Ghost Hunter (The Middle-aged Ghost Whisperer Book 2): (Ghost Cozy Mystery series)
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Authors: Morgana Best
Ghost Hunter
(The Middle-aged Ghost Whisperer Book 2)
Copyright © 2016 by Morgana Best.
All Rights Reserved.
License Notes.
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should purchase your own copy from your favorite ebook retailer. Thank you for respecting the author’s hard work.
* * *
This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to any person, living or dead, is purely coincidental. The personal names have been invented by the author, and any likeness to the name of any person, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
This book may contain references to specific commercial products, process or service by trade name, trademark, manufacturer, or otherwise, specific brand-name products and/or trade names of products, which are trademarks or registered trademarks and/or trade names, and these are property of their respective owners. Morgana Best or her associates, have no association with any specific commercial products, process, or service by trade name, trademark, manufacturer, or otherwise, specific brand-name products and / or trade names of products.
By this act
And words of rhyme
Trouble not
These books of mine
With these words I now thee render
Candle burn and bad return
3 times stronger to its sender.
(Ancient Celtic)
Table of Contents
I should have been happy. It had been a hot summer day, but the air was now cooling to a pleasant temperature, as it usually did at this time of year in this region of Australia. I was sitting on an old iron seat in my walled garden, looking at the huge sulfur-crested cockatoos and vibrant red and green king parrots at my bird feeder. The only sound was the crunch of the cockatoos hungrily cracking the black sunflower seeds. My two cats, Possum and Lily, glared at me from my living room window. They silently protested that I was denying them a snack.
It had been two whole weeks since I had seen Alum, two weeks in which I had been haunted by his last words: “I’m not dead.”
What did he mean by that? Was it his way of saying goodbye, telling me that he was going on to a life after death? Or was it a philosophical statement? Alum had never shown any interest in philosophy—he’d never even so much as quoted Heidegger—but then again, we hadn’t spoken as much as a normal couple.
Couple
. There was that word again. We weren’t a couple, for he was a ghost and I was a living human being. Sure, I was attracted to him, and I was fairly certain he was attracted to me, but to think that there could be any future between a living person and a dead person was an exercise in futility.
I watched as the two largest cockatoos pushed an old cockatoo from the feeder. The old cockatoo in turn pushed some native pigeons away from the birdseed that had fallen on the ground. The heady scent of the violet trees carried to me on the breeze, and I sighed. The sunset was spectacular, the sky a luminous rose gold in juxtaposition with the tall eucalyptus trees on the horizon. Had circumstances been different, I would have taken in its beauty. Now it was simply a source of irritation, a reminder of what might have been.
A mother duck, a wild wood duck, complained loudly that there was now no birdseed left in the feeder. She waddled over to within a few feet of me, but her seven ducklings were not quite so brave. I stood up carefully so as not to frighten her, and went into my kitchen to fetch more birdseed. I returned and poured it into the feeder that was on the ground. The seven little ducklings threw themselves into the feeder and ate hungrily, their heads bobbing furiously, while I returned to my seat. Once more, my thoughts turned to Alum.
Would I ever see him again? I shook my head. I felt silly focusing so intently on him, but this was hardly a normal situation. I was used to ghosts. After all, I was a professional clairvoyant medium, traveling around Australia giving readings and doing shows. Yet Alum was the first ghost I had ever seen with my own eyes. I normally only tuned into sensations from the spirits of the departed. But when Alum had appeared to me just before Christmas in the middle of one of my shows, he had changed my whole world. I could see him and hear him as clearly as I could hear and see a living person.
So if he wasn’t dead, what was he? It was doing my head in. The only explanation I could think of was that he meant he was crossing over, going into the light, or any other of those clichés. Yet why hadn’t he said, “Prudence, I’m going into the light”? I had no idea. Who knows what would be going through someone’s mind at that point, and Alum wasn’t around for me to ask.
I supposed I’d have to face facts, and realize that I would never see him again. A single tear rolled down my cheek, and I brushed it away in a fit of irritation. What was wrong with me?
I still couldn’t stop thinking about Alum. I was halfway through making a cup of tea, and I’d only just realized that the electric tea-kettle had stopped boiling twenty minutes ago. I’d been standing in the kitchen staring at a blank spot on the wall, thinking. I sighed and flicked the tea-kettle back on. Obviously, I needed a distraction
I walked into the living room and turned on the TV, hoping for something simple and murder-free. After a few minutes, I heard the tea-kettle turn itself off. I made to get up, deciding that a tea was probably all I needed. Maybe I could take a second to stop thinking about…
“Alum?” I asked, gasping. I clutched my stomach as a wave of nausea hit me.
