Shuttered Secrets: A Riley Thomas Mystery, #2

April, 2021

I walked behind her for nearly two blocks before that itchy, lizard-brain instinct told her to turn around. My instincts were stronger, more well-honed than hers, so by the time she glanced back, I had already ducked inside Epicurean Subs.

I stood in the back, hand to chin, as I pretended to examine the menu board. The place billed itself as gourmet, but as far as I was concerned, adding things like arugula, cranberry, and grilled artichoke hearts didn’t warrant the average price tag of fourteen dollars. I checked my watch after thirty seconds or so, then offered the sandwich artist behind the sneeze guard an apologetic wave as I slipped back outside.

My charge was farther up the sidewalk now, but I would catch up to her soon enough. Her pace had settled into its usual casual stroll, and her hands were stuffed into the pockets of her black belted trench coat. I didn’t know if it was the only one she owned, or if it was just her favorite.

A piece of straight brown hair had escaped from the black-and-white scarf wrapped around her neck. The strand bounced as she walked, like a waving hand. This way, it beckoned. Follow me.

The predictable ones bound to their routines were the easiest, their well-worn habits and patterns revealed to me after only a few days of observation. It not only cut the needed surveillance time in half, but it allowed me to notice anomalies even sooner.

This one, Kendra, picked up her morning coffee from the same café every morning between 7:45 and 7:55 unless she was running late and left her apartment with a travel mug. She grabbed lunch, usually alone, from one of the three places near the bookstore where she worked.

My client was a rock star-looking wannabe who hadn’t taken his breakup with Kendra well. I’d hated the guy instantly, even when our communication had started out as nothing but text in a private chat.

I hear you’re the guy to hire if I need to find someone. I’m desperate. I need my girlfriend back, the message had said.

I heard the whine immediately, but my opinion of the dipshit didn’t matter. His money was just as green as anyone else’s—figuratively speaking, anyway. If they had a target and a Bitcoin wallet, I wasn’t too picky.

After that first message, I’d given him the number to my current burner. He’d called within minutes. Desperate, indeed.

What do you need? I’d asked.

Hi, uhh … yeah, this is Digby? We were just talking in the chat, he said. I really need your help. I haven’t been able to sleep. I need her back.

I had been right about the whine.

And his name was Digby? For fuck’s sake. This was the kind of shit I’d had to deal with over the last decade since my best client had hung up his proverbial hat: whiny bitch boys who couldn’t get over their girlfriends—who had likely wisely dumped them.

What happened with the ex? I’d asked.

I can’t live without her, Digby whined. I know everyone says that, but it’s true. She’s the love of my life. I know she didn’t really mean to break up with me.

They always said that. What was her reason for ending things?

Why does that matter? Digby had snapped. The defensive tone was common, too.

Rolling my eyes, I said, Devil’s in the details, Digs. The more information you give me, the better I’ll be at my job.

After some muttering and sniveling, Digby said, I borrowed money from her once … well, a couple times. I needed to get my guitar repaired … and then pay for studio time. When she gave it to me, she’d said it was a gift, not a loan. That guitar is my future, so it’s her future, too. An investment for us both. But she got bent out of shape about it. And then out of nowhere she breaks up with me—over the phone. Who does that?

I suppressed a sigh. So she just called you up out of the blue and said she was done because you owed her money? This so-called love of your life?

Digby sniveled some more. I mean, it wasn’t totally out of nowhere, I guess? I was a little wasted and missed one of our dinner dates. I needed to unwind after my gig and fell asleep. I work really hard. She knows that. I woke up because she wouldn’t stop calling me. I was hung over after a hard day and she just starts screaming at me that this ‘was the last time she got stood up by me’ or whatever the fuck. She said it in the heat of the moment, though. I see that now. She didn’t mean it.

If I were Kendra, I would have broken up with the dipshit, too.

I just need you to find her, all right? Digby asked. I got my shit together now and I can pay her back and everything. But she won’t answer my calls and blocked me on social media. She moved, too. I can’t get her money to her if I don’t know where she is. I know I can get her back, but I gotta do it in person. I just need a chance to make her toes curl again and then she’ll see she fucked up by letting me go.

