Chapter 16

Ralph barely kept from fleeing and finding somewhere to hide, but she couldn't do that. She'd committed a heinous crime. She had to own that.

Maybe this was why she was half ghost, half whatever she was. Maybe she did deserve to be a screwed-up ghost. Maybe she did deserve to be in Hell—even if, according to the report, it had been self-defense.

"Michael," Shamus muttered. "That's the name Drucinda used before she crossed, right?"

She almost couldn't concentrate on Shamus's voice for the distress she felt at what she'd done. "It is. But…"

Shamus held up the photos of the man. "Do you recognize him? Is this the guy who grabbed you in Hell?"

Her throat felt like it was going to close up as she squinted and tried to focus. "I can't tell. It all happened so fast, and the one of him…dead…" She shook her head in frustration. "I can't tell!"

Shamus dropped the file on the desk and began taking pictures of the suspect and the written notes before he tucked his phone back in his jacket pocket. "We have to get out of here, Ralph."

"Lovers? You fucking done in there?" Nina bellowed. "I can feel my shit starting to slip. Let's get it on!"

Shamus tidied up the desk and made a break for the doors with Ralph in hot pursuit.

As he skidded out the doors, he stopped short and headed for Nina.

By then, the police officer was coming out of his bizarre trance. He stared at Nina with a strange look. "Can I help you?"

Nina shook her head, tucking her hair behind her ears. "Sorry. Thought this was the Dunkin' Donuts. Musta confused our directions." Then she turned to Shamus and scolded with a frown, "Jesus Christ, sugar plum, how the hell did you confuse a police station with a glazed donut and a Boston cream? Silly goose!" She tweaked his nose playfully before threading her arm though his and leading them toward the exit.

Ralph fought a laugh at Shamus's surprised look.

As they pushed their way out of the station and down the stairs, the crowd holding vigil for her now diminished, likely because the temperature on the sign in the police station's parking lot read twenty-two degrees, Nina stopped where the two officers were chatting with Marty and Wanda, obviously charmed by their flirting.

She tapped one sturdy-looking officer on the shoulder. "Just FYI, this ain't the fuckin' Dunkin' Donuts, if you were thinkin' a glazed donut's in your future tonight."

Dragging Shamus down the rest of the steps, the two laughed. Despite how torn she was over killing this man Michael, she managed a laugh, too.

They were all still laughing on the car ride home.

It felt good to put off the inevitable by sprinkling in a lighter moment.

* * *

It had been a week since they'd been to the police station, and they hadn't learned a single thing about this Michael Vorris other than what the detective had in his file.

He didn't have any social media accounts, just an arrest record as long as her arm with a couple of mugshots of him, and the picture the one of him lying on the pavement—dead. One Ralph could barely look at.

Still, she couldn't be certain he was who'd nabbed her in Hell.

But he'd been arrested plenty in his twenty-four years, for assault and battery, drug possession, several misdemeanors. The pathologist's preliminary report had found meth in his bloodwork.

Michael'd been in and out rehab for habitual drug use, meth in particular, and in and out of jail on several occasions since he was a teen.

And she'd killed him. She'd killed someone. A child in comparison to her. Someone who hadn't even had the chance to live their life.

Mild-mannered first grade teacher, careful, quiet Raphaela Tucci had killed someone. Someone she still couldn't identify with a clear conscience as the man who'd hauled her off to Hell, let alone the man who'd killed her.

He was the only explanation about why this was happening to her, and if they didn't identify him, find him she'd be stuck in this sort of in-between-life-and-death state forever.

She didn't remember a single thing about the night she'd been killed, but that she'd killed a man—even if he did end up shooting her—left her torn up inside. And she'd used a utility knife to do it.

What made this whole scenario even weirder? Ralph remembered the utility knife. She remembered using it to open boxes. Why was everything else such a black hole in her mind?

"Ra…Ralph?" Carl put a hand on hers, watching as it fell directly through her palm.

She'd finally met the infamous Carl, and she was in absolute love. He was the sweetest, gentlest young man she'd ever encountered.

And he loved to read just as much as she did. She'd been introducing him to YA mysteries. Nancy Drew and The Hardy Boys, to be specific. He read them at the speed of light, and then they discussed them on the couch of the library in front of a roaring fire while everyone else watched TV.

He turned the pages for them as he sat cuddled in a fuzzy blanket with a bowl of broccoli, Blanche in his lap and Dale at his feet, while Waffles zoomed around in her wheelchair attachment and Gloria cuddled by Carl's side.

Gloria had quickly fallen in line with the tiny pack they'd created this week, and it filled Ralph's heart with joy. She'd been released from the vet with strict instructions to rest while she healed, which turned out not to be a problem, considering the number of laps she'd been able to find safe harbor on.

