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When I hung up we said our goodbyes, Cain was scowling in his seat, his arms crossed over his chest.
“I thought we had a case to work,” he grumped.
“We do.” I grabbed up my purse, fishing out my car keys. “But we can’t do anything about it until tomorrow. Unless you think Ms. Erepto would be happy to let us break in and snoop around her grandma’s place tonight?”
Cain didn’t answer, just continued that manly sulk he was so good at. That was what Wanda called it: when it was all jutting jaws and sullen silences from a man.
“Look, how about I leave the ring at home? I can put on one of those cop shows you like so much.”
Cain glared at me. “I don’t like them; they get everything wrong! That’s not how police work goes. They don’t even know proper procedure!”
I hummed, reaching for the door. “And yet, you watch every episode.”
Cain rolled his eyes. “Fine.”
I sailed out the door then, my ghostly Mr. Grundy tailing along in my wake. I didn’t let it get me down, though.
I had a date.
With a super swell guy.
Chapter Four
The next morning, I sat in my car staring up at the biggest dang house I’d ever seen in my life.
I’d been to some fancy parties in my day, Hollywood bashes, where all the pretty young things gathered to rub elbows with producers and actors and musicians. But this place, put most of those mansions to shame.
No wonder the street address had some many numbers, the place probably had its own postal code.
Erepto Manor wasn’t actually in Haven Hollow. It was a pretty decent drive away, which just made me cringe harder about how the other day’s meeting had gone. Sophia Erepto had come all that way to Spook Society to see me, and I’d lost her grandma on top of her idol.
I dropped my head onto my steering wheel.
If you give yourself bruises on your forehead, people are going to ask some uncomfortable questions, Cain said from the back of my head.
I groaned and sat back, nervously twisting his class ring around and around again on my finger.
Just looking at Sophia, I’d known she was a dame with money. It wasn’t just what she’d worn, but how she’d worn it, how she’d walked, talked, the whole package. Plus, she’d referred to her house as ‘the manor’ so that was a pretty good tip off, too. I just hadn’t quite expected this.
I’d even gotten up early, just to make sure I put together the right outfit. It needed to be something classy, all black, but also nothing with too much va va voom, if you get what I mean. It wasn’t so much that I wanted to impress a bunch of people I didn’t know and probably would never see again, it was more that I needed to blend in. I needed to be invisible, just another guest at the wake, so that I could nose around without making folks ask too many questions.
I flipped down my sun visor to check my makeup in the mirror for the third time. I still had to be careful with lipstick, or it bled into the corners of my mouth. A bold lip never gave me that much trouble in my twenties.
I’d actually been in my twenties when I’d kicked the bucket, thanks to that rotten bum, Frank. When I’d come back, I’d been the same age I’d died. But the problem with ‘no one’s ever done this before’ magic, was that no one knew exactly what would happen to me. Wanda had been as shocked as I was when I’d started aging. And fast.
It seemed like my body was trying to catch up, like all the years I’d hung around as a ghost were suddenly trying to pile up on me all at once, and since that would have made me approximately forty years past dead again, it was kind of a problem.
Lucky for me, Poppy, that wonderful dame, came through for me yet again. She whipped up a potion that managed to stop the years from taking their toll. The potion couldn’t reverse the years I’d already aged though, so basically I’d woken from my dirt nap as a twenty-something, skipped the rest of that decade, and my thirties, and landed smack dab in what we estimated to be my early forties.
It was rough, at first. One big change after the other landed kind of like a sucker punch. It felt like Frank had robbed me of my youth all over again.
But ultimately, it wasn’t so bad. It was better than being dead, that was for darn sure. What were a few lines at the corner of my eyes and a couple of strands of gray at my temples compared to a century trapped with my killer? Nothing, that’s what.
I did still need a bit of a defter hand when it came to my lipstick, though. Everything else looked good: neutral eye shadow, just a hint of mascara from a fancy little tube. No more having to rub a pinch of soot into Vaseline jelly for this girl, no sirree. There might be less music and dancing, but the modern world was pretty peachy keen.
I squared my shoulders and took a deep breath. I just had to walk in there, and then I could sneak off and snoop around. I’d just think of it like another acting gig, pretending to play a part.
So I slipped out of the car, straightened up, and pretended I had a glass of water on my head in order to keep my spine as straight as a broomstick. At least the heels helped with my strut. Walk like you’re exactly where you belong, and most people will believe you. It’s when you hesitate that they start to notice and ask questions.
