Page 28 of Ghost of a Chance

Kirsty’s room.

She sat up blurry-eyed and shoved her hair out of her face.

The noise got steadily louder as Chewie started barking in response. But he couldn’t take his eyes off of the woman he’d slept with last night. He wanted to stay. Wanted to crawl right back into bed with her on this chilly autumn morning.

“TV!” She was not feeling the same.

“Yeah.” He picked up his jeans as he headed toward the stairs. He whistled for Chewie who’d definitely need to go out and strolled into the living room to turn off the TV. Looking down at the physics book, which had clearly moved from the kitchen last night, he sighed.

“Morning, asshole.”

He grabbed the hoodie he left over the kitchen chair and pulled it on as he shoved his feet into the Crocs he kept by the door for middle-of-the-night dog walks.

Chewie waited impatiently as Jasper put the leash on him and opened the door.

He stepped out into a relaxed cloudy rain.

The lights in the kitchen flicked behind him as he followed Chewie to do his business.

He hadn’t grabbed his phone so was just staring around the neighborhood collecting his thoughts.

The lights surged again, then again a few minutes later as he and Chewie went back into the kitchen. Chewie shook himself off outside.

“Coffee?”

Dan stood there, a mug in one hand. Even though he’d been startled out of bed it seemed he’d had time to get dressed in his regular khakis and a polo.

“Yeah. TV wake you?”

“It did. I checked the infrared footage. There’s a sort of blurry…well, you look at it and tell me what you think. It seems as if something is moving toward the TV before it turns on.”

“For real?”

Dan looked sheepish. “Honest. I told you no more faking stuff. This isn’t polished at all. That’s why I think it might be real.”

“I know it is,” Jasper said, taking the coffee mug from Dan and following him to the monitor where he had the playback set up. “Gia and Kirsty are going to love this. Also the fact that you were wrong.”

“I know. I fucked up. But after three days here I believed this was a waste of time.”

Dan hit Play. The sound was up on the monitor but there wasn’t much noise. A shuffling sound cut through the silence, and then there was that blurry blob that appeared on-screen just before the television came on.

“That is terrifying.”

“What’s terrifying?” Gia asked, joining them.

“The footage that I got,” Dan said.

Gia started a cup for herself before joining them. Today her hair was all springy curls tied back with a thick headband. She had on a Nightmare Before Christmas sweatshirt over orange-and-brown-plaid pjs.

Dan played it again. Even seeing it a second time sent a chill through him. There was something in the living room. Some kind of energy. Paul’s energy.

God, he felt like an idiot that he hadn’t really taken the time to talk to Paul before this. To be fair, until Kirsty had come along Jasper hadn’t been ready to do it.

At first he tried to be logical about the stuff going on, the way he knew Kirsty had when she arrived here. But logic didn’t explain mysterious figures where none should be. He’d always known that Paul was haunting him but having visual evidence made it seem real in a whole new way.

“That’s spooky. I love it. The film is kind of grainy though…do you think it’ll be clear enough to convince Bri and the audience?” Gia asked.

“With infrared that’s about what we are going to get. I don’t want to enhance it in post too much or we’ll end up with some of the audience thinking it’s faked,” Dan said.

“You’re right. I didn’t think we were going to get anything as good as that. I’m going to go wake up Kirsty. She needs to see this.”

Gia left and Dan leaned back in his chair. “Finally I have something that Bri can use. She was breathing down my neck. I mean no excuses for what I did yesterday, but you know how she can be.”

“I do.” Their boss was kind and generous but also extremely demanding when it came to her show. She wanted results and wouldn’t tolerate anything less than the best.

Jasper was a bit relieved too, despite the unease the footage gave him. All these years hadn’t been just in his head. There had always been a small part of him that wondered if he had been projecting, imagining it all.

Maybe that explained why he’d been so ticked off when Kirsty hadn’t believed him. Part of him had always been a little unwilling to put his faith in something that was so out there. Kirsty just had the nerve to share her doubts out loud.

Kirsty stumbled into the room behind Gia, their eyes met and she gave him a conspiratorial grin before coming to stand behind Dan. The scent of her freshly showered body made it difficult not to drop his arm onto her shoulders.

But he didn’t.

