Free Vanished by Kat Richardson Page B

watch TV or something?”
    “No, Paul. I brought this young lady to meet you. She’s interested in your office.”
    Paul Arkmanian frowned at me. “My office? It’s not for rent.” His eyes flickered back to his screen for a moment. He wanted to get back to his game.
    I’d have to be more interesting than a computer game, and I knew that wasn’t as easy as it sounds. “I don’t want to rent it,” I said. “I want to talk to your ghost.”
    Paul pulled the headphones off his neck, setting them on the table. Behind him I could see Sandros raise his eyebrows at me, surprised that I’d managed to snare his son’s attention from the realm of computerized mayhem.
    “Who said there was a ghost in my office?”
    “It’s pretty common knowledge. Lila was filling me in, but I had already heard it before.”
    “She works for the ghost buster show—you know the one,” the elder Arkmanian said.
    “ Ghost Hunters ? Yeah, I’ve heard of that. You guys really think the place is haunted?”
    “Do you?” I asked. “After all, a previous tenant did die there.” My voice didn’t shake, though I’d feared it would.
    Paul bit his lip in thought and glanced down at his keyboard. “I don’t know. . . . Oh, hang on.” He made a few motions with his mouse and keyboard. Then he reached up and turned his monitor off, leaning back in his chair to get a better look at me. His father stared at the back of Paul’s head with his mouth agape. “OK, now that I’m not going to get killed by the first NPC that comes by, let’s talk.” He stood up and went into the living room, expecting us both to follow.
    I did, but Sandros paused a moment in the dining room. “I’ll . . . get us some drinks, yeah?”
    Paul started to wheel back around, saying, “Thanks, Dad, but I can get that—”
    “No, no! You have a guest. I’ll get it. Sit down with the lady and talk. What do you want?”
    “Oh. Umm . . . whiskey and Coke?” the son replied as if he wasn’t sure that was acceptable.
    “Sure, no problem! You, young lady—what is your name, anyway?”
    “It’s Harper. Coke would be fine, thank you.”
    “All right then, Miss Harper. Coke it is.” He vanished through a swinging door to the kitchen before I could correct him. But in retrospect it was probably better if he didn’t notice I had the same last name as the man who’d died in Paul’s office space.
    Paul gestured to an armchair by the tiny fireplace in the living room’s outside wall. “Please . . .”
    I took the seat, although it did put my back to the door and windows.
    “So . . .” Paul started.
    “So, I’d like to take a look at your office during the evening hours. That’s the best time for judging if ghosts are around—when there aren’t so many live people around to disturb the indicators.”
    “Indicators? How do you tell?” Paul asked, sitting down on the sofa across from me and leaning forward. He watched me with serious, earnest eyes, and I understood why the neighborhood couldn’t figure why he wasn’t dating someone. He had that gaze that makes the object feel they’re the most important person in the room. Cary had had that, damn him. I shoved that idea aside and carried on, my emotions about my dad stabilized by the chill of my most recent memory of Cary.
    I winged it, based on past experience with poltergeists and Quinton’s ghost detector ideas. “Oh, air pressure, humidity, atmospheric charge . . . that sort of thing. And noise. You can hear ghosts on recordings sometimes.” I certainly wasn’t going to say I could see them.
    “Really? What about temperature?”
    I nodded. “That, too. Do you get cold spots? That might be a sign.”
    “Oh. No,” he said, and blushed suddenly, dropping his eyes. “No it’s never cold in my office. That would be bad. I’m a chiropractor. Patients don’t feel comfortable if it’s cold. Cold makes the muscles tighten up and the patients get stressed and that’s just what you don’t want.