Must Love Ghosts Read Free Page A

do. Or at least a little too interested in my patients .”
    There wasn’t much he could say to that, so he let the jibe pass. “I’ll meet you at your house at eight.”
    â€œFine.”
    She left his apartment in a cloud of jasmine perfume and righteous indignation. Dec blew out a breath. He’d successfully wedged himself back in Tia’s life. Unfortunately, the only role she had for him was that of paranormal investigator—the very thing that had broken them up.
    Lights blazed in every room in Tia’s house. She’d been following Dec around for an hour as he used hinky-looking instruments to take “readings” in different parts of her home. At the moment, he was prodding the sofa cushions in her living room with a handheld object he’d told her was an electromagnetic meter.
    What had she done? She’d gone to his place earlier to give him a final shove out of her life. Sayonara , forever. Instead she’d invited him to her house. How did he always get to her like that? On their first date, he’d more or less dared her to sleep with him and she had.
    Her one and only spontaneous hookup. And look where that had gotten her.
    On the other hand, she truly believed he hadn’t been staging a fake haunting of her house, which meant someone else was. Maybe Dec was the best person to figure out who was behind all this, since the police were no help. Maybe it would take a con artist to catch a con artist.
    Only now that time had dulled the shock and betrayal from last fall, she had a hard time believing Dec was a con artist. Maybe he shared the same harmless delusion as the thousands of people who fueled hotlines, reality TV shows and websites devoted to the paranormal.
    This was too risky. He was already making her doubt herself. She had to make sure her home was prank-free before her dinner party the next night, and then say goodbye to Dec forever.
    â€œWhat exactly are you looking for?” she asked as Dec moved to the fireplace and swept the electromagnetic meter in front of her white-painted mantel. A pair of untouched logs graced the grate. They’d been there for the two years she’d owned the house. A fire always sounded like a good idea, but she never made the effort to build one.
    â€œFluctuating electromagnetic readings, cold spots. That sort of thing.” Dec paused his wand over each of the small, silver-framed photos decorating the mantel. He looked utterly absorbed and professional, if you ignored how absurd the whole exercise was.
    â€œIs there any science to this at all?”
    He looked over his shoulder. “Yes. If you got off your academic high horse, you’d know that.” He picked up the small ceramic object at the end of the mantel. “Is this a funeral urn?”
    â€œYes. Why? Are you getting strange readings from it?” She moved closer so she could peer at the electromagnetic meter.
    â€œNo, just curious. You didn’t have the urn or these photos while we were dating.”
    â€œYou could hardly call what we did dating.” She closed her eyes briefly, wishing she could suck those words right back to the self-destructive place that gave birth to them.
    He glanced down at her, annoyance plain on his face. “Fine. You didn’t have these while we were f—”
    â€œDon’t finish that sentence.”
    He gently placed the urn back on the mantel. “Your grandmother’s ashes?”
    â€œNo, she’s buried next to my grandfather. These are the ashes of my great-uncle Billy. Nana’s older brother. He died during World War II when his plane went down over the Pacific. Nana used to tell me stories about him all the time.”
    â€œThat explains the dog tags.” The tags hung on a silver chain Tia had draped over the urn. Dec pulled the tags off and examined the engraving. “I thought they might be your grandfather’s.”
    â€œHe was an accountant. Didn’t