Ghostly: A Paranormal Romantic Comedy (Perks of Being Paranormal Book 1)

Chapter 21

“And about Roland’s car,” Millie said as she pushed Gabriel’s packet across the postal office’s counter, “The colors really did mix! I don’t know where he got those sprays, but it looks hilarious.”

Gabriel laughed. “I’ll need to check it out.”

“Oh, you won’t have to go far. He’s been parading it around town since yesterday. Wait for another fifteen minutes, and he should drive by.” She tapped her pen on the registration book. “Alright, signature, payment upon delivery— you’re good to go.”

“Thanks, Millie.”

“No problem, Gabe.” She smiled and waved, and Gabriel waved back before he joined Perry outside the post office.

“This is the last thing we needed?” Perry asked.

“Yup. Come on, car’s this way.”

The last ingredient for the ritual, arriving just in time, was a lily, endemic to Siberia. Gabriel clutched the package to his chest like a national treasure as he and Perry headed down the main street. They were walking past the diner when a familiar bob cut caught Gabriel’s eye.

Natalie Waller sat in the window booth, a half-finished weekly special of waffle burger in front of her. She dabbed her mouth with a napkin and signaled to the server.

Gabriel stopped, for the moment ignoring the fact Natalie shouldn’t even be here anymore.

This should be fun.

April, the waitress, was known for her sarcastic remarks. She grew on you—but to Natalie, she’d show no mercy. April put down the check, leaned her hand on the seat, and… smiled? Natalie said something, and April responded, waving her other hand and nodding. She didn’t look sarcastic, or mean. She looked downright conversational.

Something was wrong.

April left for the counter, and Natalie rapidly typed something into her phone, then flung the purse over her shoulder and walked toward the exit. She was going to see him. He should run, hide—

Despite his instinct sending a jolt into his legs, Gabriel didn’t move.

No.

He had every right to walk in this town, head held high. He wasn’t going to play a fugitive. She was the outsider here.

Natalie stopped on the sidewalk as she saw him, and a tight-lipped smile crossed her face. “Mr. Vane.”

“Ms. Waller.” He turned to face her. “What are you still doing here? It’s been a week. Not to be demeaning to our beautiful town, but I very much doubt you’re taking in the sights.”

“Dude, no,” Perry whispered behind him. In the corner of his eye, Gabriel saw him twitch—the running instinct had reached him, as well.

But as Gabriel stood his ground, so did Perry.

Natalie slowly walked toward them. “You managed to escape in October,” she said. “The juiciest story of the month—a tech mogul loses what’s left of his fortune, and his wife, to one of the most daring lawyers on the scene. A forbidden love affair, shifty finances, moral ambiguity—amazing, wouldn’t it be? Only the person at the heart of it all, you, disappeared into thin air.”

“I’m sure Harvey Sinclair spared no words on my account.”

“He raged for a bit, but his side was nowhere near as exciting as yours would’ve been. He wasn’t there. All he had were a few photos—which went into evidence, then somehow got lost…” Natalie resumed her walk; Gabriel fell into step with her. “Plus he’d just lost his case, so naturally, he’d say the worst things about you. A sad figure. And therefore, not too entertaining. You were supposed to be the fun one.”

She clenched her purse and sighed. “I thought I’d lost my chance. When I received news of where you were hiding, I dropped everything, including a promising story about an athlete committing tax evasion. But I didn’t care, because this would be better. I finally found our lost rock star.”

Gabriel snorted. “Don’t blame me for your bad decisions.”

She gave him a mean sideways glance, but her disposition cleared in a second. “Oh, Mr. Vane. Don’t worry. I will find a story.”

Unusually talkative April flashed in front of his eyes. He’d been to the diner several times. Had he ever said anything incriminating? “I already told you—”

“If not yours then someone else’s.” Natalie stopped and spread her arms. “Lovely little town, isn’t it? Look at all these ordinary people, living their ordinary lives.”

Gabriel narrowed his eyes.

“Only nothing ever is as ordinary, is it? Especially in a small town like this. There’s no crowd to hide yourself in. But there are still people with secrets. They only need to guard them much closer.” Natalie pointedly pronounced the last two words, flashed him another smile, and continued down the street, past Janice’s bakery. “Ah, the bakery. Mrs. Janice Evans. Did you know they had three health inspections scheduled last year, all canceled at the last minute? Interesting.”

“Oh, no. You’re not doing that.” He’d vouch for Janice’s cinnamon rolls himself, if he had to.

