Missing, Presumed Dead

by Emma Berquist

  Ilia answers on the second ring.

  “What is it?” he asks, sounding harried.

  “About that dead girl?” I say. “I have a lead.”

  “What sort of lead?”

  “I’m looking right at her,” I say, my eyes flicking to Jane.

  Ilia swears. “Does she know who killed her?”

  “She doesn’t remember much,” I tell him. “Just bits and pieces.”

  “Keep her calm,” Ilia orders. “I’ll talk to Urie. See if you can figure out where her body is; maybe she can feel it. We can’t have people stumbling across it and calling the police. And get her to remember what happened.”

  “How do I do that?”

  “Retrace her steps, see if it jogs anything,” Ilia says. “Talk to her friends. Hell, hypnotize her if it helps—just get me a name.”

  “I’ll try,” I tell him. “Tell Urie I’ll try.”

  I hang up the phone and turn back to Jane.

  “You’re going to help me, aren’t you?” Jane asks.

  I failed her that night, when I turned my back and let her die. I won’t fail her again. Her, or Urie.

  “Yes,” I say. “I am.”

  Silence stretches between us, taut and brittle. The neon lights from the mini-mart sign flicker and buzz, bathing us in a red glow like the inside of a heart.

  “So what now?” Jane asks, standing up, and exhaustion hits me like a gut punch.

  “Now I go home,” I tell her. “I’ve been up for . . . I don’t even know how long.”

  “Where am I supposed to go?” she asks.

  “Look, we can’t do anything tonight,” I tell her. “Just go home.”

  “No,” she says quickly. “I don’t want to go back there.”

  I start walking back toward the club and my car and Jane stays beside me, her blood black under the streetlamps.

  “Why?” I ask.

  “It’s—” She stops, presses her lips together. “I can’t touch anything. My clothes, my books, everything is just there, waiting for me to come home. And my mother . . .” Jane pauses, swallows down her words. “No. I’m not going back there.”

  I shove my hands in my pockets. “Then stay here. Go to a friend’s house. Go to Disneyland for all I care.”

  Jane shakes her head. “Being around people who can’t see me, can’t touch me, it’s worse than being alone. It’s like being nothing, less than nothing. You don’t know how lonely it is.”

  I pause, glancing over at her, something uncurling beneath my ribs.

  “I do,” I say. “I do know.”

  Jane meets my eyes, weighs what she sees looking back, and finally nods.

  “Good,” she says. “Then I’m going with you.”

  I open my mouth, shut it, open it again. I try to come up a reason to say no, but I’m far too tired to argue anymore.

  “Fine,” I tell her. “You better not keep me up.”

  We only pass two clearly drunk people, but I don’t talk to her until we get to the car. Then, like an idiot, I open the door for her; it’s not like doors can stop ghosts. She waits until I move aside anyway, and I shut her in and walk to my side.

  “Guess I don’t need to bother with a seat belt,” Jane says, but the joke comes out flat.

  Her heat presses against my right side and I turn up the AC.

  “My place isn’t nice,” I tell her, pulling out into the street. “Whatever you’re expecting, it’s worse.”

  “I don’t care,” she says. “You can see me, talk to me. It makes me feel like a person.”

  I turn onto the highway, grip the steering wheel hard.

  “Is it normal?” Jane asks. “That I can’t remember?”

  I frown; most of the ghosts I come into contact with remember their deaths, even the violent ones. “I’m not sure.”

  “Will it get better?”

  I swallow, avoid looking at her. “I don’t know. Maybe.”

  “I wish I could remember the face.”

  I keep my eyes on the road, watch the exits disappear behind me.

  “It’s somewhere in there,” I say. “Whoever it is, they can’t hide forever.” Our sins always find us out.

  “Who the fuck are you?”

  “Trevor,” I snap. “Stop it.”

  I shut my door behind me and lock it before I turn to deal with the two ghosts facing off in the middle of my apartment. Trevor looks outraged, his arms crossed over his chest, while Jane’s face is cold and impassive.

  “Trevor, Jane, Jane, Trevor.”

