The Ghost Exterminator: A Karmic Consultants story. Read online

  “That isn’t Wyatt,” Lucy corrected. She grabbed Jo’s arm as they both sprinted toward the pool and the ghostly party crashers.

  Chapter Seventeen: Impromptu Pool Party!

  Wyatt blinked sleepily and was immediately flooded with dread. He decided it was a bad sign that he was starting to get used to waking up in strange places. Standing next to a pool, sipping a cup of coffee, was not how he usually woke up in the morning. Traditionally, he also avoided having blonde cheerleader-dictators screeching at him and large quantities of strangers staring at him in shock and horror as a man he had been talking to immediately before falling asleep fished himself out of a pool.

  Another post-hypnotic suggestion. Or, as was looking terrifyingly more likely, the ghosts had taken over again. And the little bastards hadn’t even stuck around to get their come-uppance. Now everyone thought he had thrown Jo’s brother-in-law in the pool.

  “Wyatt?” Jo appeared at his side and peered closely at him. “Oh, good, it’s you.”

  It was a bad sign when he couldn’t even ask who else it would be. “What happened?”

  “What happened?” Kim shrieked before Jo could reply. “What happened? You attacked my husband is what happened!”

  Wyatt rubbed the back of his neck and grimaced. “Oops.”

  “Oops?”

  “Chill out, Kimmie. It’s not like Scott was in danger of drowning. The pool’s only five feet deep.”

  “That isn’t the point, Jo Ellen! You don’t just go around throwing perfectly innocent men into pools.”

  “Maybe Wyatt thought it was a pool party,” Jo muttered under her breath.

  As Kimmie started to turn purple and hyperventilate, Beth stormed up. “The food! The food is all soaked! You told me this wouldn’t be a problem, Jo! You said that he wouldn’t be a problem.”

  “He isn’t a problem!” Jo shouted and Wyatt was taken aback by her vehemence, not to mention the fact that she was actually defending him.

  Beth and Kim were visibly gearing up to say more when a pack of kids in bathing suits rushed past him from the direction of the house, jumping into the pool en masse and temporarily diverting their mothers.

  “Dinah! Maya! Out of the pool this instant! Who said you could go swimming?”

  “Uncle Scott said!” the oldest of the pack, evidently the elected spokesperson, piped up.

  “Well, Uncle Scott doesn’t make the rules, does he?”

  Jo tugged gently on Wyatt’s arm as he watched the drama unfolding beside the pool, along with everyone else at the party. So much for inconspicuous.

  “Come on. Let’s make a break for it while they’re distracted.”

  Wyatt looked down at her and arched his eyebrows. “Coward.”

  “Nuh-uh,” she denied, shaking her head. “I’ve had twenty-six years with those two to learn the value of a strategic retreat. Come on. Don’t worry, if you still want to be chewed out, I’m sure they’re going to follow us. I just thought my mother might appreciate it if we took the drama to a smaller stage.”

  Jo grabbed his hand and led him around the side of the house, out of the range of prying eyes. At the sound of footsteps behind them, Wyatt turned and saw Lucy and a large, dark man following them. Lucy winked at him and sent him a finger-wave as she tripped along hand-in-hand with the six-plus feet of unruffled cool that must be Karma’s baby brother.

  “Where are we going?”

  “Somewhere out of the range of breakables and projectiles.” Jo stopped in the middle of the front yard. “This’ll do.”

  Wyatt looked around him, wondering what Jo saw in this patch of grass that he was missing. They were about twenty feet from the front of the house and equidistant from the street where a row of parked cars for the party shielded them somewhat from the eyes of curious passersby, but they were still in full sight of any of the nearby houses should Beth’s neighbors suddenly get curious. “This’ll do for what?”

  Jo shoved up the sleeves on her borrowed blouse and faced him squarely. “I think it’s about time these ghosts of yours and I had a little talk.”

  Wyatt winced. “This is going to hurt, isn’t it?”

  Jo smiled wickedly, but Lucy was suddenly at his side, patting his arm in a conciliatory way. “You won’t feel a thing,” she promised cheerfully before joining Jo facing him. Jake wandered up to stand at Lucy’s other side, completing the supernatural firing squad effect.

