The man’s jaw dropped and he looked equally as shocked as I felt. “You can see me?” he asked over my shrieking.

Oh no. Oh freaking no.

“Are you a ghost?” I asked, putting the car back in park so I didn’t accidentally hit the dumpster behind me. My driving record of late wasn’t that great. “Because if you are, you need to get out of my car.”

That was a stupid statement, I realized, because ghost or not, he shouldn’t be in my car. And clearly he was a ghost, because no door had opened. He’d gone from the back door of the bakery to my back seat in three seconds or less.

“Who are you talking to?” Ryan asked. “Have you lost your mind? Of course I’m a ghost. Hello.”

Wait, what? Ryan didn’t see this yahoo? Said yahoo was tugging on his beard and looking distressed. “I can’t believe you can actually see me. Three months. I’ve been wandering around for three months and no one can see me.”

“I can see you.” Unfortunately, I could see him. I turned to Ryan. “There’s a dead guy in the back seat. He has a beard. Why is this happening to me? When did I become the psychic home stager slash ghost whisperer?”

“That doesn’t make you psychic,” Ryan said, glancing in the back seat. “You can’t predict the future.”

My knuckles turned white on the steering wheel. “I can predict me throwing your celestial ass out of my car.”

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you,” Back Seat Guy said.

“Not you. The ghost in the front seat, Ryan. You can’t see him?”

Back Seat Guy looked bewildered. “No.”

I frowned at Ryan. “You really can’t see him either?”

“Nope.”

“Well, I can hear both of you and it’s very distracting. Ryan, can you meet me at the house later?”

“I’m not leaving you alone with a strange ghost.” He looked appalled. “No freaking way.”

How chivalrous of him. Eye roll. But then I realized he had a point. I didn’t know how to get rid of this guy. What if he was stubborn and hung around? I turned my car off and took a deep, cleansing breath. I needed to start practicing yoga again. Though I wasn’t sure when I would have time for it, between work and dealing with a gaggle of ghosts on a regular basis.

“So who are you?” I asked Back Seat Guy. “And why are you contacting me?”

He looked more upset than menacing. “I’m Phil Sanders. I died three months ago and I’ve been wandering around every day since and no one, not a single person can see me. I saw you yesterday in the Flats when you found my body, and I decided to follow you and see if you knew anything about what happened to me, or if you just found me by accident.”

“What is he saying?” Ryan asked, peering into the back with narrowed eyes, like somehow that would manifest the ghost to him.

“Shh.” I waved him off.

This was a seriously disturbing piece of news from the spirit of Phil Sanders. Not only was I getting ghostly contact with Ryan and Hannah, people I had known personally, but now apparently if I even came near a corpse its ghost would attach to me. I made a mental note to stay the hell away from funeral homes and ERs. I’d wind up with a flash mob of spirits following me. A real life Thriller video.

“So, Phil,” I said carefully. “You know that was your body on the hill yesterday? But you don’t know how you… (I struggled for delicacy) …became deceased?”

“Whoa,” Ryan said. “It’s the ham guy?”

Phil nodded. “Yes. And my body hasn’t been there the whole time. At first I was in a basement and couldn’t get out. It’s like I couldn’t leave until my body left, but I have no idea who killed me or why.”

I took a sip of my coffee still sitting in the cup holder, but it was cold. I made a face. “I can’t help you, Phil, I’m really sorry. I’m not a crime solver. I was just walking and I found…you.” That was weird. Very, very weird. I wondered if it was impolite to ask him if he knew where his head was. That would help the police with their investigation.

That made me acutely aware that I knew the victim’s name, assuming he was being truthful, and I couldn’t tell anyone. That sucked. I was already keeping the fact that I saw dead people a secret from Marner and now here was another wedge between us.

“Then why are you the only person who can hear me?” he asked, suddenly looking stubborn.

“I don’t know. I’m just unlucky, I guess.”

“That was rude,” he chastised me.

