Read The Dead Room for Free Online Page B

was.
    â€œHi, Nikki.”
    â€œYou’re getting good.”
    â€œNothing to do with intuition or special gifts,” Leslie said with a laugh. “It’s late, but we’ve been on the news, and I knew that you’re the one person who might be calling.”
    â€œHow do you feel?”
    â€œGreat. I got to help find closure for people, in a weird sort of way.”
    â€œExactly,” Nikki said.
    Leslie could picture Nikki. Slim and vivacious, with brilliant blue-green eyes. She led tours in New Orleans and loved history. She loved her city, too, and was working hard to bring tourism back to New Orleans. But she and Brent had taken time out to help Leslie adjust to life with the dead popping up now and then. What had seemed like a curse had almost become a gift with Nikki and Brent so serenely at her side.
    â€œHow’s everything going in your neck of the woods?” Leslie asked.
    â€œStep by step, but we’re coming back. So many neighborhoods are still in need of total rebuilding, but we’ll get there. And you? Everything all right?”
    â€œGreat. I think…I think we may have seen the last of the reverend.”
    â€œAh. Well, bless his heart. So…I guess you’re going to see to the details now? My history is a lot easier—I just talk about it. You spend hours brushing dust off yours.”
    Leslie wondered why she’d thought that Nikki already knew what she was about to do.
    â€œActually,” she replied, “I’m going home.”
    â€œHome…?”
    â€œNew York. I was born in the South, but New York’s been home for a long time now. There’s a new project there, a site near…near Hastings House, and I’m going to work on it.”
    â€œAre you ready?” Nikki asked flatly.
    â€œYes…No…Maybe.”
    â€œThen…?”
    â€œI’m not sure I’ll never actually be ready. I think I just have to do it.”
    The phone line was silent for several seconds, and she knew that Nikki was carefully weighing her next words. “Leslie, you do know that although we’ve come to accept certain things and learned to use our abilities to a degree, we don’t have all the answers. You’re still fragile, whether you want to believe that or not. So be careful. And don’t…don’t let yourself get trapped in the past, in what was. You’re here. You’re alive.”
    â€œNikki, thanks to you guys, I’m still sane and I appreciate living. It’s just that…you know how you feel when you lose someone, like there were so many things you didn’t get to say, and you want so desperately to know that everything is all right, and of course it isn’t, because the person is dead…okay, now I do sound a little on the loopy side. But…I just wish I could say goodbye, you know?”
    â€œYou can’t know that you’ll get that chance, Leslie, even if you do go back. Matt Connolly was an exceptional man. He did a lot of good in his days on earth. He might, well…he might never be seen.”
    â€œI know that. I promise you, I’m not going home because I’m sure I’ll see him if I do. I just know I have to go on. And this is a great opportunity.”
    â€œWant me to hop a plane on up?”
    Leslie smiled. Some things were so strange. She’d had many friends when Matt had died. Nice people. But she’d found that she had to push them away a bit. Politely, she hoped. It was just that she didn’t really want to make their lives painful, and she didn’t like people tiptoeing around her feelings. She hadn’t been able to talk, really talk, to many people. But then Nikki had stepped into her life, and it had been as if she’d known her forever.
    Of course, they both saw ghosts, as did Nikki’s husband, Brent. Nikki always found it amusing that most people accepted his ability to communicate with the dead more