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  Honestly, she wasn’t sure. She knew a lot about how things worked with the spirit world, but not everything. She tried to never be closed off to the possibilities, just so she wouldn’t be taken totally by surprise.

  “Can Mumford go out in the kitchen for just a minute?”

  Okay, she was tired of the almost-frown that kept marring Becker’s face. This was necessary, but she couldn’t tell him that until the dog was out of the way.

  “He’s not hurting anything. Look at him, sitting like a proper little man. Why do you keep trying to get away from him? Do you really not like dogs that much?”

  It was a valid question, and one she wasn’t sure how to answer. She hadn’t given dogs a lot of thought over the years. She’d never had one, so she didn’t know if she was missing anything. They had never figured into her life plan, they didn’t often come onto her radar, and she’d never thought about what she would do if…

  “Dogs are fine. I just need to talk to you for a second, and I don’t want extra ears.”

  He looked around just in time to find Chester and four of his friends floating into the room. One eyebrow lifted as he looked back at her. “So it’s okay for these four, who can listen and talk and share, to be in here, but not this little dog that can’t say a word and doesn’t understand very much since he doesn’t respond to the simplest of commands, like Sit.”

  The dog sat.

  “Roll over,” Becker continued.

  Mumford rolled four times.

  “Speak,” he said, not looking at the dog, since he was totally focused on Mel.

  Mumford barked, finally getting Becker’s attention.

  He stared down at the dog with a goofy grin. “Good boy, you know that one. I knew you were smart, even when you were covered in mud.” He scratched between the pointy ears, and the dog smiled, then turned his head just enough to look at Mel with those eyes.

  “Please,” she said, not wanting to start anything but not willing to back down.

  “Fine, but I hope this is important. I think he was abandoned, Mel. He needs to feel secure right now, not locked out.”

  “Okay, five minutes, and he doesn’t have to be locked out. I promise.”

  Becker walked into the kitchen and called Mumford, who refused to budge. He sat staring at Mel, no smile this time, though he did show some of his teeth.

  She stared him down to let him know who was boss while pointing toward the kitchen. “Go. You can come back in a few minutes. I promise it’s nothing bad. I just need a couple minutes of Becker’s time. I know you understand that.”

  The dog shook his head as if trying to clear his ears. Some spittle went flying and whipped through Chester, who tried to jump to get out of the way. He didn’t make it in time and groaned, though of course it hadn’t really touched him. What a ninny. But most apparitions still reacted as if they were alive and solid, so she just giggled and waited for Mumford to get the rest of the way into the kitchen.

  After Becker came in and closed the door, the dog scratched at it a few times before he seemed to calm down. Either that or he was looking for a way into the room from a different direction. Who knew how smart he could be?

  “Becker,” she whispered.

  He stood by the door with his arms crossed.

  Heaven help her, he was going to be obstinate. She’d bet her best off-the-shoulder sweater he was irritated with her and was going to do the silent treatment. Well, she’d take care of that.

  Approaching him with a smile, she stopped right in front of him and wrapped her arms around his waist. After leaning in and inhaling the smell that was all Becker, she kissed his neck right under his ear, felt him shiver, and delivered her message. “I think the dog might be possessed, and we need to figure that out before we do anything else. Capice?”

  Chapter Two

  “What?” he said loudly. Too loudly.

  She muffled his shocked voice by zeroing in on his mouth and giving him a kiss that curled her own toes. Pulling back, she kept her nose up against his and breathed, “Keep it down, and let’s move away from the door. I wanted him in the kitchen because we don’t know if he’s a good ghost or one that is out to do harm. You remember that one from a few months ago, the bad ghost extraordinaire, the one we had to bury on four separate pieces of the property? Well, this one might be better, and he might be worse, but until we figure that out, we have to be careful.”

  Becker backed her across the room to stand on the far side in front of the bookcases. She found herself flush against the wall of how-to books and tingling in many, many of her parts that shouldn’t be tingling when they were dealing with a situation and surrounded by ghosts who were not going to look away if they didn’t have to.

  There were things to be said about the things you missed when you were dead…

  “Mmm, Becker, not now, and not here, but definitely later, after we make some decisions.”

  This time his face took on a wicked smile even though technically she was disappointing him again. Or maybe she’d promised enough that the smile had stayed. She’d like to think of it that way. Regardless, she had his attention. Backing up, he took her with him, keeping her in his arms.

  “So why do you think there’s a ghost attached to the dog? Can they even do that?” he whispered.

  “I’m not sure,” she whispered back. The door to the kitchen might be closed, but that didn’t mean the ghost couldn’t hear.

  Chester stuck his head in close to theirs, close enough that when Mel turned to him, her nose brushed through his nose.

  “Can you back away just a skosh?”

  Becker tried to pull back, but she held on tight. “I mean Chester.”

  Laughing, Becker held on too. “Got it.”

  Thankfully, Chester did back up before he spoke. “So. Here’s the thing. The guys and I were talking, and we don’t think any of us can possess a dog. I’m sure I could possess a person if I were so inclined. Which I’m not,” he was quick to add when Mel gave him the beady eye, “but I don’t know about animals. We haven’t heard of anyone being able to do that before, and even if someone could, why would they want to?”

