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- Herausgeber: Next Chapter
- Kategorie: Abenteuer, Thriller, Horror
- Sprache: Englisch
Reporter Tana Grant wishes she was breaking news instead of writing obituaries. She also wishes her boss would stop calling her “Montana.”
Her world turns upside down when she’s visited by a ghost who cannot rest until she learns what happened to her daughter, who went missing years ago. Tana's scared, but she’s also a reporter, and she knows this could be her biggest scoop ever.
Determined to break the story, she teams up with Bud Powell, the retired detective who searched for the child until the case went cold. Bud's haunted by his own visions, and he and Tana bond over their shared experiences.
As the past and present converge, the two reach closer to the truth... and put themselves in mortal danger.
This book contains graphic violence and is not suitable for readers under the age of 18.
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022
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THE HAUNTING OF TANA GRANT
ROBERT BATY
CONTENTS
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
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About the Author
Copyright (C) 2022 Robert Baty
Layout design and Copyright (C) 2022 by Next Chapter
Published 2022 by Next Chapter
Edited by Fading Street Services
Cover art by CoverMint
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the author’s permission.
For Gail
CHAPTER1
Tana was on deadline the day the ghost crept out of the grave. Lifeless skies hung over the city. Shadows filled the streets. The living, it seemed, were nowhere to be found. A good day to write about the dead, Tana Grant thought, as she turned away from the window and resumed working on an obituary for a woman she never heard of. Most of the people whose lives she memorialized for The Bay Area Bugle were famous in one way or another. But Helen Mayfield wasn’t famous. She was just dead.
A shadow fell across Tana’s cubicle. She looked up and saw Jack Donahue, aka JD, taking up space. He was a stocky white man in his fifties, with a barrel chest, graying red hair and glasses. He was wearing his managing editor uniform of white shirt and tie, khaki Dockers, and suspenders.
“How’s it going with the Mayfield obit, Montana?” JD said.
Tana sighed.
Montana.
What kind of name was that for a girl? She blamed it on her parents. They thought it was cute to name her after the state where she was born, and mom and dad had a ranch. They had hoped that Tana, a rangy brunette who looked good in the saddle, would stay on, and grow up to be a cowgirl. Instead, she fled to San Francisco and became a reporter.
“Fine, no problem,” Tana said. “I mean it’s just really sad she never saw her kid again.”
Donahue shrugged, as if to say that they were all sad stories. “Maybe they’ll find each other in the afterlife.”
Tana looked at the photos that had been selected to run with Mayfield’s obituary. One was a news photo of a woman in her thirties trying to fend off the media crowding in around her as she walked out of a courthouse. The other was a snapshot taken at a playground of a little girl coming down the slide with her arms in the air and a smile on her face.
“Her name was Emma,” Tana said.
“So what’s the lede?” JD said, his voice edgy with impatience.
Tana flashed a nervous smile. “You know what, Jack? I’m still working on it.”
“I didn’t ask you whether you were still working on it.”
Tana felt the heat rush into her face. “Right, sorry,” she said.
“Read me what you got.”
Tana turned to her computer and read the copy on the screen. “Helen Mayfield, a juror whose lone vote to convict an alleged killer resulted in a hung jury and may have led to her daughter’s disappearance, died Tuesday in San Mateo. She was 46.”
JD nodded, impressed. “Not bad, Montana.”
“Thanks, Jack, but it’s Tana, okay?”
JD grinned. “Yeah, I know. Send me the rest when you’re done.”
“Sure, no problem,” Tana said as JD turned and walked away.
Tana had just resumed working on the Mayfield obit when a black woman in her late thirties with a tight afro, nose ring, and lacquered nails swung by her cubicle. Her name was Sheila, and when she wasn’t swiping right or left on Tinder she worked on the online edition of The Bugle.
“What’d JD want?” Sheila said, nodding at Donahue, who was making his way across the newsroom toward his office.
“The usual. What was the lede.”
