Gavin yelling, too . . .
Then Wendy’s gaze looking around her new room with its new furniture. This room. A new place that made her feel safe . . .
By the time the last image faded away, I realized that Wendy had sensed that something was wrong around her now, and her thoughts had turned to questions.
What’s going on?
Why is it so cold?
I scrambled to distract her, and out of sheer panic, I did something really stupid.
You know how there’re some babysitters who give a crying kid booze from Ma and Pa’s liquor cabinet just to quiet him down?
Without thinking, I did the ghost equivalent of that, pressing more of my essence against Wendy’s cheek, intensifying the contact. It was almost like I was reaching past her skin and into her face, putting my energy into something that would mellow her out for now.
I started to think of something relaxing to get her mind off my presence.
Hallucinations, right? The beach. That would do it.
I wasn’t so sure what happened next.
I started to sink into her, tumbling, going past the act of just giving her a few light images to enjoy. Somehow I became a part of Wendy, feeling her experiences and her thoughts, as the room itself filled with . . .
Waves, washing up to our feet, lapping at them before the water retreats. A blue sky and warm sun take the place of the bedroom ceiling, sand covering the floor.
As the roar of the ocean calls out, we smell salt, feel its heaviness on our skin. Our heart thuds even as everything around us makes us think of summer vacation.
Waves pounding, hissing away from the shore until another comes to take its place . . . God, we miss summer. It’d meant we didn’t have to go to school, with all those assholes calling us a bore and an arty farty.
A seagull flies overhead, skimming the ceiling.
We bend down, digging our hand into the sand, coming up with a fistful and letting it sift away, blown by a coastal wind. . . .
When I strained out of Wendy’s conscious with a jarring pop, the room was back to normal—comic book art, school uniform hanging on the closet, girl sitting on the couch with an open mouth and wide, unfocused eyes. She was shivering, like my touch had caused a freeze in her.
Around me, there was no more beach. I definitely wasn’t in Wendy’s head anymore as I hovered nearby, my essence rushing back together as I became me again.
That had been more than weird. I’d known that I wanted to show her the beach, but I hadn’t been thinking about the images, just experiencing them as they came. And I hadn’t taken over Wendy’s body so much as . . .
What? Had I mind-melded with her? Become a part of what was going on inside her head even as those beach images played out in front of her in this very room? Because that’s what hallucinations are, right? Mirages?
It sure hadn’t been like using empathy, where I was fully in control while I watched what was going on in her head. With hallucinations, only a small part of me had been aware that I still existed while I’d been in her head. I had been implanted in there, experiencing the water, sand, and sun as they appeared in this room.
That’s right. I had experienced everything, right along with Wendy. . . .
She rubbed her arms, blinked her eyes, like she was only now recovering from what I’d created for her. She’d thought it was real. Her breathing was even beach-day smooth and peaceful until it starting speeding up as reality hit her.
Bafflement took over her face while she sat up and rapidly glanced around the room.
Damn, when would I get the hang of “subtle”?
Her gaze landed on me. Almost like . . . No, she couldn’t see me. Or, more to the point, she didn’t get a look on her face that confirmed she did. There was only a bewildered expression there.
She was off the couch before I could inch too far back. Swiveling her gaze around the room some more, she crossed her arms over her chest, trembling.
“Hello?”
I hovered, waiting.
“Hello?” she said with more force this time, like she was half afraid and half exhilarated at the possibility of something in her room, messing with her mind.
Her gaze landed on the bed, on her phone. She made a dive for the device, but I didn’t whoosh to the door and confirm everything she was probably thinking with a huge show of my ghostliness.
I would just creep out of here, saving the big tricks for another day when Gavin was around.
So I stayed in place, rising to the ceiling as I’d done with Gavin, hoping I could hide in plain sight until she lost interest.
But then she aimed the phone toward me, just like she could feel where my coldness was coming from, and a camera-type flash blinded me.
Too late, I remembered that Amanda Lee had once mentioned that there were cameras on these new phones.
Wendy was already taking more pictures by the time I decided to cut my losses and scram, zipping down to the door and underneath it, then out of the mansion, fearing I’d already screwed up the haunting and all those higher ideals about justice that had been filling me with a purpose.
Without much of one now, I figured there was really only one place I belonged. One place that could offer me a sort of warped comfort while I figured out what to do next.
And that place sure as hell wasn’t back at Amanda Lee’s.
8
Elfin Forest by day sure was a lot different than it was at night.
I had landed away from my death spot, and I supposed the woods looked like a lot of others in SoCal during spring: a thrust of green bursting out, pygmy oaks coming alive with their long, thick branches winding over the ground and then up into the air. They were almost like fingers of smoke that writhed and nearly entangled with each other in a still dance.
Power from being close to my death spot hummed through me, and I started feeling less pessimistic than I had felt back at the Edgett mansion. Then again, I wasn’t all that optimistic, either, since I didn’t seem to be nailing all this haunting stuff as well as I should’ve been.
But maybe that was the former A student in me—the one who’d wanted to be an anthropologist before my parents’ deaths had sent me reeling.