  Wyatt braced himself, but the attack didn’t come from the quarter he’d expected. Before Lucy and Jo could do their worst, the desperate housewife set stormed around the side of the house.

  “This isn’t over, Jo Ellen! How dare you just walk away after your…your man nearly drowned my Scott?”

  “The food is all soaked and you’ve absconded with the guests of honor!” Beth added her protest to Kim’s before Jo could respond.

  Jo turned to tackle Beth’s grievances first. “Luce and Jake are here of their own free will. If you want to drag them back to the party, you are welcome to try. And if you didn’t want the food to get all wet, you shouldn’t have put the banquet tables right next to the frickin’ pool, Elizabeth.”

  “No one was supposed to go in the pool, Jo Ellen!”

  “Except all the kids, right? Because I’m pretty sure Wyatt didn’t tell them they could go swimming.”

  “I didn’t,” Wyatt quickly swore—actually having no idea what he had said while the ghosts were controlling him, but unwilling to take responsibility for anything for which there weren’t validating witnesses.

  “See? So, I’m sorry about the food. Wyatt is sorry about the food. I’m sure Scott is sorry about the food. You want me to order out for pizza? Wyatt knows this really good place that delivers—”

  “Pizza?” Bethie shrieked. “You want to replace quiche Florentine and lemon-grilled salmon with pizza?”

  “Geez, Bethie, it’s not like anyone was eating the food anyway. You know what mom says, ‘Grazing at a party is for the ill-bred.’ So you’ve just improved everyone’s breeding by removing temptation. Congratulations.”

  “I cannot believe we’re related,” Bethie snarled as she spun on her heel and marched back toward the backyard, leaving angry divots in the grass with every step.

  “Yeah, me neither,” Jo muttered under her breath, turning to Lucy. “Do you think it’s possible we’re changelings? It would explain so much.”

  “Except for why Grandma Regina talks to ghosts.”

  Jo wrinkled her nose. “Well, yeah. I guess there is that.” She turned to her other sister, who was standing by with her arms folded tightly across her chest, and steam all but pouring out of her ears. “Thanks for waiting your turn, Kim.”

  “I want a reckoning,” Kim growled in a fair imitation of the kid from The Exorcist.

  Jo sighed heavily. “Kimmie, he’s sorry. Look at him, doesn’t he look contrite?”

  Wyatt did his best to look obsessively contrite.

  “See? Is that the face of a man intent on drowning people? I think not. Scott can swim. The pool is shallow. The worst possible interpretation is that it was a practical joke in very poor taste, but I can guarantee you that the last thing Wyatt Haines would do is push your husband into the pool. I am absolutely positive that as far as Wyatt is concerned, it was a complete accident.”

  Not unlike her hair had been.

  Kim was not mollified. “Grown men do not go around throwing one another into pools.”

  Jo snorted. “Kim, Scott was in a fraternity. I somehow doubt this is the first time he has been thrown into a pool. I’m willing to bet he’s been the thrower a time or two, as well. Which is possibly why he isn’t the one out here haranguing us. He knows this isn’t a big deal. A little male bonding gone wrong. No big.”

  “It most certainly is big!” Kim protested. “This was Lucy and Jake’s day, Jo Ellen! Is it so much to ask to have one normal family event without your—”

  Lucy raised her hand like a schoolgirl to interrupt Kim’s diatribe. “Y
ou know, Jake and I really don’t mind. I actually think Wyatt’s ghosts are kind of cute.”

  “Ghosts!” Kim shrieked, loud enough that people back at the party could admire the decibel level. “I am sick of everyone humoring you, Jo! There is no such thing as ghosts!”

  Out of the corner of her eye, Jo saw Wyatt’s posture change as a uniform green glow washed over his body. “You’re absolutely right,” Jo agreed abruptly. “I’m nuts. Luce and Jake and Karma and everyone else who talks to spirits, we’re all whack jobs. Congratulations. You caught us. So why don’t you head on back to the normal party and leave the crazies to their own devices?”

  Kim’s eyebrows drew down in a threatening glare as she dug in her designer heels. “If you think I’m just going to walk away…”

  Wyatt’s body took a step toward her sister and Jo decided not to wait to hear whatever baseless threat Kim had dreamed up. Her middle sister had always been all talk and no action. Kimmie was the most likely to go for a screaming hissy fit, but Bethie’s wrath was a thing to fear. Bethie carried a grudge and was diabolically creative when it came to vengeance. Jo had learned from the best.

