“And, for all I know, you were cremated.”

  “Then you can cremate the rest of me too,” the spirit snapped. “Don’t think I don’t understand. But I was raised to believe that the whole body had to be kept together.”

  “And now your beliefs have changed,” Tasmin muttered. “If anybody had reason to change their beliefs, it would be you because you’re sitting here completely dissociated from the rest of your body, and that’s not my problem.”

  “Nope, but the fact that you can talk to me is,” the spirit declared, and, with that, the spirit blinked out.

  Tasmin pinched the bridge of her nose. To even argue with a spirit was beyond crazy, but, if her mom heard Tasmin, if any of her family overheard Tasmin, they would try hard to get her committed. She knew it. It was something that struck terror in her heart, and she was afraid to even contemplate that it could happen.

  Plus, she also knew that her father would be leading the charge. In his mind it was way better to have that happen than to acknowledge that there might be something paranormal about this crazy world he was involved in. He wouldn’t even acknowledge that it had something to do with the work he did or with the fact that they’d been exposed to all these bodies.

  She could hardly blame him; it was the family business, and it was a business that somebody had to do, and he, as a caretaker, was very good at it. He was a funeral home director, and they had done very well off the business. He’d raised his family off the income from that business, but apparently finding out that his daughter could talk to some of these people after they had died sent him over the edge, and he would do anything to make sure none of that information got out.

  And she knew that, if anybody heard her having a conversation, such as she just had, she would be in deep trouble. And yet, somehow, she couldn’t seem to shut up when this particular spirit started to harass her. And that’s exactly what the spirit was doing. Tasmin figured the spirit couldn’t have been very nice when alive because the spirit was definitely an asshole now. And yet, could she blame the spirit for being belligerent about these circumstances?

  She had met other ghosts who didn’t understand and had desperately tried to contact their families, and yet, when nobody in the family could talk to them, they felt absolutely abandoned and horrified. These empty ghost shells clung to these live people, who were desperately dealing with their own grief but not seeing the spirit right beside them the whole time.

  These stories just broke Tasmin, and yet what was she supposed to do about any of it? She didn’t have anything to do with them if she could. However, when she didn’t have a choice, all she tried to do was talk to them and help them to see the light. Of course even saying that to her family sent off all kinds of alarm bells, and she knew where she would end up if she didn’t shut her mouth.

  She quickly poured herself a cup of coffee and walked back out to the front of the store. She had put jingle bells up in case the door ever opened, just in case she was busy talking to somebody ghostly. It served as her warning that she wasn’t alone, but even now she sensed that eeriness, that creepy feeling of being watched, being heard.

  Tasmin knew that, at some point in time, those bells wouldn’t be enough. Somehow, she had to keep her sanity long enough to find another place to live or another way to make a living. She had to do something to get out of this. She didn’t want to spend the rest of her life locked up in a padded cell, and unfortunately that’s where her father figured she belonged.

  *

  Hanson walked back into Inked Forever, hearing the bell jangle as he entered. Almost immediately Tasmin came out with a smile on her face, only to have that smile fall away as she glared at him. He slowly raised an eyebrow. “I don’t generally get that kind of a greeting when I walk into a store.”

  She shrugged. “Give it time. I’m sure you’ll get more of it.”

  “Is it because it’s me or because I’m a cop?” he asked. And genuine curiosity filled his voice.

  She shrugged. “I’m not sure how to answer that,” she muttered. “I can’t say I enjoy being disturbed, and you’re bringing back memories I don’t really want to deal with.”

  “You mean, the break-in?”

  “What else would I mean?” she asked in exasperation. He knew she was wishing he wouldn’t walk through the opening she’d given him.

  He just stared at her steadily, making her uncomfortable.

  She shifted her weight on her feet and stared back. “You’re back again, so what does that mean?”

  “It means you are now cleared to bring the art piece back here again.”

  “Good,” she said in delight. “And did you bring me paperwork that clears it?”

  “Yes. I was going to bring the piece myself, but then I thought maybe you would need something to preserve it on the journey.”

  “I shouldn’t need to, but I will run out right now and get it.”

  “Who’ll look after the shop?”

  “I’ll just lock it up,” she said. “I need to get that piece back. The family is absolutely beside themselves.”

  He suggested, “I can stay and wait, if you want.”

  She looked at him and then slowly shook her head. “No, that’s okay. You’re a cop. You have other things to do.”

  And he did at that, and he honestly had no idea why he had offered, particularly when he hadn’t planned on saying that. He nodded. “I am and I do. I guess I just thought it wouldn’t take you very long, and maybe you needed to keep the store open for business.”

  “Most of my business is through online connections, and I very rarely get walk-ins,” she explained. “I don’t have any appointments this afternoon either.”

  “Ah, so in other words, you don’t need me to stay.” And what the heck was that forlornness in his heart about her rejection? It wasn’t a rejection of him, although he was darn sure it would be if he pushed it. Yet, at this point, it was more of a rejection that he didn’t understand.

  She smiled. “It’ll be fine.” She looked down at her watch. “Besides, it’s almost two-thirty anyway.”