“Then he asked you to read it to him, right?”
Tana nodded.
“Did he like it?”
“Yeah, he did.”
“So you’re done.”
Tana rolled her eyes. “Sheila, I am so not done.”
Sheila dismissed it with a wave of her hand. Her hot pink nails caught the light.
“You got the hook, baby.” She glanced at the Apple Watch on her wrist. “I’d say that calls for a drink. And you know what? Happy hour’s on the horizon.” She looked up at Tana. “What do you say?”
“I gotta finish this.”
“Do it later, girl. You got time, right?”
Tana gave herself a moment to be tempted, then looked up at Sheila and said, “You’re on.”
Sheila flashed a smile. “First round’s on me.”
An hour later, just before it started raining, Tana and Sheila grabbed a table by the window at a downtown dive bar. They ordered lemon drop martinis and snacked on beer nuts while they waited for their drinks.
“This is the part I hate,” Sheila said, glancing at the bartender.
“What do you mean?”
“The waiting.”
“What, for our drinks?”
Sheila nodded.
Tana smiled to herself. That was Sheila. Always in a hurry to get the party started.
Sheila threw another glance at the bartender, then turned to Tana. “So how do you like the obits desk? You’ve been there, what, a couple years now?”
Tana gave a disappointed shrug. “I don’t know. Not exactly what I had in mind.”
“What do you mean?”
“Duh, they’re dead, okay?”
“Yeah, but they weren’t always dead.”
“Well, they sure are now,” Tana said. “You know what JD told me when he hired me? Do a good job on the dead and we’ll give you a shot at the living. That was two years ago.”
“Give it time, girl, he’ll come around.”
Tana shrugged. “He keeps calling me ‘Montana.’ It’s so annoying.”
Sheila grinned. “I think it means he likes you.”
“Yeah, right.”
The barmaid returned with their drinks. “Here you go, ladies,” she said, and set their drinks on the table. “This’ll take the edge off.”
She moved away from the table. Tana and Sheila raised their glasses in a toast, then sipped their drinks.
“Ooh, that’s good,” Sheila said, smacking her lips.
“You happy now?” Tana said with a teasing smile.
“And getting happier by the minute.” Sheila took another sip, then set her glass down and looked at Tana. “So whose obit you working on?”
“Some woman named Helen Mayfield.”
Sheila’s eyes widened. “The Helen Mayfield?”
“Yeah. You know who she was?”
“Honey, back in the day everybody knew who Helen Mayfield was. It was all over the news. You read about how she never saw her daughter again, right?”
Tana nodded. “I wonder if she’s still alive?”
“The kid?”
Sheila made a face. “Can we change the subject?”
“You brought it up.”
“Yeah, and now it’s bringing me down.”
“JD said maybe they’ll be reunited in the afterlife.”
Sheila shuddered. “The man’s been spending way too much time around dead people.”
“Yeah, I know. But what if it’s true?”
“You’re kidding me, right?”
Tana sipped her drink. “Sounds crazy, huh? Maybe I’m the one who’s spending too much time around dead people.”
It was raining hard, coming down in sheets that blurred the streetlights when Tana and Sheila came out of the bar.
“Hang on a sec,” Tana said, opening her umbrella.
Lightning streaked across a starless sky. Tana tried to shield herself from a sudden, blinding flash that seemed to envelop her. She could feel herself losing her balance as the light swirled around her. Then a clap of thunder detonated in her ears. The umbrella fell out of her hands and she collapsed by the door.
Sheila froze. “Oh my God! Tana!” She crouched down beside her. “Are you okay? She looked around as the pouring rain drenched both of them. “Help! Somebody help!”
“It’s okay, Sheila, I’m okay,” Tana said, starting to come around.
“What happened?”
“I don’t know,” Tana said, feeling woozy. “I guess it was the lightning or something. It was like all of a sudden I went blind. There was just this flash of light and then everything went dark.” She looked at Sheila. “But it was weird…I saw something.”
