A Ghoul's Guide to Love and Murder

  My best friend turned to me with ruby red lips all aquiver. “Come with me,” he said, desperately grabbing my arms. “M.J., for once in your freaking life, don’t get involved! Let’s all just go away, spend some time in New York, and allow somebody else to solve it.”

  I sighed sadly. “You know I can’t do that, right?”

  His expression darkened and he let go of me. “Then you’re on your own, sugar. I mean, if you can’t see the insanity of staying here when Oruç, the Grim Widow, and Hatchet Jack come back for a little threesome, then I can’t help you.”

  “I’m pregnant,” I said. I hadn’t actually meant to say that; it sort of popped out of my mouth before I could catch it.

  Gilley’s jaw dropped for a second time. “You’re . . . you’re what?”

  “Pregnant. I found out this morning.”

  Gilley shuffled over to his bed to sit down and stare in stunned silence at me. Tears welled in his eyes. “You are?”

  I nodded. “More than anything in the world, I want to go away and protect her, Gil. But as long as that dagger is out there, she won’t be safe, no matter where I go. None of us will.”

  His gaze dropped to the floor and he seemed to consider that for a long time. “I’m going to be an uncle,” he said, more to himself than to me. Then he lifted his chin to look at me again. “You think it’s a girl?”

  “I do. I know it. Abby Cooper thinks it’s a girl too.”

  Gil nodded, like that seemed right to him as well. “You should think about naming her after your mama, M.J. She’d like that, right?”

  Tears stung my own eyes. Gilley knew me so well. “She would, Gil. That’s a great suggestion.”

  He sighed heavily then and pushed at the open suitcase on his bed. “Wouldn’t be very uncle-y of me if I left you all barefoot and pregnant in your time of need, would it?”

  I offered him a sideways smile. “Nope.”

  He sighed again. “Fiiiiiiine. But we need to fortify your condo. I mean, how the hell did the Grim Widow get into your bathroom, sugar?”

  “That’s what I need your help with, Gil. Today, when we were at Mrs. Ashworth’s, I tested one of the spikes from my belt against a bottle cap, and there was no pull. The spike wasn’t magnetized.”

  Gil eyed me skeptically. He was in charge of all our technical equipment and weapons. “If it was a spike that I gave you, it sure as hell was magnetized.”

  “This one wasn’t.”

  “What about the others?”

  “I haven’t tested them yet.”

  “One dud spike doesn’t mean a whole hell of a lot,” he said.

  I nodded, but something was really eating at me. “Gil, when Heath shrugged out of his gear and headed down the hallway with Olivera, he left his jacket and spikes on the landing. When I sent Olivera to retrieve his gear, it’d been moved down a half flight of stairs.”

  His eyes widened. “Someone came along and moved Heath’s stuff?”

  I bit my lip. “I’m wondering if it wasn’t Gertie who did it. I mean, it was only moved half a flight away. If a person had done it, wouldn’t they have taken it with them and hidden it altogether?”

  “Okay, so Gertie moved Heath’s stuff. Why are you focused on that?”

  “Because she shouldn’t have been able to get within ten yards of his gear. He had spikes, a lined jacket, and his boots had magnetized plates. How could she have fought through the field coming off all that to pick up and move his gear?”

  Gil sighed. “I don’t know.”

  “And the only thing that seemed to have an effect on Jack were my boots,” I added, lifting one leg for emphasis. “I wear these pretty much every day, but Heath keeps his in the closet with all our other gear, so . . .” I let the rest of that sentence fall away. Gilley saw where I was going.

  “Let’s head up to your place,” he said. “I want to test everything you took with you to Mrs. Ashworth’s apartments.”

  “Did you want to change first?” I asked.

  He looked down at himself. “Why?”

  I stifled a chuckle and held out my hand. “Come on, let’s go see why we can’t seem to fend off the spooks lately.”

  Chapter 9

  We found Heath in the same spot I’d left him, but with an ice pack held close to his temple. Gilley winced when he spotted him. “Nice look, dude.”

