by Amy Ravenel
“I know.” McKenna folded her hands in her lap. “My brother Jason died after Keith did. It isn’t easy losing someone and not knowing why.”
“Exactly.” Mrs. Harris stared out the window. “Maybe there is some truth to that legend that started after they died. I don’t know.” She pulled her gaze back.
“Did you ever see the ghost yourself?”
“No. Never.” Then her eyes widened. “Wait.” Mrs. Harris paused, holding up a hand. “I do remember stuff being moved. Like I’d leave my pocket book on the floor and find it on the counter the next day. And that apartment was always so cold, even in the summer when we’d leave the air-conditioner off and open the windows. But that’s it. I wish I had more to tell you.”
“No, this is good. Thank you for talking to me.”
Mrs. Harris smiled. “People would think I was crazy talking to a paranormal investigator. But a ghost is about the only theory other than suicide I’ve heard lately.” She leaned forward. “Promise me something.”
“Yes, ma’am?”
“If you find out what happened to Keith, to all of them, tell me. I don’t care how weird it is. Tell me. I have to know why he died.”
McKenna touched the other woman’s hand. “I promise.”
“We heard about the ghost the day we moved in.” Will Benton, Cory’s former boyfriend, held the top of his coffee cup, making circles on the table with it. “The story didn’t have the whole ‘If you see her, you die’ part to it then. It was more along the lines of a creepy ghost girl was haunting the place.” He looked up, his brown eyes distant, lost in the memory. He chuckled. “I haven’t thought about Cory in so long.” Love and heartbreak swirled around him.
“I know this is difficult and a little strange. Thank you for talking to me, Mr. Benton.”
His eyes crinkled at the corners. “Call me Will, please.”
“What was Cory like?”
Will shook his head, his eyes bright with the memory. “He always had his head in the clouds. A total dreamer.” He laughed long and loud. It was infectious. “He was a writer, you know. Was going to be the next Stephen King.”
McKenna chuckled along with him. “So, the whole ghost thing was right up his alley?”
“Absolutely.”
She sipped her mocha, the sweet taste of chocolate on her tongue. “What were some of the ghost stories you heard?”
“Let me think.” Will slid back in his chair, his gaze fixed on the shelf behind her. He was quiet for a moment. Then he continued. “One version of the story was that she was a jilted bride who hung herself in her apartment. Another version was that she was a leftover spirit from a torn-down mansion that used to be on the site. My favorite was the girl who died in a car accident and was searching for the driver of the other car.” He sipped from his cup. “Of course, at the time, they were all just stories.” Melancholy crept in.
“Did he ever tell you he saw the ghost?” McKenna asked, her voice near a whisper.
“Once. He said he saw her floating by his bed one night.”
She leaned in. “What did she look like?”
“He said she was white from head to toe. She wore a short, white dress, and her eyes were so sad. He said her eyes were bright green, unlike the rest of her.” He rested his arms on the table. “He started working on a story about her that night.”
“Did you ever see her?” McKenna moved closer to him, torn between remaining professional and wanting to comfort him.
“No.” Will lowered his shoulders. “Never saw her once.”
“Do you still have the story?”
Will sighed. “I’m a sad fool, but yeah, I do. I’ll be happy to bring it to your office if you think it’ll help.”
McKenna sipped her coffee. “Every detail helps. Was anything ever moved? Was the apartment cold?”
Will blinked. “Yeah, now that you mention it. I used to see things moved all the time. I’d leave the remote on the couch, go do something, and come back to find it in the kitchen. And Cory hadn’t been in that room at all. And the place would get so cold at night. I had someone check the air conditioner once, and they couldn’t find a thing wrong with it.”
McKenna shifted. She dreaded asking the next question. “Did Cory kill himself?”
Will’s head shot up. “No.” He didn’t even hesitate. “Like I said, he was going to be the next Stephen King. We were happy. I never saw any signs.” His jaw tightened. “Besides, he crashed through a window and landed on the ground on his back. Wouldn’t you jump face first out of an open window if you were committing suicide?”
