Page 19 of The Accidental Ghost

Taking a step back, she hiked her red jacket higher on her shoulders, pointing to Wanda and Marty. “How do you two know Raphaela?”

“She taught our children, too, of course. We were all, at one time anyway, part of the PTA. Now we’re friends,” Wanda offered quite simply, her smile bright and welcoming. Marty wiggled her fingers at Hazel and gave her a warm smile.

Hazel’s shoulders relaxed. She blew out a breath. “Ah.” Then fat tears filled her eyes, forcing her to push her glasses up to swipe at them. “I’m sorry. I’m just jumpy.”

“And as well you should be. Your friend was killed.” Wanda was the first to reach out to her, with Marty quickly coming up on the other side of Hazel. “But how did you get in here? Didn’t the police secure the store? Are you a family member?”

Hazel let her chin fall to her chest, her head full of blonde curls bouncing, her hands flapping at her sides. “I have a key. Ralph was my…my best friend, and when she opened the store, she gave me my own…key,” she sobbed, shuddering breaths escaping her throat. “I can’t believe she’s gone! I was just here a couple of weeks ago, helping her set up the store. Look at this mess and now…now…”

She began to cry in earnest, making Shamus’s chest go tight and uncomfortable.

The grief was the hardest part of this job, but he’d learned to compartmentalize in favor of helping a lost entity find their way.

Ralph stirred behind him, a soft breath escaping her lips. Only he could hear and see her for the moment. It had to be a special kind of hell for her—for any ghost—to watch the people they loved suffer with the loss.

If how she’d described her friendship with Hazel on the way over from Nina’s was any indication, this had to be pure torture. They’d been exceptionally close.

Wanda wrapped Hazel in her embrace. “I’m so sorry for your loss. I’m Wanda Jefferson, and this is Marty Flaherty. What’s your last name, Hazel?”

She gulped, resting against Wanda as though she was exhausted. “Ronkowski. Hazel Ronkowski. Ralph and I…we’ve been best friends since college. She was such a kind soul, with an amazing heart. This…” She spread her arms wide. “It’s all so random. Who would do this to her? Who would shoot her? Why?”

Wanda sighed, patting her arm. “Can anyone explain something so senseless? Do you know if the police have any leads about what happened?”

She shook her head, her misery clear. “They won’t tell me anything because I’m not a relative, but Ralph didn’t have any living relatives. We were all the other had. That and her students, who she adored…who she devoted her life to.”

Marty rubbed Hazel’s arm, giving her a gentle smile. “We can see how loved she was by all the flowers and cards outside.” Then she paused, as though she remembered she was supposed to have been a parent of a student. “I mean, who wouldn’t love Ms. Tucci? We all did.”

“I’m sorry, Ms. Ronkowski,” Shamus interjected. “It doesn’t sound like you’ve heard anything we didn’t.”

Hazel straightened, looking around the store, clearly wrinkling her nose at the mess. “All I know is what was released in the news. They claim she was murdered and they have no suspects yet. But it looks like she put up a helluva fight, doesn’t it?”

“It sure does,” Marty murmured with a wince.

“So what brought you here? And at night, no less?” Shamus wondered.

Pressing her fingers to her temples, she began to pick her way through the knocked-over table, heading toward the back door they’d come in.

“I don’t know why I came, really. The police contacted me when it happened, because I was the first contact in her phone, but when they found out I wasn’t a relative, and after they grilled me, I didn’t hear anything more. I live in Connecticut, but I couldn’t stand being so…far from her.” She sighed in resignation. “I guess I thought I might see something the stupid police didn’t. Or maybe…maybe I just wanted to be close to her one last time. She was so excited about opening the store, and now…” Hazel’s shoulders began to shake again, her tears falling to the old barnwood floor. “Damn,” she whispered.

It was then that Ralph slipped behind her friend, wrapping her arms around her, pressing her face into her back. “Oh, Hazel…I don’t know what I’ll do without you. I love you so much. I’m sorry you’re going through this.”

Hazel almost appeared to sense Ralph’s presence. She stopped short, pressing her hand to her heart and closing her eyes as though to savor the moment.

Shamus swallowed hard as he watched Ralph comfort her friend, emanating a gentle empathy he felt in his core.

God, she was beautiful and sweet, and far braver than she realized.

And he had to knock that shit off. It was one thing to admire an entity, quite another to find her attractive to the point of distraction.

This had never happened to him before. He’d dealt with hundreds of ghosts, and exactly zero had affected him like Ralph. And trust, he’d met plenty of beautiful entities in his time.

This one should be no different…but from the moment he’d seen her gorgeous almond-shaped blue eyes with their thick fringe of lashes, her soft dark hair falling to her waist in waves, her lightly pink-glossed lips…he’d been struck by her beauty. Captivated by her graceful limbs and timid vulnerability.

So captivated, he hadn’t even noticed the tear in her sweater where she’d been shot.

That wasn’t like him at all. He didn’t solve crimes, but it helped to know the nature of a ghost’s death in order to discover where they needed to be, and he’d completely missed her injury in favor of her looks.

He really had to figure out where Ralph belonged before he did something stupid, something he wouldn’t be able to take back.

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