Right. Unlike Kendra, I need payment up front. When I get the standard fee, I’ll start. Don’t contact me again after this. I’ll find her and watch her for a few weeks, then tell you what I learn.

Yeah, yeah, Digby said. One sec.

Within a minute, my phone chimed with the familiar sound of a completed transaction. Got it. Remember: don’t call me to check up on my progress. You micromanage me, I’ll keep your money, abandon the assignment, and then upload your dirty laundry all over the internet. I’m going to be watching your ass, too.

You’re kind of a dick, yeah? Digby asked.

I hung up on him.

Currently, it was the third and final week of Kendra’s surveillance. I stood outside her house for the umpteenth time in a secluded alley across the street. A bank of mostly vacant office buildings lined this side of the road, so it was always easy to find a dark spot to loiter in. The sun had almost set, making my shadowy alcove feel even chillier on this spring evening.

I gripped my digital camera, a zoom lens affixed to the front. My steady stream of business from bottom feeders like Digby was what funded the purchase of the beautiful Canon EOS R5 in my hands. I brought it to my face now and peered through the viewfinder, giving the lens a few gentle turns until I had a clear shot of Kendra’s bedroom through the gap in her curtains. In an artistic sense, I preferred film, but the sheer number of photos I could take with a digital camera was a significant check mark in the pro column. I waited, my breath controlled, like a sniper on top of a building, his scope trained on his target.

A flash of movement. Kendra walked by her window, clad in her underwear. I took the shot, snapping a few dozen in quick succession. The curve of a hip here, the swell of a breast there. She was gorgeous, I’d give Digby that much. But I had no good news for him. When Kendra moved farther into her room, I lowered the camera.

I’d found her within twenty-four hours of Digby’s initial call. Even if my best client had flown the coop, I’d kept my skills sharp these last ten years. There had been other well-paying clients, but none were ever at the same level as The Client. What we’d had was special. Even still, I made a good living off my ability to go unnoticed, to slip in and out of people’s lives without them having the faintest notion I’d ever been there. I was a ghost.

Kendra’s routine was so routine, it had become borderline boring during the first two weeks. Then, about five days ago, there was a blip on the smooth surface of her dull life. A big military-looking guy, who probably went by something testosterone-filled like Axel or Gage, started showing up. Three nights in a row, he arrived in a massive black SUV and had whisked Kendra off to dinners, movies, and even a play. Last night, he’d stayed the night. They’d had sex in the living room, or had at least started there, before they wound up in the bedroom Kendra was wandering around in now, half-clothed. Given the guy’s sudden appearance, he was probably the result of an online dating app. Digby didn’t stand a chance.

I lifted the camera to my face again when I sensed movement in her window. I waited, patient as a wildlife photographer who lay belly to the ground surrounded by camouflaging foliage, waiting for a twitchy-nosed rodent to peek its head out of its hiding place.

I heard the crunch of a footstep one second too late. Something hard slammed into the side of my head and the force of it threw my skull against the brick wall beside me. My vision went black for a moment.

I whirled toward my attacker, making eye contact with Axel/Gage’s fist a moment before it collided with my nose, breaking bone and sending a spray of blood onto my shirt and camera. I hit the ground, my camera a second later. Glass shattered, metal pieces bent, delicate plastic pieces snapped off and skittered away.

A booted foot made contact with my stomach and a breath whooshed out of me. Axel/Gage grabbed hold of my bloody shirt in his meaty fist and hoisted me up a few inches off the ground, bringing me nose-to-broken-nose with him. Stay the fuck away from Kendra, you creepy ass piece of shit.

He dropped me, but the assault kept coming. Hands were stomped, my ribs kicked, and a solid punch to the side of my face slammed my head into the concrete so hard I saw spots.

