent a brief email to the entire Special Affairs division, asking if anyone knew why a guy named Noah Blake was looking for General Directions.
She wasn’t going to mention Akira’s name. She didn’t know whether Zane or Akira were checking email on their honeymoon — she hoped not — but she didn’t want to worry them. And she wasn’t going to interrupt their honeymoon for anything less than a major disaster. They needed some quiet time together after the challenges of the last few months, and before the baby arrived to take away their quiet time for the next several years.
She turned away from the keyboard. If only the phone would ring again. She’d feel stupid pretending to talk to someone but a real call, that would be okay. And she could rock the phone sex voice, let Mr. Not-so-charming see what he’d missed by blowing her off earlier. She stared at the phone, willing it to ring.
It didn’t.
She sighed.
10:30.
Could his car have broken down on the drive to the office? That seemed unlikely. So maybe he wasn’t coming. Grace picked up a pencil and tapped it against the desk, wondering how long she should give him. Maybe she should give up and get back to her own desk. Do some of her own work. Damn it, she was usually a lot more decisive than this.
And what was the big deal? Fine, hot guy in Maggie’s didn’t happen every day, but Grace never had any trouble meeting men. Keeping them, that was another story. But this wasn’t that, anyway. This was just a guy with a business card that might mean nothing at all.
“I’m finished.” Olivia’s cheerful voice interrupted her reverie. The receptionist waved the tablet Grace had given her earlier in the day. “Office supplies inventoried. I’d say we’ve got enough post-its to make it through the apocalypse.”
“Yeah, the zombie kind.” Grace stood and took the offered tablet with a sigh.
“Are post-its useful against zombies?”
“Apparently they’ll come in handy for creating watch schedules after we lose power and are holed up in here against the onslaught.” Grace quickly skimmed the list Olivia had tabulated. It seemed fine, nothing missing, which meant she either needed to find the receptionist another task to keep her busy or quit waiting for Noah Blake to arrive.
“Is that likely?” Olivia said, uncertain.
Grace smiled at her, moving out from behind the desk so that Olivia could take her place. “No, but it explains why Zane doesn’t get to do inventory anymore.”
“Gotcha.” Olivia’s return smile was relieved. “Does that explain the duct tape, too?”
“Apparently there’s no such thing as too much duct tape,” Grace agreed. She gazed at the door for a moment, mouth twisting. All right, time to give up on the mysterious Mr. Blake.
Turning to Olivia, she said, “We might get a visitor later, a guy named Noah Blake. He’ll probably ask for Akira when he arrives, but send him in to me.”
“Will do,” Olivia said.
As Grace headed down the hallway to her office, her phone rang. She checked the display. Lucas. She frowned. He and Sylvie were on the west coast, doing a job with the FBI in Seattle, so it was early for him to call. She answered the phone, saying, “Good morning.”
He didn’t bother with the polite response. “What does he look like?”
Grace’s brows rose. Was Lucas responding to her email? Already?
“Who?” she asked, just to be sure.
“Noah Blake. Did you see him or did he call? Did Dillon text you?” Lucas’s voice held an entirely unexpected urgency.
“Dillon? Isn’t he with you?” Grace opened the door to her office and crossed to her desk. She reached down and slid a finger behind the strap of her sandal so she could kick it off.
“Not anymore,” Lucas said.
Grace paused, one shoe on, one shoe off. “Not anymore? Since when?”
“We lost him at the AlecCorp hearing.”
“The AlecCorp hearing?” Grace’s tone sharpened. “That was weeks ago.”
“You think I don’t know that?”
“How do you lose a ghost?” She sat down abruptly, disregarding her shoes.
“Right. Because it’s so easy to keep track of an invisible teenager.”
Despite her concern, Grace couldn’t resist a snort of laughter at her brother’s disgruntled tone.
“This guy you were asking about, Noah Blake. Did you see him?” Lucas continued. “What does he look like?”
“I did, yeah. I ran into him at Maggie’s. He had a business card, one of the generics, and was asking about GD.” Grace paused. How did she want to describe Noah to her brother? “Dark hair, dark eyes. Ah… a nice smile.” Nice wasn’t really the word for it. But sexy as hell, meltingly attractive didn’t seem like the right description to give to her big brother. “Have you met him?”
