Every Breath You Take

by Chris Marie Green

  The leaves hanging from the nearby trees rattled, making other people at the tables glance up. A few seconds later, they went back to their coffees and phone screens. I was pretty sure that these days, it’d take a freakin’ Godzilla attack to get a rise out of modern people, and even then, they’d sit there and take pictures of the monster trying to eat them so they could post the first comment on social media.

  “Well,” Wendy said, pulling her gaze away from the leaves and not commenting on my temper as she sat up. She left behind the drama and focused on shutting her sketch pad with purpose, and tucked it into the crook of her arm. “That’s that, then. Off we go.”

  Scott cocked an eyebrow. “Where?”

  “Home, to my computer. Admit it: I can help. I rock at helping.”

  I tried not to look guilty for coming here just for that purpose. Scott was no dipwad, though.

  He lasered in on me. “You were gonna pull her into this mess even though it has nothing to do with her?”

  “Amanda Lee suggested it, too.” What did they call that these days—throwing someone under the bus? Sad, but true.

  “See?” Wendy said. “Other people know I rock, too. They actually trust me to be awesome. Let’s go.”

  She “shut off” her phone, scooped up her empty coffee cup, then marched off, tossing her trash in a can along the way.

  Scott flew in front of me. “She’s not a cleaner, Jen.”

  “What—does she need a license or something? She knows her ghost stuff. She’s been studying up with Eileen, and also that shamanistic healer in that online class.” Going to school on a computer sounded way too weird but . . . whatever.

  “What is it about you that gets everyone into trouble?”

  He took off after Wendy, leaving me to consider that. Ghosts could be so bitchy. I mean, didn’t Scott used to love having fun by tweaking bad people and bringing them to justice? I knew he had an emotional investment in Wendy now, but jeez.

  I shot off after them, in kind of a pissy state myself. It was like the dark spirit had left me in the bad mood to end all bad moods, and I wasn’t about to let Scott’s comment drop.

  “Get back here,” I said to him, catching up as Wendy power-walked onto a path that wound through her condo complex’s gardens.

  He zoomed around like a hot rod, no doubt knowing it was making me angrier. I accelerated, too, chasing him until I cornered him by a Greek statue—a chick with her boobs hanging out of her robes.

  “Should I remind you that you were only too stoked to sign on with me during Elizabeth Dalton’s case?” I asked.

  He bobbed in the air. “That was then. Now I just wish you wouldn’t involve Wendy anymore.”

  Ha! I was right. “Why, Scotty, are you getting a little possessive? Are you, as a greaser might say, on the hook for her?”

  Wendy spoke from ahead. “Can you guys please embarrass me more?”

  “Sorry about that, Wen.” Scott shot me the look of Volcano Heat Death, and took off to her.

  We made it through the gardens without any more sparring, then went around to the front of Wendy’s massive, Italian villa–like condo to see her through the front door. We followed to her room, keeping our distance when she sat at the desk, typing on her small computer like a maniac. Around her, prints of comic-book art reigned, competing with her princess furniture.

  Scott kept his gaze on the window, ready for any trouble.

  “While we’re at this, Jen,” Wendy said as she did her thing, “are you still having problems with that other spirit?”

  Fake Dean. “No.”

  “You’re sure he has no part in those blondes haunting you? Because what if he and the dark spirit have joined forces against you?”

  I had to say that, in the back of my mind, the notion had surfaced. But fake Dean had never wanted to scare me like this. In fact, whenever I told him about the dark spirit, he’d seemed to coil up with tension, like he wanted to do something about him.

  “Fake Dean’s gone,” I said. On to the next subject, please. “When it rains it pours, though. Besides this haunting, Amanda Lee’s been dealing with a ghost-hunting team in Elfin Forest who wanted to get to the bottom of my death. But she put an end to their investigation in a snap by giving them an alternate version of my story. A false version.”

  Wendy stopped typing. “Ghost hunters?”