  “Get out,” Trevor says.

  “Trevor, Jane needs a place to stay, okay? It’s not for forever.”

  “She’s covered in blood, Lex,” Trevor says, sounding disgusted.

  “That would be the slit throat, asshole,” Jane growls at him.

  “Oh, boo-fucking-hoo,” Trevor snaps back. “I was almost decapitated and you don’t see me sulking around like a stuck pig.”

  Jane’s lips pull back over her teeth, her eyes starting to film over, and then she goes still.

  “How?” she asks slowly.

  “What?”

  “How are you not bleeding? If you were hurt like that?”

  Trevor looks at me in disbelief. “You didn’t tell her?”

  “I haven’t gotten to that part yet,” I tell him. “I just found her.”

  “What is it?” Jane asks.

  I gesture at Trevor to go ahead while I sit on the bed and start to unlace my boots.

  “You can control how you look,” Trevor explains. “None of this,” he says, motioning at his body, “is real. It only looks like this because it’s how I see myself. You see yourself the way you were at the end. I don’t like . . . being like that. That’s not who I was, not how I want to be.”

  “Show me how to do it,” Jane orders.

  “Just picture yourself the way you looked before,” Trevor says. “You have to focus, and sometimes you’ll slip. I still slip. But since you were murdered, you should have energy to spare.”

  Jane closes her eyes, a line deepening between her brows, and I glance at Trevor.

  “Are we good?” I ask him.

  His chin juts out, but he shrugs. “Fine. As long as she understands her residency is not permanent.”

  I shake my head, then duck into the bathroom to take off my jeans and pull on a pair of soft shorts.

  When I come out, Jane is opening her eyes, looking down at her body. “It didn’t work.”

  “You just need to practice,” Trevor tells her. “You’re still new.”

  I sprawl onto my bed, punch my pillow into place.

  “As long as you practice quietly,” I say. “I’m going to sleep.”

  They don’t answer, and I lift my head up to see the two of them sitting across from each other on my floor, Trevor watching as Jane scrunches up her face. I fall asleep to the sound of whispers, the dead outnumbering the living.

  8

  I WAKE UP GASPING, BLANKET TANGLED AROUND my legs, my shirt damp with sweat. I wipe my face, try to catch my breath, and I feel the strange weight of eyes on me.

  “Bad dreams?” Jane asks, watching me calmly from the chair next to my dresser.

  I grunt something and struggle out of the sheets, throwing open my small window and sticking my head into the early morning air. It’s chilly, the sun barely up, and my sweat turns cold on my skin. I take two deep breaths, clear out my lungs, and then turn back to face the source of the heat.

  The bloodstains on her shirt are gone, the white cotton crisp and clean, and her eyes are a clear, focused brown.

  “You’ve been practicing,” I say, sitting back down on my bed. “Where’s Trevor?”

  “He said he had a yoga class,” Jane says, smiling a little. “Why can’t I pick up a book but I can sit in a chair?”

  I sigh and drag my hands across my face. God, it’s too early for this. I want to go back to sleep, not explain the intricacies of being dead to a ghost.

  “Because you�
�re not really sitting in it,” I tell her.

  “If I’m not sitting, then what am I doing?”

  “You don’t have a body so you’re not actually sitting,” I say. “You’re thinking yourself into that position. It’s the same reason you don’t sink through the floor but you can walk through doors.”

  “Oh.” Jane looks down at her feet, like she can see through the wooden boards to the room below. “Why don’t you have a TV?”

  I lie back down, punch my pillow into shape. “Because I don’t need one.”

  “Trevor says you should get one,” Jane says. “So he can watch it when you’re gone.”

  “This isn’t Trevor’s apartment,” I say, annoyed.

  “Then why do you let him stay here?”

  “He’s my friend, I guess.”

  Maybe it’s true. I don’t know if Trevor even likes me much, or if I like him. We wouldn’t be friends if he were still alive; he’d be in his thirties by now, probably living somewhere in West Hollywood with a husband and a dog and a couple kids. But death intervened the way it does and now we’re stuck with each other and maybe that’s enough. I never make him leave; the nights are less lonely when he’s around.

