Night of the Loving Dead

by Casey Daniels

  “The real me, you mean.”

  She slid me a look. “Not anymore. You’re not dead, Pepper. But you’re not alive, either. That means you don’t belong in this world or the other one. And that means you can’t stay. You’re going to fade and then poof!” She snapped her fingers. “Disappear completely. Then I’ll never have to worry about you again.”

  The nausea intensified. I hugged my arms around myself. I’d go crazy if I thought about what she said, so I concentrated on the problem at hand. “Did you ever love Dan?”

  “Love is a fickle emotion. It can’t be quantified.”

  “Most people don’t want to quantify it.”

  “Most people are morons.”

  “Is Dan?”

  She glanced toward the bathroom just as Dan shut off the water, and when she answered me, she made sure he couldn’t hear. “He was a brilliant student. I knew he’d be successful someday. He’s Nobel Prize material.”

  “So you hitched your wagon to his star.”

  “It would have worked. If I hadn’t died.”

  “The mugging. Is that story bullshit, too? Maybe you just made it up so I’d feel sorry for you.”

  She had already opened her mouth to respond when Dan stepped out of the bathroom. He had a towel wrapped around his waist, and I had a chance to admire a body I hadn’t had nearly enough time to check out the night before. Nice shoulders, abs that were too well developed to belong to a brain researcher, a chest that wasn’t nearly as broad as Quinn’s, but just as yummy. I winced when I saw the red welt I’d caused when I bashed him with that stool back at the mental hospital, but apparently Dan didn’t hold it against me. Or at least he didn’t hold it against the me he thought was me. There was a glimmer in his eyes and an expectant expression on his face. Both dissolved when he saw that the woman he knew as Pepper was already dressed. “You’re all set to go. I thought we could—”

  “We have a long day ahead of us.”

  He gave in with the kind of accommodating smile I’d always wanted from him and never got. “You’re right, of course. And we’ll have plenty of time later for . . .” Hot under the sheets and as shy as a violet when it was all over. I wasn’t surprised when Dan blushed. He reached for his clothes, and damn, he turned his back on me when he dropped the towel and put on his boxers. He slipped his jeans on, too, and turned around again just as he was zipping them. “Before we leave, I want to make sure I have my story straight. Let’s go over the details. What do you know about the clinic, Pepper, and how did you find it out?”

  All right, I admit it... I gloated more than just a little when I saw the blank expression on Madeline’s face and realized she couldn’t answer any of his question. She might have my body, but the bitch didn’t get my memories.

  That’s why she tried to buy some time when she said, “Well, as you know, I’m not very bright . . .”

  “Oh, puh-leez!” Needless to say, this comment came from me.

  Just as needless to point out, Madeline ignored it. She went right on.

  “But I was able to put two and two together. About the ghosts, I mean. That’s why I went to the clinic in the first place, to talk to Hilton about ghosts.”

  Dan’s eyes gleamed. “You really do communicate with the dead. You’ve seen Maddy. You’ve talked to her!”

  Sensitive guy that he is, Dan realized talking about his dead wife might not be the politically correct thing to do when the sheets were still hot. He scrambled for an apology that Madeline didn’t give him time to deliver.

  “It’s OK.” Her voice more cloying than mine had ever been, she closed in on him. “I understand, Danny, I really do. From everything I’ve heard about her, I know Madeline was a truly remarkable woman.” How she got this out without gagging, I don’t know, and just so she didn’t think she was getting away with anything, I opened my mouth, poked a finger toward my throat, and made a choking sound. She shot me a look before she turned her attention back to Dan.

  “From everything I’ve heard about her . . .” She took Dan’s hands in hers. “I know she was kind and giving and caring. I understand how impossible it must be for you to forget her. Just as I understand that what we had here . . . well, sex is just sex, isn’t it? And a man has needs. I’m a realist, I never thought it was any more than that. Don’t worry, Danny, I’m not expecting more from you in the way of commitment or caring.”

  “You’re not?” Dan looked at Madeline closely. “I never thought you were—”

  “That understanding? Oh please, darling!” She briefly skimmed a finger along his cheek before she headed over to the mirror to check her hair.

  And watching her, Dan whispered below his breath. “That shallow.”

  “See?” I followed Madeline and pointed back toward where Dan stood watching her, his eyes narrowed. “Did you hear that? He expected more from me than wham, bam, thank you, ma’am. He knows I’m not that much of a loser.”

  Madeline stopped in her tracks. When she turned back to Dan, she had a smile firmly in place. “I hope you don’t think I’m that much of a loser.” I wondered how she’d learned so quickly to turn on the waterworks at just the right time. A single tear slipped down her cheek, and she sniffed. “I just want you to know that I understand how I could never take Madeline’s place in your heart. I’ve come to grips with that. I’m at peace with it. She was your soul mate. I can never be half the woman she was.”

  Dan drew in a breath. “You’re right, of course. I mean, about the soul mate thing, not about how I feel about you.” He waited for her to smile before he glanced at the bed and continued. “I never would have . . . I mean, we never would have . . . I mean, what happened last night, it never would have happened if I didn’t have feelings for you.”