  She didn’t seem to notice the part about Amanda Lee lying about me. Wendy had some issues with that, too.

  “Yeah,” I said. “They have an Internet show. Spirit Stalkers.”

  “OMG.” She stood. “Seriously? Spirit Stalkers?”

  “Looks like someone’s a fan.”

  “Um, yeah. J.J.’s only totally hot.” She glanced at Scott, stifled a nervous giggle, then sat down. Her hair fell over her face, and she didn’t push it back.

  Scott floated next to me, crossing his arms as he kept watch at the window. But he was totally listening for more J.J. comments.

  “Anyway,” Wendy said from behind her hair, “Sierra Darque is the empress of cool.”

  “There’s a third girl on the team. She does the camera.”

  “I never remember her name, but . . . Sierra and J.J. for-evah!” She typed one more thing, and from across the room, I could barely see that she’d brought up a text screen. “Do you think the dark spirit was drawn because the Stalkers were stirring up your memory in Elfin Forest?”

  “It’s possible.”

  “I only say that because malevolent spirits are attracted to negativity, like the kind of bad death you had. I hope you don’t mind that I’m texting Eileen to tell her the situation.”

  Scott asked, “Didn’t Eileen say that she’s not knowledgeable enough as a cleaner to handle Jen’s problems?”

  “That was with fake Dean,” Wendy said. “She recommended going to more experienced people, like the church.”

  Or like a higher, benevolent being that was more powerful than the fake Dean spirit I had been dealing with. But I didn’t know any purely positive, superpowerful spirits. Besides, even with all the hocus-pocus fake Dean liked to do, I wasn’t entirely sure he was that bad. Then again, was he that good, either?

  “Okay,” Wendy said. “While we’re waiting to see if Eileen answers, let’s put our heads together. We know the dark spirit isn’t a demon, right? Demons were never human, and your killer was. He’s definitely just a malevolent spirit.”

  Scott and I waited for more.

  Wendy was surfing around the Internet like her hands had a life of their own. “You don’t have to tell me that Amanda Lee smudged every corner of her property already. That’ll keep the spirit away for a little bit, but it won’t last that long. Your jerk is gonna return when the energies that come from the ritual wear off.”

  “She was going to look into something more long-term,” I said.

  “How about orgonite?” Wendy asked, turning her snowy screen toward us. “I just learned about it a week ago.”

  On the computer, there was a picture of a pyramid layered with wild and crazy colors. It reminded me of a trippy seventies album cover.

  “What’s that?” I asked.

  “Well, do you know what Reiki energy is?”

  Scott and I shook our heads.

  “How about prana?”

  Nope to that, too.

  “Jensen,” she said, “you lived in SoCal during the eighties and you never soothed your prana while you did yoga?”

  I pointed to myself. “Beach rat here. Gnarly waves and volleyball had nothing to do with prana or whatever.”

  “And I thought you were supposed to be the granola generation.”

  “And I thought that Madonna would stay young forever and that Boingo would never drop the Oingo from their band name. We’re both wrong.”

  Before she could ask what an Oingo Boingo was—s
acrilege!—she pulled the computer screen toward her again.

  “To make a long explanation short,” she said, “orgonite is composed of what they call catalyzed fiberglass resin and nonorganic metal shavings. They’re put together in, say, a pyramid shape. A quartz crystal goes into the middle, and all of that acts like an antenna that absorbs negative energy and clears it out of the area.”

  “The kind of energy that makes up a bad spirit?” I asked.

  “That’s what I’ve heard.”

  “So, it’s like Ghostbusters.” The flick had come out after I’d died, so I’d had to catch it on Amanda Lee’s TV. “Orgonite is like that trap they used to contain the ghosts they were hunting?”

  “Not really, but . . .” Wendy rolled her eyes, as if she didn’t feel like explaining anymore. “I guess that’s close enough.”

  “That’s boss!” Scott said. “I say you make some of those things to put in this house and Amanda Lee’s.”

