Dances With Ghosts - Erin McCarthy Page 0,4

laughed.

Yeah. This was all just hilarious.

Jake handed me his keys. “Here, you can head home, babe. I’ll get a ride from someone.”

I was being dismissed.

I understood the why of it in theory, but hey, I had a decent track record solving murders. I had been the only one who had even suspected my grandma’s friend Vera had been murdered, and because of me, a confessed killer was sitting in jail awaiting his hearing.

This sucked. “Okay.” I took the keys, because what choice did I have? They weren’t going to let me stay. Crime scene techs were already unrolling the yellow tape.

Once upon a time, in my early twenties, I had been a crime scene technician myself, because I had wanted to be badass like my prosecutor mother, but sucked at public speaking, so law was out. I had also wanted to be around Ryan, who I had met in criminal justice class at community college, and who I had developed a massive crush on, so while law was out, crime scene tech was in.

But I hadn’t vibed with the job. In fact, if I hadn’t quit, I would have been fired. I’d gone on to start my own home staging business “Put It Where?” but knowing how to choose a soothing color palette did me no good in this ghost business.

Marner took his cronies inside and barely gave me a wave.

It occurred to me that the murderer might still be in the area. None of those pros had considered that, had they? Except they had. I realized a uniformed officer was following me discreetly and doing a sweep, gun out. Yikes. I fast-walked around the corner.

Ryan, my one-time crush, and Marner’s former partner, fell in step beside me.

“Dance lessons? How did you talk Marner into that?”

I glanced over at my dead friend, not surprised to see him. His ghost came and went at will.

“His mom bought them for us as a gift.”

“Ah. That makes sense. You can’t say no to Mrs. M.”

“That is very true. I was just thinking that same thing.” I crossed the parking lot, glancing around to make sure there was no murderer about to leap out and strangle me. “What’s new with you? Are you here because of Carmen? Was she murdered?”

I knew she had been murdered. She had to be. There had yet to be a ghost who had shown themselves to me who had died of natural causes. But Ryan occasionally had intel from upstairs and could share it with me.

“Yep. Bludgeoned to death. Multiple hits to the head. I saw the paperwork.”

He always talked about mysterious paperwork but never explained what actually went on in his afterlife. I strongly suspected at times Ryan was withholding information from me or flat-out lying. Now didn’t seem like the time to question it though.

“That seems very aggressive,” I said, as I unlocked the door to Jake’s truck. “Isn’t that classic overkill?”

I approached the truck and was about to open the door when something from under the carriage grabbed my ankle.

I screamed.

Two

Jerking backward to escape, instead of making a clean getaway, I fell onto my butt. But survival instincts had me crab walking, trying to escape my attacker.

“Bai, calm down, it’s a cat.” Ryan was doubled over laughing.

That made me pause. From my view on the asphalt I could see under the truck. Ryan was right. It was an orange cat. Fat and angry looking. “What’s his problem?” I asked, annoyed. He had scared the begeezus out of me. “I didn’t do anything to him.”

“Cats can be jerks.” Ryan shrugged. “I didn’t know you could move that fast. That was solid gold.”

“Hilarious.” I hauled myself off the ground, dirt all over my hands and butt. I brushed my leggings off and reached in my bag for hand sanitizer. It wouldn’t get rid of the dirt, but it would make me feel better. Hand sanitizer has a placebo effect on me.

I opened the truck. “Who would want to kill Carmen? Any clues? And what kind of a killer knocks her off in broad daylight with a giant glass window at the front of the studio?”

Ryan appeared in the passenger seat, without opening the door. “Are you sure it was in daylight? Maybe it was last night.”

The thought that Carmen had been lying there all day made me wrinkle my nose. “You’re right. I don’t know that. I only had a two-second glance at the blood pool.” It was frustrating to be kicked out of the crime scene. How