Chapter 6

Marty grabbed Blanche from Nina and pointed down the alley toward the sidewalk and the SUV. "I'll tuck Blanche in. You guys go. Be with you in a jiffy."

Nina didn't hesitate, she reached over the police tape and rammed the door open, eliciting a yelp of fright from someone Shamus couldn't see.

But Ralph saw whoever it was. She leaned into him and whispered, "That's my best friend, Hazel!"

"Do you want her to see you, Ralph?" He could prevent Hazel from seeing her. It would save her some shock, and possibly a nightmare or two.

Seeing her best friend as a ghost, not to mention the very pale Nina and her friends, could be too much for Hazel to handle, thereby creating even more trauma for Ralph. And he didn't want her to be any more stressed than she already was, or they'd never find out why she wasn't taking her place in the afterlife.

And…he had a question or two of his own. He hadn't said anything to the women, but he'd never had such clear communication with a ghost before.

As far back as Shamus could remember, he'd been able to see them as plain as day, he could touch them—which was always a surprise to his grandmother—but he'd never had one communicate so clearly.

As though Ralph's earthly body had never even left this plane. She spoke in complete sentences and was fully aware of her surroundings, remembered everything about her life up until her death.

Almost never, in all the years he'd been doing the spirit world's bidding, had he met a ghost who was so…aware.

She was rare—and that troubled him. How could he help her get to where she needed to go if Ralph wasn't your average ghost?

Trying to focus on his surroundings, in complete disarray, possibly from a struggle with her assailant, he saw Ralph bite her soft lip—full lips he'd caught himself staring at more than once—as though she wasn't sure how to answer his question. Then she shook her head, the ribbons of her ebony hair rippling down her back.

She had, as Marty had pegged it, this boho vibe he found incredibly attractive. From the lines of colorfully beaded bracelets along her forearms, the multiple hanging necklaces draped over her breasts, to her flowing blue peasant top, fluffy cardigan, and swishy skirt that grazed the tops of her ballet slippers, she was insanely appealing.

Ralph gripped his upper arm. "No. No, no. I can't explain this to Hazel, Shamus. Not now, when I don't even know what's happening. I don't want to frighten her. It's not just that I'm a ghost—it's that ghosts actually exist. There's so much more to it than just me. It's a whole world of explanations she might not be ready for…"

He got the impression that Ralph thought about everyone else before she thought of herself, and she did it often. That also didn't mesh with the idea she was still here on this plane. If her heart was as pure as it appeared, why hadn't she gone up?

Up being the word almost everyone used to describe their idea of Heaven, or what they considered a better place than the earthly plane.

He was having some trouble classifying her ghost status, and that no one in the afterlife had appeared anywhere around her, even if they didn't speak directly to him, unnerved him a great deal.

"Shamus! Hide me before she sees me. Please!" she whispered, now inching away. "I don't want her upset."

Shamus nodded, tucking Ralph behind him. "Understood." He reached into his back pocket to sprinkle a different fairy dust on her, reversing her visibility, while Nina was giving the poor woman hell.

"Who the fuck are you?" she sneered at the short blonde in a puffy red coat, with fogged glasses and a red nose from the cold, standing beside an oddly shaped, toppled table.

Hazel grabbed what appeared to be the first thing she could find with her trembling fingers—a kid's puzzle—raising it high above her head. "Who the fuck are you?"

If Ralph was meek, her best friend Hazel was an exploding firecracker. She was easily ten inches shorter than Nina, but she'd reared right back up at her, wooden puzzle in hand, ready to take a whack at the vamp.

"You must be Hazel," Shamus said easily, giving her a smile as he stepped between the two women.

The expression on her round face went instantly suspicious as she pushed her glasses up her nose, her eyes scanning his.

"Who are you, and how do you know my name?"

Shit. Yeah, Ransom, how did you know her name?

"I had a picture of us in my classroom, on my desk, from when we went to Amish country. I talked a lot about our friendship. Tell her you're the parent of a student. They knew her as Ms. Ronkowski," Ralph whispered

Before he held out his hand to her and explained, he pulled Nina tight to his side. She wasn't gonna like what he was about to do, but he was used to situations like this. When he was poking around, looking for answers to questions no one living appeared to have, he knew how to pretend to be someone he wasn't.

Nina struggled a bit, but he gripped her waist, forcing her to stay close.

