A Ghoul's Guide to Love and Murder

  “Hey,” Chris said as she pulled the curtain aside and stepped into my area. “How’re you feeling?”

  “Like I wished everyone would stop asking me that,” I grumbled. The pain was making me seriously snippy.

  “What’d they say about the baby?” she asked anxiously.

  I’d been seen by the resident gyno even before the orthopedic. “The baby’s okay,” I said, closing my eyes in relief. My poor sweet child. The size of a bean and already she’d been through way more than anyone should.

  “Thank God,” Chris said, coming over to sit on the edge of my bed. Ayden had the only chair in the area. “We booked Bernard and Angelica,” she told me.

  “Good,” I said, taking some deep breaths. I’d been given a pain pill that was safe for pregnant women, which meant it was having little to no effect blocking the pain. To take my mind off my discomfort, I said, “Has Captain Comb-Over said anything?”

  “No,” she said with a smile. “But Angelica agreed to testify against him in exchange for a lighter sentence. She filled us in.”

  “Tell me,” I said.

  “Well, it’s a lot like you guys guessed. She and Bernard were insanely jealous of you and Heath. They felt you guys stole their one shot of really making it, and that’s how they first got together, actually. Misery loved company. They talked a lot about the Haunted Possessions show, and how, if they’d had a chance to sit in front of the dagger, nobody would’ve gotten murdered.”

  I snorted. “Sure,” I said. “Nobody but them, probably.”

  “Yeah, well, they each seem to have a pretty high opinion of themselves. Anyway, Angelica said that over the years, their jealousy turned more toward obsession, but she claims that Bernard was far more obsessed than she was. She said that he watched every episode of Ghoul Getters and followed the updates on the fan site religiously. When he saw that there was a movie coming out featuring one of your busts, and that the studio was going to partner with a museum here in Boston to showcase items from your show, he saw an opportunity, especially when he learned that you and Heath were taking a vacation out of the country for three weeks.”

  “I knew that fan site was a bad idea,” I said.

  “You really should take it down,” she agreed. “There’s way too much personal information on there.”

  At that moment, Heath pulled back the curtain and offered me a pained expression. “I’m still trying to find this surgeon, Em.”

  “Okay, honey,” I told him, and forced a smile onto my face. He’d been fussing over me since we got to the hospital, and it was driving me a little crazy. I liked that he’d gone in search of my surgeon. “Keep looking, will you?”

  Heath nodded and headed off again, leaving Chris to get back to her story. “Anyway,” she said, “Angelica told me that they’d met Gilley in San Francisco and found him to be a very gullible guy.”

  I sighed. “It’s true. He is. Obvs.”

  “So, she and her husband hatched a plan. Bernard called Gilley, posing as one of the studio producers, and since he also knew that Gopher was away in the Himalayas, he figured he could drop Gopher’s name as the source for hearing about the dagger without raising any suspicions in Gilley.

  “Gilley took the bait and Bernard and Angelica waited for the dagger to be delivered to the museum. They then used some of the money Angelica had recently come into from an inheritance to bribe Sullivan and Murdock into allowing them access to the exhibit. Bernard had thought himself very clever when he’d used the name of Todd Tolliver to set up the accounts for the wire transfer. He was hoping that you’d figure out he’d been stalking Ayden too.”

  I looked at Ayden and said, “I bet you’re regretting doing that news story. See what fame brings you? Nothing but misery.”

  “Hey, the reporter on that story was cute,” he said. “I was unduly influenced.”

  Chris chuckled. “Yeah, well, all of this has convinced me to take down my Facebook page.”

  “Good idea,” I said. “Now, tell me what Angelica said next so I don’t think about my arm too much.”

  Chris got right back to her story. “Angelica said that once Sullivan and Murdock let them into the exhibit, it took them several hours to remove all the magnets at the display and replace them with duds. She said that Bernard also made a deal with Angelica’s son—a loser thirty-year-old with a record of assault and battery—that if he could stake out Ayden and make sure that when the dagger was stolen that Ayden didn’t get on a plane to come help you figure out who’d taken it, that Bernard would give Angelica’s son the deed to their house when the two of them got their own TV gig.”