He was standing in the doorway, more imposing than I’d remembered. He wasn’t casually leaning against the doorway—something I hadn’t known ghosts could do until I’d met him—but just standing there, looking me directly in the eyes.
“Prudence,” he said sternly. “I’m not dead.”
I didn’t know what to make of what he’d said. This was the last thing he’d said to me when we had last met, and I hadn’t managed to make sense of it then, either.
“Are you sure?” I asked. I hadn’t realized what a silly question it was until afterward. After all, I was fairly sure that I wasn’t dead, so surely he’d be much the same. Then again, I wasn’t a ghost.
“Positive. Look, you have to listen to me! I don’t know how much time I’ll have here; it’s been getting harder and harder to visit.” He was speaking quickly, and sounded anxious. “Listen, I think I’m in a coma, probably a medically induced one.”
Alum looked at me, no doubt gauging my reaction, but I stayed neutral. Not because I was unaffected, but because I didn’t know what to do. It’s not that I didn’t trust him, but I had no idea what to make of the situation. Could it be true? Could he actually be alive? I waited for him to continue, and after a few agonizing moments, he did so.
“I’m fading in and out of consciousness. When I’m asleep, I can come here, but when I’m conscious I can’t even move, much less talk. I can see the room I’m in, but it’s just a generic, sterile hospital room.” He sighed. Despite all that was happening, I took a second to think about the fact that ghosts shouldn’t really have a need to sigh, but it occurred to me that if he was alive, then he wasn’t really a ghost at all.
He continued. “Prudence, I think I’m in witness protection. They keep asking me who shot me, but I can’t speak. I think…” Before he could finish, he disappeared.
I stood in silence for what felt like hours, not moving. My mind was racing, but I couldn’t focus on a single thought. I slumped back in my chair and took a moment to try to focus my thoughts. It was all surreal. Was I dreaming? Alum was alive? It seemed too good to be true.
I still hadn’t gotten to my tea. I decided that if nothing else, that would help me think, and calm my nerves. I flicked the tea-kettle back on and hoped not to be interrupted before it finished this time. I leaned on the kitchen counter and tried to figure out what had just happened.
If Alum had been in a coma, it would certainly explain why he had vanished. After all, he wouldn’t be able to be here while he was awake. It would also explain his mysterious absence lately, as he said he’d been awake and trying to communicate with them. I felt a pang of sadness. It would be awful to be stuck between worlds, only being able to communicate very rarely, and even then only with the one person.
Plus, there was still the possibility that he’d die. If he wasn’t a real ghost, then I still hadn’t seen one, which meant that if he died for real, then I’d probably never see him again. Though since he’d been absent lately, he was probably recovering.
This meant there was a very good chance I’d actually get to meet Alum. It was funny to think about, since I felt as though I knew him as well as most of my friends, but we’d never actually met. Not in the flesh, anyway. A small part of me worried that he’d be completely different if we ever did get to meet. I sighed and tried to dispel these thoughts. I had to focus on the problem at hand instead of spending all my time and energy worrying about what might happen, especially when…
My thoughts were interrupted by a loud knock at the door. I looked sadly at the tea-kettle as it clicked up, signifying that the water was boiled. I sighed deeply and resigned myself to a tea-free day of problems, heading to the door to see who had knocked.
I knew it was bad news before I’d even opened the door, as whoever it was had taken the liberty of trying to gain entry by fiddling with the handle. For a moment I considered that perhaps it was a burglar trying to break in, but then I heard a noise that confirmed it was something much worse than a simple criminal.
“Prudence! Are you home?” It was Constance, yelling to ask if I was home, as she attempted to force the door open.
“Yes, I’m here, one second.” I tried my best to sound friendly, but even after she called out, she didn’t stop shaking the handle. I walked briskly over to the door and opened it as quickly as I could to ensure she didn’t break anything.
“I wasn’t sure if you were home,” Constance said, pushing past me into the house and looking around.
“Well, I am. Did you want to sit down?” I asked, motioning toward a chair in my living room.
“Yes, and a coffee.” She demanded this without a hint of humor, sitting down heavily and settling in. I sometimes wondered if she knew how manners worked, but decided I could do with a coffee of my own anyway. Maybe I’d have more luck with coffee than I’d had with tea.
I walked into the kitchen and decided that the water in the tea-kettle had probably taken enough punishment for one day. I lifted it up and poured the thrice-boiled water into the sink, watching it sadly.
