It isn’t every day you walk into the parlor and find a skunk in your purse. But there she was, nestled in the pink leather bag my sister had lent me this morning. My skunk snuggled in so tightly that the side of the bag smushed up the fur on her face and sent one ear poking sideways in a manner that made me want to smooth it down and tell her she was adorable.
Still, I was raising her to be polite, and this just wouldn’t do.
“Lucille Désirée Long,” I said, using her full name to let her know I was serious. Truly, she owned a perfectly good bed, a brand-new one my boyfriend Ellis bought as a present for her. It was pink and white and fit for a Disney princess, complete with a canopy. “You should try to sleep in your fancy bed.”
The little skunk leveled an appraising eye in my direction before she closed them both and snuggled deeper into the purse.
She was a Southern girl, which meant she had a stubborn streak.
My heels clicked on the hardwood as I approached her to deliver the sad truth. “Taking a nap in my handbag won’t keep me from leaving.” I was due at a somewhat dressy gathering, and it wouldn’t do to arrive with a skunk in my purse. At least not today in front of the ladies from the Sugarland Heritage Society.
Lucy flicked her bushy white-striped tail and wedged it into the bag with the rest of her. Poor thing. I smoothed the flowing skirt of my magnolia-patterned dress and crouched down in front of my skunk-in-a-purse. “You know I’d take you along if I could.”
She twitched her nose but made no move to leave the bag. I leaned in to stroke her on the head, my thumb skimming the little stripe of white between her eyes. “How about you come out of there, and we can have a Cinnamon Banana Skunk Crumble before I leave?”
Lucy’s ears perked up and she lunged forward, dragging the purse with her a few feet. That didn’t last long before she gave it a kick with her back foot and sent the bag spinning across the floor without a second thought.
Her little claws pitter-pattered as she about ran me over on her way to the kitchen. Not that I could blame her. Cinnamon Banana Skunk Crumbles were heaven on a plate. They were also the perfect way to slip Lucy some extra vitamins. I’d gotten the recipe online from a skunk owner in Alabama, and yes, I’d tried them. They’d smelled so amazing when I’d taken the cookie sheets out of the oven, I couldn’t resist a nibble.
“Here you go, sweetie,” I said, drawing one out of the cookie jar on my kitchen island, grinning at my little girl as she snorted and danced in circles. She whipped the treat from my outstretched hand like she was afraid I’d eat it myself and dashed straight for her princess bed.
“Look at you, trying out your bed!” I said, savoring the small victory.
A distinct chill seeped through the air, and I suddenly understood why my skunk had sought out a safe place.
We were about to have company.
Lucy hunkered over her treat, her gaze fixed on the empty space she’d just vacated.
My pet had strong opinions about the ghost of the 1920s gangster who haunted our property. Frankie “The German” was a particularly cantankerous spirit Lucy snubbed on a good day and outright feared on a bad one.
He shimmered into view decked out in the clothes he’d died in—a depression-era gray pinstripe suit over a white French-cuffed shirt. He wore a white Panama hat pulled low to hide the bullet hole smack in the middle of his forehead. It was the shot that had killed him, and he was sensitive about it.
Today, Frankie also wielded an ugly black tommy gun in one hand, his finger poised on the trigger.
“Ohmyheavens, no,” I exclaimed. It was one thing to belong to a ghostly criminal syndicate, but it was quite another to bring his work home with him. “You are not allowed to bring that gun into my house.”
He gave me a long look, his lip twitching into a snarl under his hooklike nose. To my relief, he held the weapon out and let it dissolve into nothingness. “You do realize I’m packing heat every day,” he said, not at all contrite. “I have a shoulder holster, a belt holster, a sock holster. If I could put a Luger in my underwear, I’d do it.”
“A pistol in your pants would certainly get you some attention from the ladies,” I reasoned.
The tips of his ears reddened. “Anyone ever tell you to mind your manners?” he asked, watching me retrieve the purse from the floor.
