His head shook.
I pointed a finger against the starchiness of his shirt. “You make it sound as if you don’t trust me.”
His eyebrow raised. Only that one, located on the same side of his face as his dimple. God, I was a sucker for that dimple. Hadn’t even realized it until meeting Wilcox. Not that now was the time to be concerned over a dent in a human cheek. A sexy dent. A smooth cheek… one that was sometimes curved upward by a beguiling smile.
“Kiara?”
“Huh?” I rolled my neck back to stare up at him.
“Tonight?”
“No idea,” I said. “We wing it. Besides, shouldn’t you be the one plotting this evening’s agenda?”
“Why me?”
“It’s your job to find the killer you say is lurking out there and save women’s lives.”
“It’s my day off.”
“You don’t want to search for whomever it is that’s murdering anyone he thinks might be me?”
“Yes, of course, I do,” he said. “When I’m working, but today I’m not working.”
“You’re a bit callous, you know?”
The single brow quirked again. “So you’re planning to dance tonight and—”
“Drink and make friends with those who could be next on a reaper’s list. The regular kind of reaper,” I said. The ones whose first names began with Grim and sometimes escorted humans onto their final destination when their earthly clock chimed done. Not like me. I chased the deceased… the damned already marked for Hell but still lurking about amongst cooler weather. Except for tonight. Tonight, a different priority took precedence. I tugged at Wilcox’s arm while pushing the door open. “Do you think it’ll be cash bar or free alcohol?”
“Cash, no doubt.”
Well, that was going to put a damper on my envisioned night of rubbing shoulders with the elite while not dressed up as the receptionist. At least with Wilcox’s last proclamation, we were moving. Finally. My carpet had released its firm clench. Probably in sympathy for the fact that I’d have to request a no-iced Sprite in a short glass in order to blend in with the elegant women gripping their expensive cocktails with dainty fingers. Hopefully, a soda minus the vodka was an option that wouldn’t cause Checking Account to plot my demise. Although at the current rate, it’d have to get in line for my murder.
“Good night, Mrs. Tidwell,” I called out as we passed her door. “I’ll be out late tonight. Don’t wait up.”
A thump sounded from the other side.
Wilcox glanced over his shoulder. “Should we check on her? Make certain she didn’t fall?”
“The sound was her face-planting into the peephole,” I said, tugging him toward the stairwell. “She’ll be fine.”
“Are you certain?”
“Positive.”
Wilcox shrugged. Thankful was I that the man was out of arguments.
For once.
At the age of six, I attended my first black-tie dinner with my friend, Addie. Dressed in my best pink and red Strawberry Shortcake nightgown, and Addie in her favorite dark plaid cotton dress, we crept past the sleeping babysitter sprawled across the sofa in our hotel suite, down ten floors via the elevator, across the lobby, out the front entrance, through the courtyard, and to the science museum next door where the event was being held.
Inside, the room was round, the lights lowered to dim, and white clothed tables were covered in both flowers and china while elegantly dressed people milled around, talking and listening to the string quartet set up near the draped ticketing booth.
It was the dinosaur-shaped ice sculpture that quickly became my downfall. Truth be told, it was Addie’s fault. She had been the one to spot it first, knowing full well that I was plotting a way to convince my brother dinosaurs were real, and a Tyrannosaurus Rex was going to eat him as punishment for my Barbie ending up inside the dishwasher.
Ice. Never before had I thought about something so cold when scheming how to life-sized a plastic toy. Test runs would be required to see if my water colors would work on the sculpture, and I was wise enough, despite my young age, to realize a lot of green and brown paints would be mandatory. Asking my parents to purchase more colors for me was out of the question, but perhaps bartering off my brother’s toys to my kindergarten class in exchange for the other kids’ watercolor sets wasn’t.
A large woman draped in a blinding teal dress with ruffles swirling to her neck, making her pudgy face poke up from the top as if it were being squeezed through a wide blue tube, was the next person to be blamed for the incident, as my mother would later refer to it.
