Deadly Intent (Linked Inc. #1)

Chapter 1

Chapter One

Most people would find it odd walking into their house, after a long day at work, to find a ghost poking his head inside a closed fridge. Quinn Thatcher wasn’t most people.

“Don’t be sliming all over my leftover Chinese noodles, Clarence,” she scolded while tossing her purse and keys onto the bar.

“You’re going to die from clogged arteries. There isnae a vegetable in your house, and as you well know, we donae ooze slime like in the movies.”

Quinn knew a lot about ghosts, and she should; it was her job.

Yet she couldn’t help aggravating the uppity Scottish Highlander who had decided to haunt her day and night until she listened to his problems. The ghost was slowly learning she was even more stubborn than the leather pants in her closet that refused to budge over her hips.

She, too, was unwilling to give that extra inch or three.

“Don’t you have some family members you’d rather haunt?”

“I donae.”

She sighed, left the food voyeur in the kitchen, and went to change her clothes and ditch her bra. The ghost wasn’t going to stop her from getting comfortable in her own home. Returning a few minutes later, she pulled her hair up into a ponytail.

“I can give you the addresses of a few people who deserve a good scare. Have you learned to rattle chains yet?”

His sigh of aggravation made her chuckle. She had this innate ability to bring out the best in everyone. Ghosts were no exception.

“Lass, I’ll leave when you help me.”

If only that were true. Quinn had been duped once by a little old lady who worried about who was going to take care of her ten cats. Never again.

“You shouldn’t have invaded my private space. I might have considered it.”

Quinn grabbed a pint of chunky monkey from the freezer and a spoon before turning on Gone with the Wind. The movie worked like ghost repellant; most disappeared before the opening credits.

“You’re gonna make me do this the hard way, aren’t ya, lass?”

“Give me your worst.” Quinn grinned while turning up the TV volume.

“So be it.”

Quinn’s mother had always warned her to be careful what she asked for. She was about to find out exactly which one was more stubborn—the Scottish ghost or southern medium.

Rest in Peace would never be inscribed on her gravestone, like the one she was sitting on top of.

Nor would the attendees cry a tear once she kicked the bucket.

Her death would never be from natural causes, more like from falling off a table while dancing topless as she belted out the wrong lyrics to her favorite song. It could happen. It almost had.

Both men and women wanted to strangle her for her unusual manner and razor-sharp tongue.

One had already tried and failed miserably.

The poor shmuck was serving ten in the state pen after a spirit convinced her that the perp was responsible for his early demise.

Maybe she shouldn’t have confronted him alone.

She wasn’t a cop; she didn’t carry a badge, and she didn’t solve crimes.

Her contribution was a little more on the down-low and usually swept under the rug.

Police agencies would never admit to using her skills, and she couldn’t blame them.

How was she supposed to prove what she saw in her head?

Conversing with the dead was much more entertaining than conversing with the living.

It was a gift and a curse, one she acknowledged proudly, like the red tangled curls on her head, which had lost their luster in the choking humidity and eerily strange wind while sitting in the cemetery.

Gathering the strands, she pulled them back with the ponytail holder she kept on her wrist for just this purpose, and the occasional infliction of red marks on people she didn’t like.

Her only company lay entombed in a steel casket six feet beneath her feet. Darkness cloaked her in the graveyard; not even the moon was on her side. She wasn’t scared of waiting in the sacred place alone. Just the opposite.

Ghosts didn’t tend to hang around their final resting place, no matter what the living thought. She’d often tell her clients, if they wanted to talk to their deceased loved ones, to save the gas and do it in the comfort of their homes. Chances were good that their relatives were already visiting.

The scent of roses drifted to her nose. Conversation from approaching voices pierced her peace. She didn’t need to turn around to know her sisters had arrived. Their laughter could wake the dead.

“You’re all late,” she called out and hopped down off the cool marble stone, giving her bony butt a break. Steven Simmons would be pleased she was no longer sitting on his face.

“This place is creepy. I don’t know why we can’t meet at the office like normal people,” Becca called out as she approached.