  “And what does that mean?”

  “I close at three-thirty generally. Although, if I’m working in the back, I often forget and leave the doors unlocked and open until five o’clock, if not six.”

  He stared at her.

  She shrugged. “It’s an unconventional business, and I’m not used to having office hours here. Typically it depends on my schedule and when I have to go help at the mortuary.”

  “Right. You go help out at the family business, don’t you?”

  “Yes, and I have to tonight too,” she said, with a groan. “I’d forgotten about that, but my sister is in need of assistance.”

  “I’m sure it’s handy for them to call on you.”

  “It is and it isn’t,” she replied. “It’s more a case of I need to go and help them or I don’t get to use the facilities for some of my work.”

  “Right, and are you involved in cutting away the actual tattoos?”

  “It depends,” she said. “We have coroners, doctors, who frequently do that job, depending on where it comes from. But trying to get the pieces here so I can work on them and get them preserved is a different story altogether. Formaldehyde preserves it, but then it makes the long-term preservation process very difficult. So I try to avoid it when I can. The tattoos are generally transported much like live organs, but, of course, they’re not live.”

  “No, of course not.” He stared at her curiously.

  She frowned. “I really do need to go.”

  He nodded, then stepped back out of the doorway. “Sorry.”

  “Hey, no, I didn’t mean it that way.” She stopped, took a deep breath. “You’ve been very kind, and I appreciate it.”

  He laughed. “All I’ve done is tell you that you can go pick up the piece you’re waiting for. Not a whole lot of kindness in that.”

  “You also haven’t mocked me or done anything else to make me feel bad,” she noted. “So, in my book, that makes you one of the good guys.”

  “I am one of the good guys,” he agreed. “Yet, surprisingly enough, being a good guy doesn’t necessarily do it for people.”

  She stopped, studied him, and slowly nodded. “I would agree with that. I would have said I was a good guy too. Yet, so far, it’s not winning me brownie points.”

  And, on that cryptic note, she ran into the back of her office, grabbed her keys and her jacket, and proceeded to follow him outside. She locked the door and walked over to her car, parked just a few cars down the block.

  Looking at him, she added, “I really do appreciate you letting me know. The sooner I can get that back into my hands, I can get to work on it and see what I can do about the damage.”

  “Got it, and you’re welcome.” He stayed where he was, watching as she hopped into her car and took off.

  Turning, he looked back at the store and the weird shadows that he saw all around it. It wasn’t a popular street. It was more of a side street, but, then again, it was a business that didn’t really require walk-in traffic. According to Tasmin most of her contacts were made online, which made sense.

  Her specialty service was not exactly something that most people even knew was possible, so her store would probably be found through a Google search, as much as anything. That’s how Hanson had found what he had on her, so it was no surprise that’s where the bulk of her business came from.

  He was loathe to leave though. Something was odd about the shop; something was odd about the energy around it, not to mention that shadow hanging off to the side. He tried to look at it from a side view to get a better grasp of what was going on, but it wasn’t showing up well.

  He sighed at that. “Don’t know what you want and why you’re here, but surely she doesn’t have anything of interest.”

  A soft faint voice replied in the background, “You don’t know that.”

  He froze, turned, then looked around again and whispered, “Who said that?”

  Part of the shadow detached from the wall of the store and slowly dissolved into the sidewalk in front of him. He felt the shadow going up and down his back, as Hanson once again saw something that made no sense in his world but would have made sense if he just accepted it. There was no such thing as complete explanations in his world. He just didn’t want to end up imagining something far worse than what he could tell was going on.

  As the talking shadow dissipated into the sidewalk, Hanson no longer saw any clue as to who and what it was. He called out gently, his voice soft, as he glanced around to make sure he was alone. “If there’s a problem, you need to tell me.”

  “Oh, there’s a problem all right, lots of problems. Stick around the store, and you’ll find out more.” Then came a weird laugh, and suddenly the shadow was gone.

  He frowned at that and stared at the store, even looking in the window, but he couldn’t see anything else and couldn’t see any more shadows. So, he didn’t know if that was a spirit, an energy, or some conversation on the other side. It was another one of those things that he sometimes got caught up in without realizing it.

  Finally he shrugged. “Whatever.” And, with that, he turned and headed back the way he’d come.

  Chapter 5

  As soon as she got to the morgue, she walked down to see Jim, another old friend she knew.

  He looked up at her and smiled. “Hey, I heard that they’d released this piece for you.”

  “Yeah, I think it’s more about what it is than anything else,” she muttered. “I think in a robbery, they typically don’t return the stolen property quite that fast.”

  He shrugged. “They do in lots of cases. It’s not as if the actual pieces themselves hold the keys, particularly once they’re released from forensics.”

  “I guess,” she muttered. “For me, I’m just grateful because the family is more than a little worried about the whole thing.”

  He nodded. “Personally I think what you do is cool. It’s not something that most of us think about, but, as soon as you do give it some thought, it really is pretty easy to understand.”

