Page 56 of Ghosted (The Ravenwood #1)

FORTY-FOUR

It’s been a few days since Ivan moved on, and I’m badgering Wren into making me a fancy coffee at Brewed. She must be tired because she gives in, willing to add both toasted marshmallow and brown sugar to my latte in a for-here mug.

When she sets it down in front of me, I quirk a brow. “Wow, you’re getting good at that,” I say, gesturing to the foam middle finger gracing the top of my latte.

“Lots of practice lately,” she replies casually. “Mish, I’m taking my ten,” she calls over her shoulder to Misha, who is cleaning the bar. He waves in acknowledgement, and Wren sits next to me on the plush couch facing the floor-to-ceiling windows so we can people watch.

“What’re you looking at?” she asks, peering over my shoulder at my laptop.

“I’m going over our profit and trying to see how this could work. If Aunt C would go to a retirement home closer to us, we’d probably be able to make it because they’re cheaper around here, but she’s dead set on this Florida place.” I rub my neck where I feel a tension headache brewing.

“Have you talked to her about it?” Wren asks.

“Yeah. She’s insisting. If we can’t make it work, she’s willing to sell the store. She’s gotten a few offers that have been hard to refuse, but she’s been hanging onto it for me.” I take a sip of my latte, displacing the middle finger so it looks more blobby than crude.

Wren scowls. “That’s bullshit, Rae. You’ve put a ton of work into that store, and helped it grow so much in the last five years. Aunt C is being really selfish.”

I shrug and reply, “Maybe, but there’s not much I can do to stop her. I don’t have any rights to the store.”

“Have you thought about getting a business loan? I know you were planning on buying it from her eventually.”

“I have a decent amount saved up, but I couldn’t afford to pay back a loan and keep the store afloat with the rent increase in January,” I say with a tired sigh. Dean’s proposition that I move into his house hits me, and I shake my head against the thought. There’s no way I can do that.

“What did you just think about? You got all weird,” she flutters her fingers around me, referring to my aura.

I close my eyes because I’m incapable of lying to her.

When she jabs me in the ribs with a sharp fingernail, my eyes fly open and I glare at her.

“Dean had an idea,” I say slowly. She raises her eyebrows and gestures for me to continue.

“He offered to have me move into his house so I can rent out my apartment. It would probably make up the difference in finances, especially if I scale up our online store, but there’s no way I can do it, obviously. ”

“The giant house in the middle of a meadow?” she asks. I nod. “The one you compared to the Cullens’ house?” I nod again.

She flicks me on the arm. Hard. “Ow!” I exclaim, rubbing the sore spot. “What the hell?” I grumble. She doesn’t usually resort to physical violence, so this is a fun new development.

“Why wouldn’t you?” she asks incredulously.

“It’s too much. His family would basically be giving it to me. And it’s like, a cajillion-dollar home.” I shift in my seat. “And anyway, he hasn’t talked to them about it. It’s technically theirs since he died. They might not even go for it.”

“I think this is another example of you shutting down a good thing because you’re scared,” she replies. “If Dean told them this is what he wanted, I doubt they’d say no. Especially after everything you’ve told me about them.”

I shake my head, taking a sip of my latte. “I don’t know. I hate relying on other people for anything. It would feel like charity.”

“Rae,” Dean says, suddenly in front of us.

I start a little, and say oh-so-casually, “Hey, Dean, what’s up?” I ask, trying to look like we weren’t just talking about his proposition. Wren looks at him, eyebrows drawn tight together.

“He’s trying to leave. You need to call the police now. Richard is going to run,” Dean says, squatting so he’s directly in front of me.

I sit up straighter. “Where is he going?”

Dean shakes his head, running an anxious hand through his hair.

“I don’t know. I followed him to the car, thinking he was just getting out of the house.

But then I realized he had a whole bag packed, a cooler, and a few extra gallons of gas.

When I left, he was headed north. I think he’s going to Canada. ”

“Canada? Shit,” I hiss. “Okay, I’m going to place an anonymous tip.” Dean tells me the exact road Richard was on, and I call the police, hoping he was told not to leave the state. That way, they’ll have reason to stop him.

After the dispatcher assures me they’re sending a police officer after him, I thank her and hang up, palms sweaty. “She said they were sending someone after him,” I tell Dean and Wren.

“Okay. I’m going to go track him down again, in case they don’t catch him. The longer I’m away from his last location, the harder it will be for me to find him again since he’s going somewhere unknown,” Dean says, looking like he’s about to break into a sprint.

“Keep me updated,” I say, leaning in to accept the kiss he places on my forehead. He salutes and is gone in a blink.

“That fucking Richard guy definitely did it,” Wren states, who has clearly been eaves dropping on my side of the conversation. “No one runs to another country if they’re innocent.”

“Hopefully they catch him,” I say, hating that I just have to sit here and wait to see what happens.

I text Jack, letting him know what’s going on.

He and I have been chatting back and forth the last few days as they scoured Richard’s devices.

They were unable to find anything damning (aside from a large, morally questionable porn collection). I know Jack is starting to lose hope.

Dean

I sit in the passenger seat, engaging in my favorite pastime as of late: berating Richard to his stupid face. He can’t hear me anyway, so I may as well. It’s the only fun I can have while I’m away from Rae .

I have a sinking suspicion that the dispatcher wasn’t taking Rae seriously. They either didn’t send someone or made it seem unimportant to whoever she did send. Hours have gone by without even passing a speed trap.

I try not to panic as day slips into night, and we pass the “Welcome to New Hampshire” sign. The state motto “Live free or die” really takes on a whole new meaning these days.

