Cursed (Paranormal Romantic Suspense, Complete)

Chapter 11 - Will

Ten minutes after I got home, I hadn't even taken my shoes off, and the can of beer RJ dropped on the coffee table in front of me remained unopened. I needed a clear head. Or maybe I didn't. After all, I was totally sober and I'd just had the most surreal evening of my life.

Rania could see ghosts? More specifically, Rania could see—and talk to—Helene Weston?

I wasn't sure what I'd been expecting when I pushed her, but certainly not that.

If the whole story was even true. But she spoke so earnestly, and the only other explanation—that she was deeply involved as an accomplice—didn't sit right either. And then there was Arthur.

Before things went any further, I had to verify Rania's story, and there was only one way I could think of to do that.

"RJ, I need another favour. Two, actually."

"Does it involve accompanying you to an all-female jello-wrestling match?"

"No, but if you're into that, I'm sure I could arrange it."

"Then it'll have to wait for a couple of hours. I've got a video conference with a potential takeover target in Japan in fifteen minutes."

That explained RJ's odd attire—shirt, tie, and suit jacket on the top, boxer shorts and comedy socks on the bottom. Despite appearances, RJ was a successful businessman, and when he wasn't messing around in his home office at odd hours of the day, he ran Wonderland Enterprises out of a three-storey building five minutes' walk away from our home in Enfield.

But computers were his first love, hacking was his second, and despite the cloak of legitimacy he now wore, he'd never switched his black hat out for white entirely.

"Want me to order pizza for when you're done?"

"Make it Chinese tonight, would you?"

I put my hands together and bowed as I shuffled backwards out of the room with his laughter following. Forget the clear head. It was time to open that beer.

Three hours passed before RJ got back into the police database, alternating between typing furiously and forking chow mein into his mouth. I'd been picking at my food, and now it had gone cold.

"What is it we're searching for?"

"Back to Helene Weston first. I want to take another look at her autopsy results. Have the toxicology results come back yet?"

More tapping on the keyboard. "Pass me a spring roll?"

We skipped over the photos this time and went straight for the reports. Lo and behold, another batch of lab results had arrived. Helene's blood showed traces of fentanyl.

"Isn't that a painkiller?" I muttered, but RJ was already consulting Dr. Google.

"It's an opiate, fast-acting, and a hundred times more potent than morphine. Also used in anaesthesia, and recreational drug users sometimes take it instead of heroin. Says here three milligrams of fentanyl will kill an adult male, compared to thirty milligrams of heroin."

"Helene had twenty-one nanograms per millilitre in her bloodstream."

RJ studied the screen in front of him again. He'd always been the chemistry geek at school while I was more into biology.

"So, if she hadn't bled out from the stab wound, she'd most likely have died from an overdose. Not much in the way of defensive wounds. Looks as if the drug hit her hard and she never got up again."

And Rania had been right. I sat down on the chair next to RJ's desk with a bump and stared at the noticeboard behind him, covered with scrappy pieces of paper filled with years' worth of scribbles.

The implications of Helene being drugged went far beyond a simple murder. Despite what I'd said to Rania earlier, I still hadn't entirely believed her story. But now? Either she really could speak to the dead, or she was playing me like a fucking maestro.

"Can you look up another case? Arthur Brady. Died about twelve years ago, and it went down as a suicide."

"Is this connected to Helene?"

"I don't know. But it happened in the same building, so I'm not ruling anything out."

And insinuating a connection was better than admitting the truth—that Arthur's ghost might still be hanging around at Daylesford Hall.

It took a few minutes for RJ to wade through the files, and I got up to stare over his shoulder when Arthur's appeared on-screen. My feet fidgeted of their own accord. What was that about? My colleagues on the force had nicknamed me "high roller" because of my poker face, but I couldn't seem to get rid of the weird buzz running through me where Rania was concerned.

I forced myself to focus on Arthur instead. Brown hair that was greying at the edges and receding a little in the middle, gold-framed glasses, thin lips. He could have been anybody's grandfather. Nobody passing him on the street would have given him a second glance.

"Arthur Frederick Brady, aged fifty-two when he died. Looks older. He dove off an internal balcony at Daylesford Hall and broke his neck on impact. Died instantaneously."

"Who found him?"

"The cleaner. Isn't that girl you had me check out the other day also a cleaner?"

"I think that's just a coincidence. What does the rest of the report say?"

"The cops interviewed all the staff, but Arthur was the last person left in the finance department that night. Walked out of his office on the top floor and boom: he jumped two storeys. Didn't even bother to finish his coffee or turn his computer off."

"They didn't find that odd?"

"Odd enough to ask questions. But there were no signs of a struggle, and the cleaner was vacuuming the back staircase when it happened. Everybody heard the noise."

"Who else was in the building?"

"A handful of sales staff, plus Lloyd and Anthony Weston. They'd stayed behind for a meeting on overseas expansion. There's a note here that Anthony's breath smelled of alcohol."

"Sounds about right."

"There was also a broken window next to the basement door, which nobody can explain."

I skimmed over the remainder of the information. RJ had a rule when he did me favours like this—no printouts, no screenshots, no downloads. Just in and out. The police had questioned Arthur's family, and his wife said he'd been distant lately. Secretive. There'd also been an argument with a neighbour over a scratched bumper. A proper stand-up row. Apparently, the guy thought Arthur had reversed into his car, but Arthur denied all knowledge. And of course, I already knew about the missing money from Lloyd. Signs of a fragile mental state? Or was Rania right and Arthur had a helping hand?

Only one way to find out—I'd have to take Rania up on her offer to channel the dead.

I glanced down at the beer beside me, my second of the evening. It was no good. Tonight, I needed something stronger.