She stretched her arms behind her head. “Well, I guess what anyone wants. Find out why they’re dead. But really I just like being able to talk to you. So that’s all I want. Just to talk.”
Great. A spirit who needed a friend. Awesome.
I glanced around. No one was looking at me. “I’m looking for Lucky Strike.”
Susan laughed. “Wow, why don’t you just ask for the devil himself to show up? Well, if Lucky Strike ever shows up, he can eat my shorts.”
“Why?”
“That guy—” Susan started. But our conversation was interrupted by a shrill voice from behind me.
“Look over there! Mom, I see a ghost!”
I twisted my head over my shoulder. An entire table of folks sat with jaws hanging wide, staring directly at Susan.
Sometimes that happened. If a ghost interacted with me, their presence became stronger and their shape more defined to the point that regular people could see them.
“Oh my gosh,” said Mom, “grab your cameras!”
I sat frozen as the table whipped out their cell phones and snapped off about a hundred pictures.
Then what seemed like the entire restaurant crowded into the dining room and snapped away.
Susan turned and smiled for the cameras. Her gaze darted back to my unsmiling face. “Smile! We’re gonna be famous!”
I groaned inwardly.
“I’m uploading this to Facebook,” came a voice.
“I’m putting it on YouTube.”
“I’m posting to Snapchat.”
“I’m putting it on Instagram.”
As cell phones clicked away, Charlie the Waitress strolled up. She smiled. “Looks like you’ve just become the new town celebrity.”
Great. Just what I needed. To draw attention to myself. I’d never catch Lucky Strike at this rate.
THREE
Iducked into a store as soon as I could make a break from the restaurant. So many people had crowded around, breathing on me and touching me that I felt dirty, like I was about to be infected with some sort of nasty bacteria that would keep me laid up in bed for a week.
Nah-uh. Not gonna happen. Not on my watch.
“Welcome to Blustery Books.”
I jerked my head in the direction of the voice. An older man with round spectacles on the edge of his nose stood behind the counter. “We carry all sorts of tomes on the supernatural. I’m Mr. Hodges. Let me know if you need any help.”
“Uh. Thanks,” I said, surprised by his friendliness. Apparently I was such a cynic that when someone was nice to me, I expected ulterior motives.
Movement flickered in my eye. I took a slow, calculated step toward it. My gaze settled on a young boy, about ten or eleven. He sat in the corner playing with a ball. His clothes were fairly modern—a striped shirt, jeans and sneakers.
He smiled. A ghost of a grin dusted my lips. Funny I used the wordghost, because that’s exactly what the boy was, a spirit haunting a bookstore.
An older lady stepped toward the counter. “Is it true that this store is haunted?”
Mr. Hodges whipped off his spectacles. “It is. Little boy we think is named Ricky. Be careful. He likes to steal things off your person.”
