Page 58 of Cadaver Lab: Mind Over Murder

After Liam hoisted the folded wheelchair into the back of the Jeep, he slid behind the wheel. He reached for the key in the ignition and paused to glance at her. “You’re too quiet.”

“I’m worried. Besides having to come up with a plan to destroy this brain ghost, there has to be something happening we don’t know about. Otherwise at least some of the ghosts should have been at the meeting. And I didn’t see even one. Not even Gabe.”

“Nat. I’m sitting right here behind you. In the backseat. With Millie. Don’t you see us?”

At the sound of Gabe’s voice, Natalie’s heart began to pound as realization hit.

She couldn’t see Gabe. Or Millie. She could only hear Gabe now because he was with Millie. Exactly like Liam, Harper or any of the others could. But her power… being able to see them all. Hear them all. At any time.

That appeared to be… gone.

Feeling again like she couldn’t draw breath, she only managed to get out a single devastating word. “No.”

“Well, shit,” Gabe mumbled.

“Shit is right,” Liam agreed.

The meeting must have officially ended. The first of the attendees streamed out of the door just feet from the Jeep

“Liam, get me home.” She’d be damned if she let her haters, few that they may be, see her cry and she could feel there was a deluge about to come.

She’d never wanted the damn gift in the first place. But now that it was gone… she’d never felt so empty and alone.

Things didn’t improve much back at the shop. She slumped on the sofa in the meeting room, the tea Liam had brewed for her untouched on the table. Agnes and Harper flanked her on either side as Liam tossed another log on the fire.

None of it, not the herbal tea, or the heat of the fireplace, or the company of good friends pressed close, could melt the feeling of ice-cold abandonment inside her.

What made it worse was that the room was, according to Gabe, packed full. Standing room only with the ghosts of Mudville. Not that she could see any of them. Or even hear any of them, except for Gabe and Millie.

“On the bright side, at least this explains why you kept ignoring me when I talked to you during the meeting,” Gabe’s disembodied voice said from somewhere close in front of her.

“Are you sitting on the coffee table?” she asked. It was an inane question, but she needed to know.

“Yes. And Millie is standing next to me with her hand on my shoulder.”

“Thank you.” She swallowed hard, the tears clouding her vision threatening to overflow. “I hate this,” she whispered.

Harper squeezed Natalie’s knee as Agnes fished a tiny pack of tissues out of her purse and handed one to Natalie.

“I know,” Gabe said. “I hate it too.”

Hearing him but not seeing him—was this to be her existence? For the rest of her life?

“If it makes you feel any better, I look exactly the same.”

“It doesn’t,” she said, not in the mood for Gabe’s jokes.

“I know,” he said.

She stared at the tea, suddenly wanting it.

“Gabe, I’m going to reach for that mug now. If I put my hand through you or touch anything I shouldn’t please forgive me,” she announced.

“You’re good,” Gabe said.

Natalie grasped the mug between two trembling hands and held it close to her face, inhaling the peppermint in the herbal brew.

“I have an idea.” That from Millie, somewhere off to the side of Gabe, just as he’d said.