“And how do you feel?” I waited, hoping she wasn’t seriously considering getting back together with him.
“I feel like I stopped loving him one day at a time. Every time he ignored me. Every time he rejected me. Every time he compared me to other women. It doesn’t matter how many flowers he buys or terrible poems he writes now, my love for him is gone.”
And yet there was still pain in her voice. “So, you’re going to have that conversation with him. And then, are you going to go out with Marquis?”
She was quiet for a minute. “Yeah. I think so, although he’s not the reason for my decision. He’s more of a bonus. Because I don’t know if he’s my happily-ever-after, or if I’m too old for all that nonsense.”
“You’re never too old for a happily-ever-after,” I told her.
She gave me a shy smile. “I guess you’re right. So, the next time Marquis seems to be hinting for a date, I think I’ll take him up on it, and just see where it goes.”
“I’m happy for you,” I said, and meant it. “I feel like things with Daniel can’t really start until everything is completely closed with my ex. It’s like you’re where I want to be.”
She turned on her blinker and slowly turned into a parking lot. “It took me a long time to get to this point. But it’s okay if you don’t need all that time. No two people have the same path in life.”
“You’re pretty dang wise.”
She grinned. “With age comes wisdom.”
“Then, as a person who’s a few months older than you, I better get that wisdom faster!”
We were laughing again as we pulled into a parking spot.
“Okay,” Deva said as we stared at the small building. The last one on Main Street, a little one-room number. It looked like he hadn’t been taking very good care of it if I was honest. The building itself was fine, maybe some paint peeling here and there, but the grass was overgrown and the flower beds that decorated the front and the pathway were full of weeds. I could only imagine the fit my old Homeowners Association would have thrown if I let the house, I had with Rick get to this state. In fact, it probably was in rough shape since I’d abandoned it. I made a mental note to get a landscaping company out there to clean up before I got fined for my grass being too long or something.
As I thought about the town and how different it was from where I lived with Rick, I remembered that for the most part, Roger had been the only lawyer in Mystic Hollow.
Now there were none.
We popped open our car doors and climbed out. I tucked the leather gloves in my back pocket before we crossed the parking lot in a hurry, so we weren’t as noticeable. We were each holding the nitrile gloves, and I had a flashlight tucked in my armpit as well as a few of the other accessories Deva had provided. When we approached the small building, music assaulted our ears. “What the hell?” I whispered. “Should we run?”
“There are no cars here,” Deva said, looking around. “And the one who might be here, playing music, has just died. My gut says it’s tied to whatever is going on with Beth. But I guess the other alternative is that the town teenagers heard he was dead and decided to have some unsupervised fun.”
“So… we just march into some kind of dead guy party?”
She shrugged. “If we want answers. And we’ll just act like old, confused ladies, who went in the wrong building, if we run into trouble.”
I wrinkled my nose. “Are we really old enough to play that card?”
“If they’re teenagers,” she waves off my comment. “We could be forty or eighty to them. Everyone is just old.”
She had a point. So, maybe, the strange party person was connected to this case. Or a bunch of teens we could kick out and get our info. Either way, I hoped we weren’t being dumb by not just running the heck out of here
The front door was cracked open. Deva and I donned the nitrile gloves and each of us held a flashlight and a little can of pepper spray. “Remember,” she whispered. “If you have to spray it, don’t do it in my direction.”
I nodded. “Let’s go.”
We walked in as slowly and quietly as we could. The small front hallway was empty with all the music coming from a room in the back.
Switching on our flashlights, the beams of light bouncing off the dark walls, we hurried toward the source of the noise, then threw the door open and shined our flashlights in.
A dozen or so ghosts froze mid-dance and stared at us in horror. The music kept bumping away but none of them so much as twitched as though Deva and I were T-Rexes and could sense movement. My gaze traveled over the crowd of ghosts. Each of them was a shade of gray, ranging from almost black to almost white, but never quite reaching either, and glowing ever so slightly just like the ghost on my porch. They all drifted a foot or so off the ground and their bodies faded in a way where it wasn’t clear if they had feet or not.
