Free Die Job by Lila Dare Page B

Nowhere. Tyler and Lonnie were out of the picture long before Braden’s accident.”
    I deflated a little. “True enough.” I scanned the room and crossed to the armoire. It towered over me, easily eight feet tall. I tugged on one of the metal pulls and the door swung toward me, emitting a faint scent of camphor. A few wire hangers rattled on the metal pole that stretched across half the opening. Drawers marched down the left side of the cabinet and I opened them idly. Liner paper with a faint gold stripe and a few rodent pellets were all I found until I got to the last drawer. It didn’t open as easily as the others and I gave it a sharp jerk, nearly falling on my fanny when it slid toward me to reveal white fabric crammed into the drawer.
    Spaatz and I exchanged a glance and I scooped my arms under the material and pulled it out in a crumpled ball. I found an end and flapped it, unfolding a white sheet. I arched my brows and poked a finger through one of two perfectly round holes, golf ball sized, in the middle of the cloth.
    “The Ghost of Christmas Past, I presume?” Spaatz said dryly.
    “Boo.”
    We stared at the sheet draped over my arms for a moment.
    “It must be Lonnie’s costume,” Spaatz said, rubbing a corner of the cloth between his thumb and two fingers.
    I was shaking my head before he finished. “Uh-uh. Lonnie was still wearing his ghostie disguise when he went through the window. He got rid of it out there somewhere.” Itilted my head toward the gardens and the cemetery beyond.
    “So who left that in there?”
    I bit my lower lip. “I don’t know, but it seems to me that more than one of your students wanted to make sure you would find ‘spirits’ on your ghost-debunking field trip.”
    A troubled look settled on Spaatz’s face. “This might explain why Braden came upstairs.”
    I nodded. “If someone was playing ghost on the landing, with or without special effects like Lonnie’s, Braden might have come up to investigate. Trouble is, even though this explains why he came upstairs, it doesn’t explain how or why he fell.”
    Spaatz widened his ice-blue eyes. A faint, half-moon scar curved from the outside corner of his right eye. “It must have been an accident, like the police said. He ran up to catch the ghost, caught his shoe on a tread, and fell.”
    “So why didn’t the ghost get help, instead of stuffing his costume in this armoire and disappearing?” I asked quietly.
    “Scared?”
    “Maybe.” The situation made me uneasy. I hadn’t liked it when there was no obvious reason for Braden to have come upstairs. I liked it less now that we knew someone else had been up here, someone who hadn’t bothered to get help for a critically injured teen.
    Spaatz and I descended the stairs and walked to the now-deserted parking lot.
    “What should we do with that?” he asked, nodding at the sheet I still carried.
    I chewed the inside of my cheek, undecided. “I guess we should take it to the police,” I said finally, “and tell them what we figured out about someone playing ghost on the landing.” I dumped the sheet into the trunk.
    “It probably won’t change their minds about it being an accident,” Spaatz warned, pushing the trunk lid down so it closed with a clang.
    “I know.” I sighed. “But we can’t just leave it here. I’ll take it by the station first thing in the morning. Then it will be the police’s problem.”

Chapter Seven

    DUSK HAD FALLEN BY THE TIME I PULLED UP TO THE curb in front of my apartment, the remodeled carriage house offset from my landlady’s Victorian home. Clumps of trick-or-treaters carrying flashlights and pumpkin-shaped plastic containers for collecting candy ran excitedly down the sidewalks. Parents trailed behind, assuring the safety of the tiniest princesses and ninja warriors. A huge jack-o’-lantern with a goofy grin on its face glowed from the bottom step of Mrs. Jones’s veranda.
    “Yoo-hoo! Grace!” Mrs. Jones called. She