Page 3 of A Step You Shouldn't Take

I made an effort to pry open one gummy eyelid, light hit me, and I leaned to the side and threw up.

“Dagnabbit!”

The grey-haired man standing beside my bed staggered back three feet, and I groaned as I took in my surroundings. White blankets on a metal-framed bed, monitors next to me, and a green curtain all around. This was no hotel room.

“Sorry,” I croaked.

“How are you feeling?”

“Who are you?”

“Officer Leopold with the Montgomery County Police Department.”

“How did I get here? This is a hospital, right?”

My voice came out croaky, and I spotted a jug of water on the nightstand next to me. Thirsty. So thirsty. I reached across, but the stupid wires tugged at the back of my hand and stopped me. Leopold stepped around the pool of vomit and helped me out.

“Here you go.” He passed me a glass. “A motorist found you passed out drunk at the side of the road.”

“How long ago?”

“Wait a moment—I need to find a cleaner for…” He waved at the mess on the floor. “For that.”

When he pulled the green curtain back, I got a glimpse of the hallway beyond. Stark white with a gurney parked in it, the occupant waiting for a bed and a massive bill, no doubt. The curtain swung back into place, and I tried to fit the jigsaw pieces together in my head. Had I been drinking? I usually limited myself to one glass when I was out. After all, I didn’t want to do anything stupid. Hold on—didn’t my ghostly companion mention drugs?

Officer Leopold came back with a shorter man in tow, who set to work with a mop and bucket. Guilt washed over me because he had to clean up after my bad judgement. Why on earth had I gotten into a stranger’s car?

“Last night,” Leopold said.

“Huh?”

“You got picked up last night.”

“What time is it?”

Leopold glanced at his watch. “Almost noon.”

Oh, shiznits. I’d already missed my first appointment today. And the second. And Sara Hawkins was getting married in a week and needed daily pep talks so she didn’t back out. She loved her husband-to-be, but the idea of being stared at by three hundred guests, including her future mother-in-law, made her break out in hives. Literally. Last Tuesday, I’d driven her to the doctor for treatment.

And then there was…Georgina? Georgia? Georgette, that was it. More memories filtered back, of her telling me to escape, to jump from the car. Usually I ignored the dead, but last night she’d saved my life. It could have been my body in the back seat, my father getting informed of his daughter’s sad demise. And then there was the bigger question—what would have happened if I’d died without passing on my strange ability? Would the buck stop with me? I had to hope so. Ghosts had been part of my life for years, you see, ever since my mom passed the gift on to me. Or rather, the burden. The first time I’d seen one, I’d been spooked so badly I hid in my room for three days, but now I’d gotten used to their presence.

Why? Because lucky old me was one of only a handful of people on earth who could communicate with the dead, and not just any old dead, but those who’d had their lives cut short by another. Murder victims, accidental deaths, casualties of war. I saw them all, going back centuries. And the worst part? They knew I could see them.

That meant everywhere I went, men, women, and children begged me for help, and I never got a moment’s peace. I was the supernatural equivalent of a rock star without having sung a single track.

Usually, I blocked them out. Ignored them. I’d become quite proficient at it over the years, but now I had a problem.

I owed Georgette.

Part of me wanted to apologise to the medical staff and Officer Leopold for my mistake and walk right out of the hospital, because who would believe me if I tried to explain I’d been drugged by a murderer? He hadn’t laid a finger on me. All I had was Georgette’s story, and my memory was shaky on that at best.

But what if he tried to abduct another woman and she wasn’t so lucky? If three months down the line, I caught sight of a newspaper and realised a girl just like me had disappeared on an evening out, only for her body to be found dumped in a forest or by a lake or beside a quiet road? Or worse, never found at all.

Could I live with myself if that happened?

The answer was no. This was the first time a murder had gotten personal for me, and even now, as I lay safe in the hospital with a policeman at my side, a shiver ran up my spine.

I had to do something, but what?

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