Read Online Bitter Spirits by Jenn Bennett - Free Book Online Page A

Hundreds of people lined up every night to see her show. She seemed comfortable with her life. Satisfied. Self-confident. She didn’t have the stench of desperation that he could usually spot miles away.
    But she did have every reason to hold up two crossed fingers or throw holy water on him. At Velma’s he’d collapsed like an injured horse, sick and naked and half mad with the poison polluting his veins. She should’ve been fainting in horror at the sight of him, running for the hills.
    Yet here she was.
    And now he’d forever have an image stamped in his depraved mind of the moment her lovely face tilted up to his . . . her eyes big and brown beneath the slender brim of her hat, lips parted, freckles peeking through faded oxblood red lipstick. One particular freckle near the right corner of her mouth was larger than the others, straddling the blush of her lip and the lighter skin of her face. Dear God, how he desperately wanted to swipe his tongue across that freckle.
    And maybe suckle one or two of the fingers that had been wrapped around his necktie.
    â€œMr. Magnusson?”
    â€œWinter,” he corrected, turning around. A white cloud billowed from her mouth, and standing between them was the
thing
. “Was this what you wanted me to see?”
    It looked the same way it had every day that week: a man with dark hair and a beard, wearing an old-fashioned suit. Usually at this point, Winter would be intently studying the ghost, but right now all he could do was stare at Aida and the breath wreathing her face.
    This was the third time he’d seen the ghost, but it was still startling.
    â€œAt least you know Velma’s antidote worked, because your ghost couldn’t be less interested in either one of us.” She studied the ghostly man as he went through the same motions he did every day—talking to himself without uttering a sound, putting his hand over his heart. A few moments more and he’d be heading toward the windows.
    â€œI can see through his feet, so he’s definitely an old ghost—they usually fade after time. Rare that one sticks around for more than a decade or two. Oh, look, he’s got a wooden hand.”
    Huh. Damned if she wasn’t right. Now that she’d pointed it out, Winter could see wood grain beneath paint.
    â€œHow long does he stick around?” she asked.
    â€œAnother half a minute or so, then he jumps.”
    â€œJumps?” She glanced at the window. “Suicide?”
    â€œWould seem so.”
    â€œDid a man kill himself in this house?”
    â€œNo idea. A San Francisco judge built the house after the earthquake. My parents bought it a few years ago.”
    â€œInteresting. Would you like me to get rid of it?”
    â€œThat’s why I called you out here.”
    Not
because he craved an excuse to see her again.
    â€œYour wish, my command, Mr. Bootlegger.” She smiled so beautifully, he nearly forgot all about the ghost standing between them. As whorls of white puffed from her mouth, she reached out with splayed fingers and touched the man. He crackled, then simply . . . disappeared.
    Gone.
    Along with her snowy breath, which petered out after a couple of exhalations.
    Winter stared at her, unable to speak. “Well done,” he finally managed to say.
    Aida folded her arms under her breasts and looked him straight in the eye, one side of her bewitching mouth cocked in a self-assured smile. “That’ll be fifty dollars.”
    Â â€¢Â â€¢Â â€¢Â 
    Two nights later, standing behind a folding screen in her dressing room at Gris-Gris, Aida was
still
giddy about that fifty dollars. Well, not so much the money as the wicked postcard collection. And not so much the postcards as the way she’d felt when Winter towered over her like some erotic heathen god. For the umpteenth time, she reminded herself how reserved he’d been after she’d banished the ghost