Page 44 of TBR: Dead But Well Read

Lochlan laughed and leaned forward to squeeze the woman’s hand.

My stomach twisted in knots, and my mind spun as I tried to come up with any reason that this wasn’t what it looked like—a date.

I watched as the couple continued to laugh and chat, my heart aching more with each excruciating minute that passed. Lochlan grabbed a gift bag from beside his seat and held it out to her.

In response, the woman leaped from her seat and threw her arms around his neck. When his arms tightened around her, I couldn’t watch anymore and dropped down into my seat.

It was a good thing I was a ghost who didn’t eat, because I’d have thrown up all over the library’s polished floor.

How could Lochlan have done the things he’d done to my body, and claim he was mine, and then go on a date not even two days later? He didn’t even try to be sneaky about it, and had picked a cafe across from where I lived. It was unnecessarily cruel.

Had Rhodes and Evander lied as well? Were all four men just telling me what I wanted to hear?

Maybe romance was just as dead as me.

Viciously wiping at the wet streaks running down my face, I stood. It seemed like the best thing I could do was to figure out what was going on with the ghosts. The sooner that whole business was finished, the collectors would leave and hopefullythe reapers would go back to their regularly scheduled programs as well.

No more men. No more heartache. No more distractions.

Soft fur brushed my ankle, and I glanced down to find Wasabi looking up at me as though waiting for orders.

I knew exactly what I needed to do first. “Wasabi, I’m going back to the scene of the crime. Zacharias was willing to kill because we got too close to whatever he was working on. Are you coming along?”

With a squeak, he took off toward the storeroom, his chubby backside jiggling with each step. At least there was one being I could count on to always have my back.

To my dismay,the tunnels were just as creepy the second time around.

“If I never have to come down here again, it will be too soon,” I whispered to my pint-sized companion.

It was weird, but I felt safer having him at my side, even though he was no match for anything that might be lurking in the shadows. Except for maybe the spiders. A shiver trailed down my spine.

It didn’t matter that I was a ghost, I was also a scaredy-cat. Nowhere in the rules did it say I had to be one or the other.

The trip to the chamber where we’d been attacked seemed to take twice as long as it had the first time.

“Maybe because you were more focused on the guys being in danger?” I mumbled, eyeing a particularly menacing-looking shadow.

By the time I pushed open the door to the room, I was floating two feet off the ground, and jumping at every misshapen stone and gust of wind. There seemed to be an almost cruel irony to the fact that the girl who’d been terrified of scary movies had been cursed to live forever as one of the very things that went bump in the night.

In my humble opinion, Fate was a douche who enjoyed screwing with other people’s lives. If I ever had the chance to meet him, I was going to tell him exactly what I thought, and then I would tell him to stick his meddling dick where the sun didn’t shine.

“Ahhhhh!” I screamed as the door closed behind me with a loud creak.

Wasabi tilted his head, eyeing me as though making sure I hadn’t completely lost it.

“I’m fine,” I mumbled. “Help me look for clues.”

The room wasn’t large, probably less than twenty feet long and ten feet wide. Other than a decrepit-looking desk that sat against the far wall, the chamber was empty.

If this was some kind of secret villain’s lair, it sucked hellhound balls. I’d expected something more grand. So why would Zacharias defend it with such violence?

Moving to the nearest wall, I ran my fingers along it as I walked. Inch-by-inch, I looked for a loose stone or hidden lever, but the walls were as boring as the room.

“What am I missing?” I asked the chubby rodent that followed my every step.

Moving to the desk, I bent and studied the worn wooden desktop. A thick layer of dust covered the wood, except for two perfect rectangles. I’d recognize the sexy shape of a book anywhere.

Well, now I knew he’d had books in here, but not what those books were about, which would have been far more helpful inmy covert mission. I slid open the top drawer of the desk, unsurprised to find it empty. The second and third drawers were harder to open, but were equally barren.

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