Or worse…a guy in a black suit from National who was loading him into an unmarked van.
If Boswell insisted on exorcising himself, I decided, it wasn’t my problem. “Forget about dinner,” I said, “I gotta get home.”
I turned back to my phone. Cabs were sparse this far from the Loop. The nearest Uber was 20 minutes out. And it would take me at least that long to sign out a company car.
“You need a ride?” Boswell asked.
And so we embarked on yet another trip in the pee-filled van.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
“IMPRESSIVE,” BOSWELL SAID as he pulled up to the cannery. “These old brick buildings are a lot harder to penetrate with a surveillance signal.”
I wished he’d stop talking. I was already kicking myself for letting him know where I lived. Bad enough I’d convinced myself Jacob had been hustled off to an unidentified location with a bag over his head.
The Crown Vic was parked out front and the lights were on, but as I hurried up the walk, I unbuttoned my blazer and gave my shoulder holster a shrug to reassure myself it was there. The TV was on—first thing I noticed when I shoved through the door—and the house smelled like minestrone soup. The mail had been pushed aside and Jacob’s voice carried from somewhere deeper inside, “Sounds like Vic is home.”
An observation…or a threat?
My hand was on my sidearm as I peeled out of the foyer, mentally mapping out exactly how I’d draw and fire based on where a potential target was likely to be standing. But instead of being cattle-prodded by a bunch of National goons, I found Jacob seated at the dining room table.
Across from Sarah.
A tabbycat pranced out from behind the sofa and rubbed her face on my knee.
“Simon!” Boswell exclaimed happily.
The cat ignored him and ground more spit into my slacks.
I was wobbly with relief that I hadn’t walked into a torture scene. Just goes to show how easy it is to let your imagination get away from you. “I see we have company,” I said carefully.
Jacob narrowed his eyes at Boswell and answered, “I see we do.”
We each had some explaining to do, but that would have to wait. Boswell was glad enough for a home-cooked meal, so I parked him at the dining room table while Jacob followed me into the kitchenette to “help.”
“She would’ve taken off again,” Jacob whispered.
Yeah, I figured. “And I’ve gotta keep Boswell from cutting off his ghost to spite his face.”
Thankfully, Jacob didn’t demand an explanation. Soup is hardly a challenge to plate up, and there’s only so much whispering you can get away with. Add to that, the sudden reprise of losing my lunch in the haunted apartment’s bathroom as the brothy vegetable chunks sloshed into the bowl, and I decided to skip dinner altogether.
“A van is a perfectly good environment for a cat,” Boswell was telling Sarah as we came back to the dining room. “It would be his own territory. With his scent on it.”
So. Much. Pee.
“Herscent,” Sarah said. “And you can’t have my cat.”
“I’d say you relinquished any right to him when you tossed him outside,” Boswell muttered into his soup. “But I’ll consider leaving Simon with you, if you tell me how to get rid of my spirit fragment.”
Jacob shot me a “WTF” look.
Sarah’s brow furrowed. “What’s a spirit fragment?”
“No one’s getting rid of any spirit fragments tonight,” I said, then added, “nighttime is the worst time to mess around with something like that. The etheric plane turns up its volume way too loud after dark.”
Boswell didn’t quite buy it. “How do I know you’re not just stringing me along?”
“More people see ghosts at night,” I told him.
