It was not surprising that the second guy, who had thrown a roundhouse punch at Benji that he’d easily evaded, froze when he saw me, doing that thing people did where they looked slowly up my body, from my shoes to my face. The way the color drained from his was encouraging. It meant the fight was over.
“I––” Benjamin Grace murmured, and I turned from the three men to him. “Thank you for stepping in.”
“I think you had it under control, but three against one, unless you can see everyone and know where they are, is always a little dicey.”
He nodded slowly; his gaze riveted on my face.
Returning my focus to the men in front of me, I asked a reasonable question. “What the hell is going on?”
It was my height that did it. People were always wary of how tall I was, and then of how wide my shoulders were. Normally I smiled, like I had at Delly’s mom, to put others at ease, but honestly, her mother hadn’t seemed concerned with me one bit. That was not the case with the three idiots who clustered together facing me.
“This is my aunt’s house, Tabitha Fleming,” the guy I’d put on the ground explained angrily. He was skinny and looked a bit rough, like maybe he’d come from a bar and hadn’t showered or shaved in a couple of days. “And this guy is here trying to get money from her to clear a ghost that doesn’t exist out of her three-car garage.”
“That’s incorrect,” Benji apprised me, his voice crisp, terse as he stepped in close to me, his hand slipping around my wrist to get me to look at him, which I did. “Sian and I were here to assess the situation, to ascertain if it was a haunting or not, but we never discussed a fee.”
“It wouldn’t matter if you did,” I replied to Benji before refocusing on the man who had ostensibly come to make certain his aunt wasn’t bilked out of her hard-earned money. “I’m not going to stand here and debate the existence of ghosts with you. My grandmother believes, and she’ll spin you some yarns when she’s hitting the whiskey during the holidays, but what’s important here is that if, in the future, Mr. Grace gives your aunt an invoice and she pays him and you have anything less than a power of attorney over her finances, you have jack to say on the matter and need to step away from the situation, as it doesn’t concern you.”
He stared at me with that incredulous expression kids got a lot when I stood towering over them. To a four-year-old, I was a giant.
“Are we done?”
“This faggot needs to stay away from her, both him and his whore partner.”
I growled. It came out fast and loud, and all three took a step back. “If you keep harassing him, I’m gonna have to call the police.”
“Is that right?”
I scowled at him. “Who says that? Yeah, man,” I drew out the words, “that’s right. Go on and get outta here before I call the cops and have you and your friends arrested for criminal mischief.”
He scoffed. “Gage ain’t gonna do shit,” he assured me. “We’ve been beatin’ the shit outta him since high school!”
From the file I’d read, I knew Gage was the deputy there in town, but I had no idea he was toothless. “State police, then,” I offered cheerfully, knowing the entire time that the police would never get involved with any of this. But I was betting that these guys didn’t know that. They didn’t scream brain trust to me.
“Why the hell would you—and what the hell is criminal mischief?”
“Playing keep-away with the bag,” I clarified, clearing my throat. “That’s criminal mischief or, you know… taunting.”
The way he was looking at me and then exchanging glances with his buddies, I could tell he was working it out in his head. Like, was taunting an offense you could get arrested for or something you only got in trouble for when you were playing football?
“Or we can tussle,” I offered with the grin that my CO back in the Corps called unsettling. People always claimed to be terrified of me before they knew me, but that made no sense. I was a teddy bear as long as you stayed on my good side.
“Is that right?” the guy repeated and immediately looked a bit sheepish that the same stupid retort had come out of his mouth twice in a ridiculously short period.
I arched an eyebrow.
“You know he goes all over town clearing out abandoned and unused buildings people call him about, and suddenly they’re not haunted anymore.”
I crossed my arms. “Why isn’t that a good thing?”
“Because they weren’t haunted to begin with!”
“And you know this because you’re a trained paranormal investigator?”