by A. J. Norris
“It must matter to someone.”
Tina shook her head. “Maybe. But—”
“Good, you two met.” Bowie appeared.
Ellie clutched her chest. “Will everyone quit jumping out at me?” Her heart pounded.
Bowie chuckled. “Relax, we need your help.”
“God. With what?”
“Just say you’ll help us.” He sat next to her. His white t-shirt clung to his muscular chest and biceps. Apparently, ghosts didn’t get cold.
“You’ll need to ask nicely. You were rude in the hallway.” Where had that come from? Ellie wanted to throw her arms around him and kiss him. Oh, what was she saying? She was much too timid to ever do something that bold. No, you just stalk them instead. Which was exactly what she’d been doing when she witnessed him dying.
“What? I was not.”
“You called me crazy. I’m not crazy.”
“I did not. And if you were so offended, then why did you meet me here?”
Because you’re all I thought about for an entire year. Her cheeks heated. “Because you punched Jenkins and I…was…I dunno.”
“You think I’m hot, don’t you? I didn’t see it before.”
“It or me?” Ellie mumbled.
Tina started crying, a soft whimper. “Please…stop,” she croaked. “We don’t have time for this.”
“She’s right, we’ll finish this argument later.”
“Time for what?” Ellie asked and regretted the question the moment it left her lips.
Chapter Six
Ellie sat behind the wheel of her car in the student parking lot with two dead people. “Tell me you have a plan.” She looked at Tina in the rearview mirror.
“I need to get my diary.”
“Do really think it’s still there?”
“Yeah. I do.” Her eyes teared up again.
Ellie beat her head back on the headrest a couple of times. Jenkins had moved into Tina’s old house at the beginning of eighth grade. Right after Tina died, her family left the house and everything behind. Which now, in retrospect, seemed suspicious. “So, no plan then. Jenkins despises me. You’re a ghost, why can’t you go there and get it yourself?” The last thing Ellie wanted to hear was Jenkins telling her how much of a freak she was. Or perhaps he’d invite her in and try having sex with her again. Clearly, Doyle was unaware of his best friend and Ellie hooking up.
“It’s against the rules.”
“Oh, there are rules. Why didn’t you say so?” Ellie threw her hands up.
“There are rules. We can’t interfere with the living,” Bowie said.
“Ah…what are you doing right now?” And what made her so special? Ellie didn’t want this “gift” as Bowie called it, except after he explained the situation to her she couldn’t refuse. Help them solve Tina’s death and Bowie would be able to return. Return where, home? To the living? She asked, but all he said was “return.”
“His house is on Bradford Str—”
“I know.” Ellie drove out of the school parking lot and hung a left. Jenkins lived three blocks from the school. Once they arrived on Bradford, she parked her car several houses away.
“No one’s home. I checked,” Bowie said.
“Oh, that makes this so much better. I suppose this is your plan, to break in. Great.” Ellie grinned without humor.
All three of them made their way to the side of the house and behind a privacy fence. “Now what? Do either of you have a key or can you do some ghost shit?”
Bowie snorted. “No. I can’t do some ghost shit.” He shook his hands in the air next to his head. “Booooooo.” After scanning the ground, he picked up a large rock and measured the weight of the stone in his hand.
“What are you—no!” Ellie grabbed his elbow. “What if they have an alarm?”
“Then you’d better be quick.” He smashed the window with the rock. No sounds erupted from inside the house. He stuck his hand through the hole he’d made and turned the lock. The French door opened with a soft click.
Ellie tiptoed through the house. She breathed in quick bursts. Her nerve endings tingled. Sweat dampened her shirt. The floorboards creaked under her feet. She swallowed hard and quickened her pace toward a bedroom at the back of the house. Tina’s old room.
She reached the bedroom and opened the door using her sleeve stretched over her hand. The smell of dirty sweat socks and Axe body spray bombarded her. Underneath the windowsill sat a built-in bench with storage underneath. Tina explained that she’d hidden a diary in a secret cubby inside it. With her hand still covered, Ellie lifted the lid. Prying the board off the cubby hole proved too difficult with her sleeves over her hands. She gave up the “no fingerprints left behind” idea and pried off the slat covering the hole. Tucked inside, Ellie found Tina’s diary. It was bound in tan leather with a string closure. She shoved the board back into place and pushed the lid on the bench down. It slammed shut with a bang. She shushed the bench as if it would listen.
Police sirens blared from up the street. Shit. Must’ve had a silent alarm after all. Ellie sprinted to the side door and bolted from the house. They ran toward the fence in the backyard. The house butted up against some woods. Tina walked through the fence like it wasn’t there. Ellie tossed the diary over the fence. “Here, catch this.” She jumped and caught her fingers on the top of the six-foot white vinyl fence. She struggled, flailing her legs, but couldn’t pull herself up. Damn being a girl and having weak upper body strength. Not that she worked out anyway. The sirens seemed like they were in the backyard with them.
Bowie’s hands made contact with her butt cheeks and he boosted her higher. She swung one leg over the fence. He tried walking through the fence like Tina, except he appeared to get stuck halfway. He backed out and scaled the fence easily. Must be nice.