Keeping their relationship—whatever it was—under wraps was for the best. After all, they had a ghost to save.

* * *

Things were really starting to come together. If she didn’t have to hold another séance she’d be elated. The infrared footage that Dan captured made up for the day before and then some.

Now they all were sitting in the back of a physics classroom, auditing a class before filming thanks to Jasper’s persuasion skills. Jasper leaned back in the chair stretching his legs out in front of him and scrolling on his phone as students trickled in.

She’d loved school for as long as she could remember. Learning at least. Not so much the social aspects. There was a thrill in getting a new fact, in solving a problem.

“I’m pretty much crap at anything science,” she said. Ever since last night, Jasper’s energy was off. He’d been cordial and talkative as usual, but she could tell he was holding something back.

“I’m okay,” he said. Paul’s textbook was with them hiding in a large bag at their feet.

The professor came in and started explaining something about quantum entanglement. There was frantic note-taking from the students and Jasper leaned forward listening intently.

But she was confused.

Jasper leaned in close, a troublemaker’s gleam in his eyes.

“Want me to give you the cheater’s version?” he asked.

She nodded, so he continued, his voice a low whisper as the professor droned on. “Physics is basically studying matter and its motion through space and time, along with related concepts such as energy and force. It’s the study of nature in an attempt to understand how the universe behaves.

“Quantum entanglement attempts to explain how particles can become linked in a way that’s not explainable by regular physics.”

So Paul was studying how energy moved through space and time when he died. “Is there any way he could have attached…”

Trailing off, she paused. This was ridiculous.

She was about to ask him if his roommate had transferred his soul to a book.

At this point, anything seemed possible, but from what little she did know about science and physics as a college undergrad, pulling something like that off would be especially impossible.

“I don’t know. I mean if you were going to ask if he’d moved his energy into the book intentionally, that would be venturing into something far beyond college physics.”

Hearing it out loud, she cringed. “More like fairy tales or fiction. I mean in my books it would work. But I don’t have to logically prove how that works outside of the page. Given my lack of science brain, that’s not a good thing.”

He laughed softly and continued giving her a layman’s breakdown of what the professor was going over during the class.

As Jasper explained the lesson, Kirsty’s mind wandered. Paul was starting to take shape for her, the way a character did when she was writing.

Paul was so much more than just a playful poltergeist to her now. He was taking shape as a person. Would he have felt like the world was limitless when he’d learned this? That anything was possible?

She wished she’d met him. From all that Jasper had shared, Paul sounded like he was a special person. He’d definitely taken care of Jasper in a way that made her like him just a little bit more.

She wasn’t a detective and honestly not very good at solving mysteries but she wanted to be…for Jasper and for Paul.

“You sure know a lot about this stuff. Why weren’t you taking physics?”

“Uh, that’s complicated.”

“Okay.” He called things complicated when he didn’t want to discuss them. Maybe it wasn’t important to everything going on anyway.

“I just can’t whisper it. I’ll tell you later when we’re out of class.” He squeezed her hand.

A little shiver jolted through her fingers. There wasn’t anyone she felt comfortable touching this intimately, but Jasper proved to be the exception.

He gave her a quizzical look, reaching up to pat his hair. “Is my hair sticking up?”

“No.”

“You’re staring.”

“It’s complicated .”

His lips twitched as he turned to pay attention to the professor and she jotted down notes on concepts that she’d have him explain to her later.

Because there was no way she was getting anything as she sat next to Jasper, enjoying the fresh scent of his body spray, the way he tapped his fingers on the desk as he leaned in to listen more intently.

There was something about him that made it hard for her to look away.

She’d always been a loner and liked it. She hadn’t wanted or missed having a bestie in school or in life. She had everything she needed with her mom and her books.

After Buck, no man was worth the pain she’d experienced. But somehow Jasper felt different.

* * *

She was so cute trying to figure out physics. To Jasper it was natural. The concepts and theories all made sense. It was probably in his genes. Another thing he could chock up to his dad.

His father had wanted to be a high school physics teacher, but Jasper never really wanted to follow in that path. Maybe because his mom always talked about his dad working on his science fiction short story.

