“I’m pretty sure the whole town thinks that,” I said. “Either that or they think my aunt is the one who killed Samara.”
“So, it’s true then?” Mercy asked. “I’d heard that your aunt was found with a knife near the body, but someone put out the word that it wasn’t true. Someone’s been telling people that your aunt was found on the other side of town. Besides, Samara wasn’t stabbed.”
“I know,” I said.
“Right. You were the one who found her. Sorry,” Mercy said.
“It’s all right.” I actually hadn’t known until the next day how she died. “I should go,” I said when Laney started to fuss. “Thank you for your help.”
“You’re welcome, Kinsley. Please let me know if there’s anything your family needs,” Mercy said.
That seemed a little over the top, but she was grieving her best friend. There was also a good chance she wanted to join my family’s Coven. We did that sometimes, but not often. It would take a lot more than kissing my butt.
On my way out to my car, I began to formulate a plan. I needed to go back to Samara’s house and look for her hidden trunk. The plan, if you could call it that, was basically to blow off going into the shop and going to Lilith’s place and instead head straight over to Samara’s house.
It wasn’t much of a plan, but I told myself Lilith would approve. The last thing she would have wanted if she were in her right mind was all of us hanging around her house acting like she was dying.
My mother, father, and great-grandmother had the situation under control, so I pulled out of the parking lot and drove straight to Samara’s house. What I wasn’t prepared to find was another body.
Chapter Nine
That was the first time in my life that I’d had an entire conversation with a ghost and not known it. Mercy hadn’t known either because she gave no hint that she had any memory of being killed.
But as soon as I pulled up in front of Samara’s house, I found her. She was sprawled out on the front porch face down. It was obvious to me that she’d tried to get away.
Her car was around the side of the house with the driver’s side door open and the radio on. She’d only intended to run into the house and right back out.
My hand shook as I called Thorn. Meri sat on the dash looking out the front of the car for any sign of movement in the house.
“The doors are locked for sure?” he asked as I waited for Thorn to pick up his phone.
“They are,” I said.
“Maybe we should go somewhere else and make the call,” Meri said.
Thorn picked up before I could answer him. “What is it, sweetie?” he asked.
“I’m out in front of Samara’s house. Mercy Cullen is on the front porch, and she’s dead,” I said. “You have to come right now.”
“Are you there now?” Thorn asked.
“I am,” I said. “But I’m in the car with the doors locked. Please come quickly.”
“Kinsley, you need to get out of there,” Thorn said. “You know the killer could still be there.”
“I will,” I said. “I’ll drive down the road or something.”
“You’ll go home,” Thorn said. “Or to your aunt’s house where you’re supposed to be right now anyway. I want you around people. Kinsley, I mean it.”
“Okay,” I said. But then I saw it. “Oh, no.”
“What is it?” Thorn asked.
In a flash of fuzzy black fur, Meri was at the driver’s door pawing at the window trying to get me to open the door and let him out. He saw it too.
“Oh, gawd, Thorn. She moved. She’s still alive. I have to help her. I really thought she was dead.”
“Kinsley,” Thorn’s voice had a warning edge, but even he didn’t know what to say.
“Get here as fast as you can, and call an ambulance too,” I said and then hung up.
Whatever the danger, I couldn’t just let her lay there like that. I had to help. I left Laney in the car with the air conditioning and radio on and locked all the doors again as I ran up to the porch.
Was that why neither Mercy nor I had known she was a ghost? Could she have been so close to death that her spirit had left her body, but she was still tethered to this world somehow? It had to happen, right? Like when people die in the hospital and then see themselves on the table with doctors and nurses hovering over them. Except, Mercy’s spirit had gone into work.
That was a sad commentary on our lives. I hoped that when I passed on, I didn’t end up a confused spirit forever stuck at my job.
I shuddered as I knelt down next to Mercy. Her body twitched again, and then she turned her head toward me.
Her eyes were milky white, one of the reasons I’d believed she was dead when I drove up, but the haze faded out of them like she was coming back. Back from the dead? Back from the brink? I didn’t know. I just wanted to help her if I could.
“Mercy, where are you hurt?” I asked as Meri circled her, sniffing and pawing at her.
But that was obvious. There was an angry purple bruise encircling her neck.
“Kinsley, she’s dead,” Meri said as he backed away from her quickly.
“Obviously, she’s not,” I said.
“What is your problem, cat?” Mercy asked in a low, gravely voice that sounded nothing like her.
Just then, she sprang up. Like as in, she went from sprawled out on the porch to standing completely straight in one stiff movement.
“Oh, crap,” I said.
“Kinsley, get away from her,” Meri said.
But Mercy wasn’t looking at me. I followed her line of sight, and my blood turned to ice. She was staring at my car.
Mercy began to sniff the air. “Life, especially the new kind, has a particularly beautiful aroma,” she said and took a
