Page 22 of Ghost Business (Boneyard Key #2)

Fourteen

It was getting too damn hot for this outfit.

Summer hit a lot sooner in Florida than it did in the rest of the country.

Taking off the top hat at the end of the night had helped, though Tristan’s hair was sweat soaked and plastered to his head.

His shirt had started to stick to his back under his coat, and all he wanted to do was strip down naked and run full tilt into the ocean, but he would settle for a long, cold shower once he got home.

In short, he was an unsettled mess, and he just wanted to grab a couple slices of pizza to go.

He hadn’t intended to walk into what looked like a private party, with Sophie Horvath in the middle of it all.

Before he could back away and flee into the night, she’d done the unthinkable by inviting him to sit.

Okay, there was a slight glint of murder in her eyes when she’d done so, but the invitation had still been there.

“You sure?” He raised his eyebrows in her direction, wanting to give her an out in case she was just being polite.

She didn’t take it; instead she slid down further in her seat, which was confusing until the chair in front of him shot backwards, knocking him in the knee.

The tiniest of smirks played across her face, and even though his knee throbbed a little, it felt like a friendly gesture.

He’d take it. Besides, his stomach was growling and there were four pizzas scattered across the table.

He nestled his top hat and lantern into the empty chair next to him, then peeled off his tailcoat, sighing with relief as he hung it on the back of the chair.

His body temperature dropped almost immediately, but that was probably just the sweat cooling on his back.

He glanced around the table as he sat, and to his surprise, he knew almost everyone there: Nick and Cassie, and the guy who owned the bookstore—Theo?

Sophie, of course. The only stranger was the younger, dark-haired woman.

“Hi.” He reached across to her, hand extended. “Tristan Martin.”

She narrowed her heavily lined eyes. “I know who you are.” She didn’t take his hand. “You left a business card at the store a few weeks ago. You talked to my dad.”

“Your…?”

She nodded toward the door. “I’m up the street. The consignment shop?”

“Oh!” He remembered now. He’d dropped by on one of his canvassing missions. “You have a kick-ass music section in the back.”

Mentioning the music section must have been the way to her heart. Her lips quirked up in an almost-smile while Nick nodded. “That’s Jo’s project,” he said.

“Yeah,” she confirmed. “People seem to like shopping for vinyl when they’re on vacation. The snowbirds like it too. I dunno. Nostalgia maybe?”

“Impulse buying driven by emotion. I can see that.” Tristan nodded as he unbuttoned his cuffs, rolling up his shirtsleeves.

Sophie’s eyes narrowed at him across the table, and he felt the look like a dart.

Did she want him there or not? Flustered but determined to not let it show, he turned his attention back to Jo.

“Did I see some musical instruments back there too?”

She nodded around her bite of pizza. “Yep. Vince helps me appraise that stuff. Have you met Vince yet? He runs The Cold Spot, the bar on the edge of town, out by the highway.”

“That small gray building, with the gas pump out front? There’s a bar in there? I thought it was abandoned.” Tristan helped himself to a slice of pizza from the pie in front of him. Sausage and pepperoni. And was that extra sauce? His mouth watered.

Nick refilled his cup from the beer pitcher before offering it across the table to Tristan. “Vince likes to keep it on the down-low.”

“But wouldn’t he get more business if he advertised?

There isn’t even a sign out front.” He filled a plastic cup and handed the pitcher back.

The beer was crisp and so, so cold. He took a slow sip when what he really wanted was to chug.

God, he must have sweat out half of the water in his body tonight.

“He doesn’t need one.” Sophie’s voice was short, each word sounding like it had been sliced out with a sharp knife. “The locals know where it is.”

“But what about the tourist traffic? How do they find out about the place?” What was with this town and its lack of advertising? Tristan wanted to tear his hair out. Did they want tourists to spend their money or what?

“They don’t,” Nick replied. “He likes it that way.” His tone of voice ended the argument, and Tristan raised defensive hands.

Across the table, Libby groaned. “I don’t see any red pepper flakes, do you?” She addressed the question to the table at large. Not waiting for an answer, she raised her voice. “Hey, Terry! Can you send some red pepper out?”

