Ginny scanned the group. “There are a lot of people here.”
Unlike Bobby, Ginny was powerful enough to make herself seen by non-mediums. And she was clearly making that effort now, because Sylvie looked right at her. “Thank you. Oh, thank you so much, Ginny, for coming.”
Ginny flickered, a sign that her emotions were already running high. “Do I know you? I don’t think so.” She pointed a finger that encompassed all three women. “No talking.” Her eyes narrowed and her finger returned to Sylvie. “But especially you.”
Like a ghost with a crush wasn’t bad enough, now I had a ghost with a crush who was jealous. I motioned for Lilac, Tamara, and Sylvie to step back a few feet, and they quickly complied.
“Ginny?” I said, with an effort at a charming smile. It was about as difficult as taking my shirt off was when I’d known someone was watching. As a soul collector, my job had been difficult, yes, but it had also been straightforward. I’d been honest, because to do anything less was to undermine the trust between oneself and the soul to be collected.
Deception was a skill, and it appeared I was woefully out of practice.
She stopped glaring at the women and turned her attention to me, but she didn’t look much happier.
“Thank you for coming,” I said, trying to be casual and charming and nonthreatening all at once.
I suspected I just looked out of sorts, because Ginny crossed her arms with a grim look. “You sent a toad after me. Hard not to hear the message.”
“Yes.” I glanced at Tamara. “I’m new to, ah . . . toad messages.”
Ginny snorted. “Of course it was the witch. I should have known.” Ginny used two fingers to point at her own eyes, then Tamara’s, then her own.
The message was clear enough: like everyone else on the block, Ginny was keeping a close eye on Tamara.
Tamara didn’t look terribly concerned, so I pushed forward with our agenda. “I have a few questions for you about what’s happened in the neighborhood.”
Ginny’s upper torso leaned toward me. “I’m not sure if I want to answer them. I’m still not sure how I feel about our last meeting.” But then her outline stabilized and her features cleared, and she looked like the pretty young woman I knew she’d been in life. “Was the list helpful?”
“Yes, it was. And thank you for that. I really hope that you can help again, because someone’s taken Clarence.”
Ginny nodded, unsurprised. “You know, you’re not very nice to Clarence.”
My spine straightened. Sure, Clarence and I had our disagreements, our never-ending negotiations, our vastly differing opinions on topics like porn, theft, and where one should relieve oneself, but generally, I thought we managed to get along moderately well. “We make do. It’s a difficult situation, but it’s not like either of us has much choice.”
Ginny shook her head. “That’s not right. Clarence chose you.”
“He was assigned to me,” I corrected her gently, but still the flicker increased.
“He chose his caretaker. He chose you.”
That was news to me. I thought that he’d landed with me because of my ability to communicate with ghosts. Since it was hardly a normal trait for an ex-soul collector to have, and Clarence had been assigned to me shortly after discovering that particular paranormal hiccup in my make-up, I’d assumed the two were connected—but my bosses had never actually said they were.
“Regardless of how he ended up with me, he’s not in a good place, and we need to get him back.”
“I like Clarence. Mostly.” She bit her lip. “He should stay with someone who takes care of him and doesn’t make him eat kitty kibble. With someone who rubs his belly. How do you know this place isn’t better? That he doesn’t get to eat whatever he wants there?”
I tamped down the urge to roll my eyes. This was about dry food and massages? The dry food kept him from completely gassing us out of the house. If he only ate his craving of the moment, which invariably included organ meat, bacon, cheese, beer, Cheetos, and vodka, I wouldn’t survive the ensuing noxious fumes. And belly rubs? No. Just . . . no.
The little warning bells in my head started to clang. Those comments were very specific. “Do you know where Clarence is?”
Ginny gave me a mulish look.
She knew. She had to. Where else would she be getting the idea that his captors had given him free dietary rein? I was about sixty percent sure, maybe seventy, that Ginny knew where Clarence was being kept—or at least who had taken him.
“Bobby’s pretty sure his kidnappers mean to kill Clarence—and I think Bobby’s right this time,” I said.
“Bobby.” She huffed and flicked several ghostly strands of hair over her shoulder. “Bobby’s about as clever as a cow.”
It was hard to argue in favor of Bobby’s vast intelligence. I bobbed and weaved that one. “Ginny, listen to me. I think maybe whoever took Clarence might have killed Bobby.” I heard a gasp from the peanut gallery, but I kept my attention focused on the ghost in front of me. “If I’m right, they’ve killed before and won’t hesitate to kill again.”
I had no proof, beyond the Swiss cheese memory of a death-fugued ghost. Bobby might have been killed by random violence or someone associated with the stolen car ring he’d been involved in. Maybe he was confused, except suddenly I knew that he wasn’t. I knew that what I’d said was true: the kidnappers had killed Bobby.
“No. You can’t know that. Bobby had death fugue.” She started to flicker. “You can’t know they killed Bobby, because you don’t even know who they are!” She was flickering so fast that she looked like an old, poorly preserved film. “You’re lying! I hate liars.”
Clive the gnome floated
