Page 29 of A Shared Mind

“Excuse me, what?”

“I’m what you might call a spirit who possessed your friend, Justin. See, he and Eve came to New Orleans with a group of douchebags for his birthday. They summoned me back from a place between Heaven and Hell, and I saw my shot to get a second chance to find out who the fuck killed me. I died in St. Louis in 1996. I was shot by some bastard I might know, but I need Justin to give me the chance to find out which one. You could help with that, you know.”

The farmer’s eyebrows went up into his hairline. “Say again?”

God, I was trying to claw my way out, but fucking Ramon was too powerful. What the fuck was I supposed to do?

Chapter Fourteen

Clay

“I’m n-not really that i-interesting.” It was easy to see his nerves taking over, and I didn’t want that for him. I believed he had good reasons for his actions. I just wanted him to tell me what they were.

I attempted to set him at ease. “See, like that. You were perfectly fine when you got here, but after I mentioned how much I was interested in you, you got nervous and the stutter you usually control popped up. I promise you, Justin, nothing you tell me will make me less interested in you. We all have idiosyncrasies, but they set us apart from other people. I’m open minded, and I really want to know why you’re so on edge.”

“S-sorry. I—”

Suddenly, Justin stopped speaking as if his air had been cut off. An entirely different expression crossed his face, and he tilted his head a bit and smirked at me.

“Okay, time for a shot of truth. I’m Ramon Blanco. You can look me up if you want. The kid found me on the internet.” His voice was deeper and he had an accent I hadn’t heard from him.

“Excuse me, what?” What the hell? His entire demeanor changed in the flash of an eye. My astonished stare didn’t seem to slow him down.

“I’m what you might call a spirit who possessed your friend, Justin. See, he and Eve came to New Orleans with a group of douchebags for his birthday. They summoned me back from a place between Heaven and Hell, and I saw my shot to get a second chance to find out who the fuck killed me.

“I died in St. Louis in 1996. I was shot by some bastard I might know, but I need Justin to give me the chance to find out which one. You could help with that, you know.”

My eyes went wide for sure. “Say again?”

“Oh, you’re one of those non-believers. Hey, come with us to St. Louis and help the kid out. He’s not keen to do as I say, so I have to take over and make him do the shit I need him to do. Right now, he’s screaming bloody murder in my head.” He even laughed a laugh I hadn’t heard from Justin in the few times we’d hung out.

“Why would we go to St. Louis?” I was damn near in a panic because it seemed as if Justin had a multiple personality disorder or maybe a catastrophic mental breakdown.

I wasn’t a doctor or even a good scholar. I had no idea what a mental disorder looked like or how severe one could become before the person was a threat to themselves or others.

Justin scraped his thumb along the grain of the wooden tabletop before he smirked. “Well, you could come along to keep Justin from coming to harm. I need to go to DeLuca’s on the Hill. My social club meets there, and I’d like to talk to a few of my former colleagues. You see, I used to belong to a family—or la famiglia—in St. Louis. We had a company... a business... a thing.”

He emphasized the word thing as I’d heard in mafia movies and television shows, nodding with me as I figured out what he meant.

Justin—Ramon?—then continued. “I was high up in the food chain before someone shot me. I just wanna know who before I leave the kid alone. This is my only shot at figuring it out before I get dragged back to Hell.” He appeared as though he was completely serious.

I had no idea what to say, so I simply nodded again. “Is this for real?”

“I’m not kidding around.”

“Is this some sort of a test to see if—hell, I’m not sure what kind of test this would be.” That was no fucking lie.

“It’s not a test. This is for real, and I don’t have a lot of time. I did some bad shit back in my day, but I want to know who killed me. Is that too much to ask?”

The sincerity on his face wasn’t fake—or to the best of my ability to judge it didn’t look fake. “Well, if you need me to go with you to St. Louis, I’ll go. I, uh, I guess the harvest can wait a couple of days.”

I was torn between keeping Justin safe and calling the cops to lock him up. I was attracted to him and didn’t want him to be committed to an institution, but dear god, I was afraid he was going to hurt himself or someone else. I couldn’t live with myself if he did.

“Have you ever heard of The Hill? It’s a section of St. Louis City that’s largely Italian, but not entirely. Various other groups run different parts of the city, but my family runs The Hill. One of them killed me, and I wanna know who. The kid is gonna help me, and if you care about the kid, you’ll help too.”

The server returned with our food—ribs, brisket, coleslaw, and corn on the cob. I ordered another beer because my hotel was close enough I could walk—or crawl, if necessary—but I was fucking worried about Justin.

Without waiting for my response, Justin picked up a rib from my plate and dug into it with a fervor I hadn’t seen from him before. He was sheepish about eating, or so I’d noticed previously. Nothing about Justin’s current behavior fit with the man I’d met and become attracted to—though, the invitation to have sex more than once certainly fit the personality of the man currently sitting across from me.