I wanted forever with him.
“More?” Jackson asked, holding out the plate filled with pancakes. The man must have been in the kitchen for hours to make that amount for us.
I shook my head. I’d only needed two before I felt full, but here I was, four pancakes later, and I couldn’t stomach anymore. “Can we save the rest for tomorrow?”
“Sure can,” he replied, putting the rest in the fridge. “Do you feel okay?” He’d already asked me three times, but I seemed to be too dazed for his liking. That had been my first sexualanything. I’d only kissed one other person than him, when I was fourteen, and it had been awkward as hell. But I had no idea how Jackson would react to knowing I was a virgin when it came to anything sex related. I’d wanted to reciprocate in the shower, my pleasured haze had made me brave, but I would be lying if I didn’t say I’d felt relieved when he’d refused me. I didn’t feel rejected. He promised me I would get to taste him later, so the question was if I should tell him before or after. I really didn’t want him to take things slowly with me. I worried he’d be afraid he might push me to do things I wasn’t ready for, when Isowas. But I also wanted him to know I had no experience. Maybe that way he could help guide me, let me know what he liked and disliked.
“Pete?” I looked up, remembering I still hadn’t replied.
“Sorry, yes, I’m okay.” He relaxed at that.
“Good. I need to call the landlord about the electricity. I think it needs to be checked out.”
“You sure it’s not just some slight problem that’ll work itself out?”
“Electricity that gets out of hand could lead to fires. I won’t risk your safety, or the other people living in this building, for that matter. A simple call to let the landlord know is the least I can do.”
I nodded. He was right. And besides, Sven had said the new ghost had messed with other apartments too, so Jackson most likely wasn’t the only one concerned. “I’ll call my partner Daisy and make sure everything is okay at work.”
“Good idea,” he smiled. I smiled back, then left the kitchen to call Daisy.
“Hey, Pete,” Daisy greeted me.
I closed Jackson’s bedroom door behind me before answering. “Hey. How did it go with my assailant?” I didn’t like talking about the man, but I had very little time to talk privately with her, and I needed to know if he was dealt with before I could feel safe outside. I kept thinking about what he would do to me or Jackson if he spotted us outside. The manwasa murderer, after all.
“About that…” she replied, sounding apologetic. I felt my unease rise. Had he escaped town? Killed someone else?
“Tell me,” I demanded. I was on borrowed time and my unease would only grow the longer she waited.
“He’s dead,” she announced, an unsure tone to her voice.
“Dead? How?!” Holy fuck, had the universe done this as a ‘thank you’ to me for saving those men from him? Not that I believed in the whole universe and balance thing many mediums did.
“He was killed. The police are on the case, but since I was already working on the house and had alerted the FBI about the men he’d killed, I was allowed to work alongside them, you too, when you return next week.”
“Tell me everything.”
“I found ten ghosts in his house; most had been killed by him. Two were there before he bought the house and were protective of his victims. They told me he’d killed a young guy and it was his older brother who killed the murderer. Whose name was William, by the way. Aaaanyway, William got murdered for killing the other guy’s younger brother, and the brother’s body was found with the help of said brother’s ghost. It’s all very confusing, even for me. But the olderbrother fled the scene and they’re now looking for him. I’m trying to help the older brother so he won’t get prosecuted for murder, since according to the ghosts, he did it in self-defense. He’d found the address and had confronted William and asked where his brother was, and it had ended with William attacking the brother. And yeah, you know how that ended.”
“So we need to find the brother and clear him of all charges on account of what the ghosts told you? You know that won’t hold up in court. It’s our word against the police then, and we always lose those.”
“But get this, there was surveillance on William’s building, but they won’t tell me if they found anything.” That was odd. When we worked on cases with either the police or the FBI, they shared everything with us. Them hiding something wasn’t normal, and it felt personal.
“And William’s ghost?”
“Passed on immediately.”
I scoffed. “Coward.”
She laughed. “Did you expect anything else from him?”
I sighed. “No. Is it weird I’m both relieved he’s dead, but also annoyed I didn’t get to see him suffer?”
“It’s human to feel like that, Pete. Just remember what he has to go through before being reincarnated.” I shuddered. We knew very little about the matter, but it was no secret that if you’d taken another’s life, you’d get punished. How? We had no idea, but I doubted it would be fun for William.
“So other than the FBI being weird and secretive, we can’t really do anything about it?”
“Not really,” she replied, sounding just as frustrated as I felt. “And they’re being smart about it too.”