Deva sighed as they disappeared one by one. They didn’t pop out of existence all at once like a blink and they were gone kind of thing, it was more like when you looked at a bright light and looked away you could still see it in a way, but eventually it faded. A couple of them hung around giving us grumpy looks. “Come on, guys,” she said. “If you let us ask a few questions we’ll leave you to it.”
I looked at my friend in surprise. Could we just casually chat with ghosts? I had no idea how any of this stuff worked, but it seemed strange.
My mouth opened to ask Deva exactly that when one older man rolled his eyes but floated over. His form seemed to bob like a duck on the surface of a lake as the waves moved it along, or like he was walking on the moon, like gravity just didn’t really affect him anymore. If I hadn’t already become Karma, had witches as friends, reversed a siren curse, and scolded shifters, I’d be freaked out.
Okay, so I was still a little freaked out.
He glanced at me, as if he knew how uncertain I felt, before looking back to Deva. “What is it?”
“We’re investigating Roger’s death, and his partner, Cliff, who is still missing.” Deva’s words were calm and measured as though she was trying not to scare him.
He squinted his eyes at us. “You should really just let this go.”
Oh, that wasn’t suspicious. Not at all.
“Listen, if we don’t figure it out, Beth could be in danger,” I said, jumping in before he could fade away as well.
The ghost snapped his gaze back to me and sighed. “Okay. I do like Beth. She was always so nice to us. And never worried about us partying here when they were closed.” He sort of hissed and faded a bit. “It’s a shame, really.”
“What’s a shame?” Deva asked. “What do you mean?”
Worry coursed through my chest making my heart beat a staccato rhythm and my breath freeze in my lungs as I waited for his answer.
The ghost faded a bit more. “Whatever killed Roger will definitely come for Beth.”
Then he disappeared.
“Shit,” Deva hissed. “We have to go.”
I nodded, when someone suddenly screamed “Boo!” behind me.
Shrieking, I dove away from the person and went flying over a spinning office chair on my back. For one brief moment, the air was knocked out of me, and I was like a turtle on my back, lying unable to move, and then I sucked in a deep breath. Breathing hard, I scrambled to sit up, even though my back was killing me, then glanced at a young ghost who was already starting to fade again.
“That was mean, Oliver!” Deva shouted, shaking her fist at him.
The ghost, who was apparently named Oliver, pouted. “No one ever lets me have any fun!”
“Fun?” I screamed the word, climbing to my feet. I grabbed for my pepper spray and ran toward him.
“Don’t!” Deva shouted.
I sprayed.
The air instantly became thick, and the peppery taste of the spray seemed to surround me. Deva and I both started coughing and ran for the door, but I could hear the sound of dozens of ghosts laughing behind us. When we got outside, we both cont
inued to cough for a while.
At last, Deva looked at me, wiping her eyes. “Pepper spray doesn’t work on ghosts.”
“I realize that was a dumb move, okay? At the time, I just wanted to teach the little shit a lesson.”
“Well, you taught him one,” she said, smirking.
We found a water fountain and washed out our eyes. Then, with our faces half in our shirts, we went back into the office but found it empty. Deva switched off the music, cursed all the ghosts, and we headed back out.
Well, I felt like an idiot. But more than that, I was scared. The ghost had said Beth was in danger. And given the look on Deva’s face, I suspected that she trusted what he’d said.
Now, we definitely had a case.
10
Carol
“What a bitch,” I muttered as my knitting needles clacked in front of me. “They should vote her off.”
Beth giggled. “They don’t vote the real housewives off the show.”
I shrugged and grabbed my glass of wine. “They should, I bet it would make it more interesting if they had to compete to stay on.”