“What do you mean, you saw something?” Sheila said as she helped Tana to her feet.
“I don’t know…I can’t explain it.”
Sheila’s face tensed with worry. “Are you sure you’re okay? Maybe you should go to the ER.”
Tana shook her head. “I’m okay, seriously.”
A Toyota Camry with an Uber sticker in the lower right corner of the windshield pulled up in front of the bar. The driver, a Latino in his forties with an Oakland Athletics baseball cap and a salt-and-pepper beard, looked out at Tana and waved as the wipers swept the rain across the windshield.
“Here’s my ride,” Tana said.
“You want me to come with you, make sure you get home okay?”
Tana smiled and shook her head. “I’m okay. See you tomorrow.” They embraced in the rain, then Tana climbed into the Camry and the car pulled away.
Fifteen minutes later, the driver double-parked in front of Tana’s building on Nob Hill. She still felt woozy, but she wasn’t sure if it was the lemon drop martinis or the lightning. What Tana did know was that she was soaked to the bone and couldn’t wait to get out of her clothes.
“Thanks,” she said, and pulled on the handle. But the door failed to open. She glanced at the driver, whose face was hidden in the shadows. “Could you open the door? It’s locked.”
A flash of lightning lit up the car. The driver turned and looked at Tana. But what she saw was no longer an Uber driver wearing an Oakland A’s ball cap.
What she saw was the late Helen Mayfield.
CHAPTER2
Tana stared at the apparition as fear sucked the air out of her lungs and nearly suffocated her. Helen was wrapped in a translucent shroud that was flecked with soil, as if she’d just emerged from a fresh grave. Tana could see through her to the rainswept streets, but it was as if she was peering through a veil that separated the living from the dead. A heart-shaped pendant with a photo of a child was slung around her neck.
Emma.
Tana wanted to run, scream, anything. But all she could do was wait and see what the dead wanted. It was freezing in the car and when she gasped for air her breath came out in clouds.
Could this be real?Am I hallucinating?
Then the ghost removed the pendant from around her neck and held it out to Tana. She drew back from the dead hand coming toward her. But there was nowhere to go and the door was locked. The pendant dropped into the palm of her hand. Was it the look in the ghost’s eyes that compelled Tana to take the pendant? But how could the dead see?
Tana looked down at Emma’s photo. As she did so, the pendant began to glow, and suddenly Tana found herself standing outside a daycare center somewhere in the suburbs. A colorful sign was mounted above the entrance:
PICTURE DAY TODAY! SAY CHEESE!
It was the middle of the day. The sun was shining and kids were playing outside. Emma was one of them. She had curly blonde hair and blue eyes, just like in her photo, and she wore a pink top and gray pants with pink stripes. Tana felt strangely calm, as if in a dream. As if being transported from the back seat of a Toyota Camry on a rainy night in the city to a daycare center on a sunny afternoon was perfectly normal.
A teacher’s aide emerged from the building and called the kids back inside. Most of them ran toward her, but Emma wanted to stay outside and play. Then someone inside apparently summoned the aide. She glanced at Emma, then turned and went back into the building.
A black SUV braked to a stop in front of the playground. A man jumped out and ran toward Emma. She looked up, saw him coming.
Run! Go back inside! Tana shouted.
But Emma couldn’t hear her. The man grabbed her and dragged her screaming to the car. He shoved her into the back seat, then climbed in after her and pulled the door shut. Tana glanced at the license plate as the SUV drove off, tires screeching. She ran toward the building and was about to go inside when the door flew open, and the aide rushed outside. She scanned the yard, a frantic look in her eyes.
They took her! I saw them! Call the police!
Suddenly Tana was back in the Camry. The pendant was in her hand and her eyes were filled with tears. Then she heard the door unlock.
“Sorry about that,” the driver said.
Tana stared at him. “Where is she? Where did she go?”
The driver glanced at her in the rearview. “Where’d who go?” he said, confused.