Just because I was short didn’t mean I was invisible. Addie, having been dead for almost a full century, had the privilege of that particular superpower, not me. It kept her out of the trouble I somehow always found myself in. Yet as I stood next to the cold ice sculpture, trying to devise how I could smuggle it home in one piece without my brother becoming the wiser, I suddenly became up-close and personal with my planned contraband. As in, my face got firsthand knowledge of how cold ice can be. And despite the dinosaur being large, and me being rather small, one hard shove had been all it’d taken to send the ice sculpture teetering on its pedestal before toppling onto the floor, shattering into thousands of pieces.
The blue-dressed cause of it all hadn’t noticed. Despite the abrupt stop of music, and the hushed voices around the room, there was no glance back as the woman scurried on past the chunks of ice her heeled feet expertly stepped over. Ms. Ruffles was probably going after the shrimp tray set out for the cocktail hour prior to the sit-down dinner. It wasn’t my fault I’d stood in her way. Yet as three dreadful words broke the silence inside the room, I grew very concerned others wouldn’t see it that way.
“Kiara Abigail Blake.”
My mother had unfairly placed the blame on me that night, and it had been the last fancy event I’d attended. Until now. And tonight… I was feeling rather excited. Pretty. Elegant. My black cocktail dress was a drastic improvement over Strawberry Shortcake. A hot guy wearing a dark tuxedo hugging his drool-worthy body clung to my arm. The fact that Wilcox’s grip was so tight due to his unfounded worry that I was up to no good was irrelevant. There were no ghosts at this event… except for the two standing off in the corner ogling a group of men drinking glasses of Scotch.
No, no, no. My back turned toward them at the sight. Eyes hadn’t seen a thing. Nope. There were no dead people invading… wait. Where the hell had Miss Prim gotten that dress?
Whipping my head back around, I studied the stunning gown that screamed one word: Prada.
“What?” Wilcox asked. “Do you see something?”
“Only trouble.”
His eyebrow quirked. Yeah, no longer was there anything sexy about that particular move. I now associated his eyebrows with irritation. No good thoughts were inside the man’s head whenever he looked at me that way—except for that one time. But this wasn’t that time. The blush I felt creeping up the back of my neck needed to be informed of the fact, damn it.
“Not me,” I said, pulling away from him. “Two ghosts I happen to know are standing off in the corner.”
“You’re on a friendly basis with the dead?”
“Well, I can’t send them all to Hell, now can I?”
“There’s a bar over there,” Wilcox said. “What would you like? I think this night calls for a drink.”
The over there was located near Miss Prim and Margaret.
“You can’t see the ghosts,” I said. “I’m the one who has to deal with whatever they’re up to tonight.”
“Yes, but I see you.”
My eyes narrowed. The detective wasn’t so intelligent after all. That comment would have never been uttered otherwise. Leaning forward, I lowered my voice. “One of the two ghosts standing near the bar makes a daily trip to the police station with the sole purpose of staring at your butt. In fact, she gave you a friendly pinch the day we first met, remember?”
His eyes widened. My lips smile
d. He pivoted and took off toward a portable drink station set up in the opposite direction. With mood vastly improved, I scanned the scene, my gaze only pausing on women appearing to be around my age. The majority of people in attendance didn’t have that not-long-out-of-college look, which wasn’t surprising. Events such as this were for those with money wanting to give to the ones in need. Most women my age were still on the first leg of their careers, which didn’t usually offer a lot of extra cash for handouts. Yet I hadn’t previously taken into consideration the young women who wished to volunteer. Five twenty-something looking females caught my eye, and I wondered which of them was about to become my new bestie since Hadley had temporarily vacated the slot. Because Lacey sure as hell was never getting the Best Friend title.
“It’s about time you arrived,” the last voice on Earth I wanted to hear at the moment said. “Margaret got dumped.”
“We’re not talking.” Clearing my throat, I smiled at a passing couple. “Pretend I’m not here. You don’t see me.”