  “She was delusional to think she and Bernard were going to get a TV deal out of this whole thing,” I said.

  “Yeah, well, Bernard had her convinced that if he could get ahold of the dagger, unleash the demon into a crowd to cause a little mayhem, that he could be the big hero who put the genie back in its bottle.”

  “So we were right,” I said. “They planned to sabotage the opening night of the exhibit.”

  “They did,” Chris agreed. “But it backfired on them when you guys showed up and your gear wasn’t the same gear that’d been tampered with. Bernard was there in disguise, but he lost his nerve to unleash the demon when you and Heath found your way in the dark to the display case and brought back the magnetic field around the dagger. He abandoned the effort when the lights came back on, but he went back later that night to steal the dagger from the museum.

  “He had the access code for the back door, so he let himself in, but he wasn’t expecting Sullivan to be working late, and as he’d promised but not delivered to the director a lot more money to look the other way when Bernard switched out all the exhibit’s magnets, he and Sullivan got into it and Bernard killed him. He then found the computer with the security footage, stole the dagger, and went right over to your place to see what would happen when he opened the portal.”

  “So he was stalking us,” I said, knowing my theory about the dagger needing to be close by when the various spooks from my past began showing up.

  “He was,” she said. “Anyway, Murdock knew that Bernard had killed Sullivan, and he too tried to blackmail Bernard into giving him more money, which Bernard did, but then Angelica said that Bernard killed Murdock after he led us straight to Ashworth Commons, where Bernard and Angelica were hiding. Murdock had been hoping that after he warned Bernard that we were onto the security guard’s involvement, Higgins would protect him from us, but it turns out Murdock needed protecting from Bernard.”

  “Wait,” I said. “They were hiding at Ashworth Commons this whole time?”

  “Yeah,” she said. “On the first floor. Apartment One-B.”

  “How’d they know about the Commons?” Ayden asked.

  “It was on the fan site,” Chris told him. “As your last active and not quite successful bust, Bernard hoped you might come back to clear out Gertie, and he’d be lying in wait for you.”

  “Gilley and that stupid fan site,” I growled.

  “Yeah,” Chris said.

  “He couldn’t have known all this would come about from his posts,” Ayden said in defense of Gil.

  I sighed and nodded reluctantly. “True. Still, I’m going to have to lecture him about it. And get him to take down the site and our Twitter page.”

  “Or become a little more circumspect, like Rick Lavinia,” Chris said, with a slight smile.

  “He didn’t have anything to do with any of this, right?” I asked.

  “Nope. Angelica admitted that she forwarded the photo of Ashworth Commons to Rick with a note that it was a location you guys were considering for one of your next shows. She said that Bernard hoped it would send us in the wrong direction, and if Rick actually happened to show up, he’d have the pleasure of taking him out with one of the spooks from the portal too.”

  “Wow,”
I said. “Bernard was way more bloodthirsty than I ever gave him credit for.”

  “His obsession to reclaim or ignite some fame overrode every other thought,” Ayden observed. “When I worked homicide, I’d see extreme cases of sociopathic narcissism like this all the time.”

  Chris said, “Yep. He’s a classic case, and Angelica had more than her fair share of the narcissism part.”

  “So now what?” I asked.

  Chris got up and moved a few feet away from my gurney. “Now I leave you to go fill out some paperwork. Lots of paperwork. Some of it has to do with the fact that the murder weapon used to kill Charlie Murdock was not found on scene. I doubt we’ll ever see it again, right, M.J.?”

  “Not unless you go looking down a very deep hole, covered in cement,” I told her. Heath had taken Oruç’s dagger from me before the paramedics arrived to take me to the hospital. He smothered it in magnets, and he’d promised me that as soon as he knew I was all right, he, Gilley, and Ayden were going to drive out to the woods somewhere, spend an hour digging a hole, throw that dagger and as many magnets as they had on them in it, and cover the whole mess with concrete.