You could have been tea
, I thought, taking a moment to mourn its passing. I sighed and grabbed the percolator, filling it with coffee grounds and setting it on the stove. I turned it on and walked back into the living room, where Constance had found a show she’d decided to watch in lieu of talking to me. Maybe that was for the best, anyway.
I sat down on a nearby chair. If Constance was happy just to watch TV, it would give me a chance to get my thoughts in order. Alum was alive—I knew that for certain, and that was the best news I’d ever heard. More than that, there was a very good chance I’d get to meet him in the flesh, as opposed to meeting him in the not-scary-but-incorporeal-spirit.
“What’s got you so happy?” Constance asked suddenly, jolting me out of my thoughts.
“What do you mean?” I tried my best to play it off as nothing, but figured I must have been smiling while I was thinking about Alum.
“It must be a man. There’s no other reason you’d be so happy. Maybe you can finally stop feeling so lonely.” Constance smiled as she said this, and I felt as though she believed she was being friendly.
“No, it’s just nice to have a day to relax, that’s all.” I was only half lying. It’s true that I was thinking about a man when I was smiling, but really I think I was just happy to have something positive to focus on at all. Boiling it down to simply ‘thinking about a man’ seemed somehow offensive.
“No, it’s a man! I can tell. You don’t need to lie to me, Prudence. I know when somebody’s lying.” Constance was wearing an arrogant grin as she informed me of her special skill.
Sure, but you don’t know when somebody’s unwelcome
, I thought grimly. “Well,” Constance continued, “I need to use your bathroom.”
Constance got up at surprising speed, causing the chair to rock violently. She disappeared into the bathroom and slammed the door behind her. I wasn’t sure why she’d slammed it, but I suspected it was because she had the fine motor functions of a drunken kangaroo.
I cupped my head in my hands and breathed slowly, trying to stay calm. Constance was annoying on her best days, but right now I had my own issues to deal with and didn’t need this kind of intrusion.
As I was thinking of a polite way to ask her to leave, Constance waltzed back out of the bathroom. On the way back to the living room she spotted an old family heirloom, an antique vase, and decided to pick it up and inspect it in great detail.
“What are you doing?” I asked anxiously, standing up.
“I’m just looking. Calm down!” She played with the vase roughly, tumbling it around with her fingers and looking inside. To the surprise of absolutely nobody in the room—which, to be fair, was just the two of us—she dropped it, causing it to shatter into thousands of pieces.
“Oh, my gosh!” I shouted, dropping to my knees and trying to grab the pieces. “That was a family heirloom!” I could hear steam rising from the percolator.
“It wasn’t valuable anyway,” Constance said smugly, not making an effort to help me.
“How would you even know?” I asked, feeling angrier than somebody holding a razor-sharp piece of glass probably should.
“I’m an expert on antiques. I’ve done courses, Prudence. I don’t expect you to understand the value of it, but it’s hardly worth the space it takes up, so I wouldn’t bother having it repaired. Just throw it away.” Constance said this with such self-importance that I very nearly did throw it away, all at once, into her face. I closed my eyes and breathed deeply.
“Constance,” I said, struggling to keep my voice even as the noise of the percolator grew more violent. “This vase had been appraised by Sotheby’s. It is—was—extremely valuable.”
“Oh, please. I used to work for Sotheby’s. I hope you didn’t pay much for this, Prudence.”
I just can’t win with her
, I thought. I was angrier than I had been in as long as I could remember, and was struggling to control my voice. “I think you should leave, Constance. I need a break from you.” It wasn’t the most polite thing to say, but it was much more polite than anything that I actually wanted to say. The percolator was almost deafening, but burned coffee was my last concern at this point.
“What?” Constance took a step back, her jaw dropping in what seemed to be genuine shock. “How dare you? After everything I’ve done for you!”
I couldn’t believe the volume of her yelling, and thought that the neighbors would file a noise complaint, but they’d probably been knocked unconscious by the audial vibrations.
Constance pushed past me and forced her way through the front door, leaving it hanging wide open as she displayed the angriest march she could muster. If I wasn’t so stressed out and upset, I’d probably have found it hilarious. As it was, I didn’t feel like any of it was funny at all. I dropped the pieces of the vase I’d collected into a neat pile and closed the front door, before heading to the percolator and taking it off the stove. “No luck with coffee either,” I said aloud to myself, pouring the little bit of coffee that remained liquid down the sink.
I let out a final resounding sigh and filled up the tea-kettle with water. With some reluctance, I flicked it into the ‘on’ position. Knowing my luck, I would probably be hit by a train or something just as the tea was ready, but at least Constance wouldn’t be here to tell me how I should have dodged it.
