Summary:
When ghostwriter Maz Amani inherits a house from an uncle he’s never heard of, he offers heartfelt thanks to the universe, packs up his car, his cat, and his skepticism about mysterious uncles leaving all their worldly goods to unknown nephews, and high-tails it to a small town halfway to the Oregon coast.
Anything would be better than week after week of couch surfing his way around Portland. Even if the alleged house is a rundown shack ridden with termites, spiders, and—shudder—rats, he’ll deal. Because hey, he owns a house!
And when his legacy turns out to be a pristine Queen Anne beauty with nary a termite, spider, or rat in sight, he’s ready to stand the universe unlimited vodka shots.
Except not so fast.
Because instead, his house is ridden with something a little more on-brand for a place called Ghost…
In the weeks since he moved to Ghost, Oregon, Maz Amani’s life has gotten so much better.
Charming small town? Check. Queen Anne beauty of a house? Check. Project organizing the fascinating papers of Ghost’s founding family? Check. Adorable handyman who might morph into more than a friend? Check. Rafts of friendly townies? Check.
And did he mention the house?
Sure, there’s the occasional professional annoyance—ghostwriters can’t always be picky about the gigs they take in the name of keeping their cat in kibble. But on the whole, things are awesome.
If only Maz felt like he deserved this mountain of good fortune. Because seriously? What had he ever done to earn it?
Zip. Zilch. Nada.
He’d never even heard of Uncle Oren or his life partner, Avi, who’d predeceased Oren by a decade. Yet Maz had inherited all their worldly goods.
Including, you know, the house.
Maz is determined to pay those men back for transforming his life—and he knows just how to do it.
By transforming Avi’s afterlife.
Because Avi? Yep, still around, sharing the house with Maz and putting the ghost in Ghost.
Ghostlighted is the second in the Ghost Townies small town paranormal mystery series. While the books contain romantic elements, they are not romances, and are intended to be read in order, because, you know, spoilers.
Ghostridden #1
Chapter One
“Holy crap, Gil. I never expected this.”
Gilgamesh, predictably, didn’t answer, not even a meow or the weird yodeling yowl he’d been favoring me with for most of the three-hour-plus drive from Portland. Maybe he was just happy the car had stopped moving. For that matter, so was I. But seriously?
“There’s got to be some mistake.”
I wrestled the cranky door of my rattletrap Civic open and clambered out onto the street to gawk. When the probate lawyer with the awesome double-barreled name of Taryn Pasternak-McHale had called to tell me I’d inherited a house from my Uncle Oren, my first response had been, “Uncle who?”
I’d had no idea I even had an Uncle Oren, and technically, I still didn’t, him being dead and all. But even when he was alive, the relationship had been distant at best: He was apparently my mother’s second cousin once removed, and I defy anybody who’s not a total genealogy geek to figure that one out. But Taryn-with-the-great-name had assured me that I was right there in the will.
“We’ve had a terrible time finding you,” she’d said, her voice over the phone line noticeably irritable. “It took us two months. We had to hire a private detective.”
I winced. “Sorry.” Yeah, couch surfing didn’t exactly give you a fixed address to use for mail forwarding, and I’d scaled back my online presence after I’d gotten trolled multiple times thanks to my vindictive ex. Speaking of whom… “Did you try leaving a message with Greg Findler? He’s still at my last permanent address.”
“Several times.” She cleared her throat. “He, ah, told us you were dead.”
“What?”
“To be fair, he amended the statement to say you were dead to him, but he was less than helpful.”
“I can believe that,” I muttered. “So how did you find me?”
“You were listed as the ‘with’ author on Dale Usher’s memoir. We tracked you through his publisher.”
“Ah.” Most of the time, ghostwriting didn’t get you a by-line or even a mention in the acknowledgements. Dale, a retired detective with a strong commitment to justice and fair play, had been an exception. In fact, he’d insisted on giving me credit, both on the cover and in his comments. “Good to know.”
