Deader Still: A Bridget Sway Novel (A Paranormal Ghost Cozy Mystery Series)

by Jordaina Sydney Robinson

  “What are we looking for?” I asked, crouching to check the bottom few shelves of books. Other than a penchant for Italian recipes, nothing stood out.

  Sabrina was quietly rooting through the kitchen draws. “Something that would tell us what he did with the money.”

  “Like a signed confession or a treasure map with ‘x’ marking the spot?”

  Sabrina threw a glance over her shoulder at me, arching an eyebrow. “That would suffice, yes.”

  “Wow. Getting sick really does make you grumpy,” I mumbled and headed out of the kitchen into the hallway beyond.

  Rather than go upstairs I turned left into the room at the front of the house. Magnolia walls. Magnolia carpet. Magnolia sofa. A large flat screen television rested below the front bay window and a mirror on the chimney breast. A gardening magazine lay open on the dark wood coffee table. No pictures of children or grandchildren. No pictures of beloved pets. No pictures of the couple from holidays. Maybe the widow had already taken them down so she wouldn’t have a constant reminder of what she’d lost. It made me think about my mum and how she was doing.

  “Found anything?”

  I turned to Sabrina, who was standing in the doorway. “You think my mum’s okay?”

  Sabrina smiled. “I think your mum is just fine. Do you want to visit her when we’re done?”

  “Do you mind?”

  Sabrina shook her head. “Nah, we’re already breaking so many laws right now, one more isn’t going to make a difference.”

  An hour and a half later we landed in the hallway of my mum’s house. I’d had no idea that it took so long to search a house properly. Luckily for us, the widow had stayed outside for the majority of the time we’d been there. Hadn’t made a difference though; there’d been nothing to find except the bottom dresser drawer full of framed photos of the couple.

  We’d found another drawer full of financial paperwork but it didn’t seem to be in any order, and before Sabrina could sort through it the widow had come into the bedroom. She’d headed to the wardrobe, reached for a cardigan and then suddenly collapsed on the floor with huge, wracking sobs. It felt awkward to keep snooping after that so we’d taken that as our cue to leave.

  It had been a long time since I’d been home and at some point my mum had painted the hallway a soft yellow to compliment the wooden flooring. It looked like a recent change. I’d intended to have a little wander around and have a look at all the other changes she’d made, see if she had any pictures of me up, see if my room was still the same, but that went straight out of my head the moment we arrived.

  A loud crash came from upstairs, quickly followed by another. Sabrina and I exchanged a brief glance and charged up the stairs. If someone was attacking my mum, illegal or not, I’d terrify the life out of them.

  Sabrina was on my heels as we made the landing. Sounds of the struggle came from my mum’s room. Without any thought I leapt through the open door ready to try that headless gross stuff that I kept forgetting to ask Edith to show me how to do. The lamps on the bedside tables lay smashed on the floor. Arms and legs waved from under my mum’s duvet. And then my dad threw the duvet off.

  “Yeah,” Sabrina said as she came up behind me. “I’d definitely say your mum’s okay. Looks like you dad is taking really good care of her.”

  ∞

  “I’ll need therapy for life,” I said as we watched the sunset from the hilltop outside the fort. “For the entirety of my afterlife.”

  “It wasn’t that bad,” Sabrina said while biting her lip. I assumed that was in an attempt to keep her laughter in check.

  “I have just seen my parents doing some Kama Sutra-like sex. Explain to me how it wasn’t that bad?”

  “Well, they weren’t moping around all depressed because you’re dead,” Sabrina offered and patted my knee. “They looked far, far, far too enthusiastically engaged in their activity to even remember your name.”

  “I hate you.” I covered my eyes with my hands and Sabrina laughed freely. “I think I need my eyeballs scrubbing. Is that a real thing? Can we find someone to do that for me?”

  “It’s a perfectly natural act.”

  I stared at her. “That was not natural.”

  She frowned. “You’ve never done it that way? Oh. But then you were with that poor excuse for a man. Actually, I’m surprised you’ve done it any way.”