Why an anthropologist? Well, because I’d seen Raiders of the Lost Ark like everyone else, and archaeology required too many science classes, so I’d adjusted my goals slightly.
Practical, if not a little romantic.
I wandered among the gnarled branches, pulled toward my death spot. And when I saw one branch that dipped into a U just like a Mother Nature–made chair, I vaguely remembered it from the worst night of my life.
Why? Had I run past it as I fled from my killer and the sight branded itself into my psyche? I didn’t know, but as I moved closer, a turbo-humming sensation blasted through me.
I reached out to run my hand just over the bark—I couldn’t actually touch it—and the answer to why this branch was giving me the electric willies seemed closer than ever, just as out of reach as that tree was.
I kept trailing my fingers over the bark, and as I came to the dip in the branch—
A jagged screech of imagery assaulted me: darkness, a pale face—
Then, as quickly as it’d jarred me, it was gone, yanked away from memory.
I didn’t move for a second, even though my essence was still in the middle of a tug-of-war between this spot and my death place.
What I’d seen . . . God, it hadn’t looked like a real face. But I couldn’t hold on to enough details about it to be sure. I only had a wispy feeling of adrenaline-to-the-heart terror, as if faces like that shouldn’t exist in real life.
Unnerved, I floated away, allowing that pulling sensation to take me right to my death spot. I hadn’t visited the forest since Amanda Lee had rescued me from it, so I hadn’t been able to investigate my own murder yet. But as I skimmed along the leaf-strewn ground, that disturbing big-time humming feeling increased, got louder, making me shake. Making me think I should’v
e come back here way before now.
Then there I was—Death Central.
The noise and the trembling suddenly stopped. Was it because this was where everything had stopped for me? It was almost like I was hovering over a hole that wanted to suck me in, keeping me here in a silent, dark embrace. Already my senses were getting hazy with a mixture of dread and confusion . . . and comfort.
But when I bent to get closer to the ground on which I’d died, that sharp screaming sensation I’d felt before lanced me one last time, like a final, humming cut.
A flash of pale, withered face, so awful that—
A big black wall slammed down in my head, dividing me from that face, like I didn’t want to remember.
But I did want. I had to want!
I slumped the rest of the way to the ground, lying there for a while as time passed and the sun tumbled from morning to afternoon. All the while, death energy enveloped me. A pure energy—not the kind I got from batteries.
It was almost like granola versus Froot Loops. Both would keep you going, but one was better for you than the other.
Eventually, I heard footsteps shuffling through the leaves, but I didn’t move. A casual hiker or nature lover wouldn’t see me anyway. Then I heard a familiar voice.
“I had a feeling I might find you here.”
Amanda Lee.
I still didn’t stir. It was just so cozy here, but only cozy in the way your bed feels on days when you’re too depressed to get out of it.
She spoke again. “I kept thinking you would return to the casita, and when you didn’t, I began to worry. This was the first place I checked.”
I turned my head to glance at her. A tall woman in laced-up dark boots and a Southwest-patterned skirt and a red silk blouse, her auburn hair pinned back from her face to feature those gray streaks curving near her high cheekbones. Her gray eyes showed me she wasn’t lying about being worried.
“You were checking in on me?” I asked. “Couldn’t you just look at your bulletin board if you wanted to get a load of me?”
Amanda Lee folded her hands. “I didn’t mean for you to see my war room.”
“If you’re expecting me to say sorry for spying on you, sure, I’ll do it.” I sat up. “But I didn’t go there to spy.”
“You don’t have to apologize.” She found a seat of sorts on a thick, level oak branch that stuck out from the trunk, but she tested its weight before she gingerly rested on it. “I like my privacy, even if we’re partners.”
“I’m not sure that’s the word for us. Partners don’t use tricks to put each other at a distance. That’s what the salt around your windows and your chimney was for, wasn’t it? Shutting me out?”
She shook her head. “That was nothing personal. I’ve been barring spirits from my home for years.”
Still. “I’m just going to lay it out, Amanda Lee. I can’t work with you if you keep secrets in general, and the first one I want to know is what’s going on with those bulletin boards.”
Her shoulders lost a bit of their tension, like she was relieved that I hadn’t asked about the ring she’d been longingly gazing at while sitting on her bed in her nightgown. Maybe she thought I hadn’t seen that part. Or maybe she thought I had already gotten the idea that it was from her dead husband.
“The bulletin board with your picture,” she said, “is a collection of your data—articles published after your death and reports that a private investigator gave to me. I told you before that I had been looking into your life and death, trying to contact you because I wanted to help you.”
“You wanted to do more than that,” I said, referring to her other agenda.
“True. But I’m not lying when I tell you that I also want to solve your murder. I merely have . . . priorities.”
Fair enough. “And the other bulletin boards on the wall?”
She didn’t even hesitate. “I studied those victims before you. I used the same private investigator friend who’s been looking into the Edgetts. I’ve consulted on some of his cases in the past when he’s stuck. But I’m here to tell you that I’ve never been successful in making contact with those other people on the boards.”
“So why keep their information posted?”
She seemed baffled at the question. “Why? Because dismantling their boards would be the same as dismantling them. They had suspicious deaths, just like you, and . . .”