  It was a start, but we needed a plan B. And C. And Z. This spirit was too persistent, and who knew what else he’d learned out there?

  “I’ll call Amanda Lee about it,” Wendy said. “I’m sure she knows about orgonite already, but it wouldn’t hurt to see for sure. She can also use good-luck items like horseshoes and cinnamon sticks posted above the door to keep her houses clean. There’re also bad smells and energy machines that some cleaners use, but Eileen can guide me more on that.”

  “But those objects would just ward off the spirit, right?” I said. “We need to know how to send this one back to where it came from through a portal. It sounds like the orgonite wouldn’t do that, because Amanda Lee herself needs to be the instrument that banishes him.” Fake Dean had actually offered that handy hint to me, and, for better or worse, I believed him. Call it female intuition.

  “Told you: I’ve got this.” Wendy sent us a confident smile and went back to typing away on her keyboard and waiting for Eileen to return the text.

  “You just watch,” Scott muttered to me. “When this is all over, we’re gonna end up with an exorcist in our faces.”

  And once we invited one into our midst, would he want to make us decent ghosts go away, too?

  “If an exorcist can coach Amanda Lee on how to banish my creep,” I said, “then I might not mind.”

  Cocky words. But I’d never imagined this nightmare that was happening. I was prepared to go to just about any lengths to get rid of my tormentor.

  The sound of a travel tunnel blasted through the air from outside, and when I flew to the window, I was just in time to see a pink circle behind . . .

  Louis?

  Even if we were inside, Scott and I started to harden our arms into weapons, but Louis was ready.

  He held up his hands outside the window, his dark-skinned glow at a gray ebb. “It’s me!” he said, muffled by the glass.

  “That’s what Randy wanted Jensen to think earlier,” Scott yelled.

  I yearned for this spirit to be Louis so badly, and my mind searched for a way to be sure. Then inspiration struck on a huge duh.

  “How many kids did you have in life?” I shouted, hoping that a ghost’s stolen essence didn’t come with any kind of memory. But since my killer hadn’t been able to correctly imitate Randy’s speech patterns, I thought this might work.

  Louis seemed taken aback for a sec, but then he got it.

  “Three. Jacob, Martin, and Rebecca. My wife was named Cynthia, and—”

  “Okay,” I called, relaxing a little. But only a little.

  Louis stayed hovering outside, and I could feel Wendy just behind me and Scott, peering out at what the new excitement was about.

  Louis floated closer to the window. “I’ve looked for you everywhere.”

  Was I that predictable that he’d found me here? Time to vary my routine.

  He added, “I know I’m not the most welcome person around right now—Twyla made that clear when I dropped by Amanda Lee’s earlier. But she did mention some ghost hunters in Elfin Forest and how they’re trying to exploit your death. So I went there, following them around, seeing if I could help you all out in any small way.”

  Something inside me sank. The last thing I wanted was to make Louis feel like an outsider. He’d had enough of that in life, being shut out of the military because of a heart condition and generally shifted aside because of his skin color. I couldn’t add to that.

  He kept his voice raised. “The hunters detected some wicked energy on the opposite side of the woods from where you died, Jensen. Something—a voice from an intelligent spirit—was caught on one of their recordings, and it’s trying to communicate with them.”

  “About what?” Gooseflesh rolled over my phantom arms . . .

  Louis paused, then came out with it. “It sounds like the spirit’s trying to tell them how you really died.”

  8

  Louis didn’t have to elaborate.

  “My killer’s the one on that recording,” I whispered.

  Had the dark spirit been lurking around Amanda Lee and me when we’d been talking about how we were going to keep my death private from the ghost hunters? Had my murderer figured out that by revising my story into one where I wasn’t a victim, I was giving myself the opportunity to feel like less of a victim someday?

  This was just another way for him to harass me, to take power away from me and devour that, too.

  “Jensen,” Louis called, his travel tunnel still open in back of him, “I’m not sure if it’s your killer giving them the information.”

  Cautious as always. This was definitely Louis I was talking to. “Who else would it be?”

