Page 18 of Giving Up The Ghost
I’m never flippant about my life, darling.
Me
We need to talk.
I could practically see his brows arching at that comment.
Me: I have questions—people are dying and you might be able to help.
Heinrich: I’m not coming back.
Heinrich: It’s not safe for me there.
Me: I’m not asking. Just have some questions.
Me: If I send you some names, can you at least help put me in touch?
I could practically see his brows arching at that comment.
Me
I have questions—people are dying and you might be able to help.
Heinrich
I’m not coming back.
It’s not safe for me there.
Me
I’m not asking. Just have some questions.
If I send you some names, can you at least help put me in touch?
Three dots spent an eternity bouncing while Heinrich typed, deleted, and typed again. Finally, a chat bubble appeared.
Heinrich
Talk later—have an appt with a young man!
He sent a string of x’s and o’s and several emojis I chose to believe he picked randomly without knowledge of what they meant. “Heinrich knew about Landon Price,” I announced. “And you already know how.”
Ezra hummed thoughtfully as he parked in the church’s tiny carpark. “Well. We already knew he was dead.”
I scrolled back to Heinrich’s first message in the recent thread and read down the screen. “Landon was mad, blew out a light apparently, demanded Heinrichdo something to help him, then vanished before Heinrich could even say a word. That was that.”
“That was that,” Julian repeated. “What is my life these days…”
We crunched across the carpark towards the door with the discreet sign declaringChurch Wardenwith the office hours listed nearly beneath. As we neared, the door swung open and a tall woman with blazing red hair and a stack of hymnals in her arms came bustling out, attention firmly on where her heels were landing and not on us. Ezra made a disgusted sound and ducked sideways into the juniper bush that bracketed the door. The woman didn’t even notice us as she hurried towards her car, parked two over from us.
“What the hell was that?” Julian laughed. “Are you okay?”
“My cousin Bedelia,” he groused. “We’re… not on speaking terms.”
“I’m assuming you’re not the new gardener,” a rosy-cheeked man in his later middle years said dryly filling the doorway with his presence. “And I know you don’t have an appointment.”
Julian stepped forward, offering him his hand in greeting. “My name is Doctor Julian Weems, and I would love to ask you some questions about the history of the burials here, particularly those of the Fellowes family.”