  She needed to get Kim out of there before Wyatt’s ghosts got creative in their attempts to prove their existence.

  “I didn’t want to do this,” Jo said. “But if you don’t leave us alone and go back to the party right now, I’m going to have to tell Scott that you would only answer to Mrs. William T. Riker for three months during seventh grade.”

  Kim visibly paled. “You wouldn’t dare,” she whispered in horror.

  “Wouldn’t I?”

  “He won’t believe it.” Kim’s eyes shuttled nervously back and forth.

  “Even after I supply proof? You really shouldn’t have left your diaries lying around the house. Anyone could pick them up and Xerox a few pages for future blackmail.”

  “You little thief!”

  “Poor Scott. He thought he was marrying the Homecoming Queen, but instead he got saddled with a closet Trekkie.”

  Kim screeched and fled back to the party as fast as her Jimmy Choos could carry her.

  “I never knew Kim liked Star Trek,” Lucy said conversationally once they were alone again.

  Jo shrugged. “You were younger and didn’t have to live in the same house with her. I love me some Star Trek, but having to ask Mrs. Riker to pass the salt got old in a hurry.”

  “Why do you like Star Trek so much?” Wyatt asked suddenly.

  “Back with us, are you?” Jo gave the no-longer-glowing Wyatt a grin. “I love Star Trek because no matter what freaky shit was happening, no matter what wormhole or alternate dimension they stumbled into, they took it in stride and treated it like it was totally normal. Some of the crew weren’t even human, but they were accepted for what they were. The world should be more like Star Trek.”

  “Here here,” Lucy raised an imaginary glass in mock toast, grinning. “To the crazies, long may they rave!”

  Jo laughed. “And on that note, let’s talk to some ghosts.”

  Chapter Eighteen: The Young and the Dead

  “Before we get started, why don’t you tell me what they said when you talked to them previously.” Lucy knelt on the grass, settling the skirt of her sundress around her.

  “I haven’t talked to them, Luce.” Jo dropped down beside her cousin, stretching her legs out and absently plucking at the blades of grass. “That’s why I need you. You know I don’t see them the way you do.”

  Lucy made a face. “You don’t see them because you aren’t looking.”

  “I see them,” she said, waving a hand at Wyatt. “They’re in his left shoulder. But I don’t see them. Not as, like, people. They’re marbles.”

  “They look like marbles because you’re looking for marbles,” Lucy insisted. “Look for ghosts. Look for kids. Look for the traces of life.”

  Jo’s expression turned mulish. “How exactly is this helping Wyatt?”

  Lucy smiled sweetly. “I’m helping you help Wyatt. Now, look.”

  Jo opened her second sight, looking for all she was worth, but she still only saw two small, vibrating green marbles rolling around in Wyatt’s rotator cuff. Jo gave up and turned to Jake in frustration. “What do you see?”

  Wyatt looked at Jake in surprise. “You see ghosts?” he asked him.

  Jake shrugged, “I’m a sensitive, so sometimes I’ll catch glimpses. Usually when I’m around Lucy. I don’t see much on my own, but your shoulder is kind of glowing.”

  Lucy nodded sagely. “Mediums amplify supernatural presences. Since your ghosts are trying to hide, Wyatt, Jake probably wouldn’t see a thing if Jo and I weren’t here.”

  “So if I’m around Jo, I should see ghosts?”

  “If you’re open to it,” Lucy confirmed.

  Jo snorted. “Wyatt doesn’t believe in ghosts.”

  “Oh.” Lucy turned to Jo with obvious concern. “You aren’t dating him, are you? Because I don’t think it’s smart to date someone who thinks your entire job is make believe.”

  Jo laughed. “Thanks for the relationship advice, Dr. Ruth, but Wyatt and I dating is the last thing you need to worry about.” She ignored the twinge of disappointment she felt at the truth in that statement.

  “Oh, good.” Lucy turned back to him with a smile. “So, Wyatt. How do you feel right now? Have you been hearing any voices lately? Seen any funny green lights?”

  “I feel impatient,” he grumbled. “And the only voices I heard were when the house seemed to be talking to me.”

