Chapter 7
Chapter Seven
“What does a peyote hangover feel like? I think I have one.” Natalie pressed the palm of one hand to her head while cradling the mug of coffee in the other to her chest.
Mornings were hard enough. But the mornings after Alice had roofied the book club, which happened more often than one would think, were extra hard.
But there was one good thing about last night’s drugging. The last time she’d seen Harper, the woman was not thinking at all about Pompous Doug. She was actually having a good time. Even singing Prince songs as Stone boosted her, giggling the whole time, into the passenger seat of his high truck.
That was good. Harper needed to take her mind off the whole murder lawsuit thing for a little bit. Maybe Alice’s evil plan had a purpose after all.
Standing by the counter, Liam raised a dark brow in her direction. “I wouldn’t know, having never done peyote personally.” He shook his head. “Where the hell did Alice get peyote anyway?”
“Probably someone in her new biker gang.”
“Her what gang?” Liam’s usually deep voice rose a solid octave on the question.
Natalie dismissed the question with flick of one wrist. “I’ll tell you later. I think I might have to throw up now.”
“Lovely.” Lips compressed into a flat line, Liam glanced at the time displayed on the microwave then back at Natalie. “I was going to head to the lab. But now I’m afraid to leave you.”
“You can leave. I’m not going to die… probably.”
With an exhale, Liam sat in the chair instead.
“Aww. You do love me.” Natalie tried to smile but wasn’t sure it came out that way.
“Of course I love you. I love you more when you’re not about to hurl your coffee on me, but even then, I still love you.”
She couldn’t respond as she kept her lips pressed together tightly as the coffee she’d managed to swallow did indeed feel as if it was deciding whether to stay down or come back up.
Pretending all was well, she valiantly ignored the turmoil in her belly and said, “Seriously, Liam. You don’t have to be afraid to leave. I know you’re excited to cut into that new brain of yours.”
He made a move that was half shrug half-hearted head tip.
She frowned. “What’s wrong? You love locking yourself away in the lab when you get new brains.”
He let out a sniff and mumbled, “Not this time.”
“Why not this time?” she asked, suspicious enough to almost forget about the nausea. Was Liam finally noticing that his profession was gross?
There was that shoulder lift again. “It’s nothing.”
“Oh, it’s definitely something.” She waited.
Liam wasn’t wishy washy. On the contrary. He was usually very definitive in almost all things. Except, for some reason, this.
“Spill,” she demanded when he remained silent.
He pulled his mouth to one side but still managed to look hot. “Fine. Don’t make a big deal out of it but… I think…” He pressed his lips together and raised his gaze to her. “I think I might have heard something.”
Her brows shot up. “Something like what?”
“Like whispering,” he admitted.
“Ah, ha! I told you.”
“And this is exactly why I didn’t want to tell you.” He stood.
“No. Wait. I’m not saying I told you so, like that. I’m just saying, I heard it too.”
“And we know it’s not Gabe messing around?” he asked.
“It couldn’t have been the night of the meeting. He was at the community center already when I heard it in your lab. When did you hear it?”
“Yesterday morning, right before Carson came to question me.”
She shook her head. “Gabe was here with me and Harper then.”
“And he didn’t enlist one of his ghost friends to do it?”
“I mean he could have, to try to scare me, but not you. You can’t hear any of the ghosts except Gabe and Millie and only when they’re together.”
“You’re right.” He looked unhappy with that answer.
The scientist in him no doubt wanted definitive, concrete answers. But his world, where his girlfriend saw ghosts, rarely provided definitive anything.
As Liam obviously was procrastinating going to the lab to work on his creepy brain, Natalie glanced at the time.
One hour until she had to unlock the shop door and face customers...while trying not to puke on them. Or wonder who was whispering in Liam’s lab. It was a lot, considering.
Today might be a good day to call in Jules and see if she could work. Maybe just for the morning shift. She should charge Alice for Jules’s wages since the peyote hangover was all her fault.
“Natalie!” Gabe running at full speed through the back door of the apartment while tugging Millie behind him startled her out of her misery. “The sheriff came to get Harper!” he announced, sounding out of breath even though she wasn’t sure ghosts actually breathed.
“Because of Pompous Doug?” she asked, trying to wrap her head around the ramifications of this new information.
“Carson actually arrested her?” Liam demanded. He’d heard too as Gabe clutched Millie by the hand.
Gabe shook his head. “No. Not Carson. The head guy. The mean one.”
