“Wow. You work fast.”
She ticked them off on her fingers. “The first one was a candy bar to kid, the second was that I cured my sister’s zits, I led my mom to a poem I’d written about her—”
“That was nice.”
She nodded. “Then I gave my ex-boyfriend an STD.”
“Oh,” I said.
“It wasn’t a permanent one. But I found out after I died that he’d been cheating on me with this skank who was like, gag-me-with-a-spoon ugly. That’s what he got for cheating on me. The last one…I don’t remember what I did with it.”
“Your ghost presents are a pretty serious thing to give up.”
She hitched a shoulder. “Yeah. Whatever. I didn’t need them. My mom needed the poem more.”
“And your ex needed an STD.”
“Right.”
I laughed quietly. It was fun, lying on a bed talking to someone. Granted, that someone was dead, but since my dad had passed, I realized how lonely I’d been. None of the team had called me since I left. No surprise there. We were considered a team, but each of us operated alone. We only pooled resources when we had to.
For the first time I realized I’d been living a pretty lonely life. But whatever. It was my life and I loved it. I loved chasing down ghosts, helping them transition, even using my ghost lasso to catch them.
Wait. No ghost lasso. Anita had yanked my clearance to gear. Didn’t matter. I could do this job without the gear. I’d been trained by the best—Vince Breneaux.
Only now Vince was dead.
The air conditioner kicked on, and cold air washed over my skin, pricking it to points. I closed my eyes. I needed rest. When my watch alarm went off much later, I awoke ready for action.
I sat up and rubbed my eyes. Susan was nowhere to be found. A knock came from the door.
I opened it to find Roan. The woodsy scent of his aftershave trickled up my nose, making my insides twist. “You’ve got visitors downstairs.”
I grabbed my purse and threw it over my shoulder. “Time to get rolling.”
FIVE
Istood outside Soul Food and Spirits with Xavier Bibb and his posse. Xavier, dressed in black, his blond hair spiked to a point in the center of his head, waved his arms around as he directed how the whole shebang was going to go down.
“Truck and Slick, stay close to Blissful, here. We need to make sure she feels safe. Do we each have our EMF recorders?”
Slick, a redhead with his hair plastered to his head with what looked like a handful of gel, snickered. “We’re not amateurs, Xavier. Just because you’re getting movie offers doesn’t mean we don’t remember how to do our jobs.”
Xavier waved his arms again. “I just want to make sure we’re all on the same page.”
He pulled a rectangular box from his back pocket. It looked like a phone, but from the buttons and lights I could tell it was an EMF—Electromagnetic Field device.
I rolled my eyes. Folks who claimed to have seen ghosts or interacted with spirits often used EMF readers. They claim the electromagnetic field that naturally occurs on the planet is disrupted when spirits are nearby. This usually caused a spike on the reader. It was just a way of creating pizzazz for a viewing audience.
Folks like me didn’t need EMF readers. Iaman EMF reader. Well, not really, but it sure did feel like that when ghosts like Susan decided to have lunch with me.
“Blissful,” Xavier said dramatically, “I need you to stay here for a minute. Is that okay? I will go and check that everything is ready inside for us.” He enunciated each word as if he were talking to someone who was, I don’t know, stupider than stupid.
“Sure. I’ll be fine.”
The night had cooled off from the day. I hugged my arms, warding away a chill.
“We’ve got hot chocolate if you’d like some,” Slick said.
