Chapter Nine

Ricky and Taryn were right about one thing: The food at Taqueria Vargas was outstanding. I leaned back on the wooden banquette and rubbed my stomach. "That was the most incredible cochinita pibil I've ever tasted."

"Told you," Ricky said, topping up my margarita and Taryn's from the pitcher in the middle of the table. "Best Mexican Restaurant in Ghost."

Taryn took a sip of her drink. "It's the only one in Ghost."

Ricky shrugged and brandished his glass with a grin. "That means nobody can argue with me. I mean, if you make other claims—best in the state, best north of the border, best west of the Mississippi—there'll always be somebody to argue with you." He sniffed, putting on a snooty expression. "Even if they're obviously wrong."

I traced the grain on the polished wood tabletop with a finger and sighed.

"Maz?" Taryn said. "You okay? Were the terms of the contract acceptable?"

I glanced up, my vision only slightly impaired by how many margaritas I'd consumed so far. "The contract's great. Very generous."

Taryn snorted. "You haven't seen the chaos of Thaddeus's papers. Once you do, you'll probably demand double the rate."

"Triple," Ricky said. "Minimum."

"I'm sure it can't be that bad. I'll head over there tomorrow to start sorting through everything."

"So if it's not the contract, what is it?"

I chewed on my lower lip, my gaze drifting from one of them to the other. "What if my house really is haunted? I mean, people have been driven out of their homes by vengeful spirits—"

" Alleged vengeful spirits," Ricky said.

"Okay, alleged vengeful spirits. But whether they were real or not—"

"They weren't," Taryn said. "Never been proven."

" Fine . Real or not, they still drove people out of their homes, and guys, I've got nowhere else to go."

"Oh, Maz." Taryn set her glass down with a clink . "You're part of the town now. One of us. You won't be homeless."

"Yeah, but I've ridden the couch surfing wave before and I really don't want to dive back into it. I want a house. I want a home , and I really thought I'd found one. But somebody or something doesn't want me to have it."

Taryn studied me, her head tilted to the side as she drummed her fingernails on the table. I noticed her nails were on the short side, but her manicure was perfect, with a jeweled pattern on her thumbnail. An interesting blend of practical and stylish, Taryn. "We don't know that. Nothing hurt you ."

"Yet," I muttered, and took a gulp of my margarita. "I'm kind of afraid of what I'll find when I go back." I'd agreed with Saul and Patrice's request to install a ribbon in the Smith Corona after we'd found a stash of them in the library desk and roll in a fresh sheet of paper, but I really didn't want to wake up and hear the keys clacking overhead.

"Do you want someone to stay with you?" Ricky asked. "Either one of us would be glad to do it."

I considered that through my margarita haze. I still hadn't given up the notion of a completely human answer to the vandalism, and as much as I liked Ricky and Taryn, they were still two of the people who could have had perfectly ordinary, non-ghostly access to the house.

"No. It's all right. I've got to get over myself sometime. Besides," I reached for my margarita but diverted to my water at the last minute, "maybe nothing'll manifest if I'm not alone in the house. After all, we don't know what the trigger was. Heck, maybe it was Gil. I mean, the house was pristine. Maybe the Force objected to cat fur contaminating every available horizontal surface."

"I still can't figure out how the house was so clean," Ricky said, reaching for the last tortilla chip. "If Taryn didn't hire a service—"

"I didn't."

"—then it should have collected a decade's worth of dust, let alone spiders and rodents."

"Ugh." I shivered. "Don't say rodents."

He shrugged. "Sorry. But you know what I mean."

I sighed. "I do." I shifted to one hip and reached for my wallet. "What's my share of dinner?"

Ricky held up both hands. "This one's on the house for both of you."

"I can't let you—"

"My family's restaurant. My treat."

Taryn favored me with a crooked smile. "Don't bother arguing with him. You won't win."

Heat rushed up my neck because it went against the principles my parents had drilled into me from childhood— pay your own way; don't be beholden; don't take advantage —but I really didn't have the cash to spare.

"Thank you. I really appreciate it." I scooted to the edge of the banquette and pushed myself to my feet. "But now, I should go home. I don't want to leave Gil alone for too long."

"Afraid he'll get spooked by the spirits?" Taryn asked with a smirk.

I glared at her. "No. I'm afraid he'll scare them away and your dad will never forgive me."

She laughed, but I wasn't entirely kidding. Gil was a force of nature.

"Can I walk you home?" Ricky asked.

Tempting. So tempting. But I was trying to make good choices for once in my life. "I'll be fine. Thanks, though."

I lifted my hand in farewell to Ricky's family—his sister behind the bar, his mother pushing through the kitchen door with two sizzling platters of fajitas, and his father visible through the pass-through into the kitchen—and stepped out into the twilight.

