Page 5 of Hopelessly Teavoted
“Poor fellow was killed in a car crash. I managed to take these off the corpse; told his wife that they were a company gift and that they meant the world to me to remember him by.”
“That’s nice, at least,” Vickie offered. Her father was neversentimental, and who was she to question it? “I guess you can’t take all the wealth or fancy cuff links with you, huh, Dad?”
Maximillian shook his head, frowning at her informality. “He loved them because they were a gift from his mistress. Kyle loved few things, but she was one of them. She has these—”
Vickie held her hand up, cutting him off. This made more sense, but she was still unwilling to hear what the dead man’s mistress had.
“Go on, then,” Maximillian said. “We will speak more after you’re done. I need the passcode for his platinum clients.”
She rolled her shoulders back, ignoring the creeping wave of guilt over using her gift for profit. She had a vague understanding that they owed something to someone in exchange for her powers, but she didn’t know the details. Once she had turned twenty-one, they’d contacted her once or twice a year to deal with clients of the unalive sort. Best to get it over with and then convince them of what she’d come here for.
It wasn’t enough that the Starnbergers owned half the town. It wasn’t enough that they had both reached a pinnacle of success that could have kept them living like royalty for ten lifetimes over. No, they had to go and arrange for Vickie to talk to ghosts. The catch, of course, was that she could only do it with an object the deceased had loved with their whole heart. And spirits, like time, were fleeting. Gone forever once the objects they loved burst into flames.
Coming back here and asking her parents for the money was big enough to barter with them in the only trade they valued.
She closed her eyes and picked up the cuff links, hoping that the deceased had loved the objects enough.
From the way the gold grew hot in her hands—a flame springing up, but not burning her—she knew he had. Once objects heated, there was no stopping the fire.
Within seconds, the silver shimmer coalesced into a semitranslucent form, and a moment later, a short man in asharp-looking suit with a wispy, regrettable mustache stood in front of her.
“That truck came out of nowhere. I swear I only had a single bump, not enough to put me at fault.”
“Mr. George,” she said flatly. Realizing that she wasn’t any sort of authority, he heaved a breath of relief. Except nothing came out. He noticed, holding his hands up and startling.
“Mr. George, you’re dead, and we have five minutes here before you’re gone for good.”
“Shit,” said the specter, still staring at his hands and the pristine floor shining through them. “Is this Hell? It seems cold enough to be hell, but it smells good for an afterlife.”
Newly dead, then, if his corporeal senses were lingering. He’d lose those in a few days. She sighed. It had taken her a while to figure that one out. The gift didn’t come with instructions.
But unlike Kyle George, she was a quick study. For a person who presumably had not known about the existence of magic, he was taking this pretty well. Some ghosts, usually those more in touch with the occult in life, realized at once that they were dead. Others protested and had to be calmed down before they could be helpful. But he didn’t strike her as caring about anything enough to panic about his sudden state of unalive. In fact, it was hard to tell if men like him were actually ever human to begin with. She had a goal, though. If she wanted her parents’ support, she needed to get Kyle George’s password. Favors were the way to win their fleeting approval. Her chest ached with the emptiness of what she’d never had, but she pushed that aside to focus. She didn’t know the precise terms of the arrangement they had made for her to speak to the dead, but that didn’t stop them from insinuating that because they owed someonesomethingfor her powers, she owed them everything, in turn.
“My father would like you to tell him about the passcode for the platinum client files.”
The ghost smirked. “I bet you would, old boy,” he said,turning to her father, who was now glancing around the room, eyes falling on objects, but never on the spirit.
“He can’t see you,” she explained. Kyle was a bit dimmer than most ghosts. Usually, they picked up on the gist of what was happening, but this particular shade seemed impervious to logic. Kyle huffed, but she ignored it. “It would be helpful if you could tell me the passcode.”
“Fine. It’s KyleDog.”
“Seriously?” It was her turn to cross her arms. “That’s your top secret passcode for your most important accounts?”
“Yes, who are you to judge me? Some sort of ghost psychic? I knew Max’s kid would be a little off.” She shook her head, surprised that he even knew her father had a daughter.
It was often enough that people didn’t.
She turned to her father and told him the devil-damned passcode.
“Anything else?”
Her father looked eager, but the ghost spoke, and she held up a hand. Maximillian’s shoulders tensed. He glared at her, and then at the space next to her, though unable to see the man. His scorn was about six inches too low and to the left. This, at least, made her chuckle.
“Those fucking cuff links are the only thing I truly loved, you know.”
“Yes, you’ll pass on after this. To wherever you’re headed.”
Vickie paused. She’d be the last soul this man spoke to before that. Looking at his narrow, ratlike face and limp blond hair, she couldn’t bring herself to care much for the loss.
