Coffee and Ghosts: The Complete First Season (Coffee and Ghosts: The Complete Seasons Book 1) (20 page)

“Most people don’t, unless they know something about the military.”

That isn’t what I meant, but I don’t correct her. I thank G.I. Joan, and I’m only a few feet from her booth when three customers converge, exclaiming over her display. The Purple Heart, in its case, feels heavy in my palms.

“You stay with me,” I say to the air in front of me. “Both of you. We’re going home.”

Outside, I jostle the phone from my bag. I scroll until I find what must be Jack’s number.

“It’s Katy,” I say when he answers.

“Good God, where the hell have you been? I’ve been running interference with Chief Ramsey, but he knows you haven’t been home all night. He knows Malcolm hasn’t been home either, and he’s thinking of—”

“I have your grandfather’s Purple Heart,” I say.

This can’t be the first time someone has silenced Jack Carlotta, but from the tense, edgy quiet that fills the line, my guess is that it doesn’t happen very often.

“What?” he says at last.

“I have your grandfather’s Purple Heart. I’ll be standing outside the gates to the State Fairgrounds if you want to pick me up.”

With that, I hang up. I’m pretty sure Jack will make the trip.

Sixty minutes later, a black BMW pulls through the gates. I am suitably impressed—that he broke the speed limit to get here. I don’t say a word when I ease into the passenger seat. I only hold up a finger before he can put the car in gear, checking for my charges. Mr. Carlotta’s ghost settles sullenly in the backseat. My grandmother caresses my cheek and then knocks Jack’s sunglasses askew.

“Okay,” I say. “Let’s go home.”

* * *

We sit in the Springside Long-term Care Facility parking lot. Both ghosts made the trip, and Mr. Carlotta’s has inched its way from the backseat until it infiltrated the box that holds the Purple Heart. As heavy and melancholy as that feels, something clicks into place. For whatever reason, this ghost has claimed this item, and the medal wouldn’t be complete without it.

“You want to come inside?” I ask.

“I was thinking about it, but you know what?” Jack shakes his head. “I don’t want to steal your thunder.”

I can’t help it. I laugh.

He raises a hand from the steering wheel as if he’s trying to silence my laughter. His grin says he isn’t. “I’m serious. Besides, when I was there yesterday, I noticed my grandfather’s chess set was missing a few pieces. I was going to pick up a new one, come back this afternoon and play a game with him.”

This is a new side to Jack Carlotta. I kind of like it.

“Thank you for picking me up,” I say.

“Thank you for finding his medal.”

I lean in to kiss his cheek, just a friendly, thank-you sort of kiss. My lips have barely grazed his skin when he jerks back.

“Do I smell?” I did spend the night outside, hunkered down in State Fairgrounds debris.

Jack gives himself a shake. “Jesus, no. It’s ... it’s...” He reaches a hand forward, but doesn’t touch my cheek.

Oh. It’s that.

“I want to kiss you,” he says. “I’ve wanted to kiss you from the second I got back into town. But I physically can’t, and I can’t explain why not, either.”

“It’s okay. It’s been a long, strange sort of day—and night.”

“Katy, are you okay?”

I nod. “I am.” For now. “Things have been ... different since my grandmother died. Odd things have been happening. Every time I turn around, some new sort of ghost pops up, or someone comes to town. This never happened when she was alive.”

“Maybe it’s not your grandmother. Maybe it’s this Armand guy.”

I don’t know what to think about that, because yes, it could be Malcolm.

“Be careful,” Jack says when I reach for the door handle.

“I will.”

“Promise?” He gives me that grin I remember from high school.

“Promise.”

I watch him drive off, my fingertips exploring the mark on my cheek. The skin feels exposed, and the urge to pull out some lip balm and smear it across my face nearly overwhelms me. I know it won’t help. So I turn and head for the facility’s front doors.

I’m halfway up the walk when the manager strides through the double doors, her heels making that staccato click on the concrete. I deflate, my grip on the medal’s box loosening. Mr. Carlotta’s ghost senses our defeat and seems to gain five pounds. How a ghost can be so heavy, I will never know.

“Katy, Katy,” she’s saying, her words strung together so I barely recognize my name.

I raise the box. “I just want—”

“Please, let me go first. On behalf of everyone, staff and residents, of Springside Long-term Care, I would like to apologize.”

“Apolo—?”

“Everyone was so ashamed. That whole thing with Mistress Armand, but then we heard you’d been arrested, and they insisted I call Chief Ramsey. He was here all morning, taking statements. You just missed him.”

I send up a prayer of thanks.

“We gave him a description of the thieves,” she continues, “and explicitly stated it wasn’t you who stole from us. Katy, we’re so sorry. I understand if you don’t want to come back, but will you consider it?”

Stunned, I’m not sure what to say, but the burden in my hands has its own ideas. I lift the box so the manager can see it. “I have Mr. Carlotta’s Purple Heart.”

She clamps a hand over her mouth. Her eyes grow moist. “How...?”

“It’s a very long story. Can I take it to him?”

She nods. “He might be asleep, but yes. Please. Take it to him.”

Inside, residents wave to me. They are silently respectful, though, as if they know what I carry with me. When I reach Mr. Carlotta’s room, I see the manager was right. He’s asleep. Too many late nights of secret telephone calls. I leave the Purple Heart on the nightstand where he’s sure to see it when he wakes.

In the corridor, my grandmother’s ghost whirls around my head, caresses the cheek without the mark, then she shoots down the hall toward Mrs. Greeley’s room.

