Free Ghost for Sale by Sandra Cox Page A

you’d be an angel now?”
    “Well, now, I don’t quite see myself as an angel, but I believe I’d be in the light.”
    “So instead of heaven you landed in what you thought was a bordello.” For some reason this struck me as funny. Laughter bubbled in my throat and spewed out. It had a tinge of hysteria to it. I couldn’t seem to stop.
    “Are you all right?” Energy cracked. The sharp scent of limes and cinnamon intensified as he leaned toward me. I breathed him in. His presence steadied me.
    I took another deep breath that mingled his scent with tangy damp ocean air and had an epiphany. “I know what we have to do.”
    “And what might that be?” He gave a puzzled laugh.
    I leaned toward him. Excitement buzzed along my nerves just under the skin.
    “We have to find Anna and William and reunite them.”
    “Well…” Before Liam could finish, thunder boomed, the earth shook, and a bolt of streaky white lightning hit the ground so close the air sizzled.
     
     

Chapter 6
     
    Oppressive heat thick as molasses engulfed me. Hot air burned my lungs.
    “Jeeze-us.” The whites of Liam’s eyes shone bright against the dark.
    “Holy crap.” I hit the button and the top rolled up. Sand spurted from the tires as I jammed down on the pedal and fishtailed out of the lane.
    Back on the road, I realized not a single drop of rain had fallen. The pressure inside the car eased. “Well, what the heck do you think that was?” When Liam didn’t respond, I glanced over.
    He wasn’t there! I checked the rearview mirror. If he was in the backseat, he wasn’t in my line of vision. “Liam?”
    The silence lengthened. My hands tightened on the steering wheel, and I slowed my speed. “Liam, where are you? I thought we were linked, that we couldn’t be separated.” Hysteria rose in my voice.
    “We can’t.”
    Taken by surprise, my foot hit the gas. The lights illumed the car in front of me. I had to pull around it or smash into it. Luckily, there wasn’t a car in the oncoming lane or I’d be between the proverbial rock and hard spot. “Geez, Liam, you’ve got to stop doing that. You’re going to give me a heart attack. Where were you, anyway?” I managed to ask after I’d caught my breath. I let off the gas and dropped my speed down.
    “I went back to see what caused the disturbance on the beach.”
    “I thought we couldn’t be separated,” I repeated.
    “I’m here, aren’t I?” His voice held an edge to it I hadn’t heard before.
    “Yeah, but I didn’t think we could be separated even that much. You must have been five miles back.”
    “I pushed against the link as hard and as long as I could till I was snapped back like a…”
    “Rubber band?” I added helpfully, “Which is a circular, stretchy piece of rubber that holds things together.”
    “I know what a rubber band is.” His voice had lost its sharp edge and now sounded dry. A smile slid into it, like the rustle of velvet. “It holds things together…like us.”
    “Yeah, like us.” My insides went warm and fuzzy.
    Up ahead, the lights of Faire twinkled in the dark.
    “So did you find anything at the beach?” Tap. Tap. Tap . My fingernails clicked against the steering wheel, and I kept checking the rearview mirror. I let up on the gas as I hit the city limits.
    “In a manner of speaking.”
    “Excuse me?” The hair on the back of my neck rose. A chill crawled up my spine. For a few blissful seconds, I’d managed to convince myself it was a dry storm.
    “Something was back there. I could feel it. Couldn’t you?” Liam asked. He straightened the cuffs of his shirt.
    “I felt the air turn thick and clammy like a storm was coming. And then lightning and thunder. It had to be weather related.” I held on to that thought like a lifeline.
    “It wasn’t the weather.”
    “What do you mean, it wasn’t the weather?” Cold from the steering wheel seeped into my palms as I nosed the Vette into the driveway.
    He didn’t respond. I