Page 7 of Chasing Your Ghost

He crouched in front of her and smiled sadly, his form already becoming less opaque. He had no more unfinished business, and whatever force had allowed him to stay for as long as he had wouldn’t let him stay any longer. “It’s time to say goodbye, Riley.”

She sniffed, not bothering to wipe away the fresh tears that fell from her eyes. “I’m going to miss you so much.”

“Not as much as I’ll miss you.”

“You’re the best dad anyone could ask for.”

His smile widened. “You made it easy.” He was nearly transparent now, and Riley knew she had only seconds left.

Her throat ached with the sobs she was holding in. “I love you, Dad.”

“I love you too, Riley,” he replied when she could barely see him anymore.

Then she blinked, and he was gone, taking her entire world with him. Riley lifted her palm to cover her mouth and released the sobs she’d been fighting so hard to contain. They tore her burning throat as they escaped, but it was the ache in her chest that became too painful for her to do anything but lie down on the couch and cry.

It was the worst pain she’d ever felt, and she didn’t think she’d ever be able to recover from it.

???

Riley thought alcohol was supposed to make people happy, but she didn’t feel very happy. In fact, she was still sobbing as she took another sip from her dad’s bottle of whiskey, the liquid burning as it went down her throat. She’d dug it out of the box of things she’d intended on throwing out the next day, hoping it would numb some of the pain at the very least.

But it turned out that mixing alcohol and grief wasn’t a good idea because now she wasn’t only crying so hard her throat was raw. She was also running to the bathroom to throw up the pizza she’d ordered for dinner. It was Riley’s first experience with alcohol, aside from the small sip of champagne her father had given her on New Year’s Eve at the beginning of the year, and Riley thought it might be her last as she vomited into the toilet.

It had been a stupid idea—the worst idea in the world. But Riley had just wanted to forget for a second. She’d wanted to forget that her dad was gone, truly gone, and that she’d never see him again. She wanted to forget that tomorrow she’d be moving to Virginia to live with the woman who’d left her. And, God, she wanted to forget the ghost she’d found wandering around Central Park that morning.

The young girl had been outside the zoo, and even without the gray hue that distinguished ghosts from the living, Riley wouldn’t have missed her. The girl had been wearing the Minnie Mouse pajamas she’d died in, a pink teddy bear clutched tightly to her chest. She’d been screaming for her mom and dad, stopping only when Riley’s dad had knelt in front of her.

After they’d helped her move on, Riley had gone home and searched online for mentions of a girl fitting her description. It hadn’t been difficult to find out who the girl was and what had happened to her. As soon as Riley read the article, she wished she hadn’t looked. The girl hadn’t died of an illness as Riley had hoped. She’d been taken from her home a week earlier, and her body had been found in the park two days ago. She was only eight years old.

Riley dry heaved, an image of the girl’s scared brown eyes flashing across her mind. Most of the time, being a medium meant helping adults come to terms with leaving the people they loved behind. But sometimes, it also meant helping the ghosts of people who’d been killed, often in horrible, unforgivable ways, and sometimes those people were children. Those were the cases that made Riley hate her gift.

They were also the cases that had her dad pouring himself a glass of whiskey at the end of the day, but, leaning over the toilet, Riley wasn’t sure how the alcohol had helped him.

“Never again,” she mumbled as she flushed the toilet. She looked up at the ceiling, her head spinning as she swayed unsteadily. “If you’re watching, Dad, please don’t judge me.”

She washed her hands and brushed her teeth, neither helping her feel any less disgusting or pathetic, and then she poured the rest of the whiskey down the drain. She didn’t bother changing into pajamas, too weary to do anything but stumble back to the living room and collapse onto the couch.

“A few hours without you, and I’ve already become a complete mess,” she whispered to the ceiling before she closed her stinging eyes and fell asleep.

3

Someone was knocking on the door, and whoever it was had a place in hell reserved for them, Riley decided as she got off the couch. A sledgehammer was pounding against her skull, beating an unforgiving and brutal beat of punishment. It was her own fault, of course. She had nobody but herself to blame for the headache from hell and the rolling waves of nausea.

“I’m coming,” she shouted when the knocking persisted.

She checked the time on her phone and decided whoever was knocking probably didn’t deserve to burn in hell, considering it was ten thirty. Still, they’d woken her up, and that was decidedly uncool.

“Stupid landlord,” she mumbled, assuming the man was here to collect her keys before she moved out.

Only when she wrenched the door open, it wasn’t a middle-aged, balding man standing in front of her. It was her egg donor.

“Riley,” the blonde woman greeted her with a smile that screamed of desperation and hope.

“Edith,” Riley said, her eyes wide. “What are you doing here?”

This was not good. It was very, very much not good. Edith was still supposed to be in Virginia. She wasn’t supposed to arrive in New York until that afternoon. She also should have been wearing something more road-trip-friendly, her peach power suit and heels far more appropriate for a day at the office. Seriously, though, who wore heels when they knew they were going to drive across multiple state lines? It was unnatural.

Edith’s pale blue eyes, which Riley had luckily not inherited, took in the rumpled appearance of the child she’d given birth to and given up mere months later. Uncertainty flickered across her face, but Riley was sure she also saw disbelief in the woman’s gaze. Disbelief that she, someone so put-together, so wonderfully and brilliantly successful, so devoutly Christian, could have helped to create this creature standing before her.

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