She shivered, rubbing her wool-covered arms. It didn’t matter that Becca was a native Floridian, living on the Redneck Riviera where the words ya’ll and drunken spring breakers were as normal as wearing flip-flops all year round in ninety-degree weather.

Becca was in dire need of a supersized value meal to help her achieve another layer of fat to keep her warm.

Sometimes Quinn wondered whether Becca was really blood related and not the product of a secret affair between their mother and the butler. She shook her head. Regardless of Becca’s heritage and love for green vegetables, Quinn loved her.

“We get paid for creepy,” she reminded her.

“Tell me again why we’re here,” Quinn’s other sister, Cara, said while peering down at the stone in front of her.

Her lips twisted into a frown as she touched the old cracked marble.

Quinn’s butt wasn’t responsible for that particular crack.

Cara’s ability was different from the rest of family that could see ghosts.

One touch of anything personal, or emotionally charged by the dead, and she could see the spirit’s life flash before her eyes.

Why anyone would need that ability was a mystery.

Quinn loved her sisters, all four of them, although sometimes they were the reason she enjoyed playing with the dead over the living.

“Where are Harper and Grace?” she asked impatiently, folding her arms over the big red lips printed on her shirt.

Cara yanked her hand to her chest and rubbed her palm. “They’re still out of town working in New Orleans. You’d know that if you actually showed up to our meetings.”

Well, if that news didn’t bite a big donkey butt. Those two officially couldn’t be persuaded by Quinn’s manipulative plan if they weren’t even in town. There would be another time for them. “Clarence finally wore me down but refuses to shimmer out of my life.”

Both of her sisters’ eyes widened, and they remained speechless. Quinn wasn’t surprised by their reaction. It took a lot to break her resolve. She’d ignored him for a solid month.

Last night, he’d breached her personal sanctuary, entering her bathroom during shower karaoke.

Quinn slipped her fingers into her pocket and slid out the reason for his constant badgering.

A heart-shaped emerald, the size of her fist, dangled from a sturdy gold chain.

The gem remained freezing to the touch, as if it had been hidden in the gallon carton of chunky monkey in her freezer instead of in a metal box buried next to Clarence’s headstone.

“Oh my God.” Cara lifted the heart into her palms. “This is real.”

“As real as my breast,” Quinn proudly announced after hours of research online, not taking Clarence at his word. She should have. It would have saved her time. “It’s an heirloom piece that belongs to the Menzie clan in Scotland.”

Cara yanked back her hand and pointed an accusing finger at the gem. “That thing is cursed. You need to put it back where you found it.”

“And risk Clarence becoming a permanent haunt in my life?” Quinn shook her head vehemently.

“No can do, Cara. You must be smoking some good shit, and I’m kind of offended you aren’t sharing, but there is no way in hell that opera-singing wannabe is keeping me up at night for the rest of my life.

Have you ever heard a Scottish ghost try opera?

” Quinn’s entire body cringed at the memory of last night’s performance.

The sound was as loud and annoying as a foghorn mating with a tornado siren.

“Maybe you should listen to her,” Becca suggested.

Bless her heart. She was still so young and na?ve. “My research indicated that there are two clans still feuding over this little gem, Becca. Aren’t you the one who cares about world peace and love? I thought for sure that you’d be on my side.”

“We’re not going, and you shouldn’t either. I won’t touch that thing again, and Becca….she isn’t prepared enough to deal with the spirits in Scotland.” Cara slipped her arm around Becca’s as if Quinn was about to play a game of tug of war. The thought had crossed her mind.

Traitors. Quinn should be fuming and seeing red, but she was as proud of her baby sisters showing their claws like a mother bird watching her babies take flight.

“If that’s how you want to be, then fine.

” Quinn waved the fortune in her hand. “If there’s any commission, then I’m keeping it, but regardless, this is my one shot to ditch Clarence, so I’m out of here.

” She spun in her Converses and stalked away.

“And I’m taking one of Daddy’s jets and charging it to the company.

” No way in hell would she be tortured in cramped spaces with crying babies or worse.

She had hours of sleep to make up for, thanks to Clarence.

Get there, give them the jewelry, and then hightail it home and pray that Clarence shimmered from sight.