“Cheese too?” came a voice from the kitchen.

“If he doesn’t mind. Thanks!”

“If who doesn’t mind?” Tristan turned in his chair to look toward the back of the place. The only employee he’d seen was the guy working the counter and the kitchen. Was there a waiter hiding around here somewhere?

A sound from the table made him turn back around again.

A glass shaker of Parmesan cheese slid in a steady motion down the center of the table, coming to rest in front of Libby.

Before Tristan’s mind could make sense of what he was seeing, a matching shaker of red pepper flakes, like you’d see at any pizza joint anywhere in the country, floated in the air—in the freaking air!

—to the table, touching down and sliding across in the same path as the Parmesan.

“Thank you!” Libby addressed her words to the air, picking up the red pepper flakes and shaking some on her slice, as though it hadn’t just appeared out of fucking nowhere .

“Um…” Tristan didn’t even know where to start. What question to ask first.

“Do you want some?” Cassie offered him the red pepper flakes, but Tristan just stared at it. When had this dinner become a fever dream?

“You okay?” Jo smirked as she picked up the Parmesan cheese and passed it to Nick after using it herself.

“What’s the matter there, Tristan?” Nick asked. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

That was met with snorts and laughter from around the table, but Theo shook his head. “Technically it’s a poltergeist.” He neatly cut off another bite of his pizza with the plastic cutlery.

“True.” Sophie nodded at Theo, but her eyes were on Tristan. She seemed to be waiting for something. Maybe for him to cop a clue of some kind.

Slowly, much too slowly, his brain came back online.

He looked around the tiny restaurant, searching for any sign of…

anything. Hidden pulleys, fishing wire. Any rational explanation.

Finally his gaze lit on the neon sign in the window.

Poltergeist Pizza. In that moment a switch finally flipped in his mind.

Maybe it wasn’t all bullshit.

Maybe it was time to believe.

“So…” His voice felt thick in his throat, like he hadn’t used it in days. He took a sip of beer and started again. “It’s not just a cute name then.” He was pleased to see that his hand barely shook at all as he reached for the Parmesan. “And I thought the owner was into alliteration.”

“More than one thing can be true.” Jo must have come around to him, since she now threw him a smile.

“It’s okay.” Cassie’s voice was sympathetic. “It freaked me out at first too.”

“You’ll get used to it.” Sophie’s voice was understanding until she seemed to realize who she was talking to and caught herself. “Not that you’ll be here long enough to.” Now her voice was ice, as chilling as the air conditioner in this pizzeria.

“Who says I’m not?” He tried to keep his tone light, teasing even. But Sophie’s face darkened and she pushed her plate away.

“You’re not.” It was a declarative statement. “Because this is my town.”

“Wow, you bought it? All on your own?” He made his eyes wide innocence. Sophie narrowed her eyes even further. Nick started to laugh, but it was quickly squashed by Cassie, digging her elbow into his side.

Okay, then. Time for a subject change. He turned to Jo. “So is that what you do at the consignment store?” he asked as he took a bite. Haunted pizza was still good pizza, and this stuff was fantastic. “Run the music section?”

She shook her head. “Mom’s the office manager, she does all the business stuff. Dad goes to estate sales all over Florida and brings stuff back. I read them and help him price things.”

“What do you mean, read them?”

“Oh.” Jo popped a bit of pizza crust into her mouth. “I read objects.”

This meant nothing. Less than nothing. Sure, he understood the words individually, but together they were nonsense. All he could do now was repeat them back like a parrot. “Read them how? Like labels on them?”

“It’s called psychometry,” she said, as though they were discussing the weather. “It’s what I do.”

“What you…do.” Nope, he was still stuck on the parrot imitation.

Jo gave an impatient sigh. “You know about the Founding Fifteen, right? The original founders of modern-day Boneyard Key, and how members of these families all have different abilities to communicate. That whole deal.”

“Jo, I’ll bet you he doesn’t know anything about that.” Sophie didn’t look at him; she talked to Jo, loudly, as though he weren’t even in the room. “He’s not exactly one for historical accuracy.”

