Page 76 of Hot Ghost Summer

I retreat from the table back to the relative sanctuary of the sink.

You’re pacing,

flashes up on Hollis’s phone screen.

“No shit, Sherlock,” I fire back.

Why?

I ignore him. Because apparently, when we’re grown-arsed adults—princes no less—that’s what we do.

Restless, I pick up the cup of ash water again, but I’m trembling so hard I almost drop it. Emptying it down the sink, I turn my back on it, lace my fingers together behind my neck, and raise my face up to the ceiling.

Every time I close my eyes, I see that fucking leg.

Theo.

Hollis’s phone vibrates.

Is it the video?

I stare hard at the webcam for a long minute, trying to find and sequence the words. In the end, I manage only a raw and perfunctory, “Yes.”

Fisting my hair by the roots, I shoot him a pained look.

“No.”

Inhale.

“Not just the video,” I explain. “I searched it up on the internet—Bowen’s Farm.”

I saw. I was watching you, like I said I would be.

My arms drop from my head in a wild arc that slices through the air. “So, then you know?” I ask, although my tone is accusing. “You know Jim Bowen faked his herd contracting BSE? That he did it all as part of some scam? All so he could sell the land and make a few quid? But the cows, Hollis.”

The first frustrated tear falls.

“Did you see the—” A loud sob steals the rest of my sentence.

I drag in a choked breath and on unsteady legs, I walk closer to the laptop.

“He went missing, Jim Bowen, with his millions. But if the police were right t’ suspect him, if he faked that outbreak, then what killed the cows before he…” Angry fists form at my sides. “Did he do it? Or did he just throw petrol on ’em and call it good?”

I clench my jaw.

Exhale.

“Cows are smart, you know?” I continue. “Not just in that puzzle-solving way either. They make friends. Cow friends, human friends. Doesn’t matter. They’ve got more emotional depth than a lot o’ people I’ve met, and t’ think that their caregiver betrayed ’em like that. That he—”

I swallow my excess saliva.

“They hold grudges. Just like goats do. That kind of karma, Hollis… I’m telling you that if Jim is out there sunning it up on some tropical beach that he bought with the money from their deaths, then they would haunt his sorry arse—oh my god. That’s it!”

Rushing to right the fallen chair, I sit back down. “That’s the second ghost.”

What is?

“The herd. The girls are the other ghost. Do you remember how it starts? The deep rumbling vibrations? That’s ’em stampeding. And the heavy breathing sounds? That’s ’em too, probably they’re scared and trying t’ get away. And then there’s the smell—the burning and charring…”