southern ghost hunters 01 - southern spirits (10 page)

I placed a hand on my hip. "Just so you know, I didn't break any new laws since last night. A girl's got to sleep sometime."

"Can I come in?" he asked, glancing at my neighbors' house down the way. "I'd rather not be seen at your place."

"Charming." No wonder he'd used the back door. "I'd offer you a seat, but there isn't one."

It would be nice to hear him apologize for our rude start. Instead, he strolled right into my kitchen like he owned the place. He turned to face me. "How did you know where to find Vernon Hale's lighter?"

He looked at me like he expected an answer.

Fine. Nobody would believe him anyway. 

"Your uncle told me himself," I admitted. "We had a conversation last night when I was sitting in the back seat of your car, like he was a real person." It would be nice if his nephew started treating me like one. 

He shook his head, as if there had to be some other explanation. "That's impossible."

"Yes," I agreed. "Only lately I've expanded my view of what's possible."

He reached into the pocket of his jeans and pulled out a lighter shaped like a whiskey flask. "This is it. It was under the porch at his old house."

"Well, would you look at that?" Hale said it would be there and it was. I held my hand out and Ellis gave it to me. The silver shone and it had the letters VRH etched on one side. Ellis had obviously given it a polish after he found it. "This is real nice," I told him. "I wish we could get it back to your uncle." That way, he wouldn't always be counting on people like Frankie for a light. Nobody wanted to deal with that for eternity. 

Ellis regarded me for a long moment. "Can you? Get it back to him, I mean?" he asked, as if couldn't quite believe he was saying the words.

I sighed, not wanting to get his hopes up. "I don't know." I was surprised when I'd been able to pull Josephine's locket out of the ghostly realm, and I had no idea how I did it, much less how to send things the other way.

He began pacing and part of me started to wonder why he'd even come. It was clear he wasn't ready to believe me, not really. And I had no doubt my presence made him uncomfortable. 

He stopped, refusing to meet my eyes. "How does he look?" Ellis asked quietly.

Damn. Right when I was getting used to him being a judgmental jerk, he had to go and say something to make me feel sorry for him. 

"Your uncle is…strong," I said, searching for the right words. "You'd never even know he was hurt." I couldn't help but grin. "With that buzz cut and that attitude, he could be a drill sergeant."

The corners of Ellis's mouth turned up and at the moment when I thought he might share my smile, he winced. He straightened, his expression devastatingly calm and his tone firm. "I know you don't like me."

It was true and it wasn't. "As long as we're being honest, I think it's more that you don't like me."

A muscle in his jaw jumped as he clenched it. "I can agree to that."

Dandy. "So are we finished here?" Last night was enough. I didn't need round two with this man.

He shoved his hands into his pockets and stared at me hard. "I need your help."

Of all the… He could have knocked me over with a feather. "You need
my
help?" Unbelievable. I crossed my arms over my chest. I didn't know if he was nervy or just plain nuts. I mean he didn't even want to be seen in my house.

He took one step toward me, then another, like a man on a mission. "I need you to do a job."

A sinking feeling invaded my insides. "You're not talking about graphic design, are you?"

He stopped a few feet in front of me, serious as sin. "I need you to clear out a ghost."

"But you don't believe in ghosts." 

"It doesn't matter what I believe." He held up his hands in a form of surrender. "Look, I don't know what you do. Or how you see…
them
." He clenched his fingers and brought them down to his sides. "I don't even want to know." 

"Okay." He had this all wrong. "The first thing is that I don't
clear out
ghosts. I'm not Bill Murray with a proton pack and a ghost trap." I ran a hand through my hair, thinking about how much I wanted to explain. People in this town thought I was crazy enough. I didn't need to go telling Officer Wydell about my recent spiritual troubles. "I accidentally washed someone's ashes into my rosebushes, well, into the soil around my rosebushes," I corrected. "Anyway, that allowed me to see him, and then he did something that made me be able to see other ghosts." I could tell by the expression on Ellis's face I'd said too much. "I'd appreciate it if this didn't get around town."

