Seeing the Light (A Marie Jenner Mystery Book 1) (6 page)

“Never mind,” I said. “I also talked to a woman from 310—”

“Blonde?”

“That’s the one.”

“That’s Andrea,” he said, and smiled. “She’s sure a looker.”

“Yes, she is,” I said. Men.

“And that boss of hers treats her like dirt,” he continued. “I feel real sorry for her.”

Why do they always feel sorry for the beautiful blondes?

“She said she thought you were a drunk,” I said, nastily, then wished I could take back my words at the look on his face.

“I never drank at work,” he said, softly. “Ever.”

“I’m sorry, Farley.”

“She’s entitled to her opinion, of course, but why—”

“I don’t know.” I stared down at my shoes for a moment, then looked back at him. He’d faded again. I could definitely see a difference this time. “Don’t let it get to you.”

“But there’s nothing I can do about it now,” he whispered. “No way to tell her she was wrong about me.”

“I know,” I said.

He wiped at his face, and then sighed. “Was that all?”

“No, there was one more. A guy, creepy salesman type. He said he heard that there was something wrong with the electrical panel.”

“What?”

“The electrical panel—Farley! What’s wrong?”

He had wrapped his arms around himself, quaking with cold, or maybe fear. He closed his eyes, and then jerked them open, looking terrified.

“Oh,” he said. It sounded more like wind through tree boughs in winter than an actual word. He sank to the floor beside the furnace. “Thanks for the information.”

“Are you all right?” It was a stupid thing for me to say. He wasn’t. But I couldn’t think of anything else.

“No.” He stared down at his hands and legs, and I gasped. He was translucent, nearly transparent. I could see the furnace through him, but there was no light. That was bad.

“I saw something,” he whispered. “Only a flash. My hand on something that didn’t belong . . .”

His voice faded, and then he reached over and touched his sandaled foot.

“Look at that,” he muttered. “The toe of my sock is gone. Must have been the current going to ground. I’m glad I can’t feel that. It should hurt like hell.”

I looked at his foot, gasped and turned away. It looked like half-cooked hamburger.

“Farley,” I said. “Tell me what you saw.”

My voice was shaking, and it wasn’t just because of his foot. I’d never seen a ghost fade away like Farley was doing. Something was very, very wrong.

“I don’t know what it was. I can’t remember,” he said.

“Do you know where you were?” I asked.

He pointed. “The electrical panel,” he muttered.

“So, you saw something in the electrical panel that didn’t belong?”

“Yeah.” His eyes wandered back to his blown out toe, until I snapped my fingers in his face, bringing his attention back to me. “At least I think so.”

“Show me,” I said, leaping up and running to the burnt, blackened panel. “What shouldn’t be here?”

He squinted. “I don’t see anything,” he finally said.

Dammit. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah.” He sighed. “Maybe the frigging cops took it with them.”

That made sense.

“Or maybe I imagined it.”

Damn. So did that.

‘Let’s say for a moment that there was something rammed in there,” I said. “Why would someone do that? Seems kind of dangerous. Doesn’t it?”

“And stupid,” he replied. “Unless you were trying to short out the electricity to the whole building—or kill somebody.”

That got my attention.

“Who else comes down here?” I asked.

“No-one but me,” he said.

My God, maybe somebody
had
killed him. “Who would want you dead?”

“I don’t know. I don’t want to talk about this anymore.” He slipped down the side of the furnace until he was almost lying flat on the cement.

“Please focus, Farley,” I said, desperately. I could barely see him. Just a smudge on the cement at the base of the furnace. When I realized he was lying almost where he died, I freaked.

“You have to stay with me, Farley!” I yelled. “You’re remembering what happened, but you have to remember it all. Don’t go!”

He sighed, dead tree limbs rattling. “Why not?”

“Because maybe you
were
murdered.”

He chuckled, and came back a bit. Just a teeny bit, no doubt, but at least it was something.

“I told you it wasn’t an accident,” he said. “I wouldn’t have done anything that stupid.”

“Just promise me you’ll hang on while I dig around some more. I’ll see if I can find out if the cops took anything. And I’ll keep talking to the people in the offices. There has to be something, some reason—”

“Start with this place.” He tried to pull himself up to sitting. I wished I could help him, because it was like watching a bug on its back. Of course I couldn’t. “It hasn’t been brought up to code since it was built.”

“Okay, sounds good, I’ll check that out,” I said. “And while I’m doing that, what are you going to do?”

I was going to suggest that he check offices, to see if there were big piles of drugs, or weapons of mass destruction or something. After all, he was the spook. The words dried up when Farley finally pulled himself to sitting and all the colour drained from him. Every bit.

“I’m going to lie down for a while,” he whispered. “I don’t feel that good.”

I opened my mouth to say something, anything that could keep him with me, but I was too late.

Blink, and he was gone.

Marie:
Why Would a Ghost Feel Sick?

I stared at the spot where Farley had been, and knew that my mouth was hanging open, but couldn’t pull myself together enough to shut it. I’d never, ever, seen a ghost disappear like that. Ever.

What was going on?

I searched around as though he’d stepped outside my field of vision, stopping before I looked behind the furnace.

“Maybe he moved on.”

Even as I said the words, I knew they were not the truth. Spirits that move on are bright. Imbued with light. Farley looked like a smudge of shadow before he disappeared.

Sometimes spirits fade, losing so much inner essence that they aren’t visible anymore, even to people like me. He hadn’t done that, either. He’d just—blinked out.

