“As far as I can tell, that mutt of yours doesn’t see the point in anything except a nap in the sun.”
Precisely. Smart dog.
As Darcy picked up the pace, Jordan lagged farther behind. “And do not malign Malachi,” she said in a raised voice. “He’s been a great comfort to me.”
The stray dog had adopted her immediately upon her arrival, supporting her during a less-than-smooth transition. Within days, she’d had to deal with a century-old murder, an embittered LAPD detective intent on arresting her for killing her husband, and, well, other things. Things she’d given herself permission to deny.
Catching movement out of the corner of her eye, she turned, her footsteps faltering. A few yards offshore, a man rose up from the ocean, wearing a loosely fitted, rubberized gray suit that draped in folds over his rugged build. Seawater poured off him as he sloshed through the waves and onto the beach, removing a metal, helmetlike mask. In his other hand, he held an ornately decorated tin box.
He grinned, revealing crooked teeth. “Nice day for a dive!”
“I guess.” Jordan was perplexed. “Isn’t the water awfully cold around here, though?”
“Not if you don’t stay down long,” he replied cheerfully. Nodding politely, he stomped down the beach in his flippers, heading toward the peninsula.
“Hey,” Darcy called out, looking irritated as she turned back. “Make more of an effort, will you?”
“I was just …” Jordan’s gaze slid from the retreating figure of the diver to Darcy, who gave no indication that she’d seen him. “Never mind.” Jordan broke into a jog.
“So how’s it going with the ghosts?” Darcy asked uncannily as Jordan caught up.
“I don’t want to talk about them.” Or the fact that seeing them made her question her own sanity.
So far, Jordan hadn’t discovered anyone else who could see and converse with both communities in Port Chatham—one human, the other spectral. And neither community seemed to be overly concerned that she possessed such “special powers.”
“Are Hattie and Charlotte still giving you trouble?”
“Assuming they exist, yes.”
That earned her an assessing glance. “I thought we were beyond this. You’re regressing.”
“I’m not regressing,” Jordan objected grimly. “I’ve just given myself permission to deny that they necessarily exist.”
“Uh-huh.” Darcy shook her head. “You know I’d kill to be in your shoes. It’s damn hard to do my job well when I can’t see or communicate with half the town’s residents.”
Jordan did a mental eye roll. Her corporeal friends, whose powers of perception only included a general sense of the ghosts’ presence, professed to be extremely envious of Jordan’s abilities, not understanding the unique challenge they presented. After all, outside of walking up and rudely poking the person in question to see whether he or she was solid, she had no surefire method of differentiating ghosts from humans.
“It’s bad enough that I sleep in a bedroom where a century-old murder occurred,” she grumbled. “I didn’t sign up for having permanent roommates. I solved Hattie’s murder; therefore, it’s only reasonable to expect that they all politely vacate the premises.”
“ ‘All’?” Darcy looked intrigued. “Have more shown up?”
“Just Frank, so far,” Jordan replied, referring to the ghost of Frank Lewis, the man who had hanged for Hattie’s murder in 1890. “He and Hattie are attempting to requite their unrequited, century-old love.” Jordan picked her way around a gelatinous substance on the sand that looked like it might be the remains of a jellyfish. “I walk into a room, and they’re cooing at each other. I turn a corner, and they’re in a clinch.”
Darcy shot her a wary glance. “You haven’t been reading romance novels, have you?”
“Not that I couldn’t use the escapism right now, but no. ‘Clinch’ just seems appropriate when describing the mating habits of ghosts.”
“So we’re talking spectral sex?” Darcy grinned. “Cool.”
“Not cool,” Jordan insisted. “What about Charlotte? She’s too young and impressionable to be exposed to such things.”
“We are talking about the ghost who was a prostitute before she died in the 1890s, right? I suspect Charlotte knows more about sex than you do.”
“Well, it’s not the 1890s anymore. And I’ve got a home renovation to manage—I don’t have the time to chaperone an impressionable young ghost.”
Darcy shook her head and picked up the pace again. “I heard Tom wants to talk to you about the work on the house.”
Tom Greeley, one of Port Chatham’s amateur historians, specialized in custom paintwork for historic homes. He’d been gracious enough to volunteer to help Jordan come up with a restoration plan for Longren House. After days of crawling around the attic and the basement, he’d left a hastily scribbled note requesting a meeting with her. The note was still lying on the kitchen table, intimidating her.
Okay, so her initial fantasy of slap-on-some-paint-and-new-wallpaper had died a quiet death around the time she’d discovered that the gorgeous wisteria vine on the wall of the library had grown straight through the siding and into the attic. But dammit, she loved Longren House. It represented the one truly impulsive decision she’d ever made. Well, maybe not the only impulsive decision—that was stretching the truth a bit. But she’d taken one look at the house and fallen head over heels, instantly envisioning the cozy home she’d never had. She’d be damned if she’d let a few repairs ruin that dream.
And frankly, it was easier to hold on to the dream if she didn’t know the full extent of the necessary repairs. In fact, she was considering submitting an article to a prestigious psychology journal, describing the underrated benefits of a well-orchestrated strategy of personal denial. Life really was wonderful if one simply refused to acknowledge the impending train wrecks.
“Earth to Jordan? Hello?”
She realized Darcy was still waiting for her response. “Tom probably just wants to talk to me about bidding out the work,” she said, hoping for reassurance.
“I doubt it. We can refer you to the right people.”
“But—”
“This isn’t L.A., it’s a small town. For most jobs, there will only be one or two people who do that type of work. We know who you can trust, and who you can’t.” Darcy stopped abruptly, causing Jordan to plow into her. “Okay. See?” She pointed to a tiny white speck in the distance. “That’s New Dungeness Lighthouse.”
Jordan righted herself and squinted at the landscape beyond the end of Darcy’s finger. “Clear down there? We still have that far to go?”
“It’s only another mile or so. Piece of cake.”
Jordan groaned. “We could turn around right now, head back to the pub, and place our order for a truly sublime Shiraz.” Served up by an equally sublime pub owner, although she was in denial about him as well. “I don’t care whether we tour the lighthouse—we could come back another day.”
She could’ve sworn Darcy looked apologetic. “There’s a rumor the lighthouse is haunted,” Darcy admitted, “and several of us thought you might be able to confirm whether it is.”
Jordan narrowed her gaze. “You’re using me as some sort of ghost detector?”
“Well, yeah. We started talking about it last night after you and Malachi left the pub, and one thing led to another. We’ve got a pool going on whether you’ll see the wife of the original lighthouse keeper, who is rumored to haunt the grounds. The wife, not the lighthouse keeper,” Darcy clarified. “After all, you’re in a unique position to confirm the veracity of all those ghost stories we’ve heard over the years—”