Read First Grave on the Right for Free Online Page B

I can. I’ve never actually tried. I can, however, trick them. A few candles, a quick chant, and—voilà—exorcism du jour. The departed fall for it all the time and end up crossing despite themselves. Except Mr. Habersham down the hall. He just giggled when I tried to exorcise him. Old fart.
    Despite Mr. Habersham—and, come to think of it, Mr. Wong—I loved living here. Not only does my apartment building, the Causeway, sit right behind my dad’s bar and, thus, my office, it’s also something of a local landmark.
    I’ve lived here a little over three years, but when I was young—too young to know that evil existed—this old building became fused into my memory, through no fault of its own. Later, when my dad bought the bar, I stepped into the back parking lot and saw the building again for the first time in over a decade. Looking up at the intricate medieval carvings along the entrance, a rarity in Albuquerque, I stood transfixed as a montage of memories, dark and painful, rushed through me. They made my chest hurt and stole my breath, and I became obsessed with the building from that moment on.
    We had a history together, a horrible, nightmarish history that involved a paroled sex offender scoping for a fix. And maybe by living here, I felt I was somehow conquering my demons. Naturally, this worked best when demons didn’t actually come to visit.
    I put on a pot of coffee and headed to the bathroom to see if my eyes were as swollen as my jaw. Sobbing like a movie star in rehab was not the best beauty regimen. But I soon realized the red swelling brought out the gold in my eyes. Cool. I turned on the hot water full blast, then waited the requisite ten minutes for it to actually get hot.
    And they say New Mexico has a water shortage. Not according to my landlord.
    Just then, I heard Cookie, my neighbor-slash-best-friend-slash-receptionist, burst through the door, coffee cup in hand. Cookie was a lot like Kramer from Seinfeld, only not so nervous, like Kramer might have been on Prozac. And I knew she had her coffee cup in hand because she always had her coffee cup in hand. I think she had difficulties forming complete sentences without it.
    “Honey, I’m home!” she yelled from the kitchen.
    Yep, she had it.
    “Me, too!” came another voice, soft and giggly.
    I met Cookie when I moved into the Causeway. She had just moved here as well, following an ugly-ass divorce—her words—and we became instant friends. But she had a daughter, Amber, and they came as a package deal. While Cookie and I hit it off immediately, I was a little worried about the kid. I’d never taken to four-foot creatures who had the uncanny ability to point out all my flaws in thirty seconds flat. And just for the record, I can too read without moving my lips. But I was determined to win Amber over, no matter the cost. And after just one game of miniature golf, I was putty in her hands.
    “I’ll be right out,” I said from the bathroom. Mrs. Lowenstein down the hall must be doing laundry, because it didn’t take long for the water to reach its usual two thousand degrees. Steam rose up around me as I splashed my face. Then I looked in the mirror and gave up once again. Thank God Dream Guy didn’t have to see me like this. I patted a towel over my eyes, then stepped back as a name glittered and formed in the condensation.
    DUTCH.
    My breath caught. Dutch. I hadn’t imagined it. Dream Guy, aka Reyes, aka God of Fantasies and All Things Sensual, had really said Dutch to me in the shower. Who else could it be?
    I glanced around the bathroom. Nothing. I stopped and listened, but the only thing I heard was Cookie clanking around in the kitchen.
    “Reyes?” I peeked behind the shower curtain. “Reyes, are you here?”
    “You need a new coffeepot,” Cookie called to me. “It’s taking forever.”
    I gave up the search with a sigh and ran my fingers along the path of each letter on the mirror. My hand shook. I snatched it back and, after