“Sure.” Why not? Might as well fuel my body with some sugar before I fake ghost hunted. “So how’d you get here so quickly today?”
“We live nearby,” Slick said.
“Why?” Not that I was trying to be nosy, but why would you live near a tourist town that specialized in ghosts?
“Because we like spirits,” Truck said. He was big, with dark honey-colored skin, curly black hair and light blue eyes. “We’d never done a show here before, though, so when Xavier heard about your encounter today, it seemed like the perfect time.”
Slick sniggered. “Yeah. Perfect before he jaunts off to Hollywood to sign a big movie deal.”
Did I sense tension in this ghost-hunting paradise?
“Everyone’s got to live their own life,” Truck said.
Slick clenched his jaw. I sipped hot chocolate that Truck had poured from a thermos and pretended to be intensely interested in it even though all I could think about was whether or not Susan would get enough juju going to get Lucky Strike to show up. Course, once I had him cornered, how was I going to catch him? It’s not like I could snag a ghost with my bare hands.
Problems, problems.
But this was a big problem. Like a huge problem. I couldn’t just show up to Anita and say,Hey, I had Lucky, but since you didn’t let me have any of my equipment, therefore sabotaging me, he slipped through my fingers. But he did agree to transition to the other side. So, can I have my old life back, please?
Yeah, that crap wasn’t going to work. Not even if I poured freaking sprinkles on it and set it on fire with gasoline.
“Where are the ghosts? We’re ready for them. We’re here to splat every single one of them.”
Truck and Slick both groaned.
I glanced around the van and saw two little old ladies, legs splayed wide, with what looked like Ghostbusters proton packs strapped to their backs.
I burst into laughter.
All eyes shifted to me. I bit my tongue to keep from busting a gut. One of the old ladies was short with thick Coke-bottle glasses. Her lower lip trembled from…I didn’t know what, because the look of absolute seriousness on her face was shockingly funny.
The other woman was taller, with her silver hair wrapped into a bun atop her head. She looked like a baking granny. The kind who always showed up to a wake with casseroles and cookies. But she was surprisingly modern with straightened bangs that were somehow blonde even though the rest of her hair was silver.
“We’re not joking,” said the banged one. “We’re here to help. Alice and I will go in with you. We’ve been working on the packs. We can trap a ghost.”
“Well,” said Alice. “We’re almost sure.”
“Shh,” said the other one, “don’t tell them that. Why do you always screw it up, Alice? We don’t want them to know that they exploded on us the other day.”
Alice threw up her hands. “I’m the one who screws it up? Ruth, you idiot, you just told them they exploded. How in tarnation are we supposed to convince them to let us in now?”
“Oh,” said Ruth, who clamped her jaws shut.
Alice shot Ruth a look full of ire. She turned back to Truck and Slick. “We’re ready to go in. Our equipment can help bring out a ghost. Then we’ll catch it on live television. We can help.”
Slick shot Truck a look that said,You deal with it.
Truck, who appeared to be the nicer of the two, stepped forward. “Alice, how many times have we got to tell you we don’t need help, and we wish you’d leave the ghost investigating business to the professionals.”
I laughed. To call themselves professionals was ludicrous. If anyone was a professional, it was me.
“We are professional,” Alice said. “We have a shop, and we work eight hours a day.”
“Do you have a television show?” Truck said.
“We don’t need a stupid television show to prove we’re professional,” Ruth, the banged one, snapped. “Besides, everyone knows Xavier is leaving y’all. Alice and I reckon he’s going to Hollywood to make it big. Y’all will need someone to replace him. That someone can be the two of us.”
Truck stifled a laugh. “Ruth, Alice, go home.”