He held out his hand to Hazel. "Ms. Tucci talked about your friendship often. She had a picture of the two of you in Amish country, on her desk at school. As a result, our son came home with plenty of stories. We're very familiar with you, aren't we, honey?"

Nina grunted, but she played along. Reluctantly, but she played. "Uh, yeah, honey."

"Anyway, I'm Shamus, and this is my wife, Nina. Sorry about my…" He cleared his throat. "Sorry about my wife's overzealous reaction. We came to pay our respects to Ms. Tucci on our way back from dinner and heard a noise inside the store. Before she became my blushing bride and the mother of our children, my beautiful partner in connubial bliss was a police officer."

Nina glared at him, but thankfully she nodded her head. "Yeah. Sorry I went all ape-shit on you. Ex-cop ears and all."

Hazel didn't look like she was buying what Shamus was selling, refusing to put her hand in his. Her gaze remained suspicious in the dark store.

Taking a step back, she hiked her red jacket higher on her shoulders, pointing to Wanda and Marty. "How do you two know Raphaela?"

"She taught our children, too, of course. We were all, at one time anyway, part of the PTA. Now we're friends," Wanda offered quite simply, her smile bright and welcoming. Marty wiggled her fingers at Hazel and gave her a warm smile.

Hazel's shoulders relaxed. She blew out a breath. "Ah." Then fat tears filled her eyes, forcing her to push her glasses up to swipe at them. "I'm sorry. I'm just jumpy."

"And as well you should be. Your friend was killed." Wanda was the first to reach out to her, with Marty quickly coming up on the other side of Hazel. "But how did you get in here? Didn't the police secure the store? Are you a family member?"

Hazel let her chin fall to her chest, her head full of blonde curls bouncing, her hands flapping at her sides. "I have a key. Ralph was my…my best friend, and when she opened the store, she gave me my own…key," she sobbed, shuddering breaths escaping her throat. "I can't believe she's gone! I was just here a couple of weeks ago, helping her set up the store. Look at this mess and now…now…"

She began to cry in earnest, making Shamus's chest go tight and uncomfortable.

The grief was the hardest part of this job, but he'd learned to compartmentalize in favor of helping a lost entity find their way.

Ralph stirred behind him, a soft breath escaping her lips. Only he could hear and see her for the moment. It had to be a special kind of hell for her—for any ghost—to watch the people they loved suffer with the loss.

If how she'd described her friendship with Hazel on the way over from Nina's was any indication, this had to be pure torture. They'd been exceptionally close.

Wanda wrapped Hazel in her embrace. "I'm so sorry for your loss. I'm Wanda Jefferson, and this is Marty Flaherty. What's your last name, Hazel?"

She gulped, resting against Wanda as though she was exhausted. "Ronkowski. Hazel Ronkowski. Ralph and I…we've been best friends since college. She was such a kind soul, with an amazing heart. This…" She spread her arms wide. "It's all so random. Who would do this to her? Who would shoot her? Why?"

Wanda sighed, patting her arm. "Can anyone explain something so senseless? Do you know if the police have any leads about what happened?"

She shook her head, her misery clear. "They won't tell me anything because I'm not a relative, but Ralph didn't have any living relatives. We were all the other had. That and her students, who she adored…who she devoted her life to."

Marty rubbed Hazel's arm, giving her a gentle smile. "We can see how loved she was by all the flowers and cards outside." Then she paused, as though she remembered she was supposed to have been a parent of a student. "I mean, who wouldn't love Ms. Tucci? We all did."

"I'm sorry, Ms. Ronkowski," Shamus interjected. "It doesn't sound like you've heard anything we didn't."

Hazel straightened, looking around the store, clearly wrinkling her nose at the mess. "All I know is what was released in the news. They claim she was murdered and they have no suspects yet. But it looks like she put up a helluva fight, doesn't it?"

"It sure does," Marty murmured with a wince.

"So what brought you here? And at night, no less?" Shamus wondered.

Pressing her fingers to her temples, she began to pick her way through the knocked-over table, heading toward the back door they'd come in.

"I don't know why I came, really. The police contacted me when it happened, because I was the first contact in her phone, but when they found out I wasn't a relative, and after they grilled me, I didn't hear anything more. I live in Connecticut, but I couldn't stand being so…far from her." She sighed in resignation. "I guess I thought I might see something the stupid police didn't. Or maybe…maybe I just wanted to be close to her one last time. She was so excited about opening the store, and now…" Hazel's shoulders began to shake again, her tears falling to the old barnwood floor. "Damn," she whispered.