  “Back atcha,” Heath told him tartly.

  Gilley curtsied. “It’s for the reception,” he said, swishing the flapper fringe to and fro. “I’ve got a more elaborate gown for the wedding.”

  “I would’ve guessed you were a tux man myself,” Heath said.

  “That’s what Michel is wearing,” he said. “I wanted to make a statement.”

  “Mission accomplished,” I told him, and Gilley beamed.

  He then turned his attention back to Heath. “Heard you had a close encounter with an old friend of ours. And of course with a forty-five-caliber.”

  “Yep. I’m not sure which one was scarier either.”

  “Jack,” Gilley said. “Jack’s the scariest spook I’ve ever seen. Well, next to that thing from Ireland. And the Grim Widow. Although Oruç’s demon was no picnic . . .”

  “As much as I love this trip down memory lane,” I said, reaching for Heath’s belt with all of his spikes still firmly in place. “Mind taking a look?”

  Gil took the belt from me and lifted out a spike. He looked around and walked it over to the hinge of the door leading to the bathroom. He knocked it against the hinge easily and pulled it away just as easily. “No. Way.”

  I went over to him and took up the spike, mimicking Gilley by tapping it against the hinge. There was no pulling sensation. Just metal striking metal. “Son of a bitch,” I muttered, going back to retrieve the whole belt. Gil and I went through each spike and then on to the plates in Heath’s coat, then in mine, then all the spikes and plates in my gear, and not a single magnet could be found. Except for the plates in my boots. Those were magnetized. And then I realized that my boots had been left at the office when Heath and I went on our vacation, not here in my condo.

  “How is this possible?” I finally asked Gilley.

  “I have no idea,” he said, looking very shaken. Then he got up from the floor where we’d been testing the spikes with a screwdriver from my junk drawer and went over to the sofa, taking a seat at the end opposite Heath. “I magnetized all of these spikes and plates myself,” he said. “I mean, I recognize them as the ones I bought and then magnetized.”

  “How do you magnetize something?” Heath suddenly asked him.

  “With a magnetizer,” he said simply.

  “Seriously?” Heath asked. “That’s a thing?”

  “Yeah,” I said to him. “You’ve seen him work with it on the set before, right?”

  Heath moved the ice pack slightly. “I guess I have, but I never really took it in that that’s what he was doing.”

  “You can buy one at any hardware store or online,” Gil said.

  “Okay, so how do you demagnetize something?” I asked next.

  “With a demagnetizer,” Gil said.

  I looked skyward. Ask a silly question . . . “Okay, so where can you find one of those?”

  “It’s usually the same tool,” Gil said. “I’ve got one downstairs, actually. There’s a slot for magnetizing metal, and a slot for demagnetizing it. You just place whatever you want to magnetize or demagnetize in the appropriate hole.”

  “Sounds kinky,” Heath said.

  Gil and I both stared at him.

  He held up his prescription bottle and wiggled it. “It’s the drugs talking.”

  I turned my attention back to Gilley. “So, it’s really that easy? You just stick the object you want to magnetize into the slot, and boom—you’ve either got a magnet or you don’t?”

  “Ye
p. It’s really that easy.”

  “Could someone walk up with an improvised device and demagnetize our stuff?” I asked. I was thinking that maybe Heath and I had worn our gear in public and maybe while we weren’t looking, some perpetrator had zapped us.

  Gilley shrugged. “I’m not sure, M.J., but anything’s possible. What’s weird is that Heath’s boots were demagnetized but yours weren’t.”

  That made me think of something; a few days after we’d left on vacation, Gilley had lost the key to our condo. I’d enlisted him to watch Doc and our place while we were gone, so I’d given him a copy of our house key. Not that I needed to, of course, because whenever I changed the locks—which was often—he’d sneak my keys away from me, make a copy, then come inside our place whenever the mood struck him. Trouble was, the mood was often striking Heath and me (if you get my drift), and there’d been more than one occasion when the situation had proven most awkward. “Gil,” I said. “Do you remember that day that you lost your keys?”

