Chapter 7 #2
“Part of my job was interviewing convicted criminals in prison,” Donny says.
“I noticed patterns. Every once in a while, someone would come in who acted just as afraid of the crimes they’d committed as a victim would be.
They’d describe a separate entity inside them compelling them to kill, as though they were being guided by something out of their control.
” He pauses. “After my near-death experience, I started seeing spirits, as well as things like ectoplasm at crime scenes only I could see. I was reminded of this idea of entities and began to wonder, what if it were true?” He lets out a gentle laugh.
“You can imagine what happened when I presented my suspicions to my superiors.”
“They thought you’d lost your mind?”
“I was encouraged to take early retirement.”
I bet.
“I fashioned tools to extract and contain these entities, and trained a team of young people to do what the Bureau couldn’t.
Not all serial killers become ghosts. Most don’t, actually, but this boom we’re seeing is a result of killers from the seventies and eighties reaching the end of their natural lives.
In those years, there were over six times as many active killers as there are today.
We’re busier now than we’ve ever been, which is part of the reason I’m looking to expand my team. So we can save more people.”
“How many people are on the team?” I ask.
“Five,” Donny says. “You would make six.”
“Are they—” I pause, trying to figure out how to phrase this without sounding rude. “What are they like?”
“Close to your age,” he says. “Griffin is the oldest at twenty-five, and Benjamin is our youngest at nineteen. I like to hire from your age group. You tend to be more adaptable. Less likely to have mortgages or children or roots that make picking up and moving here more difficult.”
I remember the pile of shoes by the door. “Do you all live in this house?”
“I live in the apartment above the garage. I prefer the quiet these days. The team has the run of the main house, which functions as both living quarters and our operational headquarters.” Donny sets down his mug.
“Now, Eden, I’d like to officially offer you this job.
Can I walk you through what it entails?”
He talks through the job offer, and honestly, it takes me a second to process the actual numbers he’s saying.
I’d get room and board. Health insurance through a shell company he’s set up because, on paper, this is a private investigation firm.
A monthly stipend doubling what I made working for Ray, with additional performance bonuses for captures and annual raises once I’ve completed my training period.
“How do you afford all of this?” The question’s out before I can stop it. “Sorry. I know that’s none of my business, but you’re paying five people to live here and hunt ghosts. I’m trying to figure out if you’re secretly Bill Gates or something.”
“I inherited more than this rather robust estate from my parents,” Donny says. “They were frugal people who invested wisely. That’s not mentioning the contributions from the families of those we’ve saved over the years.”
If someone had saved Rosie from Stanley Daniels, I’d give them everything I made for the rest of my life out of sheer gratitude.
The thought of my baby sister makes all the air in the room thicken until it’s impossible to get into my lungs. There was nothing I could have done to prevent my parents’ deaths. But Rosie…
Guilt settles over me like a lead blanket. I shove it down hard, forcing it into that locked box in my head where I keep all the things that would destroy me if I thought about them too long. Or at all.
“What would I have to do?” I ask.
“You’ll be on-call twenty-four seven when we’re working an active case. This isn’t a nine-to-five job. When we have a case, it’s all-consuming. Our success relies on our finding the entity faster than the police can find the host.”
“Because the police don’t believe in ghosts?”
Donny nods, looking pleased. “But we have access to tools they don’t, so we can often solve cases faster. You’ve probably guessed we operate in a legal gray area, but I don’t stand by and allow innocent people to rot in prison while the real killers keep hunting.”
Marcus Walsh sure didn’t feel innocent when he wrapped that rope around my neck.
But I can’t even imagine how terrifying being possessed would be.
Marcus Walsh didn’t choose to hurt me. Something else made him do it, and now he’s going to spend the rest of his life wondering if he’s capable of murder.
Still doesn’t make me feel any better about almost dying at his hand.
“How dangerous is this?” I ask. “Like, on a scale of one to ten, how likely is it that a ghost will murder me?”
“There are things you can do to protect yourself, but the risks are real. I’ve lost one member of my team.”
My throat goes tight, and I have to swallow against the sudden lump forming there.
Donny coughs, sounding like the last dregs of a nasty cold. “Excuse me.”
“You okay there?”
He nods, then composes himself: “I counsel you to think long and hard about whether you’re willing to accept the risks.”
The memory of those ghost fingers inside me rushes in. I’ve been up against more risks in the past few days than I have for a long time. What’s one more?
“I’m in.”
Donny gives a contented nod. Another cough racks his body, and after he recovers, he tells me I’ll start on Monday, in two days, which gives me the weekend to get settled. He pulls out some forms and talks me through what he needs me to sign. I try hard to listen, but the words swim around my head.
“Eden?” he asks, a frown deepening the wrinkles on either side of his mouth. “When was the last time you slept?”
I try to think of a funny response, but my brain’s operating on emergency power. “Last night?”
“How about this. I’ll give you these to look over, and you can return them to me on Monday. Right now, I’ll show you to your room so you can get some sleep.”
I want to say no, that I can listen so long as I guzzle more coffee, but the words get stuck somewhere behind my teeth. I’m pretty sure if I tried to form a complete sentence right now, it would come out as something like, ‘Yes sleep good much thanks.’
Bob doesn’t protest when I carry him upstairs, following Donny into a long hallway with identical wood doors on both sides.
Donny gestures to the second door on the right. “This one’s yours.”
I push it open to reveal a bedroom with a full-sized bed, a dresser, and a desk under a window that looks out over the woods.
Donny reaches around the door, tapping on a deadbolt. “I found installing locks helps put you youngsters at ease when you join us.”
“Thank you,” I rasp.
“There’s a key to the house on the desk,” Donny says. “I’ll be downstairs if you need anything.”
He leaves. I engage the deadbolt, then jam a chair under the knob for good measure. I should shower. Should change into something that doesn’t smell like three days of fear sweat and my car. But the second my head touches the pillow, my body gives up, and I’m gone.