“He said he felt unwell. They never feel unwell.” I tried to think, feeling a little unwell myself.
Why would a ghost feel sick?

I glanced at my watch, and gasped. Mr. Latterson was going to be back any moment. I had to go.

I skittered up the stairs and carefully opened the door, checking to see if anyone was in the lobby. Luckily, it was empty, and I ran to the stairs that led to the upper floors, and managed to get into the office and to my desk before Mr. Latterson showed up.

“Did you get that paperwork done?”

I opened my mouth to say yes, but he didn’t give me time to actually answer.

“It absolutely has to be in the mail before the end of business today. You know that.”

“Yes, and—” I said.

“Get it done. I’ll be back at 3:30.” He turned on his heel and marched back out of the office, slamming the door shut before I could tell him everything was complete and waiting for his signature in the “out” box, just like he’d ordered.

It looked like I had the afternoon to myself, too.

I stared down at the computer, wishing that Googling “ghosts, moving on to the next plane of existence,” would help me. I didn’t waste my time. There was no help out there for me online. I knew that.

The only one I could really count on for information was my mom, and I wasn’t ready to talk to her, yet. It didn’t have to do with the fight I’d had with her. Well, not really.

The truth was, I did not want to let her know I had another ghost problem. I’d made the mistake of telling her about Sally. The only good advice she gave me was to get noise canceling headphones for the screaming. The rest of the time, all she would was say, “I told you so,” and “You should have listened to me.” She was convinced that because I could see ghosts, they were somehow drawn to me.

They weren’t drawn to me. I was just having a string of bad luck.

Anyhow, calling my mom was out.

I decided to assume Farley would be back. One thing I could do was get information for him about some aspects of his life. That had sometimes worked for Mom when she dealt with a “recalcitrant spirit.” Her words, definitely not mine. Then, maybe, Farley would move on the right way, and I’d be free. I set my fingers on the computer keyboard, and thought, hard. What did Farley need?

I tried to remember what Mom did when she first encountered a ghost with awareness, but couldn’t grab onto any one thing. She’d talked to them about their lives, their work, the way they died, everything associated with them. No true starting place.

I decided to fake it, and Googled the Palais. Maybe it was the place itself. Maybe that’s why he couldn’t leave.

I thought I’d lose it when the search engine ground out thirteen million hits. I pulled my hair back in a quick ponytail, punched in “Edmonton” with Palais, and was rewarded with a much more manageable number. “Let’s see what you can tell me,” I whispered as I opened the first page.

Four hours later, I’d gone through most of the information I could find online about the office building, carefully cleared the history cache file on my computer, typed two more letters for Mr. Latterson, calculated my monthly budget, had a small cry, and tried a new hairstyle using pencils to hold my hair in a catastrophic attempt at an up-do.

I shook out the last pencil and stared down at the small pad of paper on which I’d scribbled information about the office building and its history. I hoped I hadn’t wasted my time, because Farley had still not returned. I glanced at the clock above the door, and started to tidy up. It was nearly time to head to my other job.

Mr. Latterson came back just as I was emptying the coffee carafe, which I had decided was my last job of the day.

“I need you to stay,” he said. “I have a call coming in, and I want you to handle it.”

I looked at the clock. If it was only five minutes, I’d be fine.

“Who’s calling?”

I swear I heard Mr. Latterson’s teeth grind as he said, “My ex-wife. I’ll tell you what to say. Just write it all down.”

I wrote down everything he told me on a scrap of paper, and then sat, purse in hand, as he floated in and out of the office, nervously, sweat staining his off-white shirt in large damp patches.

“Would you rather take it yourself?” I asked, laughing inwardly. I knew, without a doubt, that no-one voluntarily talks to an ex-wife. No-one.

“No, I have work to do,” he replied, wringing his hands and brushing back his bad comb over until it stood at attention on the top of his head. “Say exactly what I told you to. Got it?”

“Yes.”

I glanced at the clock again, feeling a nervous flutter in my stomach when I saw seven minutes had passed. I was going to be late if I didn’t leave very soon.

“You’re certain this call is coming in?”

“Yes, absolutely, without a doubt.”

He nodded, his hair dancing in a fuzzy greying halo on the top of his head. Laughter fought nervousness until I felt hysterical. I did a little deep breathing, to calm down.

We both squawked when the phone beeped, and Mr. Latterson retreated to his office as I picked up the receiver.

It took me fifteen minutes to get his furious wife—I was certain she was not yet an ex, no matter what he said—off the phone, and by that time he had snuck out, leaving me to lock up. I was definitely late for my cab job, and the one thing my boss Gerald the Tyrant could not abide was my being late.

The same rule didn’t seem to apply to the others, I thought as I half-ran down the crowded sidewalk to the dank office building I’d inhabit for the next eight hours of my life.

I was lucky. Gerald wasn’t at his desk. Jasmine was, though, and looked pissed, because I’d made her late getting home to her kids.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” I said, throwing my purse under our desk and taking the headphone from her hand. “Any way I can make it up?”

Jasmine smiled, in spite of herself. “You come to my house for a meal and some TV,” she said. “We haven’t done that in a while, and my show has gone right off the deep end! You have to catch up.”

“That sounds nice,” I said. And it did. It really did. Going to her house with all her kids and noise and laughter was always nice. Kind of like going home, without the fights.

“Then you can tell me all about your new job and why you’re still here,” she continued.

I nodded. She headed for the door, and then turned.