  “Good,” Chris said, with a wink at Ayden.

  He grinned back.

  After she’d gone, he leaned forward and said, “She’s a looker. Any chance she’s single?”

  • • •

  The next day, after being released from the hospital, I shuffled slowly and carefully around the condo, sore from head to toe, and with my upper arm feeling like it was on fire.

  The doctor had ordered me to take it easy, but I needed something to take my mind off the discomfort, so I tidied up the condo a little, then looked around for something else to do.

  Heath had taken Ayden back to the airport, and then he was heading to the grocery store for food and such; after that, he’d pick up Doc from Teeko’s place.

  I hadn’t heard much from Gilley since I’d been back, and I decided to head downstairs to visit with him. As I approached the door I heard laughter from inside. Gil’s distinctive laugh, and that of a woman.

  I paused, wondering if I should intrude, but the thought of heading back upstairs and pacing the floor until Heath got back didn’t appeal to me, so I knocked.

  Gilley opened up almost right away. He was back in his flapper dress with full makeup, but now he had a tiara on his head. “M.J.!” he said warmly. “How you doin’, sugar?”

  “Bored,” I admitted. “And my arm hurts.”

  “Aww, puddin’,” Gil said, his southern accent thickening. Very, very carefully he leaned in to hug my good side. “Catherine-Cooper-Masters is here. Come on in!”

  I walked into Gilley’s condo and spied Cat perched demurely on the edge of one of Gilley’s living room chairs. “M.J.!” she exclaimed, getting up to come over to me and take up my good hand. “Oh, Gilley has told me all about your harrowing experience. I’ve decided to send you to my spa for a day, as soon as you feel up to it, to be pampered head to toe!”

  I forced a smile. “That’s so nice of you, Cat, but I couldn’t impose on you like that.”

  “No, no,” she insisted. “It’s no imposition.” She gently tucked a stray strand of hair behind my ear and added, “And we can find someone there to do your makeup and hair. Make you look pretty.”

  Gilley was nodding like a bobblehead. I had a feeling they’d been conspiring against me.

  Catherine squeezed my hand before moving back over to her chair. I then noticed that there were small white boxes with tissue paper all over Gil’s living room.

  “What’s all this?” I asked, motioning to the boxes.

  “Tiaras,” Cat and Gilley said together.

  My eyes widened as I looked around, and then at Gil. He took off the tiara on his head, put it back in its white box, and took out another, the size of a beauty pageant crown. When I stared at him in surprise, he shrugged and said, “What? She gets me.”

  I laughed, and it felt so good. “Got any green tea?” I asked him.

  He moved over to stroke my cheek fondly and said, “Coming right up.”

  Cat and I made small talk for a bit, and as Gilley fussed with the tea and something to snack on in the kitchen, my cell rang. I looked at the display curiously, excused myself, and went to answer the call. “This is M.J.,” I said.

  “Oh, thank goodness I got you!” said a voice I didn’t recognize. “M.J., my name is Diana Dahlmer. I got your name and number from Lucy Ashworth. She said you could help me. I’ve just purchased an old house in Swampscott, and there’s some awful poltergeist scaring us half to death! We need you to come and get rid of it for us, and I’ll pay whatever you’re charging. I’m that desperate.”

  I didn’t say anything for a moment—that instinctive urge to help someone in need was pulling at me. But then I turned and looked back at Gilley and Catherine sitting in his living room, gabbing like old school friends—like Gil and I had when we were young—and my next thought was to my child, and what friends she might grow up with. What I said next was actually far easier to say than I’d expected. “Diana, I’m so sorry that you haven’t heard, but my husband and I are retired. We’re no longer available to do any ghostbusting.”

  “Oh!” she cried. “Please, M.J.? Won’t you please reconsider just this one time? As I said, I’m desperate!”

  At that moment there was a knock on Gilley’s front door, and a second later Heath’s voice echoed out from the kitchen. I heard him say, “Hey, Gil, any chance that gorgeous wife of mine is here?” His voice sounded so happy and relaxed, and my heart filled with love for him.