  “I knew it!” I punched a fist in the air.

  Madeline pretended not to hear me. “That’s so sweet.” She kissed Dan’s cheek, and in the kind of blatant attempt at flattery I had never needed and never would have stooped to, she touched a hand to his sleeve and batted her eyelashes before she grabbed the coat I’d worn into the room the night before. “Now let’s get back to Chicago.”

  For a second, Dan stared at her. When she just twinkled back (it was not a pretty picture), he waved a hand in front of her face. “It’s the drugs, right? That’s got to be it. Have you forgotten what you said last night? You wanted to call the cops. You wanted to march back to that hospital yourself. Last night you said—”

  “Of course!” Not a chance Madeline had any idea what he was talking about; she hadn’t been in the room when Dan and I discussed going to the authorities the night before. Still, she recovered in a heartbeat and covered even faster. “I would have said that! I’m such a feisty thing. That’s why they call me Pepper, you know.” She was going for a brilliant smile. Instead, it looked as if she’d bitten into a lemon. Hell, I could have done better, and I was incorporeal. “It’s this crazy, peppery personality of mine.”

  I rolled my eyes.

  Madeline looked the other way.

  Dan just looked confused.

  He put on his shirt and pulled a bulky Aran knit sweater over his head. “I told you I wanted to talk to Hilton this morning,” he explained, giving her the benefit of the doubt (which he shouldn’t have done since she was a lying sack of crap, but of course, he didn’t know that). He grabbed his own lightweight jacket and slipped it on. “And you said you had a list of the names of the missing patients. It would really help me to have that kind of ammunition when I talk to him. You’ve got it with you?”

  Pardon me for pointing out that I had another chance to gloat. Madeline was shocked to hear about the list. Oh yeah, I could tell she was plenty surprised, all right. But once a liar, always a liar, and she went right on pulling the wool over Dan’s eyes. She patted down her pockets. “Silly me, I left the list back at the hotel. But let’s not worry about that. What we really need to do, Danny honey, is get out of here. Fast.”

  As if it could help him better see the logic
of her argument, he slipped on his glasses. “So last night you wanted to go after Hilton with both barrels, and today you want to forget the whole thing? Those drugs have really messed up your mind. I’m going to get over to the hospital. And you—”

  “No way in hell you’re leaving here without me.” I’d stepped forward and voiced my opinion before I had a chance to think, and the next second, I cursed myself. I should have let Madeline hang out to dry. This way, she knew exactly what she should say. Never one to let an opportunity pass, she threw back her shoulders and lifted her chin.

  “I’m going with you to talk to Hilton,” she said.

  “That’s my girl. I knew you would.” Dan gave her a kiss. When he was done, he looked at her hard. “Are you all right?” he asked.

  Madeline being Madeline, she couldn’t imagine that she wasn’t always all right. She wrinkled her nose and tipped her head. “All right? Why wouldn’t I be?”

  He stepped back. “I dunno. It’s just that . . .” Uncomfortable, he laughed. “It just feels different, kissing you now than it did kissing you last night. It’s as if you’ve changed.”

  Madeline smiled. She wrapped an arm through his. “Of course I’m not the same,” she said. “Everything’s different today. Everything’s changed, Danny.”

  It was enough to satisfy him, and really, how could I blame him for giving in so easily? Dan might be into the whole woo-woo scene, but something told me even he couldn’t imagine the body-changing scenario that had played out right in front of his eyes.

  This time when he laughed, it was without reservations. “You’re right.” He wrapped an arm around Madeline’s shoulders. “Everything has changed. It’s like the world has opened up for me again. And you know what’s weird, Pepper, it’s like Madeline had something to do with it all.” Dan went around the room, turning out lights and tossing our McDonald’s bags. “Wherever Madeline is,” he said, “I finally know she’s at peace. See, you may not realize it, but you used his first name. Hilton Gerard’s. You didn’t call him Doctor Gerard, you called him Hilton, just like Madeline always did. And you called me Danny. Even my mom never did that. Madeline was the one and only person who ever called me Danny.”

  Oblivious to the truth staring him in the face, Dan unlocked the door and stepped into the frigid morning sunshine. “Before we get over to the hospital, we should probably stop somewhere so you can replace that ripped sweater of yours.”

  Madeline followed Dan outside. “That will be fine.”

  He headed over to the car. “I’m afraid the only close store is a Wal-Mart,” he said, an apology in his voice.

  Madeline nodded. “Like I said, that’s fine.”

  “Fine?” Laughing, Dan stopped just as he was about to open the car door. “Boy, you weren’t kidding when you said you changed last night. No way the Pepper Martin I know would agree to go clothes shopping at Wal-Mart.”

  He was still laughing when he held the door open for Madeline and she got into the car.

  Me? I wasn’t laughing at all. Firmly ignoring the pissed look on Madeline’s face, I climbed into the backseat.

  Wal-Mart or no Wal-Mart, I’d be damned if they were going anywhere without me.

