Page 57 of Ghost of a Chance
“The voice was deep, but I’m not sure if it was even a guy or not,” Kirsty said.She didn’t want to admit that the voice had warned her to stop faking her powers.Though to be fair, if that voice was a ghost, then she might not have been lying after all.
“That’s interesting.What if there’s no gender after death,” Gia said.“We should totally play that up.Get people thinking!”
“Sure.But I wasn’t saying itwasn’ta guy, just that it was like a…deep whisper.Hard to identify.And it didn’t sound like the recording of Paul’s voice.”
“Why didn’t you say something the other night?”Gia asked.“Jasper might have some insight he can add.”
“It freaked me out.The voice warned me to stop lying.Despite what everyone thought in Chicago…” She was already being honest, so she might as well lay it all out for her friend.“I left the ballroom because my period started and I was bleeding…nothing supernatural.I have never thought of myself as having any ability.For me it was easier to think it was a voice in my head.”
Gia gave her a hug, and Kirsty resisted for a second before she rested her head on Gia’s shoulder.“Why are you telling me now?What changed your mind?”
“I had a freaky emotional reaction at the apartment.Like, part of it was definitely my repressed emotional garbage…but it felt like something more was egging it on.I’m not even sure if it was real, or if maybe this entire thing is making me batshit crazy.”
“Ha.You’re totally not crazy.You tell the truth—usually.”Gia chuckled, giving her a squeeze.“So you think if you start talking to Paul you’ll get another voice or emotion?Jasper never gets any feelings, right?That’s odd that you are,” Gia said.
“Is it?I think his frustration with the irritating things that Paul does has kept him from feeling anything else.”It was a theory she’d sort of been letting grow in the back of her mind.
“Dan can stay but he needs to be on our team and not working against us with his skepticism and fakery.Agreed?”
“Yeah, you deal with him.”
“As long as we make progress, I think we’ll uncover one of these mysteries before long.”
Kirsty was sure they would uncover something.But that didn’t make her feel as good as she’d thought it would.It was uncomfortable to experience someone else’s feelings, to hear a disembodied voice in her head.As many times as she’d written those exact scenes for her heroine Eva Clare, she realized now she hadn’t really done them justice.
She followed Gia into the house, settling in the living room where Jasper and Dan were idling.Jasper caught her eye as Dan got up to apologize, and Kirsty half listened but really all she saw was Jasper.
That creepy voice had thrown her for a loop.None of this was going the way she’d expected it to.This new ghost could be malicious.What were they going to encounter if they kept digging?
In spite of what she’d said to Jasper, she had sort of thought she had it all figured out.But if she really did have a gift to talk to ghosts…that was a lot to take in.
* * *
It took every bit of Jasper’s self-control to stay where he was seated with Chewie when Kirsty came back into the room.Gia and Dan were speaking intently, and he should have been participating, but when Kirsty was in the room there wasn’t a chance.
He wanted to invite her to come and sit next to him on the couch.Feel the warmth of her body against his.
He yearned for her.Being this close was a kind of torture.And so delicious.But they couldn’t make their relationship public to Dan and Gia, not when so much else was already on the line.
Kirsty drifted over near the couch and dropped down on the floor next to Chewie, absently petting the dog.
Jealousy.Yup, he was jealous of his damn dog as he watched her hand move through Chewie’s thick fur.She dropped her head back on the cushion, rolling it toward him and smiling.
“You ready for tonight?”
She’d laid out her plan and it was a solid one.He liked the idea of spending the night with her.Paul…actually after all the talking he’d done lately about the ghost he wanted to try to connect.
“Not really.What am I going to say?I don’t want to be all pouring out my heart to a physics textbook.I don’t want to become some internet meme.”He was committed to doing it because she thought it would work and he wanted results.
“Me either.I’m not really used to doing this with an audience,” she said.
There was so much he wanted to ask her.
“Yeah that’s part of it,” he said.She waited expectantly for a response.“But more, it’s that I haven’t really wanted to talk to him because I’m mad that he’s still here.”
“I can see that for you,” she agreed.The lights in the living room flickered.
They both laughed.Dan and Gia stopped talking.
