The Trouble with Ghosts (Here Witchy Witchy Book 3)

by A. L. Kessler

  He bowed his head. “Be cautious, trust no one.” He disappeared.

  I closed my eyes and counted to ten to regain my control. If he knew that attack was for me, then he had to have been part of it, or he just knew more than anyone else about the attack. I growled and snatched the file up from the table.

  I used the short walk to the supervisor’s desk to find my calm. I handed it to him. “I just added a reference.” He nodded and put it in the inbox. I realized that the case was now out of our hands, and I was depending on someone else to finish it out. It wasn’t the first time, but there was just something about this case that didn’t sit right. I pushed off the paranoia while walking out the door. I couldn’t close all the cases single handedly, sometimes I needed help. This was getting that help.

  Forcing myself forward and onto my next task, I reminded myself not to look back and that the only way things were solved was by moving forward.

  My phone rang the moment I stepped out of the office. I didn’t bother looking at the name when I answered it. “Agent Collins.” I sounded tired even to myself.

  “Hey Abby,” Jason’s voice was soft. “I have Nick’s body here. I thought maybe you’d want to come say goodbye before I have to transport it to his family.”

  A lump formed in my throat. I wasn’t ready for this, but there was no promise I was going to get invited to the funeral, and I didn’t want to miss out on saying goodbye to my partner.

  “Yeah, thank you. I’ll be down there in a few minutes.” I walked towards the stairs. “I’m just about done here at the office.”

  “Sure thing. I’ll see you in a bit.”

  He disconnected. I shoved my phone into my pocket before taking a few deep breaths to calm the tears that were trying to spill out. The lump in my throat didn’t go away and swallowing air felt more like drowning. I focused on moving towards the stairs to get to the parking lot.

  “You look a bit down, Abby.” A female voice I vaguely knew had me looking up.

  The face was the same, but the hair was different, a wig, like the receptionist had worn. But she was the female officer and the receptionist, and I bet the moment I scrolled back my security footage, it’d be the same face that ruined my house.

  I met her gaze and smiled. I didn’t know how evil the smile was, but she had to have seen something in it because she turned and ran.

  I harnessed all my anger, all my grief, and all my frustration into my magic. I threw my hand out and a red and orange swirling circle appeared around her. An opaque barrier formed around her, flames dancing in the boundaries of the circle. I reeled in my emotions so I didn’t hurt her, but I wanted to. I wanted to use my magic to harm her, cause her all the pain that she’d put me through the last week.

  “Where do you think you’re going?” I growled and walked up to my circle.

  She gave me wide eyes as she paled. “You’re a PIB agent, you can’t hurt me.”

  Oh, how wrong she was. No one would fault me for it. She’d killed agents. She had killed my partner. I smiled again and this time I knew it was evil. It was the part of me that I knew Levi was worried about, the one he thought Oliver had brought out. “You think you’re safe? There are at least twenty PIB agents in this building that would love to see you dead for what you did.”

  “You have no proof that it was me.”

  “I have you at two different scenes, at least, associated with magical crimes.” I held my hand out and cupped my fingers. The circle closed in a bit smaller around her and she let out a little squeal. “The rune you used to blow up the PIB building matches the language used at the police station and my house. So that’s the death of six PIB agents, impeding an investigation, impersonating a police officer and attempted murder of another PIB agent. Your application reference matches up to my case. There is no escape for you.” I concentrated and pulled the fire out of the circle. It dissipated into the air before I let out a shrill whistle and several people stuck their heads out of their offices.

  “Someone want to call Boss Man and tell him that we have the suspect in custody?” I called over my shoulder. I would do it but I didn’t want to mess with my concentration or take my eyes off her. Another agent I recognized stepped up to the circle and nodded to me. I let it down and they grabbed and cuffed the suspect.

  I started walking past them, determined to get down to my car and to the morgue to say goodbye to Nick.

  “Collins, don’t you want to stick around? Get some praise?” Someone called out.

  “I just closed two cases with body counts higher than ten. I’ll get enough praise in the morning.” Though only the skeleton case was actually closed with suspects behind bars, while the corpse case still had a rampant vampire, but that’s not what was looked at when it came to ‘good jobs’ and ‘nice goings’. I waved as I passed the crowd.

  I had other things to deal with.

  I walked into the morgue and checked in with the receptionist. She didn’t say a word to me as I checked in and I wondered if she knew why I was here. Jason probably gave her a heads up, because that’s the way he worked. I walked down to his normal office and knocked.

  The door cracked open. “Abby.” He sounded slightly relieved. The door opened all the way and he greeted me with wide eyes and a sweat stained face.

  “You okay?” I asked, stepping in. There was only one table in the room this time and a sheet was draped over the body. My breath caught in my throat. Nick.

  Jason nodded. “Yes, I think, well…there’s something strange going on.”

  “Strange how?” I took a step towards the table and he put a hand on my wrist.

  “So your Boss Man requested no autopsies on the victims because we know what killed them.”

  I nodded. “The blast did.” I looked at his fingers, tight around my wrist.

  “Exactly. So I’ve had just a bunch of bodies here. Nick’s included.” He drew in a shaky breath. “I went to pull his body out of the freezer.”

  Of course the body was in the freezer, there was no other real way to preserve it until it got to the funeral home and in the hands of a mortician. “Get to the point.” I couldn’t hide the irritation in my voice.

  “Someone knocked on the door and I left the drawer cracked to answer it. Abby, when I went back the body was gone.”

  Gone was the grief and anger in a rapid fire of confusion and panic. “How many entrances and exits are in that room?”

  “One.”

  That told me it had to be a creature that was able to transport that stole Nick’s body, but why would they do that? “Surveillance?”

