“Thank you,” she said to him. “We really owe you.”
Amanda Lee cleared her throat, and when Heidi glanced at her, my associate subtly shook her head.
No fees, she’d said before. Her journey to absolution was still rolling along.
As Heidi glanced around the property, probably to see if there were any signs of me, she tucked her hands up into her sleeves. But this time, it didn’t seem like she was retreating into herself as much as making fists, in case Tim did come around. Meanwhile, Twyla hung above her from the eaves, her petticoats swishing down as she took stock of this human.
“Nichelle just woke up,” Heidi said. “She’s still in bed, staring at her phone like she wants to listen to all the voice mails Tim left.”
“I thought she turned the phone off,” Amanda Lee said in her even tone.
“It’s back on.” There was a trace of anxiety in Heidi’s own voice.
“How many messages from Tim?” Ruben asked.
“We’re up to nineteen now.”
Ugh. When I got back to that pain in the ass’s house, I was going to suck all the life out of his phone so he couldn’t use it. Or maybe Louis and Randy were just letting Tim incriminate himself by giving Nichelle ample evidence of harassment.
Ruben asked, “Is Nichelle planning to pursue a restraining order against him?”
Amanda Lee held the folder to her chest. “She’d have to build up to it. There’s no sign that Tim attacked her—he’d only started putting his hand around her neck when she fled. She didn’t think it’d be worth calling the authorities right now because it might set him off even more.”
Heidi said, “Ruben, if you could talk to her about it, that’d be great. And I’d love if you would let her know that calling him back again, even to tell him to leave her alone, is just rewarding him for all the messages he’s left.”
Could a ghost adopt a human? Because Heidi had awesome written all over her.
“I’d be glad to,” Ruben said.
Amanda Lee was already on her way inside, holding the door open for Heidi and Ruben.
Me and Twyla shrugged at each other, knowing that Amanda Lee wouldn’t allow us in, no matter how buddy-buddy we were getting to be. She’d ghost-proofed her main house with everything from salt—as ineffective as it was against seasoned ghosts—to smudging and incantations.
A person needed their own haven, and she’d given the casita over to us, after all.
But after both her guests went inside, she whispered over her shoulder, “I’ll open the kitchen window,” then shut the door.
I raised an eyebrow at Twyla. “Sounds like the lady is leaving a gap for us.”
“Like, an on-purpose chink in her armor. Aw.”
I unplugged from the porch outlet, my injured arm still throbbing a little as we flew around to the side of the house.
• • •
Amanda Lee was true to her word, cracking the window enough for Twyla and me to cozy up to the sill and hear what was going on inside. She even left a battery-operated radio there for me to glom on to so I could energize.
Aw was right.
I could see Nichelle sitting at the kitchen table in the sloppy long-sleeved shirt and pants she’d pulled from the closet on her way out of her house. Her dark hair was in a haphazard side ponytail as she slumped in her chair across from Heidi, shoulders bowed. Ruben had taken off his cap, revealing his sparse gray hair, sitting between the girls while Amanda Lee whipped up bacon and pancakes at the stove.
The sizzle and smokiness of the bacon made Twyla and me lay our heads against the stucco wall. The smell wasn’t as heavenly as that pizza had been last night for me in my fake body—ghosts never quite got to that point in these forms—but it left a yearning that couldn’t be denied. Even the muscle-head lookiloos by the pool and the others around the property closed their eyes with the aroma.
Ruben had just finished telling Nichelle all about her lovely boyfriend. She had been listening in stunned silence the whole time, never interrupting.
As Ruben and Heidi waited for her to respond, Amanda Lee poured some batter on the griddle. She seemed occupied, but she was obviously very tuned in.
“You okay?” Ruben finally asked Nichelle.
She nodded mutely, and Heidi reached across the table, holding Nichelle’s hand. Nichelle grasped on to it.
“How could I’ve been so dumb?” she asked, her voice a croak. “I knew about the stuff I could look up about him online, and it was easy to think he would grow out of all that, but the fire? Juvie? The basement? So, so dumb . . .”