“Mrs. Evans is great friends with two other women. Dina and Marge? I believe you’ve met them.”

“You’ve been spying on me.”

“Only asking around.” Natalie shrugged. “Since I’ve invested time to come here, I thought I might as well get to know the town. You wouldn’t believe what a haircut like this gets you. Everyone fell for my ‘buying a decent house in a decent neighborhood for our family of three children, a dog, and a minivan’ shtick.”

As they walked on, and Gabriel said nothing, Natalie continued, “What? You don’t believe I’d drive a minivan?”

“I don’t believe a single word from your mouth.”

“There’s the pot calling the kettle black.”

Perry waved to get Gabriel’s attention, but Gabriel discreetly cut his hand across his chin.

“There are so many things to discover here,” Natalie continued with an overly cheerful, surprised tone. “An old man who frequents the diner—do you know two of his wives died mysteriously? Rex Miller—history of substance abuse, and I’m not sure all that grows in his backyard are his wife’s dahlias. Oh, and a gay man working at the morgue! The story just writes itself, doesn’t it?”

“No.” Gabriel stepped in front of her. “It doesn’t.”

“You can’t stop me.”

She was right, and Gabriel’s stomach sank at the realization that for once, he could do nothing. He had no control over this woman, her job, and no connections to help him out. Vouch for Janice’s cinnamon rolls—what the hell would that do? He was still suspended; he couldn’t run to any of the townspeople and defend them. Anything he did would only lead to more trouble for himself.

“I see we’re in agreement.” Natalie fixed her purse and walked on.

But he couldn’t let her continue, either. He ran after her. “What do you want?”

“Why, I’ve already told you.” Natalie’s voice was all honey. “To find a story. Thanks to you, I landed in the perfect place for it. Imagine.” She swiped her hand in the air. “Secrets of a small town. Of course, our wide readership won’t care about who these random people are—but they will. Sometimes, it’s not about the big guys. An actor, a politician, a lawyer committing a scandal. Sometimes, it’s about the mundane. The approachable. People want to know what nasty little secrets their neighbor is hiding.”

She wasn’t doing that. Gabriel didn’t care if Rex used to have issues, or Janice may have violated the rules once or twice. And only beyond his dead body would he let her make something up about Dina, Marge, or Jason, or old Schumacher, or anybody else.

Unfortunately, his body—or rather, himself—might be the only way to fix this. Yes, he was currently devoid of powerful friends who would shut down a nosy reporter.

But he had a story.

“Fine.” Still facing her, he moved backward and spread his arms. “You want a story? Have mine.”

Perry, previously concealed by Natalie, leaned to the side, eyes wide. An alarm bell—don’t expose yourself, don’t fuel the fire—went off in his head, but Gabriel was pure fury and determination. “I’ll tell you all you want, here and now, and then you’ll pack your bags and get out of this town. Yes?”

“Dude, what are you doing?” Perry whispered.

Janice, Dina, and Marge emerged from the bakery and stopped in a perfect line, forming a gradient from blue to peach to yellow.

Wonderful. Audience.

But if he was telling Natalie… well, he supposed it was only fair the rest of them knew, too.

“My name is Gabriel Vane,” he said, loud and clear. “I’m a lawyer at Ernest Clifford, a prestigious law firm.” He slowly turned around, to make it clear to everyone they were invited to the show. Further down, Mark’s parents peeked out of the antique shop, and more people stopped on the other side of the road. And like in the good old days, when his nervousness before a first trial transformed into adrenaline once he stood in front of a jury, the alarm bells changed into a victorious sound.

The setting may be different, but he knew how to do this. There was his jury—the Schuyler Sisters, Mark’s parents, the old lady walking her dog, the pair of teens who probably hadn’t imagined they’d get this out of cutting class.

And here was his hostile witness.

Elation made his fingers tremble. It was time to win.

He clasped his hands behind his back. “In that law firm, I almost made partner. Almost. Had it not been for a tiny sex scandal.”

The Schuyler Sisters covered their mouths in unison.

“So it was true,” Natalie said.

“Oh, yes. And you needn’t regret the loss of photos—they were boring, tame, really. I did have an affair with Mrs. Sinclair.” Gabriel looked around. “My client at the time. I was handling her divorce.”

“How long were you and Mrs. Sinclair together before the affair was discovered?” Natalie asked.

“She caught my eye at a dinner party. Or, I caught hers—she’d been looking for a lawyer.”

“And you had no trouble offering her more than representation?”

“It was a mutual thing.”

“That doesn’t excuse you from breaking the law.”