Not that I recalled.
“You scared Lucy,” I said, plunking the purse onto my kitchen island and gesturing to the skunk, who kept one eye on the ghost while hunting for cinnamon treat crumbs in the tufted pillows of her bed.
“You’re scaring me,” Frankie countered, giving me the once-over as I fished a lipstick from the bottom of the purse and applied a coat of Revlon Fire & Ice. “Heels and a dress? You said you’d take me on a manhunt today.”
“I certainly did,” I assured him before rubbing my lips together then adding a coat of gloss. I always kept my promises.
“I didn’t mean the blonde-bombshell type of manhunt,” he clarified.
“I’ll take that as a compliment,” I said, tossing the gloss into the bag.
Frankie not only lived here; he was stuck on my property. Or as he would put it, “unavoidably detained.” I’d grounded his spirit to my land, quite unintentionally, and he couldn’t leave unless I took his burial urn off the property with me.
It wasn’t always fun for either of us.
“This,” I said, smoothing the blooming magnolias at my waist, “is my going-out dress.” I directed a firm, yet reassuring smile at the frowning ghost. “I told you last night, I’ll be more than happy to drive you to meet your mafia buddies.” He couldn’t exactly take off without me, and I owed him some sort of afterlife. “I’ll even read a book in the car while you stake out that other gang’s speakeasy, but you said yourself the raid doesn’t start until dusk, and it’s barely noon. We have plenty of time to go to the Sugarland Heritage Society fundraiser first.”
His eyes bugged. “I thought you were joking.”
Hardly. “I assure you the yearly church fundraiser is a serious responsibility. It’s the only thing that keeps the doors open at the Three Angels of the Tabernacle Blessed Reform Church of Sugarland. They barely have a congregation anymore.”
“That’s because nothing good ever happens at the Three Angels,” he warned.
“This fundraiser is good,” I countered. “The work they do in the community is good.”
He ran a hand over his face. “Can you for once, just once, stop trying to boost up every cause, charity, fundraiser, man, woman, child, circus, and stray dog in town?”
“Sure,” I said sweetly, “but then I’d be sitting at home tonight reading a book instead of helping you.”
He shot me a withering look. He was in such a mood today.
I moved Lucy’s skunk treats to the cabinet lest she be tempted to scale the kitchen island in my absence. “Jorie Davis called last night,” I said, changing the subject, hoping it would help. “Jorie was very close friends with my late grandmother. I believe they met in grammar school.” He ran a hand down his face, and I tried to deliver the happy news over his groan. “Jorie is moving to a suite in the old Sugarland Grand Hotel on the north side of town. They’ve turned the whole place into luxury senior apartments. I hear it’s amazing. Anyhow, while she was cleaning out her bungalow, she found a few things of my grandmother’s she’d like to give me. She’s bringing them to the fundraiser.”
Frankie looked to the ceiling. “Just shoot me now.”
“Someone already did,” I said, with a pointed glance toward the jagged bullet hole in his forehead.
He caught me looking and quickly straightened his hat. “All I ask is for one simple clip on a gin joint, and instead you have to drag me to a church ladies’ event and remind me about my death.”
Heavens. His raid would go much better if he could relax and shake that awful mood. Although I didn’t think telling him so would help. I headed to the parlor to fetch his urn.
“How about we get to the stakeout two hours early instead of six?” He’d still have a few hours to sulk and ruminate. I’d get my fundraiser in. Just as important, an afternoon’s diversion might give him a new perspective on his raid. “Keep an open mind,” I called. “I daresay you’ll enjoy visiting the historic church. There’s an old graveyard outside.”
“I’m aware.” He stood in the arched entryway to the parlor, glaring at me.
“You might make a new friend,” I added.
Frankie reared back so fast you’d have thought I took his Popsicle and called him ugly. “What? Just because we’re all dead, I’m supposed to get along with random strangers?”
