Page 13 of Jett in Jeopardy

Grier had been less than convinced. He’d said if I cleaned my room, I’d find the things that were missing. A flesh and blood personhadbroken into our house last month. Grier had surprised him, and when he backed away from the intruder, he’d forgotten the stairs were behind him, tumbled down and wound up with a broken arm and a concussion.

I guessed that if the intruder had broken into our house before, he could have been my so-called ghost. Though it seemed unlikely that an intruder would have deleted school assignments from my computer while they’d been stealing my phone.

I sighed. Yeah, it sounded ridiculous… even to me. No wonder no one believed me.

If I planned to get my shit together like I’d promised myself the night before, I could start with this room. It would, after all, be nice to see my floor again.

After grabbing a garbage bag from the kitchen, I started gathering up the old takeout bags and packaging, crumpled up paper and receipts, while tossing my laundry in a pile near the door.

A clean room would be a good thing, but it still wouldn’t bring me any closer to figuring out what I would do with my life once school finished, and let’s face it, that was the real goal of the getting-my-shit-together plan.

To say I’d been avoiding thinking about what I would do after graduation was an understatement. Any time the question rose its ugly head, I’d push it to the back of my mind, telling myself I would deal with it later. Now, as my second to last semester was winding down, later was almost here.

I hadn’t known what I wanted to do with my life when I’d been deciding where to go away to school, and I didn’t have any better idea now that I was only months away from getting my degree.

I could maybe stall and go for my master’s, but that felt like a waste of time. If I were going to continue my education, I should have a better idea of what I wanted to do and steer my education in that direction.

I tossed a bundle of shirts toward the laundry pile, and something solid fell out, hitting the floor with a thud. Frowning, I set down the garbage bag and crossed the room to get a look.

My cell phone, the one I’d been sure had been stolen months ago, sat on the floor, dark and silent.

“Shit.” I bent down and scooped it up. So Grier had been right. No ghosts, and when I’d cleaned my room, I found my phone. The battery was dead, so I plugged it into my laptop to charge.

I bought a new phone shortly after this one went missing. If it still worked, maybe I could trade it in and get a credit from my provider or sell it myself.

By the time I finished cleaning, my room was almost unrecognizable. Not only did I vacuum, I even took a damp cloth to the furniture, wiping away the thick, gray layer of dust that was admittedly kind of gross. I didn’t think the space had been this clean since I moved in. Hell, maybe not even then.

Before taking the garbage out, I went to my desk to check if my old phone worked. It had charged up enough while I’d been cleaning, so I pressed the button on the side to turn it on. The screen lit up.

Well, that was promising. Maybe I’d be able to recoup the money I spent when I had to get a new phone. I’d clear off all my personal information first, of course. Maybe a factory reset and take out the sim card.

I didn’t think there’d be much on here that I would need to save. Maybe some old photos. I opened the gallery to look, and everything inside me turned cold.

The three most recent photos taken back at the beginning of October were of me sleeping in my own bed. Who the hell would have taken these? Maybe Grier or Sawyer as a joke? If they had, they’d missed the mark. These were creepy.

A light knock on my door made me jump, almost dropping the phone.

“Come in,” I called out.

Grier opened the door, his eyes widening when he saw the state of my room. “Holy shit! What happened?”

“How are you home already? What time is it?”

“Almost seven. My shift’s done.” Grier came farther into the room and turned in a slow circle. “You’ve been busy.”

I’d been so wrapped up in what I’d been doing I barely noticed the past six hours flying by. “You were right, by the way. I found my old phone.”

Grier grinned. “So, not stolen by a ghost? Who could have guessed?”

I didn’t return his smile. The images of me sleeping in my bed, completely unaware that someone was standing over me taking my photo, filled me with cold dread.

I turned the phone so Grier could see the screen. “Did you take these?”

Grier’s grin fell away, and his gaze narrowed on the pictures as I scrolled through the three images so he could see all of them. “No, I didn’t take these. When are they from?”

“Beginning of October. What about Sawyer? Could he have taken them, maybe as a joke?”

“I doubt it,” Grier said, meeting my gaze. “These are creepy. Could someone you brought home have taken those?”

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