Tana looked down at the pendant and shook her head.
“I don’t know…I don’t know.”
“You okay, lady?”
Tana looked up at him. She was anything but okay.
“I saw her…”
“Saw who?”
“She was in the car…”
“What are you talking about?”
“She was behind the wheel…she was you.”
The driver scoffed. “She was me, huh? No offense, but maybe you need to sleep it off.”
“You don’t understand,” Tana said. “She gave it to me,” She held up the pendant so the driver could see the photo.
He smiled warmly at the sight of the child. “Bonita niña, eh!”
“They took her…I saw them take her…”
Tana could see the driver watching her with a puzzled expression. She flung open the door and ran through the rain to her building, then shivered as she rode the elevator up to her floor. Water dripping from her clothes puddled at her feet. She imagined the elevator filling with water and drowning her before she even reached her floor.
But she was already drowning in the terrors that swam through her as she struggled to make sense of something that would never make sense. Why had the late Helen Mayfield appeared to her? Why was she able to see her? How could she have been transported to the daycare center so that she could witness Emma’s abduction? Or was the whole thing just a hallucination, a waking dream that vanished in an instant? And yet, how could she explain the pendant she was clutching tightly in her fist, as if to protect it from the evil that had abducted Emma?
In the space of a moment, everything had changed. Nothing would ever be the same again. She would never be the same again. Who could I tell, she thought. No one. She could tell no one what happened. She was alone with it, this thing that happened to her, and it made her feel alone. How in the world could she ever explain it to anyone? What would she say? Ghost of the deceased visits obituary writer?
The elevator clanked to a stop on her floor, jolting Tana out of her thoughts. She stepped out and headed to her apartment. The muffled sounds of conversations, TV shows and music accompanied her as she walked down the corridor. The smell of dinner on the table seeped through the walls. People still alive, Tana thought, as she unlocked the door to her apartment and went inside.
She paused for a moment before turning on the lights, as if expecting to find another apparition waiting for her. But all Tana found was a chilly apartment that seemed colder than usual. She dropped her keys and the pendant on the coffee table, then turned up the thermostat and went into the bedroom and took off her clothes. She left them in a heap on the floor and pulled on a pair of gray sweats and a red Montana State University hoodie.
Then her iPhone rang. Tana looked at the screen and frowned. “Great. Just what I need,” she muttered to herself.
“I’ve been calling you, babe, you get my messages?” a man said.
“We broke up, Justin, remember?”
“Yeah, I know, but I’m downstairs. Can I come up?”
“What’s the problem? Aren’t your other girlfriends available tonight?”
“What other girlfriends?”
“The ones you forgot tell me about.”
“You got it all wrong, babe—”
“I gotta go, Justin.”
“You sound different. Are you okay?”
“Yeah, never better,” Tana said, and ended the call.
She knew that if she let him in, he would do his best to persuade her that the fact that he was seeing two other women besides her was just her imagination. And she might even believe him, if only for one night, because he was cute, and she still liked him. But not tonight. Not after what happened. She dropped the phone on the nightstand and went into the bathroom to towel-dry her hair.
That was when she saw it. The message scrawled on the mirror in bright red crayon, as if by a child.
Find me.
CHAPTER3
Emma.
Tana’s hand flew to her mouth. She wanted to scream, but it was as if fear had frozen her voice. The dread in the pit of her stomach climbed into her throat. A chill rushed through her. She sank to the tile floor, which felt clammy and cold as a grave.
This isn’t happening, she told herself, shaking her head. It can’t be. No way. And yet when she looked up at the mirror the message was still there.
Find me.
Tana wrapped her arms around herself and rocked back and forth like a child. As if hugging herself would be enough to protect her from the forces that had crossed over from another world and now seemed to be closing in on her. She closed her eyes and hoped that when she opened them the nightmare would be over, and her life would be back to normal. But even in the dark behind her eyes she still saw it all—Helen, Emma, the pendant, the abduction at the daycare center—unspooling like an endless loop. She ran her hand through her hair and realized that it was still wet, then stood and walked out of the bathroom and closed the door behind her.
