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He glanced at his hands, studying them, and looked back to me with sadness in his eyes. “I don’t feel dead.”
He might have annoyed and aroused me into unknown territory, but I did have a heart and he presently tugged on my heartstrings. “I’ve never met a ghost who did.” My appetite fled me. I placed the apple on the coffee table. “What do you need me to do for you, Kipp?”
His eyebrows drew together in an attentive expression. “My partner, Zach Foster, and I were working cold case files within the department.”
“Oh, I’ve seen that show.”
He sighed. “Trust me, solving cold cases isn’t exciting. The cases are old and digging into them is exhausting. Out of the hundred cases we have sifted through, we’ve solved two.”
There went the images in my mind of grave digging, solving mysteries and fighting crime. “Shitty,” was my only response.
He nodded. “The last case we worked was the disappearance of a twenty-year-old woman who went missing five years ago.”
I flittered through my memory, as something seemed familiar, and I remembered a case from the news. “Are you talking about Hannah Reid?”
He quirked an eyebrow. “You’re aware of the case?”
“Of course I am! I think
all of Memphis would remember that hundreds of volunteers came to find her, but after weeks of searching, her body was never discovered.”
He glanced away, seemingly satisfied with my answer. “We were beginning to break ground with the case and leads were developing. I can remember going to a house I thought might have been the last place Hannah had been seen.”
I should’ve been more concerned with what he said, but the way he had spoken startled me. He seemed so…coherent. “How do you remember all this?”
His gaze swept back to me. “How do I remember my life?”
“Yes, exactly, how do you remember your life?” He recalled details about the case he worked on, the house he went to and he had accepted his death. Nothing made any sense.
His expression became measured. “Why wouldn’t I?”
“Because the ghosts I’ve met never do. They only know what they need to do to cross over.” I’d gotten used to my peculiar little world I lived in. Here came a ghost who stirred shit up. “You’re the first ghost I’ve met who can remember anything from the past.”
“I can remember everything, right down to what I ate on the night I died.” His gaze turned probing. “What does that mean?”
“Got me.” The unknown unsettled me, so I grasped on the one thing I did know. “Since your last memory was of you going to the house, I’m assuming you died there?”
“Someone shot me,” he replied.
Yuck! “Did you see who killed you?”
He shook his head. “I never got a look at the assailant, but I suspect whoever shot me also killed Hannah Reid. Apparently, I closed in on a suspect and they didn’t want me to find out their identity.”
Makes sense. “All right, I get what you’re telling me, but you’ve been quite persistent that I acknowledge you, and as interesting as our little adventure has been, I’m at a complete loss as to how to help you.”
“I need you to go to the station and talk with my partner. Fill him in on what I know so he can move along with the case.”
I burst out laughing. “Oh, you’re funny.” He said nothing and merely gazed at me with a stone-cold expression. “You’re not kidding?”
“No, I’m not. Obviously, I’d been on the right track with Hannah’s case since I’m dead. The only way to solve the case is to tell my partner what I know, and my means to do that is through you. I have an obligation to Hannah to solve her murder, but also staying in my present condition is not something I’d prefer to do.”
He had up and lost his ghost mind. “Are you suggesting I walk into the police station and tell a bunch of cops that the friend they’ve lost is actually not gone, but here with me as a ghost, and he wants me to relay information to help solve a cold case?”
“You got it.”
I jumped to my feet and folded my arms across my chest. “No.” My ability was my secret, one I kept bundled up and hidden from the world. I didn’t want to expose my gifts to a bunch of cops to give them amusement.
“You want to get rid of me?” The side of his mouth curved up. “This is how. I need your help and I’ll do anything to make it happen, including a repeat of last night’s events if I need to.”
