0451416325 (7 page)

I
made for a lousy Cinderella.

I’d lost
both
shoes on the way home, kicking them off somewhere near the Ring, the picturesque center of town lined with restaurants, offices, and shops, including my own. My beautiful dress hadn’t quite turned to rags, but the hem was ruined, and I was going to have to dig deep in my bank account to pay for the damage.

Never mind the whole midnight thing. My world had been tipped upside down at nine thirty. Not even. It was probably more like nine eighteen-ish.

There was nothing fairy tale–like about nine eighteen.

As soon as I dashed inside my kitchen door, I grabbed my pitchfork, and checked to make sure all the doors and windows were locked and the shades pulled.

Roly and Poly, who had been sleeping on the back of the sofa when I bolted inside, took one look at me and raced up the stairs hissing, their fur on end.

It was the first clue that I hadn’t come home alone.

The second was the searing headache.

Taking a deep breath, I turned around and found Haywood Dodd floating behind me, sadness etching his mournful blue gaze.

“Out, out you go!” I said, jabbing my pitchfork at the specter.

As if it would do me any good. The man was already dead.

Have mercy on his soul.

Putting his hands together in a begging gesture, he moaned as he tried to speak.

Clearly, he hadn’t learned the ins and outs of the ghostly world yet. Ghosts couldn’t speak. They could, however, be quite vocal. Moaning was the most popular manner of communication. I presumed it was because they often forgot they couldn’t talk and the moan escaped when they attempted to try.

“I can’t help you, Haywood.” Closing my eyes, I willed him away.

This begging, moaning, mess of a dead man.

“I shouldn’t even be seeing you until midnight. You aren’t playing by the rules,” I chastised, keeping my eyelids squeezed shut. “I still had a couple of ghost-free hours. Go away. Get out!”

So long. Adios. Buh-bye, ghostie.

I cracked open an eyelid.

Haywood remained floating in my living room, like some sort of ill-conceived practical joke balloon.

Still begging.

Still making my head hurt.

Dressed in the fancy suit and expensive shoes he’d worn to tonight’s event, he looked like an image from a transparent black-and-white photograph, mostly gray, all bright color drained from him in death except for one feature.

His eyes.

Vivid blue irises glowed with life.

It was an odd ghostly trait, one I’d never found an explanation for in all the research I’d done on the afterlife.

Sighing, I set my pitchfork on the floor and sat on the arm of the couch to think through the situation.

I knew how this worked. He wasn’t going to go away until I helped him cross over. It was the ghostly way.

But maybe there was a chance I could pawn him off. In a rush, I said, “You should go see Delia. She
loves
ghosts. Ghosts are her best friends. She’ll help you. I’ll call, tell her you’re coming.”

Standing up, my head hurt something fierce as I started for the phone in the kitchen. He cut me off, his vaporous being zipping in front of me, making me stop short so I wouldn’t
walk right through him
.

Blessed. Be.

Moaning again, he pointed insistently at me.

Taking a step back, I dropped my head in my hands and tried to figure a way out of this mess.

After a minute of racking my brain, I couldn’t come up with any kind of solution other than to help the man.

The ghost.

Whatever.

Anxious, I paced the pine floorboards. Dylan and I had only just finished installing them the week before. They were gorgeous, reclaimed from an old Mississippi schoolhouse.

“First things first, we need some rules. You,” I said jabbing a finger in his direction, “need to keep at least a ten-foot distance from me at all times. Fifteen feet would be even better. I can feel the way you died, and I cannot even explain to you the massive headache I have right no—” Wincing, I cut myself off. “I’m sorry. I’m guessing you can imagine.”

Though, really,
his
headache had ended when he died. Mine would last as long as he was near me. The greater the space between us the less pain I would feel.

He glanced around as if judging distances, then floated backward.

The headache eased.

“Thank you.” I continued to pace and tick off rules. “No coming into my bedroom unless it’s an emergency, and the bathroom is off-limits at all times, understand?”

He nodded.
Yes.

“Try not to freak out the cats too much.”

