Free The Ghoul Next Door by Victoria Laurie Page B

seemed to have intimate knowledge of the murder of a woman named Bethany something that no one but the police or the girl’s family had knowledge of. And by that, she meant that there was a bottle of wine chilling in a bucket at the girl’s apartment, and that she had a cat named Sprinkles, but none of that was public knowledge.”
    I didn’t say anything at first, wondering if there might be more, but Heath didn’t add anything, so I finally said, “Did it make me look really bad?”
    Heath sort of chuckled. “Actually, I think you’ve converted a skeptical reporter into a believer. She said that at the moment where you started telling Bethany to look for the light, all of the charge was sucked right out of the battery of the camera and both she and her cameraman heard some sort of buzzing sound. She played that part of the audio back a couple of times and you can definitely hear something electric happening.”
    “I crossed Bethany over,” I told Heath.
    “I figured. Anyway, Kendra added that she’s reached out to you for further comment, but you haven’t returned her calls so far, and since this aired ten minutes ago, the office phone’s been ringing off the hook.”
    “Well, that’s just great,” I grumbled.
    “What’s happening?” Gilley asked.
    I ignored him. “Don’t answer the phone,” I told Heath.
    He chuckled. “Oh, I’m not touching it. But, Em, this could be good for you and the show. It’s great publicity at least.”
    “Yeah, we’ll see. Listen, we’re heading back now, and all I need is a few minutes to change and we can head to the hospital.”
    “Cool. I’ll be ready.”
    I hung up with Heath and told Gil what’d happened. “The phone is ringing off the hook?” he asked, his eyes as shiny as Salesgirl’s.
    “Don’t get too excited,” I told him. “Remember, you’re under strict orders not to overbook me.”
    “Yeah, yeah,” Gil said. “Come on, let’s get you changed.”
    “Thank God!” I said, picking up the bags and preparing to head out the door.
    “Where’re you going?” Gil asked.
    “Aren’t we leaving?”
    He laughed and held up three blouses and two pairs of jeans. “Oh, honey, how you
do
entertain me! Now, go try these on. If I like any of them, you’ll wear them out of the store.”

Chapter 4
    We met up with Heath at my place a “mere” three hundred additional dollars later. The minute I walked into my condo, I headed to a drawer in my kitchen and pulled out a pair of scissors. Holding up my credit card so Gilley could see, I snipped it in half.
    “You act like I don’t have the numbers, expiration date, and security code memorized,” he mocked.
    I threw the two halves at him and stomped off to my room to change. I put on my favorite outfit from the ones Gil had selected for me, and inwardly I had to admit it was quite flattering—although I’d never let Gilley know it.
    Heath whistled appreciatively when I came back out of the bedroom, and I couldn’t help smiling. Then he turned to Gil and said, “Nice.”
    Gil rubbed his knuckles on his shirt. “What can I say? It’s a gift.”
    I headed toward the door. “If you two are done bromancing each other, we need to get going.”
    “Wait a sec,” Gil said, trotting over with two handfuls of thin magnets. “Let me put these in your new handbag just to be safe.”
    As Gil was loading down my shiny new purse, I saw Heath stick a few magnets into his back pockets. And I noticed as Gil bent over that he’d packed a few in the pocket of the shirt he wore under his sweater.
    “There,” Gilley said once he’d finished. “We can go now.”
    We made it to the hospital in only twenty minutes, which was a miracle, given Boston’s notorious traffic jams. Gil parked the van in the parking structure and we headed down in the elevator and over to the main entrance. The hospital had several waiting rooms, and I realized I hadn’t asked Courtney which one to meet in. I texted Steven, and while we