Dead Man's Hand (10 page)

I was a good three feet from the door when
she materialized in front of it, appearing before me as a solid
form, not the wispy see-through sort of apparition that usually
bespeaks lack of confidence or just ghostly confusion. For all I
know, she’d been there the whole time, but something told me she’d
planted herself there at just that moment when she saw that I
really was going to walk out on her.

She was good looking for a ghost—late
twenties, tall and statuesque with blonde hair cascading around her
shoulders. She wore old style clothes, the kind of thing the
society ladies would have worn in my grandmother’s day with lots of
buttons, conservatively cut but not so modest as to completely hide
her figure. Her face had an elegance to it that was marred by
haughtiness and an aristocratic bearing. I decided almost
immediately that I wouldn’t have liked her when she was alive.
Dead, she might have had some strong points, but that remained to
be seen.

I stopped, looked her up and down for a
second, and then nodded. “Nice to see you finally,” I said. “Ready
to tell me how I can help you? Or shall I just pass through your
midsection?”

“
You will do no such
thing,” she said, and the haughtiness in her voice matched her
bearing. Clearly she was type of person—or former person—used to
having things go her way. In life, she’d likely been the boss, and
I had a strong feeling that she had found a way to run the show in
the afterlife as well—that, or she’d gotten really good at fooling
herself into thinking she was still in charge.

I figured the best way to play it would be
to defer to her highness for the moment, if only to find out what
she was after. Letting her think she had the upper hand would prove
problematic if I allowed it to go on too long, but for now . .
.

“
You’re absolutely right,
madam,” I said and turned back toward the desk, waving my arm
toward an empty chair in an invitation to sit. “I forget my
manners. Please forgive me.”

I took my seat again and watched as she just
stood there for a few more seconds, staring at me, trying to figure
if I was putting her on or not. Finally, she raised an
eyebrow—giving me a look that said she hadn’t yet decided I passed
muster—and then moved forward to sit across from me.

“
Is this a professional
call?” I asked amiably, resisting the snarky urge to lay it on too
thick. “Or social?”

The eyebrow had only just gone down. Now it
popped back up again. If I really wanted to know what was going on
with her, I decided I’d better lay off and let her reel it out on
her own. My Jeeves act was bound to get her riled any second if I
kept it up, so I just smiled and waited.

“
Professional,” she finally
said.

I picked up a pen and slid a notepad in
front of me, clicked the pen into life and held it poised. “At your
service,” I said as sincerely as I could. “May I have your
name?”

After only a twitch of the eyebrow and no
measurable pause, she said, “I am Cordelia Dearborn, formerly
Cordelia Hampstead. My mother was a Westcott, and my husband...my
late husband was Woodbury Dearborn of the Waterston Dearborns.”

She rattled off her
pedigree as though fully expecting me to know what all those names
meant. I wanted to remind her that I’d asked only for
her
name but kept my
mouth shut, doing my best to scribble what she’d said, or at least
to make it appear that the scratches of my pen approximated
something like the information she’d just imparted.

“
Excellent,” I said. “And
how may I help you?”

“
You can get my house back,
Mr. Stubble. It’s full of squatters. I want them
evicted.”

* * * * *

That’s all for now. If
you’d like to read more, you can download the book
here
. Thanks for
reading.

About the Author

Richard Levesque was born in
Canada and grew up in Southern California. By day, he teaches
composition and literature—including Science Fiction—at Fullerton
College, and by night he works on his novels and short stories. He
joined the ranks of independent novelists in 2012 with the release
of
Take Back Tomorrow
and followed that with
Strictly
Analag
and the first Ace Stubble
novella,
Dead Man’s Hand.
In 2013, he published a second Ace Stubble
novella,
Unfinished Business
as
well as
The Girl at the End of the
World
, a post-apocalyptic YA novel. 2014
saw the release of a paranormal fantasy,
The Devil You Know
, and his most
recent release is
Foundlings,
a novel that blends historical fiction with a
contemporary literary mystery.

When not writing or grading papers, he spends
time with his wife and daughter, works on his collection of old
pulp magazines, and tries to be better than a mediocre guitar
player.

You can see more about
Richard and read some free short stories at his
website
.

Join Richard at
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