“Don’t say that,” Heidi whispered.
Twyla snorted. “I’ll say it.”
“And you were doing so well,” I muttered.
Inside, Ruben coughed, but I think it was more out of being ill-suited to this touchy-feely stuff than his sickness. He pointed to Nichelle’s phone waiting on the table.
“May I?” he asked. “I’d like to check Tim’s messages so you won’t have to.”
“Please,” she said.
Most gladly, he went for the phone as Nichelle wiped her teary cheek against her sweatshirt at her shoulder. Ruben began listening to the voice mails, and as I detected them in the air, they sounded like your basic, “Baby, come on. What was the big deal? It was just a bad dream. . . .”
“When I met Tim a few months ago,” Nichelle said over his tinny phone voice, “I thought he had an edge. I was in the mood for someone dangerous, and there he was, in front of the Leviathan, getting off that motorcycle like he owned the world.”
The Leviathan was a super-seedy bar near Solana Beach. Real Dean and I used to joke all the time about stopping there for a drink, but its reputation had put us off.
Across the kitchen, Ruben listened to more messages. “Okay, baby, I’m starting to get pissed here. Call me back.”
Nichelle went on. “Things happened so fast, and I’ve never had that in my life before. In case you haven’t noticed, I’m not exactly Miss America, and I’ve been told a hundred times that I’m too passive-aggressive to ever make a man happy. Guys never come on to me strong, like Tim did. I liked his confidence and determination. He liked that I was so into him. We had one date, two . . . and I thought, ‘I’ve found my perfect match,’ so we moved in together, but Heidi was one of the people who asked me what I was thinking.”
“I was looking out for you,” she said.
“And I should’ve listened. You knew I was jumping into something too quick, and obviously, with Tim, there’s a reason he put us into high gear. Any sane girl wouldn’t have him. They would’ve known better.”
“Nich . . .” Heidi said, squeezing her friend’s hand.
On the phone, Tim went on. “It’d be in your best interest to call, Nichelle. Right away. Seriously.”
She rested her elbow on the table, leaning her face into her hand and covering her eyes. At the stove, Amanda Lee used the spatula to scoop the pancakes onto a plate. Ruben was still listening to the phone, frowning, and every once in a while, accessing it to get to the next message.
“Stop fucking with me, Nichelle. . . .”
“Dammit,” she said into her hand. “You would’ve thought that all the fights we had would tip me off. But, no, I thought we were passionate, and passion is love. The sex was amazing after each fight, and in my mind, I thought it just meant he cared. Our battles were only foreplay.”
“Don’t be so . . .” Heidi began.
“No, don’t softball this. My judgment sucks, Heidi. The minute things started going sour with Tim I should’ve had the same alarms shrieking that you did. I should’ve never blown you off, because you were right. It took seeing him with that look on his face this morning to make me hear the warnings. Now he won’t stop calling me. What the hell do I do?”
Ruben paused in accessing another message. “We’ll find a way, Nichelle. Tim’s building a case against himself real quick, for one thing.”
“Will I have to move out of the state o
r get another identity or . . . ? Just listen to me. Am I paranoid or what?”
As Ruben brought up another message, he didn’t say a word, instead locking gazes with Amanda Lee as she brought plates and syrup to the table.
“Nichelle,” said Tim’s voice on the phone. “If I have to drive around town looking for you, I will. And I’ll start by going to Heidi’s, even if you told me you’re not there. I’ll tear her fucking place apart if I have to. . . .”
When Amanda Lee brought the food to the table, Ruben stood from his chair, limping out of the room and nodding his head toward the hall. Amanda Lee left the girls alone and followed him.
Twyla whispered, “Louis and Randy are going to keep Tim from leaving the house, right?”
“That’s the plan.” Even if I should’ve plugged in somewhere first because my arm had started beating again, I began to back away from the window. “But I can’t just sit here wondering what Tim’s going to pull. I’m going over there.”
“What about your arm!” Twyla yelled as I conjured a travel tunnel.