“I don’t think I could handle the backstabbing being any worse than it already is. The drama would just be too much,” Beth said, shaking her head as she mimicked me and took a sip of her own wine.
We’d had a few glasses each and I could tell we were both feeling it. Beth’s cheeks had flushed, and she was laughing at things that weren’t really that funny. I didn’t mind though, as long as she was having a good time. When Deva and Emma told me what was going on, I wasn’t sure that keeping it from Beth was the right thing to do. I thought she had a right to know she was in danger, but they’d convinced me she would be better off not knowing and now here we were.
I’d convinced her to come spend the evening with me at my house. Well, technically, it was now Deva’s and my house. When she first moved in, it kind of felt like she was a guest, unsure of her marriage or her future. Now, I couldn’t imagine the house without her. Having Beth here for the evening too only added to how much I loved my little cottage. I just felt comfortable here, around my own stuff. My yarn wall was bright and colorful, making me cheerful every time I looked at it. Plus, I could just imagine all the projects I’d be able to do with the yarn which always got me excited and my brain buzzing.
The opposite wall had my mural on it, a cherry blossom tree started in the corner and the branches spread over the entire wall sheltering the peacocks that were painted underneath. Their names were Blanche and Gulliver, and they were in a very devoted relationship with each other. Deva had insisted on moving the TV to the plain wall because she said she couldn’t concentrate on it when the wall behind it was so busy. Apparently, my fluffy cushions and disco ball were unusual decorations as well, I just thought they were fun. They made me feel sparkly and happy.
Deva had the place organized to the nth degree, but at least it had my flair. All my house plants were hanging or on windowsills, some even got pride of place on the coffee table. What can I say? I like having something to take care of and plants don’t exactly demand much, neither did cats for that matter. The plants’ leaves were all regularly dusted now, and she’d picked me up some of those automatic watering things that look like little glass balls that you stick in the pot so, even if I forgot, they weren’t going to die.
She had also picked up all the loose balls of yarn that had been all over the place and stacked them next to the yarn wall so I could find them more easily. It was very thoughtful, but I kind of liked the odd ball of brightly colored yarn here and there. Plus, my cats played with them, so it was a constant battle between Deva picking the yarn up and the cats dragging them all over the place. I let them have at it though because I knew my tastes weren’t the same as everyone else’s. I couldn’t predict who was going to come out on top, the cats or Deva. It varied every day.
My gaze flicked back to the television and I realized that all the blonde, tan women were starting to merge into one in my mind. Their perfectly coiffed hair, blemish-free skin, and bright white teeth were all a little overwhelming. Did real people look like that?
I drained my glass as I contemplated how realistic it was that those women all looked like that naturally. Unlikely, I decided. Probably years of surgery, strict workout routines, and horrible diets. I guessed I could look like them if I really wanted to.
And then, my stomach growled. I patted my soft belly, silently reassuring it that I’d never do that to us and thought about what I could start shoveling. Deva had sent over some brownies she’d made just for Beth. They had some sort of protection charm on them. And a brownie sounded good.
“Refill?”
Beth didn’t look away from the screen. “Yeah. And are those real? Isn’t she like our age? Why aren’t her boobs hanging in that dress?”
I laughed. “Nothing about that woman is real, trust me.”
“I don’t think there’s enough tape in the world that could keep my boobs up that high and not swinging out of a dress like that. Heck, I think they’d be flapping around in the wind on a boat, looking like stretchy arms.”
Oh my gosh, I could freaking picture us all on that boat. One of us would have our skirt over our head. Another one would have boobs flopping out. And I’d be the one burnt to a crisp with my hair so tangled that people would scream when I got back to land.
Man, they should make a show about us. Real Middle-Aged Women, Caution: Horrifyingly Realistic Women Up Ahead. There would be whole episodes about us diving into pre-menopause. Viewers would find themselves losing their appetites and wondering why it’d been so long since I last shaved. They’d watch us eat and be inspired not to look like us one day. Yeah, right. Like old age wasn’t coming for everyone, one day.