It was then that Ralph slipped behind her friend, wrapping her arms around her, pressing her face into her back. "Oh, Hazel…I don't know what I'll do without you. I love you so much. I'm sorry you're going through this."

Hazel almost appeared to sense Ralph's presence. She stopped short, pressing her hand to her heart and closing her eyes as though to savor the moment.

Shamus swallowed hard as he watched Ralph comfort her friend, emanating a gentle empathy he felt in his core.

God, she was beautiful and sweet, and far braver than she realized.

And he had to knock that shit off. It was one thing to admire an entity, quite another to find her attractive to the point of distraction.

This had never happened to him before. He'd dealt with hundreds of ghosts, and exactly zero had affected him like Ralph. And trust, he'd met plenty of beautiful entities in his time.

This one should be no different…but from the moment he'd seen her gorgeous almond-shaped blue eyes with their thick fringe of lashes, her soft dark hair falling to her waist in waves, her lightly pink-glossed lips…he'd been struck by her beauty. Captivated by her graceful limbs and timid vulnerability.

So captivated, he hadn't even noticed the tear in her sweater where she'd been shot.

That wasn't like him at all. He didn't solve crimes, but it helped to know the nature of a ghost's death in order to discover where they needed to be, and he'd completely missed her injury in favor of her looks.

He really had to figure out where Ralph belonged before he did something stupid, something he wouldn't be able to take back.

That he could touch ghosts, something even Nana Ramona hadn't been able to do, made things harder still. He had an insane desire to pull her into his arms and hold her.

That was absolutely unacceptable.

Inhaling deeply, Hazel suddenly straightened and swallowed, her composure returning. "I have to go. I have to figure out where Ralph's body is. I'm pretty sure they're not going to tell me, but she deserves a proper burial and I won't take no for an answer. I also want justice for my friend."

Apparently, her determination had returned, too. Her eyes held grit and fire.

"Would you like for us to come with you? For moral support?" Marty asked.

But Hazel shook her head, hiking up her long denim skirt. "No, thank you. I don't want to hold you up, and I really need to catch my breath, wrap my head around this. I'm going to go back to my hotel and take a hot shower before I beat the NYPD's door down."

Marty held out her phone with a smile. "Please, take our number in case you find anything out or need anything. We…we really loved Ms. Tucci. We'd like to see whoever did this brought to justice, too."

Hazel typed Marty's number into her phone with a nod. Then she looked to the door. "I'll follow you out. I'm sure I'd be in a lot of trouble if the police knew I was in here. I don't want you people to get into trouble, too."

They filed out of the door, ducking under the police tape and waving Hazel off as she ran down the street and got into her car. She sped away, leaving them all standing on the deserted sidewalk in silence.

"Where the fuck did Ralph disappear to?" Nina asked, looking around, her eyes narrowed as they scanned the street.

"She didn't want to be seen by her friend. She was afraid to scare her, so I hid her with more dust." Shamus looked into the store to see Ralph floating in the window. "She's still in there."

Wanda tucked her coat around her slender neck as the frigid wind blew. "Good heavens, this is awful. Not only is she misplaced with no known destination, but to have to see her friend and not be able to talk to her? It has to be torture. Poor Ralph."

"Fuck. We need to get going before someone sees us here. We've only been stomping around like a herd of fucking buffalo. I'll go get her," Nina offered.

"Don't you dare upset her," Wanda ordered with a shake of her finger. "I won't have you browbeat her after all she's been through. This store was her dream. Don't turn it into a nightmare or I'll make you regret it. Use your compassion."

Nina tucked her hair behind her ears and glared at her friend. "I can be compassionate, Wanda. Fuck off."

Marty tipped her head back and barked a laugh. "Yeah. It's literally your middle name."

But Nina was already on her way toward the store, her booted feet clomping against the hard pavement.

"I'll go, too. Nina won't be able to see her if I don't cover her in fairy dust again. It'll be fine. I'll make sure of it." Shamus wasn't sure Nina was the right person for this job. Likely, Ralph wanted to spend some last moments in the place she'd worked so hard to create. He didn't want that ruined for her because of Nina's impatience.

And then his own thoughts hit him.

Spend some last moments in the place she'd worked so hard to create…

Ralph would leave and go off to wherever she belonged in the ether.

He'd do well to remember that, and quit pining.

Get your shit together, Ransom.

Right now.