“Can you believe it?” Miss Prim continued, as if my words had never been spoken. “She gave him seventy years of her death, and he dumped her for some floozy that overdosed back in the sixties. Why do men always go for the younger women?”
“Seventy years?” I asked. “I had the impression she dated around a lot.”
“Well, seven days seems like seventy years when you’re dead,” Miss Prim said. “You’ll have to trust me on this one.”
“Just sign her up for your Off Men club and…” Holy shit.
“What?”
“Desiree.”
“What about her?”
What about her? What about her? It was the dang ghost’s fault that Maude’s second most important client was at Fated Match right at that very moment waiting for an Off Men seminar led by me to begin. Pulling out my cell phone, my fingers flew across the keyboard. Seconds later a text reply chimed.
“My time is wasted,” Miss Prim read over my shoulder. “What does that mean?”
My teeth gritted together so tightly pain was felt. “It means I’m left cleaning up one of your screw-ups.”
“Oh, well. Never mind about that then. We need to help Margaret.”
“Help her do what? Why are you…” My gaze fell on the activity inside the room. “Why have so many ghosts shown up?”
“It’s the Semi-Annual Ghostly Ball. We need to find a new man for Margaret.”
“No, this isn’t some ghost ball. This is a charity event the Irish Cultural Association is hosting.”
“Yes, for us. The Animal Welfare Society of North America hosts one each spring. This one’s in the fall.”
“I really don’t think it works that way,” I said. “They’re here to raise money for charitable causes, not give a party to dead people they can’t even see.”
“What’s going on?” Margaret asked, casually approaching us.
“Kiara decided to join our ball this year.” Miss Prim faced me. “Why exactly did you choose to… oh, and you brought a date!”
I turned and spotted Wilcox walking back with two drinks in hand.
“It’s very insensitive of you to bring a man when Margaret’s so heartbroken,” Miss Prim whispered to me before facing the heartbroken ghost. “Now we can check out how Detective Wilcox’s butt looks in a tuxedo. Perhaps you’ll like it better if it’s not covered in regular slacks.”
“Have you made any progress?” Wilcox asked, handing me a glass.
“Thank you.” I accepted the wine, darting his question. “How did you know I prefer reds over white?”
“You have a magnet on your fridge door that says PMS (noun): Pinot, Merlot, and Shit, I’m out of Cabernet. I took a chance and went with the Cabernet, by the way.”
“He’s seen your refrigerator?” Miss Prim screeched.
“I’ve always fancied a sip of Chardonnay, whenever I could find one at a juice joint, that was,” Margaret mused.
Margaret had dealt with that annoying period of history called Prohibition. From what I understood of it, the more the government regulated alcohol, the drunker America became. One of these days I needed to hit up the ghost for cheap drinking tips. Checking Account would probably be grateful if I took up bootlegging.
Lifting my wine glass to my lips, I managed to knock shut the gaping mouth of the shell-shocked-over-a-refrigerator ghost with my elbow—the same Prada wearing dead woman whose dress I’d yet to question. Like, was it stolen? Because the probability of that was high. Then I choked as I caught sight of the latest arrivals.
“Kiara?” Wilcox gave me a whack on the back. “Are you okay?”
“Sword,” I sputtered. “Need my sword.”
“You can’t send a ghost to Hell inside a room full of people.”
“I have less than forty-eight hours to put that particular ghost into flames, and my stupid sword’s at home.”
“Why has another ghost shown up here?”
“Let’s put it this way, it’s about fifty-fifty in human and ghost attendance ratio.”
“Great.” Wilcox took a sip of his drink.
“Uh-oh,” Margaret said. “This joint’s about to get rowdy.”
It appeared the spirit was looking at my mark when uttering those words, but I wasn’t about to question her and her concerns in front of Wilcox. Except her concern was displayed in the form of a sly smile. And damn, despite the detective knowing I communicated with dead people, I didn’t want to appear like a nut in front of him when speaking to a person he could not see.