Oh my God. I knew what she was going to say before she said it.
“You’re thinking of using me to solve their murders, too?” I asked. “And maybe to haunt their killers when we’re done with Elizabeth and before my tether is broken?”
“The idea had crossed my mind.”
Hell. Amanda Lee had ambitions, didn’t she? Her husband’s death had given her some major purpose, scarred her, maybe even resurrected her into a different justice-seeking crusader. Like the Wonder Woman of dead people.
I could’ve been deeply offended that Amanda Lee had manipulated me, the only ghost she’d ever fully connected to. She’d dragged me into her mission.
But I couldn’t muster up the outrage when I understood her so well.
“You’re a real piece of work,” I said.
She was running a thumb over her wedding ring finger, like she was touching a phantom piece of shining jewelry.
“You know the reason I am what I am,” she whispered.
I looked at the fractured woman in front of me. It was all in her eyes as she stared into the distance, as if seeing her Michael standing there, always with her.
I could feel myself pulled closer to her, even if I wasn’t willing myself to move anywhere.
“Do you ever see him?” I asked.
“No.”
That was probably a good thing, because when I’d seen my Dean . . . Well, trouble. It had ensued.
She glanced down at her ring finger. “I’m afraid this case is making me maudlin. I was never like that before. Believe it or not, I used to be a social butterfly, happy. I used to have a lot of friends, back when I was young.”
“Before Michael died?”
“Actually, before I began . . .” She motioned to her eyes, but I knew she meant the second sight. “It kicked in when I was twelve, and I began to withdraw from all my friends. They didn’t understand why, and I never told them. The sight made me too different. I couldn’t relate to anyone normal anymore. But at college, I met . . .”
“Michael. And he didn’t care?”
She shook her head, pursing her lips, and I could tell she was on the edge of crying.
So I shut up. And since she’d explained that ring I’d seen on her finger without my having to ask her, my trust in her shot up about five degrees from zero.
“You’ll tell me everything from now on?” I asked after a decent amount of time had passed and she had gathered herself back up.
A faint smile made her gaze go soft. “As much as you need to know. A woman always has secrets. You should realize that.”
Gulp. Had she caught on to the way Gavin piqued my interest in ways he shouldn’t be poking?
No, she wouldn’t still be smiling at me if she knew.
Sniffing, dabbing at her eyes, Amanda Lee stood. “Is the air cleared between us now?”
“Sure.” I was more than willing to give this another chance. There was too much at stake for the both of us.
She seemed appreciative of that, and I was pretty certain that if she could’ve given me a sisterhood hug, she would’ve done it.
“So you had a day off from me,” she said instead.
“Just like Ferris Bueller.”
She laughed a bit.
Actually, I hadn’t seen that movie when I was alive. I’d found it on the TV after settling into the casita, curious about what’d happened in the ’eighties after I’d left it. Ferris was way cool, and surely he was still cool in this day and age.
“Anyway,” I said, “the most important thing for you to know is that I didn’t take a day off from Elizabeth
’s case. I think I made progress with Gavin.”
Amanda Lee’s smile erased any of the lingering sadness. “What sort of progress?”
Ghostly whispers, orange blossom perfume, Gavin getting his gun . . . I spilled all of it, even the part where I pushed matters a bit too far and entered Gavin’s mind.
“I wasn’t going to do that so early,” I said. “It just . . .”
“Happened? If it was successful, then I would say it doesn’t matter.”
Hey—she wasn’t put off by my inexperienced phantom fumbling. Cool.
Amanda Lee strolled over to my death spot since I had floated away from it to get closer to her. As she looked down at the patch of nondescript ground, it was almost like she was standing over my real body.
I rose from the dirt. “There’s a bunch more to tell you. There’s this other ghost I met—”
She turned to me, lifting those eyebrows.
“Oh, don’t worry,” I said. “He was a good ghost, a kid from the ’forties.”
“Really?” Fascinated now.
“Yeah. He told me all sorts of ghost tips, gave me pointers on how to empathize with humans and . . . Did you know that I can cause hallucinations?”
Fascination times a thousand. She looked delighted.
“That makes perfect sense,” she said. “That’s why haunted people see horrific images—because you can make them.”
“If I can get the hang of it.” I shrugged. “I went back to the Edgett mansion this morning to try some of that ghost stuff out, but Gavin wasn’t home.”
“Last night’s haunted activity chased him off?”
“Not really. He just went to work, wherever that is.”
“La Jolla. His office is on Prospect Street.”
She was all over it, as usual. “Good to know. But today, I thought that it might be smart to comb the mansion for any clues, or at least to get to know my subjects, right? So I hung around. I studied Wendy, mostly, you know, just in case I do the poltergeist thing.”
“Wise move.”
I felt like she’d stuck a gold-star sticker on my bulletin board.
“Wendy’s got some anger for sure,” I said. “So it isn’t out of the realm of possibility that she’d be frustrated enough to psychokinetically throw around some furniture in the near future—especially in Gavin’s room. She’s pissed that he’s not home enough, just like their dad, who pretty much abandoned them.”
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