Page 55 of A Step You Shouldn't Take

“No, she memorises the registration numbers and descriptions of all the people who visit. It’s like a game for her.”

“Do me a favour. Next time you meet a potential kidnapper in a hotel wine bar, take Margaret with you instead of Maria.”

“That’s not possible. Ghosts can’t move.”

“What do you mean?”

“They’re stuck to the spot where they died. Or in Georgette’s case, a car.”

“Stuck forever?”

“More or less.”

“What about really old ghosts? Like civil war soldiers?”

“Yes, they’re still around. Some places are horribly crowded. When I was looking to buy a house, one property I viewed had half a dozen charred teenagers lounging in the front room, and they all started yelling at me when I arrived. Apparently, there was a fire there in the fifties.”

“Is that the worst thing that’s happened?”

“No, that was the time my ex-husband surprised me with a minibreak to New York and insisted we visit the 9/11 memorial. I was sick for three days straight after that.”

I could still see it now. Thousands of broken bodies, twisted at unnatural angles from where they’d hit the ground. Some floated in mid-air, staring down at me from twenty floors above. I’d closed my eyes, but I could still hear them, moaning and wailing and crying and begging and cajoling and shouting and…

“Kim, it’s okay. I’m here. Shall I get more tissues?”

I swallowed down the lump in my throat. “I won’t cry; I promise.”

Reed’s phone rang, and I thought it would be the person from the phone company, but then he started talking about transactions.

“Her debit card? Where did she use it?” He looked around wildly and mimed writing, so I passed him a pen from the drawer under the microwave. “Forty dollars? Okay, thanks… Sure, the same amount as last time? I’ll transfer it today.”

Another clue?

Reed closed his eyes for a second after he hung up. “Emma’s been busy today. She just spent forty bucks at a grocery store in Cincinnati.”

“And another bribe?”

“It’s how the world works, Kim, from the government to the guy on the street.”

Oh, I got that. I may even have been guilty of slipping a dress designer a Louis Vuitton purse to bump my client to the front of the line for a custom fitting.

“How can I help? Want me to book you a plane ticket while you go pack a bag?”

“Thanks, but I’ll drive. By the time I go to the airport and check in, then rent a car at the other end, I won’t save much time anyway. I’ve got everything I need in my car, and that way I’ll have wheels when I get there.”

“But Cincinnati’s eight or nine hours away. You’ll be exhausted.”

“I’ll be fine. Not my first rodeo, sweetheart.”

“Yes, I’m aware of that, but you’re already tired. Why don’t you sleep for an hour or two first?”

“Because every delay gives Emma more time to disappear again. I’ll try not to be long. Just a couple of days, and I can do some more research into your case remotely.” He yawned again. “But maybe I’ll just grab a coffee before I go.”

I smiled sweetly because an idea was forming in my mind. Reed planned to drive eight hours when he was already worn out? Visions of crumpled metal flashed through my mind, and I wouldn’t even be able to tell his unfortunate soul what an idiot he was because if he killed himself through his own stupidity, he’d skip straight to the line for reincarnation.

That would happen over my dead body.

CHAPTER 16 - REED

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