Body & Soul (Ghost and the Goth Novels)

by Stacey Kade

  Still, that didn’t make what she’d done right.

  In fact, it made it sting more. She’d been lying to me, not just when she’d met up with me after graduation on her bench, but also when we were kissing outside the Gibley Mansion last month, and when she’d held my hand in the car yesterday. She’d been lying, if only by omission, that whole time. I didn’t know what to do with that. She couldn’t have found another time, an early point in our…whatever it was we had…to tell me the truth? Had she really not trusted me until today?

  Don’t get me wrong: I knew, logically speaking, that she’d had plenty of reasons not to trust me, and that it was a significant change for her to tell me a truth she found personally humiliating, even now, when she knew I’d probably be angry.

  But I guess I just thought we were well past that point. And it hurt and made me feel a little off balance to learn I was wrong.

  I pulled into the parking lot of Krekel’s and found a space.

  Alona cleared her throat. “So, what’s the plan?” She was trying to sound normal.

  “We’ll take a look around, talk to some people.” I shrugged, avoiding her gaze. “See if they’ve seen her.” My fear was that even if Erin had actually come here, she was already long gone and no one would remember anything.

  “I’ll handle the looking, you take the talking,” Alona said with a nod.

  “You think?” I muttered. Given that no one else could hear her, it was the only option that made any kind of sense. And no, it wasn’t the most mature response ever. Sue me. I was still struggling with the bomb she’d just dropped on me.

  She stiffened. “Hey, you know what? I said I’m sorry, and if that’s not good enough—”

  “Actually, you didn’t,” I said, biting off the words.

  She stopped, frowning, her head cocked to one side as if she were mentally replaying our earlier conversation. “No, I’m pretty sure I—”

  I just looked at her.

  “Oh.” She stared down at her hands for a long moment before glancing up at me. “Okay, well…I’m sorry,” she said defiantly, chin jutting out in challenge, daring me to…what, gloat? Like that was at all what I felt like doing in this situation.

  “Fine, whatever. Let’s just do this.” I reached for the door handle.

  “It’s not…I wouldn’t do the same thing now, okay?” she said quietly. “I just—”

  “Didn’t trust me,” I said, my mouth tight.

  “Didn’t know you,” she corrected. “And now I do.” She met my gaze without flinching.

  The steadiness in her clear green eyes reassured me that she meant what she said, and some of the anger and uncertainty bubbling in my chest melted away. But not all of it. How was I supposed to know if we were really on the same page? That she wouldn’t, at some point, reveal some new level of duplicity? Maybe it was my turn not to trust.

  I sighed and shoved open the door. “Let’s focus on one thing at a time for now.”

  She nodded and followed me out, but not before I caught the flash of hurt in her expression. I supposed she probably wanted something more for one of her rare apologies, and maybe she had a point, but this was as much as I could manage at the moment.

  “Be subtle,” I said as we started for the restaurant. “Remember, if you could see her, she can probably see you, and she’ll know what you’re after.”

  Alona nodded, but I got the sense her mind wasn’t entirely focused on the task at hand.

  “And if you start to feel…” I hesitated, not sure what to say.

  “Less than myself?” she asked, her lips twisting into a wry smile.

  “Don’t even talk to her, just come find me.”

  She nodded again.

  I felt my heart pounding harder than normal as we walked into Krekel’s, which was packed with the late lunch/early, early dinner crowd, and past a family that seemed to consist solely of screaming children and some people our age that I didn’t recognize. They were just out living their normal lives, blissfully unaware of everything happening beneath the surface.

  It took only about ten minutes to determine what I’d feared was reality. Erin/Lily wasn’t here, and no one seemed to have seen her. So she hadn’t come here, or she’d slipped in and out without anyone noticing. Either way, we had no way of knowing where she was now or even where to start looking.

  “They have security cameras,” Alona pointed out, once we were back in the parking lot heading toward the car.

  “Yeah, and how do we explain why we need to see what’s on them, without getting the police involved?” I wanted to avoid that for as long as possible. If I could get things back to some semblance of normality before the Turners found out something was amiss, all the better. “And even if we could, the cameras won’t tell us where she went from here.”

  “So now what?” she asked. “Check every tattoo parlor, strip club, and doughnut shop between here and the Indiana border?”

  I stopped in the process of pulling my keys from my pocket and stared at her. “Strip clubs? Really?” I asked.

  She shrugged. “Closest thing to a party at two in the afternoon, probably, right?”

  “I have no idea.” I tilted my head to one side, regarding her with curiosity. “Do you?”

  “You wish,” she snapped, clearly offended.

  In spite of everything, I almost smiled. “We’re going to Malachi’s,” I said, unlocking the car.

  Alona made a face. “That place is so gross,” she muttered. “Seriously, a few hundred bucks more a month and he could have a place that doesn’t look like a front for a Russian mail-order-bride service.”

