Page 52 of Want Me, Take Me, Haunt Me, Make Me

It was easy to talk around the supernatural parts, and the story that remained sounded surprisingly basic to her own ears. Maxwell had showed up, she’d gotten interested and made a move, he’d backed off for reasons he didn’t explain, and she’d found out that he’d fed her a fake background. “If we were in the city, I’d think he was married, didn’t want me finding out, and had a change of heart when we kissed,” she finished up. “I suppose that still could be the case, but it seems either really risky to do in a small town or really strange to do if you live far away.”

“No kidding,” said Jess. “Also, the footprints are creepy.Maybeit was a really persistent Jehovah’s Witness or somebody’s car was stalled and they hoped you’d be home, but the windows…you might want to call the cops. And I don’t generally make that suggestion.”

“Yeah,” Hazel said, and knew she wouldn’t. Police had never been much help, and she was connected to a serial killer. As tenuous as that connection was in the physical world, she was sure that an ambitious detective or suspicious sheriff would make a meal of it, putting her under surveillance if not in jail. Her situation would only get worse after that.

Jess had been thinking while Hazel was silent, turning the gold stud in one ear absently around and around. “Maxwell—or John Doe, probably—doesn’t live in this town, I can tell youthatfor sure. We have a family from Minnesota, Ms. Nowak came out from Phoenix when she got married, and there’s you. People would notice a Brit.”

“Maybe he and his sister keep to themselves.”

“They’d have to be hermits. Hermits who eat squirrels—nobody delivers groceries outside of town. The guy you describe doesn’t sound like somebody on an all-squirrel diet.”

“No,” Hazel admitted. Maxwell had also been much more put together than she would have expected from an off-the-grid weirdo. “So he probably drove to near my place and parked a little ways off, then walked over. I don’t think he’d do that just to watch birds.”

“Or to hit on you. If he just wants a girlfriend on the side, there are apps for that.”

“Right. So he deliberately set out to meet me.” Hazel’s stomach dropped. She’dthoughtshe’d stopped hoping for any kind of connection with Maxwell once she hadn’t been able to find his alleged house. But the human capacity for self-delusion seemed to be infinite. “I was…kind of involved with a news story a while back. Not closely, but other people have tried to follow up that angle.”

“Well,that’sshitty,” said Jess.

Hazel nodded, remembering how he’d declined her offer of wine—keeping a clear head in case she let any secrets slip? Too bad for him, she’d drunk a glass and hadn’t revealed more than her childhood encounters with the flute. He hadn’t been very good at guiding the conversation.

“He never tried to get me to talk about…my past,” she said out loud. “He didn’t ask many questions at all, other than how I was settling in. He must have been playing a long game.”

Jess shrugged. “It’s that, or he’s a ghost.”

“He what?”

The surprise in Hazel’s voice and the way she stared at Jess madethe librarian blush. They waved a hand dismissively. “Oh, you know. Guy picks up girl at the side of the highway, she leaves her sweater when he drops her off, he goes to return it and she’s beendead for twenty years, woooooooo…” Jess wiggled their fingers. “Sorry. I joke around when I’m creeped out. I should watch that around other people.”

“No, no, that’s fine. I’m not offended. He was, um, definitely not a ghost, though.”

Jess reached their own conclusion before she had to explain. “He suresoundedphysical, though I guess so’s the girl’s sweater in that story, and it’s not like I know the rules of ghosts. Probably just a living jerk, though. Too bad.”

“The world doesn’t have any shortage of those.”

She tried to sound nonchalant, and if Jess doubted, they were tactful enough not to press the issue. Hazel couldn’t shrug the questions off, though.WasMaxwell a reporter? Was he even human? She knew he wasn’t a ghost—physicality aside, she’d have been able to tell—but unlike Jess, she also knew those weren’t the only possibilities.More things in heaven and earth, yadda yadda yadda.

But if she had reason to suspect the paranormal, she also had reason to want to. A supernatural apparition wouldn’t have hurt nearly as much as a human who’d only played her in the hopes of getting material for an article. She didn’t know how much she was biased, and even considering the possibility of bias was humiliating. The motives of a man she’d met twice shouldn’t have had any power to hurt her.

She tried to put the questions out of her mind as she drove home, the way she’d been trying for the three days since she’d failed to find Maxwell’s sister’s house. Usually she could fix her attention on other problems, but all of those seemed stalled as well. Research had turned up one healing spell that seemed more powerful than the others, but she’d have to wait for a full moon to try it, and she needed to prepare more before she tried to follow Ligat again.

Thinking of himalsoraised a number of questions she couldn’t answer.

Hazel turned the music up and made herself sing along. Indie rock lyrics only helped so much, though, especially when she knew most of them by heart. She was still picking at the mystery when she pulled into her driveway, when she put away her groceries, and when she walked down her hall and found Chapman sitting in her living room.

Chapter 28

He grinned at her through rot-blackened lips. In a way, he was perpetually grinning because the flesh had sloughed off one of his cheeks. Hazel stared at the bare spot, the exposed white teeth nested in pink and gray meat, as Chapman started to speak.

“You’re really not much of a homemaker, are you?”

Maybe Hazel would have had an answer to a less incongruous question. Maybe not. Her hands and face had gone numb, and the world around Chapman faded into a blur. Was he shifting it into the ethereal, or was she just panicking?

Porque el no los dos?she heard Tiffany quote in her head.

“Uh,” said Hazel.

“Guess I shouldn’t be surprised. You modern girls all have other callings, don’t you?” He chuckled. Hazel could hear bones rasping together. “And it’s not like you’re expecting company.”