It's A Wonderful Midlife Crisis (Good To The Last Death #1) - Robyn Peterman Page 0,33

my squatters. “Don’t make a bunch of noise. I need to sleep this off. Cool?”

Everyone nodded and settled in. Apparently, they weren’t going to leave me. That was fine. It was sweet in a bizarre, loony tunes kind of way.

“Oh… and Sam?” I said as I yawned and let my eyes fall shut. “If I get arrested for this, I’m going to kick your ass and not glue it back on. You feel me?”

The last sound I heard before I fell into the deepest sleep I’d ever experienced was ghostly laughter. The idiots were laughing hysterically.

Maybe I should be a stand-up comedian… or maybe not.

Chapter Nine

“Oh shit,” I screeched as I jumped up off the couch and glanced wildly around the room in confused panic. “What time is it?”

It was pitch black outside. Donna was on the couch and the family room was filled with ghosts. What day was it? Was I late for school? Had I done my homework?

“Think, Daisy. Think,” I muttered as I began to pace the room erratically.

Donna’s bark abruptly snapped me out of my bewildered and terror-filled thoughts. I wasn’t in high school. I no longer had homework. I was a forty-year-old widow with a houseful of dead squatters. I’d hugged Sam and was pretty sure I died for a few minutes. I promised to break into his old home and find his wife’s glasses. I’d also threatened to kick his ass if I got arrested.

Then I passed out on the couch.

I still didn’t know what day it was. I could have slept for a few hours or a week. However, since the room wasn’t full of Donna poops, I was fairly sure I hadn’t been out for too long. Besides, my friends would have checked on me if they didn’t hear from me for days.

I’d hugged Sam around noon. Grabbing my phone and checking the time and date, I gasped. It was four in the morning. I’d slept for sixteen hours. What the hell?

“Donna, do you need to pee?” I asked, trying to get the important stuff out of the way before I figured out anything else. I certainly had to pee. I could only imagine how hard it must have been for a puppy to hold it for sixteen hours.

Donna barked and wagged her tail. Yanking the front door open, I spotted and stepped in a few pee puddles. I couldn’t blame her or even be annoyed. I considered peeing out in the yard with her. Sometimes it was awesome to have no neighbors.

“Pee quick,” I told her, hopping up and down. I’d decided it wasn’t the best plan to relieve myself in the yard even though it was four in the morning. It was chilly and I didn’t have toilet paper with me.

The memory of peeing in the woods as a child and inadvertently wiping with poison ivy came roaring back in full-blown itchy color. I would never make that mistake again. Gram—even though she felt awful for me—had thought it was hilarious. I didn’t. However, she gave me a thorough lesson in plant species after that. I hadn’t touched poison ivy since that horrible day and had no plans to touch it by accident tonight. I had enough problems without adding itchy lady-bits to the equation.

“Get in here, Donna,” I called out. “I have to go too.”

Donna did her business and raced back in as I sprinted upstairs to my bathroom. Peeing had never been so glorious. Sighing dramatically, I glanced up—and screamed when I noticed how many ghosts had followed me.

“Out,” I shouted. “Unacceptable. The bathroom is off-limits. Forever.”

The rules needed to be laid down a little firmer. If the dead dummies were going to live with me, I had to have some freaking privacy. My bedroom and bathroom were going to be mine and mine only.

A faint scratching at the bathroom door yanked me out of my mental list-making for the dearly departed squatters.

“What?” I snapped, ready to evict everyone.

“Waauufff lassssh gaussaus,” Sam said through the door.

Sighing, I washed my hands. Staring at my face in the mirror, I wasn’t sure I recognized the woman staring back at me. Was all of this really happening or was I imagining it? Was I really about to break into an old woman’s home at the risk of ending up in jail?

“Waauufff lassssh gaussaus,” Sam said again.

Yep. I was.

“I’m coming, Sam,” I said, opening the door and trying not to grin at all of the contrite ghosts floating in the hallway. “Guys,