  17

  As it turned out, Hilton Gerard had split for Chicago long before we got back to the Gerard Hospital for the Insane and Mentally Feeble.

  Too bad.

  I was spitting mad and in the mood to give the good doctor a piece of my mind. Don’t ask me how I was planning to do this (being invisible and all), but I sure would have liked to have had the opportunity.

  The way it was, Dan thanked the receptionist who turned us away in that locked-down lobby, and when we were back in the parking lot, he held the front car door open so Madeline could get in. I knew nobody was going to bother to open the back door, so I slipped in ahead of her, and maybe it was a good thing I was invisible, at least for that moment. Me in my dorky black skirt climbing over the seat so I could ride in the back . . . well, it was just as well Dan couldn’t see.

  He came around to the other side of the car, got behind the wheel, and turned the key in the ignition before he reached across the seat and patted Madeline’s hand. “There are plenty of people who wouldn’t have had the nerve to walk back into that place. Not after what you went through. And you—”

  “I just kept my chin up and put on a brave face.”

  From the seat behind her, I snarled. “That’s because you don’t know what really happened in there.”

  “That’s because I’m peppery.” Madeline giggled.

  Dan smiled, too. “I’ll say. And now—”

  “Now we can get back to the city.” She stretched, closed her eyes, and made herself comfortable. Not exactly an easy thing to do in Dan’s Honda Civic Hybrid, but then, Madeline didn’t have my exacting standards.

  “You’re sure?”

  If she’d been paying attention, she would have noticed Dan’s quizzical expression. She popped open one eye. “Sure? Why wouldn’t I be? You tried to talk to Hilton. It didn’t work. There’s nothing to be gained from belaboring the point.”

  “And the cops?”

  “Oh.” Madeline sat up. While she thought of a way to talk herself out of her little faux pas, she played with the climate control buttons on the dashboard. When she had the heat turned down to a temperature I never would have tolerated and the blower going strong enough to muss her hair, she gave Dan a sidelong look. “I think we need more evidence. And I think we’re only going to find that back in the city.”

  “Like that list of names you said you had. The missing patients.”

  “That’s right, Danny.” In a move designed to distract him, she skimmed a hand along his thigh.

  “Oh, come on, Madeline! He’s never going to fall for that,” I wailed, at the same time Dan purred like a cat with its whiskers in a bowl of cream.

  The smile Madeline shot me said it all.

  I was up Shit Creek without a paddle.

  And getting in deeper every moment.

  I needed a plan and I needed one bad, but instead of coming up with one, I sat in the backseat like a lump and worried and panicked my way back to Chicago.

  Of course, there’s only so much worrying and panicking a person can do. Even a person without a body. Did that stop me? Hell, no. Because I didn’t know what else to do, I worried and panicked my way into the hotel on Madeline and Dan’s heels, and I’d just about convinced myself that all that worrying and all that panicking was getting me nowhere when Doris from Detroit stepped off the elevator.

  There was so much honest relief on Doris’s face and in the mammoth hug she gave Madeline, even I got teary-eyed. She let go of the woman she thought was me and stepped back to give her a once-over. “Oh my gosh, Penelope. We were so concerned! Where have you been? What happened? Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine. Of course I’m fine.” Madeline had slipped out of Dan’s parka the moment they were through the hotel’s revolving door, and she tugged nervously at the new white polyester blouse she’d paired with a calf-length polyester blend skirt printed with black fern leaves on a taupe background.

  As if.

  I pulled my gaze from the offending clothing so I could watch the little drama unfolding before me.

  “Well, you look...” Doris checked out Madeline again. As long as Madeline was at Wal-Mart using my MasterCard with wild abandon (where—it should come as no surprise—none of my credit cards had ever been used before), she’d tossed in a pair of thick-soled black shoes with low heels, dark stockings, and one of those black cotton cardigans the middle-aged and the tres unchic insist on wearing—the kind with stubby wooden buttons and sleeves that have to be rolled up so they don’t stretch beyond the length of the wearer’s hands.

  “You look different,” Doris said.

  I can’t explain how much this cheered me. I whooped and yelled, “You got that right,” and I was about to slap Doris a high five when Madeline turned and aimed a sneer in my dir
ection—just to remind me I was wasting my time.

  She looked plenty frickin’ smug when she grabbed Dan’s hand and turned back to Doris. “You’re absolutely right,” she cooed, and damn, but if there was ever a clue that this Pepper wasn’t the Pepper that Doris and Dan knew, this should have been it. Even on my worst days, I’ve never sounded that corny. “As of today, everything is different. My life is different. I am different. No more self-centered egotist. No more airhead. No more—”

  Doris’s laugh cut her short. “Like you’re any of those things!” She glanced from Madeline to Dan before she leaned in close and lowered her voice so Dan couldn’t hear. “You are all right, though, aren’t you? This guy isn’t bothering you? He isn’t—”

  “Don’t be silly!” When Madeline giggled, it set my teeth on edge. “This is my Danny.”