“I honestly don’t know.”
Will took her hand. “I don’t know if I believe all this ghost stuff, but if you find out, you’ll tell me, won’t you?”
“Yes, sir, I will.”
9
A wooden bench in Pritchard Park wasn’t the most private place in the city, but that was where Justin Sanders, Jason’s old college roommate, wanted to meet. McKenna settled on the hard bench, her back against the brick wall, and glanced up and down the sidewalk. Cars and people hurried past her on their way to their destinations.
It had been a long time since she had seen Justin, and she hoped she recognized him after all that time. In her memory he was still the big, strong guy she had had a crush on. But he wasn’t twenty anymore.
She reviewed her notes on Cory and Keith. The descriptions of the ghost matched up to Kayla’s, but no one had definitive proof if The White Lady had killed them. And sadly, no one even agreed on who The White Lady was. McKenna chewed the end of her pen. The only connection the three young men shared was the apartment building.
Jason was going to be a high school math teacher. Helping people, especially kids, learn was his way of dealing with his empathy. He had dated a few girls, but he hadn’t been seeing anyone at the time of his death. As far as McKenna knew, he hadn’t known Cory and Keith, and Cory and Keith hadn’t known each other.
Where was the connection? What was she missing?
She called her parents, but they didn’t want to talk about Jason. She wasn’t surprised. They never wanted to talk about Jason. It was like they locked his memory away in a room, and that was it. The whole phone conversation had been tense. Her father refused to answer her questions, while her mother argued with her.
“Why are you bringing this up now?”
McKenna held the phone away from her ear. Her mother’s voice grew louder with every word. “Because someone died in the same place in the same way.” She pinched the bridge of her nose.
“My heart goes out to his parents, but I won’t talk about Jason. I can’t.” Her mother’s voice gained another octave.
“Mom, I think something supernatural killed him. Please, do you ever remember him ever mentioning a ghost?”
“McKenna Rose Ellison, I don’t want to hear this talk again. I knew I shouldn’t have let you spend those summers with your grandmother. Ghosts and psychics, and now you’re bringing your brother into it, God rest his soul.”
“Mom, you know there’s a possibility that it’s true.” Tara Ellison had perfected the art of denying her empathy a long time ago. McKenna didn’t know how her mother was able to ignore all of the emotions that surrounded her on a daily basis. She sometimes wondered if her mother had closed off all of her feelings. It explained a lot.
“This conversation is over.” After that, her mother hung up on her.
She tried her grandmother in Charlotte but got her answering machine. She’d left a message, but she hadn’t heard anything since.
McKenna smacked her desk in frustration, then spent the next few minutes trying to shake the pain out. Cory and Keith each had a connection to the ghost. Kayla swore up and down she saw the ghost kill her fiancé. All they needed was a connection between Jason and the ghost. McKenna reached out to Justin in a last-ditch effort. His reaction was different from her parents.
When she had mentioned the ghost over the phone, his end was quiet for a long mo
ment. Then he mumbled under his breath. “She’s not supposed to be real.”
“Justin?” She hadn’t expected that response.
“I spent years convincing myself I was crazy, that I had too much to drink that night. The police, everybody, thought I was crazy.” Justin wanted to meet her in person to talk about it, so they set it up for the following day.
McKenna fidgeted on the hard bench and stretched out her legs. Justin was five minutes late. Maybe he didn’t know where the park was? Maybe he changed his mind? She bit her bottom lip. She was so close to possible answers. The hustle and bustle of the city continued around her, but she tuned out the noise. She retrieved her cell, pulling up a note-taking app.
“McKenna?”
She looked up to see a tall man with dark skin standing over her. His hair was short and dark, and he no longer sported a tiny goatee, but she recognized his chocolate brown eyes and his smile. This was the guy who used to tease her when he stayed with them during school breaks. The guy her fourteen-year-old self had developed a crush on. He hadn’t changed a bit.
