Page 35 of Ghost of a Chance
“Let me see.Can you hold Chewie’s lead?I think I have a video of us from before he died.”
She took the dog’s lead from him and bent down to pet Chewie, letting the dog nuzzle closer to her as she did so.Jasper was a lot like his dog: big and comforting.
“Here it is.But it’s just a voice note from him.”
She stood up and leaned over his arm as he hit play.
“Don’t forget I’m going to the lab tonight.If you get drunk Uber home.Later.”
Not the voice that she’d heard during the séance.Not even close.This one was lighter and there wasn’t a tone of warning.But then, his attitude might have changed after he died.
“When was that from?”
“The night he died,” Jasper said roughly.His voice was choked with emotion.
She didn’t have to be Eva Clare to figure out that Jasper was trying to keep from crying.The way he’d laid out the facts.
“Do you miss him?”
“I do.Usually…well, he’s so irritating that I have that as a shield to keep from admitting it to myself.”
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“Thanks.”
“I thought you said he died at your place.”
“Oops, I forgot about the lab.Sorry, guess I blocked it out.I just associated him with being at our place.”
“What lab?”
“The physics lab on campus,” he said.
Hearing he’d blocked out where his roommate had been the night he died made her want to dig deeper into the fight he’d mentioned they had.
Since the séance was a bust and so far Kirsty hadn’t felt anything supernatural around the book, she was going back to plan A which was to investigate this issue like it was a mystery.“Let’s go there and see if we can find out what he was working on when he died.”
“I’ll check and see when the lab is open as soon as we get back,” he said.As sunny as Jasper usually was, he sounded resigned.Maybe because of the toll this was taking on him.
Or maybe because there was more to the fight he had with Paul that fateful night.
“Anxious to get this over with?”she asked as they started walking back.She’d finished the last of her rum and Coke, as had Jasper.The alcohol left a light buzz behind.
“More than you know.It’s not like I didn’t love Paul, but it’s time for him to move on.I feel like I’m stuck in some sort of stasis.”
“Like when Han was in carbonite at the end ofEmpire Strikes Back?We’ll figure this out,” she promised.
She wasn’t one to let go of something once she started it.One way or another she was going to figure out why Paul was trapped in a textbook and help Jasper move on.The possibility that it was Jasper’s guilt and unresolved emotions around his roommate’s death still felt the most plausible.Even with tonight’s oddities.
“Except I’m walking around and talking… I feel more like a hologram.Here but not really.”But they were back at the house and Gia was outside smoking weed, waving them over to her.
Jasper let Chewie into the house so the dog could get water and then head upstairs to his bed in Jasper’s room.
Kirsty was a little jealous.
“Do you think Dan captured any paranormal activity?”Jasper’s deep timbre brought her back to reality.
“He texted earlier that the curtains moved at one point, so I think that’s where the cool feeling came from,” Gia mentioned.
