Page 9 of Amber Gambler

Though he was the oldest, Josie and I treated him like the baby of the family.

“Darling?” He pushed upright, twisting to face me. “Now I’m wide awake.”

Figuring he was the more levelheaded of my siblings, and the one burdened with the knowledge Harrow had visited me bright and early this morning, I decided to come clean about what I was doing before he found out on his own. And then skipped off to tattle on me to Josie.

“Please don’t tell me you’re becoming one of those ghost whisperers who goes around solving crimes for the dead.”

“Um…”

“How cliché would that be?” He scoffed at the very idea. “Every movie and TV show goes that route.”

“Well…”

“Once you open that door, there’s no going back. Spirits would be lining up for blocks for a chance to tell you their sob stories. You’d never know another moment’s peace. You whole life would be…” He jerked his head toward me. “Mary, no. Tell me you didn’t. Please. You have more sense than that.”

“The guy’s granddaughter is missing.” I kept my chin angled away from him. “She has no family and?—”

“—she lives on the streets.” His skin blotched from rubbing his face. “That’s how this ghost hooked you.”

“Us Marys had each other. That’s how we survived. She has no one. Without my help, she won’t be so lucky.”

“Our survival had nothing to do with luck. You busted your ass—and risked your life every single day—to keep us fromstarving. We even had a roof over our heads. Most of the time. Maybe not during the warmer months, but always in winter.”

Impossible to tell from looking at him, but he must wear rose-colored glasses stacked ten pairs deep.

“It’s not like you guys were hand-fed grapes and fanned with palm fronds while I slaved in a salt mine.”

“Nothing Josie and I brought in compared to what you earned with your necromancy.”

“It’s not your fault I have a niche talent.”

Or that I had, more than once, traded spirits for their former banking credentials or safe combinations.

Any items I helped myself to, or cash I transferred to one of my shell accounts, had belonged to the spirits who promised me recompense prior to their deaths.However—this was the moral gray area—the assets had since been transferred to a beneficiary via inheritance.

I was a thief. Plain and simple. Nothing to be proud of.

That didn’t mean I wouldn’t do it over again for my family.

Matty picked at a grease stain on his thigh. “Promise you won’t get mad if I ask you something?”

“The fact you prefaced a question with a question almost guarantees I will, but don’t let that stop you.”

“Are you sure you didn’t take a case as an excuse to reach out to Harrow?”

“No.”I coasted into the shop’s parking lot. “I didn’t do it for him.”

“If you’re sure…” He gripped his door handle. “I just don’t want you to get hurt again.”

As I let myself out, a bolt of lightning struck the tree across the road with a deafeningcrack.

A cold sweat glazed my spine as I surveyed the destruction, the sudden thud of my heart deafening.

“Fuck.” Matty took the word right out of my mouth. “Did you see that?”

“I didn’t almost wet my pants for nothing, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“Call the fire department.” Matty ran past me. “I’ll grab the hose.”

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