Ghost's Main Street was lined with brick storefronts, its sidewalks protected by striped awnings. There were honest-to-goodness parking meters along the curb, but they were all marked Donations only . There were also shorter metal posts with iron rings hanging from their tops, from the days when the regular mode of transportation had been horses.

I ambled down the street, the chilly breeze teasing my curls, smiling when I noted the needlework-and-occult shop, its window displays a mix of crystals, yarn, candles, and a variety of pointy things from knitting needles to athames. It was closed for the evening, as was a bakery, unfortunately, although music drifted out of the pub across from Taqueria Vargas. On the corner, set back behind a white picket fence, was the Ghost Public Library. I peered at its sign in a neat patch of grass. Its hours were listed as Tuesday afternoon, all day Saturday, and By Appointment .

I shoved my hands in the pockets of my fleece jacket as I crossed Main Street and headed down Iris Lane toward the house. Somehow, I wasn't sure I could actually claim it as mine anymore.

Did I even want to?

I stood on the sidewalk, gazing up at it. The turrets, the gingerbread trim, the gables, the pristine spindlework. Did it hold secrets? Undoubtedly. But although most of its many windows were dark now, the house didn't seem angry or threatening or ominous. It seemed… lonely.

I could relate.

And despite last night's events, I still loved the place. If the vandalism was caused by humans, I'd figure it out and stop them. My retired detective client's book had a lot of ideas for trapping criminals.

If the house truly was haunted? Well, Gil and I would just have to learn to cohabit with a ghost.

"Although I'd really rather it would stop trashing the books," I muttered as I stalked up the flagstone walkway, digging my key out of my jeans pocket.

I squinted in the amber glow of the porch light as I aimed the key at the lock, but when I tried to insert it—

"What the—"

I crouched down and peered into the keyhole, and even in the dim light I could tell that it was once more packed with what looked like sawdust.

"Are you kidding me?"

Heck, the lock had been clear when I left to meet Taryn and Ricky for dinner. I'd only been gone a couple of hours, for cripes' sake. No way could mason bees mount a nesting campaign so quickly.

Wait. Could they? What did I know? Nobody'd ever hired me to ghostwrite a book about native Oregon pollinators.

I stormed down the porch steps and rounded the corner of the house. When I spotted Professor DeHaven's spectacles gleaming in her window, I eased back on my scowl and waved at her on my way to the keypad next to the garage door. Ricky had showed me how to reprogram it, so I punched in the code and crossed my arms, smirking in satisfaction as the door trundled up.

"Ha! Take that!"

I marched into the garage, giving my Civic a pat on my way past, and slapped the button to close the door. Since I didn't want Gil to dart out into the darkness, I waited for it to shut all the way before I opened the kitchen door and stepped inside.

I'd left the lights on over the kitchen counter, as well as the hall light, the light on the second floor landing, and the lamp on the library desk. Hey, don't judge or report me to the utility police. Whether my nocturnal visitors had been physical or phantasmagorical, I still didn't want to come home to a dark house.

I shrugged out of my jacket and hung it on the back of a chair in the breakfast nook as Gil came trotting in from the hallway. "Hey, boy." I picked him up and cuddled him under my chin as I considered what to do with the rest of my evening.

I was grateful for the gig Taryn had scored for me with her dad at the Manor, but with the state of my finances, I really couldn't afford to turn down any work right now.

"What do you think, Gil?" I looked down at him and he touched my nose with his. "Maybe that boring memoir isn't as bad as I recall."

I hadn't completely refused the job. Yet. I could take a look at the sample pages the prospective client sent me tonight and decide whether I could face it.

What I couldn't face, however, was working at the desk in the library, the epicenter of last night's… events. I didn't want to go up to the sitting area in my bedroom, either. In fact, I might sleep on the family room sofa tonight. You know. Just in case.

I retrieved my laptop bag from where I'd hung it on a hook by the front door and settled down at the breakfast table. I closed the blinds. Although the backyard looked quite lovely in the light from the full moon, I didn't fancy looking up to find my burglar—or something worse—staring in at me from the porch.

I booted up the laptop and opened the client's file. "Oh, lord, Gil," I muttered, "it's actually worse than I remember."

I scrolled down. Maybe it got better. Not everyone knew how to craft a good opening hook. But page after page was just as—

"Drivel."

My hand froze on the keyboard. I hadn't said that, and as brilliant as Gil was, he hadn't mastered human speech. I turned slowly in the chair, wishing for my trusty poker.

A man stood behind the chair, peering down at the screen. He was tall—at least as tall as me, I'd guess—and slender, although his shapeless cardigan hid much of his physique. He had a shock of curly brown hair and pale skin, with wire-framed spectacles perched on his rather hooked nose.

He was also completely transparent.