Page 12 of Ghost With the Most
Assjacket was going to kill me. Probably with glitter.
By the time I got back to the funeral home, I had to admit I couldn’t be bothered with setting a circle. I was working hard and getting nowhere fast, and I felt the familiar defeated slump in my shoulders. I forced myself to take the porch steps two at a time and trudged inside, floorboards creaking in a way that felt too intentional, like the building was sighing in recognition. And then I found Beau at the bottom of the stairs.
“You’ve been busy,” he said, eyes glinting as they swept over me before a frown flickered across his face. “... is that powdered sugar on your sleeve?”
I glanced down. Damn it. Gigi’s pastry ambush had left its mark. “Don’t ask.”
“I never do,” he replied, voice like velvet soaked in mischief. “But I’ll imagine.”
“Gigi Foxworth,” I said, brushing sticky sugar crystals from my sleeve like they were personally offensive. “She says you stole her ideas.”
He clutched at his chest with exaggerated flair, fingers splaying over the perfectly tailored vest of his spectral suit. “Stole is such a harsh word. I prefer to think of it as... creative inspiration. I borrowed. I improved. I made them sexy.” His voice dripped with old-school charm, that sultry Southern drawl curling around the syllables. It would’ve been easier to dismiss if he didn’t look so damn pleased with himself… if he didn’t smell faintly of bergamot and firewood, or if his laughter didn’t stir the candle flames around us with each breathless flicker. But ghosts didn’t breathe. Not really. And the fact that he still moved the air unsettled me more than I wanted to admit.
“She hated you,” I replied, watching the shadows twitch along the baseboards like they were listening in.
“Oh, deeply,” he said, with the kind of wicked grin that probably got him into trouble long before he died. “With a kind of passion usually reserved for exes and inherited enemies. But not enough to kill me.” He paused, tilting his head as if genuinely considering it. “Probably.”
My pulse ticked faster, and not entirely from fear. He wasn’t just charming, he was dangerously compelling. The kind of ghost that leaned too close to being human. The kind that blurred lines you weren’t supposed to cross. I narrowed my eyes. “You’re not very helpful.”
“I’m not very dead, either,” he countered smoothly, his mouth quirking in a lazy, lopsided smile that would’ve turned a lesser woman to syrup. “Well. I am, technically. But I’ve got a whole lot of unresolved flair keeping me fabulous. Call it posthumous rizz.”
I wanted to roll my eyes, but part of me was charmed despite myself. That was the danger with spirits like Beau. They didn’t haunt you with wails or cold spots. They haunted you with what-ifs. With unfinished sentences and looks that made your heart forget they’d stopped beating.
He floated closer, more deliberate now. The charm in his eyes didn’t fade, but something sharpened beneath it, like a stage knife glinting behind a magician’s hand. “You’re not convinced, are you?” he asked quietly. “About Meredith. About Gigi.”
I sighed, the weight of the day pressing down on my shoulders like damp wool. “They’re both lying about something. Both keeping secrets.”
He nodded. “Of course they are. Everyone has secrets.”
“They’re performative,” I said slowly. “Rehearsed. It’s not grief, it’s posture. But grief makes people messy. These women are too… neat.”
He smiled, and this time it didn’t reach his eyes. “You’re getting warmer.”
Beau moved past me, arriving in the way ghosts did, as if pulled along by thought alone. He brushed close enough to stir the air around me, leaving behind a buzz of energy that clung to my skin like static. The scent of old cologne and sorrow followed him, subtle but unmistakable. He disappeared before I could say another word. And the room felt colder for it.
I stood there, surrounded by flickering candlelight, half-burnt herbs, and cursed leftovers from three botched cleansing attempts. The silence settled around me like dust. Somewhere in the rafters, a whisper I couldn’t quite catch curled into the darkness. I looked around the circle, the tools, the signs and sigils I’d placed, all the questions still unanswered… and felt the shape of the truth pressing at the edge of knowing. Not quite ready to be discovered.
If there was one thing I’d learned, it was that the most dangerous kind of lie wasn’t the one that screamed. It was the one that whispered just loud enough to be mistaken for the truth.
And I still hadn’t heard the right whisper. Not yet.
5
The funeral home was quieter by late afternoon. Not peaceful, but quieter in the way a graveyard might be quieter right before the earth decides to shift. The kind of stillness that clung like cobwebs and whispered along the nape of your neck, hinting at unseen eyes peering out from behind peeling wallpaper and slanted crown molding. I’d opened three windows, burned half a rosemary-infused cleansing candle, and even seriously considered bribing Beau with the half bottle of bourbon I kept for emergencies and exorcisms. Nothing shifted the feeling that the place wasn’t just occupied. It was anticipating.
Possibly a punchline. Possibly a murder confession.
I was elbows-deep in the crumbling business archives, which smelled like mildew, old glue, and terrible taxidermy. Dust motes danced in the air like bored fairies. The ledgers I was combing through were brittle with time and suspicious stains, and contained decades’ worth of Assjacket family information. It seemed Old Jenkins, the former owner of the funeral parlour, hadn’t just arranged funerals. He’d written spilled secrets in the margins of his ledgers that read like confessions from a drunk cryptkeeper.
That was when Zelda burst into the room like a rhinestone hurricane with zero personal boundaries. She shoved the door open with a dramatic gasp, clutching something to her chest like she’d just robbed a bank and was deeply proud of it. Her hair was windblown and her entire aura screamed glitter-fueled revelation.
“Ivy,” she hissed, eyes wild with triumph, “you will not believe what I just found.”
I didn’t look up immediately. “Is it another gnome?”
“Worse.” She whipped out a cracked smartphone wrapped neatly in a ziplock bag labeled Moran – EFFECTS.
I blinked and sat up straighter. “Is that Beau’s phone?”