Gloria was a gentle soul, with happy eyes and a grateful heart, and Shamus had fallen in love with her from the moment her tail furiously wagged when they'd picked her up from the vet.

But she truly appeared to relish the routine of sitting in the library with them. In fact, for the last two days, Glo had found her way to the library doors after dinner, waiting outside patiently for her favorite zombie's lap.

The few hours or so she and Carl spent each evening, chatting about what he'd read, made her day. She'd missed books.

She missed her store. She missed a reason to get up. Even though she didn't have to get up because she was awake around the clock. Not as fun as one would think.

"Ralph?"

Blinking, she smiled and sort of patted his hand in return. "Sorry, buddy. I was lost in thought."

He cocked his head, his pale green face concerned. "Sad again?"

She didn't want to put a damper on their time together or expose him to something so awful, even if he did already know what she'd done.

This time with him had become a respite from her ugly thoughts about what she'd done to Michael Vorris. A young man she could find no information on no matter where they looked.

Looking down at the book they were reading together, she shook her head. "No, sweet boy. I'm fine. Where were we?"

But he turned to look at her, shaking his head. "No…you…you're not telling…truth. Tell Carl…truuuth," he insisted. "Lies are bad."

When she remained silent, he pressed. "You are good. Good-good. Not…" He swallowed. "Not your fault. He shoot you. Drug addict," he whispered fiercely, pointing to her chest. "You defend."

Yes, that was true. According to the report, the police had declared Michael's death self-defense. They hadn't made an official announcement, but that's what the notes in the written file said.

Yet, she couldn't remember any of it, so how could she possibly believe that was the truth? How could she believe that after a lifetime of fearing confrontation, she'd finally found her balls, as Nina had put it?

Nodding, she agreed as Carl yawned. "You're right, and I think it's time for bed. You look exhausted after a day of sledding."

His nod was slow as he closed the book and began to rise, stretching his arms upward, the duct tape on his wrists gleaming in the fire's glow.

He rubbed at his eyes with his forearm. "Tiii…red. Yes. You okay?"

"I'm fine, Carl. Same time tomorrow?"

His smile was happy. "Yes! Tooo…morrow, we find whodunit!"

They were on the last chapter of the book and he was excited for the big reveal. "Yep. Tomorrow we find out whodunnit. Sweet dreams, Carl."

He pressed his fingers to his mouth and blew her a kiss. "Night-night, Ralph."

As he sauntered out of the library in his flannel pajamas, his gait slow, Ralph's heart melted. He was the dearest boy, and she couldn't express how fortunate she felt to have met him. To have met all of them.

The women, Darnell and Arch, were all as supportive of her killing spree as Carl was.

In fact, Marty had sternly told her killing sprees meant plural killings, and as a teacher, she'd better quit calling it that because it was absolutely false. One man had died. One, she said, her eyes full of fire.

Nina, in all her love of violence and gore, had praised her for having the balls to stand up and not be a victim. "The guy was trying to GD well rob your floaty ass, Glow Stick—with a fucking gun. You were lookin' out. Ain't nothin' wrong with that."

Wanda had vehemently agreed. She'd said sometimes you didn't choose violence, it chose you.

But it didn't change the dynamic of the realization. She'd never even been in a fistfight and now she'd killed someone? Talk about zero to a million.

"Ralph?" Shamus called from the doorway.

"Yes?"

"Walk?"

They'd been doing that a lot this week. Walking (well, she'd been floating), talking, fruitlessly theorizing, getting to know each other as they explored Nina and Greg's vast property.

Shamus hadn't kissed her again, and between fretting about the night of her murder, she intermittently hadn't stopped thinking about that kiss, wondering if he thought he'd made a mistake.

But oh, that kiss. She'd never been kissed so thoroughly, so completely.

So perfectly.

Ralph couldn't shake that feeling of being home when she'd been in his arms—of finally being in the right place.

As she floated through the castle at night, occasionally checking on Charlie and Carl, she relived that kiss. It was all she could do not to float right through the guest bedroom door where Shamus slept and make him kiss her again.

But was now the time to find herself insanely attracted to the Ghost Talker? Now, when she didn't know if she had a future?

No.

She didn't want to spend an eternity mourning an opportunity.

But to his question… Would she walk with him in the snow, under the moonlight, pining away like a schoolgirl for the umpteenth time this week while she inhaled his cologne and ogled his muscles?

Yes. Yes, she would.

"Ralph? Are you interested in a walk?" he repeated, his handsome face smiling as he scooped each animal up in his arms and planted a kiss on the tops of their heads, saving his girl Glo for last.

"Sure," she said with a smile.