She smiled back. “Justin?”
“In the flesh.” He sat and hugged her. “Ten years did you justice. No more braces, huh?”
“No. It’s been a few years since I wore them.” She sighed. “I wish we were meeting under better circumstances.”
Justin’s face sobered. “I do, too. I can’t believe it’s happening again.”
“What do you remember about that time? Did you know Keith and Cory?”
Justin leaned back against the bench. He extended his arms along the short brick wall behind them. “We didn’t run in the same circles, but Jason and I said hi to them in the hall. I had a couple of classes with Keith, but that was it.” His eyes teared up, and he took a shuddering breath. “I’m sorry. I haven’t thought about this in years.”
McKenna touched his arm. His sadness crept in, and she swallowed the grief. She mentally sent him calm feelings, and his body relaxed. “When did you and Jason first see the ghost?”
Justin pulled off his jacket, tossing it on the bench beside him. “She showed up the first night we moved into Hidden Forest. It was pretty weird. She just floated there, all white and glowing.”
McKenna noted the description matched the one Tristan and Kayla had given her. “Did she do anything?”
“No.” He shook his head. “Wait. Yes, she did. She looked at both of us for a long time, and then she touched your brother.” He shrugged. “The next minute she was gone.”
“Did Jason ever figure out why?”
“If he did, he never told me.”
McKenna tapped the end of her pen against her chin. “The newspaper clippings I found said the deaths happened within a week of each other, starting at the end of August. Do you know how they happened?”
Justin sat forward and rested his elbows on his knees. He stared at the restaurant across the street. “I didn’t see what happened to Cory and Keith.” He met McKenna’s eyes. “But I remember what happened to your brother.”
Her breath caught in her throat. She had never heard the story of how Jason died, not in detail. Part of her wasn’t sure she wanted to know, but the other part had to know. She let out the breath. “What happened that night?”
Justin tensed. He closed his eyes for a second. He opened them and answered, “One of the guys who lived below us, Jacob, had a party that night. The whole building was on edge after Cory and Keith died, and Jacob thought it was a good idea to blow off some steam. I had a few beers.”
“You were a little drunk.”
Justin nodded. “More than a little.” He moved closer to her. “McKenna, if I had been there that night instead of that stupid party, maybe you’d still have your brother.”
Her stomach twisted with his guilt. She rested her hand on his. “It’s not your fault. You were, what? Twenty years old?”
“For the past ten years, I’ve been asking myself, ‘What if?’”
“Don’t be ridiculous. My family’s never blamed you for it, ever. You know that.”
Justin glanced at the sidewalk. “Still.”
“Tell me what happened that night.”
He took a deep breath and told her.
The loud music filled the room, the bass thumping against the walls. Justin danced in the middle of it, people crammed in the tiny space. Laughter and conversation echoed around him. He brought the beer in his hand to his mouth and gulped it down. He raised his bottle.
“To Cory and Keith!” he roared.
The crowd roared back. He took another swig.
“It’s too bad Jason didn’t want to come!” The tall blonde’s voice purred in his ear. He pulled her closer to him. What was her name again? Rachel? Susan? Lanette? Catherine? He couldn’t remember. He didn’t really care.
He grinned. “I know! The douchebag wanted to stay in our room!” Ever since Keith’s death, Jason did nothing but brood around the apartment. Justin had to admit his roommate looked exhausted and seemed to have a hard time functioning.
“Maybe we should go get him!” Busty Blonde suggested.
Why was she so interested? It didn’t matter. Justin thought Jason needed to get out of the apartment anyway. He shrugged. “Okay!”