Wheezing, I tried to beg him to stop, but it felt as if my lungs had been shredded like paper. I was too weak to fight off his grabbing hands as he rifled through my pockets. Wallet, keys, phone—he took them all. The camera he used as an additional weapon, holding onto the strap while he whaled on my back and sides with the clunky thing. Some hard part of the camera met the even harder material of my spine and the pain was so excruciating, I nearly passed out from that blow alone.

He eventually left. I would have heaved a sigh of relief if my lungs had worked. My skin felt hot but the alley’s ground was frigid. I felt the chill of it through my clothes. Was the shivering due to warring temperatures, or was I going into shock?

I had a very precarious hold on consciousness when he returned. My already taxed heart skipped a beat, and for a moment I was convinced that had been the last one—that I’d just died in this alley. I managed a weak groan of protest when he took me by one foot and dragged me farther into the alley, covering my broken and bleeding body with discarded, moldy cardboard boxes, wooden pallets, and other trash left by the former tenants of the surrounding abandoned buildings.

I listened to his retreating footsteps and his parting words of Good riddance, dipshit as I succumbed to my injuries and let the darkness take me.

CHAPTER 1

Riley grabbed the last two bags of ready-made Caesar salads from behind the chilled door, proud of herself for buying something with vegetables in it rather than purchasing twenty frozen pizzas and calling it a day. If that wasn’t the sign of fully being an adult, she didn’t know what was.

She was running dangerously low on snacks of every variety, so she pushed her cart down to aisle nine to restock her supply of Cheese Wheelz and pretzels. She’d learned that this particular store had a window of 2 to 2:30 pm where it was largely empty. She’d gotten good about getting in and out of here on her days off in record time, missing the crowds entirely.

When she rounded the side of aisle nine, a man in a black button-up and pants was already there doing an inventory of the shelves. Riley rounded his pallet of crackers and offered him a small smile when he looked up from his clipboard. He glared at her as if she’d insulted his mother. She snagged a family-size bag of pretzels on her way out of the aisle, not wanting to ask him to move from his position in front of the Cheese Wheelz. Perhaps he liked this unique window of dead time in the store, too, and he was upset with her for ruining it. She’d circle back and grab them once she finished her list.

An unbroken, circular thoroughfare ran the outside edge of the store, where most of the cold storage sections were located along the back wall. Here, she picked up eggs, milk, and orange juice. She stopped in the meat section, debating between ground chicken or turkey, when she got the feeling that someone was watching her. Glancing over her shoulder, she spotted the grocery store worker standing in the middle of the thoroughfare a couple of aisles away. Aggressive was the word that popped into her head upon seeing his posture—a wide stance, hands balled into fists by his sides, shoulders tense. For about five seconds, they just stared at each other. Then he disappeared back into aisle nine.

Creep, she muttered, selected the ground chicken, and pushed her cart on.

Turning right into aisle three, she stood before the rows and rows of toothbrushes, trying to decide if she actually needed a new one. Michael had said last week that her toothbrush looked like a porcupine having a bad hair day. She tried to argue that she didn’t want to get a new one when she’d just broken hers in. But perhaps toothbrushes weren’t the same as uncomfortable dress shoes.

She felt it again then—the sensation of someone watching her. When she turned this time, the man was a foot behind her. She sucked in a breath and took an involuntary step back. A vein in his temple pulsed, his jaw tight and dark brows smashed together.

Pushing her cart a few feet away, she did her best to ignore him, but this seemed to piss him off even more. Her own emotion mounted, mirroring his note for note. Her chest tightened and her face heated. It started in the pit of her stomach and rose, like the mercury traveling up an old thermometer in a cartoon before the heat got so red-hot, the top exploded.

Can I help you? she snapped, whirling toward him when all he’d done for the last minute was stare at the side of her head.

He didn’t reply, just kept glaring at her as if she were the cause of all the world’s problems.

Leave me alone or I’m going to get security, she said, forcibly grabbing the handle of her cart and beelining for the other end of the aisle. She startled slightly when she noticed a middle-aged woman standing several feet away. The woman looked from Riley to something over her shoulder and back again.