Taryn rattled off a bunch of details. To be honest, I didn’t hear half of what she said because my head was still reeling from the double shock that I’d had a relative I hadn’t known about, and that he’d left me a freaking house, for Pete’s sake.
Okay, triple shock: that Greg was still pissed enough at me for refusing to ghostwrite his book that he wasn’t satisfied with trashing my professional rep online, but was refusing to pass on messages, even though I checked with him daily via text.
His response was always, “No messages, no mail, screw you.”
“The house is a bit remote,” Taryn warned. “In a small town between Eugene and Florence.”
Considering all my Portland bridges had been torched very merrily by Greg, I’d said, “Sounds perfect,” arranged for her to message the key and directions to me at the nearest UPS store, and hit the road immediately to the not-so-musical accompaniment of Gil’s very vocal disapprobation.
With nothing else to distract me on the drive—my phone died outside Eugene and the Civic’s radio hadn’t worked since 2013—I’d tried to imagine what kind of house my uncle had left me. I’d run the gamut from a two-room shack to a 50s ranch to a mossy log cabin with a crooked smoke pipe to a creepy Victorian that would give the Bates Motel a run for its money. I’d never come close to this.
My incomplete degrees in English lit, creative writing, and business didn’t qualify me as an architectural expert, but I knew Queen Anne when I saw it because I’d researched it for a ghostwriting gig for a historical romance author.
Uncle Oren’s house—my house—was a classic example, including the steep, asymmetrical roof, the cross gables, the polygonal tower at one side of the full-width front porch, and all the decorative goodies on shingles and woodwork and trim and just everywhere.
As for being dilapidated, creepy, or even in need of a new coat of paint? Nope, nope, and nope. It was absolutely pristine. Even the round stained glass window in the third floor gable gleamed in the April sunlight.
My embarrassing schoolkid squeal was masked by the usual screech of metal as I closed the Civic’s door. With my wide, manic grin, I probably resembled a deranged clown, but I couldn’t help it.
Besides, there was nobody to see. My house—my house!—was flanked at a considerable distance by two others, one a yellow rambling two-story farmhouse style, and the other a brown and green craftsman bungalow. We were the only houses on the quiet, one-block street; a park populated by enormous trees and surrounded by a tall wrought-iron fence lay opposite.
I practically skipped around the car to grapple Gil’s carrier out of the passenger seat. “Come on, buddy. Let’s see what our new home is like.”
As anxious as I was to see if the inside matched the outside, I didn’t rush to the front door—I was too busy rubbernecking. I’d have thought that since Taryn hadn’t been able to reach me for two months—yeah, thanks for that, Greg—that the landscaping would have gotten a little ragged at least, but my front yard was as manicured as both my neighbors’. A huge maple stood halfway between the street and the house, its branches canopying a curved flagstone walk lined with nodding purple pansies. The path was bordered by smooth swaths of green lawn without a single invading dandelion in sight.
Maybe the neighbors had banded together to keep it looking nice so their own places didn’t lose curb appeal? Or maybe the upkeep had been included in Uncle Oren’s bequest, one of the details I’d missed as I’d tried not to pass out from shock over owning a freaking house.
I mounted the porch steps and set Gil’s carrier down on the wide, whitewashed planks of its deck. “It has a porch swing, Gil!” I may have squealed again, but can you blame me? An actual porch swing! I couldn’t believe my impossibly good luck.
I dug the key out of my rear jeans pocket. It had poked me in the butt all the way from Portland, but I endured the discomfort because it reminded me I was heading to my house.
I gazed fondly at its funky keychain: the Scooby Gang, complete with psychedelic van. I counted it a point in Taryn’s favor, if she was leaning in to the town’s name: Ghost.
Yep, I was moving to Ghost, Oregon, and given my profession, the irony was not lost on me, especially since I hadn’t had a paying gig since Greg started his online flame campaign.
The dark wooden front door was rounded on the top, with a leaded half-moon light at eye level. I didn’t peek through, though, any more than I peered through the windows that fronted the porch, because I wanted my first step across the threshold to rival the final reveal in all those house-flipping DIY shows.
