I may have gotten rid of William on Monday but by Wednesday he was back, sitting in on a client estimate I was giving at a house in the neighborhood I grew up in. The homeowners were tired of the eighties architecture and wanted to give it a facelift without spending a hundred grand. They wanted my advice on what improvements to make on a budget to sell the house quickly. These were fun appointments for me. I can usually assess the house and offer practical suggestions in two hours or less and make decent money for the consult. Without having to have a warehouse of furniture.

This time though, as I was suggesting the homeowners paint all the honey oak trim white, William was following me like the world’s saddest Santa. He was sighing and dragging his ghost boots, cap in hand. I shot him a few dirty looks but I absolutely refused to speak to him or react in any way. I was already known as the woman who had been kidnapped by a serial killer. I didn’t need people knowing that spirits appeared around me like drugs at a Grateful Dead concert. Not surprisingly, some people are not entirely comfortable with ghosts.

Knowing how irritating they could be, I couldn’t blame them.

After a very tense appointment with me trying to be totally normal and most likely failing, I got in my car. William sat in the passenger seat. I put my phone to my ear so it would look like I was talking to a living person and turned to him. “What is your problem?” I asked. “I’m working!”

“You haven’t been doing anything. You’ve just been listening to Christmas music and eating raw cookie dough for the past two nights.”

Busted. My cheeks burned. “I enjoy the holidays. Sue me.” I had been making dough in prep for Grandma Burke coming over after church on Sunday to bake with me. Jake had been busy with work and fitting in his gym time, so I had been alone just doing my thing. Which involved easy dinners of string cheese and a microwavable veggie burger, followed by yes, cookie dough. I know it’s a salmonella risk, but it’s one I’m willing to take.

“You should be helping me.”

“There’s nothing I can do. The wheels of justice move slow. It’s only been three days.”

“Just because I have eternity doesn’t mean I want to spend an eternity waiting.”

“Fair enough.” I rubbed my temples. “What do you want me to do?”

“I want to go in my house and I can’t do it without you. I just want to walk around and feel at home.”

I had to admit, that touched me. It would suck to not have freedom of movement. Most ghosts I had encountered could be where they had died or with me, that was it. Everyone loves independence and being a ghost wasn’t conducive to having any. “Okay. I can do that. But you need to give me a reason to talk to your wife.”

“Let’s just go when she’s not at home.”

“Are you crazy? You want me to break in?” The thought gave me heart palpitations. I am not good at subterfuge.

“It’s not breaking in if you know where the key is.” He grinned at me. “Karen is at work now and then she goes straight to her church group. She goes every Wednesday. The house is empty, I swear, and she won’t be back until at least eight.”

It was three now which meant a lot of the neighbors wouldn’t be home either but it would be light out. “We’ll go after the sun goes down. I can’t be seen going into your house.”

That was how I found myself dressed in head to toe black and a knit cap on my head to cover my very recognizable ginger hair. I looked like exactly what I was—a woman who was totally unversed in crime trying to be a criminal. It was trying too hard. I looked more Broadway stage show than someone actually breaking and entering.

Fortunately, there was a key in the flower pot by the back door, and the yard was fenced. So with my heart racing I cautiously opened the door and let William go in ahead of me. Then I legitimately tiptoed into the kitchen. I wanted to stay right by the back door in case I needed to get the heck out of Dodge.

“What the hell?” William asked, immediately drawing up short. “Karen remodeled the kitchen. She always wanted to do that and I kept putting her off.”

“She has good taste.” It was an open concept with a fresh farmhouse style. The apron sink gave me the feels. It was copper and it was gorgeous.

“I guess this is what my life insurance went to.”

William sounded put out.

“No life insurance,” I reminded him. “You were missing, not dead. I doubt that three years was long enough to legally declare you dead but I don’t know the rules. If she had pursued it heavily, I imagine since there was no sign of you either in person or digitally, she probably could have gotten it legally sorted.”

I really was a bad ghost investigator. I should have looked into that first thing. But I still maintained in this case that was up to the cops. It wasn’t like a case where the cops hadn’t found a body or didn’t even know there was a murder. This must be an active investigation so I figured I could watch from the sidelines.

“I don’t know.” William just shook his head. “I am looking at a seventy-grand kitchen. This is nuts.”

Did he really care about the solidity of his 401k at this point? It seemed odd but he really looked pissed.

William wandered into the family room while I stayed rooted to the spot in the kitchen. Not only was I afraid of getting busted, I realized that my boots had snow on them and that would be a dead giveaway if there were wet footprints all over the house.

The minutes ticked by and I started to get more and more nervous. The house was clearly empty. It felt and sounded still, but I had zero excuse for being there if Karen came home. Like none. Less than none. Negative excuses.

“William,” I whispered into the dim house. “We need to go.”

No answer.

I was debating going deeper into the house to search for him and tell him I was leaving whether he liked it or not when I heard the front door open.

Holy jail time.

