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  She watched the faces of the audience members, some peaceful, with eyes closed, some weeping openly, a few still skeptical. Many stared at Pirette or the empty spot in front of Minerva where the ghosts supposedly stood.

  The man with glasses watched Minerva. He wasn’t clapping. He was in the sixth row now, no longer at the back. When had he moved?

  The audience continued to applaud. The noise bounced off the walls, filling the studio. Minerva’s head throbbed with the echo.

  The man in the sixth row had something in his hands. She couldn’t see what it was…but then, as the cameras moved and the lighting angle changed, she saw a deep-red wetness covering his hands, coating the sharpened nails of his pale fingers. It shone in the light.

  Was it blood?

  How the hell had a man gotten past security covered in blood?

  She aimed for her mark but her feet wouldn’t move. Her knees buckled and she stumbled, looking down at the stage below her.

  When she raised her eyes again the seat in the sixth row was empty.

  Minerva swiveled to look for him, staggering in her heels. Where had he gone? Every instinct in her body screamed that something was wrong. Icicles stabbed at her gut, warning her. And then she saw him, between the cameras at stage left, nearly hidden in the blind spot between the stage lights. He was holding something in his hands, something more than blood. It looked slick and dark. About the size of a fist. Applause thundered and Minerva felt her heartbeat rattle in her chest.

  The thing in his hands moved in time with her heartbeat. It glistened, red-black and moist. The beat of her pulse grew louder.

  The man was holding a human heart.

  She tried to gesture at Rachel to call security, but the host was comforting Pirette, holding out the mic, seeking more response. The stage lights flickered off glass in front of the stage—the man’s spectacles, right beneath her. He reached up to her and in the yellow light she finally saw his hands stained crimson, covered in blood, holding the heart up toward her, the bloody organ pulsing, moving, beating in time with her own.

  Minerva collapsed.

  Chapter Two

  Bram

  What had she seen?

  The spirit hovered several feet above Minerva’s silent body, cursing his impotence. From his place between the world of the dead and the living, he was aware of the commotion around him. Cameras flashed. Rachel sprinted to Minerva’s side, her blonde bun weaving through the crowd. A grip dropped a camera, swearing. The dark-haired man who had spooked Minerva simply walked away unnoticed. Only the spirit saw and recognized the man. Victor Grayson.

  Three security guards surrounded the TV star, their uniforms lending authority, and asked the audience to remain seated. Chatter filled the air, echoing off the walls like a thousand ping-pong balls. What happened? Is this part of the show? Is she okay? Grab a video for YouTube!

  The spirit ignored them, his ghostly vision fixed on his wife. Even unconscious she sparkled, lights reflecting off the sequins on her dress, the red in her curls lapping up attention like flames. He wanted to reach down and touch that hair, breathe air into her mouth, but he no longer had hands or lungs.

  His wife was a brave woman. What could she have seen that had caused her to faint?

  He knew the dark-haired man. It had been seven years, but Bram would recognize him anywhere. The sunken cheekbones and dark, empty eyes brought back a rush of memories. The shock of steel sliding beneath his ribs, a cold invader thrusting deep into his viscera. Shooting pain echoing from his stomach up through his nerves to his brain. Hearing himself scream. The copper stink of his own blood. Terror, regret, longing. The heaviness of his limbs as life slipped away from him.

  And then the agony, indescribable agony, as the man had cut Bram’s heart from his chest while he still lived.

  But Minerva, surely, had never even seen a photo of her husband’s murderer. The police had no leads.

  To her, the man standing at the edge of the stage, his empty, pale hands reaching up toward her, was a stranger. Harmless. Why had her gorgeous green eyes fixated on his hands as they had? Grayson couldn’t have reached her from there. She had to have known that.

  Had she sensed danger? Bram knew it couldn’t be a coincidence that Grayson was there. Was he planning to harm Minerva? At the thought, rage filled him and static electricity in the air shuddered around the ghost’s non-corporeal form.