“Come on, Ellie, let’s go!” he whispered.
“I’m try—”
He yanked her the rest of the way down. They fell to the ground. Ellie landed on top of him. He grunted. She apologized, even though she wasn’t sorry. Ellie always pictured herself in his arms—dreamed of it, except the scenario never involved running from the cops. Her face was so close to his they could’ve kissed. Their eyes met. It may have only lasted a second, yet it was the longest moment of her life. Please don’t let it be the last.
She dragged herself off him, instantly missing how his body felt pressed against hers. Tina held the diary out to her. The girl smiled as Ellie took the book and faded until nothing but air remained. “Where did she go?”
“Now you have what you need. The evidence is all in there,” he said.
Ellie brows knitted together. “What am I supposed to do?”
“Go to the police.”
“Oh, right, with a dead girl’s diary. They’ll ask me where I got it. They won’t believe me.”
“Yes, they will.”
“Why?”
“Because her death was unsolved. Speak to Detective Manuel. He handles cold cases, he’ll listen. And he’ll understand.”
Ellie sighed heavily. “Understand what?”
“You said you’d help us.”
“Fine. But after this, I’m done.”
He muttered something under his breath that sounded like “We’ll see.”
“What? No, we won’t see.”
Chapter Seven
Ellie waited in Detective Manuel’s office with Tina’s diary clutched to her chest. She kept her gaze toward the open door. A uniformed cop walked past the doorway, eyeing her as he went. An uneasiness washed over her and she shivered.
A dark-haired man, who looked younger than her parents but much older than her, came into the room and sat next to her in front of a desk. She guessed him to be thirty-five years old. “So, I hear you asked to speak to me?” he said.
“Yeah,” she said tentatively. “I want to give you, er, I have something for you, someone told me to give…” She stumbled over her words, unable to form a complete sentence. Giving up on speakin
g, she handed Detective Manuel the diary.
“What’s this?” he asked, examining the cover.
“It belonged to Tina Wells. Do you know who—”
His eyebrows rose. “Tina? Tina Wells, did you say?” He opened the diary. Ran a finger down the first page. Ellie hadn’t opened it out of respect for Tina’s privacy and she was afraid of what she might read.
“Yeah,” she said softly. “She—”
He rattled something off in Spanish he’d clearly read from the page. Ellie looked at the book and the whole page was written in Spanish.
“Where did you get this?” he asked.
I can’t tell you, she thought. Ellie shrugged.
He looked at her sideways. “All right. Thank you.” He held up the book.
She nodded and headed for the door. Halfway out, she turned around. “Can I ask you something? You work unsolved cases, right?”
He nodded with his lips in a thin line.
“Did you ever find Jim Bowie’s killer?” When she said his first name, her heart squeezed. No one had ever called him that.
“You don’t remember me, do you?”
She shook her head.
“I was one of the first officers to arrive that night.”
“I was pretty out of it. Hey, you weren’t the one that slammed me—”
“No. He no longer works here.”
“Good.”
“Ellie.” He ran a hand through his hair. “I figured you followed him that night. Had a crush on him. It was obvious something brought you to a water treatment plant at night.”
She blushed and stared at the floor. “I was worried about him.”
“I knew you had nothing to do with what happened. Couldn’t see you getting mixed up in all that. Jim was into some dangerous stuff.”
“Like what?”
“He wound up dead. If that’s any indication.”
“But he’s just a teenager.”
“Was a teenager. And no, he wasn’t. He was about to get busted.”
“For what? Did he kill someone?”
Detective Manuel stared at her.
Ellie sucked in a breath. Her insides shook, causing her hands to tremble. “What did he do?”
“Leave it alone. If you liked him, don’t tarnish your memories of him.”
Too late. She’d watched him die. Ellie gaped at the detective then left his office. Clearly, the man had shut down any further discussion of the subject.
Chapter Eight
Ellie locked her car door as soon as she got in. She drove home with the radio blasting in an attempt at not obsessing over Detective Manuel’s words about Bowie. It wasn’t working.
She arrived home and ran straight up the stairs to her room and locked herself inside. She leaned her forehead against the back of the door and breathed. A couple minutes later, her mother knocked. “Is everything all right with you?”
Her parents constantly asked her this. “Yes, Mother. I’m fine.”
“Have you eaten?”
“Not hungry. Go away.” Their relationship had only gotten worse in the past year. One day she hoped to mend it, but not today. The woman’s feet shuffled away from her door.
“That was mean.”
Ellie gasped. “Stop that.”
Bowie lay on her bed with his feet crossed at the ankles and his hands clasped behind his head. Two things happened today that, for some reason, had more gravity to them than breaking into Jenkins’s house and being told her crush was a criminal: landing on Bowie and him lying on her bed. “I need you to do one more favor for me.”
“I did what you asked already.”
He patted the bed next to him. Ellie took a deep breath. Bowie made her nervous. Always had made her nervous, even though he was now a ghost. He looked so alive to her. She questioned whether the last year had all been a bad dream. Bowie had a few days’ scruff on his square-jawed face. “Come here, you look tense.”
