AN EARTH-SPOOK. THOUGH I’D NEVER HEARD THE term, I understood the concept. When we die, most of us go on to an afterlife, but a few stay behind. Some are what the headless accountant purported to be—spirits trapped by unfinished business. Only they aren’t really trapped. Like the crying woman in Savannah’s house, they’re stalled, thinking they have unfinished business.

This could have been the headless accountant’s problem, but I’d lay even money that he fell into category two of these “earth-spooks,” those who were sentenced to this limbo for a period after death. If so, he wasn’t going anywhere until the almighty powers decided he’d learned his lesson. At this rate, he’d be pestering necromancers into the next millennium. But I was about to strike one off his calling list.

Since my quarry was trapped in this plane and couldn’t teleport out, following him was easy enough. Although I followed less than fifty feet behind, he never noticed me. I’d changed into a baggy windbreaker and blue jeans, put my hair in a ponytail, and slapped on a ball cap. I kept a cover spell readied, with my blinding power as a backup, though I wasn’t sure how well either worked in this plane. I had a lot to learn.

I gumshoed him halfway across the Windy City, taking two city buses plus the el train. Then he marched across the lawn of the ugliest building I had ever seen. It looked like my high school, which—to me—had always looked like a jail. Part of that was my own feelings about formal education, but I swear the architect of that school had a real grudge against students. Probably spent his teen years stuffed inside a locker, and vowed revenge on every generation to follow. This building was that same shit brown brick, that same looming bland facade, those same tiny windows. It was even surrounded by a similar ten-foot fence.

My first guess was, of course: jail. Seemed like a good place to keep Mr. DUI. But when I passed the ancient sign out front, I read: DALEWOOD PSYCHIATRIC HOSPITAL. So the headless accountant was hanging out in a psych hospital? Didn’t seem to be helping.

In the parking lot, I waited behind a minivan until my ghost went in through a side door, where a half-dozen staff members stood getting a quick nicotine fix, huddled against the bitter chill as the sun dropped below the horizon. I crossed the grass-free strip of lawn, skirting past the smokers. Two steps from the door, a beefy bulldog-ugly orderly stepped into my path. I didn’t slow, expecting to pass right through. Instead, I hit a solid wall of fat and muscle. Another ghost. Damn.

“Where you think you’re going, boy?” he rumbled.