She glanced at the pendant on the coffee table for a moment, afraid of what might happen if she touched it, then reached for her iPhone and punched in a number.
“Can you come over?” she said when a woman answered.
“Now?”
“Yeah, like right now.”
“Are you okay?”
Just come over, okay, Mimi?”
“What’s wrong?”
“I’ll tell you when you get here.”
Twenty minutes later Tana’s intercom buzzed.
“Are you here?”
“I’m here.”
Tana buzzed her in, then took a deep breath. What would Mimi think when she told her what happened? What would anyone think? Tana had no idea. She had thought she could face it alone, keep it inside like some dark secret that could never be revealed to anyone. But she was wrong. She had to tell somebody what happened, or her head would explode. She decided that her best friend was a good place to start, as long as it didn’t scare her off. At least Mimi wouldn’t try and have her committed for psychiatric observation. Then again, Tana thought, Mimi hadn’t yet heard her story.
The doorbell rang. Tana opened the door and saw a short, chubby woman around her age with a round face, curly brown hair, tortoise shell glasses and a nose ring. She had a Tupperware container in one hand and a wine carrier in the other.
“Hi Mimi, thanks for coming over.”
“Hey, what are friends for?” Mimi said as she walked into the apartment. She held out the Tupperware and the wine carrier. “I brought you some paella. It was the house special tonight. Everybody loved it.”
Mimi was a line cook at Falseta, an upscale Spanish restaurant in the city, and liked to bring entrees with her when she hung out with her friends. Tana figured it was her way of taking her friends out to dinner at a restaurant they could barely afford on their own.
“Thanks, but I’m not hungry,” Tana said as she closed the door.
“You sure? It’s seriously good.”
“I’m sure.”
“That serious, huh?”
Tana nodded.
“Okay, well, why don’t I open the wine and you can tell me what I’m doing here.”
“Sure, sounds good.”
Tana sat on the sofa, her eyes glued to the pendant. She could hear Mimi in the kitchen taking glasses down from the cupboard and opening the wine. They were familiar sounds, and for a moment Tana almost felt normal.
“Here you go, this’ll fix anything,” Mimi said, emerging from the kitchen with two glasses of Rioja. She handed Tana a glass, then sat down beside her.
Tana managed a weak smile. “Thanks.”
Mimi nodded at Tana’s wet hair. “You get caught in the rain?”
“Yeah, forgot my umbrella.”
Mimi sipped her wine, then looked at Tana. “So what’s the big deal?”
Tana paused, then said, “Could you do me a favor?”
“Sure, what?”
“Could you just go to the bathroom?”
Mimi looked at her with a puzzled expression. “Excuse me? I went at the restaurant.”
“Just go to the bathroom and look at the mirror and tell me what you see, okay?”
“Seriously?”
“Seriously.”
“What’s going on, Tana?”
“Please?” Tana said, a pleading look in her eyes.
“Okay, no problem.” Mimi leaned forward to set her wine glass on the coffee table and saw the pendant. “Oh, that’s pretty,” she said, reaching for it.
“Don’t touch it!”
Mimi jumped back and looked at Tana, her eyes wide with alarm. “Now you’re scaring me, okay?”
“That makes two of us. I’m already scared.”
“You gonna tell me why?”
“Just go in the bathroom and look at the mirror.”
Mimi shrugged. “Okay, okay. I’ll go look at the mirror.”
Tana buried her face in her hands. A siren wailed somewhere in the dark, then faded like a sigh. Mortality was everywhere, she thought. Maybe immortality, too. A moment later, Mimi emerged from the bathroom. Tana looked up at her.
“Did you see it?”
See what? The mirror? Yeah, I saw it. No offense, but it could use a little Windex.”
“You can’t see it, can you?”
“See what? What was I supposed to see?”
“Find me.”
