ONE
Ialways thought that working hard meant everything in my life would fall into place. Checking off a great job would mean checking off a great life in the big daily planner that was my mind. If I tried hard enough, shed enough plasma, and kissed enough butt, I could make it anywhere.
Turned out, I was wrong.
My dad’s death a few months ago left an oozing wound in the establishment he helped create—The Ghost Team. With the help of secret funding from the government, my dad, Vince Breneaux, created a crew of highly capable, clairvoyant agents whose single mission was to seek out rogue spirits, those hell-bent on attacking and plaguing the living, and send them on to the other side—the light, as we call it.
Naturally, since my father had been director of said team, when it came to promotion time, I was a shoo-in by a thousand degrees.
At least in my own opinion I was.
But that’s not how it worked out, and now it’s several months later and the bimbo that stole my job is staring down her pert little pixie nose at me.
Yes, I know it isn’t nice to call people bimbos. I realize that, but when Anita slept with my dad’s boss and ended up sitting in the leather ergonomically correct chair that should’ve been mine—well, you can understand where my dislike stems from.
I inhaled the scent of Anita Tucker’s gardenia perfume. It reminded me of a funeral home. I shuffled in my chair. I could deal with Anita. I could deal with the fact that I didn’t have the job that was basically promised to me. By. My. Father. I could deal with it because at some point it would be mine.
I had patience. For goodness’ sake, I’d once waited one hundred and six hours for a ghost to appear in a barn. If I could sit through the onslaught of bloodsucking ticks that tried to attach to my skin every five seconds, I could deal with Anita.
“Blissful, I really hate to do this.” Director Tucker pouted out her full pink lips. Blue eyeliner rimmed her eyes, coral dusted her cheeks and her skin was flawless. Well, when you wore three tubes of foundation, I supposed anyone’s pockmarked skin would be perfect or you weren’t doing something right.
I sat in the air-conditioned trailer that the Ghost Team used as a mobile office. It worked great on the road, not so great in the middle of tornado season in the South.
“You really hate to do what, Anita?” I was pretty sure she didn’t hate doing anything when it came to me.
But I kept my tone upbeat. I’d been called into the office and was trying to be positive.
She gazed at me with a degree of pity I’m pretty sure she only reserved for babies and puppies. Her brown eyes flickered to her computer screen and then back to me. “I’ve got a report that says you didn’t transition the Peet ghost.”
I shifted to one side. “I transitioned her. She went easily.”
Total lie.
I didn’t transition her, but I didn’t want Anita knowing. Of course, it looked like she’d already discovered, and no amount of lying on my part was going to blanket the truth. That case had been one of those where it was better to ask for forgiveness than permission.
“Blissful,” she said, pouting out those lips again. “You don’t have to lie. In fact, I wish you wouldn’t. I want you to think of me as a second mother.”
“You’re my age.”
“And we’re both young and accomplished.” Anita pressed the tips of her fingers to either side of her nose. “Twenty-eight and we’ve already done so much.”
“You run the Ghost Team. I just work for it,” I said flatly.
Anita smiled like a shark in heat.
“Blissful,” she said in a sad, nasally voice. “I know your father would’ve wanted you to have this job.”
My fists tightened.
She glanced at the picture on her desk. My father—well, adopted father—Director Vince Breneaux, had one arm wrapped around Anita’s shoulders, a beaming smile on his face. His bald head that he always made me rub for luck glinted in the sun.
If his spirit knew that Anita had gotten his job instead of me, I was pretty sure it would’ve ticked him to high heaven. As it was, I didn’t feel the need to call him back from the other side to tell him. Though that wasn’t out of the realm of possibility.
“We both applied for the same job,” Anita was droning on. “I got it fair and square.” She pressed her hands on the desk. “Let’s face it; you weren’t emotionally ready to take on the challenge of the Ghost Team. You just weren’t, and this whole thing”—she nodded to her computer—“with the Peet ghost proves it.
“Blissful…” Her voice deepened now. Apparently this was the tone she used to reprimand folks—people with more experience and much more accomplished. “You let her stay.”
I gritted my teeth. “That ghost wasn’t harming anyone.”