Lucy leapt out of her bed near the doorway and toddled into the front room. She had no patience for ghostly sass.
“I didn’t mean it that way,” I told him. Being dead was a very broad thing to have in common, but it didn’t mean he wouldn’t find something else to talk about. “Never mind.”
Any other time, I might not have put up with his attitude, but I knew why the gangster had wound himself so tight. Today was a big day, and it had everything to do with that bullet hole in his forehead.
Frankie had gone his entire afterlife not knowing who killed him. On our last adventure, we’d learned it had been Frankie’s own brother who had pulled the trigger.
I couldn’t imagine his pain or his shock.
Frankie hadn’t seen his brother, Lou, since the revelation, despite the fact they were in the same gang and ran with the same crowd. Lou had been lying low, avoiding a confrontation. But Frankie had learned the location of his brother’s hideout and would face him tonight.
I lifted Frankie’s urn from underneath the rosebush I kept next to the mantel. The heirloom red had lived outside until that fateful day when I’d mistaken Frankie’s urn for a vase. I’d found the dusty old thing stashed in my attic, and it had been in need of a fine and thorough rinsing. So I’d taken a hose to it and washed the dirt—I mean his ashes—into the soil under my favorite rosebush.
Of course, it was only after Frankie had appeared and scared me to death, I’d learned those ashes were his earthly remains and I’d mixed him in good. So I dug up the bush and the soil underneath and planted the entire kit and caboodle in an oversized plastic trash bin. Even better, I gave it a place of honor in my parlor. Frankie had been satisfied, mostly. Although he’d resisted my every attempt to replace the ugly trash can with a pretty painted pot or whimsical planter box.
I held the urn over the trash can and carefully brushed the dirt from the bottom. “What are you going to say to your brother when you see him?” I asked quietly.
Frankie stood silently for a long moment, motionless under the arched entryway to the parlor. The morning sun streamed through him.
“I’m going to ask him why,” he said, his tone even, his eyes dead. “I’m not going to forgive him. I only want to know why he did it.”
I clutched his urn to my chest, wishing I could make it better. “I realize this is hard.” In Frankie’s case, it was a big step for him to even talk about his death. “I know you don’t like to think about that night.”
He cast an uncertain gaze at me, then down at the floor. “I think about it plenty, I just don’t tell you. Believe it or not, sometimes it’s better not to talk about every thought and emotion the second it enters your brain.”
“It can be equally harmful to block things out,” I reminded him.
“Not when it’s the kind of messed-up stuff I’m used to dealing with.” He raised his eyes, looking past me. “Just because I couldn’t remember doesn’t mean I didn’t care.” He ran a hand along the back of his neck. “I didn’t want to get my hopes up that we’d ever figure this out.”
Yet we had.
“And now I learn it was my brother.” Frankie sighed and dropped his hand. “I mean, things weren’t exactly sunshine and roses between Lou and me before we were dead. I hardly saw him.” He shoved his hands into his pockets. “But now I know he’s avoiding me. So yeah, I kind of feel like shooting something.”
“You have every right.” Except for the shooting part. But I wouldn’t win that debate.
I closed the distance between us. “Try not to drive yourself crazy in the meantime.”
“Too late,” he groused, retreating into the kitchen. “He’s my family—the only family I have left on this earth.” He paced the kitchen, walking straight through my kitchen island in the process. “And worse, what if I need to make buddy-buddies with him in order to be free? What if I need to tie up the loose ends, you know?”
Stars. I hadn’t considered it. “This could be afterlife changing.”
“No pressure there.” He turned to face me.
We’d been trying to free Frankie for more than a year now, and nothing else had worked. Our first attempt had been science-based—a middle-school lab experiment I’d found on YouTube. We used it to try to separate Frankie’s ashes from my garden soil. It had resulted in a mess, along with the trash can full of garden dirt and ashes, topped with a rosebush, that now resided in my parlor.