He shook his head slowly. "Nobody would believe me."

"I'd sure deny it." I was enough of a pariah as it was. I didn't want to be the whacked out nut job with my own personal ghost. Sure, people in the South called those individuals 'colorful,' but everyone knew it was just a nice word for
batshit crazy
.

"Look," he said, in an obvious attempt to sugar coat something I probably didn't want to hear. But then he couldn't quite figure out how to spin it, so he said it plain, "I don't even want it getting around that I'm talking to you."

"You sure know how to ask for a favor," I said tartly.

"Can you blame me?" He shot back.

"Maybe." Maybe not, since he'd been so corrupted by that brother of his. I knew how convincing Beau could be. I leaned up against my kitchen island and tried not to think about my breakfast getting cold. "Tell me your problem. I'll see what I can do."

He gave a sharp nod. "I'm in the middle of renovating a piece of property I bought a few years ago, the one up on Wilson's Creek Road."

I'd heard of the place. It used to be an old distillery. He'd bought it with someone, an uncle. My heart gave a little squeeze. "You and your Uncle Hale bought it together, didn't you?" It made more sense now.

He stood stock still. "We were renovating the carriage house into a restaurant. Then we planned to start in on other buildings. It was going to be our project. Something for him to do when he retired."

Instead, he'd been killed in the line of duty.

Ellis cleared his throat. "I didn't feel much like going out there in the year or so after." 

I remembered. "You left town there for a while, didn't you?"

He nodded. "Now I'm back. I'm investing in the place again. I'm taking it building by building. Eventually, it'll have festivals and events and a whole line of beers aged in reclaimed whiskey barrels."

"Well that sounds really nice," I said. We didn't have many modern hangouts like that around town, and it would be a great place for people to gather.

"Only I've run into a problem," he said, apparently not in the mood for pleasantries. "Vandals destroyed the walk-in freezer. After that, I put in video surveillance." He gave me a hard look. "Two nights ago, the serving line was destroyed. Literally taken apart and smashed."

"That's terrible," I whispered, disturbed for him and also by the hard way he looked at me. He made it so that I almost felt like confessing, even though I was quite sure I wasn't guilty.

He braced his hands on the kitchen counter next to me. "Nobody did it. Surveillance shows it coming apart, but no human caused the damage."

It took me a moment to grasp his meaning. I gasped when I did. "You have a vandal ghost."

His hands whitened where he pressed them against the counter. "I'll pay you to get rid of it, or them, or whatever it is doing this. And I want you to keep it between us."

No problem on the second request. As far as the first one…

I didn't know how far my abilities went, especially since I'd borrowed them from Frankie. Besides, I wasn't a ghost hunter. I'd lucked out with Josephine. My limbs felt light and my mind raced. "How much are you willing to spend?"

He huffed out a laugh. "How much is the going rate for ghost extermination?"

"More like re-location," I said, as if I knew what I was talking about. Actually, I did in a way. I wasn't going to hurt a spirit merely because it caused a few problems. I was sure we could come to a reasonable agreement that suited Ellis's needs. I mean, look at poor Jilted Josephine. We'd had a lovely conversation once she'd come down out of her noose. 

"What are you thinking?" Ellis asked, "Will you do it?"

I blew out a breath. "I don't know."

"Look," he said, "I don't know who else to call. I mean if it's not you, it may have to be the Psychic Friends Network or something."

"That's not funny," I told him. I wasn't a freak, or a swindler. But I was a girl in a bind. I didn't know how I could turn this down, not with my house on the line. "If I do this, it'll cost you." 

"Name your price," he said flatly. 

I was going to ask him for what I needed. What did I have to lose? "I want twenty thousand dollars," I said in a rush.

He didn't even think about it. "Done," he said. 

I about fell over.

"Don't even think about asking for more," he warned, "I know what you owe my brother. I figured you'd ask as much."

"I'm not a gold digging manipulator, no matter what the rumor mongers say," I gritted. "And by rights I shouldn't owe your brother anything. He's not the victim here."

"I was at the reception, honey." Ellis smirked.