  The anger made him lose concentration and the scene around him blurred and shifted. He forced it back into a proper semblance of vision. Bram had worked for seven years on his senses to get closer to his wife, refusing the white light calling him to the afterlife. At first the world had been a blank canvass, darkness in tones of gray, except that he could sense her near, her warmth and life holding him steady.

  Over seven years he’d focused his soul and become aware of the sound of her voice, smoky but soothing, full of charisma, and the scent of her, morphing over the years from a girlish rose to mature sandalwood.

  When last winter his vision had coalesced, he’d spent months of his afterlife just staring at her. She was the woman he loved, but she had changed—her breasts were fuller now and her hips and ass had curves he’d never known. More than anything, he wanted hands and the ability to reach out and touch her, tangling his fingers in the silky curls of her hair, his palms caressing her smooth skin. He wanted to pull the sequined dress above her waist and tear her panties to the side, plunging his fingers into her warmth.

  Though he watched her every minute of every day, he missed her more than life itself. Bram knew he would never move on, not until he’d had to chance to speak to her, to hold her. To apologize for how badly he’d fucked up.

  It had broken his heart watching her act out an apology from an imaginary husband tonight. Was that what she wanted to hear from him? That he loved her, how sorry he was and how much he still missed and desired her?

  He wished his sin had only been an affair. That he hadn’t left her destitute, alone, forcing her to give up on her dreams of film acting and twist her gifts into this deception. Yes, she was rich, but her eyes no longer sparkled the way they had when taking her bows in the theater after playing Juliet or Eponine.

  Was her show really all a lie?

  Sometimes he thought she could hear him. She would speak to him out loud, as if he were there, but chattering to herself, supplying answers that he wouldn’t have chosen. He replied anyway, knowing it was futile. But then, every so often, it wasn’t. She’d ask a question and he’d state the response and she’d smile a little wider, her perfect, white actress teeth shining out between red lips, and he felt that somehow, miraculously, he’d gotten through to her.

  Maybe this fake psychic nonsense she’d taken up after his death wasn’t so phony after all, he’d think.

  Then she’d laugh about something else, a comment from her own mind, not his, and the moment would be over.

  He must make her hear him. He would use every bit of strength he had to reach out to her and warn her about the man who had cut out her husband’s heart while it still beat in his chest.

  Chapter Three

  Haunted

  Minerva woke in her dressing room to a nasty headache and blurred vision. She was lying awkwardly on a chaise longue, Rachel’s concerned face staring down at her. Blonde strands had escaped from the younger woman’s bun and she looked more stressed out than Minerva had ever seen her.

  “Oh thank God,” Rachel spluttered.

  Minerva wetted her lips. She struggled to sit up. She shook her head and the world seemed to move with it. “Did they get him?”

  Rachel’s brow wrinkled. “Who?”

  “The guy—the one with the blood on his hands.” The image was burned into her retinas, the dark-haired man with glasses, holding the heart high, red meat slippery and wet between his pasty fingers.

  “Blood? What are you talking about?” Rachel’s voice rose with concern.

  “You didn’t see him? He was right there.” S
he remembered him standing at the edge of the stage staring up at her, pink tongue pressed between his lips, dark eyes fixed on hers behind the frames of his glasses, blood dripping from his hands onto the white studio floor. “Security didn’t notice him?”

  Confusion filled Rachel’s face then settled into understanding. “Nerv, an ambulance is on its way, just stay calm.”

  She thinks I’m seeing things.

  Was she seeing things? How could security have missed a man in the front row holding a human heart?

  How do I know it was human?

  She wasn’t going to get anywhere trying to convince Rachel. “No ambulance, please. I fainted, that’s all. I got mixed-up.”

  “What happened, Nerv? I’ve never seen you lose it like that. Not since…” Rachel’s voice trailed off. Minerva knew the unspoken ending—not since Bram’s murder. And the aftermath, finding out he’d gambled away their savings.

  But she had no answer to what had happened. And she wouldn’t get one from Rachel. She steadied her voice, playing a character, the calm, unperturbed psychic. “I don’t know. Weird guy gave me the creeps, I guess.”