  She smiled up at him. “I’m really glad to hear you say that, because believe me, an awful lot of people don’t feel that way about it.”

  He winced. “No, and there’ll always be people who are stick-in-the-muds, who believe, once you’re dead, you’re dead, and it should stay that way.”

  “That’s true enough, and I’m certainly not somebody who’ll get into an argument about the rights and wrongs of it, considering what I was doing before, except this just follows right into that same ideology.”

  He nodded. “Your piece is over here. Is it okay if it’s in a box? We happened to have something the right size, and it had a lid as well.”

  “No, that’s perfect, thank you.” She picked it up quickly checking it over.

  “Wait, one second, I still need you to sign for it.”

  “Right.” She sighed, put the box down again, and quickly filled out the papers as best she could. It was hard to figure out what to put down in some of these cases. This situation didn’t quite fit the standard forms.

  Paperwork completed, she picked up the box, gave him a wave, and said, “Thanks, it was good to see you.” And, with that, she raced out.

  She placed the box carefully on the passenger seat of her car and then slowly drove back to her store. She didn’t know why she was anxious about the detective still hanging around her store, but she had to admit that she was quite relieved to find he had left. She unlocked the door, turning off the security alarm as soon as she got inside again, and headed into the back room.

  Once she laid the box down, she went back out and locked up the front door, then returned to her workshop. She sat down and carefully explored the piece. Outside of a few holes, where it seemed somebody had tried to nail it to the fountain, it didn’t appear to have been damaged. The preservation process made it quite durable, and that was the saving grace in this case.

  With it back in her possession again, she quickly worked on getting the piece finished. When her phone rang, and she checked the clock, noting it was ten minutes to five, she wasn’t at all surprised when she saw that the caller ID showed the mother, calling about the piece Tasmin was currently working on. She answered it immediately.

  “Did you get it back?” she asked anxiously.

  “I have it,” Tasmin said gently. “And I’m almost done with the framing.”

  “Oh, thank heavens,” she said. “Will you have it done today?”

  “No, I have to go work somewhere else for the next little bit.”

  “Oh. Oh.”

  And such a well of disappointment filled the mother’s voice that it caused Tasmin to reconsider.

  “Look. I still have about an hour, and I don’t need too much time to finish it. Do you think you could come and pick it up?”

  “Oh, absolutely,” she said in a rush.

  “You’ll have to be close to six p.m.,” Tasmin explained, “as I’ll need every bit of that time in order to get it finished.”

  “No, that’s fine. We’ll be there.” With that, she hung up.

  Tasmin was really pissed at herself for agreeing, but she also didn’t want to have the piece hanging around. There had been so much trouble with it already that she wanted this beautiful woman to have the final resting place she deserved. Plus, her parents were rather desperate to get it, particularly after having come so close to losing it to whatever idiot had tried to take it.

  Actually they’d done more than try. They’d succeeded, and that was something she was trying not to even think about. Shaking off all those feelings, she buckled down and set to work, determined to get it finished before the parents arrived. Finally, with fifteen minutes to spare, Tasmin sat back with a happy sigh. “It’s perfect,” she murmured.

  When her phone rang, she looked down to realize that the parents were waiting outside her store. She bolted to her feet, raced out, and unlocked the front door. “Hey, I’m so glad you made it on time. Sorry about the locked door, but it’s the only way I can make sure I get any work done.”

  It was a bit of a lie but, hey, it was one that most people would accept. The couple moved into the store, both older, rotund, with tears in their eyes, and she realized just how much this would mean to them.

  “Hang on. I’ll bring it out.” And, with that, she went into the back room, picked up the beautiful piece of artwork, and brought it out.

  They gasped, both of the mother’s hands going to her mouth as she stared at it, wordless.

  Tasmin waited until she thought they could speak and then asked, “Are you happy with it?”

  “Oh my, yes,” the mother whispered. “I know that, for some people, this may seem ghoulish, and they think it’s not right. But, for us, it’s like having a piece of her back again.”

  “It absolutely is, and you know that this is a piece that she loved.”

  “Yes, of course it is,” the mother agreed.

  With that, the husband took it quietly, and Tasmin could see the tears in the corners of his eyes.

  He looked over at his wife and whispered, “I’ll take this outside.”

  “Do you want something to wrap it up in?” Tasmin asked.

  He shook his head. “No, I’ll put it right on the back seat, and we’re taking it straight home.”

  “Good,” Tasmin murmured. She headed over to the till and rang up the purchase. It was a fairly pricey piece, being the size it was, but the mother paid without a qualm.

  As she walked over to the front door to lock it behind them, the mother gave her a quick hug and whispered, “Thank you.” And, with that, they were gone.

  The whole exchange was once again a reminder that the reasons people had for doing things were not for others to judge, and, as long as it meant something to the people involved, Tasmin was happy to do this work.

  She gave them a quick wave as they took off, then, feeling some of the stress roll off her shoulders, she turned around, looked at her shop, and said, “Everything else will just have to wait until tomorrow. I wasn’t planning on completing that tonight, but, hey, at least it’s done.”