Page 74 of Chasing Your Ghost

Ella nodded in agreement. “Did something happen with Asher’s case? Did the police find something?”

“Like you care,” Noah muttered under his breath.

Ella flinched, and Riley sent her stepbrother a warning glare. “I think you guys should sit down,” she told Ella and Chris.

They didn’t look happy about it, probably assuming this meant whatever she and Noah had to say was bad news, but they did as she’d suggested. Ella sat down on one end of the gray couch, and Chris took the other side, leaving a large gap between them that seemed very purposeful.

Riley licked her lips and wrung her hands as she looked between them. Telling people you could see dead people was just about the most daunting thing she could think of doing. It didn’t even matter that Noah had taken the information pretty well. He had come to her with suspicions. It was a totally different scenario.

“Well?” Chris prodded.

“I, uh…I’m not really sure how to say this.” She looked to Noah for help, but his encouraging nod did little to bolster her confidence. “This is going to sound crazy, but I need you to bear with me, okay?”

Ella and Chris exchanged a confused glance, their shared bewilderment finally giving them some common ground.

“I—” Riley’s throat tightened around the rest of her words, preventing them from escaping. She clutched her trembling hands together. “I’m a medium. I can see ghosts.” The words came out of her in a garbled rush, but she could immediately tell that they’d heard her.

Ella’s forehead creased with a frown, her eyes narrowing, but Chris’s reaction was far more extreme. He began laughing, the sound cutting through the room in a way that made Riley’s muscles tense.

“Hilarious,” he said once his laughter had died. “You guys really had me worried for a second there.”

“It’s not a joke,” Noah told him, his tone gentle now that his words weren’t directed at Ella.

Chris looked between Riley and her stepbrother, his grin slipping when their serious expressions didn’t waver. “Seriously, you need to stop messing around,” he said. “Our friend is missing, and you two are joking about death.”

“Do you think I’d go along with a joke like that?” Noah asked him.

Chris looked at his friend, not so much as blinking as he struggled to put together the unbelievable thing Riley had told him with what he knew about Noah. “This isn’t funny,” he snapped.

“I know it’s not,” Noah retorted. “It’s not funny because it’s not a joke.”

Riley shook her head sadly. “I told you this was a terrible idea.”

“Let’s say what you’re telling us is true,” Ella interjected. “What does it have to do with Asher?”

Riley blinked at the other woman, surprised at her even tone. She had expected a similar reaction from both of them—a reaction like the one Chris was having—but Ella looked more interested than disturbed.

“I think she’s trying to tell us that Asher is dead, and she can see his ghost,” Chris bit out.

“I’m trying to say I’ve seen Asher’s spirit,” Riley corrected. To everyone else, the change wouldn’t mean anything, but to her, it meant everything.

“Prove it,” Chris challenged, his tone heavily implying that he didn’t think she could.

So, Riley told them about the first time she’d seen him. She told them what Asher had told her about the night he disappeared. She told them about how he’d been dragged away before she could find out more and about how he’d returned a few days later.

She told them everything, including that he’d told her he’d wanted to study psychology, taking after his dad, and that Ella was majoring in English and liked reading Jane Austen and Emily Bront?. Chris had wanted proof, and details like those were the only evidence she could provide.

“You’re crazy,” Chris said once she’d finished recounting the events of the previous night and how Asher had been able to touch her, going against everything she knew about ghosts. He pointed at Noah. “And you’re insane if you believe her.”

“I didn’t tell her about Asher wanting to be a psychologist,” Noah argued. “I didn’t tell her anything about Asher except that he was missing. How do you explain how she knows so much?”

“Anyone could find that information if they looked hard enough,” Chris retorted. “Hell, she could have probably found it all on Asher’s Instagram page.”

“I’ve never even seen his Instagram page,” Riley informed him with a roll of her eyes.

“Right,” he replied disbelievingly. “Here’s a question then: is Asher here right now? Why don’t you ask him to tell you something only he and I would know about.” He had every right not to believe Riley, but the derision and scorn in his tone stung nonetheless.

Riley shifted on her feet, wishing she could do what he’d asked in the hope that he might come around. But Asher wasn’t there, and the truth of that hurt her more than it should have. She’d grown far too attached in the little time she’d known him.

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