I momentarily froze but then backed up as quietly as possible. Fortunately, I was only two feet from the back door. I tossed the key back in the planter without bothering to lock the door. Whoever it was would hear me if I tried to lock it and it would slow me down too much anyway. Let Karen think she’d forgotten to lock it that morning.

Ducking down I fast-walked hunched over to the side gate. But when I tried to open it my fingers didn’t seem to be working. I couldn’t get the latch unhooked. In full-blown panic mode, I grabbed the top of the picket fence and tried to lift my leg over. Just for the record, if you ever need to know this, or want to try it, don’t. Climbing over a picket fence doesn’t work unless you’re six foot five and an American Ninja Warrior.

I ended up with my foot caught between two pickets, hopping on the other leg as I lost my balance.

“This is bad,” I whispered. But as I bounced up and down, the motion tripped the lock. Or maybe it was never latched to begin with and I had just panicked. Either way, it swung open with me riding it like the world’s worst pole dancer.

Trying to get my leg back down was a nightmare and I was pretty sure I pulled something I was going to need later in my leg but I managed to scramble off, stumbling forward. My breath was pluming in front of me from the cold and my anxiety and I almost fell, but grabbed the side of the house for stability. Then I cut over and walked down the neighbor’s driveway, which seemed less sketchy than running as fast as I could over the Anthony front yard.

My car was parked two houses down and I jumped in it, sighing in relief. There was no sign of anyone chasing after me screaming, “Hey, you!” so I figured I was in the clear. William didn’t pop up next to me until I was rolling past his house.

“Someone came home!” I said.

“Yeah, it was Karen.” William sounded detached, casual. Cool.

“I could have gotten arrested! You said she wouldn’t come home.”

He just shrugged. “Sorry.”

That made me nervous. I turned onto the main road, picking up speed, anxious to get away from the scene of the crime. “What’s wrong?”

“None of my stuff is there anymore. None of it. Not my clock collection. Not my sports memorabilia. Not my clothes. And to make it even worse, there is another man’s clothes in the closet where my stuff used to be.” William cleared his throat. “She has a boyfriend.”

Ouch. That would definitely suck. Granted it had been three years. And he had been unfaithful before his death. But it would still hurt to know you were stuck in a Santa suit and your wife was living her best life without you.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “But it’s good that she’s happy, right? You wouldn’t want her to be miserable.”

William gave a snort. “That is a loaded question. But I hope my stuff went to my kids and not into a garage sale. That’s the rub, isn’t it? You spend your life accumulating stuff that has meaning to you and then you’re gone and to everyone else it’s junk. What’s the point of our lives?”

This was a little heavy for a Wednesday when I was wearing black spandex. “Philosophers have been asking that for a thousand years. But maybe the stuff that mattered to you was there simply to provide happiness while you were on earth. And what does stuff represent? It reminds you of memories. Moments with loved ones. Time you spend on a hobby or at a football game or with your kids. That’s what life is about, right? Love.”

I sincerely meant all of that.

William glanced over at me. “You’re a sweet girl.”

“Thanks.”

“And that’s a complete load of crap, just so you know it. Life is about slogging through. That’s it. Every day is just one step closer to death.”

Someone was a Debbie Downer. But he was dead, so I would give him a pass.

“I will be sure to put that cheerful bit of inspiration on a sampler and hang it in my house.”

“See that you do.”

The next night Jake came over for dinner. He walked in looking unaffected by the cold as usual. He had two massive shopping bags in his hands. “What’s all this?” I asked, suddenly monstrously curious what Jake would give me as a Christmas gift.

This would be our first time exchanging gifts and I had a feeling it could go either horribly wrong or awesomely romantic. Jake was a wild card. He was tidy and thoughtful and seemed to have his finger (among other parts) on the pulse of what I liked. But he was definitely better at defining what I didn’t like when it came to things like clothes and home décor. Movies and food were easy—he was spot-on with my preferences there. But while he readily knew I would never wear say, a vest, and that I liked florals, he struggled with the concept of what matched and what didn’t. His own apartment was well done in neutrals, with lots of industrial accents, but he veered into kitsch now and again.

So I was picturing either a beautiful leather handbag (hit) or a bedazzled apple purse (miss) because he knows I like apples and purses. There was just no telling.

All of that was confirmed when he triumphantly reached into the bag and pulled out a leg lamp. “Look what I got for you. I don’t have a window I can put this in front of but you have a picture window. It’s perfect.”

There is a reason the mom in A Christmas Story was appalled by the delivery of the leg lamp to the father. And she was right.

I felt all the blood drain from my face in alarm. “Oh, wow, um, that’s so fun, but it doesn’t really go with my theme here.”

He looked at me blankly. “The theme is Christmas.”

“And that is a lamp shaped like a Vegas showgirl’s leg. There is nothing Christmas about that.”

“But it’s from the movie. And the husband loves it and the wife hates it, which is what makes it funny.”

I was pretty sure I knew all of that.