Low murmurs drifted from across the street. Right, his audience. He straightened and cleared his throat. “No, it doesn’t. And I could try to paint it in a better light… she was divorcing, her husband was a prick, we were all adults who knew what we were doing.” Gabriel ran his eyes over the gathered crowd. “But in the end, all that mattered was that I—and she—got what we wanted.”

He slowly approached Natalie. “And it was good. Oh, so good.”

Natalie ever so slightly drew back, as more people drew near. Groups of three, four, on this side of the road, standing by the shops, some with their hands still on the door handles. A line on the other side of the road, as if they’d gathered for a parade.

Well, he supposed it would be just as entertaining.

“You’re probably wondering why. Why would I do this to myself, to my career? It’s not like the affair itself won me the case. But when you’re so high up, when you’ve already achieved almost everything you wanted, when you know you can do it—that’s when you start to feel invincible. Untouchable.”

“You did it because you could.” Natalie had lost some of her bite, her voice nearly a whisper now.

“Probably. There was a thrill to the affair, but never a threat. I’d wake up in the morning next to Mrs. Sinclair, and I’d have this amazing feeling—not just because of the sex, but because I knew I was on top now, better than the rest of all those idiots who used to ignore me because I didn’t come from money. And I…” He laughed at the stupid memory, stupid thinking. “I wouldn’t get found out. I’d already gotten over all the bumps in the road—it was smooth driving from here on out. Problems, rules, defeats—they were for other people. Not me.”

“But you did get caught.”

“Yup.” He should feel the old, familiar sickness in his stomach by now, the one he used to feel when he thought of the photos—but instead, mentioning them felt exhilarating, as if he was purging a toxin from his body.

He turned to the crowd. “Here’s a quick version for you: my opponent hired a photographer who took pictures of me and my client in flagrante delicto. They surprised me with them before the closing day at court. And to rub it in—my opponent? A rival, an asshole I’ve hated since law school. I was interrogated, investigated, and found guilty. Suspended. My client won her case and is doing well—as for me, you’ve seen me around. You know how I am doing.”

He nodded to the Schuyler Sisters, to Mark’s parents. “And now you know who I really am.”

Silence fell. Natalie’s mouth formed a perfect O—he gathered the victory feeling hadn’t made it through the shock yet.

His victory feeling, on the other hand, transformed into relief. He finally got it all out. No more silence, no more running and hiding. He’d been stupid—so let them fucking know it.

Perry clapped, once, twice, then looked at the others, as if to prompt them. A few more claps followed, but mostly, people appeared stunned.

Marge separated herself from the trio and walked up to Natalie. “Listen, missy,” she said with her strictest librarian voice. “You can write all you want. In fact, let me share the first secret. There’s only one road out of this town.” Marge’s eyes took on a steely glint. “And folks have been known to disappear while driving on it.”

Natalie’s mouth slowly closed. She looked at Gabriel, who only accompanied Marge’s statement with a smile.

“You better get out while it’s still daylight,” Janice shouted.

“Well…” Natalie lifted her chin, though her movements felt wooden. “I got what I wanted. And you can rest in peace. I couldn’t care less about this backwater town.” And she huffed and puffed away.

“You don’t really kidnap people on the road, do you?” Gabriel asked.

“Of course not.” Marge waved her hand. “Those reporters, though, they have overactive imaginations. Works like a charm.”

Janice and Dina came up to Marge.

“You know she’s going to write that story about you,” Dina said to Gabriel.

“Yes. Yes, she will.” Gabriel bowed his head, waiting for judgment. He’d done the exact opposite of what he promised Ernest and Clifford, and with how he’d done it, he basically ignited the second Great Chicago Fire. Natalie was going to write that article and pour in all the fuel she could find. And she wouldn’t just drag him down—she’ll try to do it with the firm, too. His bosses were going to be furious.

He was done for.

“Well.” Marge patted his shoulder. “We’ll have something to talk about when you next invite us to dinner.”

Dina smiled. “I’ll bring the wine.”

Gabriel relaxed his shoulders. “You don’t mind…?”

“Pfft. You’re probably the most interesting resident this town has,” Dina said.

“And I heard old Trent was retiring,” Janice added. “If you’d be interested in provincial life.” She winked at him.

“I… I need to think about a lot of things,” Gabriel said. “And first, I’ve some business to do. But…” He took in the three women and the remaining onlookers. “Thank you.”

“Oh, please. I haven’t had a day this fun since the incident with Edison’s cow,” Dina said. “Thank you.”