I glanced at him again, wondering how many shots he could take before getting intimately acquainted with the floor. Apparently, he wondered the same thing. He downed yet another shot, coughed up his left lung, then raised his hand for another.
Thankfully, the bartender cut him off with a warning shake of his head.
“Vause,” Jason said.
“Vigil,” I said back.
He sighed loudly enough to be heard over the din. “Eric.”
“Jason.” He would run out of names soon. Then where would we be?
“I’ll never understand how you do what you do.”
“I’m on vacation,” I lied. I wasn’t on vacation. I was done. Canada was calling my name, and I had every intention of answering. Right after I saw to the kid at the bar.
“It’s just…the stuff you said the other night when I called...”
I started drawing again, desperately trying to get the shading right. “I’m still on vacation.”
“Can you really see that shit?”
“Yeah, but I’m on vacation.” It would help if I knew what I was drawing. And if I wasn’t drawing it on a napkin.
“Ghosts and demons and hellhounds?”
I stopped and put all my frustration into a single accusatory glare. “When you called, I was about six bottles too many into a really rough night. I shouldn’t have said anything.”
“But seriously. Hellhounds?” He looked around to make sure no one was listening before continuing, his tone conspiracy-theory soft. “Like, they’re a real thing?”
“They’re really quite sweet once you get to know them.”
“And the grim reaper is real? ’Cause I’m not gonna lie, I haven’t been able to sleep since you told me.”
“Right? And you haven’t even met her.”
He reared back in his chair as if I’d told him the world was about to end. Or that he had a hair out of place. “Her?”
“She’s a peach. No, wait.” I squinted in thought, then amended my statement. “She’s like a deadly peach. Like a peach with a claymore inside.”
Jason chose that moment to get offended. “All this time, dude. All these years, and you never told me what was going on.”
I decided to give him something to actually be offended about. “You were busy getting married. And then divorced. And then re-married. And then divorced. And then—”
“I get it,” he said, his tone razor-wire sharp. “Fucker.”
The redhead glanced our way and smiled.
“Like I said, I have a friend—”
“About time.” I raised my chin in greeting.
“She’s actually my partner’s daughter.”
Skintight Jimi Hendrix tee, camouflage shorts that left little to the imagination, and army boots.
“She has a problem.”
I could definitely see myself standing at attention in front of her. “Is it that you’re her friend?”
“It’s…well, it’s in your line of work.”
“Did I mention I’m on vacation?”
“I’m actually a little surprised you haven’t spotted her yet.”
That jerked me out of my lecherous thoughts. “Her?”
Please be the redhead.
Please be the redhead.
Please be the redhead.
“Everyone else in the bar has.” He pointed to the area behind me.
I glanced over my shoulder, spotted a blonde sitting in the corner booth, then turned toward her slowly, my jaw going slack as recognition sent a shockwave rocketing through my body. “That’s her,” I said, disbelief softening my voice. “That’s the undermedicated gas pump lady.”
I turned back to see Jason wearing that same shit-eating grin. “Yeah, I thought you might have been talking about her.”
“You knew I was talking about your partner’s daughter?”
“Not at first,” he said, offended.
“Wait, you have a partner?”
“The blond hair and black Chevy single cab clued me in.”
“When did you get a partner?”
“She’s been through a lot.”
I gave up trying to distract him and decided to take a more proactive approach. “Does she always come unhinged that easily?”
He stared at me to make sure he had my attention, then said again, “She’s been through a lot.”
Fucking hell. I turned back to her. She sat in a corner booth bathed in sunlight, head down, nose buried in a book, impervious to the hustle and bustle around her. Men cast interested glances her way while their dates glared.
Betty set a cup of hot tea on her table, a tell-tale string and tag hanging over the side of the thick mug. She followed it with what looked like a pastry, as though the woman were sitting in a coffee shop and not a rowdy, testosterone-filled bar.
But it didn’t take long for me to glimpse a flaw in the picturesque scene or notice her shaking hands. Her chewed nails. She set the book down and picked up the tea, and I thought for a moment she might drop the mug.
“What’s going on?” I asked, hating myself for it. I was the last person on Earth who could help someone. Most of my attempts at heroism failed. Miserably. This would be no different. “And what does my particular set of skills,” I continued, managing to keep a straight face, “have to do with it?”
“If I were saying this to anyone else…” Jason began but paused, so I turned back to him. He tapped an irregular rhythm on the table—his nervous tic—before trying again. “She’s being haunted.”
I narrowed my eyes.
“Has been since she was a kid.”
“Are you punking me right now? Because I swear to God—”
He held up a hand to stop me. “I know how it sounds. But you, of all people, should understand.”
“I of all people?” I resisted the urge to grind my teeth to dust.
“Come on, man.” He collapsed against the back of his chair. “You know about this shit. You can see things others can’t.”
I released a long breath and stated a simple fact. “She’s not being haunted.”
“I didn’t think so at first either.”
“She’s not being haunted,” I reiterated.
“I’ve seen the evidence. There’s no other way to explain it.”
“She’s not being haunted,” I said yet again, dropping my voice to a dangerous level.
“Why?” he shouted, alarming everyone around us.
Betty looked over in concern.
He shook his head at her, but he also caught the blonde’s attention. She looked up from her book, a delicate line forming between her brows as she tried to figure out what was going on.
I turned my back to her and ducked my head, hoping to avoid her wrath. She was like a demon in sheep’s clothing. I scowled at Jason.
“Why?” Jason asked, softer this time.
“It doesn’t work like that.”
“What do you mean?”
I rubbed my eyes with one hand—it had been a long two days—and refocused on him, wrangling my patience and putting it to good use. It wasn’t Jason’s fault that he didn’t understand my fucked-up world. Few of the populace did. “I’m not saying people can’t be haunted. Departed are pretty much everywhere, and poltergeists are straight-up assholes, but the departed don’t generally fuck with the living. Most of them couldn’t even if they wanted to.” I didn’t mention the fact that poltergeists pretty much lived—metaphorically—to fuck with the living. Mostly, because the odds of her having an actual poltergeist were astronomical. When he frowned, trying to process my meaning, I explained further. “Whatever is going on with her, it’s most likely not supernatural.”