  “I had friends,” Jane says, her eyes looking somewhere far away. “Macy and Delilah. And they don’t even know I’m dead.” Her gaze snaps back to me. “You could tell them,” she says. “You could tell them; you could tell the police—”

  “No,” I say quickly. “I can’t do that. You don’t understand the way this works. We don’t talk to outsiders.”

  “I’m an outsider,” Jane says.

  “Not anymore,” I say, frowning. Jane’s in my world now; whoever killed her pulled her into this, and there’s nothing to stop it from happening again.

  “But—”

  “There are some things I can’t do, so don’t ask me to,” I tell her. “They wouldn’t believe me anyway. They’ll think I’m lying or I’m crazy, and either way it won’t help you.”

  “Morning!” Trevor says, appearing right in front of my face.

  “Christ,” I yell, scooting back on the bed.

  “Sorry,” he says, sounding not at all sorry. “You’re wound too tight, Lex, you should try yoga.”

  I shove his shoulder and climb out of bed. “What happened to jazz dance?”

  “It’s not as fun without a partner. Although,” he says, turning his attention to Jane, “that could be arranged. What do you say, newbie? They can’t charge us, and you get a spot right next to the instructor.”

  Jane looks at me, her mouth a straight line.

  “Maybe later,” she says. “I have a killer to find.”

  “I get it,” Trevor says. “Vengeance first.”

  “If you won’t tell anyone I’m dead,” Jane says to me, “then how do we do this?”

  I pick up my toothbrush and stare at the dark circles under my eyes in the mirror. “Do you know a kid named Marcus? Fifteen, shaggy hair?”

  “I don’t really hang out with a lot of fifteen-year-olds,” Jane says.

  “What about any of the latest missing people?”

  “The ones on the news? I didn’t know any of them,” Jane says. “You think whoever killed me killed them, too?”

  “It’s possible.” I spit into the sink and rinse out my mouth. “Maybe there’s someone you have in common with them, someone who connects you to the others.”

  “No one I know could have done this,” Jane says angrily.

  “You’re more likely to be killed by a relative or a friend,” I tell her. “Do you remember anyone else who was there that night?”

  “Just you,” Jane says, eyes narrowing.

  “Fine, point taken,” I say. “But maybe whoever was with you saw something. We need to make you remember. Can you tell me anything about where you died? Where your body might be?”

  Jane shakes her head. “I told you, the alley is the last clear place. That’s why I went back there. My body could be in Ohio for all I know.”

  “They still haven’t found it?” Trevor asks. “Bummer.”

  “No one’s found Jane’s body,” I say slowly. “But you’re not the only one who’s gone missing. I think I know someone who can help us.”

  The sun is almost up by the time I’m dressed and out the door, a breeze breathing down the fine hair on my neck. The Santa Anas are coming; I can feel it in the air, an electricity that turns the sky yellow and people savage. The winds come from the high-pressure air masses of the desert and channel through the mountain passes as they sweep out to the low-pressure area of the coast. But it’s more than that, more than just air; women kill their husbands during the Santa Anas, people throw themselves off bridges, and the fires spread and jump across freeways, always looking for something more to burn. The winds bring headaches and nausea and depression, and maybe it’s the positive ions in the air or maybe it’s that we recognize the howl of the wind as something that lives inside us, a nameless, unhappy thing that rages deep within.

  “Where are we going?” Jane asks, her voice cutting into my head.

  “To see my grandfather,” I answer.

  “What?” Jane says, gripping my arm to stop me. “We don’t have time to waste visiting an old man.”

  I yank my arm away from her and glare. “You want my help, then we do this my way. Feel free to find someone else to haunt if you don’t like my direction.”

  Jane scowls back at me. “Are you cranky all the time, or just in the mornings?”

  “Stick around and you’ll find out,” I grumble, starting to walk again. “And quit grabbing at me on the sidewalk; people will think I’m having a seizure.”

  Jane follows me into the nursing home and I nod at the receptionist on duty today, a stern-looking woman named Grace.

