Page 93 of Her Mercenary

A set of car keys lay in the center of the pew where she’d sat minutes earlier, probably before I scared her to death with my scream.

I crossed the chapel, scanning the room, and picked up the keys. They were warm. Jarringly so.

“Hello?” I looked around the church, stepping onto the dais. “Ma’am?” I turned, noticing the narrow door behind the cross. “Hello?”

I knocked, then pushed open the door to what appeared to be a small office.

A middle-aged man with owlish glasses and thinning hair turned from a computer. Bars of music ran across the screen. A guitar leaned against the desk, two more on the floor next to it. He was wearing a blue T-shirt with a cartoon taco print on the front, underneath it read Wanna Taco About Jesus? Faded jeans and flip-flops completed the man-does-not-belong-here look.

He stood, wearing a curious expression, but not fearful. Had he not just heard my mental breakdown in the sanctuary?

“There was a woman here,” I said cautiously, “sitting in the first pew. I’m, uh, sorry about the scream.”

“Not the first time someone has released their stress in front of the cross, my son.”

It was then that I realized the man was the pastor of the church.

Shifting my weight, I held open my palm with the keys in it. “The woman—she left these and her cell phone.”

“There was no woman here.”

I blinked. “Yes, there—in the front row. She was wearing a white dress.”

A smile crossed the pastor’s face. He said nothing, just stared back at me with kind, wrinkled eyes.

I impatiently shook my hand. “She left these.”

The pastor scratched the top of his head. “Well, then I guess you’d better take them, son.”

“What? I—I ...”

He chuckled.

“No,” I said, growing frustrated. “You don’t understand. I need to get them back to her.”

“No, son, you don’t understand,” he said. “There was no woman here.”

Frowning, I regarded the keys in my hand.

“Go on now,” the pastor said. “Do what you need to get done.”

I shook my head, staring at him like a dazed idiot.

“Go on.”

“Thank you,” I said, though it didn’t feel like it fit. Nothing at that moment felt like it fit.

The pastor shrugged, then shook his head as if he weren’t the one to thank.

I lingered another second before backing out of the office and into the chapel. Standing under the cross, I turned and stared at the first pew, Sam’s words replaying in my head.

“You don’t believe in ghosts?”

“No.”

“Ridiculous.”

“Is it?”