  “Yes, this is an appropriate time to talk about my choice in men when the image of parental sex has just been seared onto the back of my eyelids.”

  “No, you’re right.” Sabrina nodded, appearing properly chastised. “This would be a much livelier discussion if Edith were here.”

  “I can’t believe I gave you my chocolate bar,” I grumbled as the rest of our GA group filtered out of the fort.

  “I know. I’d say I was a bad person and I was going to hell but—” Sabrina held up her hands and gestured around us. I tried not to smile at her but she saw it and gave me a shoulder nudge. “See you at breakfast?”

  “Yeah, okay,” I grumped as we both stood up.

  Sabrina gave me a finger wave. “Sweet dreams.”

  Yeah, I was fairly sure that last thing I was going to have were “sweet dreams”.

  Chapter Nine

  I landed in the garden still trying to blink the snapshots of my parents from my brain. All I wanted to do was take a bath and steam the images from my eyeballs. I doubted that was possible, but I had to try. That was the reason I didn’t see Oz waiting for me in the deckchair until he spoke.

  “You okay?”

  I hesitated since there were several ways I could answer but I went with the one that was going to get me in the least trouble. “Yes.”

  He narrowed his eyes at me. “Why do you look guilty?”

  “Because you make me feel guilty.”

  He leaned forward in the chair and rested his elbows on his knees. I very much got the impression that I was prey to his predator. It didn’t exactly put me at ease.

  “How?”

  “Well, your whole aggressive posture for starters. You look like you’re about to pounce on me and eat me for supper.” I looked from him to the kitchen. “You have already eaten, right?” I knew I shouldn’t have given Sabrina my chocolate bar.

  Oz glanced down at himself and then relaxed back in the deckchair. “I can’t make you feel guilty if you haven’t done anything wrong.”

  I inclined my head. “And yet you do.”

  He regarded me from a long moment and I focused on the logo of his white t-shirt. Like everything he owned, it was faded to the point of indecipherability. I tried very hard to work out what it could have been so my attention didn’t jump to the kitchen door and my escape.

  “How did your passenger test go?” he finally asked.

  Ha. Easy question. “Fine.”

  “Did you pass?”

  “Yes.”

  “Any problems?”

  “No.”

  “Anything you want to talk about?”

  “No.”

  “Any chance you can answer a question with more than just one syllable?”

  “Why?”

  He leaned forward resting his elbows on his knees again and this time I was pretty sure it was a calculated move. “I was just wondering what the queasiness was about.”

  “It was—”

  Oz held up a finger to halt my excuses. “Before you consider lying to me, remember that I can tell. Also know that I checked in with Eleanor and she said you took your test second. The queasiness came much later in the evening. And before you consider trying to throw me off track with a rant about how overbearing I am, I want you to understand that I was worried. After not being able to sense you when you needed me at the assessment centre, I wanted you to know that I do pay attention to your emotional spikes. That’s why I checked on you.”

  “I was misting.” I folded my arms and arched a challenging eyebrow at him. It was the truth. Sort of. I’d purposely practiced a little while searching Re
becca’s house in case of this very situation. And it did still make me queasy. Making myself somehow opaque enough to pass through a solid surface in a supernatural Star Trek way I didn’t understand just didn’t sit well with me, despite what I’d said to Sabrina.

  “That feels like the truth.” He tilted his head to the side, listening to his emotional radar. “So why don’t I believe you?”

  “Because that would mean you trusted me.”

  “Ah, yes.” He nodded and relaxed back in the chair again. “And I don’t, because you keep lying to me.”

  “I haven’t—”

  “Then where were you?”

  “I was misting,” I repeated. It wasn’t actually an answer to his question but it gave me a moment to think.

  Oz nodded. “And I believe that—”

  “You only believe it because your emotional surveillance tells you it’s true, not because you believe me on your own.”

  “Because even now you’re lying to me.”

  I folded my arms and arched an eyebrow at him. “What have I said that’s a lie?”

