Dead People Read Free

to heaven. I want to help all of them go to heaven.”
    Erin bit her lower lip, her worried gaze not wavering from Cassie’s face.
    “How many times have you seen her?” Cassie asked.
    “Seven,” Erin replied promptly. “Her hair’s the color of a pumpkin. And she’s old.”
    “Am I old?”
    Erin nodded.
    “Is your dad old?”
    Erin nodded. “But the ghost is older.”
    The corners of Cassie’s mouth lifted. “Does she talk to you?”
    “She tells me to go away or something bad will happen.”
    Cassie’s smile wiped off, her mouth forming a straight line. “Does she say what this something bad will be?”
    Erin shook her head. “I told her bad things already happened to me.”
    Cassie knelt, her face level with Erin’s, her mouth parting, showing Erin her vulnerability. A curious mix of softness and hardness.
    “I promise to get the ghost out of this house as soon as I can.”
    For the first time, Luke saw Erin flash a smile. Like the sun coming out from behind a storm cloud.  
    For an instant he couldn’t breathe, his throat blocked by an eight-ball sized obstruction.
    “I’ll start tomorrow.” Cassie’s honeyed voice flowed over him. “Is that okay with you?”
    Erin nodded. “Yes.”
    Cassie straightened, smiled at Erin, then brushed her gaze over him like he was dog shit. With a curt nod at him, she marched out of the room.
    “I’m glad she came,” Erin said.
    The obstruction in Luke’s throat cleared, and he breathed deeply. If Erin liked her, he wouldn’t kick her out on her nicely rounded ass. But he’d keep an eye on her. Two eyes.
    He’d learned the hard way that it was smart to be wary. To look for the knife aiming for his back.
    Betrayal was an everyday part of the life he’d chosen. When you swam with sharks, you watched out for their teeth.
    But if anyone tried to attack Erin, they’d have to swim through him first.

 
    Chapter Three
     
    “Turn down this job,” Joe said. “I’m getting a bad feeling.”
    “Since when did you admit to getting feelings?” Rain drummed against the roof of the car and Cassie set the front defogger on high. Cool air rushed up at her face as she navigated the snaking driveway. A crack of thunder made her jerk, and a flash of lightning lit up the driveway in time for her to avoid a pothole.
    “Since seeing the way Luke Rivers looked at you.”
    “He didn’t like me, he made that clear.” Cassie reached the end of the driveway and she felt a sense of lightness at leaving the old house, as if she’d been holding her breath and finally sucked in pure oxygen.
    “Maybe he didn’t like you, but he looked at you.”
    And I looked back, Cassie thought, steering the car onto the highway. One of the perks of being alive. Checking out good looking men and eating chocolate.  
    “So? A rat can look at a queen.”
    “You’re smiling. You liked it.”
    “Don’t interrogate me.” Cassie glanced at her sulking passenger.
    “I’m not only a cop, I’m a man too.”
    You were a man, she thought, facing the road again, because she didn’t want her obituary to read “Killed while driving stupidly in the rain.” Nor did she want Joe to read her expression. A bullet to his heart had stolen his life, not his ego.
    Headlights sped toward them on the other side of the highway. Their car was catching up to a semi, the red rear lights flickering through the barrage of rain, the upper reflectors barely visible.
    “Forget Luke Rivers,” she said. “He’s not important.”
    “It’s you that’s important,” Joe said.
    A glow kindled in Cassie’s chest. “In this case, it’s the dead person that’s important.”
    “I wonder what Rivers will say when you tell him the reason she’s sticking around on earth.”
    “He won’t believe me. He doesn’t believe I talk to dead people. I could see it in his face.”
    “He doesn’t want to believe. There’s a difference.”
    “He’s ready to pay on the off chance that he’s wrong. As long as his