Instantly I felt guilty. “Look, I’m sorry. I’m not trying to be insensitive. But I have no idea why I can hear you and I’m telling you, I’m a home stager. I arrange furniture in houses going on the real estate market. I am not a cop or anyone who knows anything about solving murders.” That was true. I had botched the whole investigation into Ryan’s death and nearly gotten myself killed.

For a minute I thought Phil was going to protest, but then he just disappeared. Poof. Gone.

I gave a sigh of relief and turned my car back on. Any more delays and I would be late for my appointment. “He’s gone,” I told Ryan. “That was weird. I don’t like this. I have zero privacy.”

“He said he’s the guy in the field yesterday?”

“Yeah. Phil Sanders. Can you look him up or something upstairs? I can’t deal with him.”

“There is more to this ghost thing than even I realized,” he said, sounding curious. “I thought I was getting a handle on this, but how bizarre was it that he and I couldn’t see each other. I don’t like it.”

“That makes two of us.” I shivered and it wasn’t from the air conditioning. “We don’t even know what happened to Hannah. I can’t be dealing with this guy too. It’s too much. I’m only one woman and I’m not a brave one. I don’t want to poke around when there’s a killer who dismembered someone involved. That’s not an accidental killer. That’s hard core.”

“What did Marner say about this case?”

“Nothing. He said it won’t be his so I’m not sure how much information he’ll have.”

“If that guy shows up again, let me know.” Ryan was frowning. “Maybe you should stay with Marner again tonight.”

“I can’t do that,” I protested, even though the idea of being alone in my house that creaked and groaned at night from its age was terrifying. “How am I supposed to explain that to him?”

“What, because if you tell him you want another night of naked twister, he’s going to say no?” He rolled his eyes.

“We didn’t do anything like that, I told you. He slept on the couch.”

“For real?”

“For real.”

“What a loser. Why wouldn’t he just go for it if he digs you?”

“Because maybe he doesn’t dig me.” That was my sinking suspicion. “Or maybe he was being respectful because you know, I was threatened with a gun yesterday and found body parts that looked like they’d been under a heat lamp for a month. Not exactly sexy stuff.”

“I guess.” He sounded super doubtful. “That wouldn’t have stopped me.”

“Except you were not attracted to me, so I’m not sure what you’re getting at.” Realizing he might feel the need to explain his lack of feelings for me I pretended to adjust my mirror at the red light.

But Ryan never explained anything. I should have known that. He just shrugged. “I meant in general, not specifically you. But you’re missing the point.”

Clearly. “What is the point?”

“I’ll let you know when I figure it out.”

Helpful. “Please do. I need to go to work. What are you doing today?”

“I can’t go anywhere without you, so I guess I’ll go back to the office and see if I can talk to Hannah.”

“Sounds like a plan.” I couldn’t think of anything better than being alone and doing something as completely normal as meeting with a client.

“Ciao, babe.” Ryan disappeared.

My client was a woman in her fifties who was standing on the front step of a house just a few blocks from my own. It was a house that could claim good bones, but it looked run down. She had said her mother was being moved to a nursing home due to her dementia and that she and her siblings wanted to sell the house for top dollar. I had a bad feeling this wasn’t going to be the pleasant distraction I was hoping for, but more like me letting her know that I wasn’t the right person for the job. I wasn’t a home flipper. You couldn’t stage a house that needed a reno for any real financial gain.

After I greeted Kathy, she took me inside, apologizing the whole time.

“Mom is eccentric,” she explained. “She grew up during the depression and she never wanted to throw anything away. She also never liked buying something new. She loved the thrill of the garage sale hunt.”

Hello, hoarder. There was no other word for it. As I stepped into the narrow hallway of a classic Victorian, I peered into the living room and saw nothing but floor to ceiling stuff. I immediately hedged. “This isn’t really my area of expertise. I can help with decluttering, but this is a wide-scale clean out, Kathy.”

There were instantly tears in her eyes and I felt like garbage. “I can’t go through all this by myself, it’s too hard. All of this mattered to Mom, and my brothers are completely unwilling to help me.” She wrapped her thin arms around her chest and hugged herself. “They’ll be eager to cash the checks when the house sells, but they won’t lift a finger to help.”

