Free Killing Me Softly by MAGGIE SHAYNE Page B

where the ghosts had always been waiting. Then she went into the adjoining bathroom and emptied both of them into the toilet. She didn’t want to have them around at all—if the ghosts started showing up again, the temptation to medicate them away might be toogreat to resist. Best to remove temptation once and for all.
    She looked up at the ceiling then. “All right, here’s the deal. I’ll talk to the dead girl. Bettina Wright. But no one else. Okay?”
    She waited, goose bumps rising on her arms, demanding she rub them away. But nothing happened. There were no disembodied voices. No pictures hurling themselves off the walls. No misty figures hovering six inches above the carpet.
    â€œYeah, well, I probably need to give it some time. The Ativan’s probably still in my bloodstream.”
    That was most likely it. And even more reason to wait until morning to go to Bryan’s house—the scene of the crime. Maybe by then she would be able to see Bette.
    She sank onto the bed, put her hand over her eyes and couldn’t believe she was actually hoping to talk to the dead again. Her father had been right, after all. You couldn’t run away from this thing. She wondered if he’d ever tried. Maybe that was how he knew.
    Damn.

5
    â€œY ou look like hell, Bryan.” Beth met him at the foot of the wide staircase and pressed a hot mug of freshly brewed morning coffee into his hands.
    â€œThanks.” The fragrant steam wafted up to his nostrils, waking up a few more brain cells, he thought, and took a deep sip. Then he took another as he walked with Beth into the kitchen.
    â€œDidn’t sleep, did you?”
    â€œTossed and turned until around five. Then I finally passed out.”
    â€œFrom sheer exhaustion, I’ll bet. You think you can eat?”
    â€œHe’ll force himself,” Josh called from the sunny breakfast room off the kitchen.
    â€œHe’s right, I will,” Bryan said. “I need to try to keep myself strong through this. Keep my mind sharp, be quick on my feet. It’d be too easy to stop eating or sleeping at all.”
    â€œGo on out with your father, Bry. I’ll bring you a plate.”
    Bryan nodded and sipped more of the coffee as he walked through the kitchen, which smelled of bacon and, God help him, cinnamon rolls. He hoped he didn’t look too much like a zombie as he stepped into the sun-drenched breakfast room, which had been added on three years ago. The frame was hardwood, gleaming boards that curved, so that the room looked like the rib cage of a capsized ship. And in between those ribs, nothing but glass.
    Josh sat alone at one of the three round tables. Bryan was surprised. Not at the lack of guests—he’d known Beth would cancel any reservations and hustle out the stragglers when all this broke. She would want her full attention on him and his troubles. And on Dawn and her return. But he’d expected to see Dawn there at the breakfast table with his father.
    â€œShe’s not here,” Josh told him before he could ask. “Sit down, relax. She’ll be back.”
    â€œWhere is she?”
    â€œBorrowed the car,” Beth said, entering the sunroom with three plates heaping with food, one balanced on her forearm. She put one in front of each of the men, then took her own and sat in the empty seat between them. “She said she wanted to take a drive. Maybe pick up a few things in town.”
    Bryan lowered his head, and stared at his plate. “And you let her go? Alone?” He lifted his eyes again, spearing his father with his gaze. “Didn’t Nick tell you—”
    Josh laid his napkin down while Beth paused, her first bite halfway to her mouth. “If there’s something you feel I should know about, son, then you need to tell me yourself. What is it?”
    Bryan closed his eyes. “Of course Nick didn’t tell you—for the same reason I didn’t say