  “You’re early,” she says. “I think they’re still finishing breakfast.”

  “Thanks,” I say, and head toward the cafeteria down the hall. “Stay close,” I whisper behind me, and Jane nods.

  Deda is sitting at a table by himself against the far wall, his tank propped against his chair and his face buried in a newspaper. I grab a banana and a yogurt from the bar and weave through the plastic tables full of ancient people.

  “Deda,” I say, and he looks up, his eyes warming when he sees me.

  “I thought you—” He cuts himself off as he sees Jane behind me. “Alexandra,” he says, face closing. “What is the meaning of this?”

  Jane glances from Deda to me and realization dawns on her face.

  “You could have told me,” she says to me softly.

  “I’m telling you now,” I say. “Deda, meet Jane. Jane, this is my grandfather, Sergei Ivanovich.”

  “It is nice to meet you,” Deda says, giving Jane a deep nod. “I am sorry for your loss.”

  Jane’s lips tug up at one corner. “I guess it is my loss, isn’t it? More than anyone else’s.”

  “Please, sit,” Deda says, gesturing to the empty plastic chairs like this is his living room and not a crummy cafeteria lit with too-bright fluorescent lights.

  “Thanks,” Jane says while I slump into a chair.

  “Alexandra, explain yourself,” Deda says, his bright eyes narrowing on me.

  I peel off the lid of the yogurt and lick it. “You’re the one who told me to make friends.”

  “I meant students and people your own age, not the dead.” Deda bows his head briefly to Jane. “I mean no offense.”

  “None taken,” Jane says. “I am dead.”

  “Deda, I need a favor. I need Carl’s number.”

  He frowns. “What for?”

  “I need to talk to him,” I say. “It’s important.”

  “Who’s Carl?” Jane asks.

  I eat a scoop of yogurt and wince at the sweetness. “The coroner.”

  “Did Urie ask you to do this?” Deda asks.

  “He didn’t have to ask.” I bite my lip and look over at Jane. “Show him,” I tell her.

  She looks confused fo
r a moment, and then her face clears. Her eyes go unfocused, and then slowly, like tea in hot water, blood starts to drip from her neck and seep into her shirt.

  If I wasn’t watching him maybe I’d think he didn’t care, that he’s seen too much, been too close to death for too long. But I am watching and I see the way his gnarled hands tighten around his coffee mug, white knuckles pressing through the thin skin.

  “Again, you have my apologies,” Deda says stiffly. “No one deserves such an end.”

  “Maybe one person does,” Jane says, and there is nothing living in her voice.

  Deda looks at me. “Absolutely not,” he says.

  “Please, Deda,” I tell him. I meet his eyes, eyes like mine, older but no less haunted, and I try to make him understand. I couldn’t save her, couldn’t save any of them. He knows what it feels like, the blood that doesn’t wash away. It’s in our pores, under our skin. When you spend so much time close to the darkness, you start to believe you don’t deserve the light. “There could be others.”

  “Alexandra—”

  “Please,” I say. I need this, my eyes say.

  He sighs and sits back in his chair, his face suddenly older and grayer. “Very well,” he says finally. “I will call Carl for you.”

  “Thank you,” I say, squeezing his hand. “I’ll come back tomorrow.”

  Deda covers my hand for one long moment before pulling away. “Do what you must.”

  I stand up and wait for Jane to follow. She rises to her feet, then hesitates.

  “Mr. Ivanovich?” she says. “Thank you. For helping me. And for—for whatever it is that you gave Lexi.”

  I cringe inside, but Deda only blinks at her.

  “Take care” is all he says.

  “Come on,” I tell her, my voice harsh.

  Jane falls into stride beside me, studying my face. “Did I say something wrong?”

  I shake my head, lifting a hand to wave good-bye to Grace. “It’s nothing,” I say when no one can see my lips moving.

  “If it’s nothing, then why are you angry?”

  I step out into the sunlight, tuck my hands in my pockets. “I’m not angry.”

  “Really? Because you’re acting like you are.”

  “Were you this pushy when you were alive?” I snap at her, stopping on the sidewalk.