  “Better office space isn’t exactly his top priority,” I said, opening the driver’s-side door for her to scoot across the seat. She could have opened her door, but with all the people in the parking lot, it didn’t seem like a good idea. I hoped she wouldn’t fight me on it.

  “What does that mean?” she asked with a frown, climbing in without complaint.

  I followed her in and slammed the door shut. “It means Malachi has other ways of attracting business.”

  I waited until I’d backed out of the space in the crowded lot and got us on the road to Malachi’s before sharing everything he’d told me about his sister’s death, my dad’s visit, and their unusual method for obtaining new customers.

  “That’s what she meant by Misty being just business,” she said, more to herself than to me. “So they’re haunting people to make money, and they picked Misty because of me, because I was her best friend and I died?”

  I nodded. “And because they thought her family probably had enough money to make it worthwhile.”

  “Son of a bitch,” she whispered. Then she straightened up. “Malachi…Edmund’s not going to have to worry about his sister being dead anymore, because I’m going to make sure he joins her.”

  And that was pretty much how I felt about it, too.

  But when we got to Malachi’s storefront, it was as abandoned and locked up as when I’d been there earlier, and this time, the back looked the same. No van, no boxes, no Edmund.

  The jerk had taken off. Evidently he’d gotten tired of waiting around for Erin. Or maybe he thought that she’d catch up to him if she could, and if not, well, then, that wouldn’t be so bad, either.

  “Shit.”

  Alona raised her eyebrows at me. “What’s wrong?”

  “I don’t know his last name,” I explained through clenched teeth. “I have no other way to track him down. I don’t even know for sure if Edmund is really his first name. It’s not like I asked for ID.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Oh, for heaven’s sake, don’t be such a whiner.” She marched past me toward the back door.

  “What are you—”

  She disappeared inside before I could finish the question.

  With a sigh, I moved closer to the door so she could shove it open for me, which she did a second later, almost clipping me in the face.

  “I hope there isn’t an
alarm,” I said.

  “Here?” she asked incredulously. “Please. Like anyone would want anything in this place.” She stepped back, making space for me to walk into the dim back rooms of Malachi’s office. Only the buzzing fluorescent fixture above the sink in the kitchen was on.

  “He took everything with him,” I pointed out. “He was packing up to leave town, remember?”

  She shook her head mockingly. “How would you survive without me?”

  I stiffened.

  She grimaced and waved the words away. “Never mind.…I didn’t mean…” She took a deep breath and flipped her hair back behind her shoulders, a pale gleam of gold in the dim light. “People are never good about getting rid of everything. Tamara Lindt got outed on that thing with the student teacher because she lent her phone to someone without deleting all the evidence.”

  Tamara Lindt. That had been a scandal from way back in sophomore year. Even I’d been aware of it, which was saying something. She and this slimy d-bag college senior on assignment from EIU had had a thing in the equipment room…during school lunches. He’d been using her, from what I’d heard afterward, while “dating” several other girls on campus at the same time. Someone started a rumor that spread like, well, a juicy rumor, and it eventually got him kicked out of school, ours and his. Tamara had never seemed particularly grateful, but she wasn’t spectacularly bright, as I recalled. The biggest question had always been who had found out and how.

  Huh. “Text messages?” I guessed.

  Alona grinned. “Left herself logged in to Facebook. Her inbox was full of his sleaze.”

  I knew it.

  She moved deeper into the room, fumbling for the light switch and waiting for me to catch up so she could turn it on. “We’ll find something. Trust me.”

  But Edmund, if that was his name, was much better than Tamara “Daddy Issues” Lindt, because he’d taken every scrap of paper with him. Even the garbage cans were empty. Probably a wise choice when running a semiscam.

  Except for a disturbingly wrinkled apple in the mini-fridge, there was no sign that anyone had even been here recently.

  “Here,” Alona called faintly from the waiting room.

  I poked my head through the door to find her crouching next to a stack of chairs. “What?” I asked.

  “The chairs and stuff are rented.” She pointed at something on the bottom of a chair. “There’s a label with a company name and phone number.”

  “So?”

  She stood up. “So,” she said with exaggerated patience, “you need information about Malachi, like his real name. They’ll have it with his credit card info. Unless he’s running that kind of scam, too.” She frowned. “Let’s hope not.”

  Oh, Lord.

  “And how do you suggest we get that information? Break in? We don’t even know where that place is!” I did not especially treasure the idea of spending the rest of the day finding this place and then waiting for everyone to leave so we could get in, while Erin ran around town doing whatever she wanted.

  “We could,” she said with a shrug. “But calling and asking them is a lot easier.”

  “They’re not just going to give us his personal information,” I said in disbelief.

  “Phone. Gimme.” She held her hand out.

  “They’re not going to be able to hear you,” I reminded her. I crossed the room, digging my phone from my pocket.

