Spooky Business (The Spectral Files #3) - S.E. Harmon Page 0,52

homey-looking witch’s cottage you know you’re supposed to stay away from. I’m just sayin’.

As I texted Danny to let him know where I’d be, I caught a glimpse of the time and did a double take. Fuck.

Dinnertime.

My twin Skylar took an all-natural, super healthy approach to food that was hard to embrace. I tried and failed on many occasions. She just didn’t seem to understand that humans had to eat the food she prepared.

The last time we had dinner with her family, we choked down some unidentifiable casserole with beets as the main ingredient. The highlight of the meal was a side salad of dandelion greens, which, for all the fancy terminology, resembled those stubborn weeds that grew through sidewalk cracks. It was a sad day when weeds were the best thing on the plate. I sucked it up, requested some extra lemon juice, and ate the weeds mournfully.

I was jazzed at the mention of dessert, until I watched her try to serve it. The gelatinous white substance kept shying away from the scooper. I made a quick, battlefield decision—I wasn’t eating any type of ice cream an ice-cream scooper didn’t recognize. So, I patted my stomach jovially and claimed I was full enough to burst.

Danny wasn’t quite as cool. When it was his turn, he said “no thank you” so loudly that everyone at the table jumped. I fully expected him to catch a scooper upside the head, but Sky only huffed and informed us that just like all the greats, she was so underappreciated in her time.

Hopefully I’d be in and out before any food hit the table. There were just easier ways to die.

Sky never locked her doors, despite my dire warnings about security, so I knocked briefly and walked right in. She and her husband, Rick, were sitting on the couch. They were knee-deep in domesticity as she busily opened the mail, and he filled in a crossword puzzle. Skylar barely looked up at my entry—she was used to me popping in by now.

“Just the person I need to see.” Rick pointed his pen in my direction. “You’re smart. Give me a fourteen-letter word for letters sent or received. Starts with C.”

“Correspondence,” I said, “and hello to you, Rick.”

“That’s what I thought, but it ends with two x’s. This is my last clue, too.” He shook his head. Probably the most laid-back, mellow guy I’d ever met, it was rare to see him so focused on something. “Thanks for trying, dude.”

I smothered a chuckle. “Anytime.”

“Do you want to stay for dinner?” Sky asked. “I made plenty.”

My belly fluttered in panic. “Thanks, but I’m good. Don’t trouble yourself.”

She smiled. “It’s no trouble.”

“I already ate,” I said, patting my stomach.

“Funny. When I offered the same thing to Danny, he texted back very quickly, saying you guys were having a late dinner. He’s on his way, by the way.”

“Guess we got our wires crossed.”

“Guess you’re both coming to dinner,” she informed me cheerily. “What happened to your face?”

I instinctively reached up to touch it and winced. “Got on the wrong side of an uncooperative prisoner.”

“Did you put him down?” Rick asked eagerly.

I thought briefly of Kane’s bruised and battered nose, bleeding like a stuck pig all over his uniform. This was truly a case of you should see the other guy, but it felt wrong to be proud of that. “You could say that.”

Rick nodded approvingly.

I watched my sister opening mail for a moment, wondering if I should talk to her about my little episode with Joey in the car. I had a session with Dakota coming up on Saturday, but I didn’t want to bother him before then. He had a life, too. Not much of one, but still. And I could certainly use an unvarnished opinion—the only kind Sky ever had.

“I need to talk to you.” I stretched my eyes at her, wide, so she’d get the word alone without me having to say it, which would’ve worked if she’d bothered to look up.

“Well, go right ahead. No one’s stopping you.” She opened a yellow envelope and shook out a couple of charms onto her palm. “Remind me, is Danny’s soul number five or six?”

I huffed. The woman couldn’t find a clue even if it had a sign on it that read: Yo, I’m the freaking clue. I did some quick calculations. “Six, I think. Why?”

“I miscalculated when I bought this charm. I thought Rick was a five, but it turns out he’s an eight.” She clucked