Free What a Ghoul Wants by Victoria Laurie Page B

make me nervous.”
    “What’s in the sack?”
    “Your sweater and your boots,” he said. “Thought you might need them when they let
     you out of here.”
    I thanked him and then asked, “Have you seen Heath yet?” Even though my doctor had
     assured me that Heath’s condition was stable, I wasn’t going to believe it until I
     actually laid eyes on him.
    “Not yet. They wouldn’t let me into his room.”
    I bit my lip. “We can’t see him?”
    Gopher shook his head. “No,
I
can’t see him. You’re his emergency contact, so whenever they let you up out of bed,
     you can go see him.”
    That took me by surprise. Heath and I were getting pretty serious, but I hadn’t thought
     that he’d made me his emergency contact. The revelation caused me to smile. “How’d
     you get in to see me?” I asked, wondering at it because Gilley was my emergency contact.
    “I lied,” he said. “I told them I was Gilley Gillespie. Your cousin.”
    That made me chuckle. “Where is Gil, anyway?”
    “Still asleep, I think.” Gopher let go of my hand to pull up a chair. “I knocked on
     his door a couple of times and called him on his phone, but you know how hard he sleeps.”
    That I did know. Gilley was nearly impossible to wake up once he’d gone into a deep
     slumber. His mother used to keep a set of cymbals handy for those occasions when he
     wouldn’t wake up for school. To this day Gil can’t listen to the sound of a marching
     band without flinching. “Did they give you any information on Heath’s condition?”
    “They only say that he’s stable.”
    I frowned. That’s all they’d tell me too. “Maybe I should call the nurse and have
     her take these IVs out.” I was still pretty cold, but I figured I could warm up on
     my own.
    But Gopher was shaking his head. “Your temp is still too low, M. J. I already asked
     the nurse about you and she said you had at least another hour or two to go before
     they’d check your temp again. You have to be above thirty-five degrees Celsius, or
     ninety-five degrees Fahrenheit, before they’ll unhook you.”
    “What’s my temp right now?” I asked.
    Gopher squinted at one of the machines above my right shoulder and took out his phone
     to tap at the screen. “You’re at thirty-four degrees Celsius, so that’s. . . about
     ninety-three degrees Fahrenheit.”
    I glared at Gopher. I knew it wasn’t his fault, but the situation was still frustrating.
     He smiled as if he knew exactly what I was thinking. “Tell me what happened.”
    I rubbed my eyes wearily. The jet lag and all the events of that morning were really
     taking their toll on me. “It was all a crazy chain of events, buddy.”
    “So start from the beginning.”
    By the time I’d finished telling Gopher exactly what’d happened from when I’d awakened
     that morning to the sounds of a woman crying outside my door all the way to how I’d
     ended up here, the nurse had come back in to check the thermometer and pronounced
     me warm enough to be released. As soon as I ate a bit of breakfast, that is.
    I looked pleadingly at my producer to say something to the nurse so that I could go
     see Heath, but he seemed to be absorbed in thought, processing what I’d told him.
     It wasn’t that Gopher didn’t believe me; it’s that he’d witnessed enough freaky stuff
     to really know the danger we’d just landed ourselves in. Trouble is, when it comes
     to facing down murderous spooks for a good bit of footage, Gopher is the first to
     volunteer us for duty.
    “So you’re saying this ghost actually tried to drown Heath?” Gopher asked the minute
     the nurse was out of hearing range again.
    I hugged the large bag of hot saline she’d left me with and wondered if I’d ever feel
     really warm again. “Yes,” I said. “She pulled him into the water and by the time I
     got to them, she’d already dragged him about ten feet under the surface.”
    Gopher turned a bit pale.