That I may watch. Or binge. A lot. Hey, it’s for research.
I poised the key over the lock. “Here goes, Gil.” But when I tried to insert it into the keyhole? No dice. I couldn’t even get the tip inside.
Okay, now this was more like my luck, not to mention my love life. I owned a house, but I couldn’t get inside. I narrowed my eyes at the gleaming brass lock collar. “Not very welcoming, house. We need to have a little chat.”
I crouched down to peer into the keyhole. Something was definitely jammed inside. It was stuffed full of something that looked like—
“You there! You on the porch! Back away. Now.”
Ghostlighted #2
Chapter One
“What?” My arm jerked, but luckily the tea that slopped over the rim of my mug hit my jeans, not my laptop. “Crap, that’s hot.”
“Sorry.” Avi, my housemate, waved his hand and a napkin wafted through the air and settled on my thigh over the spill. “I didn’t think that suggestion would cause a spit-take.”
I blotted the wet spot on my jeans and scowled in his direction. He was standing in front of the window, which meant I took in the lanky, brown-haired man in a shapeless cardigan as well as the view of my neighbor’s house that I could see through him. Over the last month, Avi’s presence had gotten a little more solid, but he was still mostly transparent.
Because Avi was a ghost, the only one here in Ghost, Oregon. Most of the town’s residents would give an arm, leg, or first-born child to catch the briefest glimpse of a spirit. I had never had that ambition myself, yet here I was—the town’s newest arrival, actually sharing living space with one.
Which… wasn’t as alarming as it sounded. Avi, who, under the pen name Jake Fields, had been one of the most successful thriller writers of this century, and was surprisingly good company.
Except when he nearly made me spew hot tea all over my laptop.
“Not a spit-take, thank goodness. Just a slosh-and-gosh.” I crumpled the wet napkin and set it on the table next to my mug. “And my jeans took one for the team.”
“Clearly not for the first time,” Avi murmured.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Oh, nothing, nothing. Let’s get back to your previous overreaction.”
“I didn’t overreact.”
He lifted an eyebrow above the rim of his wire-framed glasses. “Your jeans would beg to differ.”
“I’m sorry, but what did you expect after that comment? You told me to use your money to buy a car. I can’t do that!”
“The money isn’t mine anymore, Maz. It’s yours.” Avi’s tone implied that he was being completely reasonable, and I was being ridiculous. “Considering I’m dead and all. That’s how inheritance works.”
“I didn’t inherit this place from you. I inherited it from Uncle Oren.” Technically, Oren wasn’t my uncle. He was my mother’s second cousin once removed, and I’d never even heard his name until Taryn called to let me know I was his sole beneficiary.
“Yes,” Avi said patiently, “since I left everything to him, you’re, shall we say, my heir once removed? It still counts.”
I poked at my keyboard, frowning. “Except usually people don’t inherit from somebody who’s still around.”
“Technically, I’m not still around. Not to anybody except you.” His gaze cut to his feet, and he smiled fondly at my cat, Gilgamesh. “Well, you and Gil.”
Gil twined around Avi’s ankles as though they were corporeal, which, to Gil, they might be. Who knew? Certainly not Avi or me. As far as his life—or rather, his afterlife—was concerned, we were still in the discovery process.
“Besides,” Avi continued, “getting new wheels for you is totally selfish on my part. If your car breaks down and you crash, what will happen to me and the house?”
I squinted up at him, his body not blocking the sun streaming in through the window at all. “That’s a little dark, don’t you think?”
He shrugged. “What can I say? Who better than a ghost to snark about death?”
“I suppose that’s fair.” That reminded me that I should probably make a will of my own, now that I had actual—and significant—assets. “At the very least, Gil would need to hijack somebody else to supply him with tuna and kibble.”
“Are you talking to yourself, Gil, or Avi?” Taryn Pasternak-McHale, my friend and attorney, wandered out of the butler’s pantry, holding a bagel.