Cuddling Gloria, he pressed his face to hers. "You wait here for Daddy, okay? Soon, we'll go on all sorts of walks with your brother Dale. You're gonna love it."

Gloria appeared satisfied with that answer, licking Shamus's face before he set her on the floor. She hobbled over to the hearth and hunkered down next to Waffles, curling around her by the fire.

Ralph blew them all a kiss, wishing with all her heart she could pet them, but after her initial harrowing meeting with Glo on the night they'd gone to the bookstore, everything had gone back to the way it remained.

Shamus zipped up his puffy vest, pulled his hat down over his ears and held out his hand. "You wanna do the hedge maze again tonight, or are you afraid to trust directionally challenged me to get us out of it before I freeze to death?"

With a giggle, she took his hand, floating beside him. "Good thing I can float or we'd still be wandering around inside that vegetation chamber of tortures."

He barked a laugh, opening the back door of the quiet kitchen and heading toward the maze. "You feeling any better today?"

"You mean about murdering someone? Someone young, with his whole life ahead of him? Sure. It feels great."

He sighed, a puff of condensation blowing from his lips as the chilled night air enveloped them. She missed the cold, the snow on her face.

"You didn't murder anyone, Ralph. You defended yourself. He killed you because of it. He was trying to rob you, for shit's sake. He was a drug addict on meth. You had defensive wounds on your hands. You scratched him. His skin was under your nails. The autopsy said so. There's a huge difference between taking someone's life because they want your money, and defending yourself from someone who wants to hurt you because they want your money. He shot you. Shot. You."

She stopped at the beginning of the maze. They'd had this discussion a hundred times this week, but you can't know how horrid it feels until it happens to you.

"Have you ever killed anyone?"

His chest deflated. "You're right. I don't know what that feels like, and I know even cops who've killed criminals have remorse, but I do know I would have done the same thing you did, Ralph. If you want to feel badly over the fact that he died, I can almost understand it, but you didn't willfully take a life. He did. You're not a murderer. Michael Vorris is."

She looked up at the sky, fighting the wave of ugly guilt that followed this exact conversation they'd had almost every night. "Let's talk about something else. Where were we last night? Oh, yeah. I was going to ask how old you are, but you wimped out and needed to go to bed."

He rolled his eyes, scratching the beard on his chin. "I didn't wimp out, it was three in the morning. I, unlike you, need to sleep. I'm not exactly a spring chicken."

"Sure-sure," she teased, plopping down on one of the stone benches Nina and Greg had strategically placed along the paths of the maze. "Now answer the question. How old are you?"

He grinned, tucking her hand in his lap, their fingers intertwined. "In human years, I'm fifty-two."

"And paranormal years?"

"A lot older than that."

"Is this what immortality does? Makes you lose count of how old you are?"

He chuckled, deep and low. "I'm just kidding. I'm really only fifty-two. But I am immortal, so ask me in another hundred years."

Ralph found herself leaning into him without even thinking about the act. It felt as natural as it did when he took her hand in his. "What about being an elf? What powers does that give you?"

He tapped the side of his head with a smile. "Pointy ears and some really cool fairy playmates when I was a kid."

Ralph frowned. "Fairies…"

"Yup. They exist, too."

Her mouth fell open. "I don't know if I'll ever get used to all the things. Do they have tiny little wings and magic wands?"

He nodded as he laughed. "And teeth. They have very sharp teeth. They're not all like Tinkerbell. Some are baby-sized little terrors with tiny razor-sharp teeth."

"Okay. Well, scratch that fairy tale, huh?" She sighed, gazing at a concrete gargoyle with wings. She'd heard the story about Ingrid and her gargoyle and since then, she found herself checking the eyes of the statues in Nina's hedge maze for signs of life. "So no other powers as an elf?"

"Not as only half an elf, no. I have a little magic, but I'm not turning water into wine. Though, I'm hella good at making it rain. Sometimes it gets a little out of control and turns into a tsunami, but it doesn't last long. Though, my mother would tell you it was a catastrophe. Mostly it's just parlor tricks. Like I said, my father's human. My mother's the elf. She's got all the powers. I just see ghosts."

"Did you guys live in a hollowed-out tree?"

Shamus snorted. "Oh, she's got jokes, eh? Yeah, and we made cookies. The Keeblers are distant cousins."

Now she laughed as the snow began to fall and she admired the way it stuck to his eyelashes. "Sorry. I couldn't resist. Are you close with your parents?"

Shamus's smile was filled with warmth. "I am. My dad's eighty now, but he's still as spry as a twenty-year-old. My mother, well, she's immortal, so she looks like she's twenty. It's kinda funny when they go out together and everyone thinks he's her sugar daddy. But she's actually a lot older."

"By how much?"

"Thirty years."