As the lecture concluded, the professor left through the back. Next they had an appointment to speak to Paul’s old professor before the lab he was holding in about forty minutes.

It felt natural to reach for Kirsty’s hand as the classroom emptied, so he did it. For a second her hand was stiff, and then her fingers slid through his, sending a pulse of awareness straight through him. “What’d you think?”

“I’m trying to somehow make sense of Paul trapped in a textbook. Do you think he loved this class so much he didn’t want to leave it?”

“I’m not too sure.”

“Me either. I mean he’d have to be so inspired by his studying that he’d want to stay around.” Grasping at straws wasn’t getting her anywhere.

“I’ve never heard of anything like that,” he said. “I don’t think science-wise that’s what happened.”

“Dying and becoming a ghost doesn’t scream science,” she said. “But his emotions could have guided him.”

“Yeah, I could see that. Humor me for a minute. Until the textbook I totally didn’t believe in ghosts him becoming a poltergeist seems more logical.”

“But what if him thinking about transference guided him to the book?” Kirsty was so serious he had to at least consider it.

Still Jasper wasn’t sure that was possible. “That’s not really how physics works.”

“Oh believe me I know. If it was there’d be possessed items all over the place. But I’m back to Sherlock. We’ve ruled out all the logical things, so that leaves…”

“The illogical?” he asked.

She lightly punched his shoulder. “Don’t say it like that. Makes it seem crazy.”

She had a point. There had to be an explanation and she’d come upon one. It just made their project that much more difficult. “How would Paul know he was going to have a brain hemorrhage? He’d have to have an experiment set up.”

“I don’t think it was intentional.”

She had a point. But his gut wasn’t certain. “Let’s talk to his teacher and see what he says.”

“I agree. I mean I don’t want to go in there with this theory but there has to be a reason why he’s tied to the book. Even if it’s not necessarily logical to us or Paul himself.”

They got to the lab early and the room was empty. They let themselves in and went to one of the long workbenches placed throughout the classroom. Looking around the room, he was flooded with memories. Jasper made his way to one particular bench. “This was ours.”

“Is it weird being back here without him?” she asked.

“Yeah a little. I dropped physics after he died.”

“I would have dropped it way earlier,” she said with a laugh. “So what did twenty-year-old you pick up instead?”

“More classes from the media and communications department,” he said, leaning back against the table. “That department is on the other side of campus. I liked the courses and started spending all my time over there.”

“I’ve found that most things in life aren’t all that circumstantial. Every decision we make leads to where we are meant to be,” she said.

“Like our decision to go to the Dead Boys’ concert?” he asked.

Light filtered through the lab windows, highlighting the two black braids framing her face, that thick fall of bangs, and the fading tattoo visible above the collar of her black puff-sleeved top. He put his hands on her waist and pulled her slowly toward him.

Her hand came to his chest. He leaned down, their mouths met and for a moment he wondered why he hadn’t kissed her sooner this morning.

He’d missed this. Missed her taste. Missed the way she grounded him in a way.

The door to the classroom squeaked open. Dammit. He quickly broke away from her as the professor entered. Mr. Thompson hadn’t changed much in the last few years. His hair was a bit grayer and maybe a little thinner but he was still lean and had a no-nonsense manner.

“The next class isn’t for twenty minutes but you need to take that elsewhere,” he said.

Kirsty stood straight and walked over to him, her head held high. “I’m K.L. Henson. I believe you spoke to my publicist Gia from Periwinkle Press. She mentioned we had some questions about a former student.”

“Leo Thompson. I did. You don’t look like…not that it matters.” Leo harrumphed, setting a stack of papers on the lab table at the front of the room. “What do you want to know? Who was the student?”

“Paul Lester. I was in your class with him. Do you remember us?”

“I do. Paul had potential, you were sort of coasting through the class. I was sorry to hear Paul died his junior year.”

“Yes. Well, we are trying to establish a few facts about Paul’s course of study at the time. Do you know if he had any particular attachment to this book?” Kirsty asked, taking it from her bag and placing it on the lab table.

“I’m not sure where you got this book,” the professor said.

“It was with his stuff when we cleaned out the apartment,” Jasper said.

“Well, this isn’t a textbook he would have been using. It would have been outdated long before you were in school.”