When Riley reached her, she was about to say, Watch out for that guy. He’s being a total creepshow, but the woman interrupted her with, Are you okay? Was someone bothering you?

Riley looked over her shoulder, only to find the guy gone. She sagged in relief; maybe he’d finally given up stalking her around the store.

Turning back to the woman, Riley sucked in a breath. The creepshow was behind her now.

The woman spun around, trying to find the source of Riley’s alarm, but it was instantly clear the woman couldn’t see him. She practically stared right through the guy. When she turned back to Riley, her expression had changed—she still looked concerned, but now, instead of being concerned for Riley, she looked concerned about her. Now it was Riley slapped with the unhinged label.

Riley couldn’t blame her; she was practically hyperventilating at the reality that a pissed-off ghost had been stalking her, not a person. It wasn’t the ghost himself that made Riley freak out, it was the energy coming off him. It was too strong, too out of place in this bright and public space. It made PTSD-level flashbacks of Orin Jacobs’s ghost come roaring back.

Was he pissed off at her, or in general? He seemed to get angrier the more she ignored him, but his off-the-charts fury was short-circuiting her brain. Usually she was all flight when she was presented with a scary situation, but currently she was stuck in freeze. She couldn’t move. She couldn’t slow her heart down.

The shelf next to her suddenly rattled so hard, it sounded like an earthquake. Toothpaste boxes, whitening strips, and bottles of mouthwash abruptly fell off the shelves, hitting the linoleum with a deafening crash. The bank of lights above her flickered. Riley screamed. The woman screamed. The guy disappeared.

Fuck. This.

Riley abandoned her full cart and booked it to the parking lot. The heat of the summer afternoon pressed down on her shoulders and heated her already hot face.

She gave herself a pep talk as she practically sprinted to her car. You’re fine. Breathe. It’s not Orin.

She reached her car, her oasis, and was seconds from unlocking the door when she felt him there. Right behind her. She pulled her shoulders up, anticipating a husky whisper in her ear, a sharp poke of her shoulder, a hand wrapped around her forearm to spin her around. His fury overrode her own panic and almost sent her to her knees. The same sensation from her first time in the cellar of the Jordanville Ranch was back—the feeling of a boulder sitting squarely in the middle of her chest, air shoved out of her lungs in one fell swoop like quickly depressing bellows.

She managed to turn around, her back to her car door. He stood a foot from her, that vein in his temple throbbing, his hand balled by his sides. She fought the urge to cower before him.

What the hell had gotten her out of this feeling last time, when she had been sure she would die on the spot from the tidal wave of pissed-off emotions that weren’t hers, but felt capable of drowning her just the same?

Nina.

Nina Galvan had calmed her down. She’d been part of the ghost-hunting investigation team at the Jordanville Ranch. She had taken hold of Riley’s hands and had told her to breathe, to remain calm, and not to let Orin’s angry spirit force her out of the cellar.

Riley let out a slow breath and tried to assess the situation she was in, clinging to the handle of her car door, back pressed to the glass, while a furious ghost stared her down. She couldn’t tell if he was trying to speak to her, and since he couldn’t, his frustration had turned to anger. All she knew was that she wanted him to leave her alone.

She imagined channeling her own haywire emotions into a singular location in the middle of her chest, then shouted, I can’t help you! Go away!

A woman in a parking spot a few cars down cursed and dropped one of the bags she was loading into her trunk. Something crashed and splattered. What the hell is wrong with you? she snapped.

Riley still clung to the door, but the ghost was gone. Chest heaving, she scanned the area, then spun, expecting to see that the ghost had just teleported to another part of the parking lot to torture her from a new vantage point.

Hey!

Riley’s focus swung toward the front of the store.

A security guard came jogging out to see what was going on, likely under the assumption that someone was being accosted in the parking lot. The woman from the toothpaste aisle was by his side. She pointed at Riley.

Riley wrenched open her door, flung herself inside the car, and peeled out of the lot.

