All I needed was for the pearl-clutchers and uptight suits with daughters of a marriageable age to think I was collecting eligible bachelors from all levels of Society. That would win me allies. Or, you know, a knife through my kidney.
“This is a judgment-free zone.” He started twisting my hair into a thick braid. “So I expect you not to judge me when I say you should get out there and see what life has to offer before you settle down with one guy for the rest of your life. You’re young. Have some fun. Break some rules.”
Most days it felt like I had broken enough rules to last a lifetime. “How much did life offer you before you settled down?”
“Enough,” he said with a sharp exhale.
I met his gaze in the mirror. “Is everything okay?”
“People just suck sometimes.”
Recalling Cruz’s hostility, I had to ask, “You’d tell me if you were having problems with someone at work, right?”
“You need this job more than I do.” He squeezed my shoulder then reached for the curling iron. “The last thing I’d do is let you step in this flaming-hot mess.”
Warmth flooded my chest that he would place my financial problems above his own equally serious ones, but that was just Neely. He had no idea this job was now a hobby for me, and selfish as it might be, I didn’t want him viewing me in a different light. Everyone else was already sizing me up for their own purposes. Until I put in my notice or Amelie blabbed, I was content to be my old ramen-slurping self where he was concerned.
But, as the saying goes, with great power comes great responsibility, and I wasn’t about to let this abuse go unpunished.
“Let me know if you change your mind.” I gave myself a once-over when he stepped back to admire his work, understanding more now than I had last night what Neely meant when he said this was my character look, not my me look. “I’m off to spook the pants off my victims.”
“Just make sure you go through their pockets before you donate them.” He gave me a saucy wink. “Bring your waterproof parasol. There are showers in the forecast.”
“Ugh.” The odds for more than a good misting must be low or else Cricket would have put the kibosh on tonight’s tours. Cancellations weren’t for our benefit, naturally, but for the preservation of the dresses, suits, hats and parasols, and to save on her dry-cleaning bill. “Good thing I’ll be leaving with Amelie. I hate riding Jolene in the rain.”
A shudder rippled through him. “I don’t know how you can stand to ride her at all.”
“Bikes are freedom.”
“Motorcycles are what happened when a man looked at a perfectly respectable bicycle and thought, How can I transform this into a flaming death machine?”
A laugh sneak attacked me, and I wheezed through the corset. “It’s not for everyone, but still. Don’t knock it until you try it. Bring Cruz to my house sometime. I’ll give you guys lessons.”
His demeanor softened. “He would look good in leather.”
“See?” I swished toward the door. “It’s a win/win.”
On my way past the bulletin board, I pulled down the envelope with my list of victims and skimmed the details on each group. Fifteen in one and eight in another. A grumble worked its way past my lips before I remembered tips weren’t do-or-die tonight. Armed with that comforting thought, I headed to The Point of No Return.
“Excuse me, miss,” an all-too-innocent voice drawled behind me. “I’m a last-minute addition to your tour. Here’s my ticket.”
I stopped walking and started counting backwards from ten. “Boaz, what do you think you’re doing?”
“Cricket said your groups were light tonight.” He pressed a torn stub into my hand. “She was thrilled to sell me tickets for back-to-back tours.” He rubbed his hands together. “Let’s see what you got.”
Mentally, I rerouted the later tour so he wouldn’t have to trudge along the same path. “I expect you to behave.”
“I’m a paying customer.” He slapped his palm over his heart. “Whatever happened to the customer’s always right?”
“That only counts for actual customers and not annoying big-brother types.”
With a twist of my wrist, I stuck out the parasol I’d been using as a walking stick, a habit Cricket abhorred, out in front of him. Busy watching the swish of my skirts, Boaz tripped and stumbled into an awkward crouch on the pavement.
“Oh, sir. Are you all right?” I projected my voice to reach my victims and cranked up the charm. “I do apologize. Please forgive little ol’ me. I hope you aren’t injured.”
“No harm done.” His smile promised retribution. “Can you give me a hand up?”
It was a trap. It had to be. I did not want to give that man my hand while he had that look in his eyes, but we had the crowd’s attention now, and there was no going back. “Of course.”
