She placed a comforting hand on my arm. “I would never take her on dangerous tasks. This is good training for her, butnotdangerous. It will just be me and her at the house, no one else.” I nodded, that was good enough for me.
“And she likes working with you? I mean, does it seem like something she wants to do as her job in the future?”
“Oh, definitely. She’s good at it too. Sometimes the young ones see stuff us old ones miss, you know? They question everything, and that makes them valuable to us.”
Nodding, I emptied out the rest of my coffee in the sink. I hated to admit it to myself, but I liked that Ida had found something she cared about doing, even if I would never be able to hear details about her work. She could talk to Pete and Linda about it, which helped ease my worry.
Linda had helped me pick out a school for Ida and she would start in a week, so I knew Ida working with Linda would be a part time thing soon, which eased my worries as her big brother. When I’d tried to ask Linda any further questions about the FBI and thefact they normally didn’t hire anyone as young as Pete—who had only just graduated high school—she’d waved me off and said it was confidential information, as well as the reason how Linda got her into one of the best schools so fast.
I was about to protest, my protective side kicking in, but then Linda had assured me it wasn’t dangerous work when Ida was with her, that Ida simply was more in a training state with more schoolwork than actual work. Then Linda had asked me to trust her, and that helped, because Linda was family and I did trust her.
Ida appeared in the kitchen dressed in jeans, a hoodie, and laced up boots. “Ready,” she announced, smiling excitedly, and that smile said everything I needed to know. Ida was thriving here. And since her mother hadn’t bothered to contact her, it seemed she would be able to stay without us having to worry about her mother making it a problem. Linda had assured me she would help if Ida’s mother became an issue, and that helped my worries.
“Perfect, go wait in the car I just need to pee and then we’re off,” Linda said, handing over her car keys to Ida before waving goodbye to me.
Which left me alone in the kitchen while Pete got ready for our date. I might as well google which restaurant to take Pete to.
Chapter 17
Pete
A day earlier.
This case had been the worst I’d ever dealt with. Daisy had been a huge help, but the weirdness of it all had caused us to work independently from the FBI. That had been the best decision ever. William’s father worked for the FBI. How did we figure that out? Well,wedidn’t. But the ghosts at his house knew and told us as much. It was that tid bit of information that had us calling in Rino.
Daisy and I were at William’s house, waiting patiently for Rino to show up. It wasn’t normal going against someone working for the FBI, not for us anyway. We were normally working alongside them, respected for what we could do.
“I have to tell you something,” Daisy said, suddenly. We couldn’t sit on the furniture since it was still an open case, so we stood awkwardly in the hallway and waited.
“Okay?”
“I was called out to banish ghosts from a mansion. A huge mansion.”
“Mansions usually are huge, yes.”
She rolled her eyes. “ANYWAY, the ghosts weren’t hostile, even though the owner had made it sound like it.
“So, you told the owner they were gone, but you let them be?” We often did this, and if the ghosts fucked up and made their presence known, we could always lie and tell the owners it was new ghosts and then “banish” them again. It was rather common, since we were protecting the ghosts and not the people. No one else helped the ghosts, so we took that very seriously, but if the ghosts were truly in the wrong, we would banish them, no questions asked.
“No, get this, one of the ghosts was the owner’s former fiancé who died at the mansion.”
“What?OMGis this mansion located on the east side, just out of town and with three stories?”
She looked at me with surprise. “You know it?”
I hastily tapped on my phone to find the mansion Jackson wouldn’t stop gushing about, then showed her the old listing. “It’s this one, right?”
“Yeah, that’s the one. But how do you know about it?”
“Jackson wanted to buy it, still does. He lost a bidding war on it to the owner, the one you mentioned is now haunted.”
“Well, Jackson is in luck, then. I doubt the owner wants to live there. I told him it was his ex who haunted him and to be frank, I said other ghosts live there too and want him gone. It shouldn’t be long before it’s back on the market.”
“Really?” I couldn’t hide the excitement in my voice. This was Jackson’s dream mansion.
“Oh, for sure.”
Then it hit me. “The ghosts were good? I mean, not hostile. I would hate to tell Jackson and then have it be filled with asshole ghosts. Not that I can’t deal with them, I’d just hate to banish the ghosts if it isn’t necessary.” It took a lot of energy to perform banishments, and considering there wasn’t a limit to how many ghosts could fit on a property, I could risk having to remove hundreds. Twobanishments a day were what was recommended. More than that and mediums often passed out from exertion.