We’d called in a psychic. She’d proceeded to give Frankie a complex he’d soothed by opening an illegal racetrack in my backyard.
We’d attempted to reunite Frankie with the only thing he’d claimed to love: a long-lost favorite revolver. It had led to a gangland shoot-out I’d barely survived, and to the beat-up, empty revolver now gathering dust in the trash can under the rosebush.
Yet he remained stuck.
So we were working on a new theory. Frankie was so attached to his ashes and the life they represented that he’d created a sort of prison for himself. I hoped if he could come to terms with what had happened to him, if he could make peace with his sudden death, then maybe Frankie could be free.
Making peace with his brother could be a huge part of it.
I mean, Frankie had made an enormous step even deciding to pursue closure. He was growing as a person, although I wouldn’t tell him that. It would only upset him.
“You can do this,” I assured him. “I’m here for you.”
Frankie’s face hardened at my reassurance, and he pointed at me. “Don’t start.”
And we were back to the ghost having trouble facing his feelings. He was going through some heavy emotions, but he didn’t have to face them alone. He needed to understand that.
He had a hard time letting me or anyone—even his ghost girlfriend—help him cope. Just last week, I’d gotten him a book from the library on dealing with his emotions. I probably shouldn’t have pushed it on him, and I’d definitely made a mistake when I’d sat outside his shed and read it out loud to him. I’d thought it might help him understand what he was feeling.
Until Frankie had insisted he didn’t have emotions.
“I’m sorry if I’m doing this wrong, but I’ll do everything I can to support you,” I insisted. “I know I don’t always say the right thing, but I care,” I added when he clenched his jaw and stared at me. “And I know you’re hurting.”
We’d been through too much together for him to shut down on me like this. Since he’d been trapped on my property, we’d learned he could lend me some of his ghostly power and I’d become a ghost hunter. Seeing the other side had become more than a career for me—it was a calling. Frankie had given me a new way to look at the world. That was about as intimate as you could get.
As ghost hunters, Frankie and I were partners. I’d shown him that angry spirits weren’t necessarily bad spirits, just ones who needed to get over their hurt. He’d taught me that sometimes it’s better to bluff a little than to show the entire world your poker hand. I was still perfecting that one. Together, we’d talked our way into a Great Gatsby–era house party and had the time of our lives. We’d narrowly escaped, but, oh—it had been worth it.
He could certainly count on me to listen to what he was going through.
Frankie glanced behind him. “Enough talk.”
But we still hadn’t worked anything out. “I know it makes you sad a lot of your friends won’t talk with you about your death,” I said, watching his eyes widen.
He looked over his shoulder like the police were onto him. The air went cold, and goose bumps scattered across my skin. “Ix-nay on the death talk,” he gritted out.
“But you told me that yourself last week when I made you do that worksheet,” I reminded him, watching his eyes bug out. Was that a sign of denial? I’d have to check the book. In any case, he had to talk about his feelings with someone—a safe person, like me. “Are you lonely?” I asked.
“Who says I’m lonely!” he squawked as if he were being strangled.
“See? This is what I’m talking about.” He needed to deal with his emotions, and he needed to know I cared. I’d listen to what he needed to say, no matter what. It was the least I could do.
Living with me had separated him from the old gang. He couldn’t carouse unless I sat on a bench outside knitting. He couldn’t go on runs to Chicago unless I drove him, which was one thing I refused to do. Why, at one point, he’d tried to tunnel under the vault of the First Bank of Sugarland just to let off some steam.
He deserved the kind of cheering that went with a bottle of wine and a bit of girl talk, although I didn’t think he’d go for it quite that way.
“You have every right to be upset about your afterlife right now,” I assured him, rubbing a fresh scattering of goose bumps from my arms.
Frankie tended to use cold spots to express his discomfort. We must be really digging deep.
“You’re making it worse,” he said through clenched teeth.
