Page 28 of Love at First Fright

“This cat probably lives here. You’re just a guest.”

“Seriously?!” Brad’s face flushed crimson. He muttered something under his breath about why he only worked alone, something about other people being idiots.

“I’ve had enough for one day,” I snapped. “It’s gone five. I’m not working anymore. Unless Gerald is going to pay me overtime.”

Brad absolutely glowered at me. For a moment I thought he might actually argue, might pull out some clause from the ExorSquad handbook about dedication and professionalism. But he just jerked his head in a sharp nod.

“Fine then. I’m going for a run.”

He thundered down the remaining stairs, each footfall a small earthquake. A few moments later, the front door slammed hard enough to rattle the windows.

“Hope you trip and die,” I whispered.

The cat made a sound against my chest—half purr, half chuff. Almost like a laugh.

I looked down at him. His golden eyes stared back, impossibly knowing. The corner of his mouth curved up in what could only be described as a smirk.

“Did you just…?”

The cat blinked slowly. Pointedly. Then he tucked his head under my chin and began to purr in earnest, the vibration rumbling through both our bodies.

Right. Anthropomorphising animals. Another classic stress response. The cat hadn’t laughed at my death wish for Brad. Cats couldn’t laugh. Couldn’t understand human speech.

And ghosts weren’t real.

Right?

five

Bat

Days at Grimthorne Manor fell into roughly the same pattern.

Life, as a ghost, tended to be fairly predictable. I would know. I’d spent each day here since I died.

1999. Twenty-three years old. Those facts stayed sharp.

Everything else got fuzzy. The date I’d died? Gone. What I’d been doing in this bloody manor that day? Blank. How that wound between my ribs had appeared—dark and precise and so fucking deliberate? Nothing. Just a void where memory should have been.

Nearly three decades now. Sometimes it only felt like a couple of months. Other times, the weight of it stretched endlessly. The manor had changed around me. New wallpaper appeared in the dining room. Then peeled. Then had been stripped away entirely. The Lancasters were the seventh set of owners I remembered. Or was it the eighth?

I’d searched for answers in every corner of this place. Grimthorne kept its secrets well.

The days themselves, though? Those I knew intimately.

Scaring off workmen by day. Rattling pipes. Knocking hammers off scaffolding. Once, I’d made an entire bucket of paint levitate and dump itself over a plasterer’s head. That had been a good day.

Keeping the other ghosts coordinated. Molly needed constant reminders about subtlety. The twins required supervision, or they’d giggle and blow our cover.

Roaming the halls by night. Drifting through walls. Testing how long I could manifest before exhaustion dragged me back to nothing.

Arguing with the other ghosts about sharing, especially books. Lady Grimthorne insisted the library was hers, never mind that she’d been dead for over two centuries and had read every book at least ten times.

Yes, my days were predictable all right.

Monotonous.

Until today.