“Avi,” I muttered, trying to make sense of the garbled text on the laptop screen.
“I’m guessing from your scowl that either he’s telling you that you’re being ridiculous about your inheritance, or whatever is on your laptop is worse than usual.”
“Both.” I shot a glare at her over my shoulder. “Why are you mooching bagels from my pantry, anyway? Your girlfriend literally owns a bakery.”
“Co-owns, and they don’t serve bagels. Yet.” She grinned as she opened the refrigerator and rummaged around until she found the cream cheese. “I’m conducting market research for their expanded product line, so thank you for your service.”
“Any time.”
She peered at me as she slathered cream cheese on her bagel. “Maz, I could dry my hair with that tone.” When I just grunted, she set the cream cheese on the counter and sauntered over to the table to peer over my shoulder. “Is this one of the ghostwriting gigs you picked up from Ghostline?”
“Yes.” I looked up at her. Her brown skin glowed in the sunlight spilling in through the turret windows that surrounded the table, and she was wearing her long locs down her back today rather than in her usual business braided crown. “I appreciate you posting my credentials there. I really do.” For an online town chat room for a place as small as Ghost, the post had generated a surprising number of jobs for me. “And this contract pays really well. It’s just frustrating.”
She leaned closer, scattering a few bagel crumbs on my shoulder. “What’s it for?”
“Rewriting online help for a geography game app. Their launch date is looming and the first version was—”
“Unhelpful?”
I snorted. “You could say that. I’m pretty sure they just pointed generative AI at their wireframe documentation and called it good.”
“I take it that it wasn’t.” She took a bite of bagel. “Good, that is.”
“Not if you expected, you know, actual help. Plus, whatever engine they used had huge problems recognizing images, which is kind of an issue for a game that’s literally about the shapes of countries. Slovenia was tagged as a rooster, Belize as a microwave oven, and Italy as—wait for it—a kinky boot.” She and Avi both laughed, but I just shook my head. “AI is the tool of the devil.”
“So what was Avi saying to you?”
I glanced at Avi, who was leaning on the air in the vicinity of the wall. “He wants me to use the Jake Fields royalties to buy myself a car, of all things.”
“He’s got a point.” She frowned down at her bagel and walked back to the counter to plaster it with more cream cheese. “Your car looks like it’s held together by coat hangers, rust, and desperation. It’s older than you are by at least a dozen years.”
I squinted one eye. “It’s a classic?”
“It’s one step from a wreck,” Avi said. “Even you call it a beater. Stop being so stubborn and take the money already.”
I hunched over the laptop. “You didn’t complain when Ricky refused payment for maintaining the house for a decade. This is no different.”
In fact, when I’d made the offer, Ricky—whom I hoped might someday transition from friend to boyfriend—had been so insulted I was afraid he’d stop speaking to me. Luckily, Ricky wasn’t nearly the touchy diva that my last boyfriend had been, and the awkwardness had passed quickly.
Taryn, finished with her bagel, licked cream cheese off her fingers. “I’m guessing Avi just told you to take the money.”
“Yes,” I grumbled. “But it doesn’t feel right to use it for something like that. It’s not like Avi can drive a car.”
“Look, Maz, while it’s admirable that you want to share with Avi, there are some things that aren’t possible. Ghosts don’t have a credit rating or investment accounts, and they certainly can’t stand in line at the DMV.” She paused. “At least, not that I know of.”
In an attempt to get them both off my back, I deflected. “This is a new look for the office, isn’t it? The hair, the clothes.” Taryn favored jewel-toned pantsuits in raw silk when she was in no-nonsense attorney mode, and though she had her usual Doc Martens on her feet, she was wearing a white linen camp shirt untucked over black knit pants today. “Instituting casual Wednesday?”
She shook her head, her locs swinging behind her and pattering against my arm. “I’ve only got two official things to do, and then I’m off for the rest of the day.” She eyed the damp spot on my thigh. “What’s your excuse?”
