It's A Wonderful Midlife Crisis (Good to the Last Death #1)(6)

“I suppose it’s not,” I admitted. “I just want to know.”

“Well my dear, that’s not possible unless you have a direct line to the afterlife, whatever the hell that might be.”

Missy stood, crumpled the cup in her hands and tossed it in the trash. “I have to get to the shop. It looks kind of bad when my employees are waiting out on the curb,” she said, walking away. “And you have to quit going to funerals of people you don’t know. It’s getting seriously depressing.”

“There were only three people there. I felt bad for him,” I protested as I sat up and watched her walk away.

“Uh huh,” Missy replied without looking back.

I kept my eyes on my best friend until she disappeared around the corner and then reclined back down on the bench. Missy was correct. I needed to stop going to funerals of strangers. It was a morbid habit formed early in life. Gram used to do it. Since my husband died, I found myself doing it far too frequently. I’d always thought Gram went to show respect and pray for souls, but as an adult, I realized she was simply nosey. If I had to explain my own behavior, I’d be at a loss. I didn’t pray for souls and I wasn’t nosey.

Maybe I had a death wish.

“I’m a hot mess,” I whispered as the wind blew through the trees and a mass of orange and red leaves floated to the ground in swirling funnels. Vibrant little tornados danced through the park and I watched, captivated.

Peeking at the church steps, I sighed. My secret wish that the wind would blow the ghosts away hadn’t come true.

Sadly, Missy was incorrect with her other observation. I did indeed have a direct line to the afterlife as of a few hellacious weeks ago. It was messing with my sanity, my chi and my social skills. How in the hell did I end up the lucky gal that all the dead folks liked to hang out with?

I glanced back over at the church. There were ten of them in different stages of decomposition, waving hopefully at me. My smile to the dearly departed was forced, but I was nothing if not polite. Sometimes being Southern sucked. I gave a half-hearted wave back to the lifeless gang, stood up and scurried off in the opposite direction. I didn’t have time to hang out with the corpses this morning. If I arrived too late, I could lose my job—and my mortgage didn’t pay itself. Evidently, I’d already lost my mind. Losing my employment would be horrible.

With one last furtive glance back, I wondered exactly how many dead people were in town and wanted to be my friend. The situation was getting out of control.

Furthermore, I was sure a few of the dead who were unaware of the rules would show up for my birthday dinner tonight—a big no-no. I’d probably made a mistake saying I would host my own party, but it was just my closest girlfriends. My old farmhouse was big and comfortable. Well, except that it was loaded with dead folks.

It was really unpleasant to eat with corpses at the table. The ones who were privy to the protocol that dinner was my personal time weren’t real good at sharing the rules with the recently departed. Plus, if I found any more random body parts around the house, I was going to evict all of them. Pretending I didn’t see them was going to be my new modus operandi.

Understanding them was a serious problem. Apparently, the dead had their own way of communicating. It was a mystery to me.

I’d spent a few hours in the linguistics section at the library to see if I could find anything that remotely resembled what I was hearing and came out more confused than when I went in. It was guttural in tone and sounded more like garbled consonants than words separated by spaces. There was a frantic intent, and I knew there was also laughter. The old dude floating over Stan’s shoulder this morning was proof positive of that.

“I’m a whack job,” I mumbled.

I picked up my pace on the off chance they were following me down the street. Normal behavior would be impossible if I had to share my cubicle with decaying strangers.

My mind couldn’t leave the puzzle of my current nightmare alone. Had I cracked for real? Was I really seeing dead people or was I inventing them in my head? Had the movie The Sixth Sense Part Two started filming in my sleepy little town and someone neglected to inform me that I was starring in it?

Again, the best way to handle an unhandleable situation was to ignore it…and that’s exactly what I was going to do.





“I want to make myself perfectly clear here,” Clarissa said, ennunciating to the point of ridiculous. “He’s forty-five, single and hotter than sin. He’s mine. If I catch any of you making a move, I will make your life a living hell.”

“Like you don’t do that already,” June muttered under her breath with an eye roll.

“I’m sorry,” the redheaded, overly made-up she-devil snapped at poor June. “Did you have something pertinent to add?”

“No,” June replied as the heat crawled up her neck and landed squarely on her adorable face.

I’d missed the first five minutes of the dressing down by our psychotic team leader, but it clearly had to do with a new lawyer who had joined the firm—it usually did. Every so often we got a live one, and Clarissa’s biological time clock was ticking so loudly we all needed earplugs. She’d hit on everything with male genitalia for the last several years. I was constantly surprised that the firm hadn’t been hit with a sexual harassment lawsuit by one of its own. Two of the partners feigned being gay for a few months just to escape her advances.