“The experiment?”
“A very long, exceptionally harrowing story from my training days I’ll share at a later date. For now, don’t you find it incredible I’m able to communicate with you, someone with no powers, from the grave no less? It’s damn well fantastic.”
Yeah, yeah. It was a fantastic way to have the rug yanked out from under me. When I wasn’t under suspicion for Madam Z’s death anymore, I’d investigate further. Until then, no hope-dashing. If nothing else, his back story about an experiment was fascinating and deserved some attention.
“Your training days?” Gah. My endless curiosity always brought trouble.
I imagined Win waving his hands dismissively to pooh-pooh me. “Never mind that now. We have things we must accomplish. The first of which is finding you a place to live.”
Had he been listening in on my conversations? “How do you know I don’t have a place to live?”
“Hah. The afterlife is rich with chatter about you, Stevie. How do you think I found you in the first place? It’s taken me a month to get in touch with you as it is.”
That pang of longing for my old life struck me hard. So hard, I leaned back against the brick wall in the alley.
Clearly it showed.
“Chin up, Stevie. We have no time for self-pity today. We have shelter to find and a murderer to catch.”
“No. I have a long overdue lunch to eat and a motel to get back to.”
“I’ll buy you lunch if you’ll hear me out,” Win tempted with a voice low and deep.
“With what, your ghostly rupees?”
“Fine then. I can’t buy it right this moment, but rest assured, I’ll buy you all the lunch your witchless heart desires if you’ll just hear my story.”
This was crazy. But it wasn’t the craziest thing I’d ever done. It had to be my lower-than-low blood sugar that made me agree. I stood up straight and squared my shoulders. “Okay, tell me your story.”
“Not here.” He sounded offended.
“What’s wrong with here?”
“Simply everything,” he drawled. “Come with me and we’ll get your lunch. You can eat it while we discuss the matter at hand.”
I nodded my head, too hungry to argue, exiting the alleyway and heading toward the taco food truck. My stomach cheered my decision.
I stopped at the corner where Madam Zoltar’s store was located, glad to see the crowd had dispersed. There was official yellow police tape barring the door, and a man dressed in a long tan trench coat—a Burberry, if I was seeing right—and plastic on his shoes, ducked under the tape.
He looked pretty official, leading me to believe maybe they’d brought in some detectives. I wasn’t sure if I felt relieved or sadder than I had been before. I couldn’t stop thinking about Liza and her anguish. I hated that she thought I’d set out to comfort her to cover something as treacherous as murder.
But I forced that from my mind and inhaled a deep, relieved breath. Tacos, here I come.
I began to make a beeline toward the taco truck when my ghost grunted his disapproval. “Ick. Must you?” Winterbottom asked with plain distaste.
“Must I what?”
“Eat tacos?”
“Right?” Belfry chimed in. “I’m always telling her she has the taste buds of a twelve-year-old trucker.”
He made it sound like I was eating toxic waste straight from the hazardous barrel with a spork. “I promise, next lunch I’ll eat at the Dom Pérignon and Caviar Made with the Tears of a Dutch Virgin truck. But for now, tacos are all I can fit into my rapidly dwindling budget. Or didn’t the afterlife gossips tell you that where my savings account once resided now lives an old troll and a tumbleweed?”
“They didn’t. But they did tell me you had an incredibly delightful sense of humor. I’ll definitely give you cheeky.”
“Ooo. Talk dirty to me,” I joked, crossing the street.
“I beg your pardon?”
“Forget it. It’s a crass American joke form an even crasser American ex-witch. Now back off and let me get my tacos made from recycled lettuce and the maw of dandelion.”
“Is this my cue to let you have a moment to yourself?”
My head bounced up and down as I gave my eye of the tiger to the taco truck with its candy-striped awning and fun dancing tacos wearing sombreros hand painted on the side. “It’s your cue to let me wrestle with some mystery meat and extra cheese in peace.”
“Very well. Peace you shall have.”
The cool/warm encompassing me, a strange yet indefinable sensation I’d felt as I talked to Win, evaporated, meaning he’d gone back to the plane he was from to let me think.