Jill muttered, “I’ve already hit the telephone pole,” and Tammy patted her hand.
“So.” Tammy rested her chin on her palm and fixed me with a look that was warm but very direct. “Tell us about your ghost, Gina.”
I wrapped both hands around my margarita glass. The salt rim was rough under my thumbs. “It’s my former mother-in-law. Rosaria Ferraro.”
“Former?” Lori raised an eyebrow.
“I was married to her son for thirty years. We divorced. She died.” I paused.
Tammy and Lori exchanged a glance I couldn’t decode.
“And she just appeared?” Lori asked.
“In my bathroom mirror. During a hot flash.” I realized how ridiculous it sounded and took a drink. “She says she was murdered.”
The table went quiet. Jill’s margarita glass trembled slightly on the table, but she pressed her fingers against it and it stilled.
“Murdered,” Tammy repeated.
“Poisoned. After a family dinner. Everyone thinks she died of shock because my ex-husband had just announced our divorce, but she says—“ I stopped. “Look, I know how this sounds.”
“It sounds like a ghost with unfinished business,” Lori said. Calm. Matter-of-fact. Like ghosts with murder complaints were a standard Tuesday. “That’s the most common kind. They’reanchored here by something unresolved. The stronger the emotion, the stronger the anchor.”
“Is it hot in here or is it just me?” Jill asked, tugging at her collar.
“It’s not just you.” Tammy was fanning herself with a menu. “Honey, that’s not regular menopause. That’s something else.”
I looked between them. The heat faded as quickly as it came. Everyone was staring at me.
“What?” I said. “What did I do?”
“Your hot flashes.” Lori was watching me with that clinical focus, the nurse assessing a patient. “They’re not just internal. You’re radiating. The temperature in this room just went up about ten degrees.”
“That’s—“ I wanted to say impossible, but I was sitting in a room with a telekinetic and an aura reader, so my bar for impossible had shifted considerably. “I can’t control that.”
“Not yet.” Lori leaned forward. “That’s what the training is for. We’ll start this week.”
Tammy had just started explaining the schedule for training sessions when I saw the shimmer in the mirror behind the bar.
Oh no. Not here. Not now.
Rosaria materialized between two bottles of bourbon, her spectral form reflected in the long mirror that ran the length of the bar. Silver hair. Pearls. That expression of concentrated disapproval she’d perfected over seven decades.
“The decor in this place is abysmal,” Rosaria continued, drifting along the mirror to get a better view of the room. “Why are the chairs all different? That is not charming. That is a woman who cannot commit to a style.”
I pressed my lips together hard.
“And these women. These are your new friends?” She paused behind Jill’s reflection, studying her with naked judgment. “That one looks like she has not slept in a month. And the large one?—“
“Don’t,” I said.
Everyone at the table stopped talking.
“Don’t what, honey?” Tammy asked.
“Sorry. Nothing. I just—“ I took a gulp of margarita and waved a hand. “Go on.”
Tammy’s eyes narrowed slightly, but she continued.