  “Maybe you need to hear the recording, then decide.”

  “You know what his voice sounds like. Was it him?”

  He had a sorrowful cast to his gaze, like he was remembering the day when my dark spirit had taken a slice of his essence. “The recording made whoever it was sound warped.”

  “He is warped.” I turned to Scott and Wendy. “Louis is right. I need to hear this for myself because I’ll know his voice.” It’d been in my nightmares for a long time.

  Scott shook his head. “Not that I don’t trust Louis . . .” He sent a sorry-man glance to him outside. “But I don’t all-the-way trust him. What if this is a setup, Jen? What if your killer’s trying to get you back to the forest so he can trap you in some way?”

  “Yeah,” Wendy said. “What if he’s watched a ton of torture porn, and since he missed his chance to do terrible things to you before he killed you, he’s bent on doing it now . . . ?”

  She stopped herself. I didn’t have to ask what torture porn was. I could guess that I’d barely escaped it myself the night he’d killed me, but the girls who’d come after me hadn’t. And I was sure all bad spirits had their own version of it.

  Louis’ tone was resigned. “They do have a point. What if I’m not who I say I am and I’m taking you to a hellhole I’ve designed, just to feed off your fright until there’s no more left in you?”

  “You’re asking me to doubt you?” I chuffed. “Why would I do that when you were able to answer those personal questions?”

  “But what if?” he asked.

  He only wanted me to be more careful. But it’d be just like my killer to play this sort of mind game. And even though I was pretty sure Louis was Louis, my thoughts scurried around in my head like they were caught in a black-webbed maze with no way out.

  A verse from a Kinks song came back to me, even though I hadn’t thought of it in a while. Paranoia, the destroyer . . .

  Who could I trust? The sad answer was probably no one. Any of my ghost friends could be robbed of their essence by my killer and ghost-impersonated. Fake Randy had proven that tonight, catching me stupidly off guard.

  Just as something heavy covered me—almost like the depression I’d felt as a human after my parents
had died—I realized that there were beings he couldn’t imitate.

  Humans.

  He hadn’t shown us that he could replicate the living yet; sure, he could influence them—he’d done that with Marg’s killer—and he could possess a person who was willing to let him in, but I knew some people who wouldn’t let him do that. Wendy, Gavin, Suze . . . and Amanda Lee.

  The last name on the list almost made me laugh. Funny, but I hadn’t been able to trust her much in the past. But now she was one of my only choices, and she was the one who would have to put him away for good, anyway.

  “I understand everyone’s arguments,” I said, “but I’m getting Amanda Lee, and we’re going to the forest. Scott, you’ll stay here with Wendy?”

  “Yes, but I’m not for this at all, Jen. Your killer really could be baiting you with the possibility that he’ll reveal your death story to the hunters.”

  Wendy said, “Don’t mind me, but I don’t even understand why you have to rush off like this. Why is it such a big deal if the hunters uncover your mystery? Isn’t that what you want to happen?”

  Scott made a face. He understood where I was coming from on this.

  I floated closer to Wendy’s window. “There’s nothing I want more than to give my killer his just deserts.” Thoughts of revenge . . . needling me, prodding me. But I chased them away. I’d experienced how damaging impulsive revenge could be with Gavin and Wendy during the Elizabeth Dalton case. “I’d love for that asshole’s name to be known far and wide as a murderer’s. But I’ve asked myself what good that’d really do if he’s already dead. And if he has family that’s still out there, would exposing his name end up hurting them instead of him?”

  “What about the victims’ families?” Wendy asked, her voice breaking. “What about closure for them?”

  “There’re ways of letting them know personally that the killer has been taken care of. I’d see to that.” Just like I’d done for Amanda Lee with Elizabeth. Thinking of her murder made my anger churn. “I want payback for him here, in this dimension. I want to know his name. I want to see his true face, unmasked, and look into his eyes when Amanda Lee sends him back to wherever he came from.”