I stepped cautiously into the living room, feeling sympathy for her situation. I didn’t want to take the job, because I couldn’t even see the true state of the room beneath all the boxes and stacks upon stacks of clothes, but it was never a good thing to turn down a paying job. I could set some money aside for winter when business slowed down. Besides, I needed the distraction from my ghost posse.

“Everything is clean in here. That’s amazing, considering how much stuff is piled up.”

“I mean, it’s dusty, but yeah, it’s fairly clean. Mom was able to keep up until she got too confused to remember what was what.”

I touched Kathy’s arm. “I can help you sort this. Do you want to donate it? Or sell some items?”

“Just donate it. I can’t deal with trying to sell all of this. It would be the world’s biggest garage sale.”

She led me carefully to the dining room and I saw hundreds upon hundreds of magazines stacked precariously along the back wall. Books were in piles all over the floor and on the table. I bent over and glanced at some of the titles. They were primarily travel mags, with one random Playboy, which seemed an odd addition to the collection, but I wasn’t going to point that out. The books were all on murder. That figured. I couldn’t seem to escape it.

Not only were they focused on murder, a lot were about local crimes. Unsolved Cleveland Crimes. Weirdest Crimes in Cleveland. Deadly Women of Cleveland. Mob Killings in the 1970s. “Your mother was certainly interested in local crime.” I lifted a book on the Kingsbury Run Butcher, also known as the Torso Murderer. Flipping through the pages, I saw police officers picking through the riverbank in an old crime scene photo. It reminded me too much of yesterday and I dropped the book back down.

“Oh, those are my brother Mark’s. He’s been living here with Mom for the last eight years, ever since his divorce.”

“Is he still here?”

“Yes. He’s at work now, but he’ll be here until the house sells, then he’s moving into an apartment.”

“Is he going to object to packing all this up?” I stood up and straightened my back. I couldn’t take the job if I had a belligerent family member fighting me tooth and nail over every magazine and book.

“No, that will just make it easier for him to move.” She gave me a rueful look. “Did I mention that he’s lazy?”

I gave her a smile. “Don’t worry, we’ll get everything out of here. First step is to get some boxes.” Side note, jeans had been the right wardrobe choice. My phone buzzed in my pocket. I ignored it until Kathy was walking in front of me to show me the back room where there were more clothes than I had seen outside of an H&M.

It was a text from Marner.

Hey. Call me.

Such the charmer. He always kept it short and sweet.

I’m with a client.

K. Call me ASAP.

I hoped this had nothing to do with Phil Sanders’s hand.

The bedrooms upstairs were in the same condition. Two rooms were stuffed with clothes and shoes and crafting materials. Then there were books upon books in Mark’s room. He also had a desk with a laptop on it and above it dozens of pinned newspaper clippings and printouts from websites. There was a map of Cleveland and flags stuck on various locations. A closer glance showed all the pinned papers referenced murders. Mark was a fun guy. I was curious what he did for a living, but I didn’t want to pry.

After seeing the whole house, I told Kathy I would put together a proposal for cost and the game plan and I would get back to her within a day or two.

Back in my car, I checked the back seat to make sure there were no spirits hanging around before I headed toward home. Using voice command I ordered my phone to call Marner. With him, there was no way to gauge if something was truly urgent or if he was just being efficient with his words.

“Hey, where are you at?”

“Driving home. I just left a client’s house. The owner’s son had a huge collection of research on Cleveland crimes, by the way. It was a little unnerving.”

“So you’re alone?”

“As far as I know.” I meant that literally.

“Did you ever hook up with Ryan?” he asked.

Not what I was expecting him to say. At all. “Excuse me? Are you asking me if I was, uh, intimate with Ryan?”

“Yes. Were you ever?”

My cheeks burned and I wasn’t sure if it was anger or embarrassment. “No. But I’m not so sure that’s any of your business anyway.”

