How To Bring Your Love Life Back From The Dead (13 page)

“What about the disappearance of his
old partner? Do you know anything about that?” she
asked.

“You’ve always asked a lot of
questions,” Max said vaguely.

“What?”

He opened the door and said, “Give
Aunt Liz my best.” Max gave her a shove across the threshold before
slamming the door behind her. Well, that was really odd and not
just a little frustrating. Shane wasn’t the only one indulging in
some heavy stomping. Ana stomped all the way to her car.

*****

Despite the coldness and emptiness
of the collection room, he still hoped that he’d find Analise in
the room, so he could explain. If only it was that
easy....

Dropping to the ground beside the
chair, he stared at the collection of pencils beneath it. Fourteen
pencils. Really? Dealing with his daytime self sometimes felt like
dealing with a toddler with a short memory span. Occasionally, his
daytime self felt like something was vital enough to remember
during the day that he used the same trick of repeating it over and
over. Without exception, these memories were ridiculous at night.
His latest rubbing with his imbecilic self had been when he
materialized in front of his painting two weeks ago muttering, “The
new black is brown. Brown is the new black.” What did that even
mean?

Grabbing the pencils, he searched
around for a stray sheet of paper to write a note to Ana. Luckily,
paper was easier to come by than something to write with, and he’d
always hated this book on the cholera epidemic that had killed his
parents. They’d postulated that the local spread had been caused by
poor hygiene practices.
Poor hygiene, my ass.
He relished
ripping out one of the back empty pages. It wasn’t technically
defacement, but it felt good.

Sitting down at the table in the
center, he positioned everything for when inspiration struck. He
wouldn’t pick up the pencil until then so as not to expend extra
energy. Think, Shane, think.

Ten minutes later, he was still
staring at a blank piece of paper. How did one say, “I was a moron
for stomping around when you asked me how I died, but I’m stuck
haunting this room for eternity,” without it sounding like the
psychotic ramblings of a mental patient?

Plus, it would have to be passed
along to Ana by way of a helpful librarian who’d assume she had
dropped it. He would assume said helpful librarian would read
it—especially if it was that one—Carly or Carla or whatever her
name was. His daytime self called her “Catty” and, for once, they
were in agreement—though it did make it difficult to remember her
actual name.

Shane tried pacing. He’d always
thought better while pacing. In fact, he’d come up with the concept
of the investment company while pacing one day. He’d presented the
idea to his best friend, Charles, and that was that. Three years
later, they’d reinvested as he’d planned originally based on the
local tourism. It had begun with that first investment that he’d
come up with while pacing. Pacing had been good to him.

Admittedly, Charles had been wildly
successful after Shane’s death, but he’d used the company as
collateral for those investments—many of which Shane wouldn’t have
approved of. They’d been fighting more and more near the end there,
in fact. This very collection room had become a bone of contention.
Shane had insisted that the community would give back to those who
helped them thrive. The funding to the library had been his choice
and perhaps that’s why he haunted it. At least he was able to fill
his nights with reading—censored and often boring reading, but it
was something. It had kept him sane.

Not that his grasp of the language
was doing him any good tonight. Reaching down, he picked up the
pencil and snapped it in half by using too much force. Okay, so
maybe his dumber self had the right idea with fourteen
pencils.

“Dear Analise,” he wrote in a
cramped hand. It was legible…barely. Perhaps he’d need more
practice. Luckily, the cholera book had plenty of blank pages to
give up for the noble cause.

By the time the sun rose, on the
table’s corner lay a neatly folded note addressed to “Miss Analise
Franklin.”

*****

An energy drink plunked down in
front of Analise.

“I take it he didn’t call?” Jenny
asked.

“He might not even know how to use
the phone,” Ana muttered. He might not even know what they were.
This was so doomed. Why was she still bothering with
research?

“Was that meant to make
sense?”

“No,” Ana said, opening up the book
on Seaside’s occult again. She’d almost finished it last night, but
succumbed to a headache from lack of sleep and trying to puzzle out
why Cousin Max was behaving like a complete psychopath. Then again,
Max was a male. Who knew why they did what they did? Not Ana. They
were completely inexplicable…and stupid.

Every last one of them.
Stupid.

“Huh, look at that. They used to
think the old salt factory was haunted,” Jenny said, pointing to a
paragraph on local haunted locations.

The library had gotten a nod in this
chapter too. Apparently, the fit Shane had thrown that night with
her wasn’t the first time he’d exercised his right to a poltergeist
tantrum. At least he didn’t trash the collection room again and let
her get blamed for it.

“It’s a shame they bulldozed it in
the sixties,” Jenny said.

“Yep, the salty ghost had to find a
new home.” Ana flipped the page. Ghosts were not on her list of
safe topics.

Stupid ghost.

“They don’t do that,” Jenny said,
still reading over her shoulder.

Stupid, stupid,
stupid…huh?

“What?” Ana asked.

“Hmm. Check that out. Which barn do
you suppose they’re describing here?”

Ana sighed. Was no one going to
answer questions directly? “I don’t know. What did you mean when
you said they don’t do that?”

Jenny grinned. “Don’t you know
anything about ghosts? They haunt locations. If those locations get
bulldozed, they don’t just pick a new spot to haunt. They’re tied
to that spot. Your salty ghost might still be haunting the salt
there, but he hasn’t moved on to the Denny’s around the
corner.”

