Mischief in Mudbug (Ghost-in-Law, #2)(48)

She read the first line of the autopsy report and sucked in a breath.

“What’s wrong?” Helena asked. “What does it say? I don’t understand, Sabine. What killed me?”

Sabine continued to read down on the report, growing more surprised with every word. “I’ve got to write this down. Maryse will understand it better than I do.”

Helena stared at her. “But you know something. I saw that look on your face. There’s something in that file you didn’t expect to see. Why won’t you tell me what it is?”

Sabine shook her head and wrote furiously. “I can’t be sure. I think I’m confusing my terminology and I don’t want to tell you the wrong thing. Let’s just get it all down and talk to Maryse. Okay?” Helena didn’t look the least bit convinced, but she didn’t argue either.

Sabine continued to write, word for word, everything in the report. Maybe by the time she talked to Maryse she’d have come up with a way to tell Helena that the autopsy had found no sign of foul play.

And that Helena had been dying of cancer.

[page]

Sabine stood at the hospital room window. The sun was just beginning to rise, casting an orange glow over the marsh. She’d barely slept, only managing ten-minute increments, and was positive she looked as bad as she felt. The nurse had already been in to check on her and promised to bring breakfast in directly. Sabine could hardly wait. Hospital food was so tasty. She’d just decided that a shower might not be a bad idea when Helena came huffing into the room, still wearing the habit, and threw a stack of files behind a recliner in the corner. Before Sabine could get a word out of her mouth, the nurse bustled in with Sabine’s breakfast. Sabine glanced over at Helena, who’d collapsed in the recliner wheezing like she’d just run the New York marathon, and tried not to even think about what Helena had tossed behind the chair.

Sabine excused herself to the bathroom, hoping it would hurry the cheerful, chatty nurse along. It probably took all of a minute before she heard the door close, but it felt like hours. Sabine stepped out of the bathroom to find Helena sitting up in her bed, a half-eaten pancake dangling from the plastic fork.

“You know,” Helena said as she shoved the other half of the pancake in her mouth. “Hospital food isn’t near as bad as I remember.” She stabbed a half-cooked sausage with the fork and wolfed it down.

“You have a serious problem. This is just so not normal.”

Helena rolled her eyes and poked at the scrambled eggs. It lifted in one big blob. “The fake psychic is telling me this isn’t normal. Hell, you think I hadn’t already figured that out?”

“I don’t mean this as in everything, I mean this”—she pointed to the empty plate—“is not normal. Dead people do not need to eat. Dead people shouldn’t even want to eat. Ghosts should not develop addictions, Helena.”

Helena gulped down the coffee, then belched. “Guess ghosts shouldn’t lose their manners either, huh? But what the hell. You’re the only one who can hear me.”

Sabine closed her eyes and counted to ten, trying to keep herself from wishing that she or Maryse had strangled Helena when she was alive. At least then they could have said they deserved having Helena haunt them from beyond.

Sabine peeked behind the recliner. Just as she’d feared, there was a stack of files that look suspiciously like those she’d seen in the records room the night before. “What did you do, Helena?”

Helena, who had been licking residual syrup off the breakfast plate, placed the now spotless plastic dish on the table. “Just some files I thought we’d need.” She swirled her finger around the inside of the coffee cup, then licked it.

Sabine felt her jaw clench involuntarily. “What files? Damn it, Helena! I wrote down everything we needed last night. Why would you take more? They’ll send me to jail if they find those files in here. What were you thinking? And why aren’t you saying anything?”

The ghost had gone strangely silent and it took a second for Sabine to realize that she was glancing at the doorway. Sabine whirled around, fully expecting to find the chatty nurse calling for a straitjacket and police backup, and let out a breath of relief when she saw Raissa standing in the doorway, a curious expression on her face.

“Raissa, thank God!” Sabine collapsed into the recliner, what little was remaining of her energy completely drained. “I thought for sure I was on my way to a padded room or jail, whichever one had available space. What are you doing here?”

Raissa stepped into the room and closed the door behind her. “Maryse called me. She got held up at the airport in Houston and thought you might need to hear a voice of reason since Mildred called yelling at her twice last night.”

“Mildred yelled at Maryse?” Sabine stared at Raissa. “What in the world for?”

Raissa smiled. “Apparently this attempt on your life is all Maryse’s fault because she went and tried to get killed first and you always want to do everything Maryse does.”

Sabine groaned. “I wanted to do everything Maryse did in second grade. I haven’t wanted to since. Well, except that one time I saw Luc walk out of the shower wearing nothing but a towel. I have to admit that Maryse definitely got that one right.”

Raissa laughed. “I confess to a lingering bit of jealousy myself. Not only is the man hot, but he’s so obviously over the moon for Maryse. Makes you want one of your own.”