Coffee and Ghosts: The Complete First Season (Coffee and Ghosts: The Complete Seasons Book 1) Read Online Free PDF

with me or inside me, I can live a normal life. You know why I was fired from the brokerage, don’t you?”
    “I thought it was the recession.”
    He shakes his head. “That’s the excuse. A layoff. After I graduated, my brother followed me there. My first job after college. I thought I was all set. Then Nigel shows up one day. He ...”
    Malcolm breaks off and searches the ceiling as if the words he needs are there. “He would stand in the public lobby, like some sort of crazed prophet, talking about ghosts—and of course, me. He harassed people, the women brokers in particular. It was…” He shudders. “Awful.”
    “Why didn’t you tell me?”
    “I thought it was all over. I took one suitcase and left everything else behind, except the samovar, and drove until I was nearly out of gas. I stopped here. I liked the town. I heard about you and your grandmother. I thought maybe you had the same problem I did.” Here, he shrugs. “It made sense to stay.”
    I guess it would. “I kind of hated you when you first showed up.”
    Malcolm tips his head back and laughs—the first light sound I’ve heard from him since yesterday. “I know,” he says once he’s caught his breath.
    “Do you want to swallow ghosts now? Is it like being an alcoholic?”
    He shakes his head, his smile still there, although his eyes grow somber. “No, fortunately. I don’t think I could function when we go out on calls if I did.”
    I wonder how true this is, but don’t contradict him. “What happens to the ghosts once your brother swallows them? Do you know?”
    “He says they give him strength, but I don’t know if they’re there inside, if they disappear or dissolve.” He shrugs, palms skyward. “Maybe they become part of him.”
    At his words, one horrible thought strikes me. “My grandmother!”
    “What?”
    “She’s ...” I choke back the words.
    I’ve never told Malcolm my secret, that my grandmother’s ghost haunts me. Or rather, she has a series of haunts, and when our bank balance dips to a certain level, she kicks up a ruckus—and we get a call and some much-needed cash.
    “My grandmother is a ghost,” I admit, at last. There. Now we’ve both confessed. I want to sink into the cushions, but the expression on Malcolm’s face won’t let me.
    “How can you know? You’ve said yourself that most ghosts lose their human personality.”
    “Most do, or they cling to one aspect of it. In life, the thing my grandmother wanted most was to take care of me. So in her afterlife?”
    “She’s still taking care of you—or us.” This time, his laugh is soft. “Last month’s ghost in the bank vault?”
    I nod.
    “I suppose she’s the one who shows up in the law offices as well.”
    “That too.”
    “What about Sadie?”
    Sadie Lancaster is my next-door neighbor, one who believes herself continually plagued by ghosts. “No, Sadie just has a low tolerance for sprites. But that isn’t my point.”
    Malcolm raises an eyebrow.
    “What if your brother finds my grandmother and swallows her?”
     
    * * *
     
    We’ve returned to Lasting Rest Mausoleum. Autumn chills the air. Although I’ve pulled on a pair of over-the-knee stockings, the strip of flesh between the wool and the bandages breaks out in goose bumps. But my feet are toasty in leather hiking boots, the rest of me in a leather jacket.
    I’ve spent the entire drive here ignoring glances from Malcolm, but now in the parking lot, I spit out an annoyed, “What?”
    “You look—” he begins.
    “Like you’ve walked out of his dreams, my dear.”
    It’s the voice from the phone, but where it comes from, and how it seems to echo both in my head and all around us, I can’t tell. It is yet another thing that defies logic and physics, like the floating bed sheet of the ghost from earlier.
    “Is this what you meant by harassment?” I whisper. “He made it ... personal?”
    Malcolm’s face contorts. He gives me one quick nod.
    “I’m sorry.” I mean