‘Have you found anything yet?’ Tessa asked, shoving her face into mine as soon as I reached the outside of college. I hadn’t slept much and the caffeine hadn’t kicked in yet, so I really wasn’t in the mood to deal with her.
Josh was a few feet away, talking to some of his friends from art class. He’d been hanging out with them more since Tessa’s death, I supposed because they were detached from Tessa and me so therefore devoid of negative associations for him.
I sipped my coffee, continuing down the corridor and ignoring Tessa.
She followed me, trying to get in my face again. I dodged her a couple of times so that I didn’t hit her. ‘Hello? Can you hear me?’
Rolling my eyes, I put an earbud in and tucked my hair behind my ear. ‘Contrary to popular belief, I’m not a private detective. I am, in fact, just a student.’
She sneered. ‘No one else here can see me. Something about you is different.’
‘Doesn’t make me a private investigator. Or obligated to help you. Let’s also not forget that I’m not getting paid to do this crap.’
‘I need to find who murdered me!’
‘And I’m working on it.’ Sort of. ‘But it’s not that simple because once we’ve found them, we need—’ Someone pushed past me, causing me to stumble in Tessa’s direction. Luckily, she jumped back on instinct so I didn’t fall into her.
I turned around, but the offender was scurrying off, totally oblivious to the problems they’d almost caused me. Git. ‘I’m fine, thanks for asking,’ I said, half to the offender and half to Tessa.
Straightening myself up, I carried on walking to my next lesson. ‘I get that you’re impatient, but I have a lot going on right now. So either you back off, or I’m not going to help. Understood?’
Tessa lowered her head.
‘Good.’
*
When I got home, Mum was asleep on the sofa with Tilly. I crept past them into the kitchen. Ben was in there, making dinner.
‘Hey,’ I said. ‘Not that I’m not pleased to see you, but shouldn’t you be at work?’
He gestured for me to come closer, lowering his voice so that he didn’t wake Mum and Tilly. ‘Your mum found another victim earlier.’
‘What?’
Ben nodded. ‘She’s pretty shaken up.’
Of course she was. She found a dead body! Who wouldn’t be shaken up by that?
‘And she thinks a ghost did it,’ he added.
‘What? But how? I thought only necromancers could touch ghosts.’
‘It’s complicated.’ Ben stirred whatever was sizzling on the stove, then gestured to the breakfast bar. We both sat down. ‘For the most part, yes, you’re right. But as I’m sure you’ve seen or read about in some hauntings, there are times when ghosts can interact with objects and even people. It takes a lot of power. Generally, only poltergeists can touch people because anger is one of the strongest emotions. To sustain the amount of power required to kill and dismember a victim, it requires more than either of us have ever encountered before.’
‘What about when Dad was killed?’ I didn’t know the full story, but I knew it had been at the hands of a poltergeist.
Well, now I did, anyway. Mum had originally told me he’d died in a car accident. I’d only recently found out the truth – because of Dominic – but I was over that now. Mostly.
‘From what I know, it was a flash of power that flung your dad across the room. This is different. Long, drawn out, calculated. Cold.’
‘So like a ghost super charged by how angry they are?’
‘Basically.’
I picked up a blue fabric stress ball from the kitchen table and squished it in my hands. What could I say? What could I even think? Should I wake Mum up to check on her, or let her sleep?
‘Could it be something else? Something that isn’t a ghost?’
Ben tapped the side of the unit beside him. ‘It seems unlikely. Gwendoline managed to get access to the victims’ autopsies and their causes of death sound too much like they’d been done by a human. And their dismembered limbs are done with almost surgical precision.’
I shuddered, reluctant to hear the answer to my next question. But I needed to know: ‘Does this mean we have a serial-killing ghost on our hands?’
‘We believe so, yes.’
‘Frazzle.’
‘We also think the next step should be to speak to one of the victims,’ said Ben.
I looked up and met his eye. ‘So we’ll start with the latest victim, right? Their memories will be freshest.’
‘Actually, I think the best person to speak to first might be Tessa.’
I groaned. ‘Why?’ Anyone but her. Anyone.
‘As far as we know, she’s the only victim who’s stayed behind. She’s closer, and she’s been asking for your help solving her murder. Personal issues aside, she’s the most logical option.’
‘I know you’re right, but I’d just like it to be known I really hate this idea.’