  “Cut off.” He pressed his lips together. “I don’t know what else to tell you. He was there one moment and gone the next.”

  Surveillance being cut off told me that someone had planned this. “How long has surveillance been cut off?”

  “I have no idea. Abby, I’ve never lost a body before.” Jason’s voice raised a pitch. “How does an ME lose a body?”

  That was a very good question. “They don’t, normally.” I was trying to think through the cloud of emotions in my head. Nick’s body was gone, there were no leads, and no suspects to go off of. I had nothing to say goodbye to or send to the family. “What are you going to tell the family?”

  “It was suggested that we see if he was to be buried or cremated. Hope he wanted to be cremated and send the ashes home with some claim of CDC wanted us to do it here because of the circumstances of his death.”

  It might work. I didn’t know Nick’s mother very well to know if she’d buy it or not. “Lie to the deceased family? And if the body shows up?”

  “I have no idea. I don’t like the idea, but my higher ups are pushing for it right now.” He leaned against the wall. “What do I do?”

  “You listen to them and leave the rest to PIB.” I sighed. “Thanks for calling me down here. I would have liked to say goodbye, but it seems that maybe it’s not the right time.”

  Jason pushed off the wall and put a hand on
my shoulder. “I’m sorry for your loss.”

  “Thank you. Take care.” I slipped away from his hand and walked out of the morgue. What the hell was going on? Like my life couldn’t get any more complicated. I walked down the hall and dropped my visitor’s badge off at the desk before stepping into the night.

  A gold hue barely peeked over the mountain, casting oranges and pinks over the clouds as the last remaining daylight dropped away. I stood there staring at the sunset, trying to decide what to do now. My cases were closed, but they left me feeling empty. My partner’s body was missing. Levi had lost his damn mind by keeping secrets from me that could get me killed.

  I needed to go home. That was the only step that was left. I moved forward and someone knocked shoulders with me.

  “Sorry.” I grunted out, rolling my shoulder. I looked up at who I had collided with and saw a glimpse of a face I knew all too well. One that I had been prepared to mourn. “Nick.”

  He didn’t stop. He didn’t look back. Didn’t hesitate. He simply faded into the last bit of daylight.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  I walked into the house and leaned my head against the door. What the hell was that about? If Nick was a ghost, I doubted he would haunt downtown. No, if anything he’d haunt the PIB building. But he had faded into the night like an apparition of some sort. Other than being emotional and sleep deprived, I had no other answers. A meow brought my head away from the door. “Are you hungry?”

  Osiris meowed at me again. I dropped my bag by the door and he rushed to the kitchen. I followed him and found my big book of answers lying on the counter. I had left it in the basement when I was working on my parents’ case. A folded note lay on the top of it. My heart pounded against my chest as I realized that someone had been in my house without my permission.

  My hand went to the butt of the gun at my side. I wasn’t going to let this scare me away. This was my place, my home. I’d dealt with home invasions before. I glanced at Osiris. “Is it safe?”

  He rubbed against the book, pushing it towards me and I took it as a yes. I unfolded a note. “Beware the lies.”

  I didn’t know the handwriting. I glanced at Osiris as he pawed at the book. I opened it to find a picture of Levi holding a baby. It was a picture I’d seen often in his house, and there had been a copy in my father’s library. It was me with him. There was nothing shocking about the picture because my parents had been close to him, but I flipped it over and scrawled in almost childlike handwriting was the word ‘lies’. I put it back in the book and shut it slowly. Someone was playing a trick on me, that was it.

  I fed Osiris, picked up the book, and headed down the stairs. All my notes had been left where I placed them. No one had added anything to my writing. I sat down in front of it and pulled more notecards out to put down what I had learned about Levi and Ira. I sat there among familiarity that was all leading down a dark path and I couldn’t care less. I wanted answers.

  The End

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  About the Author

  A.L. Kessler is the author of the best-selling series Here Witchy Witchy. She resides in Colorado with her family and pets. Her addiction to coffee and chocolate fuels her creativity to bring her readers wonderful stories

  Also by A.L. Kessler

  In the Light of the Moon (DWC #1) (also on audiobook)

  Dance in the Moonlight (DWC #2) (also on audiobook)

  On Torn Wings (DWC #3)

  Past Demons (DWC#4)

  Midnight Symphony (also on audiobook)

  Of Brass and Magic

  DWC Short Story Collection #1

  DWC Box Set #1

  The Edge of Darkness (DWC #5)

  No More Black Magic (HWW #1) (also on audiobook)

  Deathly Magic (HWW #2) (also on audiobook)

  Demon Days (A Case Files of Abigail Collins, available in A Weird Thing Happened at the Book Fest)

  His Name is Rodger (A Case Files of Abigail Collins Short Story, in Domesticated Raptors Anthology)

  Coming Soon

  Death on the Horizon (Children of the Apocalypse Book 2) March 27th, 2017

  Connect with me Online

  Website: http://www.amylkessler.com

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  Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6548820.A_L_Kessler

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  If you enjoyed this, please check out Sacrifice by Mia Bishop

  In the New Mexico desert evil is stirring. A lost man must protect everything he holds dear from the oncoming storm and a mysterious woman is the key.

  A decade after being forced out of the priesthood, Nico Lynch spends his days drinking himself into an early grave and his nights hunting demons. His world is turned upside down when he is asked to help a local Striga Coven.

  Abby shouldn’t have survived, but she did and that's turning out to be one hell of a problem for Nico. Every moment he spends with Abby challenges him to see the world differently.

  Mysterious forces have brought them together, pitting them against a demon army. Nico will either be the savior of mankind or the catalyst of the apocalypse and Abby’s fate rests in his hands.

  http://amzn.to/2a5mA7l