Page 18 of A Midsummer Night’s Ghost (Murder By Design #8)

EIGHTEEN

I debated attending Sara Murphy’s funeral.

In the end I went, hobbling on crutches, because it felt like the end point needed to my story with the high school It girl turned wanna-be actress turned murderer.

I took a seat in the back of the funeral home between Alyssa and Grandma. Jake had to work so he wasn’t with us. Not that he needed to be. He didn’t exactly have warm feelings toward the woman who had tried to kill me with theatrical lighting.

“I can’t believe she hit her head on the toilet and died,” Alyssa murmured to me. “Like woof. What a lousy way to go out.”

“Once she realized she’d sipped from the wrong slushie she went to make herself throw up and slipped on the polished granite floors.”

“That’s what I call karma,” Grandma said. “Tried to kill Clifford, wound up killing herself.”

James’s ghost took a seat next to Grandma. He turned to her and spoke. “Definitely karma.”

“See? You can rest easy now,” Grandma told him.

His eyes widened in that way ghosts always did when they finally caught the attention of the living. “You can see me?”

“Sure can, James. Thanks for being so nice whenever I saw you at the senior center. You’re a good man.”

“Thank you. I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do now though.”

“I think it will sort itself out. You won’t be stuck hanging around.” She patted his ghostly knee.

“Thank you.” He gave her a smile and stood up and walked away.

Clifford was standing in front by the casket, looking remarkably unconcerned about having buried a girlfriend and a wife just a few weeks apart from each other. He had a beer in his hand.

Sara’s parents looked stunned and were not shedding any tears. Some of our high school classmates were there, including the guy Alyssa had recently dated. She’d gotten a great deal of pleasure out of telling him she was recently married.

Which again, I didn’t think she really was, but she and Lawson were still dating and I wasn’t going to begrudge her petty revenge with a high school bully.

I had chosen to wear a flowing black dress in a nod to Sara’s over the top look at Mary’s funeral. “I guess she actually was a pretty good actress,” I said. “She had me fooled for a minute.”

“You were ready to jet off to Cabo with her on a girls’ weekend,” Alyssa said. “I’d say she had you fooled.”

“She had me fooled too,” Anne barked, dropping down into the seat James had vacated. “I can usually read people better than that. It was the passing out and the throwing up when she stabbed Clifford. That seemed real.”

“Maybe it was. Some people don’t like blood.”

“That’s why women usually chose poison as their weapon of choice,” Grandma said. “It’s not so personal.”

“I’d say dosing someone with antifreeze is pretty personal,” Alyssa said wryly.

We all reflected on that.

“Whatta say we get out of here and go get some lunch?” Anne said. “I could use a margarita after this nonsense.”

“I will never turn down tacos and tequila,” Alyssa said.

“I’m in. Grandma?”

“Got nowhere else to be.”

When we stood up, me adjusting myself on my crutches, she grabbed my arm.

“You know Ryan saved you, right? That light was headed straight for your head.”

I nodded. “I know.” Ryan was fifteen feet away right now, watching us. He’d been in and out the last few days, but he only watched me from a distance. We hadn’t spoken.

But I understood what had happened. He’d looked at paperwork he wasn’t supposed to and he’d seen that I was scheduled to die that night. It was why he’d been so strange on my birthday. He’d intervened and saved my life.

Neither one of us were ready to say that out loud or discuss it in any way.

But I knew the truth. He was written all over his face every time he looked at me.

He’d sacrificed the next step in his afterlife journey for me.

There was nothing I could do to repay him for that.

Except maybe name my firstborn after him and I had a hard time seeing Jake agreeing to that.

“There’s an Irish proverb,” Grandma said.

“Of course there is.”

“Shush. Listen to me. It’s “May the hinges of our friendship never grow rusty.” That’s you and Ryan. It’s stood the test of time and death. That’s a beautiful thing, Margaret.”

“It really is.”

I looked over at Ryan and gave him a wink.

Except I suck at winking and only managed to just squint really hard and look like I had a hair in my eye.

Ryan laughed.

And I knew everything was okay.

“There’s another one,” Anne said, having overheard Grandma. “It's a lonely washing that has no man's shirt in it.” Think there will be cute guys at the taco joint?”

“If there is, they won’t be looking at you,” Grandma retorted.

“A girl can dream.”

“A midsummer night’s dream?” I asked, feeling cheeky.

“Margaret, it’s only May.”

“May is the month of expectation, the month of wishes, the month of hope,” Anne said. “That’s Emily Bront?.”

“Or in this case, the month of funerals.”

“Let’s hope that’s the last one,” Alyssa said. “Though it is almost June.”

With that, we headed to get tacos.

And it wasn’t even a Tuesday.