Page 14 of Ghost With the Most
“Now,” I said, voice low, “let’s find out who wanted you dead.”
The further I scrolled, the colder my fingers felt. Like the phone had absorbed the last flickers of Beau’s human life and was now radiating quiet accusations. There was no blood spatter. No crime scene photos. Just silent metadata and unanswered messages.
A dozen texts sat unread in his inbox. A few from Meredith. Short, clipped, as if typed from across a room she didn’t want to be in. One from an unknown number.
You should’ve stayed gone.
Sent at 8:03 p.m., the night he died.
I showed it to Zelda.
Her brows drew together. “Burner phone?”
“Maybe.” I chewed my lip. “But this message is personal. It’s not someone panicking. It’s someone angry.”
Beau hovered at the edge of the room now, less smug than usual. His expression was unreadable, his form more flicker than figure. The glamour spell must’ve drained him. Or maybe... maybe something else had.
“I knew someone wanted me out of town,” he murmured. “But I always figured they’d just ruin my reputation. Not end my pulse.”
I slid the phone back into a fresh evidence bag. Something I’d begun carrying in my kit after too many run-ins with haunted jewelry and demon-possessed Fitbits. Then I sat back and looked at Beau. “Why would someone want you gone?”
He shrugged.
But the truth wasn’t buried, it was fractured. Shattered like a mirror someone had kicked in, shards reflecting different versions of Beau’s story. Meredith painted him as an arrogant jerk. Gigi swore he was a thief. And Beau himself? He only had fog and suspicion.
I exhaled and reached for the ledger again. The edges crumbled beneath my fingers like they were resisting resurrection. “This town,” I said finally, “has secrets in its woodwork.”
Zelda made a noise halfway between agreement and a sneeze, brushing cobwebs off her sleeve. “That’s Assjacket’s charm. A little rot, a little glamour. Think of it like a haunted casserole. You’re not quite sure what’s in it, but it keeps showing up at potlucks.”
Beau gave a low chuckle from his corner. “That’s the most accurate description of this place I’ve ever heard.”
“Where did you go?” I asked, hoping for a crumb of information.
Beau fixed me with an apologetic look. “I don’t know,” he said. “I’m sorry.
Outside, wind stirred the trees with a hollow groan. Somewhere within the walls, the organ gave a single discordant note, as if the building itself was responding. The moment stretched, thick and strange.
Then Zelda broke it by sneezing again, this time loud enough to rattle the sconce above her head. “Okay, if I inhale one more ounce of this mildew, I’m hexing someone’s ancestors.”
I smirked. “You’d enjoy that.”
“Only if they’re charming and full of unresolved trauma.”
She shot a look at Beau.
He grinned. “Darlin’, I’m practically a buffet.”
The levity barely held. Beneath it, the tension hummed like an electric current beneath damp wood and candle smoke. The pieces were aligning, but something still didn’t fit. A corner missing. A detail too convenient. And worse… there was that feeling again. That pull. I looked down at the phone in the plastic Ziplock. At the text.
You should’ve stayed gone.
“Someone was waiting for him to come back,” I mused. “But how do we find out who?”
Beau shrugged. It was probably a good thing he was so pretty. I can’t imagine he’d been super helpful when he was alive, either.
Zelda lifted her hand up to inspect her flawless manicure. “I might have an idea.”
“Terrifying,” I told her, tucking the phone into my bag and brushing dust from my jeans as I stood. “We just need to ask the questions Beau can’t. And if we’re lucky?” I looked toward the charismatic ghost next to me. “Maybe we’ll get answers before someone decides we’re asking too many.”
