Missing in Mudbug (Ghost-in-Law #5)(33)

Maryse stared at her. “There’s ranking in heaven?”

Helena nodded. “Not like earth, of course. All of the jobs in heaven are good jobs, but the things I want to do only go to those who helped others on earth.”

“What about your estate? You gave almost all of it to charities and other worthy causes.”

“That definitely helped, but I didn’t have to earn the money myself, and giving it to charities didn’t require anything physical of me, short of having the will drafted.”

“Ah,” Maryse said, starting to understand the angle. “You need to get your hands dirty.”

“Exactly. And my last stint in Mudbug wasn’t enough to push me over the mark. So I’m back here to earn more points.”

“Wait. So does that mean all ghosts are here earning brownie points—like some ghostly job fair?”

“Some are. Others are stuck in limbo because of the way they died. They’re not able to cross yet because their mind and heart are clinging too hard to the past.”

“Like you did last year.”

Helena nodded.

Maryse took a minute to consider everything Helena had told her. “Should I even ask what job you want?”

“You can ask, but that’s the one thing I’ll never tell you. You’ll have to die and ascend to find out.”

“Yeah, I’ll go ahead and wait on that one a while, if you don’t mind.”

Maryse started walking again and Helena fell in step behind her. Suddenly, she drew up short and Helena piled into the back of her, almost knocking her over.

“What are you trying to do?” Helena complained. “Get us injured?”

Maryse whirled around and stared at her. “You’re not here because we’re all going to be in danger again, are you? I need you to tell me the truth on this. First Jadyn was in danger and now Raissa’s missing…”

Helena held up her hands. “I swear, I didn’t have anything to do with either. And if my being sent here was because of those reasons, no one filled me in.”

Maryse narrowed her eyes at the ghost, but Helena appeared to be telling the truth. “Hmmmm. Just because no one told you anything doesn’t mean that’s not the case.”

“I suppose that’s true,” Helena said, looking slightly miserable.

“Well,” Maryse said as she took off again. “Nothing to be done about it now, so we may as well do our best while it plays out.”

“I hope our best doesn’t include snakes and spiders.”

“I’m guessing your best doesn’t include stealing food, so a few snakes and spiders might even the score.”

Helena huffed. “Rude.”

Maryse stopped walking again and scanned the swamp surrounding them. “Okay, here’s where we part directions. Follow this path about half a mile. Walk twenty yards or so to the right and you’ll be on the road. Stay on it until you get to the pond.”

“Walk on the road? What if someone sees me?”

Maryse stared at her for a moment.

“Oh, right, no one else can see me.” Helena frowned. “Hey, I could have been walking on the road this entire time.”

“Oh, I guess you could have.”

Helena glared. “You did that on purpose. Probably hoping that a snake would fall on me or something.”

“One can always hope,” Maryse said before setting off deeper into the swamp.

She skirted through the swamp some distance from the pond, but because she knew the swamps so well, she knew exactly when to break right and head for the back side. She’d told Helena she was going to watch from the other side, but in thinking it over, decided her view would be too restricted from that distance to get much out of it. But she could watch from where the pond curved around to the left. It would be far enough away that no one should notice her, but close enough that she would be able to see anything worth seeing.

Even at a fast clip, it took her almost twenty minutes to get where she wanted. As she crept toward the tree line, she lowered herself to remain unseen behind the decreasing height of the brush. Finally, she stooped behind a shrub and pulled out her binoculars. Using a couple of sticks, she created a hole in the bush, then lifted the binoculars and focused on the crowd of men standing next to a tow truck about fifty yards from her.

She recognized Agent Ross immediately as he stood in front of the other man, waving his hands and giving out orders. A couple minutes later, the men dispersed, each moving to his assigned task. Ross walked to the edge of the pond with the man wearing scuba gear. The tow truck backed up as far as possible toward the muddy bank and the diver grabbed the tow hook and started walking with it into the pond.

Where the hell was Helena?

The ghost had one-third the walk Maryse had, and should have been in place already. Maryse scanned the entire area, looking for some sign of the ghost. She almost missed her completely before realizing that the black lump on the bank, which she’d originally taken for a bag of gear, was actually Helena, decked out in a scuba suit. For the first time since they’d left the hotel, Maryse was glad she had to keep her distance. The scuba suit looked bad enough from a distance. No way did she want a closer view.

As the diver disappeared below the surface of the pond, Helena popped up, or at least, Maryse assumed she did, as the wetsuit got taller but not much thinner. Then she started walking toward the pond.