Page 30 of The Rut in the Road

“I—I need—” She swallowed, her voice cracking. “I need a medium.”

I nodded. That was painfully obvious. To me, anyway. I wondered if she knew the ghost was following her. “May I ask what you’re attempting to determine?” I asked her.

She sniffed. The kind that suggested she was just barely holding back tears. “I need to—to talk to my brother.”

I’m right here, Betts.

My gaze flicked over to him, but he was still staring at her. His face was almost as anguished as hers. I wondered what I should do.

Ward wasn’t here, and neither was Beck. Mason was in his office in the back, but he wouldn’t be any help to her.

If her brother hadn’tbeenhere, I wouldn’t have been, either. But he was right there.

“Can you wait a few minutes?” I asked her, deciding that I was going to try to be helpful.

She nodded.

I stood, then turned to her. “You’re welcome to sit, if you would like,” I said, feeling awkward.

“Th-thanks,” she mumbled, then turned, although I didn’t wait to see if she would actually sit on the couch.

“Mason?” I asked, hovering in the doorway to his office.

He looked up, small wire-framed reading glasses perched on his nose, his odd gold-and-black eyes peering over their tops at me. “What is it?” he asked.

“There’s a woman here,” I told him. “She wants to talk to her brother—and he’s also here.”

He frowned and opened his mouth as though to ask a question, but then his expression smoothed, and he took off his glasses. “Her brother is deceased, I take it?” he asked.

I nodded. “Yes.”

“Are you asking if it would be okay if you handled it?” he asked me, studying me.

I nodded again.

He gestured back toward the front. “By all means. Would you like me to come with you?”

“No,” I answered. “Why would I?”

Mason shrugged. “If she were a witch or there was any sign that the spirit might turn hostile.”

“Oh,” I replied. “No, I don’t think so. He seems as desperate to talk to her as she is to him.”

Mason nodded. “Call if you need me, okay?”

I nodded in return, then headed back to the front of the office suite.

The woman was sitting on the couch, and she looked up. “He won’t see me?” she asked, a desperate edge to her voice.

I glanced over at her brother, who looked similarly stricken.

“I can help,” I told her. “I just… don’t normally, so I had to make sure it was okay.” I felt childish, telling her I’d had to ask permission to talk to her ghostly brother.

“Don’t normally what?” she asked me.

I gestured toward her brother, floating just beside her. “Speak to the dead,” I replied. “I’m not a medium, but I have… an affinity with the dead.”

She sat up a little. “You can summon my brother?” she asked, and her voice held that kind of desperate hope that didn’t dare believe what it said.