  “I do,” he said. “Pain-in-the-ass day, that was.”

  “If I remember correctly, you lost them at the gym, right?”

  “Yeah. I set them down next to this really cute”—Gil paused as he became aware of what he was about to say—“set of dumbbells.”

  “Cute set of dumbbells?” Heath asked.

  “Dumbbells can be cute,” Gil told him.

  Heath smirked. “Apparently.”

  “Anyway,” Gilley continued, “I set them down and did my workout, and when I went to get them, they were gone.”

  “So somebody stole them,” I said, feeling a cold prickle down my spine.

  “Nooooo,” Gil said defensively. “They were returned to the gym a few hours after I left. Thank God Michel was in town and could come to the gym with my extra keys. Lord knows what a pain in the ass it would’ve been to have to change our locks. Anyway, the gym called a little while after we got home to let me know someone had mistaken my keys for theirs and they’d turned them back in when they realized they weren’t.”

  “Was our office key on that ring?” I asked him next, because I wasn’t buying the “mistaken key” story and actually had a different theory.

  Gil made a face while he thought about that. “No, I had that ring at home.”

  “So, on the ring that was taken from the gym, you had your car key, your house key, and ours, right?”

  “Yes.”

  I looked around the room, then back over my shoulder to the kitchen. “Gil?”

  “Yeah?”

  “While we were away, do you remember anything in here being out of place?”

  Gil’s eyes widened. “Um . . . it’s funny you should say that because about a week after you left I put your mail on the counter, and one morning when I came in, Doc seemed a little off and your mail just looked like it’d been re-sorted. I didn’t really think much of it because I chalked it up to one of your friendly spooks paying a visit.”

  Every once in a while I’d get a visit from one of the spirits I’d helped to cross over. They’d let me know they were around by moving little things, like a picture frame or my hairbrush. It was harmless and it always made me feel good that they’d stopped by to say hello. But I didn’t think that’s what’d happened in this case.

  “You think someone made a copy of both of our condo keys before returning them to Gilley’s gym,” Heath said.

  “Yeah,” I told him. “I do.”

  “What?” Gil said. “No way, M.J. I mean, your TV is still here, along with your computer and one of mine in the spare bedroom . . .”

  “They weren’t after electronics, bud,” Heath said. “They were after the dagger. And that’s not kept here. When they didn’t find it, they carefully and meticulously demagnetized our gear.”

  “But they were still after the dagger,” I said. “Which we keep at our office, which has an alarm and a well-hidden safe.” And then I thought of something else that didn’t quite add up. “Gil?”

  He was still looking about the room nervously. “Yeah?”

  “This producer who called you; what was his name?”

  “Bradley Rosenberg.”

  “Has he called you back yet?”

  “No,” Gil said, his brow furrowing.

  “Did he contact you and talk you into putting the dagger up for display before or after you came in here and saw the mail had been re-sorted?”

  “Uh . . . after. I think it was the next day even, if I recall.”

  “That’s a pretty big coincidence, isn’t it?”

  Gil frowned and went over to retrieve his cell from where he’d placed it on the counter. Scrolling through his contacts, he placed a call, and a moment later we heard him say, “Bradley, it’s Gilley Gillespie again. Listen, I really need you to call me back as soon as possible. We’ve got a situation here, and I just need to confirm a few things with you. Anyway, this is my number and you can call me back anytime, day or night.” He clicked off and looked at me. “I agree it’s a coincidence, M.J., but Bradley’s legit.”

  “You sure, Gil?” I asked.

  He rolled his eyes. “Yes. I mean, I called the studio and spoke to his assistant. Numerous times. He’s legit.”

  I sighed, frustrated, because I’d been really suspicious that there was some kind of connection. “Okay, Gil. If you say so. But I think someone was in here and demagnetized our gear.”

  “But why?” Gilley said. “I mean, why risk breaking and entering just to demagnetize your gear?”

  “To leave us vulnerable,” I said. “Maybe not against Oruç or his cronies, but against anything we might face.”

