Chapter 15

Chapter Fifteen

"This is the exit. Utica! Give me McHottie's cell number and I'll text him for you. Tell him we're here," Alice offered.

Natalie wasn't certain of much right now, but she did know the last thing Liam would want was Alice having his cell number. If anyone in Mudville would abuse that privilege it would be the octogenarian who still acted like a teenager most days.

"Thanks, Alice. I'll text him after we get there and I park the car."

"I just messaged Stone and Agnes that we're almost there. They'll pass along the update to Liam and Jules and everyone else back home who's interested."

Natalie nodded, thinking the whole town was likely interested.

Them getting on this show was the most exciting thing to happen in Mudville since Taco dug up that human bone in the shop's backyard.

Over the past few days, walk-in business had doubled. Just like it had then after the discovery of the bone. It seemed like everyone stopped by to ask questions or get an update. Or just to be able to say they'd been in the shop that was the subject of the most exciting recent gossip.

And Natalie had left it in the hands of Stone's cousin whom she'd met once yesterday, and Jules, her college freshman part-time employee.

Pushing that fear aside, she moved onto the next worry that had occupied her mind for most of the ride. While Alice had been dictating the radio station selection from the backseat, and Harper had spent most of the ride trying to keep Alice happy, Natalie's mind spun with thoughts about what was to come.

How the hell was this ghost show going to play out now that she'd openly declared war with Letisha by calling her a fraud during her cast interview?

As the theater came into view, she figured she'd know soon enough. She slowed to a crawl now that she was in the town, then spotted the parking lot for the theater and swung the car in.

Knowing her vehicle was so close, a means of escape should she need it, made her feel momentarily better—until she realized the producers could easily demand she hand over her car key along with her cell phone.

She wished she'd listened to Liam and hid a spare car key in one of those magnetic hide-a-key things like he'd suggested.

Of course, she'd never gotten around to it, a fact she regretted immensely right now. She had a feeling that was going to be the first of many regrets this week.

Cutting the engine, she turned to Harper. "This is it."

"I know," Harper squealed. "It's so exciting!"

"Yeah. Exciting," Natalie echoed with far less enthusiasm. "I'm just going to text Liam."

"Pop the trunk. We got bags to unload," Alice demanded, as if either of them was going to let the old lady lift anything heavy.

Natalie did as told, figuring they'd wrestle over the bags later. She popped the trunk then typed out a quick text.

We're here. Miss you already!

She hit send and waited, but he didn't get back to her.

There were no telltale bubbles to indicate he was typing a message either.

He was probably deep into his research with the cell on silent, as usual. Only this time she couldn't walk next door to the lab to see him.

Fighting back the panic that knowledge caused, she drew in a breath.

It was going to be okay.

God, how she hoped it was going to be okay.

She pocketed the cell, missing the device already too even though it hadn't been confiscated as yet, and got out of the car.

"You'd think they'd send out a valet. Don't they know three fashionable women are going to have a lot of luggage?" Alice said, standing next to the bags of various sizes and shapes.

Natalie wasn't sure she or Alice qualified as fashionable .

Harper did, in black leggings, knee-high riding boots and a Burberry plaid cape over a black turtleneck, all of which she'd bragged she'd procured at Red's Resale shop for pennies on the dollar compared to what it was all worth.

But not Natalie, in what was probably out of style by now skinny jeans topped with a plain cream-colored oversized sweater and knock-off camel-colored Ugg boots. Nor Alice, in her hot pink jogging pants with a white turtleneck under a matching pink zip-up sweatshirt and bright white slip-on sneakers. Yeah. They weren't winning any fashion awards today.

Natalie glanced toward the building, about to assure Alice that she and Harper could handle the baggage, when she spotted a young man heading their direction. "It's okay, Alice. I see someone coming. I bet he's here to help us."

"I don't see nobody," Alice said.

"Did you remember to pack your glasses, Alice?" Harper asked, arranging her smaller bag so it set atop her larger roller suitcase.

"I don't need no stinking glasses to know there ain't nobody coming. I only use glasses for reading, not for distance," Alice sniped back.

Harper turned, shading her eyes as she peered toward the building too. "Actually, I don't see anyone either. Where did you see someone, Natalie?"

Uh, oh. No. Could it be? Already?

Heart racing, Natalie moved around the car and then stopped as the young man got closer.

She could see the dark bruising around his deeply sunken eyes. The yellow pallor to his skin. And the clincher, what really sold the fact this boy might not be alive, was his uniform. Unless the theater dressed their employees in historical outfits, this was a ghost.

A new ghost. A stranger to her. Not one of her ghosts. And she didn't know if he was friendly or not.

He could just as easily be a psychopath who'd murdered his way through 1920s chorus girls until he succumbed to… whatever it was that killed him. Now he was cursed to haunt the theater forever. Torturing both the living and the dead, and especially the living who could see the dead.

Natalie yanked her gaze away from the specter moving closer. She couldn't let him realize she could see him. At least until she got the lay of the land. Figured out the temper of these spirits and knew it was safe to communicate.

That time in the tunnels at the prohibition-era distillery when she met that bootlegger ghost at least she had Liam with her. Same with the two ghosts in their hotel room on that trip. And in Mudville, Gabe was there, always playing interference, remaining between her and the spirit community. Protecting her.

But here. Here she was all on her own.

She spun away from the building, forcing her focus to remain on Harper, or Alice, or the mound of luggage. Anywhere except on the ghost.

Keeping her voice as low as she thought she could for Alice to be able to hear, she said, "I, uh, saw someone but I lost sight of them again… in the glare of the sun. They probably went back inside. That's fine. We can handle it. Alice, you just grab your purse and Harper and I can handle the rest."

And so it had begun. The first of what would no doubt be many and growingly intricate lies.

This was going to be a week filled with her tripping up around the spirits and then lying creatively to the livings about it.

She was going to have to lie like she'd never lied before. And do it convincingly too because she needed the producers to believe in her—in her honesty, in her integrity—if she wanted to expose Letisha as a fraud.

But she also had to keep her friends from learning the truth—that she wasn't just pretending to see ghosts to expose Letisha.

And to do that she needed to stop slipping up. Swerving to avoid the ghost horse, announcing the ghost usher coming to help them—that all had to stop.

Maybe she needed to fake laryngitis and stop talking all together because things were about to get really complicated really fast.