Page 29 of After Life
“It’s nothing. I’m fine. he’s fine. We’re all fine here. How are you?”
He snorted. “Alright, Han. When I sober up later, we’re having words. Give Ozzy a kiss for me.”
I hung up, equal parts of embarrassment and frustration making me feel too warm and unsettled.
“Reggie,” I muttered. “If you can hear me, I could really use advice right now. Or, you know, some sparkling insight into what’s going on.”
Nothing.
He’d been quiet since Savannah and I felt in my heart of hearts that he’d made his peace, or whatever it was that meant he was done haunting me. Maggie was healing, taking his ashes on those trips they’d always planned but never gotten to take. I’d seen the light, so to speak, and admitted there are some strange things in the world that can’t be explained away. And who knows how many other things were on his to-do list that kept him here. Or if he even had one.
You know who else might know? Who else has far more experience in the paranormal and, despite their flaky exterior, actually knows what they’re doing?
Fucking Heinrich.
I groaned softly, tapping my phone against my forehead. If I call him, that means everyone in the world is going to know by the end of the week. It’ll become one of his stories to tell his clients, I bet.
There were easily a half dozen reasons I could think of that would cause Oscar’s periods of seeming absence, the exhaustion and his claims about the body swap. None of them were to be treated lightly. It’d only begun yesterday, but things seemed to be escalating in such a way that rang alarm bells right in my ear.
“I could really use an ear here,” I muttered. “Reggie, just so you know, I’m fine with you haunting me for the next thirty or so minutes if you’re not too busy.”
I knew the chuckle I heard was just a product of my imagination, but damn it if it didn’t make me smile.
The vibration of an incoming call startled me out of my spiral.
CeCe had either the best or worst timing.
“Hey,” I answered. “How’s New York?”
“Ugh.”
“That good, huh?”
“If I ever say I’m getting married again, remind me of this.”
“Cec, I’m sure your next husband won’t be a murder-abetting asshole. I mean, the odds are low, anyway.”
“Sometimes one twin will absorb the other in utero. I’m sad that I didn’t even try.”
I snorted. “What’s up, favorite sister?”
“New York is defying the laws of physics in that it both sucks and blows simultaneously. Well, not the entire state. Just this specific part of it.” She sighed and I knew, without seeing her, that she was slumped to one side, her face set in a scowl that looked a lot like mine would. “Jacob is doing his damnedest to bankrupt me, claiming anything earned during the marriage is half his despite the prenup and the fact I kept my business earnings and investments separate from his.” She hesitated, then said, “He’s also claiming rights to Bump in the Night. Apparently, his attorney—one of them, anyway—found some hinky wording they’re trying to exploit in the contract where he signed the show and company over to me.”
My stomach did a slow roll, anxiety and anger mixing into an unpleasant acid boil. “That should be impossible for him to do, though,” I started, and she made a frustrated sound that was definitely mingled with a profanity or two. “I suppose you already knew that, though,” I muttered. “Which makes sense...”
“It’s a delay tactic, but so long as he and his lawyer are making the threat, mine needs to follow up on it so everything is being pushed back by at least two months.”
“Shit.”
“In a word...”
“What about the murder trial?”
“That’s another fun fact to know and share: Mark Thomas has an absolute feral shark of a legal team. They’re suing Annie’s family for defamation since they spoke about his involvement in her death before it was made officially public,” she said wearily. “And...”
“And what? You can’t just pause like that and not follow up. Not unless you’re being eaten by a honey badger or something. Are there honey badgers in upstate New York?”
“I wish they were. I’d lure one to my hotel, tame it with this leftover Thai food, convince it to do my bidding, then turn them loose on Mark and Jacob.”