“Find me?”
Tana nodded.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Emma wants me to find her.”
“Who’s Emma?”
Tana sighed. “I don’t know where to start or how to explain it.”
“Try starting at the beginning.”
“I could start at the beginning or the middle or the end and you still wouldn't believe me.”
“Try me.”
Tana paused to sip her wine. “Do you believe in ghosts, Mimi? The afterlife, stuff like that?”
Mimi shuddered. “That shit’s too scary for me.”
“Yeah, too scary for me too…until now.”
“What do you mean, until now? Where you going with this, Tana?”
Tana didn’t want to scare her, but there no other way to explain it. “You have to promise me something.”
“Okay…”
“Promise me you’ll just listen to what I tell you.”
“Okay, I promise, but what are you going to tell me?”
With her eyes on the pendant, Tana said, “A ghost story.”
CHAPTER4
But the setting was all wrong for a ghost story, Tana thought. She and Mimi should’ve been sitting around a campfire deep in the woods in the dead of night. Wasn’t that how you were supposed to tell stories that made everybody shiver with the pleasures of being scared? Tana had no idea. She’d never told anyone a ghost story before, and yet here she was, living through her own ghost story.
But from the look in Mimi’s eyes as she sipped her wine, Tana knew that she didn’t believe a word of what she was telling her. How could she? Tana wasn’t sure she believed it herself. And if it hadn’t happened to her, she probably wouldn’t have believed it. But that was the thing—it did happen to her. Every word of it.
“Seriously? You saw a ghost?” Mimi said.
“Yeah, I saw a ghost. I mean, what else could she have been? It’s not Halloween or anything.”
“And she wants you to find her kid.”
Tana nodded. “I know it sounds crazy…”
“No shit, girlfriend.”
“She wants me to find out what happened to Emma.”
“What difference does it make, Tana? I mean, listen to yourself. She’s dead, okay? Maybe the kid’s dead too. Did you ever think that maybe the whole thing is just one big hallucination, that’s maybe you’re just imagining it?”
Tana grabbed the pendant and dangled it in front of Mimi. “Am I imagining this?”
Mimi shrugged, unimpressed, and drained her glass. She stood and walked into the kitchen, then returned with the bottle of Rioja. “Maybe somebody left it behind in the Uber,” she said as she refilled their glasses. “Stuff like that happens all the time.”
Tana scoffed. “Right. Why can’t you believe me?”
Mimi took a sip of wine, then looked at her friend. “Maybe you should talk to somebody, Tana.”
“I’m talking to you, aren’t I?”
“I mean like somebody professional.”
“Yeah, right. Maybe I can have myself committed for observation.”
“I’m just trying to help, okay?”
Tana nodded. “I know, I’m sorry.”
“What if you call the police? Maybe they could help.”
Tana was dismayed. “What am I gonna tell ‘em, Mimi? That my Uber driver turned into a ghost who showed me how her daughter was kidnapped ten years ago? And now I’m supposed to find her?”
Mimi lowered her eyes, a chastened look on her face. “I’m not helping you much, am I?”
Tana took Mimi’s hand and gave a grateful smile. “You’re here, Mimi, and that helps.”
“Yeah, but what are you gonna do?”
Tana shook her head. “I don’t know. Maybe you’re right, maybe I am going crazy.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t stay here tonight,” Mimi said. “Maybe you should get a room or something.” She paused. “I’d have you stay with me, but I don’t know I’d explain it to Heather.” She gave an embarrassed look. “You know how she is.”
It’s okay, Mimi. I understand.”
Mimi glanced at her Apple Watch. “Speaking of which, I better go. Heather’s gonna wonder what’s going on.”
Tana nodded, then looked at Mimi. “Don’t tell her about this, okay?”
“Sure, no problem. I don't tell her everything, you know.”
Tana’s eyes fell on the pendant. “It happened, Mimi, it really happened, and now I don’t know what to do.”