“It was the sheriff. That’s what makes us think it’s serious,” Millie explained.
That did sound serious. Natalie may have had numerous run ins with the deputy, but never the actual sheriff.
“It can’t be over Doug’s heart attack. Do you know for sure that’s what this was about? And was she actually arrested or just brought in for questioning?” Liam asked, looking at the totally wrong spot as he tried to direct the question to the ghosts who were still invisible to him.
Gabe sat in a kitchen chair, pulling Millie into his lap. “That’s the strange part. He said it had something to do with a car accident.”
“A car accident?” Natalie repeated, deciding she’d better sit herself.
She did, setting down the mug of the currently unappetizing coffee. She braced both forearms on the table for support since remaining upright was challenging.
“I definitely heard him say Harper had caused a car accident,” Millie said.
“When?” Natalie sucked in a breath. “Oh, no. She didn’t drive last night while we were tripping on peyote, did she?”
“Alice drugged them again,” Liam explained for the benefit of the ghosts in the room who weren’t at the meeting last night.
“Yeah. We heard. Stone’s been ranting about it for the past twelve hours,” Gabe told him. “And no, it wasn’t last night and she wasn’t driving. From what I can tell, she had to mail a package this morning, so she got up early and walked to the post office.”
“She said that’s when a car almost hit her. When she was crossing the street,” Millie said.
Gabe took over the explanation again. “Apparently she yelled at the driver and like slapped her hand on the window or something. At least that’s what the sheriff said that the eyewitness says caused the driver to steer into a phone pole.
The driver hit her head. She’s blaming Harper for causing the crash. ”
“I’m afraid it’s not just the driver blaming Harper. So is the sheriff.” Millie bit her lip, looking concerned.
Liam let out a snort. “Harper’s having some real shit luck lately. It’s like your bad luck rubbed off on her,” he said looking directly at Natalie.
She frowned at him and delivered a most sarcastic, “Thanks.”
He lifted one shoulder in yet another half-hearted shrug.
“Here’s the thing though. Harper swears she saw something—or someone—in the road in front of the car and that’s the real reason that old lady Trout swerved.”
Natalie’s eyes popped wide. “Oh, no. It was Margaret Trout? Pfft. Forget about it. She hates Harper. Even if there was something in the road she swerved to avoid, she’d probably still blame Harper.”
“She really is a wretched woman,” Millie said, and she never said anything bad about anyone.
Liam shook his head. “Why do we live here again?”
“Because I love our adorable little town. And my historic building. And all my friends.”
“Living and dead,” Gabe added.
“Yes. Both. Of course. We couldn’t possibly move.”
Liam rolled his eyes. “Well the way things are going we better hope you’re not visiting one of your friends in downstate women’s correctional facility.”
She hated to admit it, especially to her cocky boyfriend, but Liam was right. Harper was in a whole heap of trouble and Natalie knew exactly what that felt like.
“Oh, one more thing,” Gabe began.
“I don’t think I can handle one more thing, Gabe.”
One brow cocked up. “You want to hear or not?”
She let out a breath. “Okay. Tell me.”
“I was checking out the lab—” Gabe began.
That immediately perked up Liam. “Why? Why were you checking out my lab?” The question came out sounding more like an accusation.
“Because your woman accused me of hiding there and trying to scare her the other night. Since it wasn’t me, I decided to find out what was going on. You’re welcome.”
Gabe emphasized the final words, earning him a light slap in the arm by Millie, who mouthed to him, “Be nice.”
“Anyway, I swear I saw something there. Like a flash of motion out of the corner of my eye,” Gabe continued.
“Like a spirit was hiding?” Natalie asked as Liam paled.
“Exactly. But why would it hide from me?”
“Millie hid when you and I first discovered her at Agnes’s house,” Natalie pointed out.
Millie nodded. “I did. You’re the first living who could see me. It was scary.”
“But I’m not a living, and you weren’t there, Nat, so why hide from me?” Gabe asked.
“You’re asking like I have any answers at all about the spirit world.” In truth, Natalie was just stumbling through it, trying to survive.
“This is what we count on you ghosts for. Answers,” Liam said, again the stress making his tone sound harsh.
“Maybe he or she is shy, even around other ghosts, like I was,” Millie suggested.
“Or maybe it was an animal. We did have that ghost bat. Oh, and that ghost horse too,” Natalie reminded.
Gabe screwed his mouth to one side. “Or maybe one of the doc’s experiments isn’t as ghost-free as we’d thought.”
Well, darn. That was a definite possibility.