Coffee and Ghosts: The Complete First Season (Coffee and Ghosts: The Complete Seasons Book 1) by Charity Tahmaseb Page A

step inside.
    And I realize this is the first time I’ve seen where Malcolm lives.
    He holds up a hand, stopping me from venturing farther than the living room. “Let me check,” he says, voice low.
    I nod.
    While he’s gone, I scan the space. A flat screen TV takes up most of one wall. A blanket and pillow sit neatly at one end of a worn futon. Is this where Malcolm’s been sleeping? It strikes me as both uncomfortable and a little sad.
    On the coffee table rests a laptop computer that I know belongs to Malcolm. On all sides, I’m surrounded by stacks of books, magazines, and newspapers. One pile teeters, then cascades over my feet the moment Malcolm emerges from the apartment’s lone hall.
    “Sorry, sorry,” he says, scooping papers into his arms and a soiled coffee cup from the table. “The place is a mess.” He dumps the papers into a bin and the cup into the sink. “Hey, do you want something to drink?”
    “I’m okay,” I say, even though my throat is dry.
    Malcolm returns with two bottles of water despite my protest.
    “It’s a long walk from the community center to the care facility,” is all he says.
    I nod toward the hall. “Is Nigel—?”
    “Sound asleep. If there are any ghosts inside him, I can’t tell, but I doubt it. Insomnia is one of the signs, or at least it was before.” Here he shrugs. “Still.”
    “Are you worried?”
    “I’m worried how addictive it is, this ghost eating thing.”
    I wonder if some of that worry extends to Malcolm himself. He’s new to ghost catching. It would be easy to slip, I think, to try something, to end up liking that something.
    “Other than the name, I’m not certain there’s a connection between Mistress Armand and either of you,” I venture. “And I don’t think Nigel—”
    “It just … it just hit me all at once. Things got bad between us before I left Minneapolis. Addicts lie, all the time. Nigel has only been clean for a few weeks. And I thought—”
    “Me, too.”
    My legs ache. Malcolm was right. It was a long walk from the community center to the care facility. I cast a quick glance around. I don’t want to sit on his bed. I decide on the coffee table.
    “Before I left for the séance, I scanned the ghost forums.” Malcolm kneels next to the coffee table and flips open his laptop.
    “See?” He points to a message thread. “Someone called Mistress Ramone was in Waunakee, Wisconsin a few months back. And six months ago, a Mistress Williams was in Kendallville, Indiana. Oddly enough, there’s a Williams in Kendallville who’s a ghost hunter, and a Ramone who was mayor of Waunakee.”
    “So she borrows names? To get people to trust her?” I ask.
    “Apparently.”
    “To do what? Séances?”
    “People, it seems, were reluctant to talk about it. Lots of ‘don’t trust her’ or ‘stay away’ messages, but nothing concrete, and nothing, really, to prove that either one is Mistress Armand.”
    “So what’s her angle? What does she really want? I mean, other than to humiliate an entire town. Is that why people won’t talk about it? I don’t see the purpose in that.”
    “I don’t either, except that some people are intentionally cruel.”
    Malcolm stands and shakes out his trousers. Despite the evening, he still looks clean and pressed and ready for a date. I’m fairly certain I look rumpled, disheveled, and ready for a shower.
    “Come on,” he says. “Let me drive you home.”
     
    * * *
     
    “You don’t have to walk me to the door.”
    I’ve said this before. Actually, I’ve said it a hundred times, at least, since Malcolm and I started working together. Even though my street is quiet and half my neighbors leave their doors unlocked (the others keep a key beneath one of those fake rocks), if the sun is flirting with the horizon, Malcolm makes the trip up the front porch steps and makes sure I reach my door.
    He says nothing in response. I never push the issue and in return, he isn’t pushy. He’s just