I started laughing, and Beth finally looked in my direction.
“What?”
“Just thinking about us on a boat.”
“We can rent a boat, but I’m not shaving,” she muttered.
“Me neither! We’d end up on some Big Foot sighting websites!”
She grinned.
I reached for my glass, then remembered it was empty. Stupid wine. There was never enough when I wanted it. And the kitchen seemed so far. But no, I was here for Beth. If we were out of wine, I’d be the hero who brought us more!
Empty glasses in hand I popped up from my seat, or tried to, my knee locked up slightly and I had to bend it again to loosen it up and headed into the kitchen to refill our glasses and get us each another brownie.
Sure, Beth hadn’t asked for one, but her glass was empty just like mine and if I was getting another brownie then the polite thing was to bring her one as well. Plus, she was much more engrossed in the show than I was. I preferred those baking shows where everyone was super nice and helpful to one another. Their accents were adorable as well, so that didn’t hurt matters.
Something or someone tapped on our kitchen window as I poured more wine for Beth. I froze. What the hell was that?
Peering outside, I didn’t see anything. Just my old familiar tree. Still, I kept staring for a long minute, not feeling comfortable until I noticed leaves dancing along the grass in the glow from the backlight. Dancing. Sigh. In the wind, of course.
I blamed my nervous reaction on my tipsy state. It was probably just a branch being knocked against the window by the wind. I bit into one of the brownies before I filled up my glass with wine as well. One thing I’d learned about living alone for most of my life is that I couldn’t jump at every tiny sound, or I’d go insane.
I hadn’t thought things through though, and when I tried to carry the brownies and the two glasses of wine back, I nearly spilled. Losing the wine and the brownies would have been a tragedy.
As I moved to return to the living room, with the brownies precariously balanced on top of the wine glasses, someone tapped on the back door. I startled and my brownie fell into my glass, the missing bite making it more unstable than Beth’s. I cursed under my breath and turned back to the k
itchen, setting everything down on the counter. Chocolate and red wine went together, right? Surely, I didn’t just ruin both.
Okay, now. Somebody had to be teasing me. Maybe Deva and Emma had finished investigating and were back to freak us out. They should know better, but I also remembered how mischievous they’d been when we were all younger. I yanked open the back door. “Gotcha!” I yelled.
But nobody was there.
With a sigh, I stuck my head outside and looked around. The trash cans were where I’d left them, the flowers were swaying in the night breeze, but there was no explanation for the tapping noise I’d heard.
Nobody.
“Weird,” I murmured to myself as a chill broke out over my skin.
I turned back inside, pulling the door closed with me, and shrieked when I found a man standing behind me, holding a knife up in the air. My knife if the pearlescent handle was anything to go by. Seemed like a silly thing to notice but I loved my knife set. A black hood covered his head, hanging down over his face shadowing it, but even so, I could tell that he was wearing something under it as well, some kind of mask that made him look animalistic. He roared at me and lunged, striking outward and making me scream once more. Fear clenched around my heart as my mind went blank of any spell I could use.
One of my cats jumped off the table that sat between the living room and the kitchen and onto his back, sinking her claws deep into his skin. The man screamed and dropped my kitchen knife as he lurched forward. I stepped to the side and grabbed my kitty around the waist, yanking her back toward me as the man bolted out the back door, swinging it open with such force that it bounced backward and smacked him in the face before he could actually get away.
Kitty’s claws came back with a bit of the guy’s back, so he screamed louder as he finally made it out of the house.
Beth came running in, also screaming, or maybe it was supposed to be a war cry with the way she was brandishing the TV remote. I wasn’t sure. This kind of thing demanded action though, so I put my kitty down and yanked open the kitchen drawer that held emergency hex bags for just such a time as this. “Come on!” I yelled.
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