The room fell silent. Tana knew that Mimi didn’t know what to say. Tana didn’t either. But she knew that her ghost story had made Mimi uncomfortable, and she wanted to leave. Tana decided to make it easy for her.
“Thanks for coming over, girlfriend.”
Mimi finished her wine, then threw arms around Tana. “Call me tomorrow. I want to know you’re okay.”
“I promise,” Tana said.
“And eat the paella. It’s really good.”
Tana walked her to the door. They embraced again, then Mimi was gone. Tana closed the door behind her. Is it still there, she wondered. She went into the bathroom and saw that the message was still on the mirror.
“I can’t live like this,” she said to no one in particular.
She walked out of the bathroom, then returned moments later with her iPhone, a roll of paper towels and a bottle of Windex. She took a pic of the message on the mirror, then checked Photos to see if it was there. But it wasn’t. All she saw was her reflection of herself in the mirror taking a selfie. Tana caught her breath, then backed away from the mirror, as if it were possessed.
She shoved the phone in her pocket, then grabbed the Windex and sprayed the mirror until the message disappeared in the mist. But when she tried to wipe it clean with a paper towel, Tana saw that the message was still there.
Find me.
She shook her head, as if to deny what she was seeing.
“This isn’t happening,” she said out loud. “Tell me this isn’t happening.”
But there was no answer. Just the message on the mirror.
“Go away!” she shouted. “Just get the fuck away from me!”
Then Tana remembered that she was on deadline. In all the otherworldly excitement that had engulfed her life, she had forgotten that she had to finish Helen’s obituary and send it to Donahue. But how could she focus on it now, after all that had happened? She had to find a way. She had to make it appear as if her life was normal, even though it wasn’t. The last thing JD or anyone else at The Bugle needed to know was that the ghost of the woman whose obituary she was writing had made an appearance.
Tana went back into the living room. She threw a glance across the room at her MacBook, which sat on a desk by the windows. The screen was dark, and the laptop was off. She was about to go into the kitchen and make a pot of coffee when the MacBook’s screen suddenly lit up, startling her. How did that happen, she wondered
Tana walked over to her desk, pulled out a chair and sat down. She turned on the desk lamp she had bought at Design Within Reach and saw that Helen’s obituary was on the screen. But as she scrolled through the Word doc Tana realized that there was nothing left for her to do. The unfinished obituary she had emailed to herself before she left the office had been completed. Who finished it?
And then she knew.
CHAPTER5
Tana jumped up from her desk. Stared wide-eyed at her laptop as if it were alive. Her legs felt rubbery and for a moment she thought she would collapse.
“You’re here, aren’t you?” she shouted as she looked around the room. “I can’t see you, but I know you’re here. Why can’t you find her yourself? What do you need me for?”
But the only answer she got was a damp breeze that washed across her face as she sat on the sofa and ran her hands through her hair. Her heart was pounding as she gasped for breath. Tana glanced at her MacBook then stood and pulled on the coat she had slung over a chair and stepped to the door.
Where are you going? I don’t know. What if it’s still raining? I don’t care, I have to get out of here.
Tana walked out of the apartment, closing the door behind her, then took the stairs and went outside. It felt good to be out among the living, and it reminded Tana that she too was still alive. The storm had passed, but the air still smelled like rain and Tana could feel the mist on her face. The streets were slick black mirrors, reflecting the lights of passing cars.
She walked for blocks, her thoughts swimming between two worlds, then noticed that St. Mary’s, the old Catholic church on the edge of Chinatown, was open for evening services. She’d walked past the church before, but usually the doors were closed and homeless were slumped on the steps next to their shopping carts. She’d never been inside—never been inside any church, really. Her parents weren’t religious and as a result neither was Tana. In fact, her father had taught her that religion was a con that lured people into believing that there was some reward waiting for them on the other side, a bonus for having been alive, when in reality there was nothing.