After he'd forced me to stand him up at the altar, Beau called and invited me to our reception. The whole town was there, he said, enjoying our five-course sit-down dinner. Dancing to the ten-piece band his mother had insisted we hire. Consoling him. Assuring him he was better off. 

He sent me photos of the cake. 

I snapped.

That he would play the victim, that he would humiliate me like that after what he'd done…well, maybe I should claim temporary insanity—or maybe it was the most sane thing I'd done in my life—but I drove straight to the Hamilton Hotel, marched right into my almost-reception, and plastered Beau's face straight into our almost-wedding cake. In front of his family, God, and about two-hundred of Sugarland's most admired citizens.

Ellis's mouth twisted into a wry grin. "The best part was when you tried to run away and knocked over the gift table instead."

"I did
not
run," I said hotly. "There was frosting on the floor, and I slipped." 

"Do you want to review the tape? It's all recorded," Ellis reminded me slyly. "My mom tried to upload it onto YouTube. You're lucky she can barely turn the computer on."

I wouldn't put it past her to take lessons. She'd love to humiliate me. Again. 

"Your mother hired four videographers. Flew them in from Atlanta. How insane is that?"

He rested his hands on the counter behind him. "I didn't hear you complaining."

"That's because she wouldn't let me get a word in edgewise. She assured me she'd pay for the whole crazy show if I let her have her way. And I'm about to lose my house because I believed her."

His brows shot up. "So now you're blaming my mother?"

Yes. I was. "She's the one who stuck me with the bill."

"Because you ran out on the groom."

"Because he cheated on me. With three different women. He even admitted it." I left out the part about him attacking Melody. No reason to bring her into this.

The thunder drained from him. "What? Jesus."

I crossed my arms over my chest, clutching my elbows. "So now you know."

He still didn't look one hundred percent convinced. "If this is true, you need to defend yourself."

"Against your mother?" I asked. Mrs. Leland Herworth Wydell III would relish any excuse to go after me, and she had the money and the power to do it. 

He knew how she was. I could tell by the way his jaw tightened and released. "I don't know what to say."

I didn't either. I hadn't exactly planned this. "Let's not say anything," I told him. I didn't want his pity or his sympathy. It surprised me enough to see a crack in the Wydell family armor. "I'll try to help you with your problem, and then we can go back to hating each other."

"You
will
help me," he corrected, both of us glad to be on more familiar terms. "There's no trying. It has to be done." 

"Let's leave off the pep talk, officer perfect."

He took a slow breath as he steered us onto more solid ground. "That kitchen equipment cost me more than you're asking. You clear out my vandal ghosts, every damned one of them, and you've earned the twenty grand."

"All right, then." This was a business arrangement, pure and simple. 

He pulled a set of folded papers out of his back pocket. "I took the liberty of drawing up an agreement."

Before he'd asked. 

"Confident much?" I murmured, as he spread it out on my counter. But I signed it. So did he.

I just hoped I could pull it off. I hadn't asked for Frankie's help yet. Even if I got it, I didn't know what we were up against. 

If I failed, which I very well might, Ellis would most likely go back to thinking I was some sort of a con artist. And his family would love exploiting the tale of Verity Long, failed ghost buster. 

Either way, I'd have to take another harrowing trip into a haunted building.

Don't think about that part.

"Meet me at the Wilson's Creek property tonight at eight," Ellis said, folding the agreement and sliding it back into his pocket. 

"I'll be there," I said, all business.

I felt a part of him give a little as I escorted him out. Or perhaps that was wishful thinking. "Don't tell a soul," he warned.

"Of course not," I said.

Well, just the one.

Chapter Nine

As soon as I saw Ellis's black Jeep bounce down the road away from my house, I sprang into action. 

"Frankie!" I called, banging out to the back porch. The white-painted swing rocked the gangster's urn lightly in the breeze. "Frankie, come out here."

He didn't respond. The jerk. Now was not the time for him to sulk. 

I waited one second. Two. The morning air was deceptively balmy for fall. Honey bees buzzed over the hydrangeas near the back rail.