“Hey, d’you miss me?”

  Ever glanced tiredly to the side. The ghost of the first person he ever met floated there, inches above the tiled floor of the international arrivals hall, like she had been there all along.

  “You disappeared after I contacted Logan,” Ever said. As sleep deprived and numb as he had been, nothing could have prepared him for the pain of the phone call to Taylor’s uncle from the police station. “His flight landed not long ago.”

  “Yeah well, not much I could’ve done,” Taylor replied airily. “Even if I wanted to talk to him, it’s not like he could hear me.”

  “Where did you go?” Ever asked, voice deadpan. “And how did you know where to find me?”

  “Whoa, what’s with the interrogation?” Seeing Ever’s mile-long stare, she tsked. “I wanted to use my new-found ghost powers to haunt the gang members who shot me. Technically I had trespassed into their territory, but still!”

  “How did that go?”

  “Meh.” She shrugged. “Don’t think they could see me. I didn’t know how to possess them either. As for your second question, Unc had to come sooner or later. I just kept an eye on flights coming into New Mexico from Melbourne.”

  Ever sat up straight, the expression on his face shifting as he looked at Taylor.

  The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

  “What?”

  He stood up, shuffling around her. She turned on the spot and saw her uncle standing just inside the automatic doors. Five o’clock shadow shaded the bottom of his face as he scanned the arrivals hall, finding Ever in a matter of seconds. She inched closer, watching the two, ragged men stare at each other as happy families reunited around them.

  Ever’s bottom lip quivered as Logan approached. Very quickly, her uncle’s steps had become strides.

  “I’m sorry,” Ever said. “I couldn’t–”

  Logan threw his arms around Ever, enveloping him in a hug. Together they stood there, two broken halves whose jagged edges didn’t stop them from temporarily finding comfort in each other’s embrace. Taylor watched silently off to the side, not sure what to say.

  Logan was the first to pull back. “How did you get here so fast?”

  “My second job.” Ever sniffed, exhaling shakily. Taylor snorted. The guy was good at telling the truth without quite telling the truth, she’d give him that.

  “Right,” Logan nodded. “You’ve seen…”

  “Yes.”

  Her uncle clenched his jaw and swallowed hard. “Well, I guess we’ll need to take her home.”

  “How are we going to do that?”

  “I’ve done business with Mexicans in the past and if there’s one thing I know, it’s that money talks.”

  “I’m innocent,” Taylor said, zipping up next to her uncle. “Wrong place, wrong time. Tell the cops that. They can go through my shit if they like.”

  Ever glanced in her direction before looking back at Logan.

  “Assuming she wasn’t involved in some sort of illicit drug trafficking op, the first cost might be to the police to expedite the release of her body. Second cost will be repatriation.” Logan sighed deeply. “I don’t know how much that will be, but I’m going to get her home.”