Page 44 of Chasing Your Ghost

“The Dressmaker,” Olivia replied, her face still red. “You’ve never seen it?”

Riley shook her head.

“It’s my favorite movie. It’s so sad, and it makes me cry every time, but the end is pure brilliance. Kate Winslet’s character gets revenge on everyone who wronged her, and it’s epically savage. Think complete carnage and total lack of mercy or forgiveness. I’m pretty sure she’s my spirit animal.”

Riley raised her eyebrows in surprise, both at Olivia’s chattiness and the words themselves. “Is that what you like about it so much? That she gets revenge?”

Olivia nodded, her smile almost scary. “Hell, yes. I hate stories that end with the bad guys being forgiven. It’s so disappointing. Why should bad people get away with doing terrible things? It’s bullshit.”

“Doesn’t really align with Christian values,” Riley noted with a chuckle.

Her half-sister rolled her eyes. “Forgiveness might be the right thing to do, but I prefer cold-hard justice in movies. It’s much more satisfying.”

Riley would have gone in for a high-five if she hadn’t thought it would be super awkward. Instead, she said, “I get the feeling you’d love John Wick.”

Olivia laughed. “Noah and I watched it a few months back. He loved it because it had guns and explosions, but I was so there for the revenge plot. If someone broke into my house and killed my puppy, I would also want to hunt them down. People like that don’t deserve to live.”

Riley’s eyes widened. “I feel like I better be careful around you.”

“Just don’t put any spinach in that smoothie, and we won’t have a problem.”

Easy enough. “Got it.”

Riley made her way to the kitchen with happiness buzzing in her veins. Who knew offering Olivia a simple smoothie would be the key to success?

After making the spinach-free smoothies, she dropped off one with her half-sister, wishing she could have stayed and watched the rest of the movie with her but knowing she needed to get back to Asher. It had been over a week since he’d reappeared in her bedroom, but they had yet to find anything useful, and the books she’d ordered hadn’t arrived yet because there’d been some delay with one of them.

The two bikinis she’d ordered from Amazon—one white one and one mint green one—had been delivered, but their arrival had only made Riley feel guilty for using Hugh’s card for a frivolous expense. She also hadn’t had the time to use them because she couldn’t in good conscious chill by the pool when she could be spending the time doing more research.

Suffice it to say, things weren’t going very well, and Riley could tell it was putting strain on Asher. He tried to hide it and put on a brave face, but it was clear that the lack of answers was chipping away at his morale.

He’d been hopeless and scared when Riley had first met him, and the longer they went without finding anything, the more he was starting to resemble that broken man.

That defeated flatness was making its appearance again in Asher’s eyes after two hours of them combing through garbage articles, disgustingly inaccurate research papers—if they could even be called that—and websites that were clearly run by amateur ghost hunters.

“I wish my dad was here,” she said as she closed her laptop and shoved it away as though it had personally offended her. “He would know what to do.”

“Do you think this is just a waste of time?” Asher asked from where he was sitting on the floor with his back against the wall. His tired eyes were fixed on his clasped hands.

“No,” she replied honestly. “Helping you could never be a waste of time,” she added, feeling as though she were revealing far too much.

Asher’s eyes lifted to rest on her. Instead of the relief or happiness she’d hoped her words would inspire, he looked even more dispirited.

Riley reached for her laptop. “Monopoly, chess, or Chinese checkers?”

“What?”

“I have all three installed on my laptop. Which one would you prefer to play?” She’d only ever played against her dad, and Asher would have to instruct her on how to move his pieces or what buttons to press, but Riley didn’t see why it couldn’t work.

Asher’s expression said he didn’t share the same feeling. “Are you forgetting I’m a ghost?”

“A thinking, talking ghost if I recall,” she pointed out. “Pick one.” Her dad would have told her she was treading on dangerous and unstable ground, that she was getting too friendly with someone with no future, but she couldn’t bring herself to care. She needed to cast the shadows out of Asher’s eyes. That was all that mattered.

“Uh, I don’t know.” He shrugged and stood up, moving to sit on the bed next to her. “Monopoly, I guess.”

Riley grinned and opened the game. “You’re going down.”

Famous last words, it turned out, because less than an hour later, Riley had been decidedly and mercilessly defeated.

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