  Rachel’s voice was filled with worry. “Weirder than usual?” They’d encountered trouble in the audience before. It came with the Sex Psychic territory—stalkers who thought Minerva’s erotic persona was solely for them, abusive exes who wanted her to find their girlfriends, and generic creeps who wanted her body and didn’t understand that the entertainment had finished when the cameras stopped rolling.

  Minerva had handled them all with aplomb and no fainting. She could understand Rachel’s worry—she was worried too. But she didn’t want to scare her friend until she knew what was going on. It might yet be nothing.

  Minerva let the unruffled psychic come to the surface again. “Maybe. Nothing obvious though.” She shrugged casually.

  “You want me to have security check into him? They evacuated the audience. We’re done taping for the day.”

  Minerva bit her lip. Should she? She was a good judge of character—it was what allowed the psychic gig to work even without her assistants helping her to cheat. Reading people was her job. She’d sniffed out potential stalkers before.

  But that had been noticing when someone didn’t make eye contact or spotting the bulky shape of a knife in a pocket. This was blood on a man’s hands that hadn’t been there minutes before or minutes after. A throbbing, still-living heart between his fingers. An hallucination.

  Or simple exhaustion, most likely.

  “Nah, it’s cool, Rache. Just keep them on alert, ask if they saw anything strange. Thanks.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yeah. Actually I could use some time alone. Gonna take a power nap before we plot out tomorrow’s show.”

  “I’m not going to leave you.”

  “Please, I feel silly. And I need you to cancel that ambulance when it shows up.” Minerva could only imagine the chaos outside if the three hundred-member audience had been evacuated. She wished the EMTs luck getting in.

  Rachel’s face was conflicted. She pursed her lips and tucked a strand of blonde hair behind her ear. “You’re sure?”

  “I’m exhausted, Rache. Trust me, a siesta will do wonders.” She infused her voice with humor and conviction.

  The producer nodded. “Don’t let the bedbugs bite.” Rachel knocked twice on the counter, quietly, her way of saying goodnight before Minerva’s naps—Minerva was infamous in the studio for her endless capacity for sleep. She never let it get in the way of work, but hot damn did she love naps. She closed her eyes, faking it, and listened to the door shut and Rachel’s footfalls moving away.

  Minerva had no desire for sleep now.

  She rose, swaying unsteadily on her feet, and opened the door. She peeked out into the hallway. The long red carpet stretched past her door, an unraveled tongue spilling no secrets, and Minerva could see people moving at the end of the hallway—grips, technicians and other crew shifting cables and cameras. Their quiet, steady conversation echoed down the hallway to her. It was normal and safe. But she still noticed her heart beating too quickly in her chest and her skin felt cold.

  Minerva slammed the dressing room door. It created a gust of wind that set off the jewelry hanging by the mirror, multicolored crystal beads clinking together in eerie harmony. Her trembling fingers found the deadbolt. It stuck as her fingers slipped. She pried at it with red nails, cursing. It snapped into place.

  Where had the man gone and how had he gotten past security and the audience?

  Had he escaped? Had he merely been a hallucination?

  It would be easy enough to dismiss it as an overactive imagination to the rest of the crew—even Rachel, her best friend, had bought it. Actresses weren’t exactly known for their stability, and when you added the TV psychic bit to her portfolio? Yeah, a bit of diva behavior wasn’t going to stress anyone out.

  But Minerva couldn’t explain it to herself. How could a man covered in blood have left the studio through that much security? Had he really vanished into thin air?

  What had he done with the heart?

  With the door locked and security on alert, she was as safe as she could be. Minerva willed herself to relax.

  She scanned the long, narrow room. Everything appeared as usual—bedazzled gowns hanging in the closet, makeup jars open on the narrow counter beside her full-length mirror. There was a basket of cookies brought in by the new assistant, and her photos of friends—Rachel and other Sex Psychic staffers—and a portrait of Bram, her late husband. It was a silly shot, his dark hair soaped into a Mohawk, taken in the tub on their last anniversary. Minerva loved to remember his playful side. The strong muscles in his shoulders, soap bubbles sticking to them, were visible at the bottom of the photograph.

