Free Wide Open by Deborah Coates

slamming doors. She owed Dell more than bar fights and beer. Hallie and Dell’s ghost both knew it.
    Brett pulled her head back and arched an eyebrow, as if that would allow her to see Hallie more clearly. You don’t see anything, Brett, Hallie thought, because you can’t see ghosts following me around.
    Brett gave a small laugh as if she knew exactly what Hallie was thinking, which was decidedly unlikely. Lorie hugged her, and then they were gone. Hallie got coffee from the bartender and sat in one of the badly lit corners at the end of the bar for another hour. While she sat, she made lists in her head of things she knew or wanted to know, lists of lightning bolts and Uku-Weber and what Pete Bolluyt had been doing since he’d come home to Taylor County.

 
     
    9
     
    When Hallie finally left the Bobtail, the parking lot was mostly empty. The night air was cool, but not cold, a light breeze blowing out of the west, fresh air that didn’t smell of stale beer and electric lights. A couple of boys in tight jeans and battered boots sat on a pickup tailgate in the south corner of the lot, underneath a flickering light with a twelve-pack between them. One of them raised his can of beer at her, an invitation. And maybe if it had been another time, maybe if Dell hadn’t died, she’d have done it.
    Because sometimes beer and boys and stupid conversations were enough to get you by.
    She waved at them and continued across the lot to her truck, when she heard the slow crunch of tires on gravel behind her.
    Shit .
    “Everything all right?” It was the Boy Deputy. Again.
    His left arm rested on the car door, his index finger tapping against the frame. He was looking at the bracelet on her wrist again. She shoved her hand into her pocket.
    “You all right?” he asked. “Need a ride?”
    Because that would be the topper to a perfect evening, she thought, showing up at home in the sheriff’s car again. “No.” She looked at him sideways. “You want to test my breath?”
    “You’re not drunk,” he said. She couldn’t stop looking at him, which was annoying, though not actually his fault. Only his short precision haircut saved him from being too pretty. It was why he looked so young—because he was so pretty. “I just thought,” he continued. “That you might be, you know … shaken up.”
    “I’ve been in fights before.”
    The light was good enough right there that, though it shaded everything in blues and grays, she could see him raise an eyebrow. “Really?” he said. “And you look so innocent.”
    Yeah, fuck you, she thought.
    “You don’t always come to the fight,” she said. “Sometimes the fight comes to you.” And, shit, if that wasn’t the dorkiest thing she’d said out loud in a long time. Because she could have said, I don’t go looking for trouble, which would have been a lie, but concise. She cleared her throat and looked up, but she couldn’t see the stars past the parking lot lighting.
    A car, or a pickup truck, Hallie couldn’t tell, pulled into the parking lot. It idled near the entrance for several seconds like it was waiting for someone, then backed around and drove away.
    Boyd got out of his car, left the motor running, and leaned against the side. There was a ghost right behind him. Hallie blinked. She didn’t recognize her—a woman with short blond hair, dressed in a long dark skirt and jacket. Was she going to start collecting them? Like charms on a bracelet? First Eddie and Dell, then random ghosts of perfect strangers?
    “Where did you get that bracelet?” he asked.
    “What?”
    His shoulders hunched, suddenly awkward, like that wasn’t what he’d meant to say at all. “Sorry,” he said. Then, after a minute, “This isn’t official, you understand.”
    “Okay…,” Hallie said with a frown because she didn’t understand. What the hell was he talking about?
    He took a step toward her but kept one hand on his car, like it grounded him. “Are you sure you didn’t