It's A Wonderful Midlife Crisis (Good To The Last Death #1) - Robyn Peterman Page 0,34

listen up. As of right now, my bedroom and bathroom are no-man’s land… or no-ghosts land,” I added just in case I’d not been clear enough.

Donna barked. I laughed.

“Donna, you’re allowed in no-man’s land,” I told her, and she wagged her little tail so hard she fell over.

My dog was freaking me out a little, but I decided to ignore it. I adored her and wouldn’t give her up for anything at this point.

“Bauuuyfeeend,” Sam said with what I think might have been a smirk.

His face was kind of difficult to look at, but I sucked up my gag and leveled my dead friend with an amused squint.

“What did you just say?”

“Bauuuyfeeend,” he repeated.

I was shocked that I understood. I was also alarmed that I understood.

“I don’t have a boyfriend, Sam,” I told him with an eye roll. “But… umm… yes. If I had one, which I really don’t see happening anytime soon, due to the fact that I’m rooming with dead people, then yes, he would be allowed in my bedroom.”

“Waauufff lassssh gaussaus,” Sam repeated yet again.

“I know.”

What did one who was starting a life of crime at forty wear to break into a house? Black. All black and running shoes. Thank God I was a runner. If I couldn’t use my self-defense skills from the Y, at least I could fall back on my running to save my life. Closing my eyes for a second, I lambasted myself for a logical thought process for the most illogical and illegal notion I’d had to date. Whatever. Since I was going to do it, I may as well have a semi-half-assed plan in place.

Realizing I had no clue where Sam had lived when he was alive, I figured I could look it up in the phone book.

Nope. I didn’t know his last name and I couldn’t recall it from his funeral. I suppose I could look up the obituary section of the newspaper online, but daylight was coming in the next few hours and my internet was spotty out in the country. It could take an hour just to get into the newspaper’s website. It was now or never.

“You’ll have to come with me,” I told him. “I don’t know where you live… lived.”

Sam nodded and reached out for my hand.

“Umm… no,” I told him gently. I didn’t have time to sleep for another sixteen hours straight. I was fairly sure that a simple touch wouldn’t send me back to the scary, weird, half-dead place. I’d touched handless lady and Sam when I’d glued their body parts back on. It was probably just hugging that was dangerous, but right now I was playing it safe. “Let me get dressed and I’ll meet you downstairs. Cool?”

In the blink of an eye, all of the specters disappeared. It was almost enough to make me believe they were never here at all. For a brief moment, I considered going into my bedroom, locking the door and going back to sleep. Maybe when I woke up, I’d realize all of this had been a dream.

Who was I kidding? I’d already embraced my crazy in a big way. Not coming through for Sam would make me feel just awful. A promise was a promise, even if it saddled me with a criminal record.

I’d get dressed and march my crazy butt downstairs. Plus, I had pee puddles to clean up.

“Can you ride in a car?” I asked, trying to figure out the best way to go about this considering I had no clue where I was going.

I mean, Sam couldn’t actually give me vocal directions—or at least not ones I could understand. But I was hoping he could point. As long as his arms didn’t fall off, it was our best bet. I’d pocketed a few tubes of superglue just in case.

Thankfully, the moon was hidden behind a densely clouded sky and it was seriously dark outside. The sun wouldn’t rise for at least another three hours. I hoped Sam’s house wasn’t in a well-lit neighborhood. That would suck.

“I’ll bring Donna,” I told Sam, lifting the furball up and putting her in the front seat. “She can let me know what you’re saying.” Purposely banging my head on the top of the car, I groaned. “For posterity’s sake, I’d like to say that if you guys aren’t real and I end up in jail, I will be pissed.”

“Raeuwl,” Sam assured me as he floated into the car and waited for me to come to my senses