  “Nothing. It’s what you haven’t said. It’s the other half of the half-truth you’re not telling me.”

  “So you don’t believe me because I’m not lying?”

  “Stop dancing around it and just tell me the truth. The whole truth.”

  I pursed my lips at him for a long moment and then gave in. Partly. “I went to check on my mum. I was worried about her after the disaster that was my funeral.”

  Oz hung his head and expelled my name with a sigh. “You can’t keep doing things like this. You’re not responsible for your mum anymore.”

  “Oh. Am I not? Good to know. I’ll just stop caring then.”

  “Don’t,” Oz warned. “Don’t make this about that. This is about you lying to me and breaking the law. I bent yesterday morning and took you to your funeral against my better judgement and this is how you repay me.”

  “How I repay you? How I repay you?” Anger ignited and vibrated through my chest, giving my voice the slightest shake. It was bad enough that I’d had to ask permission to go to my own funeral in the first place but for Oz to act like he’d done me a huge favour? Well that was just too much.

  Oz shook his head, his voice still calm. “Getting angry isn’t going to help you articulate your argument any better.”

  To me that sounded like a wordier way to say “calm down”. Oz tilted his head to the side and frowned. “I’m giving you advice on how to best approach this discussion. Why does that make you angrier?”

  I stared at him. “Because you just told me to calm down.”

  “Well, if you want to have a rational conversation like rational adults, you need to do it calmly.”

  “Everyone, everyone, knows that you only tell someone to ‘calm down’ in an argument to wind them up.”

  Oz leaned forward in his chair and stretched his arms out to the sides. “Everyone who?”

  “Are you kidding me right now?”

  “I tell all the other guys the same thing if they lose their temper. And do you know what they do? They calm down and then we have an adult discussion.”

  I threw my hands up. “Oh, well, of course they do. Because they’re all just so perfectly well-adjusted. At least when I fail this assessment and they lock me away and brainwash me, you’ll have such a lovely, easy life.”

  Oz stilled in his chair. “Why do you think you’ll fail the assessment?”

  “Seriously?” I stared at him. “Like, seriously?”

  “Yeah, seriously.” Oz pushed to his feet and moved to stand in front of me. “All you need to do is hold you attitude in check for the short three hour bursts at a time and do what they ask.” He stepped closer and tilted his head to catch my attention. “You can do that, right?”

  I stepped back and shook my head. “I think we’re a little past that now.”

  He stepped forward again. “Why?”

  Why? Because I’d backward head-butted Jenny and she thought I was trying to undermine her authority. Because the tests were quite obviously not only testing adjustment but personality traits as well. Because I struggled to keep my attitude in check in general, never mind for a whole three hours around a group of idiots who were supposedly in charge. All the anger drained out of me like someone had tossed me into an emotional sieve. Only tiredness was too thick to slip through.

  “Can you yell at me about this tomorrow?” I sighed and swiped my fringe to the side. It immediately fell back into place. “It’s been a long couple of days and I really just want to go to bed, okay?”

  “No, it’s not okay.” Oz gently moved my fringe from my eyes again and held it to the side. “I’m here to help you, Bridget, but you have to let me. Just talk to me. I’m not your enemy.”

  “Maybe not, but you’re not my friend either.”

  “I’m trying to be.”

  “Really? Because Sabrina’s never asked me to write a five thousand word essay on my adjustment.”

  Oz moved his hand from my hair and his voice hardened a little. “Sabrina’s not responsible for you. I am.”

  I gestured between us. “See, this is where we have the problem because, as far as I’m concerned, I’m responsible for me.”

  “That’s not what the bureau says.”

  “I don’t care what the bureau says.”

  He gestured between us. “See, this is where we have the problem.”

