Page 22 of A Midsummer Night's Ghost

“One of the guys I work with saw you and said there was a bit of anincident.”

I filled a mug with hot water and put it in the microwave. “I wouldn’t call it an incident. Just some woman thought Alyssa was looking at her boyfriend. Which she wasn’t, by the way. Because she’s married and he was gross.” Unkind of me, but true.

“Was that before or after you were asking about James Kwaitkowski?”

Dang it. “Who was the spy?” I asked, genuinely bewildered. No one had looked like a cop. “Not that I was doing anything that couldn’t be reported back to you, but it’s weird to feel like I’m being watched or something.”

“Nice deflection. No one was watching you. He saw you and told me because he was concerned.”

That explained the guy we thought was following us.

“James Kwaitkowski is the janitor at the senior center who died on Tuesday in the supply closet. I saw his ghost when I dropped Grandma off for play practice.”

“We had a bad rehearsal that day, too,” Grandma said, apropos of nothing. “Maggie couldn’t remember any of her lines. She’s no Titania.”

“I saw that he liked to hang out there, so I just wanted to see if any of his friends were there. Which they were. And his ex-wife who is currently his girlfriend. And the one guy had a tattoo on his forearm of a skull with the date of James’s death. Isn’t that odd?”

“Why didn’t you just tell me that? I could have gone with you.”

I carefully pulled the hot mug out of the microwave. “You would have gone with me? And not thought I was crazy?”

“Yes. I thought we had established this. I believe you see ghosts. I want you to be safe. I want to help you when you need help. That’s what being a partner means.”

See? Heart eyes. All day long. The man was perfect.

“Thank you. I’ll try to do better at sharing. But this happened out of your department.”

“But in county. We can still access some of the information.”

“Cool.” I dipped Grandma’s tea bag in the mug.

He nodded. “Cool.”

I nodded with him and repeated, “Cool.”

“Wow, another fun Friday night in the Marner-Burke house,” Ryan said, strolling into the kitchen.

“Where did you come from?” I asked.

“He was laying on your bed,” Grandma said. “I saw him when I was going down the hall.”

“You were laying on our bed?” I demanded, outraged.

Jake rubbed his chest like he had heartburn. “There was a dead person laying on our bed? Jesus.”

“It was Ryan,” Grandma told him.

“As if that makes it any better,” Jake muttered. He turned toward the living room, presumably in the general direction he thought Ryan was. “Stay out of my bedroom, Conroy. I’m not kidding. That’s too far, man.”

Ryan made a face. “I had a rough few days. I needed a nap.”

The fact that fatigue was a factor in the afterlife was very depressing to me.

“What have you been doing? I haven’t seen you since Tuesday. I have questions about this whole James thing.”

“So do I. This whole class A thing is driving me nuts.”

“What is a class A?”

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