He danced to the door with Busty Blonde in tow. He promised Jacob they would be back with Jason and headed out the door. Once Jason was out of their room, Justin might get lucky. The hallway was eerily quiet compared to the party noise. No wonder. Most of the building was stuffed into Jacob’s apartment. Justin stumbled as they climbed the flight of stairs to his floor. It was a good thing Busty Blonde was there to steady him, even though he wasn’t drunk. He was feeling good, that was all.
When they reached his door, he banged on it. “Yo, Jace! You gonna come out of there?”
No answer.
Groaning, he pulled his key out of his back pocket and stuffed it into the lock. It didn’t budge, absolutely would not turn. He jiggled it, but still, it refused to move. He yanked his key out and jammed it back into his pocket.
He knocked on the door again. “Jace, my key’s not working. Can you let me in?”
Again, no one answered him. He flattened his hand against the door. The wood was ice cold. He jerked his hand back.
“This door feel cold to you?” he asked Busty Blonde.
She giggled. “Stop playing around.” She put her hand on the door and yanked it back. “Weird.”
What was going on? The last time anything felt that cold he had seen a ghost appear in the middle of the living room. His partying mood melted away.
He banged on the door. “Jason? You okay, man?” He exchanged worried looks with Busty Blonde before handing her his bottle. He took three steps back and charged the door. His shoulder rammed into it with an audible crack. The door remained closed. His shoulder throbbed, and his mouth went dry. “Jason, open the door!” He stepped back to run at the door again when it swung open on its own.
Busty Blonde took off running.
“Get away from me! You can’t have it! No more!” Jason’s voice came from his bedroom.
Justin didn’t think twice. He ran through the apartment, knocking into furniture. When he reached the room, he swore the alcohol had gone to his head. The pure white ghost he had seen several weeks earlier stood next to the window, her hair blowing in a non-existent wind. Her eyes were bright red, like a demon. She gripped Jason’s throat, holding him off the ground.
“You’re the last one. You have to pay,” she hissed.
She hurled Jason through the window. The crash reverberated around the room mixing with Jason’s scream.
Justin’s feet froze to the floor. Not a muscle could move. His heartbeat moved in double time when the ghost whipped her head in his direction. Sweat trickled down his face.
She lowered her arms, and her eyes changed from red to green. Her wind-blown hair settled against her shoulders. She cocked her head to the side, looking young and innocent. “It’s over,” she said before s
he vanished.
Justin took a step back. “Holy shit.”
McKenna doubled over. She clutched her sides, struggling for breath. She opened herself and felt everything: all the fear, the guilt, and the shock as Justin told the story. Fumbling with her bag, she grabbed a half-empty bottle of water and brought it to her lips. The cool liquid calmed her down. Bit by bit, she regained control.
Justin brushed her elbow. “Are you okay?” His voice was concerned. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you.”
McKenna closed her eyes and took a deep breath. And then another. “I’ll be okay. Just give me a minute.”
She identified the emotions that weren’t her own. Picturing a box, she gathered the black ball of guilt, the quaking of fear, and the icy blast of shock. One by one, she placed them inside. In her head, she pushed the box away. Her lingering sadness remained.
As her breathing returned to normal, she opened her eyes. She didn’t expect Justin to still feel that strongly about what happened.
“Are you sure that’s what you saw?” she asked after a moment.
“I swear to you, that’s how it happened. Now you know why people thought I was drunk or crazy.”
McKenna sipped her water. “You said Jason told the ghost she couldn’t have something. What was she trying to take from my brother?”
Justin shook his head. “I don’t know. It never made sense to me.”
She wrote down her questions and notes. The ghost had touched her brother the first time. Tristan had said she touched him, too. Kayla had mentioned the ghost touching Zack on that first day, but McKenna didn’t know if The White Lady had touched Cory and Keith. Wait! Tristan had said the ghost took something from him, like she apparently took something from Jason. What did Tristan and Jason have in common?
Justin indicated her phone. “Is that enough to help?”
She came back to the present, frustrated she had another question. She flashed Justin a half-hearted grin. “I think it is. Thank you for telling me.”