Dead People (Haunted Hearts, Book 1)

Chapter Ten

Chapter Ten

“Help me, help me. I don’t know why I’m here.”

Cassie neared the old iron-gated cemetery on the side of the highway, the voices coming through her window, open an inch. Her hands shook and she clenched the steering wheel. She didn’t want to stop, but their pleas pulled at her heart. The confusion, the heartache, the tears. Unbearable, haunting her heart.

They needed her.

“Close the goddamn window.”

Cassie jumped and looked at Joe sitting in the seat next to her, as if he’d been there all along.

Which he hadn’t.

“Jesus, they’re loud today.” He gave the cemetery a look of disdain.

He didn’t deserve it, but Cassie pressed the button to roll up the windows. “Where were you?”

His head swiveled toward her, his eyebrows raised, his forehead puckered. Then his brows slashed together. “Something happened while I was gone. What?”

“I was attacked,” she said, making her voice casual as she drove past the cemetery.

“That bastard. I’ll—”

“Not Luke.” She chuckled but it came out as small choking sounds, a breath away from turning into sobs, and she stopped. “The ghost. Isabel.”

“What?” His voice raised. “We never attack people.”

“Not true. Remember that psycho in Florida, the millionaire’s nephew supposedly mauled to death by a pet tiger?”

“The one whose sister really killed him.” Joe’s chest puffed up. “I solved that case.”

“Yes, you did.” Dead for more than half a century, and he still needed his ego stroked. “If I’d been his sister, I would’ve killed him earlier.”

“I would’ve loaned you my gun. But it wasn’t you he attacked, it was his own relatives. The whole family is loony tunes. And at least you got rid of him. Why did Isabel blow up?”

“My guess is she overheard me telling Luke someone killed her, and the shock made her crazy. She threw a few things around. It was more of a tantrum than anything else.”

He made a derisive noise. “Newbies.”

“She’s been a ghost for three years,” Cassie said.

“That makes her a three-year-old ghost. She’s like a toddler. You need to go back and talk softly to her, treat her like a child, tell her what you can do for her.”

They reached the welcome sign for the town of Bliss, between a junkyard and a MacDonald’s.

She eased her foot off the gas pedal, the car slowing. “I won’t be telling her anything. My services are no longer needed. Luke is very sensibly packing up and leaving.”

In her periphery, Joe punched one fist into his palm. After threeyears with him, she no longer shuddered when she didn’t hear the smack of flesh against flesh. “I knew he was a coward.”

“He’s thinking of his daughter.”

“Ha! He’s running away with his tail between his legs.”

She saw the motel with the HOME AWAY FROM HOME sign on her left, and she hit the brakes, hoping the pickup truck riding their rear wouldn’t hit her. “You didn’t tell me where you disappeared to.” She pulled into the parking lot, the pickup missing her by inches.

“I was haunting old friends,” he said.

An odd note in his voice made her glance at him sharply. A small smile played on his lips. Facing forward, she turned into the motel driveway and seconds later she pulled up in front of room eleven, her favorite number. She glanced at Joe again, then sucked in her breath in a hiss.

His teeth glowed green, the rest of him fading, ala the Cheshire Cat.

“Don’t do that!” She wrenched the key from the ignition, grabbed her purse and reached for the door handle.

The glow blinked out and he turned solid again. As solid as a dead person could be.

Three minutes later, she was throwing clothes into the open suitcase. She wanted out of this place. Bliss had turned out to be anything but blissful. There was a hunger inside her for something that hadn’t been there when she came, something she couldn’t name.

“So where are we going?” Joe lounged on the bed without making a dent in the mattress or the pillow.

She sat on the edge of the bed, holding a T-shirt that said DEAD IS A STATE OF MIND, LIVING IS A STATE OF GRATITUDE. Every time she wore it, Joe told her she should white out the G and the R from Gratitude, and it would suit her.

“Not back to Illinois.” Her father would call her on Thursday morning, the way he always did. He’d ask about her job, and she wouldn’t lie. Why should she? She wasn’t doing anything wrong.

Then he’d expect her to visit him and her stepmother and stepbrother, and listen to them condescend to her. Usually she could handle them. But not now. Now she felt odd. Breakable. Like a vase left too near the edge of the table.

“Can you go to Ireland, Joe? I’ve always want to go there.”

“How does New Jersey sound?” He smiled slightly and his gaze slid downward. “I knew a girl in—” The smile wiped off his face and in one snap of time, he stood in front of her, bending over her bandaged hand. “She hurt you. That’s why you’re so blue.”

She whipped her hand behind her back. “It’s a scratch from a shard of flying glass. And I’m not blue.”

He raised his head, looking her in her eyes. “A dark blue. Like the sky in summer, just before the storm hits. What is it? You were falling for him, weren’t you?”

“That’s ridiculous. I’ve only known him for one day.”

“Yeah? You think I’ve forgotten how it felt to look at another person and want them? That’s how you felt, didn’t you? You liked him.”

“Like isn’t the word I’d use.” She let the T-shirt drape over her thighs, and she smoothed her hand over the black lettering. “He didn’t look at me like I was a freak.”

“Ah ha.” Joe reared up, floating over her like a man in a zero-gravity spacesuit. “I told you he was giving you the once-over. And you’re not a freak. Don’t let those bastards make you feel ashamed.”

“I won’t. I’ll stay as far away from them as I can.” She put all her determination into a nod. “New Jersey sounds better by the second.” She had good memories of New Jersey. She’d met Joe in Jersey three years ago, in front of a mansion she was de-ghosting. When her gig was over and she drove back to Chicago, he came along for the ride. They’d been together since, though once in a while he disappeared to look up old friends, the few who still barely alive.

“No regrets?”

“None,” she said. “Now, will you get out of my way so I can pack?”

He didn’t move. “You’re almost convincing me. It’s been over fifty years since I’ve been a cop, but I can still smell bullshit when I hear it.”

“Idiot.” She threw up her hands. “Okay, I felt a connection to the little girl. She reminded me of me when I was younger.”

“That’s it?”

“That’s it. Will you let me finish packing? Don’t make me walk through you.”

He backed up, and she got to her feet. "New Jersey, here we come."