“Sure. Hang on.” The phone beeped twice before he picked up.
“Hey, where are you?” Tucker said instead of hello. His grumpy voice held a tinge of annoyance, as if someone had shorted him an extra pump of expresso.
“Well, good afternoon to you too, Tuck. What has your panties in a twist?” Ryley asked with a grin as she started the car and turned her air conditioner on full blast.
Her brother’s sigh earned Ryley’s grin.
“You were supposed to be here an hour ago. My client has already left.”
“Damn.” She cursed beneath her breath, forgetting she’d agreed to a meeting. “Sorry. I had a funeral, and I totally forgot that I promised to meet with your killer.”
Chapter 5
“He’s not a killer, or I wouldn’t be helping him,” Tucker said.
“Yeah, I hear you,” Ryley answered, knowing the aggravation probably deepened on her brother’s face. She’d eventually be the one he blamed whenever he got his first premature gray hair.
“I told him he could find you at the bar tonight and that you’d talk to him there.” The clicking of computer keys in the background reminded Ryley her brother was multitasking, always working. “And I thought we decided you would stop attending strangers’ funerals?”
“You decided that. I never agreed.”
“Ryley, you promised me after what happened last month.” Tucker’s voice lowered to that of an agitated parent whose rules she’d broken.
“It wasn’t my fault. I can’t help that the husband and the ex-husband threw punches. The lady ghost wouldn’t cross over until they stopped, so I didn’t have a choice.”
“You’re lucky they dropped the charges after you Tasered them.”
Ryley could just see the shake of Tucker’s head as he complained.
“If they wouldn’t have, I’m sure you would have found a creative way to get me off the hook. You know it’s easier on me if I catch the spirits early and move them on. Sooner rather than later means I get to keep all the feeling in my fingers and toes.”
“Always with one foot in the grave,” Tucker groused.
“Well, at least there weren’t any creepy crawlies this time.”
“True.” Tucker chuckled. “So, have you given any more thought to my offer to stay at my house for the next two weeks?”
Ryley’s heart clenched at the reminder. It was always in the back of her mind, like a bad memory she couldn’t shake. The yearly anniversary of when she’d shot her father wasn’t one she could or would ever forget.
“You know Dad is still out there somewhere. He’ll try to find you again.”
“So far it’s just been letters.”
“Ryley, he tried to kill you when you were five. Hell, he tried to kill all of us.”
“There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t remember that I missed, Tuck. Had I not, we wouldn’t have to be looking over our shoulder every day.”
“Ryley, there aren’t many five-year-olds who know how to shoot a gun, much less be prepared to pull the trigger when aimed at their dad.”
“I only slowed him down.” The bullet hadn’t hit any main arteries.
“It was enough. You saved us; now let me return the favor.”
Of course, she didn’t kill her dad, but she sure wished she would have. He’d been sending her threatening letters on the anniversary every year.
The memories of the blood shed still caused Ryley’s nightmares. No amount of therapy could make them go away.
“I’ll be fine. Besides, I’ve moved again, and I’m not listed in the phone book or online. I’m cautious about keeping off any radars.”
There was a hesitation. “At least let me send someone to watch you and your apartment. It will make me feel better.”
“No,” she grumbled, feeling her good mood dissipate as she sat in the parking lot. The blast of cool air from the AC offset the simmering anger bubbling up, just thinking about her psychotic dad. “You ask me every year. What makes you think my answer will ever change?”
Her brother sighed. “You’re stubborn, but I at least have to try.”
“Yes, well, I may be stubborn, but I have better aim than when I was five years old. Quit worrying about me.”
“You should be used to it by now, I’m going to worry about you for the rest of your life. I just wanted to make sure you weren’t going to run this year like when you were eighteen and stole Mom’s car. Are you ever going to tell me where you went?”
“Nope.” She grinned. That was her own private excursion. Her own justification that the memories she’d been seeing were real. She’d needed the proof and she’d found it.
“You’re going to drive me to drink.”
“That’s my job.”
A dark sedan pulled into the parking spot next to Ryley’s car. A man got out. His styled and spiked black purple hair matched his eyeliner. He had an employee badge resting against his wrinkled shirt and a coffee stain on his khaki pants. He hurried toward the back of the funeral home.
It wasn’t the man’s gothic looks that gave her pause—it was the huge black, cloudy mass following him.
Ryley cut off the car’s engine. “Listen, I’ve got to go see a guy about some bad juju. I’ll call you later.”
She hung up before he could ask questions. Plausible deniability would one day be his best friend.
Chapter 6
Black masses meant nothing good. Over the years Stretch had provided an education into everything undead. The first lesson had been terrifying, and fortunately, each educational moment after that had just been more of the same.
Equally unsettling was Stretch’s claim she was trying to get into the white light again instead of going someplace darker that she feared was her final destination. Ryley had decided early on to not question where that dark place might be. Good deeds were always rewarded, and Stretch had years to make up for all the bad ones. So, she made Ryley her pet project.
Ryley took off her hat and tossed it into the passenger seat before climbing out of her car. Her phone rang again, and the
