Excerpt of Dead People by Edie Ramer

"Turn down this job," Joe said. "I'm getting a bad feeling."

"Since when did you admit to getting feelings?" Rain drummed against the roof of the car and Cassie set the front defogger on high. Cool air rushed up at her face as she navigated the snaking driveway. A crack of thunder made her jerk, and a flash of lightning lit up the driveway in time for her to avoid a pothole.

"Since seeing the way Luke Rivers looked at you."

"He didn't like me, he made that clear." Cassie reached the end of the driveway and she felt a sense of lightness at leaving the old house, as if she'd been holding her breath and finally sucked in pure oxygen.

"Maybe he didn't like you, but he looked at you."

And I looked back, Cassie thought, steering the car onto the highway. One of the perks of being alive. Checking out good looking men and eating chocolate.

"So? A rat can look at a queen."

"You're smiling. You liked it."

"Don't interrogate me." Cassie glanced at her sulking passenger.

"I'm not only a cop, I'm a man too." ary to read "Killed while driving stupidly in the rain." Nor did she want Joe to read her expression. A bullet to his heart had stolen his life, not his ego.

You were a man, she thought, facing the road again, because she didn't want her obitu

Headlights sped toward them on the other side of the highway. Their car was catching up to a semi, the red rear lights flickering through the barrage of rain, the upper reflectors barely visible.

"Forget Luke Rivers," she said. "He's not important."

"It's you that's important," Joe said.

A glow kindled n Cassie's chest. "In this case, it's the dead person that's important."

"I wonder what Rivers will say when you tell him the reason she's sticking around on earth."

"He won't believe me. He doesn't believe I talk to dead people. I could see it in his face."

"He doesn't want to believe. There's a difference."

"He's ready to pay on the off chance that he's wrong. As long as his check cashes, that's okay with me." But despite her words, the glow inside her flickered out, leaving a hollow coldness.

The truck slowed and so eased her foot from the gas pedal to avoid a backsplash of filthy water. The car's headlights caught a sign on the side of the road, "Welcome to Bliss." She made a face. More like "Welcome to Misery."

"Thata girl," Joe said. "You've got pluck."

She passed a McDonald's and pulled into the Home Away From Home motel. Chickens had pluck, she thought. And look how they ended up.

Chicken McNuggets.

"I'll tell him tomorrow." Then she'd sit back and watch the feathers fly.