Netherworld: Drop Dead Sexy(32)

“Isabella’s body is pushing you out. Once you’re evicted, I won’t be able to see or hear you until I’m dead again.” We reached the lobby, and he stopped us, turning me so that I had to do what I’d been avoiding in the hall — face him. Tristan’s dark eyes held me like a fly trapped in a spider’s web. “Try hard in the meantime to remember who killed you. Did Dan leave already?”

My voice sounded far away to me. “Yes he—” Another hard shove jerked my gaze from Tristan’s. “Oh! This isn’t fun,” I griped. “At least I don’t need an exorcist to get out of here.”

He quirked a smile. “No, you’ve not possessed Isabella. You’re just channeling through her.”

“There’s a difference? Ow!”

A dull pain reverberated through me, and I went tumbling to the floor despite Tristan’s support. I looked up to find myself at his and Isabella’s feet. I was free.

“Jeez, there’s gotta be a better way to do this stuff,” I said, picking myself up off the floor.

Two nearby Confederate soldiers gave me gracious hands up. “Clothes, miss,” one said, pointing out I’d burst from my host naked.

“Aw man!” I quickly covered myself in a very concealing kimono, white silk with delicate birds in the design. I’d had my eye on such a piece on a designer’s webpage. “Thanks, gentlemen,” I mumbled, blushing.

With bright appreciative grins, they bowed and stepped away.

Behind me Tristan asked, “Isabella, are you all right?”

I turned to see her sway slightly. “Just a little dizzy. Did it go okay?”

“You were wonderful as always.” He turned to a werehog I hadn’t noticed following us out of the ballroom. Too creeped out by Tristan’s vampiric urges, I guess. “Eddie, would you see Isabella safely to the surface and her car?”

Eddie the werehog snuffled through his snout. “Yes sir.” He escorted Isabella to the grand entrance doors and Tristan turned and hurried back towards the ballroom, leaving me standing by myself.

“So that’s it for me?” No answer. I was invisible and silent to Tristan now, who had already made it halfway down the hall. “Great. How am I supposed to get back to the library?”

Well, I could walk. It would be quite a haul, and though I wasn’t physically tired, a deep weariness consumed me. I didn’t want to walk. “No ghost cabs, I suppose.”

I could teleport. I swallowed. I so didn’t want to end up in the woods again. Maybe I should walk after all. But no, I didn’t shrink from challenges. I faced them head on.

Think about the library, not the woods. Hold the library in your thoughts, hold it hard.





I mumbled out loud, not caring if anyone heard me talking to myself. “Okay, library, library, library, ruby slippers take me there.” I tapped my now-red sequined shoes. “Cause Auntie Em, there’s no place like home.”

The richly appointed ghost of the King George disappeared in a smear of gold and red.





Chapter Six





My surroundings stabilized when I got to my destination. I groaned as I looked around the dimly lit apartment I’d called home.

“I’m never going to get the hang of this.”

I stood in the living room, which opened into the dining room and kitchen. The light over the stove burned, casting low illumination in the space I no longer inhabited. It looked like all my stuff was still present and accounted for except for my laptop, which always sat on the glass-topped coffee table. The police must have taken it, hoping to find some clue as to who had killed me.

I drifted through the apartment, looking at it as one might a museum tableau. 21st Century Life: Call Girl Interrupted the plaque might read. I inhaled the flowery aroma of the scented candles I preferred. With a dispassionate eye I took in the nice furniture I’d collected, the newspaper on the sofa turned to the crossword puzzle I’d never finish. The last issue of Business Week waited to be read.

My Keurig coffee maker stood ready to brew a cup of my favorite flavor, Wild Mountain Blueberry. Through the darkened doorway of one of the two bedrooms, I spied the dull gleam of metal from the treadmill I’d logged hundreds of miles on.

I’d decked out my space to rival the model apartment the facility showed to prospective renters. If the manager had any sense, she’d leave these rooms intact for display. Except for the clothes in my closet, the toiletries in the bathroom and the half-done crossword puzzle, anyone might have lived here. I’d injected no personality to intrude on the senses. Tasteful furniture. Stylish accents. No pictures.