  Mumford scratched at the kitchen door again. If he was possessed, could they just ask him? She was not going to invite an unknown into her body for the auto writing she’d done a time or two before. But she didn’t know how else to get the info, and she really wasn’t sure if she’d be able to handle a talking dog. If he could even talk. Their mouths weren’t exactly constructed for easy speech. She assumed, though, that would more be Becker’s milieu than hers.

  “I don’t know.” She looked at Becker.

  “Hell, I don’t know either. Why are you looking at me? I just picked up the dog from the side of the road and saved him. I thought I was doing a good thing, and now I’m not sure what I’ve done, but you’re freaking me out.”

  Now was not the time for him to get cold feet. She thought about asking the great-grandfather to help explain a few things, but she knew it was the wrong time. It always seemed to be the wrong time.

  “I just think we need to be cautious. More seems to be going on here than meets the eye.” She kept her mouth close to his ear and felt a shiver run through his body that matched her own. There would be plenty of time to address those shivers later. Right now, they had to address this dog and what his purpose was here.

  She backed up to give them both some space.

  “Tell me how you found him.”

  Becker glanced at the kitchen door, where they both heard snuffling noises at the threshold.

  Keeping his voice down, he explained, “I was driving to work when I saw something on the side of the road, a lump of brown that jerked a few times. You know how I can’t even pass roadkill, so I had to stop to see what was going on and if I could save the poor thing, whatever he was.”

  “Of course. That’s what you do.”

  “Not that it made you happy this time.” He frowned, and she touched her fingertips to his lips whil
e shaking her head.

  “I’m not unhappy. I’m just confused and want to get to the bottom of this. I can’t have a ghost in here that I don’t know. You have no idea how much havoc that could cause.” Though, in all fairness, Becker had been carrying his great-grandfather in his pocket, in and out of the junkyard, for months before said ancestor had introduced himself. This was different.

  “So I pulled the car over and got out cautiously, gave the critter time to notice me before I approached it, since I still wasn’t exactly sure what it was. I had a guy think he was bringing in a puppy the other day, and it ended up being a fox. You can never be too careful.”

  “Absolutely.”

  “The thing popped up when I got close, and started wagging its tail and had its tongue hanging out. With that long body, short legs, and floppy ears, there was no way it was anything but a Corgi or a mixed breed with the Corgi most prominent. He had a collar but no tags, so I grabbed a leash and got him in the car.”

  “Seems normal.”

  His forehead crinkled. “Yeah, except he seemed far calmer than I would have expected, and he kept staring at me when I took him to the clinic.”

  She’d noticed the tendency to stare, but she didn’t want to interrupt Becker’s story.

  “I gave him a bath myself and got him all dried. You saw how beautiful he ended up. His collar’s a little worn, and I left it on to bathe him because I had to be quick, and he shied away when I touched it, but other than that he looks healthy. Someone must be looking for him, though I don’t understand why they wouldn’t have chipped him, or at least have put a tag on his collar with their information.”

  She shrugged. “Maybe they dropped him off on the side of the road. I’ve heard of people doing that a lot, especially if the dog is getting older. I can’t stand people like that, but it happens. How old do you think he is?”

  “At least eight, with his teeth the way they are.”

  “You can tell like you can tell with a horse?”

  Now he smiled again. “Yes, Mel, I can tell.”

  “That’s pretty cool.”

  “There are other cool things down at the clinic, if you’d ever care to come check it out.”

  It was an invitation he’d made before, but not one she’d picked up and run with just yet. She wasn’t sure she wanted to get attached to anything else that could die on her. She loved Becker and her dad, but she’d spent so many years making only surface friendships with the people she worked with online, and occasionally in person, that she wasn’t sure if she’d actually be any good at going deeper. She’d heard from many sources that dogs could pull you right in, and she wasn’t ready for that.

  She’d been to the clinic several times, but only to bring Becker lunch or see if he was free to go out for lunch. She knew the receptionist’s name and waved to her, and that was about it, the same as with the majority of the town. She wasn’t used to being close to people or animals, to be honest, and that had been fine for all these years. She didn’t need to change that about herself at this point. If it wasn’t broke, she wasn’t going to make the effort to fix it.

  “So you pick up this dog, get him cleaned up, and then what?”

  “I had Kristy search the databases for missing pets in the area and contact the local shelter and the two rescues we have, but no one had heard anything about this guy. So I brought him along with me because I wasn’t going to leave him there with the other dogs we’re kenneling. I don’t know his temperament, first off, and I wasn’t willing to walk into a mess tomorrow morning if I could help it.”

  “Smart thinking.”

  “Finally.” He said it with a laugh, and she laughed along with him.

  “Whatever this is, we’ll figure it out.”

  “I didn’t know there was anything to figure out. I can take him away, if you need me to.”

  Mumford whimpered from across the room under the door.

  Mel looked at Becker, who was looking back at her.

  “That is strange, I guess.” He shrugged. “I’m used to dogs knowing specific words, but that was a whole sentence.”