  “M.J.?” Diana said. “Are you there?”

  “Yes, Diana, I’m here, but my answer to you is no. I won’t reconsider, and I really am sorry. You might try Rick Lavinia, though. I hear he’s always looking for work.” With that, I hung up the phone and headed back out to my husband and my best friend . . . and the rest of my life, spook-free.

  Read on for a look at the first book in Victoria Laurie’s New York Times bestselling Psychic Eye mystery series,

  ABBY COOPER, PSYCHIC EYE

  Available now from Obsidian wherever books and e-books are sold.

  My basic philosophy is simple: People are like ice cream. Take me, for instance. You’d think that by my profession alone—professional psychic—I’d be a ringer for Nutty Coconut, but the reality is that I’m far more like vanilla—consistent, a little bland, missing some hot fudge.

  The exception, of course, is my rather unique ability to predict the future. Okay, so maybe with that added in I’m at least a candidate for French vanilla.

  Still, overall my life is sadly that boring. I’m single with no immediate prospects, I rarely go out (hence the no immediate prospects), I pay all my bills on time, I have very few vices and only two close friends.

  See what I mean? Vanilla.

  Now, I’m not saying my life is all bad. At the very least I’m privy to the richly flavorful lives of my clients. Take the Tooty-Fruity sitting in front of me, for example. Sharon is a pretty young woman in her mid-thirties, with short blond hair, too much makeup, a recent boob job and not a clue in sight. On her left hand dangles a rather opulent diamond wedding ring, and over the course of the last twenty minutes all I’ve been able to do is feel sorry for the poor schmuck who gave it to her.

  “Okay, I’m getting the feeling that there’s a triangle here . . . like there’s someone else moving in on your marriage,” I said.

  “Yes.”

  “And it’s someone you’re romantically interested in.”

  “Yes.”

  “And they’re telling me that you think this is true love . . .”

  “Yes, but, uh, Abigail? Who are ‘they’?” she asked, looking around nervously.

  I get this question all the time, and you would think I would have learned by now to prepare my clients before begi
nning the session, but change was never my strong suit. “Oh, sorry. ‘They’ are my crew, or rather, my spirit guides. I believe that they talk to your spirit guides and it all gets communicated back to me.”

  “Really? Can they tell you their names?” she whispered, still looking around bug-eyed.

  We were getting off track here. I pulled us back on course, afraid I would lose the train of thought flittering through my brain. “Uh, no, Sharon, I don’t typically get names. I only get pictures and thoughts. So, as I was saying, we were talking about this love triangle, right?”

  “Yes,” she answered, leaning forward to hang on my every word.

  “Okay, I’m just going to give it to you the way they’re giving it to me. . . . They’re giving me the feeling that this other guy is saying all the right things, that he may say he’s interested in you and that he wants to be with you but he’s not telling you the whole story.” Sharon’s bug eyes squinted now as she looked at me critically. “Okay, does this other guy have blond hair?”

  “Yes.”

  “And he works some sort of night job, like, he works at night. . . . Is he a bartender?”

  “Oh my God . . . yes, he is!”

  “And your husband, he’s the guy with dark brown hair and a beard or facial hair, right?”

  Sharon sucked in a breath of surprise and replied, “Yes, he’s got a goatee.”

  “And your husband does something with computers, like he has something to do with making computers or something.”

  “He’s a computer engineer . . .”

  “Okay, Sharon, they’re telling me that the blond is a liar, and that you may not think your husband is Mr. Don Juan but he loves you. They’re saying if you leave your husband for this other guy with the blond hair that there won’t be any going back. You won’t be able to fix it once it’s out in the open. And I get the feeling that if you continue to fool around on the side you’re going to get caught. If you think you won’t, then you’re kidding yourself. They’re saying there is already a woman—I think she’s older than you—with red hair who’s very nosy and she already suspects, and she wouldn’t think twice about telling your husband. I think this is like a neighbor or something . . .”