He made a noncommittal sound.

“What brought on that highly personal question today?” I asked wryly.

“Just something someone said.”

Before I could further dig into that, he added, “Are you busy later? I can cook you dinner or we can go out if you’d prefer.”

I wanted to scream “What are we doing? Are we dating?” ut I was smart enough to know that men in general were allergic to that particular conversation. Part of me wanted to just go home and curl up on my couch solo and not deal with whatever the heck we were doing. The other portion of me was scared to be alone and have another visit from my old friend, Insomnia. We’d been buds in the early weeks after Ryan died, when I’d thought he had committed suicide and it was my fault.

“If you don’t mind cooking, staying in would be great. I’m tired. I didn’t sleep very well last night.”

“You had a rough day.”

“It wasn’t a day at the beach, that’s for sure.”

“You what?” my best friend Alyssa asked me, her hip propped on my desk. “You found a hand? That’s the most disgusting thing I’ve ever heard in my life.”

“It was seriously gross, I’m not going to lie.” I chewed the end of my pen, wishing it was my electronic cigarette. I was pretty proud of myself for not picking it up once today.

“I should have ditched Michael,” she said. “Then we would have been hanging out and you wouldn’t have stumbled across body parts.”

Alyssa had gone on a revenge date with a guy who had been super popular in high school and had frequently made fat jokes about her. Before she had established her own sense of style Alyssa had been a science geek back in the day, fond of T-shirts with puns on them. Ten plus years later, she had discovered how to show off her curves to her advantage, and the wonders of red lipstick. Men drooled over her chest and her sassy attitude on a regular basis. Michael had been no different. After running into him at the beach, he had been very intrigued by Alyssa’s metamorphosis.

“How was the date? Did you embarrass him in a public setting?”

Today she was wearing high-waisted formfitting black pants and a yellow tunic top. She was dripping with hot pink costume jewelry.

“Not exactly.” She wrinkled her nose. “I might have slept with him instead.”

I felt my jaw drop. “Really? I thought you hated him.”

“I don’t hate the way he looks naked, that’s for sure.” She threw her hands up. “I couldn’t help myself! He was my teen fantasy—aside from Zac Efron, that is. I always thought he was hot. He’s been blowing up my phone today, claiming he wants to see me again, but I’m not falling for that.”

That stymied me. “Falling for what?”

“Him pretending to be actually interested in dating for real. He just wants to get a little something for the second time.”

“You don’t know that. If he didn’t want to see you again, he wouldn’t be texting you.”

“I know that he doesn’t want to see me because of my mind. I’m not stupid. Once was fun. Twice makes me an idiot.”

“I admire your ability to walk away so easily. You know me. I get neurotic and attached, which is why I haven’t dated much the last couple of years.”

Alyssa gave me a look of disbelief. “Oh really? So what exactly are you doing with a certain cop named Jake? Don’t tell me he’s just your knight in shiny Kevlar, because I don’t believe you.”

“I’m trying not to get attached.” I bit the pen cap so hard I hurt my tooth. I tossed it down on my desk. “He asked me to dinner tonight, but I honestly have no idea what is going on.” At least I could be honest with Alyssa about that. It was getting really difficult to not tell her about Ryan and the other ghosts.

She grinned. “Thank God. I thought you would never move on after all those years wasted crushing on Ryan.”

“It might have been a protective measure,” I admitted. “If I was secretly crushing on Ryan, I didn’t have to date.”

“I am so glad you can see that now. But I guess the question is—do you truly like Jake?”

“I do.” That was true. “But I don’t know what that means. Or how he feels. He asked me earlier today if I’d ever hooked up with Ryan.”

“Eww.” She made a face. “Why would he ask you that? Rude.”

That made me defensive of Marner’s motives, though I wasn’t sure why. “I don’t think he meant to be rude,” I protested. “I think that it means he’s contemplating what we’re doing. Where this is going.”

