Simon Green: Ghost of a Smile

His voice had risen almost to a scream, his face drawn and strained. Happy and Melody stood as close as they could, and shot a harsh warning glance at Latimer when it looked like she might say something.

“I didn’t detect anything,” Happy said carefully. “And if I didn’t, you certainly wouldn’t have. There’s no sign to show she was taken. She just… isn’t in there.”

JC glared at the dead body. “Give her back! Give her back to me, you bastards!”

The dead body lay there. JC’s hands clenched into fists before him, and when he spoke, his voice was cold, and hard, and little more than a whisper.

“I have to know. I need to know what’s happened to her. Where she is. I have to track her down, and save her, and bring her home. I can’t lose her, not so soon after finding her.”

“If there’s no sign she was taken, she might have… wandered off,” said Latimer.

JC stood up, brushing at his clothes in an absent, unthinking way. “No. She wouldn’t leave me. She wouldn’t.”

“So,” said Latimer. “You and the ghost girl are… emotionally involved. Even though you know such relationships are expressly forbidden. Because they never work out well.”

“Really not a good time to go into that, Boss,” said Happy.

“Right,” said Melody, in an only moderately threatening way.

Latimer looked at JC, standing alone, looking as though something had punched his heart out, and surprised them all by nodding.

“I have to get back to the Institute,” she said evenly. “I have to make a report… of some kind. You can all come in… when you’re ready.”

She walked away, back straight and head held high, not looking back. Happy and Melody watched her go.

“Kim is out there, somewhere,” said JC. “And I will find her.”

“Of course we will,” said Happy. “We’re ghost finders.”

“Damn right,” said Melody.