Page 24 of Ghost of a Chance

G rabbing Gia’s wrist, Kirsty dragged her down to the workout room, closing the door firmly behind them.

“What the fuck?”

“What? You’re the one who said you didn’t really have any ability to talk to ghosts. I thought a haunted house would help.”

“Help how?”

“Either by giving us some creepy stuff to film or by showing you that you can talk to the dead,” Gia said. “You should be thanking me. You just needed a chattier ghost.”

Gia had a point. Unfortunately, she wasn’t really digging that creepy voice she heard. If ever she needed to project her unflappable goth girl image it was now. But she was spinning like a deranged toy in a horror movie.

Gia didn’t say anything, just put one hand on her hip, watching and waiting.

“Thanks.” She bit out the words. “Your plan might be working too well.”

“Yeah well, not well enough. Dan’s a skeptic. I’m guessing the fireplace helped change his mind. He was totally trying to leave today.”

“I could tell,” Kirsty said. “So can you find out if this place is really haunted?”

“I can do some research around it. Right now I just have the spooky vibes description from the Airbnb website.”

Gia watched her carefully. Kirsty had to come clean about the voice. She wanted to talk to her best friend about it and have Gia be her rational self and help her figure out if she hallucinated it or actually heard something.

“When we did the séance, I heard a voice that neither of you did—”

“I knew it! You are totally the real deal,” Gia shouted. “Great. So even if it’s not Paul, maybe you can get whoever you heard to talk again.”

If only it were that easy. “I haven’t been able to get in touch with it again. So there’s that. Maybe it’s whoever lit the fire.”

“Sure. This is great. Let’s film you—”

“Describing it? I’m pretty sure that’s the boring stuff that isn’t going to make it to air.”

“True. I can spin what you’ve told me and get something going for PR.” Gia paced around Kirsty. Something she’d seen Gia do before when she was unraveling a problem and figuring out the best way forward. “Tell the story. But Bri’s show is all visual.”

Everything was about visuals. They needed to produce something that could be aired on the show.

“What if… I just sit up all night with the book. See if that gets a reaction from Paul.”

“That’s an idea. Sort of a slumber party with the book? You should get Jasper in on it too.”

“Yeah, he just told me today that Paul was his cousin. How could he hide they were related?”

Gia rolled her eyes. “Dudes.”

“Yeah but still.”

“Even if we don’t hear a voice…something is escalating Paul.”

“That’s good.”

“Yeah, but for filming. None of the things I’ve experienced have ever been seen by anyone. I’m feeling more like a fraud than ever. This could backfire.”

Gia put her hands on Kirsty’s shoulders, shaking her slightly. “Snap out of it. You aren’t a fraud, you’re doing great. I will send a note to both Periwinkle and Bri reminding them that you sense things. We’ll still get a good story.”

“Yeah?”

“Who was named as Thoms Hollow’s favorite mystery author?”

“Me,” she said smiling as she remembered Gia’s work to get that distinction. Even though Kirsty was pretty sure she was Thoms Hollow’s only mystery author.

“That’s right. So get your game face on and start weaving us a tale about Paul the ghost and figure out his ending.”

There was a knock on the door and it slowly opened, Chewie nudging his way in with Jasper close behind. Jasper leaned against the jamb. Their eyes met and she was instantly taken back to that moment in the rain, and a hot throbbing started deep inside of her.

“Uh, Dan admitted he used a slow burn igniter to start the fire. Gia’s off the hook. I mean, that wasn’t a ghost,” Jasper said.

“We can’t have Dan doing stuff like that,” Kirsty said. It was bad enough that she was fabricating her own skills. “That will lead to all of us losing our careers.”

“Indeed. He’s erasing the footage. I told him he can leave if he wants to end things and I’ll film us, but he felt bad and wants to stay.

You two have a moment to think it over. It’s up to you if he stays or not,” Jasper said, snapping his fingers.

Chewie ran back to his side as they went back inside.

“Goodness this is a mess,” Kirsty said.

“But it’s not. You heard something. That was real, and so was everything at Bri’s studio. Who’s to say Paul sounds the same in the afterlife.” Gia paused, eyes sparking with curiosity.

“The voice was deep, but I’m not sure if it was even a guy or not,” Kirsty said. She didn’t want to admit that the voice had warned her to stop faking her powers. Though to be fair, if that voice was a ghost, then she might not have been lying after all.

“That’s interesting. What if there’s no gender after death,” Gia said. “We should totally play that up. Get people thinking!”