Alyssa’s expression stated she clearly thought I was nuts. “Oh, sweetie, I love you, but you don’t know anything about men. They do not sit around and ponder the future of a relationship after two dates. What he’s thinking about is that he’d love to get you naked, but he doesn’t want to set up camp there if Ryan has already been squatting.”

“That’s disgusting. You make me sound like a fifty bucks a night Mohican campsite.”

She laughed. “Electrical hook-up available. For the record, I don’t think it’s any of his business. I’m just telling you that was probably his thought process.”

Leaning back in my chair, I gave a sigh. “I don’t know if the timing is right to date Jake.”

“Why? Like what is different or what will be different? What do you see as perfect timing?”

The urge to tell her about Ryan was overwhelming. She was my best friend. I shared everything with her. She had listened to me for hours lament my feelings for Ryan and my grief after his death. She had known Ryan, but honestly, she had never gotten along great with him. Her feelings were more neutral.

“I have no idea. But you know what I do see? Ghosts.”

“Excuse me?” Her face was blank. “You see ghosts?”

“Yes. It just started a few weeks ago.”

“Uh…honey, are you feeling okay?” She looked genuinely alarmed. “You don’t sound like you. You’ve never been interested in the woo-woo stuff. That’s my area. You know my secret fantasy is to be a scientist with her own ghost hunting show.”

“I know I’m usually very grounded and rational. Also known as uptight. But seriously, I am not joking. One day I went down into my kitchen and Ryan was standing there. He looks and sounds exactly like he did when he was alive.”

“Oh God.” Alyssa looked distressed.

“What?”

“You’re manifesting Ryan’s ghost to sabotage your budding relationship with Jake.”

My eyebrows shot up. “That would make me psychotic. I am not doing that.” It was disheartening to realize she didn’t believe me at all. But I tried to ask myself what would my reaction have been if she had approached me and said the same thing. I would have thought she was seeing what she wanted to see.

“And then yesterday you found a body part, of all things? After having that lunatic pull a gun on you? I think it’s just a lot all at once. Maybe you should go visit your sister in Texas.”

That made me bristle. “I don’t want to visit my sister. All she does is try to play matchmaker and criticize my appearance. I’d love to see my niece and nephews, but I’d prefer to see them without Jen, because I can’t deal with her right now.” I wouldn’t mind a squishy three-year-old hug with soft hands and sticky kisses, but honestly, my sister could be overwhelming on a good day. It wouldn’t be a respite to have her grilling me on my love life.

“Then go to Chicago for the weekend and go shopping. Get out of town for a minute.”

“I don’t need to go shopping. I have work to do. A hoarder’s daughter just hired me to clean out her house.” I scrolled through my social media on my phone to avoid Alyssa’s gaze. “Besides, running away is no solution, and the worst is over. Tim is in custody. Finding that hand in the brush had nothing to do with me. It was just a horrible coincidence.” Obviously I couldn’t tell her about Hannah, since she didn’t believe that Ryan was a ghost. She’d really think I was nuts if I mentioned I knew Hannah was dead but no one else did.

The guy who had seen me find the hand had direct messaged me again.

Cops are still crawling around here. It’s all over the news now. So much for property values. Haha. Have they told you anything?

I decided to answer him.

No, nothing. Bummer about your view.

Hey, would you ever want to go for coffee some time?

I held my phone out to Alyssa. “So the guy who thought I was a lunatic on the verge of throwing myself into the river asked me out for coffee. Is that a little weird?”

She read the exchange, her lips silently moving. Finally, she shrugged. “I would go. Why not? It will make Marner jealous. And maybe this dude is your destiny. A fresh start.”

“You have a very odd way of looking at things.” I tossed my phone down. Then I picked it back up. I didn’t really want to meet Nick Petrillo for coffee, but impulse had me messaging him back and agreeing.

Maybe Alyssa was right and I needed a fresh start that had nothing to do with cops or bodies or ghosts.

Ryan leaned over me and started reading my screen. “That guy has cojones. Hitting on a woman over a dead body. I like his style.”

I sighed again, louder this time. There was no escaping the dead.