“I’m barred from the Manor for the next two days.” When her brows rose, I said, “A Eugene company booked the Manor for business development nonsense, and the staff is cordially not invited to remain on the premises.”
“Oh right. Which reminds me that Pop’s taking advantage of the situation and dragging Dad up to Victoria for the weekend.” Taryn’s dad, Saul Pasternak, was my boss at Richdale Manor, Ghost’s answer to the Winchester Mystery House. “Dad wanted me to let you know he wouldn’t be back until Monday, so you could take Friday off, too.”
“He did, huh? So why didn’t you?”
“I forgot,” she said, not abashed in the least. But then her face clouded. “Dad was happy enough with the venue rental fees, but I think the company could have at least catered their food locally. They’re bringing it all in from Eugene, even the morning pastries. The job would have been a good bump for Isaksen’s.”
I swiveled in my chair to look up at her. “Is Isaksen’s hurting for business?”
“Eh.” She waggled one hand. “Yes and no. More is always better, within reason, anyway. Haley and I are heading into Florence to try to drum up some commercial clients for them. The lack of tourism here in town is still a problem generally, and once bookings at Jenkins House dried up, they lost their biggest local bulk order.”
“Jenkins House?” I still hadn’t visited the place, although it was on my to-do list. Other than my house, it was the only example of Uncle Oren’s work in town. Since I’d never met the man who was Avi’s lover and my own benefactor, I was curious. “That’s the B & B, right?”
“It was. The couple who owned it have decided to move on.”
“Rats,” I muttered.
“Belay that thought, because one of my tasks today is conveying the title for the place to the previous owners’ relatives.” She held up both hands, fingers crossed. “With luck, they’ll decide to reopen and avail themselves of Jae-Seong’s fabulous pastries again. But even if they do, Isaksen’s still needs to diversify. Hence today’s trip to the coast.”
“Can Jae-Seong manage the bakery without Haley?”
She shrugged. “It’s just for the day, and the baking’s already done. They’ve got a couple of part-timers who can cover service.”
“Let me guess.” I leaned back in my chair and crossed my arms. “Could those part-timers be more of Ricky’s cousins?” I’d never been able to tie Ricky down to a final count, but his cousins were everywhere.
“I’ll never tell.” She smirked. “Maybe you should ask him.”
“Maybe I will. He’ll be here later.” My neck prickled at the thought of seeing him again, of spending time with him again. My mandatory Manor moratorium was good for that, at least. “I’m helping him set out vegetable starts in Sofia’s garden today.”
“Sheesh.” Taryn rolled her eyes. “Watching the two of you tiptoe around each other is like watching glaciers migrate.”
My eyebrows snapped together. “Hey! That’s not fair. Ricky’s important. I don’t want to screw this up.”
“Okay. I guess I can accept that.” Her expression turned calculating, almost sly. “You’ve got five days free. Seems like a perfect time to move that glacier a little farther down the mountain.”
I looked out the window at the back of Sofia’s scarecrow. “You really need to work on your metaphors.”
Taryn studied me, eyes narrowed. “You’re not going to do it, are you?”
“Do what?” I suspected my attempt at nonchalance was a total failure.
“Take Friday off.”
“It’s either that or spend all day on these stupid help files, and believe me, a few hours at a time is all I can handle.”
Taryn spread her hands. “Then why take the jobs? It’s not like you need the money now. Or are you saying I didn’t negotiate appropriate compensation for you when Dad offered you the Manor job?”
“Of course not! But even if you hadn’t, it wouldn’t have mattered. The work over there is fascinating.”
Fascinating was an understatement. The Richdale family cast a vast shadow over the area. The town of Ghost wouldn’t exist if not for them, nor would nearby Richdale or Richdale University. My neighbor, Patrice DeHaven, taught paranormal studies there when she wasn’t lurking inside her house in self-imposed introvert seclusion.
