Page 7 of Dead Ringer

And then it was a long, long time of loneliness.

Actually, ‘lonely’ wasn’t half of it. I went from all eyes being on me, to being invisible. Literally.

Magda had looked like a respectable enough dame, though. A real blue stocking. And from what I understood, she’d only been dead a couple days; she hadn’t even had a chance to get used to being dead, so she might not be as desperate for company as I’d been.

Which was probably for the best, since Haven Hollow, ironically, didn’t have much of a nightlife. No night clubs, no speakeasies, no high fallutin ballrooms. Well, except at the hotel. But I doubted very much that Magda Erepto was eager to jitterbug through the night with a bunch of ghosts.

Maybe I was thinking about things wrong. I mean, I was focusing on Magda, because she was the last person to have had the idol. But the idol was the thing Sophia really wanted. And we were banking hard on her grandmother knowing where it was, but what if she didn’t? What if this idol had been taken or misplaced after Magda had crossed over? Well, then we’d be barking up the wrong tree and wasting valuable time to boot.

Hmm, so maybe it was best not to focus on finding Magda, but to focus on finding the idol instead?

I sat down in my desk chair, feeling like I’d already run ten miles without ever actually taking a step.

“Hey, Cain?” I said out loud. “What’s the best way to find something that’s gone missing? Official like, I mean.”

There was a ripple in the air, and Cain’s translucent form suddenly popped into existence on the other side of my desk. The sunlight made him look a bit wavy, like I was looking at him through water. He drifted down to sit in one of the client chairs and folded his hands on the desk between us.

“The best was to locate something that’s gone missing, is to track it from where it was last seen. You need to start at the scene of the crime.”

The scene of the crime. Which would be Magda’s home, probably. I winced. Great. I was off to a roaring start, since I didn’t even know where that was.

No way around it. I needed more information, and I only had one way of getting it.

A few clicks at my computer, and someone up there must have been smiling on me, because Sophia Erepto’s appointment was actually listed on my books. I’d been worried that Mr. Howard had just told her to show up without ever having entered her information. And that would have meant I’d have to go tohimfor her number, and then I’d have to make up some baloney reason I needed to talk to her again.

Not that it was much less painful to be able to dial her directly.

The icy, “What.” That I got when the line picked up wasn’t exactly promising.

“Hello, Ms. Erepto. Ma’am. It’s Darla Rowe...”

“Who?”

“From Spook Society? We talked just a couple minutes ago?”

It was silent on the other end of the line, and I had to resist the urge to smack myself. If only I didn’t have a cell phone, but one of those old heavy-duty numbers from my day, I could have knocked the receiver into my head and put myself out of my own misery for an hour or so.

“I know who you are, Miss Rowe. I’m assuming you’re calling me because you’ve miraculously found my grandmother or my family’s idol?”

I winced. Off to a great start already.

I cleared my throat. “Um, no ma’am. I’m, ah, well, I just wanted to ask if it was possible for me to visit the last place the idol was known to be? To see if I can, uh, pick up on something. Oh! And maybe you could give me a picture of it, or some sort of description of the idol?” I mean, really, that wasn’t asking for so much, was it?

It was quiet so long, I couldn’t help but wilt a little. All I could hear over the line was the smooth sound of a fancy car’s engine. What was I going to do if she said no? I mean... she wouldn’t say no, surely? She wanted the idol, or she wouldn’t have come to us in the first place. So why not give me a little help in finding it?

“Then you haven’t located my grandmother’s spirit and asked her where it is?”

“Well, I thought it would be a better idea to have two avenues open to me in order to find the idol. Yes, I will still try to find your grandmother’s spirit, but I also thought I could try to search for the idol, itself.”

“With what? Ghostly help?”

“Yes, something like that,” I answered, not interested in telling her about Cain. Better to let her think I was getting random ghostly help in locating the item.

“Fine.” The word dropped like a stone in a well. “You may come to the manor tomorrow morning. We’ll be holding a wake for grandmother, so the rest of the family will be distracted.”

“Manor?” I mouthed it to Cain.

His eyebrows beetled down over his eyes, and he looked like he’d bitten into something sour.

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