Page 61 of Ghost Girl

‘Perfect. Can I schedule you in for tomorrow? Say, around one o’clock?’

I nodded, then realised she couldn’t see me, so I verbalised my agreement.

‘Great. I’ll see you then, Mrs. Dodd. Be safe.’

The dial tone rang out when she hung up, and I stared dumbly down at the screen. Be safe? Was that the normal way the police down here said goodbye? I was probably overthinking it. I tended to overanalyse every small interaction after a panic attack, and my anxiety was already through the roof.

My eyes snagged on the note again, and I studied Blake’s scratched-out name, contemplating what had happened and coming up short. Maybe Chance would have some insight into what this all meant.

Chapter 26

Chance

My mother’s face was purple by the time she was done screaming at me. Oh, wait, she wasn’t done. She was still going.

‘Howdareyou bring your hocus pocus nonsense into their relationship? And howdareyou bringKaliinto it, too? Why can’t you just leave them be? Hasn’t your brother been through enough? Kali is gone, and she’s not coming back. Don’t you sully her name any further, and stay away from Dakota. She deserves far more than the likes of you shoving Kali in her face, and in such a horrific manner. I don’t even want to see your face again, Chance. You are adisgrace,and are no longer a part of this family.’

Wow.

I was speechless. Some part of me withered and died at finally being cut off, but it was so small now that I didn’t care. I simply pushed it to the side and glared down at the woman who had birthed me yet was treating me like shit on her shoe.

‘Fine,’ I agreed. It would make my loss hurt less. If it would even hurt her at all, which I doubted. She hadn’t loved me in a long time, and apparently, she was done pretending now, too.

Her face bloated with building anger as she tried her best to hold it in. Couldn’t even let her own son see her lose her cool, but then again, I wasn’t her son anymore, was I? I hadn’t been for a long time.

It seemed that both of us had expected this outcome sooner or later, and now that it was done, there was no reason for her to stay. She blew out a long breath, sniffed haughtily in a way that reminded me of Florence and had me physically recoiling in disgust, and stormed off down the driveway. Calvin had joined her for the short walk, but had stayed behind to loiter at the edge of the driveway, letting his wife do what he’d been begging her to do for years. He tossed a smug little grin over his shoulder, then followed her before she could disappear around the tree.

Smarmy bastard. Good fucking riddance.

‘Sorry to say this, man, but your mom is a bitch,’ Rhodes said as he came up behind me, peering over my shoulder at their retreating backs.

I sighed. ‘I know. And she’s not my mother anymore.’

‘Good,’ he grunted, then clapped me on the shoulder. ‘You deserve better.’

I hummed my agreement, no words needed as I closed the door and headed back inside the house. Mikey was at the kitchen table, multiple laptops spread out as he monitored the readings still coming in from the devices we left outside. So far, we had surmised that they were picking up on multiple energy readings, as in a shit load of ghosts wondering the neighbouring property. It wasn’t a good sign, and we were worried we had a serial killer on our hands. One that had gotten Kali.

I tried not to think too much about it, the overwhelming emotions it brought on distracting me from my purpose. I had one thing left to do, and it was to figure out who it was that killed her and hand it over to the police. They wouldn’t accept our readings in court, but they would accept an anonymous tip. Itwould help if we had a little more evidence to back up our claims, because‘there’s lots of ghosts’ would just get us dismissed and laughed out of town. It was something we were used to, but this was too important to fuck up because of sceptics who wouldn’t take us seriously.

Ashe and Gloria had joined us earlier this morning, but they were still off in their own world and practically ignored us men while they continued whatever argument that had them so enraptured. I’d caught snippets of it, but nothing I hadn’t already heard before. Gloria was more adamant than ever that we all leave, claiming the dangers of this case weren’t worth it. Ashe was more adamant than ever that we stay now that Kali was involved.

There was more to it, but I didn’t try to eavesdrop. This was between them, and I knew from past experiences that if I tried to get involved, I’d just make things worse. So, Rhodes and I joined Mikey at the table to let the married couple bicker in privacy.

Mikey didn’t even glance up when we joined him, his eyes glued to the screens and the information on them.

‘Anything new?’ I asked as I settled into the seat to his right, Rhodes taking the seat opposite us.

‘Not much. There have been a few fluctuations, particularly with the thermometer readings, but other than that, it's been a steady influx of data.’

I chewed on my bottom lip as I read the readings for myself, noting the influxes he was referring to. They were bigger than I expected. Much bigger. The temperature outside was around eighty degrees. The temperature around the spirits dipped down to a range of around sixty to seventy degrees. These were dipping close to freezing temperatures, and my concern over the power this particular entity wielded was growing at an increasingly rapid rate.

‘That’s not just a few fluctuations,’ I pointed out. ‘And they’re coming from two different places.’

‘What?’ Mikey asked, immediately scanning the data for what I had seen. His eyes widened comically when he finally caught it. ‘Holy shit. How did I miss that?’

‘What did you find?’ Rhodes asked, leaning forward excitedly.

‘There’s two of them,’ I informed him breathlessly. This was… I didn’t know if it was a good groundbreaking discovery or if we were in for a whole world of hurt.

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