“He’s not my salty ghost!” she
snapped which made Jenny laugh and was, admittedly, a lame thing to
say. She flipped back a few pages to the section on the library.
“So, this ghost…the one in the special collection room?”

Jenny gasped and leaned in. “Whoa,
there’s a ghost in the Franklin Collection room? You really scored
with that one. Maybe I should take over the research.”

Yeah, that wasn’t going to happen.
She wasn’t going to give Shane the opportunity to start a
harem.

Ana snapped her fingers in front of
Jenny’s eyes. “Focus. Are you saying that a ghost haunting the
library would have to stay in the library?”

Jenny’s eyes were busy scanning the
page but she murmured, “Uh- huh, and possibly that room. Who is
this Shane guy they think is haunting there?”

“Just a guy.”

“Was he murdered there?” she
asked.

“In the library’s Franklin
Collection room?” Ana didn’t have to try very hard to inflect her
voice with disbelief; it got there all on its own.

“Well, why is he throwing books
around there? Why the library? Usually ghosts haunt either places
they’ve lived or places they’ve died, not just random places they
visited a time or two. That’s why you don’t end up with ghosts at
Denny’s, little Ana.” She patted Ana’s head patronizingly with a
laugh.

After swatting at Jenny’s hand, Ana
groaned and dropped her head to the desk. Maybe Shane wasn’t the
stupid one. Well, not the only stupid one. Really? Shane couldn’t
come to her? She should have thought of that, but she wasn’t
getting enough sleep.

“It’s most likely a hoax or an urban
legend, then, if there isn’t anything tying him there—like a
violent crime or an object from a violent crime. Sometimes ghosts
haunt mirrors and stuff like that.”

“There’s a life-size painting of
him,” Ana said, turning her head to rest her cheek on the
desk.

“Oh. Hmm. Still probably a hoax but
that’s most likely why the connection in lore. Crap. We want real
haunting. Murder. People like murder. Well, not the people
murdered, but our groups will eat it up. I’m not sure I can get
behind a hoax, though.”

It really wasn’t a hoax, but she
wasn’t about to say that.

Ana’s cell phone rang, and she
picked it up in order to look at the display. If it was this Tyler
guy that her mom was setting her up with, she was going to brush
him off even if she answered. Whoa. The library. Maybe Shane had
learned how to use the phone. Okay, she was losing her
mind.

“Hello,” Ana answered.

“Hello,” Lara sang out. She was far
too happy for this early in the morning. “I must have missed your
visit yesterday, but I hope your research is going
well.”

“Err…yes. I borrowed that book. The
one you said I could borrow.” Why did Lara think she’d been at the
library the previous day? The missing book? There was no way she’d
swallow her pride yesterday and go back to the library. Even if
Shane couldn’t appear, he’d know she’d been by. Yesterday was far
too soon. He’d stomped around. Pointedly. Deliberately.
Emphatically.

“Oh. That’s quite alright. Quite
alright. I was just calling to let you know that you dropped a note
when you were here yesterday.”

“What?” Ana asked.

Jenny looked down at her for an
explanation, but Ana shrugged.

“There is a note with your name on
it that was left on the corner of the table in the special
collections room. I thought it might be scrap or a grocery list, so
I hope you don’t mind that I peeked at it.”

A note? Had she left a scrap of
paper behind? She’d been in a bit of a rush the night she’d stormed
out of there. Thankfully, she’d already put the rest of the books
away by that point. No, she was almost positive she hadn’t left
anything. But…a note? No. She hadn’t. No one sent her
notes.

No one alive anyway.

“That’s fine. Whose signature is on
it?” Had Shane really sent her a note? Could ghosts do that? He
wasn’t a very conventional ghost if so.

“Just the letter S, but it’s
addressed to…uhh…Little Mouse if that helps narrow it down,” Lara
said.

Ana felt her face get bright red.
Hopefully the note hadn’t made the complete rounds of the
librarians. She could imagine Carly calling her that behind her
back.

“It’s really very sweet,” Lara
added. “I remember those days.”

“Umm…yeah, that’s mine. I’ll be down
to pick it up later.” After saying goodbye, she hung up and stared
down at the book. Jenny was still reading over her shoulder, but
Ana could feel the curiosity humming through her.

“So, more research at the library?”
Jenny asked.

“Yes, but first, we need to track
down how he died,” Ana said, flipping back the pages.

“Who?”

Ana stabbed a finger down on the
page with the name of her tantruming, note-writing ghost on it.
“Him.”.

Dear Little Mouse,

I’ve missed you and apologize for
my abysmal behavior. My best excuse is that I’ve lived too long
with my own company to behave politely when surprised. Please meet
me in our usual spot so that I can explain myself much better than
I did that night. I promise to devote all my energy to obtaining
your forgiveness by either fair means or foul. I’ll be gentle with
you. Well, as gentle as you’d like me to be.

Yours, S—

Hopefully, she got the note. He
remembered enough from the daytime to know that the older librarian
picked it up off the desk and carried it off with a smile after
reading it. It was unlike him to be nervous, but Shane couldn’t
seem to force himself to step away from where he’d materialized.
What if she wouldn’t forgive him? It’s not like he could force the
issue. He couldn’t chase her down to convince her. He’d have an
easier time moving the moon in its orbit. He’d hidden the remainder
of the pencils. Maybe another note. And another. And another. He
had eternity, so why not?