Curiosity wasn’t interested in appearances, however, and it became demanding in its want of answers. Instead, I held strong and redirected the conversation back to the entire reason I stood inside a ballroom surrounded by dozens of ghosts. Or, rather, Irish people. Hopefully some Irish people at least. “I’m going to mingle. You stand here looking like a charming boyfriend so I can point you out while fishing for these women’s relationship statuses.”
Wilcox set down his now empty glass onto a tray of a passing server. “Why?”
“Because Anna’s date the night of her death might be the demon we’re searching for.”
“Date?”
Aw, crap. I’d forgotten Roomie hadn’t been so forthcoming with the information when speaking to the police. But perhaps dating was this evil guy’s way to get close to the victims… And if that was the case, Wilcox’s very-married sister could be removed from my possible next victim list. The thought gave me hope. “Tomorrow we need to discuss all of the dead women and what they have in common.”
“Andrew and I have already done that.”
“With me. Discussions need to be held with me.”
“How did you know Anna was on a date the night she died?”
“Uh, we can discuss that later.”
“Tomorrow?”
“Later.”
My departure was on the side of hasty, and glancing back, I caught sight of one disapproving scowl. Ironically, it wasn’t from the easily irritated cop who had every reason to be envisioning his hands wrapped tight around my neck at that very moment.
Dang, I was going to get an earful later from the straight-laced ghost who didn’t think it wise to peeve-off hot guys unless their name was HG. The hypocrite. Hopefully, her gown proved to be stolen goods so I could shut her self-righteous mouth up before she got going whenever the expected lecture came.
“Hi.” I held out my hand to a petite brunette standing near the bar. “I’m Kiara Blake.”
“Nicole Martin.” She shook.
“Pleasure to meet you. Nice event.”
She shrugged. “It’s okay. I’m here because of the special entertainment, you know? It’s been dull so far.”
Special entertainment? “So they do something significant each year?”
“That’s what I’ve heard. It’s my first year to attend. My time better not be wasted.”
Her last comment prompted the insides of my stomach to feel squeamish as they echoed words I’d rece
ntly seen written. Desiree. My work was going to be cut out for me when smoothing over this forgot-all-about-you situation with Maude’s number two. Tomorrow. There would be plenty of time the next day to figure out how to keep Ms. Model from canceling her contract with the boss who made Checking Account happy.
Turning back to Nicole, I asked, “You’re not part of the Irish Cultural Association?”
“Oh, God, no.”
“So you’re not Irish?”
Her head shook. “My ancestors were French.”
“Oh, okay. Well, nice meeting you.”
Glancing over at Wilcox as I moved on, I gave him a small shake of the head. Mind couldn’t decide it if was a good or bad thing the man had somehow found another drink during my brief departure from his side, and also that he appeared very aloof to my initial failure without gaining a lead on the next planned victim. Well, then. I would have to show Mr. Detective Smartypants.
Except I didn’t. Show him, or even create a list of potential victims to protect, that was. None of the women I spoke to were Irish or of Irish descent. Total plan failure. Apparently I was the only twenty-something female standing inside the room with ties to the island of leprechauns and Guinness. What was up with that?
Everyone else hung around for the booze and some mystical entertainment that had yet to play out. But no one had described what it was they waited for.
A strawberry blond was the last on my list to meet. I’d caught sight of her a few times standing off in the corner speaking with a man whose back had been kept turned toward me. Her coloring was striking. Even from a distance, I could tell that her eyes were a piercing blue, matching my own.
As I turned away from yet another sullen brunette, whining about how if the entertainment didn’t soon begin, all the money she’d spent on alcohol should be refunded, I noticed the redhead standing alone for the first time that evening.
The trek to reach her side was cut short by total chaos. Seriously, all Hell broke loose, and the mastermind behind the expensive wine bottles now shattering against the far wall of the room appeared to be my mark.
Screw Wilcox’s opinion, if only this dress had been designed to hold a sword, that ghost would be kissing flames, not issuing an en garde with a fiddle up for auction—one whose sign proclaimed it to be donated and autographed by a famous Celtic musician.
Destined to Reap (Reaping Fate Book 3) Page 12