In the last half of his life, Thaddeus Richdale’s time, money, and energy had all been devoted to his quest to reach beyond the veil. Not because he was a particularly spiritual person, you understand. No, he just wanted to shake down Josiah, his departed father, for the location of the fortune Thaddeus was convinced Josiah had hidden from him.
Saul had hired me to organize Thaddeus’s papers, and I was finally making some progress. This event couldn’t have come at a worse time, but the Manor needed the rental fees, so I had to deal.
Both Taryn and Avi were looking down at me, shaking their heads as though I’d disappointed them hugely. Gil, the traitor, had his back to me, ears tilted back, only the tip of his ginger tail twitching.
“Stop it. Both of you.” I leaned sideways, the better to glare at Gil. “You too.” I sighed. “Oh, fine. I’ll think about taking Friday off.”
Taryn grinned. “That’s all I ask.”
The ping of an incoming text emanated from the oversized leather purse Taryn had slung on the counter when she’d arrived.
“That’ll be Haley. I need to get moving. Which brings me to my second task of the day.”
She strode over to her bag and extracted two envelopes, one a thick eight by ten manila and the other a standard business size with some kind of logo where the return address should be. She slapped the bigger one on the counter.
“What’s that?”
“The court documents from the settled lawsuits, as well as an updated contract from Avi’s publisher for his last book.” She tapped two fingers on the clasp. “They’ll be returning the advance, too.”
Avi surged forward, his feet not touching the floor. “They did? I didn’t expect that.”
I gestured to where Avi was standing to peer down at the envelope. “Avi says he didn’t expect to get the advance back.”
Taryn gave me a pitying look. “Maz. Avi didn’t get the advance. As the person who turned in the manuscript, you did. Although frankly?” She faced in the direction I’d indicated. “Avi, your publisher was so ecstatic to get it, I think your agent could have asked for double and they’d have come through.” She grinned. “Have I told you how much I like her?”
Avi and I both said, “Several times.”
Taryn ignored me, still directing her comments toward Avi’s general location. “I made sure that she negotiated to send all the editor’s notes here to Maz.”
“Me? Why?”
She rolled her eyes. “Don’t be dense, Maz. So Avi can do the edits, of course. Nobody has to know they’re being done by a ghost.”
“But I can’t interact with a computer,” Avi said. “Remember last week when I crashed your laptop?”
I winced. “Right.” That had been a near disaster, but I’d only lost an hour or so of work on those lousy help files, so it could definitely have been worse. “Maybe you could use dictation software or something.”
Avi dipped his chin and glared at me over his glasses. “Exactly how would I do that, Maz? You’re the only person, place, or thing who can hear my voice.”
“Oh, yeah. I guess that would be a problem. Don’t worry. We’ll figure something out.”
“And this”—Taryn flourished the smaller envelope and waggled it in the air until I took it—“is for you.” She grabbed her bag. “Gotta go.” She turned and power-walked out of the room.
I opened the envelope warily and peeked inside. My eyes widened, and I threw it onto the counter where it skidded to the edge and fell to the floor.
“Taryn!” I stormed out of the kitchen and planted myself in the family room just as she reached the front door. “Why the hell did you just hand me a check for a hundred and twenty-five grand?”
Multi-Rainbow Award winner E.J. Russell—grace, mother of three, recovering actor—holds a BA and an MFA in theater, so naturally she’s spent the last three decades as a financial manager, database designer, and business intelligence consultant (as one does). She’s recently abandoned data wrangling, however, and spends her days wrestling words.
E.J. is married to Curmudgeonly Husband, a man who cares even less about sports than she does. Luckily, CH loves to cook, or all three of their children (Lovely Daughter and Darling Sons A and B) would have survived on nothing but Cheerios, beef jerky, and satsuma mandarins (the extent of E.J.’s culinary skill set).
E.J. lives in rural Oregon, enjoys visits from her wonderful adult children, and indulges in good books, red wine, and the occasional hyperbole.
Ghostridden #1
Ghostlighted #2
Ghost Townie Series