Once she was a few blocks away, she pulled over. She cranked up her air conditioning. She was heated externally by the unrelenting summer air, and heated internally by utter embarrassment and fear. Head resting against the steering wheel, she closed her eyes and attempted deep breathing exercises. Even with her eyes closed, she could still see the man’s face, his anger etched into his features as if that were his default expression. Perhaps he’d been a curmudgeon as a living thirty-something and now he was a curmudgeonly thirty-something ghost.

Unable to talk herself off the proverbial ledge, she fished her phone out of her purse. With a shaking hand, she scrolled through her contacts, then hit the call button.

Well, this is a surprise, Nina said after two rings.

I’m freaking out. Riley held up her free hand, watching it shake. I was in the grocery store and—

An unexpected haunting? Nina asked.

Yeah.

Come on over.

The drive to Nina’s house took fifteen minutes, giving the adrenaline time to wear off and the panic to subside—which might have been part of the reason for Nina’s suggestion to come over. Her car was an icebox now, her profuse sweating back under control. She turned down the air conditioner, feeling a little foolish now. It wasn’t as if she and Nina had become pals after the Jordanville Ranch experience.

The last time Riley had been to Nina’s was months ago, back when she and Riley’s best friend Jade had attended one of Nina’s monthly séances. Riley suppressed a shiver at the memory of the creepy smile that had come over Nina’s face at the end of her spirit-induced automatic writing session, when Orin Jacobs’s spirit had used Nina as a vessel to relay messages.

When she pulled up outside the white house with its pair of black Adirondack chairs on the porch, Riley recalled sitting here with Jade as they watched Megan and Charlotte, affectionately dubbed the Goth Twins, walk up the steps.

Riley climbed out of the car and cautiously made her way to the door. It opened before Riley had a chance to knock. The woman, in her mid-forties, was short, pale, and had a dyed-black pixie cut.

Hey, Riley, Nina said, gesturing her inside. The small gold hoop in her right nostril glittered. Make yourself comfortable. I’ll be right back.

Slipping off her purse, Riley placed it on the coffee table in front of the white-and-blue checkered couch and gingerly took a seat. A row of owls on top of a low bookshelf across from the couch stared at her with unblinking eyes. Some of the birds were made of clay or porcelain, while others were made of fabric or pine cones. Eyes had been crafted out of buttons, beads, or painted on by a careful hand.

Riley had never been much of a collector of things, other than a handful of glass figurines. Her mother had gone through a brief sea otter phase a few years back, and now her house was full of them, her friends and family picking up sea otter-themed anything as a go-to gift. When her mother received a sea otter Christmas ornament made out of burlap, feathers, and nightmares from a coworker last year, she confessed to Riley that she was so sick of sea otters but she didn’t have the heart to tell anyone. The garage was filled with boxes of the ones too hideous to display in the house. Riley wondered if the same was the case with Nina and owls.

There was a TV show I watched in secret when I was a kid, Nina said as if she’d heard Riley’s musings. Nina approached the owl collection. There had to be at least twenty of them. I was only about seven when I saw the show for the first time. In it, there was an undercurrent of the supernatural, which appealed to me since I hadn’t quite figured out what was going on with me yet. All I knew was that I had an ability that none of my friends did.

Riley knew that feeling well.

The supernatural creature terrorizing the small town had the ability to shift into an owl and could also use owls to spy on people. From the age of about seven to ten, I was deeply fascinated by owls. Young kids get fixated on stuff all the time, especially animals, so my parents didn’t think much of it at first. But one night, my mom found me in the backyard hooting up at the trees. It was two in the morning.

Though Riley had no idea where Nina was going with this, she smiled softly at the image of a little girl in pajamas standing barefoot in wet grass in the middle of the night.

That’s when Mom got freaked out. She tried asking very reasonable questions … you know, trying to be supportive. She asked if I was obsessed with owls because I wanted to be a veterinarian, or if I had heard one outside my window that night and had come out to investigate. I said, ‘No, Mom, I’m trying to learn how to talk Owl so I won’t be scared when I take my owl form.’

Yikes, Riley said.