“It’ll hold,” I said, praying I was right as I blasted into the arterial pink tube and bolted away.
20
When I saw Tim sitting on his sofa, everything seemed okay. Just another typical day staring at the TV, waiting for Nichelle to return a call that would never come.
Then again, his posture was unnaturally still, and he had one flip-flop on and one off, the second one resting on the carpet near his bare foot. Shivers consumed him, his teeth chattering. But the troubled expression on Louis’ face really told me that something was off.
“Randy’s trying to give Tim a hallucination,” he said as he stood at the foot of the sofa while that ever-present soundtrack from the TV blared. Baseball, of course.
I glanced around to locate Randy, but Louis and Tim were the only other entities around.
“You don’t see Randy out here because he’s melded with Tim’s mind,” Louis said, giving me the curious eye, like I should’ve already realized where we ghosts went during a hallucination and dream-digging.
No doy, Jensen. “I should’ve known that. If I hadn’t gone inside Tim, how else would I have been vulnerable to his dream attack last night?” But . . . “I just thought we went inside a human only if they’re willing to be possessed.”
“No, although, in that case, we take over their entire bodies—we’re not merely interacting with their psyches. But that’s neither here nor there.” Louis’ dark eyes brimmed with caution. “Tim’s been so agitated today that he’s been unconsciously blocking us from entering him. The only reason Randy made it in was because Tim was distracted, running around and preparing to leave the house so he could go out and look for Nichelle. He let down his shields, and Randy’s been in there for ten minutes now. I’m watching to see that there’s no trouble. Ten minutes is a long time for a hallucination.”
“Tim’s got some of my power making him stronger,” I said. “He could probably withstand hours of hallucinations before his body and mind break down.”
When Tim’s lips parted and his gaze went foggy, I tried to lighten things up.
“Still, it looks like whatever Randy is doing is working.”
Tim’s eyes went totally sleepy, and Louis and I smiled at each other. But just as quickly, Tim’s gaze flew open again. On the TV, the crowd roared as a player hit the ball to the outfield.
Score: Tim 1, Randy 0?
Louis rubbed the back of his neck. “So you can see how we aren’t getting anywhere.”
“Tim’s been fighting a hallucination that’s supposed to be calming him down.”
“You got it.”
I wafted to the top of the sofa, near the fish tank, which bubbled away like this was the happiest do-dah day ever. “Then, all in all, these hallucinations are doing no good. We’re wasting our time.”
“Not necessarily. Tim hasn’t gotten out the door to hunt down Nichelle yet. Also, in spite of that extra strength, his body’s bound to get stressed, so the visions will hopefully wear him down. We ghosts can recharge, but he won’t have that luxury. The more successful we are at occupying him with hallucinations now that we made it inside of him, the weaker he should get.”
I leaned closer to the guy’s face. “I’d hate to go into another dream when he falls asleep. Please tell me that’s not in the plan.”
“It’d be great if we could just keep him asleep.”
Again, there was no long-term solution at hand.
I chased off the blues. “In case you think that it was a bad thing when Tim was harassing Nichelle with those phone calls, those’ll at least give her ammunition against him, if she ever needs it. Amanda Lee’s PI is trying to gather enough information to build a case against him, too.”
“That might also save his future girlfriends grief if he can be identified as a stalker.”
I thought of what Ruben had told us earlier. “I feel bad for Nichelle. She’s in the unfortunate position of being the girl who was around at the exact wrong time with Tim. All his frustrations built to a boiling point while he was dating her. I just hope she doesn’t become his permanent fixation.”
“Right.” Louis floated over to the TV, laying a hand on it. The screen screamed with snow, canceling out the baseball. “And that’s why I’ve got to be ready to go in when Randy comes out. We need to keep these hallucinations going for her sake.”
“I can tag in afterward.” It was better than surrendering to my urge to do something vicious to Tim, like scratching him or leaving welts that would make him hurt.
