It's A Wonderful Midlife Crisis (Good To The Last Death #1) - Robyn Peterman Page 0,38

and start jogging. I was already sweating from the stress of what I’d just done. It would simply look like I’d been on a long run… or that I’d just broken into a house.

I still felt gutted about Sam leaving, but the more I thought about it, the happier I became. I briefly wondered if Donna would be confused that Sam wasn’t with me. And then I froze—partially because a sprinkler system came on and I was now soaked from head to toe, and partially because I got hit with a horrifyingly disturbing possibility.

Oh my God. Was I supposed to break and enter for all the freaking dead people in my house? The chances of incarceration were high if I had to do this fifty to a hundred times.

There was no way I was cut out for the criminal lifestyle. The caring about people—dead or alive—was a no-brainer. However, performing illegal activities for all of them wasn’t going to work for me.

Hopping to my feet, I put the key back under the front door mat, sprinted to my car and got the heck out of dodge.

“Mission accomplished. I’m pretty sure I just lost ten pounds due to stress,” I told Donna as she hopped onto my lap and licked my face. “I’ll miss Sam, but it was perfect. It was right.”

And I would miss him. Sam was special.

If this was the beginning of a new side job that paid absolutely nothing but satisfaction of a job well done, then so be it. I still wasn’t a hundred percent sure I’d just done and seen what I’d just done and seen… but most of me knew that I had.

Just like the ground rules I’d laid about the bathroom I was going to have to make some more rules for my dead guests. Hoping desperately that not everyone needed illegal help, I’d make a signup sheet of sorts. I still had a job and bills to pay. I could not let dead squatters take over my life. There was also Gram to think about.

“One a week,” I told Donna. “I will help one person a week.”

Donna barked and wagged her tail. It was a good plan, or at least I thought it was. There was still a possibility that I was coo-coo and would end up in a psych ward or worse… jail. However, something felt impossibly right.

And my vision clearing up? Fantastic. Maybe it was a reward. Maybe it was simply my body changing because I’d turned forty. If all the changes were this good, I was in.

However, the best laid plans often go awry…

Chapter Eleven

“Heather, what are you doing here?” I asked, balancing a tray of ham sandwiches in one hand and my purse and a pecan pie in the other.

Heather glanced up with an uncharacteristically jerky movement. Her body was slouched, leaning against the wall in the hallway of the nursing home. I could swear she looked guilty about something. But what I thought was guilt turned into a wide Heather smile. Shaking my head to empty it of ridiculous thoughts, I grinned right back.

“I brought Gram some of the leftover pot-stickers from the party,” she told me.

I felt like an idiot. I was hanging out with dead folks too much. My judgment was getting as cloudy as my glasses that I didn’t need anymore. Not to mention, I’d been up since four AM and I’d started the morning off committing a crime. I wasn’t exactly on top of my game today.

“Thank you,” I said with a laugh, nodding at the food in my hands. “I had the same idea. She hasn’t been eating enough lately. Wait. Why aren’t you at work?”

Maybe I hadn’t misinterpreted her guilt. Was my buddy playing hooky? Was Clarissa still not back at the office? There was no way I would bust Heather in a million years. She should know that.

“I’m taking the bar today,” she said casually. “At noon. Needed to do something nice for someone for good luck. Gram was an easy and pleasurable target. Watched a full hour of The Price is Right with her. I do believe I might have saved you from a special kind of hell.”

I laughed and let my head fall back onto my shoulders. How did I not know today was the day of the bar exam? “I owe you, my friend. And I’ll send you a ton of good thoughts and energy this afternoon.”

“I’m going to need it,” Heather said as she gave me a