  How she missed those comforting arms now. What the fuck had transpired out there?

  She threw herself down on the plush chaise against the far wall, the only furniture in the room, and pulled her knees to her chest. The seams in her dress made small popping sounds. She shivered and rubbed at her bare arms, tracing goose bumps along her skin. Her stomach felt full of ice. She sucked in a lungful of air. It was cold too. She pulled a fleece afghan from the back of the chaise and cocooned herself in it.

  “What the hell just happened?” she asked herself again, speaking aloud now as she always did when alone and working something out.

  Fuck if I know.

  She smiled as she imagined the reply in Bram’s warm baritone, with a slight British tinge that slipped through even though he’d been Americanized for most of his life.

  Her husband had been dead for seven years, but conjuring up his voice every day kept him fresh in her heart. It sounded weird, sure, but as she’d told her last therapist before firing the woman, the peculiar is par for the course when you’re a TV psychic.

  And now her life was getting even stranger. “Unless that guy ate a bowl of strawberries during break, that was blood on his hands.” She couldn’t speak the rest out loud, couldn’t give voice to her feeling that the man had been holding a human heart.

  Maybe he ate them bear-style, grasping them in his paws, slobbering juice all over the studio chairs.

  “Rachel would have thrown him out for sure. This is a classy fake psychic sex show. No Maury-style parentage-guessing for us.”

  Dead Aunt Mildred says that Bachelor #2 is the father!

  “How would Mildred know? Was she witness to the conception from beyond the veil of life?”

  You know that’s how we ghosts get our jollies, luv.

  “Minerva Silence—Postmortem Paternity Tests.”

  You should pitch that. It’d be a ratings hit for sure.

  “Rache would quit but I’d be able to build another pool. Maybe a pool-sized Jacuzzi.” It might be silly laughing with herself, but Minerva was starting to relax.

  His “voice” darkened, took on a heavier accent. It’s not about that, though, is it, luv? Ratings?

  Huh. Fake Bram of her
fantasy was reminding her a little too much of real Bram. “Of course not. The security is nice, but we’re helping people. Right?”

  The voice in her head was silent. She sighed. Sometimes she couldn’t make him talk and at other times he talked too much. But remembering her husband had Minerva feeling warmer at least. She pulled the afghan up to her face and rubbed a cheek against it. The cream fabric picked up some blusher from her cheeks, staining pink. “Who do you think he was?”

  Something dangerous.

  The ice in Minerva’s stomach rose again.

  “That’s not funny, Bram.” She frowned. Now even the voices in her head were misbehaving. “You’re supposed to calm me down.” She ran a hand through her hair, tousling the curls. She let her lashes fall, taking in a deep breath as her eyes closed. “Remember when you’d pull me into your lap if I was nervous before an audition?” After they’d married, Minerva had been a young, struggling actress. They’d been fine on Bram’s teacher wages but it hadn’t been about the money for her. She’d craved artistic success. She’d wanted interesting roles, when all directors had seen had been the ingénue with sultry dark curls and shapely curves.

  Bram had always seen more.

  After his murder, after finding their account drained dry by his gambling debts, she’d had to take what roles she could get. Discovering a talent for cold reading, plucking personal details from the mouths of strangers seeking the other side, had kept her from the casting couch. She would never fuck for a part. Even after his death, even after his betrayal, she’d remained loyal to Bram.

  I remember,she heard his voice say. She felt the chaise warm against her back. Minerva pressed her back against it as if it were Bram’s firm chest. The leather was supple and soft. She let her head tilt back and felt her hair stir against her cheeks, sliding backward. The sweet, woody scent of it reached her nose and she reveled in it, remembering how Bram had loved to smell her hair and the flowery powder of her stage makeup after a show.

  I’m going to rub this off you, he’d say, running a finger down her cheek. Lick you clean. His tongue would brush her bottom lip. Make you my girl again.