  Oz was standing so close to me that I had to tilt my face to make eye contact. For some reason, that annoyed me. If he hadn’t destroyed my beautiful five-inch heeled Jimmy Choos I’d have barely had to move my head. That sent a fresh wave of anger through me. I still had no legitimate clothes. No legitimate shoes. No legitimate makeup. I might as well have been camping. And suddenly I saw the futility of having rescued all my stuff from The Trollop because I wouldn’t be able to wear it anyway. If I did Oz would notice and I’d be in even more trouble.

  Oz’s eyes narrowed as he inclined his head to the side, listening to his emotional radar again. “Looking at me makes you angry?” he asked softly. Hurt and confusion flickered in his eyes and that just made me even angrier.

  “This is exactly why you shouldn’t snoop on people’s emotions,” I said, and before I let him draw me into a conversation that would quickly escalate into another argument I squared my shoulders and walked away.

  I left him in the garden and made it all the way up to my room without any housemate interaction. All I wanted to do was take a bath and scrub my eyeballs. I closed the door to my room and rested against it, eyes closed. Someone coughed. I opened my eyes to find Lucy, Petal and Pam sitting in a row on my bed. Solemn faces. Apart from the surroundings it reminded me of receiving my sentence of community service from the GBs. That had been metered out in a similar fashion.

  “Can I help you?” I didn’t move from the door. Something in Lucy’s expression told me I might need a quick escape.

  “This is an intervention,” Pam said and gestured to the chair positioned in front of them. “Come away from the door now.”

  “I’m actually kinda happy over here.”

  Petal wiped at a tear that was ready to spill. “Please, Bridget. Don’t make this any harder.”

  “Don’t make what any harder?” I glanced between the three of them. “You’re not going to kill me to win your work bet, right?”

  Lucy nodded with a steely glare. “I might.”

  “Okay …” I drew the word out and twisted the door handle ready to bolt back downstairs. I’d take Oz over these three. “I’m just going to make a cup of tea. Anyone want anything?”

  Lucy stood and strode to my wardrobe. She flung the doors open so hard they banged on the wooden frames and swung halfway closed again. She thrust her hands on her hips and stared at me. “Yes. We’d like an explanation.”

  I wasn’t sure what I was going to find in there but I was hoping it wasn’t another body. I moved closer and peered inside. “It’s empty.” />
  “Yes, it is.” She punctuated her speech with a foot tap per word, her eyebrows inching upwards and giving her expression a manic hint. “Where is you suit? Your beautiful white suit?”

  I looked around the group. “I had to bin it. It had three different people’s blood on it.”

  Lucy flipped her hair. “Oh. Right. Well. You should have told me.”

  “Oh, right. So now I’m answerable to the bureau, Oz and you?” I folded my arms and waited for Lucy to respond. She didn’t. She glanced over her shoulder at Pam and Petal. Petal stretched her eyes wide at Pam as if asking for permission and Pam nodded. I really should’ve seen what was coming but it had been such a long day. Petal leapt off the bed and pinned my arms to my sides as she hugged me. Before I could form a protest, Lucy approached from my right and wrapped her arms around both Petal and me. Then Pam did the same thing from my left.

  There wasn’t much I could do but stand there and take it.

  “Did you have a tough day? Do you want me to brush your hair?” Pam said, twirling her fingers through my ponytail.

  “That always helps me,” Petal spoke into my shoulder before I could reply.

  “Thank you, but I’m okay.” I shook my head to remove Pam’s fingers from my hair and waited for them to recognise that as a signal for them to get off me. They didn’t. “Okay, I’m all better now.” I tried to lift my arms out from my sides to create some space between them and me but they had me pinned tight. “Guys, come on. Get off me.”

  They unwrapped their arms from me like the giant housemate squid they were and all settled back in a line on my bed. Like a jury. I wondered if I could just climb into bed behind them. There looked like there might be enough space. Of course, I doubted they’d just let me sleep. Perhaps I could just flick the duvet and send all three flying towards the door. By the expressions on their faces they were still waiting for something.

  I sighed and held up my hands. “Okay, Lucy. I’m sorry. I recognise now that I should inform you about every single tiny aspect of my life that relates to fashion. I apologise. Happy now? Can I go to bed?”