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I gasped and looked around for a od, do I look like a meth head?"

"No" She shook her head "Absolutely not" After casting a furtive glance over her shoulder, she added, "Or, well, notdown atwas bad, but couldn’t that be chalked up to the whole death thing? If only I could re That was it And reaching out for so as I fell, but what?

"Is it noret who they are after they, you know, pass?"

She shrugged while stirring her coffee "Doesn’t happen often, but it does happen Especially if the death was particularly traumatic"

"Maybe I wasin my head "Wait I can’t drink coffee I couldn’t even when I was alive"

"Why not?"

"I think it nauseatesroom That hen I noticed a small, painfully thinseveral inches off the ground

"Told you it would jog so Coffee is multifunctional that way Maybe you were sick

Were you in the hospital?"

I pointed "There’s a guy--"

"Oh, that’s Mr Wong" She sat at her cos out of hibernation "Hey, Mr Wong," she said, offering a wave "How’s it hanging?"

"He’s just--"

"Hovering Yeah, you’ll get used to it So, any idea what your na from the corner of my eye "Not really Is he dead?"

"Sure is And he doesn’t talk estured to the chair beside her desk, so I sat dohile she logged onto a database "I’ with the Albuquerque News Journal, see if anything local rings a bell" As she waited for the server, she folded her legs in the chair and propped her chin on a knee, careful not to spill the coffee she held in both hands, and I realized she earing thick knitted socks Her hair, which hung just past her shoulders, was still in utter disarray She looked like a kid on Saturdayfor the cartoons to start

"You don’t really look like the griet that a lot," she said, then leveled a pointed stare on me, "Mary Jane Holbrook"

"Who?" I asked

She looked back at the screen "Oh, crap, never hty-four when she died"