“Sure. But I wasn’t saying it wasn’t a guy, just that it was like a…deep whisper. Hard to identify. And it didn’t sound like the recording of Paul’s voice.”

“Why didn’t you say something the other night?” Gia asked. “Jasper might have some insight he can add.”

“It freaked me out. The voice warned me to stop lying. Despite what everyone thought in Chicago…” She was already being honest, so she might as well lay it all out for her friend.

“I left the ballroom because my period started and I was bleeding…nothing supernatural. I have never thought of myself as having any ability. For me it was easier to think it was a voice in my head.”

Gia gave her a hug, and Kirsty resisted for a second before she rested her head on Gia’s shoulder. “Why are you telling me now? What changed your mind?”

“I had a freaky emotional reaction at the apartment. Like, part of it was definitely my repressed emotional garbage…but it felt like something more was egging it on. I’m not even sure if it was real, or if maybe this entire thing is making me batshit crazy.”

“Ha. You’re totally not crazy. You tell the truth—usually.” Gia chuckled, giving her a squeeze. “So you think if you start talking to Paul you’ll get another voice or emotion? Jasper never gets any feelings, right? That’s odd that you are,” Gia said.

“Is it? I think his frustration with the irritating things that Paul does has kept him from feeling anything else.” It was a theory she’d sort of been letting grow in the back of her mind.

“Dan can stay but he needs to be on our team and not working against us with his skepticism and fakery. Agreed?”

“Yeah, you deal with him.”

“As long as we make progress, I think we’ll uncover one of these mysteries before long.”

Kirsty was sure they would uncover something.

But that didn’t make her feel as good as she’d thought it would.

It was uncomfortable to experience someone else’s feelings, to hear a disembodied voice in her head.

As many times as she’d written those exact scenes for her heroine Eva Clare, she realized now she hadn’t really done them justice.

She followed Gia into the house, settling in the living room where Jasper and Dan were idling. Jasper caught her eye as Dan got up to apologize, and Kirsty half listened but really all she saw was Jasper.

That creepy voice had thrown her for a loop. None of this was going the way she’d expected it to. This new ghost could be malicious. What were they going to encounter if they kept digging?

In spite of what she’d said to Jasper, she had sort of thought she had it all figured out. But if she really did have a gift to talk to ghosts…that was a lot to take in.

* * *

It took every bit of Jasper’s self-control to stay where he was seated with Chewie when Kirsty came back into the room. Gia and Dan were speaking intently, and he should have been participating, but when Kirsty was in the room there wasn’t a chance.

He wanted to invite her to come and sit next to him on the couch. Feel the warmth of her body against his.

He yearned for her. Being this close was a kind of torture. And so delicious. But they couldn’t make their relationship public to Dan and Gia, not when so much else was already on the line.

Kirsty drifted over near the couch and dropped down on the floor next to Chewie, absently petting the dog.

Jealousy. Yup, he was jealous of his damn dog as he watched her hand move through Chewie’s thick fur. She dropped her head back on the cushion, rolling it toward him and smiling.

“You ready for tonight?”

She’d laid out her plan and it was a solid one. He liked the idea of spending the night with her. Paul…actually after all the talking he’d done lately about the ghost he wanted to try to connect.

“Not really. What am I going to say? I don’t want to be all pouring out my heart to a physics textbook. I don’t want to become some internet meme.” He was committed to doing it because she thought it would work and he wanted results.

“Me either. I’m not really used to doing this with an audience,” she said.

There was so much he wanted to ask her.

“Yeah that’s part of it,” he said. She waited expectantly for a response. “But more, it’s that I haven’t really wanted to talk to him because I’m mad that he’s still here.”

“I can see that for you,” she agreed. The lights in the living room flickered.

They both laughed. Dan and Gia stopped talking.

“Try acknowledging him.”

“How?”

“Talk to him.”

“Good to see you, Paul,” Jasper said. After his disappointment during the séance it was nice to see Paul up to his familiar behaviors.

“Were the cameras on?”

“Yeah. We both heard you say he ticked you off,” Gia said with a grin. “So what’s next?”

“Jasper, try having a conversation,” Kirsty said. There was a hesitant note in her voice.

“What should I say?”

“What do you want him to know?”

The questions he’d had at the séance had been generic. But he and Paul had always been closer than that. Dan and Gia had moved so that they were sitting in the two side chairs also facing him.

No pressure .