“No, I wasn’t there. Sylvie —”
Grace could hear Sylvie’s voice in the background, asking a question. Lucas must have put his hand over the phone, because his voice was muffled as he answered her.
Grace waited.
Lucas came back. “Sylvie wants to know if he was drop-dead beautiful.”
Grace bit back her laugh. Lucas sounded even more disgruntled than he had before. “Yep, that’s him.”
“Good. Noah Blake, that’s got to be a pretty common name. It’s probably too late, he’s probably gone, but get back to Maggie’s. See if he paid with a credit card. Maybe Emma will remember him.”
Her brother was delivering orders with a snap-to-it urgency that made Grace’s hackles rise. She leaned back in her chair, frowning, amusement gone. “I have a busy day ahead of me, Lucas. Why don’t you tell me what this is about first?”
“I’ll get someone else then. Who’s in town? Is Dave available?”
“Or,” Grace said, pretending a patience she didn’t feel, “you could tell me what’s going on.” She hated when Lucas got all authoritarian and bossy on her. Sometimes he acted like she was still the littlest kid, the baby of the family, instead of a competent — some might even say highly competent — adult. “What does Noah Blake have to do with Dillon?”
“Good question.” Lucas sounded grim. “He’s haunted. Dillon said he was collecting ghosts.”
“Collecting them?” The picture that sprang to Grace’s mind of a faded basement lined with dusty shelves and spirits trapped in bottles, silently screaming to be set free, had to have come from some old horror movie. The image that followed, of ghosts like Dresden porcelain shepherdesses lined up on white doilies, was hardly more comforting. “What does that mean?”
“Dillon described it as a magnetic attraction, like ghosts were drawn to him.”
“Like a ghostly undertow or something? The spiritual equivalent of a rip current?” Grace had never heard of such a thing. And she knew quite a lot about ghosts.
Back when Akira first confirmed that their house was haunted, Grace had hired a researcher to investigate every fact or rumor ever known about ghosts. She’d read hundreds of pages of material covering ghosts through history, from folklore and tradition to modern sightings and technological developments. She couldn’t say she’d memorized it all, but she would have remembered reading about a ghostly vacuum cleaner.
“You now know as much as I do.”
Grace swiveled in her tall-backed office chair to stare out the window behind her. She’d picked her office for the view. It was on the ground floor in a back corner, looking out on the forest surrounding the General Directions grounds. She loved the serenity of the green and gray and
brown, the sense of peaceful timelessness the sight evoked. When her job got stressful — which it did — it reminded her that a world existed beyond her walls and that it would continue on regardless of the decisions she made.
Plus, she liked the squirrels. Her brothers called them rats with tails, but Grace loved their energy and playfulness. Unfortunately, the squirrel show wasn’t playing in the middle of the mid-winter morning.
“Has Dillon been collected?”
Lucas sighed. “Maybe. He wanted to help the other ghosts. He thought he could get away if he tried, but…” Lucas paused and his voice was rougher when he continued, “Since then, all we know is that he thinks he’s fine and doesn’t want us to worry.”
“If you’re worried about Dillon, why didn’t you say something? You should have told us.”
“Told Akira?” Lucas replied.
Grace’s mouth twisted. Akira’s pregnancy, so smooth for the first few months, had taken an unexpected turn after the holidays when she developed late-onset morning sickness. Her doctor said it was stress, nothing to fret about, but that she needed to relax and stop worrying.
As far as Grace could tell, not worrying was not in Akira’s nature. But telling her that Dillon might be in trouble right before her wedding would certainly have been more stressful than not.
“Well, maybe not,” Grace conceded. “But what did you say to her? She must have noticed that Dillon wasn’t with you.”
“We said he’d met some other ghosts and was spending some time with them, planning to be home soon. Sylvie showed her his last message and told her he must have lost track of time. She didn’t seem totally convinced, but she let it go.”
“You should have told me, then,” Grace said.
“Nat was in the hospital. Akira was throwing up all the time. You were buying houses and adopting kids and arranging weddings. Not to mention running the company, signing paychecks and sending out those little scheduling memos of yours. You had plenty to do. And enough to worry about.”
Grace’s brows rose. It was unlike her brother to have noticed that. Her family tended to assume their plans would take care of themselves. They never did, but usually Grace handled the pesky details so unobtrusively that they might as well have.