“Okay, ouch.” He was starting to regret sitting down as much as Sophie was probably regretting inviting him.

But he had to defend himself. “I know about the Founding Fifteen. You talked about it in your tour. And it’s in that book, right?

Boneyard Key: A Haunted History .” He looked toward Theo for confirmation.

He’d sold Tristan the damn book, and Tristan had read it cover to cover.

But his brain was just now coming around to the idea that this was all real .

Like, ghosts handing him condiments real.

“Your family is one of the Founding Fifteen?”

Jo nodded. “Nick’s too.”

Tristan’s gaze swung to the café owner. “You talk to ghosts?”

Nick shook his head, which was a relief. Until he said, “Not anymore,” and Tristan’s head started gently spinning again.

“Okay.” Tristan felt like he was holding on to reality with both hands, but he really wanted to understand. “Tell me more about reading objects. What do you learn?”

Jo shrugged. “When I hold things, old things, and I concentrate, I can see images. Of the former owners, their lives, their…I dunno. Their general vibe. Like…” She gestured across the table. “Let me see your hat?”

“This?” Tristan looked down at his top hat like he’d never seen it before. “I don’t know if you’ll get much out of it.”

“It looks antique, though. Is it?”

“Yeah, but…”

Sophie sighed. Loudly. “Just let her read your hat, Tristan.”

Jo made a gimme gesture with both hands, and what else could he do?

He passed it across. She handled the hat carefully, turning it over in her hands, before closing her eyes and letting out a long, low breath.

A placid look settled over her face, replaced quickly with a furrowed brow.

“That’s weird. It’s old.” Her eyes stayed closed, and her voice had gone dreamy, like she was speaking under a trance. “But it doesn’t have a long history.”

Damn. She wasn’t kidding about her ability. “That’s right. It was found in the back room of a department store, when they were selling off some old stock. It had never been worn before.”

“Just by you.” She was quiet for a few moments longer, then blinked open her eyes. “It misses the lights,” she said as she handed it back across the table. “Just as much as you miss the singing.”

“The…” Tristan blinked hard. Why was it suddenly hard to speak? He looked down at his hat, as though maybe it would speak for him. It had certainly told her something .

“What lights?” It sounded like Sophie asked the question against her will. He glanced up and was surprised to see her looking at him; he’d thought she’d posed the question to Jo.

But she’d asked him, so he answered. “Theatre lights. I was a theatre minor in college. When I was in My Fair Lady this hat was part of my costume.”

“ My Fair Lady ?” Nick snorted. “Colleges don’t do shows from this century?”

“I wish. Even a little Sondheim would have been nice.” Tristan grinned.

“But when the biggest patrons are baby boomers, you’re doing the finest shows from the nineteen sixties.

” He glanced down at the hat as memories began to hit him like a fire hose.

All those nights and weekends spent learning lines and blocking, all those extra voice lessons.

His nickname around the fraternity that semester had been I Can’t, I Have Rehearsal, in honor of all the parties and functions he’d missed.

It had been brutal. And he’d loved every moment of it.

These memories must have shown on his face, because Sophie’s expression softened. “And did you sing? Like the hat said?”

“I did.” He was still lost enough in those memories for the idea of a talking hat to not be weird.

“Do you miss it?”

“I do. Yeah. I really do.” Memories combined with emotion became overwhelming, and Tristan practically stabbed himself in the eye with his thumb and forefinger, trying to stave off tears.

His life was full of doubts, full of moments where he contemplated the inevitability of his business going under.

Of having to start over doing something soulless and boring.

Of becoming his father. Those moments, where he feared he’d hit a fork in the road a few years back and taken the wrong path, were when he missed performing the most. Those moments made him incredibly sad.

But he’d never had one of those moments in front of other people. People he barely knew. People whose business he was currently in the process of destroying.

Never let them see you weak , his father loved to say.

But when Tristan looked up, he was caught in Sophie’s gaze like a spotlight was shining on him. And for the first time, he didn’t want to perform under that spotlight. He just wanted her to see him. Weakness and all.

And from the look on her face, maybe she did.