Boy, this paranormal world was nuts. "Are they happy?"

"Disgustingly so. They're still like teenagers, always have been."

That didn't sound disgusting at all to her, but she acknowledged they'd grown up very differently, and his appreciation of his parents' happy marriage might be clouded by their embarrassing affectionate moments growing up.

"I think it's sweet."

They sat for a moment, admiring the buttery moon and the falling snow.

"I guess now, as an adult, I can admit it's pretty great." He paused a second, clearly measuring his words. "So, you were engaged, right?"

"I was."

He lifted a snow-covered eyebrow. "And?"

"And it ended because he wanted to move to Texas for a job, and I wanted to retire early and open a bookstore."

"He didn't support your dream?"

"No. Nothing like that. He did…as long as I dreamed in Texas." Plucking at her bracelets, she expanded her answer. "Will was a great guy—he just wasn't my guy, and when I realized my heart wouldn't be broken if he went to Texas, and this job was a huge opportunity for his career, it's the one thing I didn't overthink. I stayed in New York, a place I love, and ended it. It was amicable, and he's very happy there with a wife and some goats."

"No one serious before that?"

"You mean because of my age, right? I should have had a string of lovers by now?"

"Nope. I mean, you're obviously very choosy about picking a mate. Not a bad trait to have."

"I guess that's true. I've dated, had boyfriends here and there, but I'm not exactly a good time in terms of going out, parties and so on. I like home and a good book. A fire. Blanche curled up in my lap. A movie every weekend on Netflix."

"Now that I'm older, I like those things, too. Especially now that I have Dale, but what I really like is a night in with a good DIY project. You name it, I want to try it. Tiling, woodwork, all of it. It kept me sane during my divorce. But it turned my little condo into a palace," he said with so much obvious pride.

Now she measured her words. "Was your divorce contentious?"

His laugh was bitter. "To say the least. Tory was never a fan of me up and leaving in the middle of the night to help a ghost, or eradicate one from someone's house. She knew who I was when we met and married, but as demand grew, the two of us grew further and further apart. I could have lived with that if she hadn't taken it out on me by sleeping with our dentist. I really loved that guy."

Ralph winced. "She cheated?"

He scrunched his face up, and even that didn't distort his good looks. "She did. Fifteen years in the crapper, but if I'm honest, I'd begun to resent her anger. She really did know the score when we'd met."

"Is she paranormal, too?"

"Yeah," he answered with a wince. "Remember when I mentioned sharp teeth? She's a fairy."

Ralph covered her mouth to disguise her laugh, but Shamus laughed, too. "No children?"

Brushing at the snow accumulating on the bench, he shook his head. "Tory didn't want any, and I knew that going in. But did she catch me sneaking around, bringing home kids like I caught her cheating?"

Ralph rolled her eyes, but it made her laugh anyway. "Okay, that sounds just plain creepy."

"Poor analogy, but you know what I mean. A long time ago, kids might have been great, but I loved her and she didn't want any. Either way, we've been divorced for five years now, and I'm pretty content with my life. How about you? Ever wanted kids?"

She let out a long, wistful sigh. "I did. A long time ago, as well. I just never found the person I wanted to raise them with. The only thing I did know? I wasn't going to raise them like my mother raised me. Plus, I had plenty of children to love who I could send home at the end of the day. I made my peace with that years ago."

He let his thumb caress the space between her index finger and thumb. "I bet you would have been a terrific mother."

"What's done is done," she said with a bit of melancholy. "I have bigger fish to fry these days."

"Speaking of fish?—"

"Yum, fish," she joked, her tone dreamy, feeling as though the conversation was going to take a turn. "I love fish and chips."

"Don't deflect with food. I know you miss it, and once we figure this all out, if we're right about you being a psychopomp, I'll take you to the biggest buffet I can find. Until then, I have a question." He lifted his eyebrow with a grin.

She forced herself not to stiffen and to remain open to whatever he was going to say. "Then I might have an answer."

Cupping her cheek, Shamus turned her face to his, his eyes bright, his tanned face lean in the falling snow. "When this is all over, and we find who's stolen your place in the afterlife—and we will. I don't doubt that with Titus on the case and these women for backup. And we confirm you're a psychopomp…how do you feel about maybe going out on a date?"

She let her cheek curl into his hand, savoring the feel of his calloused palm against her skin, her lips almost touching his. "Ye?—"

"Hey!" Nina bellowed from somewhere beyond the hedge maze. "You two, stop playing Love Island shit and get the fuck in here. Titus sent Dex and George with news!"

They both backed away with a snicker, and Shamus whispered, "Foiled again."

As they rose to trudge back through the snow, Ralph's heart pounded. Maybe Titus had found who wanted her out of the picture?

Wouldn't that be…