Viridian Tears by Rachel Green

Author:Rachel Green [Green, Rachel]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Literature & Fiction, Romance, Contemporary
ISBN: 9781616504878
Google: R2D0AgAAQBAJ
Amazon: B00IPQWYY6
Barnesnoble: B00IPQWYY6
Goodreads: 18569476
Publisher: Lyrical Press
Published: 2013-10-01T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 22

Eden stared at Emily, her mouth open for several seconds before it occurred to her to shut it. She took another moment to compose herself, her thumb and forefinger placed lightly over her closed eyes. She could feel a headache poking at the back of her eyeballs. “Shirley Burbridge is dead?”

“Yes.” Emily looked pleased to be the bearer of such ill tidings. Eden wished she was a Roman senator and could kill the messenger. Emily would make an exquisite corpse if she died before the flush of youth she was currently enjoying faded into the spite and sagging jaw line of wisdom. “She hosted a seance to talk to her recently passed husband and he turned up and killed her. It makes you think, doesn’t it?”

“About what?” Eden imagined the arguments centered on the tragedy of life being cut short while you were still mourning the loss of a loved one.

“They say the ghost did it himself. It speaks for how happy a marriage was when your dead husband comes back to do you in.”

“That’s not true and you know it, Emily. There are no such things as ghosts, particularly not ones who go around murdering the living.”

“It’s what they’re all saying, though.” She took out her mobile and brought up a webpage. “Look on the Chatter network and you’ll see 'Ghostkiller' is trending.”

“Who on earth starts these rumors?” Eden took the phone off her and cycled through. She shook her head as she read progressively wilder theories about the dead returning from the grave to exact revenge upon the living. It was like an old Hammer Horror script in a hundred-odd characters of badly-written grammar. “That poor woman. Loses her husband and then her life.”

“It’s not all bad. Look at how famous she’s becoming. She’s an overnight Chatter sensation.”

“I hardly think she cares about such things any more.” Eden stood to pass the phone back to her assistant. “Seeing as she’s dead, I mean. However, I think you’ll find she wasn’t killed by her husband’s ghost at all but by someone quite physical with a knife in their pocket.”

“You don’t really think that, do you? It’s a classic locked-room scenario, like those ones in the detective books.”

“Only if you discount the open doors and the other participants.” Eden shook her head again. “Anyway, we know Edward Burbridge didn’t kill her because he’s currently a block of compressed ash on the shelf in the back office.”

“I don’t think physical remains have anything to do with ghosts.”

“Please don’t tell me you believe in the supernatural, Emily. You have a degree in Natural Science, for goodness’ sake. How could you work here if you’re superstitious? This is like a passenger transport terminal for the dead.”

“I don’t think belief has any bearing on where you work.” Emily’s voice had turned frosty, “but if you think I’m no longer suitable because of my beliefs I’ll take my qualifications elsewhere.”

“I didn’t mean that at all, Emily, you know I didn’t. It was just a surprise, that’s all.

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