  “Yeah, it was, which makes me think we have more going on here. Why don’t you go get him? I’m going to run upstairs for one of my gadgets, and we’ll see if we can’t get to the bottom of this mystery.”

  Mel hauled tail up the stairs as fast as her jelly shoes and pegged jeans would allow her. Going to the third bedroom on the second floor, she opened the door to a treasure trove of stuff. Her parents had never used all the gadgetry available out there for ghost detecting because they’d preferred the old-fashioned way, but, though Mel might be stuck in the eighties with her wildly curly hair, her satin ribbons, bangles, and green eye shadow, she was not afraid of technology. In fact, besides her phone, she embraced all things techy when it came to ghostsitting and ghosthunting. She kept that on the down-low because it was frowned upon by her dad. He didn’t have a key to this room and had never asked about it, so she hadn’t shared. His bedroom, when he actually decided to sleep here, which was almost never, was down the hall and far away from her domain.

  Rummaging through the metal shelving that held all her bits and bobs, she finally came across a meter that could detect ghostly presences, along with the general area in which they might reside. It wasn’t a hundred percent accurate, she’d found, when sometimes she took it for a spin in the junkyard and found herself only three feet from whoever she was playing hide-and-seek with before the meter gave her a clue. But it was better than nothing, and at least it was a start.

  She found Becker with the dog on his lap in the living room. Mumford didn’t even open his eyes when she walked back into the room. He looked so content, draped across Becker’s legs, that she didn’t want to disturb him. But she had to know.

  “Is he sleeping?” she whispered.

  One of Mumford’s ears jerked like he heard her, but he made no other movement. Trying to pretend he couldn’t understand her, since that was what they had been wondering? Or was he really just that relaxed? They were about to find out.

  “I think he’s just tuckered out. It’s been a long day for him already and maybe a long few weeks. His fur was not in the best condition when I found him, and his ears had ticks. I think he’s just exhausted. He probably feels safe for the first time in a long time.”

  And that made her feel bad about messing with him, but she couldn’t stop. She had more than just him and his ordeal to think about, because an unknown ghost in the junkyard could be an ordeal of much more epic proportions than waking a comfortable dog.

  “Okay, this won’t hurt him in the least. There won’t even be a tingle. I just have to know if the ghost is in there—or if not, where this new ghost is that Chester is feeling.”

  “Have at it.” Becker said the words in a light tone, but his fingers also dug into the soft fur at the ruff of the dog’s neck.

  Stepping carefully, Mel approached the dog, waiting for him to wake up or try to get away. Neither of those things happened right away.

  Yet when she turned the meter on, with its buzzing drone and glowing lights, the dog did at least open his eyes and stare at her with that penetrating stare that made her think he understood and knew far more than a dog should.

  “This won’t hurt. I promise.” Mel let him sniff it, and he tried to lick it. She grabbed it out of the way just in time. Who knew what would short circuit the thing?

  She petted his soft fur with one hand as she began the scan from his rump to his wet nose. Nothing at first. She tried going from head to tail and had a faint beep at the end of his long tail. So three feet back? Or three feet away, as in sitting on the other side of Becker on the couch that belonged to Bernie? Was he invisible? Ghosts could do that, fade out into nothing.

  Probably not the couch, since she was almost positive Bernie would have been protesting if another ghost, one he didn’t know, was keister-deep in his cushions.

  All right, so three feet up. But she stopped in her tracks. It c
ould also be that she was picking up the grandfather’s ghost in the pocket watch.

  “Can I see your pocket watch for a minute?”

  “Um, it’s kind of stuck in my pocket under the dog’s butt. Is that really necessary right now?”

  Right. He didn’t know about the ghost in the watch. How many times was that going to bite her in the ass before she rectified the situation?

  A whisper of what looked like smoke trailed out of Becker’s right pocket. She started talking fast and moved around to the opposite side to keep Becker’s attention on her. A possessed dog and carrying your dead relative around in your pocket for years might be a little too much for Becker to handle all in the same day. Hell, it would probably be too much for anyone to handle.

  Once the smoke stopped, it coalesced into the dapper man in his seventies whom Mel had seen for the first time when she and Becker were hunting down an escaped ghost from the junkyard and ended up with a garden full of statues of older townspeople.

  His ascot was perfectly styled, and his hair slicked back with pomade. He made a picture, and Mel only hoped Becker would age into that kind of perfection. The ghost bowed at the waist and put his finger to his lips to shush the other four ghosts, who were still in the room and hadn’t uttered a word. Chester’s eyes were wide, his mouth agape. She’d never seen him so shocked before, but she’d have to figure out why later. Now that Great-Grandpa was out of the way and more than three feet distant, it was time to scan again.

  She started at the tail and went to the nose. Mumford lay there, just watching her. Becker wore a frown she wished he’d replace with at least curiosity, if not downright giddiness at the coolness of her toy.

  The beep went off again, but this time closer to the dog’s head. Okay, that was a solid beep, not the faint one from before. It could mean anything.

  “Is there any way you can tell us if you’re in there?” It was a bold question, but Mel could sit here all day wanding the dog and still not be able to tell exactly what was going on unless she was more direct.