Dead End

(Trent)

Dear God. I'm starting to think that maybe Linda's been going about this whole vengeance thing all wrong. All she has to do is hang around Mike whining about how unhappy she is. It would drive him nuts, surely. It's driving me nuts. Yeah, I'm an arsehole, Linda. But when there's nothing I can do to cheer you up, it's just a little bit frustrating. Like bombs exploding make a house a little bit hot.

The keyboard clicks in front of me, without my help.

Find my body, arsehole. That'd cheer me up.

Mental note – never work for ghosts.

****

(Linda)

I know you've heard Mike's side of the story. Let me guess – I cheated on him, and he was outraged, and we argued, and he slapped me, and I hit my head on something and died, right?

Fucking liar.

****

(Trent)

I sit at my computer, trying to work out where to go next in this investigation. Linda, thank God, has wandered off to torment Mike.

Irritatingly, Linda can access Mike just fine. Me? Limited contact only. And it's not like he's going to be too helpful right now, is it?

Out of sheer boredom and lack of ideas, I open a browser window and type 'find body of murdered girlfriend' into Google. Lots of results describing gory murders of women by jealous boyfriends. Meh.

Just wait.

Jealous boyfriend.

Maybe the gay neighbours know something?

****

(Trent)

I knock on the front door of the house next door. It opens a crack almost immediately, and a wary bronzed face peers over the chain.

"Hi!" I say brightly, "I'm a mate of Mike's, I'm helping him with a little problem?"

The face disappears with a scream, the door slams closed, and heavy footsteps recede fast.

That was not the reaction I expected.