He stood without applying an ounce of pressure on me and brought my hand up to his mouth where he pressed a lingering kiss into my palm then closed my fingers over the spot his lips had caressed. I angled my body away from the group then rolled my eyes so hard they whirled like tops.
Still in character, I bobbed in a neat curtsey, reclaimed my hand and strolled toward the gathering. Several of the women sized Boaz up with slow perusals, wetting their lips like they couldn’t wait to taste him. A few of the men puffed up at the shift in attention away from them, but their chests deflated upon noticing I was the sole target of Boaz’s lethal charm.
Lucky me.
We set out after I gave the booze talk, Boaz leading the pack, and I guided us down one of my favorite routes, the one that passed a haunted brewery open to the public on the weekends.
“The Clark family owns the Black Dog Brewery. The bar is street level, and there’s a fantastic garden out back. I highly recommend the stuffed jalapenos, but I’ve heard good things about their burgers too. The downstairs is under renovation at the moment, and it’s got its own creepy history, but tonight we’re going to focus on the two stories above the bar that are so haunted the ghosts refuse to allow the renovations necessary for the business to expand.”
I got a few interested murmurs out of that one, so I pushed ahead.
“The last time Mr. Clark attempted to have the second floor brought up to code, he got calls from his furious workers demanding compensation for their ruined equipment. Apparently, several guys had left their larger, and therefore more expensive, power tools upstairs overnight, and when they came back the next morning, all the windows had been thrown open—even the ones painted shut—and their drills, saws and nail guns had been tossed out onto the street.”
“That can’t be true,” a gruff man argued.
The teen boy next to him smirked. “What? You don’t believe in ghosts, man?”
“No.” He shifted on his feet, uncomfortable in the spotlight. “I don’t believe that thousands of dollars’ worth of power tools would still be on the street in the morning.”
Tittering laughter rippled through the crowd, and I joined in. “I can’t argue that logic.”
“How do you know this stuff actually happened?” a girl asked from under the boy’s arm. “Are y’all given a script or something?”
Unlike my annoyance with out-and-out skeptics who seemed to book tours for the sole purpose of making the guides’ nights miserable, I could appreciate a healthy dose of honest doubt.
“Each guide is required to study the history of the locations on every individual route. That information is pulled from books, old newspaper clippings and the internet.” I gave what I hoped was a winning smile to the man who asked the original question. “We’re all guilty of exaggeration to create a juicier story.” I held up a hand to forestall their next questions. “But, and this is an important but, the bare bones are true. Go home. Google. You’ll find all the information I covered tonight and so much more.”
“Cool,” the teens murmured in sync, cementing my assumption of their coupledom.
“Any more questions?” I must have done something right because the crowd shook its head in unison. “In that case, y’all can follow me right across the street to the oldest restaurant in Savannah.”
“You’ve got them eating out of the palm of your hand,” Boaz murmured near my elbow.
“Stepping into a role is freeing.” The job helped me feel normal for a few hours a night. As much as any Southern belle spewing grisly horror stories for tips can be called normal. “It’s a fun job.”
“Amelie’s always loved it.” He appeared thoughtful. “She’s going to miss it when she graduates and picks up full-time work in her field.”
“Once a Haint, always a Haint.” I twirled my parasol. “She can always pitch in at Halloween if she starts pining for the good old days.”
“Hard to believe she’ll have her MBA in a few years.” He shook his head like it might help him absorb the fact his little sister was growing up. “A Master’s in Business Administration. What will she even do with that?”
Jealousy, that old green-eyed monster, reared its ugly head, and I’m ashamed how long it took me to defang. I hated that petty side of me. Hated how I envied Amelie’s bright future. Hated being so screwed up I kept enabling the cycle.
We had always planned on sharing a dorm room, or maybe getting a small apartment off-campus, but that hadn’t happened. Obviously. Living at home had to be saving her a ton of money, though. So there was a bright side in there. And it’s not like it was her fault that when I held the future we’d planned against the one I’d been handed, I fell short.
I’d earned my GED after a few weeks of classes, but there were gaps in my formal education as well as my necromantic one. In a prison where parole was a pipe dream and the inmates were drugged until all they could string together was drool, the Society wasted no funds on bettering us. And, with Amelie nearing her final stretch, I had no hope of catching up to her.