“Cadaver?” she guessed.
“Spirit,” Gabe answered. “And wait until you meet him. He is by far the most obnoxious, condescending, snooty, entitled, ridiculous, old…”
As Gabe ran out of descriptors, and finished his sentence with a frustrated groan, Natalie laughed. “He sounds exactly like that windbag Graves from my Salem panel.”
“If it isn’t Miss Natalie Chase. Well, well, well, we meet again.”
That voice.
That horrible voice that was the stuff of her nightmares ever since the moment they’d met in Salem.
Natalie spun to see the man himself, Professor Lionel Graves, standing half in and half out of the wall of the meeting room.
“There’s your boyfriend’s new addition to the lab now.” Gabe let out a snort. “Have fun. I’m going back to the lab to torture Liam for a while to punish him for bringing this new ass here.”
Natalie stood, though she didn’t know how she remained upright after this shock. She didn’t even have the words to ask Gabe to please not torture Liam.
The surprise of seeing him, Professor Lionel Know-it-All Graves, here and as a ghost had her legs feeling weak.
“You’re…” She swallowed, then tried again. “You’re dead.”
He let out a condescending ha before saying, “Can’t pull one over on you, can I, Miss Chase?”
“H—how?” she asked.
“I wish I knew.” For the first time the man looked sincere. Vulnerable even until he zeroed in his stare on her and said, “But you could find out. I am famous, after all. Perhaps if I knew the cause, I could move on to the great beyond. Even as apparently inept as your research skills are, it shouldn’t be too difficult to acquire that information. Even for you.”
Chapter Eight
Natalie was shaking with anger through the entirety of the short walk from her shop to Liam’s lab across the train tracks.
She stomped past Tim the train track ghost, even as the gruesome sight of poor Tim had Lionel stumbling in obvious horror. She did enjoy seeing the pompous fool almost fall on his stupid ghost face at the sight though.
She entered the lab with a loud slam of the heavy metal door and a scowl.
“Something wrong?” Liam asked, calm, unfazed even in the face of Natalie’s impending hissy fit.
He did however swat at the side of his head as Gabe, standing next to him, stuck his finger in his ear.
She’d lecture Gabe on his bad behavior some other time. If the extent of Gabe’s torture was giving Liam a wet willy, it could wait. She had something bigger to deal with.
“Your new cadaver…” she began.
Lionel Graves emitted a sound of disgust. “Can we not come up with a better way of referring to my mortal remains?”
At the same time, Gabe blew out a lip-flapping breath. “The new cadaver that you really didn’t need. Did you, big guy? Seriously. With that whole fridge full of brains? And you said you’d ordered a brain. Just a brain. So why oh why did you get another whole cadaver?”
“Gabe. Please, stop,” Natalie begged. Without Millie there, Liam couldn’t hear Gabe’s complaints anyway.
“Nat, I’m serious. I think he has hoarder tendencies. You need to plan an intervention before there are brains and bodies stacked up all over the place.”
Natalie glared at him. “Gabe!”
“Fine. I’ll leave you to your boyfriend’s new toy.” Clearly insulted, Gabe spun and strode directly through the thick metal door of the lab.
Natalie sighed. She’d have to repair things with Gabe later. Right now, she had her hands full with the professor.
“My cadaver?” Liam prompted, leaning against the counter behind him.