  “Again, I gotta ask why,” Gilley said. “You two are all but retired.”

  “Yeah, but who knows that?” Heath said. “We’ve never posted anything online definitively saying we’re retired, Gil. Someone could’ve assumed we were still working and that we’d run up against something nasty, and, thinking we’re protected, we’d get our asses kicked.”

  “And we have run up against something nasty,” I pointed out. “Lots of somethings, actually.” Shaking my head, I said, “I’m still not convinced there isn’t a connection between whoever lifted Gilley’s keys and the dagger being stolen.”

  “It’d have to be a pretty elaborate plan,” Gil said.

  “Agreed,” I said. Then I thought about it and decided it really was somewhat ridiculous to think anyone would go to such lengths to cause us harm. Even to the point of committing murder. It did sound a little preposterous. “Okay, so maybe there isn’t a connection and it’s all a big coincidence. Still, we can’t assume anything at this moment. We’re on the defensive, and we have to get our act together here, quick, or we’re not gonna make it to the end of the week.”

  “So what do we do?” Heath asked next.

  “We start by remagnetizing all your gear,” Gil said. “Hang here—I’ll be right back.”

  “Wait,” I said. Pulling off one boot, I set it next to Heath. It was the only working magnet I knew about in the house and I wanted him to be protected. “I’m coming with you.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I can’t be sure your gear wasn’t tampered with either.”

  Gil visibly shuddered. Then he seemed to think of something. “My sweatshirt!”

  Many years ago Gil had gotten the idea to glue a bunch of refrigerator magnets to the inside of a sweatshirt, which he’d then worn on all of our ghostbusts. The sweatshirt had been the prototype for the vests we wore on location while filming for the Ghoul Getters show.

  With one heel higher than the other, I gimped after my best friend down the stairs and into his apartment. He went to his own front hall closet and pulled out his bedazzled black vest. Holding the screwdriver close to it, he let out an expletive and said, “He got my gear too! Ohmigod, I’ve been down here exposed all this time!”
>
  I considered Gilley in his full 1920s attire. “I think you might’ve scared off the spooks for the moment, Gil.”

  “This isn’t funny, M.J.!”

  I snickered. “You know, I think it sorta is.”

  He glared meanly at me, then headed over to his spare bedroom, which was the only cluttered space in his entire condo. There were gizmos, parts of computers, cameras, and all sorts of other techy stuff scattered across a series of tables that Gil had in the room. He fished around until he came up with his little magnetizer, then went immediately into his bedroom and over to his still-open closet. After fishing through a few racks of clothing, he finally came up with a raggedy sweatshirt that sagged in many places and smelled like it could seriously use a wash. Holding the screwdriver to the shirt, Gil gave a triumphant shout when it clicked against one of the magnets. “Ha!” he said. “Didn’t get to this one, did you, jerkhole?”

  “Can we go back upstairs, now?” I said, anxious not to leave Heath by himself too long. Even with my boot, I didn’t think I wanted him alone in a room with any of the spooks we’d encountered recently.

  “Hang on,” Gil said, taking a moment to throw the sweatshirt over his head. “Don’t rush me.”

  I grabbed him by the arm and dragged him back to the door. We headed upstairs and found Detective Olivera at my front door, about to knock. “Oh!” I said in surprise. “You’re here.”

  She turned to face us and her eyes nearly popped out of her head when she took a good look at Gilley. She then broke into a grin and tried to suppress a laugh.

  For his part, Gilley narrowed his eyes, raised his hands in surrender and said, “Don’t shoot!”

  Olivera’s humorous expression vanished and her chin pulled back as if she’d just been slapped in the face. I was hugely disappointed in Gil and gave his shoulder a shove. “Behave!”

  “What?” he said defensively. “She shoots Heath and I get yelled at?”

  “Gil!” I barked. “You’re not helping!” We needed Olivera more than ever, and I hoped Gilley’s rude remark wouldn’t make her walk away.

  He crossed his arms and continued to glare at her. “Whatever.”