  “Bethie’s house talks to you?” Lucy asked impishly.

  “My house. The Victorian. I couldn’t really make out what it was saying. It was like someone was whispering too fast for me to pick out actual words.”

  Jo sat up straighter and met Lucy’s eyes as dread hardened in her stomach. She should be ecstatic that Wyatt seemed to actually be treating the ghost problem like it had to do with actual ghosts, but hearing voices was almost never a good sign. The whispering could have been demonic—which Jo didn’t want to admit, given Wyatt’s previous insistence that everything could be blamed on demons and her own declaration that he didn’t have any evil forces in his house—or Wyatt could have been picking up on a spell of some kind. But why would a spell affect ghosts?

  “Let’s talk to the little buggers, shall we?”

  Lucy made a gesture as if she were pushing up her sleeves, except for the fact that her dress was sleeveless. She smiled gently at Wyatt’s shoulder. “Come out…” she cooed encouragingly.

  “Has anyone ever told you that you sound like Glenda the Good Witch sometimes?”

  “You aren’t helping, Jo,” Lucy muttered out of the side of her mouth, continuing to focus her energy on subtly coaxing the ghosts forward. “Come out, my little friends. No one will hurt you.”

  The glow rippled across Wyatt’s body from the shoulder out. His perma-frown vanished, replaced by a truculent pout and his ramrod straight posture deflated into a slouch. He scuffed one loafer against the other in a quintessentially boyish gesture. The lights were on, but Wyatt wasn’t home.

  Lucy beamed at him like a proud parent. “What’s your name, sweetie?”

  Jo had heard Lucy talk about her relationship with her ghosts enough to know that she could see a ghost’s name, but before Jo could question her, Wyatt spoke, a slurred little-boy drawl coming out of a thirty-something man’s mouth.

  “Teddy.”

  “Teddy,” Lucy repeated, her voice soothing and gentle. “That’s a lovely name. How old are you, Teddy?”

  “Seven.”

  “Why did you push Scott into the pool, Teddy?” Lucy asked soft and curious, without an ounce of recrimination in her voice.

  Wyatt/Teddy’s lower lip shoved out in an exaggerated pout. “I didn’t,” he protested unconvincingly.

  Lucy made a soft, disappointed tsking sound against her palate and suddenly words began to pour out of Wyatt/Teddy’s mouth.

  “It was Angelica! She’s a
lways trying to take over the body. Like she can do it better than me ’cuz she’s older. She’s the one who spilled the coffee on the bald man and pushed him into the pool to cool him off. I didn’t do nothing.”

  “Anything,” Lucy corrected automatically. “How old is Angelica, Teddy?”

  “Nine,” Teddy spat, as if the age itself were an insult. “But she barely turned nine before she died.”

  Jo blinked in surprise. “You know that you’re dead?”

  “Obviously.” Teddy rolled his eyes and looked at her like she was, well, a nine year old.

  “When did you die, Teddy?” Lucy asked.

  Teddy frowned, puzzled by the question. “Before.”

  “Do you remember what year it was?”

  Teddy shrugged and scuffed his shoes—and Jo realized with a jolt that she had stopped thinking of the body as Wyatt. Riding hard on that thought was the realization that she could see Teddy. It was as though a faint green image of a little boy had been superimposed over Wyatt’s body. Teddy was thin, with a pointed chin and large eyes. He wore a button-down shirt that could have belonged a modern boy all dressed up or been daily attire for the Leave It to Beaver era.

  This ghost, this kid, had been hiding out in Wyatt all along and all she had seen was a marble. Jo felt her stomach turn over queasily as she thought about everything she had said and done in front of those little eyes and ears over the past two days. Oh God, the kids had probably seen her making out with him in her office. She had crawled all over the body they were hiding inside. She had probably scarred them for life. Or for death, at least. She was like a pedophile for dead kids. Ewwww.

  Lucy was asking Teddy a series of questions, but Jo’s conscience wouldn’t let her wait for a polite break in the conversation. She interrupted, “Can you see and hear things going on around you when you aren’t in control of the body?”

  Teddy made a face. “It’s all fuzzy and distant. That’s why Angelica and me always want to run the body. We can’t see nothing but clouds when he is in control.”