Unburdened by ghosts, I leave the care facility.

* * *

Outside, the October air clears my head. I will walk home. I will collect all my thoughts along the way. Once there, I will take a hot shower. Then I’ll be ready to face this thing on my cheek, and Malcolm, and all the questions I have about last night.

The red convertible at the end of the walk stops this line of thought. Malcolm leans against the door, his normally silky hair rumpled, dress shirt torn and stained. The knees of his trousers are embedded with grime. If he crawled through a sewer he wouldn’t look any worse.

“Were you in a fight?” I ask.

“It only feels like it.”

“I don’t understand.” I mean this in every way possible. I don’t understand what he said. I don’t understand what happened last night. I don’t understand him.

“After I couldn’t find you,” he says, “I decided I’d try to find that ... thing.”

“I’m guessing that didn’t work.”

Malcolm shakes his head, his mouth tight. His gaze locks on my cheek, and I can see the calculation in his eyes, the assessment. He takes a step forward and then another. I hold still, breath shallow in my throat. The skin on my legs puckers with goose bumps, but the cold is something I barely feel anymore.

He stops in front of me, the toes of our shoes almost brushing. He reaches a hand toward my face. My throat tightens, then my stomach. My heart pounds so hard, I’m surprised Malcolm can’t hear it. His fingertips graze my cheek, a touch so light I’m not sure it’s a touch at all.

Then, suddenly, Malcolm crumples to the sidewalk as if his knees have gone liquid. He clutches one hand with the other. He doesn’t cry out, but the pain that etches his expression makes me wish he would. I collapse next to him, go to place a hand on his shoulder, then pull back at the last second. Will that hurt him too? I don’t know, and I find I’m shaking my head like an idiot. In fact, I’m shaking all over.

“What is it?” I ask him. “Are you hurt?”

“I know better than to do something like that,” Malcolm says, his words low and taut.

“What does it mean?”

“It means that thing has marked you.”

Marked me. That sounds ... disturbing. “And what does that mean, exactly?”

“The thing, that entity, can find you again.”

Even more disturbing. “Why would it want to find me?”

Malcolm shakes his head. Whether he knows—and won’t tell me—or simply doesn’t know, isn’t clear.

“Why did it call you a necromancer?” I ask.

Malcolm eases from his knees to sitting. My legs are wobbly, and standing isn’t something I plan to attempt just yet.

“Because I am one.” He sighs. “I haven’t told you the whole truth.”

I cock my head to the side and give him a hard stare, because that? That is the only thing I do know at this point.

He raises a hand. “Yeah, I know. Pretty obvious, right? I’m a necromancer. I talk to the dead, or as the case may be, with ghosts.”

“But ghosts don’t really talk.”

“Don’t they? They communicate with you all the time. Besides, if you invited one inside, you’d hear plenty.”

“You mean swallow ghosts, like Nigel used to? Is he a necromancer?”

“Nigel’s what happens when a necromancer gets ... careless—or addicted. A true relationship between a necromancer and a ghost is symbiotic. Each partner helps the other.”

Something Mistress Armand said to Malcolm echoes in my head. I’ve always thought he left more than simply his job when he came to Springside.

“The girl you left behind,” I say. “That’s what Mistress Armand meant. That’s your ghost.”

“That
was
my ghost,” he says, “before Nigel swallowed her.”

“Did she escape when we set them free?”

The crinkles around his eyes deepen, his mouth a grim line. “I don’t know. Maybe. I didn’t sense her, but it was kind of chaotic.”

“What was it ... I mean. How...?” My words are nonsensical. How do I ask this question? Were they in a relationship? Can you date a ghost?

“How does it work?” he supplies. “What did we do?”

“Yeah. That.”

“She helped me play the market. It’s why I was so good. She listened in on phone calls, picked up gossip and pieces of information floating around on the floor, and brought it all back to me. Then I’d make a killing.”

“That sounds like cheating.”

“Or leveling the playing field. A lot of successful brokers are necromancers.”

That sounds insane. I don’t say this out loud, but I’m certain it shows in my expression. “What did you do in return?”

“Spent a lot of time in art museums.”

“As a ghost, she could go any time she liked.”

“According to her, it’s not the same, not as enjoyable, not as ... sensual.”

Okay, I’ve heard enough. Malcolm has—or had—an invisible girlfriend. My legs find their strength and I push to stand.

“Where are you going?”

“Home,” I say.

“Do you want a ride?”

“No.”

“Katy, I know it’s strange, but give it some thought—”

“My grandmother never said anything about necromancers, ever.”

“Then maybe your grandmother didn’t tell you everything. They exist. I’m one. And I’m pretty sure you’re one too.”

“I’m a ghost hunter.” I turn from him and start down the walk.

“Katy—”

“I’ll see you Monday. At work.”

This time, he lets me walk away without another word.

* * *

The walk home is long and cold. I pick up two sprites along the way—two that I recognize. They dart and spin about, feeling oh so full of themselves. When I pass Sadie’s house, they peel off and zip to the roof and down her chimney.

My own house is dark. Only recently it started feeling like home again, but now, when I unlock the door, emptiness greets me. I think of all the things Malcolm said and all the things that my grandmother never did. I don’t feel like Katy Lindstrom, ghost hunter. I’m certainly not Katy Lindstrom, necromancer.

For now, I’ll go through the motions. I’ll take a shower, brew a pot of Kona blend. I’ll drink it slowly and study the walls. I’ll pretend I know all the answers. I’ll pretend last night never happened.

That will work. For now.

As long as I don’t look in the mirror.