Kooky Spooky Love

Chapter One

Every now and then someone tells me how lucky I am to be able to see ghosts and I sit on my hands so I don’t accidentally punch them in the face. Honestly, I know it might seem interesting, fun even, from the outside looking in, but if I could trade places with a regular Joe I’d do it in a heartbeat. It isn’t just me with the spooky-vision; I come from a long line of Bittersweet women who see dead people. We’re generally accepted in Chapelwick because we’ve been here for longer than anyone alive can remember, operating our family business from our charmingly ramshackle medieval High Street shop front. I say our family business. My mother and grandmother pass messages between the living and the dead at Blithe Spirits, whereas I recently splintered off into releasing trapped ghosts rather than acting as an astral mail service. It’s early days. Very early really, given we’re just about to get going on our second-ever case.

“Hey, Bittersweet.”

I look up as Marina bounces a balled-up chewing gum wrapper off my head to get my attention.

“That’s the third time I’ve said your name. What’s got you so distracted?”

I shrug. “Just thinking about this afternoon’s meeting at Maplemead. I can’t remember the last time I went inside an actual castle.” I avoid places steeped in history because they’re usually also steeped in ghosts who want to hassle the hell out of me, but this is for work purposes so I’m breaking my own rules. We’re meeting later today with the American couple that recently moved lock, stock, and barrel to England after buying Maplemead Castle over the internet. I know. Who does that?

“Do we need to buy caps to doff?” Marina asks, her dark eyes dancing. She’s never been one for taking things too seriously, unless someone winds her up or threatens us, in which case you don’t want to be the one she’s gunning for. It’s her Sicilian heritage. Luckily for us, she also has a Sicilian nonna, or gran to you and me, who is a stonkingly good cook. Therefore, Marina comes in most days armed with something fabulous in her vintage biscuit tin.

“A quick tug of our forelocks should suffice,” I say, pulling ineffectually at my fringe.

We both look up as our assistant, Artie, comes through the door, all long legs and wide, nervous eyes. I didn’t intend on taking on an assistant, until Artie’s recently deceased father cornered me with his cap in hand and his son’s best interests at heart. He couldn’t leave this earth unless he knew his only, lonely boy would be okay without him, and to give Artie Elliott his dues, he’s turning out to be an absolute superstar.

“Morning.” He grins, dropping to his haunches to greet Lestat, my utterly uncivilized pug. A dog wasn’t on my wish list at all, until I told someone I had one and then had to follow through or prove myself to be a liar. It says an uncomfortable amount about me that I’d go to the lengths of actually getting a dog rather than fess up, but hey ho. Some people—my mother and everyone else who knows me—would call me stubborn, but I prefer to think of myself as a strong-willed woman of her word. Anyway, Lestat already has his paws firmly under my table, his ass in my bed, and his furry flat face in Nonna’s biscuit tin too if he can find a way to get at it without being seen. He’s a ninja when it comes to food, but it’ll take a faster pug than him to come between me and my next sugar hit. I’m not a girl with that many vices, but sugar is definitely near the top of my addiction list.

“What time are we due at the castle?” Marina asks.

Glenda Jackson, our part-time secretary, taps the end of her pencil against the calendar that’s open on her desk. “You’re due at Maplemead Castle at two o’clock.” She glances at her watch. “It’s going to take you approximately forty minutes to get there in pre–rush hour traffic, so you’ll need to leave immediately after lunch.” She doesn’t even look up as she imparts this information, because her fingers are flying so fast over her keyboard that it’s a wonder her hands don’t levitate. She’s worked for my family for more than a decade, and she now does a couple of hours each morning here at the agency before going back to her regular job next door with my mother and gran at Blithe Spirits. Some people would find it difficult to be the sole administrator for two businesses at once. Not Glenda Jackson. Monday to Friday she packs her curves into power suits, piles her red-gold curls on top of her head, then steers both of the Bittersweet ships while doing the cryptic crossword in her downtime.