As my modern-meets-traditional-Victorian-Christmas wonderland twinkled around us, I debated how much I loved Jake. Did I love him leg lamp volume? Or was I going to have to come down hard and establish boundaries on what happened with décor in my own house?

“Your house is almost identical on the outside to the house in Tremont used to film the movie. Except for the color. They’re very similar.”

He stood there, excited, expectantly, like when Ralphie got his mail from the Ovaltine decoder club. I couldn’t burst his bubble. I couldn’t tell Jake to drink his Ovaltine.

Damn it.

“That’s true,” I said. “Here, why don’t you put it on the side table? The tree is taking up most of the picture window.” Swiftly, before I changed my mind and started to scream, “That’s so ugly” at the top of my lungs, I removed the lamp that was sitting there. “I’ll put this one in the closet.”

I did that, trying to steel my features so Jake didn’t see my profound distress.

Yep. It was definitely love.

If I started eating food that had dropped on the floor under the “five second rule” I was going to seek an intervention because clearly love made you crazy.

Jake plugged it in and turned it on, looking very proud, putting his hands on his hips. “That is awesome right there.”

“Totally.” It was something all right, but I wouldn’t call it awesome.

Now that he had ruined the visual impact of my tasteful Christmas in Cleveland, Jake took the other bag into the kitchen and started unpacking groceries. This was another reason to keep my mouth shut. Jake fed me. Without him I ate prepackaged chicken strips with pasta sauce dumped on them or granola bars. He made fresh food. Salmon and asparagus. Chicken and roasted vegetables. Fluffy breakfast omelets. There was no way I could be petty about the lamp when he bent over backwards to take care of me.

“Tonight is steak, roasted potatoes with a cilantro pesto, and a broccoli salad.” He pulled out a bottle of wine. “Pinot noir. Can you open this and let it breathe?”

“Of course.” My mouth was already watering. “How was work?”

Jake pulled out a knife and started slicing potatoes while I went for the corkscrew. “Oh, I forgot to tell you. Santa wasn’t alone in the slide. There was another body in there with him.”

“What?” That shocked me to the core. “How the heck could that be possible?”

“Somebody stuffed them in there together. I can’t think of any other explanation. No one would climb in there together. Too small. It wasn’t a good hiding space or a place to make out or anything.”

“How weird. Who kills two people at a crowded Christmas party? And why didn’t William mention to me that he wasn’t alone?”

“I think the one thing that is apparent about all these ghosts who show themselves to you is that they’re all liars. They’re selfish, with an agenda. Maybe he didn’t want you to know he wasn’t alone for whatever reason.”

I wrinkled my nose and picked up the wine bottle. “That’s a lousy thought.”

“It’s true and you know it. You’re an honest person, but most of these guys have jerked you around in one way or another.”

“I’m going to need to turn up my Christmas music for this conversation. It’s very demoralizing.”

Jake paused in slicing potatoes and looked over at me. “Hey. Don’t let it get you down. I love how optimistic you are. Just remember that when you’re hanging around in eternity you have motivation to make something happen.” He shook his head and grinned. “I can’t believe I’m just talking about ghosts like it’s no big deal.”

“Me either. I was on the fence about ghosts until they started moving in to my house on a regular basis making demands.” Like William wanting to break into his former house. I tried not to wince imagining Marner’s reaction to me at the Anthony house hanging on their fence gate in the world’s lamest getaway.

“Body was a female. Wearing a dress.”

“So… no one reported a woman missing? How bizarre.”

“Maybe they did. We’ll have to go back and pick through whatever was going on December three years ago.”

“I would say it’s the wife except that would be pretty stupid at her own Christmas party. And the motive would have to be pure rage. Without a body she probably hasn’t been able to collect life insurance.”

“It could be murder for hire. Wife hires someone to bump hubby off. The female might have been in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

I twisted the corkscrew and mulled that over. “It’s possible.” I popped the cork. “Totally unrelated to murder, your mom called me. She wanted to know if we’re coming over for Christmas Eve dinner.”

“Oh, God. Why would she call you instead of me?” Jake poured olive oil in a pan and turned on the burner. “I’m sorry.”

“I think she was strategizing. If she calls me she knows you’ll address the issue sooner so she doesn’t call again. Whereas if she asks you, you tell her you’ll get back to her and then two weeks go by.”

He tilted his head. “That could all be true.”

“So are we going to Christmas Eve dinner? My family does midnight mass and then Christmas Day brunch so I don’t have a conflict.” Not that I was dying to spend another brunch with my parents but at least Christmas Day would be at their house. Dad would wander away and watch football. My aunt and uncle and cousins would come over and the increased volume of bodies would break up the tension. Given all of that, I was actually looking forward to spending time with Jake’s family. His father still swatted his mother’s butt as she walked by while she pretended to be horrified, but could never prevent herself from grinning. His siblings had kids and it was lively and fun to be at their house.

“If you don’t mind.”

I came up behind him and slipped my arms around his middle and leaned my head on his shoulder. “I don’t mind at all.”

Christmas made me sentimental.