He nodded again.

“Try not to freak
me
out too much.”

Dark eyebrows dipped and he moaned, then frowned.

“You can’t talk,” I said. “You can moan, hum, whistle, but not talk.”

Pointing at me, he lifted his shoulders into a questioning shrug.

“How do I know all this?” I asked, interpreting.

Yes.

“Experience.” I gave him a brief rundown on my abilities and the ghostpocalypse.

Frowning, he gestured to himself then to a clock.

“Why can I see you now? Before midnight?”

He nodded.

“I have no idea.” Throwing out the most random idea I could come up with, I hypothesized. “Maybe there is some sort of glitch in the ghostly portal for people who die an unnatural death hours before Halloween?”

If so, someone needed to fix that.

ASAP.

Pointing to himself again, he shrugged.

“What happens to you now?” I guessed.

Yes.

“Well, we need to figure out what’s keeping you here. Once we do, and your soul is at peace, then you can cross over. But we’re on the clock. You have only until eleven fifty-nine on November second.” I explained about the portal and panic slid into his eyes. “So the sooner we can resolve this matter the better.”

The hard part was usually understanding why a ghost was still around. When it came to Haywood, I thought it was fairly obvious.

“You didn’t see who hit you with that candlestick, did you?” I asked.

Shaking his head, he mimicked walking along, la-di-da. Then he suddenly crumpled to the floor.

I bet he had been excellent at charades.

“It was Patricia who had the candlestick in her hand while leaning over your body on the landing. Do you think she did it?”

Shrugging, he motioned like a cat clawing and hissed.
“Hiiissss.”

That’s right. He’d said earlier that she hadn’t liked him.
Cattiness,
he’d said in describing her interactions with him.

Breaking into a smile, he hissed again as though exceedingly proud to be able to create the sound he’d intended. He hissed again and again.

Groaning, I said, “Please stop that. Remember the rule about freaking me out?”

He pouted.

“Can you think of any reason she’d want you dead?”

Me, I could see. Him? Not so much.

He floated left. He floated right. I realized it was his form of pacing. After a moment, he shrugged.

It would be nice to know what caused her to turn on him all those years ago . . . but whatever it was, it seemed unlikely she’d wait decades to seek revenge. “Can you think of a reason
anyone
would want you dead?”

His eyes lit and he nodded vigorously.

“You do? What?”

He moaned, then groaned in frustration. He pantomimed something square, then began wildly pointing around my living room. After a moment, he stopped and stared at me, beseeching me with his eyes to understand.

“I’m so sorry. I don’t know what you’re trying to say.”

He floated over to my antique desk and reached for a pencil only to find that he couldn’t pick it up.

Slumping, he looked like a deflated helium balloon before he suddenly perked up. He waved me toward the front door.

“You’ll show me?”

Yes.

“Out there?”

He nodded again.

I sat on the arm of the couch again. “No way.”

With eyes bugging, he held up his arms. A gesture for
Why?

“There might be more ghosts out there.” Sure, it was only ten o’ clock, but I didn’t know for certain why I could see
him
, and I couldn’t take any chances that the ghosts had arrived early. “One is quite enough for me to handle.”

Pressing his lips together stubbornly, he waved again, beckoning.

He was so insistent that I could feel myself weakening. I suppose I could understand why he was being so adamant. If he had something to show me that would reveal why he’d been killed it could expose his murderer. With that knowledge, his soul would be at peace, and bing, bang, boom, he’d be able to cross over.

Which meant that he wouldn’t be hanging around me.

“To where?” I asked, still cautious. Sure, by going with him I could possibly get rid of
this
ghost, but the potential of picking up others while out there was very real. “The Ezekiel mansion?”

Absently, I wondered if the paramedics had taken Haywood’s body to the hospital. Or if they’d vetoed that when they arrived and called the coroner to the scene instead. If it was the latter option, Haywood’s body could very well still be lying on the third-floor landing. It wasn’t something I really wanted to revisit.

Haywood’s haunting eyes brightened, but then his eyebrows furrowed, and he shook his head.