Richard readjusts in his seat for the fiftieth time, and I’m about to lose my mind if he does what I think he’s going to do with that empty Gatorade bottle… Annnnnd yep. It’s happening. The trickling sound is overly loud because he’s the type of psychopath to drive in total silence.

I grimace, secretly hoping his knee-driving sucks and he rams his stupid Audi into the concrete divider. He is swerving a little, so it’s not totally out of the realm of possibility. I perk up a little. He pops the cap back on to the world’s worst flavor of Gatorade and chucks it out the window.

“Dude, seriously?” I gripe at him. Fucking litterers. It’s not enough to have murdered me, you also have to try to murder the planet? I can’t believe I was ever friendly with this guy.

Red and blue swirling lights light up the cab in a dizzying pattern, and I turn to look behind us. “Fuck,” Richard shouts, voice breaking. The police siren sounds, and he immediately ducks like he can avoid being seen.

I kick back, letting my feet drift through the footwell, ready to enjoy the show.

Finally.

The car lurches forward, and I look toward Richard.

“You are such a dumbass,” I say, watching the speedometer climb towards eighty, then tick past it.

He starts swerving around traffic, pushing the gas pedal down until we’re eating up the roadway, going nearly a hundred miles per hour.

Thankfully, there aren’t a ton of people on the road at 8 P.M. on a Tuesday, so he probably won’t kill anyone else.

“Pull over,” the officer says over his loudspeaker. He’s kept pace with us easily so far. Maybe Richard should have watched more Need For Speed and less Barely Legal Busty Babes .

Now there’s an image I’d gladly get lobotomized to remove.

Richard refuses to pull over. He inches the speedometer forward a touch more, white knuckling his steering wheel as sweat pours down the sides of his face. Really glad I can’t smell anymore; I’m sure the scent profile in this car is more barn animal than Armani right now.

“Pull over, now,” the cop says through the loudspeaker, voice betraying his agitation.

Richard presses on, suddenly veering across three lanes of traffic and haphazardly taking an exit. I grab for the handhold on instinct before I remember I’m dead. Death has few perks, but at least I can’t die again.

He swerves around the few other cars that are also taking the exit, laying on their horns as we shoot past.

I close my eyes against the rapidly approaching red light.

Richard huffs a breath like he’s prepping a deadlift and then yanks the steering wheel hard to the right, skidding into oncoming traffic.

I crack my eyes open again once I’m sure I won’t have to watch Richard get t-boned.

We’re flying through town, buildings flashing by in a blur, and I grudgingly have to wonder at his luck.

How is it possible that he hasn’t hit anyone yet?

He’s taking seemingly random turns, trying to lose the cops chasing us.

Listen, I don’t condone running from the cops.

But I have to say, as a passive bystander, it’s actually kind of fun.

Obviously, I want him to get caught, but it’s always been a secret bucket list item of mine to take part in a police chase.

Working behind a desk most of the day leaves a lot to be desired.

We’re on the outskirts of town, flying down a country road, when the loudest BANG!

BANG! I’ve ever heard nearly explodes my eardrums. Richard swerves, losing control of the car and bumping over the rocky shoulder of the road.

His car comes to an aggressive stop, and he breathes heavily in the sudden silence, staring out at the large pasture of cows.

They all have their heads swiveled toward us, eyes aglow in the headlights of the car, chewing the cud in their mouths.

It’s actually kind of creepy. Maybe the creepiest thing I’ve seen since I died.

Something about their nearly identical expressionless faces turned our way makes me shiver.

Richard bangs his hand hard on the steering wheel. Almost instantly, the car is surrounded by state troopers and officers shouting at Richard to put his hands up.

He slowly lifts shaking hands in the air, chin trembling like a toddler. An officer approaches his door, gun drawn and trained on Richard. He throws the door open and says, “Unbuckle your seatbelt and get out of the car. I want to see both hands up.”

“Yes, sir,” Richard replies, nodding aggressively as if enthusiastic compliance can save him from the fact that he was leading the officers on a ten-minute car chase. I get out of the car to find that all of his tires have been popped, which explains the loud noise just before Richard lost control.

They handcuff him for evading the police, explaining that he was only going to get a littering ticket before he ran, but now the charges are likely to be much worse.

Two officers were sort of joking around with him, but when a short female officer comes back with his I.D.

, they all take a cue from her serious expression.

“Are you Richard Morganstern?” the officer asks.

Richard swallows thickly. “Yes, ma’am,” he says.

“Mr. Morganstern, did you know you were under orders not to leave the state of Massachusetts?” the officer asks, setting his I.D. on the hood of his car. I lean in closer to get her name. Officer Rickman. She might just be my new favorite person.

Richard feigns confusion. “I was?”

“Yes. It says right here that you are currently under investigation for the murder of Dean Crawford. As such, you were told not to leave the state without approval."

Richard readjusts his shoulders, clearly uncomfortable with the handcuffs. “I’d like to speak with my lawyer,” he states firmly.

“Sure. You can have him meet you down at the station. Although it might be a while since you’re about nine hours from home,” Officer Rickman says, thin lips pursed.

Richard nods as a different officer begins leading him by the arm to one of the police cars.

Just before he gets shoved in the back of the cruiser, I watch his aggressively fake-tanned face blanche as a couple of officers begin going through his car.

I smile slowly, knowing in my gut that they’re going to find something.

I feel suddenly lightheaded and rub my forehead.

When I look up, light from every color imaginable shines around me.

I inhale deeply, smelling homemade cookies.

Over the din of the police searching Richard’s vehicle, I swear I hear a creek burbling over rocks.

I’m overwhelmed with peace, feeling everything in me relax.

I close my eyes against the beauty and rub a hand over my chest.