Nina laughed softly. My mom said she would like to learn how to become an owl too, and that she’d love to know what it felt like to fly. I told her only I could become an owl because, ‘Only supernatural creatures like me can shape-shift. I have until puberty to figure this out.’

Oh wow, Riley said. What did she say to that?

She told me to come inside, made us some hot chocolate, and asked me to tell her what was going on with me, Nina said. "For me, my abilities started with my grandma’s passing. She died from a quick-spreading liver cancer when I was eight. Even though I hadn’t been old enough to really understand death, I knew Grandma was gone and wasn’t coming back. Yet, Grandma did come back, but only for me.

"It turned out that quite a few family members had taken to using Grandma as a confessional while she was on her deathbed. She got very sick, very fast, and lost her ability to speak, so they told her their secrets, knowing she’d take them to the grave.

About a week after she died, I had gone with my parents to Grandma’s to help clean the place out. Two sets of aunts and uncles and their kids were there too. While we were all in the living room packing and cleaning, I saw one aunt and uncle have a quiet moment together. They joked about something, he kissed her, and even at that young age, I had been struck by how much love was in my aunt’s face when she looked at him.

Riley was still deeply puzzled by this conversation, which was made even more puzzling by the fact that Nina said all this with her attention still focused on the owls.

Confused by what I saw, Nina continued, I said, ‘I don’t understand why you’d want to divorce Aunt Jill when she loves you so much, Uncle Rob.’

Riley winced. Uh oh.

Nina turned to her then. "All conversation in the room stopped like someone had hit the mute button. Aunt Jill laughed and asked why I would say such a thing. But in the next moment, everyone, even Aunt Jill, saw how pale Uncle Rob had gotten. Aunt Jill said, ‘What is she talking about, Rob?’ Rob just stared at her for a long time, swallowed hard, and said he hadn’t wanted to tell her like this, and that he’d planned to wait until after the dust had settled, and things like cleaning out Grandma’s house had been taken care of. Aunt Jill burst into tears and ran out of the room. Their two kids were my age and they started crying too, not understanding why the adults were so angry all of a sudden.

Uncle Rob got right in my face and told me it was wrong of me to spy on private conversations. His face was bright red and I remember a few drops of spit hit me in the face. He thought I’d overheard him telling Grandma about the planned divorce. Uncle Rob wanted Jill’s mom to know that he still loved Jill, but that they weren’t a good fit anymore. He was apologizing to Grandma for planning to break her daughter’s heart.

Geez, Riley said. How did everyone else react?

My dad shoved him away from me, Nina said, still standing beside her owl collection, her hands in her pockets. Mom and Uncle Rob started screaming at each other about respect. I was sobbing. It was a mess. One little sentence and I’d ruined my entire family. My cousins—Jill and Rob’s kids—were so mad at me for so long. They blamed me for the divorce. Kids can be mean as hell, and since I already felt awful about what happened, I shouldered that blame for years. I suppose some part of me still does.

Sounds like this was your grandma’s fault, Riley said.

Nina chuckled. She’d loved drama when she was alive, and that hadn’t changed in death. Yet, it was I who had said those things. I was the one who threw the bomb. I was convinced there was something wrong with me. Or something wrong with Grandma. When she told me my seventeen-year-old cousin was pregnant, I kept it to myself. I didn’t tell anyone I knew Aunt Sarah had given up her firstborn for adoption.

Probably a good call, Riley said.

When that show about the owls came along, something in it resonated with my little seven-year-old brain, Nina said. I figured that once I mastered becoming an owl, I could fly away and stop causing so many problems for my family.

Riley frowned at that, wishing she could go back in time and give weird little Nina a hug.

When my mom sat me down with the hot chocolate that night and made me tell her what was going on, she’s the one who added ‘psychic medium’ to my vocabulary. She told me I wasn’t a demonic creature, and that Grandma wasn’t either. My parents bought me books about psychics, mediums, and the afterlife. We watched every show on the topic we could find. I eventually found a network of other psychics and like-minded people who helped me make sense of my ability.