I took another guess. “Your house?”

Yes.
He waved me toward the front door.

His place was on Azalea Lane, only three blocks away. If I wore my sunglasses and drove my Jeep instead of riding my bike or walking . . .

Tipping my head side to side, I weighed the risks. “Okay, fine,” I said.

Yes.

As I hunted for my sunglasses, my phone rang, the sudden sound in the silent house nearly scaring me out of my skin. I checked the ID screen.

It wasn’t a number I recognized. Again, I weighed risks. After all, there was the chance it was my mama calling. She wasn’t going to be pleased with my disappearing act tonight.

But . . . it could be Dylan. He would be worried about why I’d run out and didn’t return.

I didn’t want him to worry.

Wincing, I picked up the phone midring.

“You’re there,” Dylan said right off the bat, letting out a deep breath.

“I’m here,” I confirmed unnecessarily, breathing a sigh of relief as I rubbed an imaginary spot on the high arc of my bronze kitchen faucet. “I’m fine.”

“What happened? I was worried when you ran out.” He paused a beat. “Why’d you run out?”

“Sorry about that.” I glanced at Haywood, who was tapping his foot impatiently by the front door. “But I saw someone who freaked me the hell out.”

“Who?” Dylan asked.

“Haywood.”

“I’m still in shock myself. And my m—”

“No,” I said, interrupting. “I saw
Haywood
. His ghost. I made a run for it, but he followed me home.”

There was a long stretch of silence before Dylan said, “You’re joking.”

“Hey, Haywood, say hi to Dylan.” I held out the phone.

Haywood opened his mouth.
“Mmmmhhhhnnnnn.”

Other—
normal
—people might not be able to see him, but they could certainly hear him. It was why so many people reported hearing moaning when describing a ghostly experience.

“You’ll have to excuse his lack of vowels,” I said. “He hisses quite well, however.”

Haywood smiled ever so slightly, apparently pleased I’d noticed.

“Sweet Jesus,” Dylan whispered.

I let the shock of it all settle a little bit before I said, “Where are you? At the Ezekiel house?” Crime scenes took notoriously long to process plus there were dozens of people to interview.

“Yeah,” he said sullenly. “So far no one saw anything relating to Haywood’s death. The sheriff is threatening to pull me off the case, and he took my mother to the station for questioning even though she says she didn’t have anything to do with what happened to Haywood. I understand why he had to do it, but she was not pleased with being taken away to say the least.”

“Did I miss her throwing a hissy?” If so, I’d never forgive myself for bolting before witnessing it.

“Not quite. Just lots of icy glares and vicious barbs.”

I knew all about those.

“Any suspects turning up?” I purposely left off the
other than your mother
portion of that question.

I heard murmured voices in the background as he said, “None yet.”

“What did your mother say about having the candlestick in her hand?” I asked.

“She was headed downstairs when someone draped in dark fabric knocked into her and pushed the candlestick into her hand. She nearly fell over, and by the time she righted herself, the person was gone and she saw Haywood lying on the floor. She screamed and bent over him to see if he was okay. The rest you know.”

Someone in dark fabric? It seemed to me that one of the partygoers would notice that. “Did anyone see the person who knocked into Patricia?”

“No,” he said. “But a brown silk curtain was found on the ground in the coatroom.”

The coatroom that was right next to the landing . . . Was it possible someone had been hiding in there waiting for Haywood to walk by, popped out and hit him, only to run into Patricia before being able to hide again?

The more I thought about it, the more I realized it was entirely possible. The coatroom was the perfect hiding spot.

Dylan coughed and asked, “Haywood didn’t say my mother killed him, did he?” Then he mumbled, “I can’t believe I just said those words.”

“He doesn’t know who hit him, but he seems to know
why
he was killed.”

“Why?” Dylan asked, and I could hear a hint of desperation in his tone.

If no other suspects turned up, Patricia was going to have a hard time proving her innocence.

“I don’t know. He can’t talk, so he wants to show me something at his house that might explain why he was killed. We’re just about to head out.”