We are an unlikely company, all around. Glenda Jackson, aka superwoman in a sexy power suit. Artie, snake charmer, tea drinker, trainee ghost buster. Marina, my wisecracking, loyal right-hand girl since we were scabby-kneed kids; a gum-chewing, fiery Sicilian beauty queen.

And then there’s me. The short, quirky girl in jeans and Converse who sees dead people, fantasizes about superheroes, and prefers sugar to sex. Actually, that is a complete and utter lie. I don’t prefer sugar to sex, but I’m not getting much of one, so I overindulge on the other. God, imagine if I could combine the two. For a moment I let myself think about being boffed again by Fletcher Gunn—the local hotshot reporter with whom I have an on-off, love-hate relationship—while eating a Snickers, and it’s so frickin’ fabulous that I feel my cheeks heat up and wonder if the others can tell I’m suddenly on the brink of a sugar-inspired orgasm. I close my eyes and try not to think about the actual bone-shaking orgasm I had on the passenger seat of Fletch’s car a couple of weeks ago. A late-night supermarket dash for sugar supplies turned into a very unexpected half an hour of filthy sex in Fletch’s admittedly sexy car. I avoid Marina’s eye; I haven’t gotten around to telling her that bit yet.

“Stick the kettle on, Artie,” I say, reminded of my need for caffeine as he pulls a little plastic Ziploc food bag from his pocket and deposits his weekly supply of tea bags on the tray beside the coffee jar. He’s an oddball in all the best ways, our Artie. At first glance he seems gawky and awkward, and actually he is both of those things, but there’s so much more to him too. He has his own special way of looking at the world: pragmatic to the tenth degree and a knack for stating the obvious in a way that cracks me up.

It strikes me suddenly that Marina has yet to produce Nonna’s special biscuit tin from her bag, and I go ice-cold with fear. Please don’t let this be the day Nonna Malone has decided we don’t need her sugar fix to set us up for ghost hunting because, as far as I’m concerned, that day will never come.

“Coffee, Marina?” I say, hoping to jog her memory without needing to ask outright. If she doesn’t get the hint, I’ll face-plant myself in her cavernous suede hobo bag and wear it as a hat to sniff out those biscuits.

She nods, looking at me coolly. “I don’t know how to break this to you gently, so I’m just gonna be fast and blunt. Brace yourself. Nonna’s gone back to Sicily for a week. There are no biscuits.”

I gulp and stare at her in wide-eyed horror. “You must have known she was going,” I whisper hoarsely. “You could have prepared me.”

She looks at me with a helpless shrug, which might mean there was a family emergency prompting Nonna’s trip, but more likely means she was too chicken to tell me.

Artie plunks his lunchbox on my desk and opens it. “You can have my egg sandwich if you want,” he says. I appreciate the gesture of solidarity. He feels the same way about his mum’s egg sandwiches as I do about Nonna’s biscuits.

“I’m going to cry now,” I say. “Because my life is ruined.” I shoot Marina a dark look. “Glenda, cancel the appointment at Maplemead. I’m going to bed for a week. Wake me up when Nonna Malone gets home.”

Glenda watches me have my sugar-free meltdown with calm, doe-like eyes, then silently reaches into her desk and hands me an unopened box of shortbread. It’s quite fancy, as it goes; proper Scottish stuff dipped in white chocolate for good measure. I feel my blood sugar start to rise in anticipation and decide that perhaps I don’t need to hit the sack after all. See what I mean about Glenda Jackson? She’s Wonder Woman without the spandex.

Lestat barrels across the room as I open the biscuit box and our eyes meet as he ducks under my desk, skids to a halt, and puts his stubby little foot on my knee.

“Not a chance, Mutt-Face,” I growl, as protective of the shortbread as a mama tiger with her newborn cub. “Go hunt your own kill.”

I feel absolutely no guilt as he slinks away across the office to his bed, shooting me daggers as he stomps around his cushions in ever-decreasing circles to get comfortable.

“I’ve printed out the recent sales particulars of Maplemead Castle.” I pause to hand around the copies I made earlier. “It’s worth us all taking some time to familiarize ourselves with it. There’s also a potted history attached at the back, although we’re going to need to go deeper after our initial assessment this afternoon.”