“I’m helping you grow.” As long as he didn’t freeze me out of the room. His refusal to talk about his death had kept him trapped for years. It was time to move forward. “Your feelings are valid, and you should deconstruct them so you can process this.”
Frankie glided straight at me as if I were tap-dancing on his last nerve. “I am going to die—again—unless you shut it.”
“Would it kill you to let a friend help you find peace?” Dare I say we’d become friends over the course of our adventures. “Have you at least let yourself cry?”
I met his jaw-clenched, bug-eyed stare. Then he said something I could barely hear through gritted teeth. “Some of the South Town Boys dropped by. They are right behind me, and they are listening to every word!”
“Oh,” I managed before Frankie hit me with his power. The cold, wet sting of a thousand tiny pricks of energy radiated through my skin and settled in my bones. It doubled me over, stung me to the core.
It never felt particularly pleasant, but when he did it without warning, it was worse. My teeth vibrated like I’d chomped down on tinfoil. As I recovered, a trio of gangsters shimmered into view behind Frankie, laughing.
They poked each other with the butts of their tommy guns as they took turns doing impressions of Frankie crying, which wasn’t fair because Frankie hadn’t admitted to anything. Or gotten in touch much with his emotions. And so much for my rule about no machine guns in the house.
“Don’t you dare make fun of him,” I said to the gangsters, shaking out my tingling hands. Frankie’s power vibrated all the way to my fingertips.
“Can you please stop defending me?” Frankie said, his voice going high.
“Frankie has feelings,” crooned a guy with a jagged scar running up his cheek and over his eye.
“I wish I had a girl to cry with,” added a skinny guy riddled with bullet holes.
“Go cry with your mother,” Frankie shot back half-heartedly.
These jerks were probably the reason he was afraid to share. “You’d better watch it, or Frankie’s going to make you beg for mercy like he did that biker gang from Tulsa,” I said to his testosterone-soaked buddies.
Frankie shot me a warning glance. “That’s enough, Verity.”
But I had the guys’ attention. The least I could do was use it to help rebuild my friend’s gangster cred. I stood straighter, planting my hands on my hips. “Frankie was manly, very tough,” I said, making it up as I went. Frankie should be glad I was a solid friend who supported him instead of a person who would hold a grudge over an unwanted power transfer. “You should have seen Frankie in Tulsa. Karate chopping and all that,” I managed, giving the best demonstration I could come up with on the fly based on tough-as-nails movie heroes. Perhaps Charlie’s Angels wasn’t the best inspiration.
The guys stared at me, Frankie included.
“He whipped them single-handedly,” I added. In for a penny, in for a pound. “I was terrified.”
“Enough,” Frankie ordered. He’d reverted back to gangster mode. “Meet me at the Lucky Dime at dusk,” he commanded the trio. “Bring extra ammo. Don’t shoot nobody unless I give the signal.” The wiseguys filed out of the house in front of us. “Tell anybody what you heard here, and I’ll use your eyeballs for fish bait,” he added after them.
Frankie let them get out the door before leveling an accusing stare at me. “There are no gangsters in Tulsa.”
“There could be,” I offered, hurrying to grab my purse. He was upset, and I certainly hadn’t helped. If he really needed to wait around with his friends, or even start his raid early, I’d skip my event. “We can go to the Lucky Dime now if it makes you feel better.”
“Nah.” Frankie sighed wearily and adjusted his hat over the hole in his forehead. “I’d rather avoid those mugs until the job goes down, or I might be tempted to shoot a couple of ’em myself.” He looked at me appraisingly, almost amused. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but let’s go to the church fundraiser.”
“Oh, let’s,” I said, with an enthusiasm that made him stiffen. Well, I couldn’t help it. The yearly event at the Three Angels of the Tabernacle Blessed Reform Church of Sugarland might be exactly what he needed to take his mind off his troubles. “You haven’t been to anything like it,” I promised.