Free Predator and Prey Prowlers 3 by Christopher Golden Page A

stand next to her. He wiped his hands on a dishrag and glanced at her oddly, but said nothing.
    “Guys!” she called. “Can I have your attention please?”
    Dougie and another cook had already wandered over to where they could see her from behind the counter, and now the dishwashers dropped what they were doing as well. The other two cooks had food on the grill and on the stove, and so they kept working, though they were clearly listening.
    “I’ve had complaints from members of the wait staff about harassment,” Courtney began. Then she glared at Dougie, searing him with her eyes. “One of them claims that she was groped back here.”
    Tim swore, shaking his head angrily. “By who?”
    “Dougie.”
    The others all turned to look at Dougie, some with disdain but most with curiosity. Dougie sneered and threw his hands up.
    “Janis. I can’t believe that bitch. I never touched her.”
    Courtney laughed, though not in amusement. “Really? Then what makes you think it was Janis?” She looked around at the others. “I just wanted to make sure you all heard this, so I didn’t have to say it more than once. We don’t put up with that kind of crap here. Not ever.” Then she turned to Tim. “You’re going to be short a body tonight.”
    “We’ll manage,” he assured her, his anger perhaps even greater than her own.
    “Good,” Courtney said. Then she looked at Dougie. “You’re fired. Go. Now.”

    With that, she glanced again at Tim, who nodded once in assent and support. Then Courtney walked out of the kitchen, a strange sort of exhilaration crackling in her like an electric charge. She had walked with a cane since she was nineteen years old and she did not get to kick ass very often.
    It felt good.
    But all that good feeling drained out of her when she looked across the pub and saw Jack and Molly coming through the front door. Both of them wore expressions of such despair that Courtney immediately wanted to reach out to them, and there was a kind of dark energy between them that told her they were at odds without a single word being exchanged. It looked as though their day off had not gone as well as she had hoped it would.
    Jack turned toward Molly as though he wanted to say something but she only shook her head and kept walking. He watched as she made a beeline for the stairs that led to the apartment above the pub. Molly passed right by Courtney without even acknowledging her and went up the steps as though she were running away from something.
    In the middle of the restaurant, with fans turning lazily overhead and heartbreak music on the sound system, Jack watched her go until the door at the top of the stairs closed. Then he shook his head and walked over to the bar. He sat at the far end, away from the small group of regulars, and Bill slid a Coke across the bar to him.
    Courtney recalled having thought of this time of day as peaceful only minutes before. Now she hurried across the restaurant and up the step into the bar area, worried about Molly, but mostly concerned about her brother.
    “What’s that all about?” she asked as she slid onto a stool beside him.
    Jack smiled thinly. “Well, at least you guys are talking to me.”
    Behind the bar, Bill crossed his arms and frowned. “She looked pretty pissed, Jack.”
    Courtney’s little brother pushed his hands through his hair and groaned. “Yep.”
    “It’s okay if you don’t want to talk about it,” Courtney told him.
    “No. It’s all right.” He looked over at Bill, then at her, an expression so innocent on his face that he looked like a little kid to her again.
    “While we were on the beach, I saw . . . a ghost. It was Artie. Something important came up and he just appeared there, hanging out over the water. I was surprised, you know? Who wouldn’t be? And I . . . I said his name.” At first Courtney didn’t understand. She was surprised, of course, because Jack had not mentioned seeing Artie’s ghost for a very long time, so