Riley chewed on her bottom lip, unsure of what to say. She’d been the one to call Nina but now she wasn’t sure what she was doing here. Nina had done all the talking. Gesturing to the rows of owls on top of the bookshelf, Riley said, Are these all owls you got when you were a kid?

Nina laughed. My mom gets me an owl every year for my birthday as an inside joke—a reminder of the time I’d convinced myself I was a demonic shape-shifter who could speak to animals. She finally walked over to Riley and sat beside her on the couch. "I’m telling you all this because whether your ability kicks in when you’re eight or eighty, there’s going to be a learning curve. Your path to living comfortably with it isn’t going to be a straight line. It’s going to be twisty, messy, and probably weird as hell.

You can choose to manage it enough so that you can effectively turn it off, or you can swing in the other direction and do anything from paranormal investigations to group readings in packed conference halls.

Not the last one, Riley said quickly.

Nina just smiled at her. Some mediums find nothing but peace from communicating with spirits, while others see it as terrifying or a source of stress. Regardless, you get to decide what role you want this to play in your life, and then you can adjust based on that. But you do need to decide, Riley. Your being here right now tells me that what you’ve been doing isn’t working, at least not anymore.

It took Riley a moment to organize her erratic thoughts. People seem to think that since I’ve been able to communicate with ghosts since I was ten, I shouldn’t be scared anymore. Not all ghosts are the same, though. You don’t always know what you’re dealing with until you’re already in communication. It’s not all grandmas just saying hello from the other side.

No, it’s not, Nina said. And with someone as sensitive as you, you’re going to experience the gamut. I won’t lie … I was very jealous when Orin reacted to you the way he did in that cellar.

Riley had sensed this immediately, but she was a little surprised Nina admitted to it now. Getting on the radar of a serial killer ghost is nothing to be jealous about, trust me.

I wasn’t envious of the serial killer part so much as the effortlessness of your gift, Nina said. "But that effortlessness is also at the heart of your fear. Ninety percent of the time for me, if I interact with a spirit, it’s because I’ve called on their energy. Even though spirits are around us all the time, I’m often unaware of them. Whether that’s because I’ve learned to put up my defenses enough so that they only contact me when I give them permission, or because my psychic energy isn’t as strong as yours, I don’t know."

I sort of think of it like a switchboard, Riley said, and immediately flushed, worried that sounded stupid.

Oh?

Yeah, uhh … like there’s a giant board in the Great Beyond with all the psychic mediums’ names on it, and when they’re open for contact, the light below their name flips from red to green, Riley said, squeezing her hands between her knees. Lately it feels like mine is always green.

I think it likely is, Nina said. You closed yourself off from your ability for a long time, putting up walls to keep the spirits out. Your trip to the ranch tore all those barriers down, and now you’re getting a deluge instead of a trickle.

Riley sighed.

After a beat of silence, Nina asked, Are you ready to tell me what happened earlier?

Right. The reason why Riley had called Nina in the first place. It took her a few long moments to work up the courage to recount it, but she finally told Nina about the ghost who had stalked her around the grocery store.

What about this bothers you the most? Other than the ghost sounding downright scary, Nina said.

I hate that I can’t even go shopping anymore without a spirit popping up, Riley said. I don’t know what I want to do with … this … but I agree with you: I need to get enough of a handle on it that going into a store doesn’t cause an anxiety attack. And I want to get better at knowing when they’re spirits and when they’re humans. If I had known about the Poltergeist of Aisle 3, I would have avoided the store entirely.

Well, you can’t be too badly shaken if you still have your sense of humor, Nina said.

Riley managed a small smile.

There’s no formal training manual for something like this, Nina said, and what works for me won’t necessarily work for you. But if you’d like to work with me to help you get a handle on this, I’m happy to try. At the very least, I can get you headed in the right direction.

Riley was just about to tell her that she was game when Nina cut her off.

First, though, I need you to think about what role you want your ability to play in your life. ‘None’ is an acceptable answer if that’s what you want, Nina said. "Once you figure that out, know that if