I Can See His Dead Wife

In Manhattan, Donovan Blackwood rules real estate with a cold, violent temper, a darkness that settled in him the day his wife Eleanor died in a car crash and turned his hair white overnight. His grief has made strangers of him and his son, so he decides to find the boy a stepmother — and among the candidates is a young woman who serves a greasy chili dog from a street cart on 53rd, performs a dance she invents on the spot, and whispers to him about a mole on his left ass cheek.

That night he presses a gun to her temple and demands to know who sent her. She can see ghosts, and Eleanor's spirit hovers beside him in a panic, feeding her secrets that were never meant to be spoken aloud. To survive, she claims his dead wife visits her dreams — and tells him Eleanor blames him for the fight that sent her into the path of that car.

Donovan lets her stay. But downstairs, the front door slams open to a raw teenage voice spitting curses.