But now Tana wasn’t so sure. Not after what happened. Perhaps that was why she decided to walk up the steps and go inside. She stood in the vestibule and looked around. A handful of parishioners, mostly older women, were kneeling in pews, heads bowed and hands clasped in prayer, or lighting candles to the Virgin Mary and their favorite saints. A tall, thin priest with a ruddy complexion, beak nose and white hair emerged from one of the confessionals. He noticed Tana and walked over to her.
“Welcome to Saint Mary’s,” he said with a kindly smile. “I’m Father Collins.”
Tana smiled politely. “Hi.” Up close she could see the dandruff on his black cassock.
“Your first time?”
Tana looked at him. “That obvious, huh?”
“You get to know faces after a while. Most of my parishioners attend services regularly.”
“Can I ask you a question, Father?”
“Of course. What would you like to know?”
“Do you believe in ghosts?”
Father Collins gave an avuncular smile. “I believe in the Holy Ghost, my child.”
“What makes a ghost holy?”
The priest looked at Tana, as if taken by surprise. “The love of Our Lord, the giver of life.”
Tana said nothing. She looked toward the sanctuary. A crucifix hung over the altar. Why do people like looking at a half-naked man nailed to a cross, she wondered. Was it because he was supposedly the son of God? Was that enough reason? And what kind of God would let his son be nailed to a cross? Maybe her father was right, Tana thought. She turned to Father Collins.
“Can other ghosts be holy too, or just the Holy Ghost?”
Father Collins chuckled. “What an amusing question. There are no other ghosts. There is only the Holy Ghost, and he dwells in the hearts of the faithful.”
Tana noticed that more and more parishioners were walking into the church, stepping past Tana and Father Collins and filling the pews.
“I’m about to say evening Mass,” Father Collins said. “Would you like to join us?”
Tana thought about it for a moment, then shook her head. “Not tonight, Father, but thanks.”
“Well, perhaps another time. God is always available, my child.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
Tana turned and walked out of the vestibule and went down the steps, making her way through the faithful, who were heading in the opposite direction, toward salvation.
When she reached the sidewalk Tana stopped and looked up at the church. Father Collins wanted her to believe, she thought. But would he believe her if she told him about what happened? It occurred to Tana that maybe she knew more about the other side than he did. She’d been there. He hadn’t. She turned and headed back to her apartment, and to what she knew was waiting for her.
The MacBook screen was glowing in the darkened room when Tana opened the door. It beckoned to her, drawing her toward it as if it were a magic lantern that would show her what she had not seen.
Send the obit to JD, she told herself. You can’t make sense of what’s happening, so stop trying and just send it. Pretend that everything’s fine, business as usual, just another day at the office.
She took off her coat and slung it over a chair, then walked over to her desk and sat down. She would read the obituary again, edit the copy to conform to the Bugle’s guidelines, then send it off.
But as she scrolled through the copy, Tana noticed something she had missed the first time around. The discovery that the obituary had been completed without her had blown her away and left her so disoriented that she failed to notice that a child’s drawing had been attached to the document. It was a portrait of a mother and daughter, as seen through a child’s eyes, and it was drawn in bright red crayon, just like the message that appeared on Tana’s bathroom mirror. But their faces were streaked with blood-red tears.
CHAPTER6
Helen Mayfield’s obituary ran the next morning under Tana’s byline in the print edition of The Bugle. The online version had gone live at midnight. But the drawing didn’t appear in either version. Tana had deleted it before she sent the doc to JD. She understood that the drawing, like the message on the mirror, was meant for her eyes only. She also understood that she didn't want to have to explain JD how the drawing happened to come into her possession.
But a chill came over her as she sat at her desk and read the obit. It was as if the living and dead had worked together, and it marked the first time she had collaborated with the deceased on their own obituary. How was that even possible, Tana thought. And yet, somehow, it was. I hope this doesn’t catch on, Tana thought. Because if the dead start writing their own obits I’m out of a job. She tried to laugh, but the joke died in her throat.
“Hey, Montana!”
