Body & Soul (Ghost and the Goth Novels) Read Online Free Page A

along with this or die painfully” look.
    Oh, good.
    “But I’m not sure why you think it’s Alona. From what I know of her, she would never—”
    “Wait.” Misty held up her hand with a frown. “Who are you again?”
    I held my breath.
    “Ally Turner. It was Lily, but I go by Ally now,” Alona said. “I was…I am a year behind you at school.” Her words sounded forced and false, but maybe only because I knew the truth.
    “But,” Alona continued quickly, “we have experience dealing with this kind of thing.”
    “We’ve been haunted before,” I added, lying to save our asses. Was she trying to get us killed? Why not just announce to all the ghosts in the room that we could see and/or hear them?
    Misty nodded slowly, as if that was not a surprise. Then she shook her head with a sad smile. “Well, whatever you know about ghosts, you did not know Alona. And trust me, it’s her. She…” Misty hesitated. “She was my best friend. But she wasn’t exactly the forgive-and-forget type, you know? Revenge. That was her thing.”
    Alona stiffened.
    Oh, crap.
    “Have you considered that maybe those people deserved what they got?” Alona demanded.
    I poked her and she swiveled to face me with a frown. Shut up , I mouthed.
    But fortunately, Misty seemed too lost in her memories to notice. “I took Chris from her. Actually, Chris and I…We just kind of found each other.”
    “Found each other, right,” Alona muttered. Hmm. Maybe she hadn’t yet completely forgiven Misty.
    “I didn’t think Alona knew before she died, but now I…I’m not sure. It wasn’t intentional for either of us,” Misty added defiantly.
    “And that makes a difference how?” Alona demanded.
    I cleared my throat sharply. “I think what Ally ”—
    I emphasized the name, glaring at Alona, who rolled her eyes—“means is, what signs are you seeing that make you think Alona, specifically, is haunting you, not some other random ghost?”
    “Oh.” Misty looked startled and then confused. “Why would there be a random ghost haunting me?”
    I was pretty sure there wasn’t a ghost involved at all, but trying to explain to Misty that she was likely haunting herself probably wouldn’t have helped. All I could do was try to show Alona that it wasn’t someone impersonating her. “There probably isn’t. But I’m just trying to understand why you think it’s her. Other than the fact you think she’d be angry if she knew about you and Chris, which she doesn’t ,” I said, aiming my last words at Alona, who slumped in her chair and folded her arms over her chest.
    “Whatever,” she muttered.
    Misty lifted her hands in exasperation at my apparent idiocy. “Hello? Who else would it be? And why would it start right after Chris proposed?
    Alona froze. “Proposed?” she whispered.
    Oh, boy. With a sigh, I sat down.
    Misty gave an uncomfortable shrug. “He’s going away to IU and I’m staying here. He wanted us to be engaged first.”
    Alona sat up. “You can’t do that,” she said, shaking her head.
    “I think what she means is you’re young,” I said quickly. This conversation was going to kill me. “Can we get back to the signs, please?”
    Misty was looking back and forth between us like we were crazy, which wasn’t far from the truth today. “Okay,” she said slowly. “Picture frames knocked over, covers pulled off me in the night, footsteps in my room but no one is there, and sometimes, when I’m falling asleep, I hear someone call my name.” She shuddered.
    And…picture frames fall over, covers slip off, people often think they hear footsteps or someone calling them when they’re half asleep.
    “Oh, and she wrote her name in the steam on the mirror in my bathroom.”
    Whoa. I leaned forward in my chair. “You saw that happen?”
    She shook her head. “No, it was just there one day when I got out of the shower.”
    Huh, well, that changed things a little. Maybe it wasn’t a guilty conscience. But that