Page 126 of Not Quite Dead Yet

‘– Pull out of the sale,’ the cat barked over him. ‘You know which one. It’s not too late.’

Dianne shook her head, almost rolled her eyes too; Jet knew that look. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ she sniffed.

‘Houses aren’t just four walls and a roof.’ The cat flashed its teeth. ‘They are important to people. And they are not yours to take.’

‘If you have an issue with Mason Construction, I’m afraid you’ll have to take it up with my husband –’

‘– I’m taking it up with you,’ the cat spat, shaking the room. ‘Because you can do something about it.’ Tilted its head the other way, blinked its strange, empty eyes. ‘And because I know your secret.’

Dianne went back to laughing, a hollow sound, looking around at her fellow trustees.

‘I don’t have any secrets,’ she said. ‘Other than my apple pie recipe.’

A spatter of polite laughter from the others.

‘OK,’ Gerry said, his smile back. ‘Milly, let’s move o–’

‘– You do have a secret, Dianne,’ the cat cut him off. ‘The one your family doesn’t know. Except Emily. She knew.’

Dianne’s eyes snapped wide, and so did Jet’s, behind the screen. A gasp went around the room, because name-dropping Dianne’s dead daughter was a step too far, and no one was laughing now, or even pretending to. Jet gripped the edge of the laptop, leaned even closer.

‘The fuck,’ she muttered.

‘Milly, get rid of them,’ Dianne barked.

‘I’m trying,’ came the voice. ‘Sorry, I …’

The cat smiled, its awful human-hybrid smile.

‘Do you know that Emily knew?’ it asked. ‘She told me, before she died.’

‘Milly!’ Dianne shouted, pushing up to her feet.

The fast clip of her heels as she ran alongside the table, toward the edge of the frame, her face and the panic in her eyes growing clearer the closer she got to Jet’s screen.

‘Actually,’ the cat added, ‘it wasrightbefore she died.’

‘Milly, what are you doing?!’

Dianne disappeared off frame. ‘Move, Milly. I’ll do it myself.’

‘Make it stop, Dianne,’ the cat said, an amused half-smile, watching the chaos unfold with those blank eyes. ‘Or I’ll tell –’

The cat disappeared.

Town Hall stretched back out, everyone doubling in size, taking over the whole screen.

‘The fuck,’ Jet said again, watching her mom reappear, walking back to her place at the table, straightening her jacket, running a hand through her mussed-up hair.

She sat, her face cracking, an empty smile that showed too many teeth, didn’t reach her troubled eyes. ‘Teenagers and their pranks,’ she laughed, picking up her papers, banging them against the table. ‘Well, that certainly livened up the meeting, didn’t it?’

Gerry took her lead, a sigh that stretched into a laugh. But his heart wasn’t really in it, echoing strangely around the room. ‘That was crazy,’ he said.

‘Yes, absolutely ridiculous,’ Dianne agreed. ‘Complete nonsense.’ Doubled down. ‘OK, everyone ready to discuss banner permits?’

Jet clicked pause, freezing her mom, shoulders too rigid and back too straight.

Billy didn’t say anything; neither did Jet. She dragged the cursor back and pressed play again.