She was. “Okay.” That was her favorite word today. Everything was okay, yet it wasn’t really. Ellie perched on the bed next to his legs.
He sat up behind her, putting one leg on each side of her. She startled when he touched her shoulders.
“See? Tense.” He massaged them. “You’re all knotted up.”
“More like nutted up.”
He snort-chuckled.
“Are you really here? I mean, maybe I’m dead or dreaming…God, I dunno.”
Bowie ran the back of his hand down her cheek and whispered in her ear. “You did a good thing today.”
She shivered, although she wasn’t cold. His breath warmed her neck. “What are you doing?” she whispered back, folding her arms across her middle.
“Rubbing your back.”
She wanted to ask why but didn’t. “Where do you go when you’re not around?”
“I visit my grave.”
She pivoted and faced him. His face was so close to hers, they could’ve kissed. Again. Ellie looked away from his gaze. “That’s so sad. I couldn’t imagine.”
“You don’t want to, believe me.” He put his arms around her waist and leaned into her personal space. “I wanted to thank you for helping Tina.”
She nodded. “Y-You don’t have—”
“I’m going to kiss you.”
Fear and excitement raced through her body. “W-Why?”
Bowie smiled. “Why do you think?”
“Thank me?”
“That’s not the reason. You used to stare at me in Biology. And I always wondered why until the night I died. You followed me.”
“Cuz I was stalking you.” She giggled.
Bowie smiled. “I liked you staring at me. It made me feel like less of a piece of shit.”
“Why didn’t you say anything?”
“Why didn’t you?”
“Ah…” Her cheeks heated.
He silenced her by kissing her neck. His tongue flicked back and forth over the cords. Her lips parted. The deep recesses within her wept with need. “Bow…Jim…I…”
“Ellie…” he breathed. Ellie had been kissed by plenty of guys before.
But never alone in her bedroom.
Or like that.
Taking her hand, he scooched backward into the middle of her queen-sized bed. She lay down. Leaning over her, he pulled his leg up and draped it across her thighs. Ellie tensed, taking breaths through her open mouth.
As much as she was afraid of what would come next, the only way to move beyond the past was to not avoid moments like this. Ellie wanted freedom from it. He claimed her lips and she kissed him back, although her body remained rigid. His hand went to the hem of her shirt, and he teased her belly button.
She pushed his hand away. Partially because it tickled. The other reason was due to the uncertainty she felt about herself, and her body.
He withdrew his hand. “Do you want me to stop?”
“No, I’m…sorry.” She ran her hand up the back of his neck into his hair, urging him to kiss her again. Their lips met once more; this time he positioned himself between her legs. Despite their clothing being in the way, she felt his hard length against her core. He rocked his hips and let out a gasp.
She placed her hands on his chest—not pushing on him, just leaving them there. Except, then he slipped his hand between them and undid the button of her jeans.
Ellie sucked in a breath.
“Okay. What is it?” he asked, grasping one of her hands. She shook her head. “Have you never done this before?”
“Done what?”
“You know what, Ellie.”
“I’m not a virgin.”
“Then what is it?”
She didn’t want to admit the truth, so she said the first thing she thought of. “Do you have a criminal record?”
He sat up, put his head down, and hung his hands off his knees. “So what if I do?”
Ellie sat frozen; she didn’t know what to say or why she asked what she had. It didn’t matter now. He was dead.
�
��I’m gonna take off, but know that I’m running out of time.” He faded into nothing where he sat.
“Wait!” she said, except he was already gone.
Chapter Nine
In the morning, Ellie stepped from her bathroom naked with a towel in her hands. She dumped it into the laundry basket next to the door.
Bowie cleared his throat.
She screamed.
“Wow. You’re beautiful,” he said.
Her face, hell, her entire body, turned red. She didn’t know what part of her to cover; her breasts or sex. At least the latter had hair. She covered her chest as she plucked the towel out of the basket, aware he was laughing.
“Why are you laughing? Is my body that hideous to you?”
He recoiled and his eyes traveled the length of her body. “God, no. You have a gorgeous body. I found it funny that you tried covering up after I had already seen every inch of you.”
She wrapped the towel around her torso. “Ah…” She looked at the floor then up to him.
He smiled for a moment. “Get dressed. I need you to do something for me.”
“So, you’re not mad at me?” She took some clothes out of the dresser and headed for the bathroom.
Shrugging one shoulder, he said, “For what? Last night? No. You were right.”
“What were you into? The detective yesterday at the station—”
His eyes narrowed. “Oh, God. What did he say?”
“You were into some stuff you shouldn’t have been.”
Bowie rubbed the nape of his neck. “Ellie, know that I’m not the same person I was.”
Ellie nodded, shut herself in the bathroom, and got dressed.
Ellie backed down her driveway with Bowie seated next to her in the car. “Do you have your cell phone?”
“Of course.” She shook her head, scrunching her face as if to say “that’s a dumb question.”
“Call Detective Manuel and ask for Tina’s parents’ names. Then we need to take another short drive.”
“Where? I have school. And don’t we already know her parents’ names?”