When Randy did come out of him ten minutes later, it was with a flying pop. Louis was all set, swooping away from the TV and to Tim’s face with no lag time. He touched his cheek hard, preparing to enter. Already, Tim’s teeth began clicking together with the chill we ghosts were bringing.
As Louis started to sink toward Tim’s face, Tim’s features took on Louis’ ghost ones; they misted and melded together into one frozen expression for a brief hypnotic instant. Then the hazy vision disappeared, and Tim went back to being his saucer-eyed, hallucinating self.
Randy had air-stumbled toward an outlet, plugging in, his sailor hat over his brow. “I tried to put the wise guy to sleep, but he’s hard-boiled. And it’s like a storm-toshed ship ’n there!”
“He was drinking beer earlier, wasn’t he?”
“Yeah.”
The first dream I’d gone in with Tim had been a wild ride, too.
“I wonder,” Randy said, “if he was this blank durin’ one of them scary hallucinations you gave ’im.”
“Doubtful. When I showed him that fake, formless face in the window reflection yesterday, he reacted pretty strongly. I know that because we started in the front of the house and ended up with him cowering on the floor of his bedroom.” Man, it’d been satisfying to see Tim huddling at the side of the mattress, afraid of me.
“I tell ya, with the com-for-ble thunnerstorm images I gave ’im, most people’d be curled in the corner of their seat by now, snoozin’ off.”
“Well, we’re not dealing with Sleeping Beauty here.”
Me and Randy settled in while Louis conducted his hallucination. After he came out, we took turns going into Tim like he was a revolving door. I sent him images of spring in a prairie, hoping it would appeal to his Montana roots. Not quite. Louis and Randy tried bayou effects, tranquil desert scapes, and nature trails, but they all kept Tim sitting up straight on that sofa.
All we were trying to do was wear him down enough so that he’d be useless, too tired to look for Nichelle. We were also trying to give Amanda Lee and Ruben time to come up with a better plan than a restraining order, which I knew didn’t always keep mad boyfriends away from their exes.
When I emerged from Tim after attempting a new approach—creating a Mozart symphony in him without any images to distract him—Randy took my place again. I plugged into the outlet by the screen door, the TV flickering right along with the lights because I was drawing more
and more juice. That had to be because of my arm wound, which kept beating red, not getting any better.
When would it start really healing?
Louis had gone outside, probably to do the ghost version of pacing and trying to hit on a better idea than this. And after he slid in through the space between the screen door and wall, he had a pensive expression on him.
“Odd how the world goes on outside while we try to stop it in here,” he said. “Down the street, someone’s using one of those machines that blows leaves around. Next door, Mrs. Cavendish is cleaning her pool in her bathing suit. In back of us, someone’s watching soap operas.”
I smiled, leaning my head near the wall. “You took the time to check out Mrs. Cavendish’s hot cougar bod in a bathing suit?”
If Louis could’ve blushed at my comment, I’m sure he would’ve. His skin remained the same cocoa tone with a cast of gray.
“I’m not too sure of what a cougar is, but Mrs. Cavendish does present a lovely—”
Out of nowhere, a streak of blackness shot out of the hallway, straight for Tim on the sofa.
As I pasted myself against the wall, I thought I could identify a dark . . .
Blob?
Before Louis or I could react, the thing nailed itself into Tim’s skull, making him bolt to his feet, yelling and scratching at his face, leaving agitated red streaks.
“Louis!” I unplugged from my socket, but he’d already flown forward as Tim’s frantic maneuvers stopped and he fell back to the sofa, the dark blob and Randy both crashing out of Tim at the same time, flying across the room in a whirling tangle.
I saw what happened next in slow, horrific motion: Randy arching away from what could only be the infamous dark spirit from Wendy’s, sailing across the room, as white as paper and as limp as air. He flew up and over the fish tank, falling and skidding just above the carpet and coming to a halt right before the kitchen counter, then lying completely still.
“Randy!”
I zoomed toward him as he stared up at me, his gaze almost a void. But there was still ghost life left in him as he whispered to me.
Another One Bites the Dust Page 25