Ghost Mortem (Ghost Detective #1) - Jane Hinchey Page 0,13

get you out.”

“She’s a natural. I knew you would be.” Ben stepped through the glass door and proceeded across the expanse of lawn towards the woods. I quickly opened the door and followed.

“Call for Thor,” Ben told me.

“Why?”

“Because Mrs. Hill is probably watching and I want you to have a legitimate excuse for why you decided to go into the woods.”

“Oh.” Good thinking. “Thor!” I bellowed, cupping my hands around my mouth, “Here boy! Good boy! Come on, Thor!” We stepped over the boundary from Ben’s property and into the woods, the lush lawn giving away to hard ground; manicured shrubs to tall trees, filtering the light.

A few feet in and it was as if we were in another world lost from sight. Even the sounds were different. As in, there weren’t any. No birds. No rustle of little critters in the undergrowth.

“It’s spooky here.” I shivered, giving a shriek when I hadn’t noticed Ben had stopped and I walked right through him, the icy blast chilling me to the bone. I jumped away, rubbing my hands up and down my arms. “Sorry,” I muttered, but Ben wasn’t paying me any attention. His focus was on the ground where two shallow troughs could be seen.

“Drag marks?” I whispered.

He nodded. “Drag marks.”

In the end, it was relatively easy to find his body. We simply followed the drag marks deep into the woods and there he was, lying on his back in a small clearing, eyes closed, Thor sitting on his chest. My eyes welled with tears at the sight.

“Thor?” I croaked, and the big grey cat swiveled his head and pinned me with his orange gaze.

“About time you got here,” he said in a thick British accent.

For the second time that day, my eyes rolled into the back of my head and the earth spun as it rushed up to greet me.

“She’s waking up. Thor, give her some space.”

I blinked, then blinked again. I was lying on the ground. Ben’s cat Thor sat a foot away, watching me with interest. Beyond Thor was Ben’s body.

“You okay, Fitz?” Ben asked, crouching by my side. “You’ve had a lot of shocks today. That’s the second time you’ve fainted. Maybe you should get checked out?”

I sat up, examining my stinging elbow.

“You’ve taken some skin off.” Ben told me. “I tried to catch you, but…” He held up his hands and shrugged. But he was a ghost and couldn’t touch anything, including me.

“I could wash that for you?” Thor offered, drawing my attention to the talking cat.

My voice trembled when I finally blurted, “You can talk.”

“No,” Thor corrected. “Rather, you can understand me.”

“What are you saying? That I’m speaking cat?”

“Well, I’m not speaking human, that’s for sure.” Thor stood and arched his back, his front paws stretching out in front of him. “But I think the more pressing matter right now is my human.” Thor turned his head and stared at Ben’s body.

Struggling to my feet, I staggered over to Ben’s prone form. Blood soaked his shirt.

“I’d say a stab wound to the abdomen.” Ghost Ben bent and squinted at the tear in his shirt. “Possibly stabbed twice. I wouldn’t have died straight away. More likely bled out here.”

I swallowed, looking at the puddle of congealed blood beneath his body.

“Looks like,” I agreed with a croak. It was a lot of blood, and now that I was closer I could smell the coppery tang in the air. Pulling my phone from my back pocket I called the police.

“My friend is dead,” I said into the phone. Ben’s head snapped toward me. I eyeballed him. What? We had to do this, the police had to be involved, someone had murdered him, for God’s sake. After giving them Ben’s address I told them I’d meet them at the edge of the woods.

“Okay.” Ben sighed, acknowledging I was right. “Let’s hope they send someone decent. In the meantime, don’t forget what you told Mrs. Hill. That I asked you to swing by and feed Thor this morning. Remember, they will most likely check my phone records, so don’t say I called or texted. Say that I asked you in person when I left the Crown and Anchor last night. Say Thor didn’t come when you called him so you started looking for him and stumbled across the tracks in the dirt. And don’t tell them anything about the cases I was working.”

I snorted. “That’s easy. I don’t know anything about your cases. You mentioned when I bumped into