  She pursed her lips. “This would be so much easier if I could do this myself.” She scowled at me and she flickered. Her edges went soft for a second, and I could almost see through her.

  I caught my breath. “Alona…”

  Her eyes snapped shut, and she furrowed her brow in concentration, murmuring positive comments in a whisper I could barely hear, let alone understand.

  But apparently it was the thought that counted and not the volume, because after a second, she stabilized, becoming fully solid once again.

  “Are you all right? Do you need me to—”

  She shook her head and held up her hand to cut me off.

  Okay, evidently we weren’t discussing this issue.

  After taking a deep breath, she straightened her shoulders. Then she snatched the phone from my hand, consulted the number on the bottom of the chair, and started dialing. “Call them and say…” She paused, clearly thinking. “Tell them you’re the landlord and all this furniture is supposed to be cleared out. You need the tenant’s contact information, all of it. And if you can’t get ahold of him, or someone’s not over here in the next ten minutes, you’re going to throw it all out.”

  And we had to hope the rental place was farther than ten minutes away, I supposed. “Wait. If I’m the landlord, why wouldn’t I have his contact information already?”

  But it was too late. She shoved the phone into my hand, and it was ringing.

  I glared at her.

  “They’re not going to think that far ahead,” she said quickly. “And if they do, hang up.”

  “Remember how much you hate the idea of jail and germs,” I said in a low tone.

  “Jail? For what, impersonating a slumlord?” She sniffed. “Doubt it.”

  “Hello?” a female voice said in my ear.

  “Uh, hi,” I said, feeling ridiculous.

  “Just be angry. Really angry!” Alona hovered at my elbow, coaching, which I ignored; but I did try to sound stern and landlordish, though I hadn’t a clue what that might actually sound like.

  As it turned out the bored receptionist probably would have given me Malachi’s social security number, blood type, and anything else I asked, to avoid having to actually do work or walk away from FarmVille, or whatever was holding her attention.

  “His real name is Edmund Harris,” I said to Alona after I’d hung up. “And his home address is in Decatur. Four twenty-two Sycamore, Apartment B. I can’t believe that worked.”

  “Me either,” she said, shaking her head. “You were a terrible landlord.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Let’s go.”

  The apartment was empty. Dents in the dingy brown carpeting showed where the furniture had been. A cheap plywood entertainment center still remained in the corner, heavily listing to one side.

  “Oh, my God, it’s like that part in Empire Strikes Back where they can never get into light speed,” Alona said with a disgusted sigh.

  I stared at her.

  Catching sight of me, she scowled. “What?

  “Nothing. I just…” I tried to find the words. “Alona Dare making a Star Wars reference. I never thought I’d live to see the day.”

  She arched an eyebrow at me. “At least one of us did.”She crossed the small room to the tiny hallway, which presumably led to a kitchen and bathroom. “Besides, it’s only because you made me watch it, like, a hundred times,”she called back, her voice sounding hollow in the empty space.

  “It’s a classic, and it was twice,” I said, following her to a minikitchen. If I stood with my arms outstretched, I probably could have touched both walls. “And only because you fell asleep in the middle the first time.”

  She shrugged dismissively. “The Dagobah stuff was so boring. No Han Solo.”

  She looked around the room at the cabinet doors hanging open and sighed. “There’s nothing here.”

  I should have figured that. He had, after all, been packing up to leave town.

  “All right,” she said in the tone of someone done messing around. “Phone.” She held her hand out.

  I pulled my phone from my pocket but held on to it. “Who are you—who am I calling?” I asked cautiously. I’d saved the number the rental company receptionist had given me for Edmund, but I didn’t think calling was a good idea. “Malachi…Edmund, whatever, he’s not going to be thrilled to hear from us.” In fact, I was afraid calling him might make him bolt farther than he already had.

  Alona shook her head. “I’m not calling anyone.” She peered with a grimace into an open drawer. “We’re going to—”

  Before she could fi
nish explaining her plan, my phone rang, echoing loudly in the empty apartment and startling both of us.

  I looked at the number. Uh-oh. I felt a renewed surge of panic. “Uh, Al, did you have your phone on you when Erin—”

  “No. Mrs. Turner still has it confiscated,” she said, bumping the drawer shut with her hip and moving closer to me. “Why?”

  I held up my phone and showed her the words lily’s cell flashing on the screen. “Someone’s noticed you’re not where you’re supposed to be.”

  Her eyes widened. “Answer it!” She reached for the phone.

  I lifted it over my head, away from her grasping hand. “No way; it has to be the Turners,” I said. If Mrs. Turner had dropped Ally off at Misty’s this morning, it wouldn’t have taken much for her to connect the dots. Mrs. Turner had probably called Misty, and Misty had told them about their newly recovered daughter leaving with the guy Mrs. Turner hated most. Great.

  “Exactly. You have to tell them I’m okay.” She crossed her arms and glared at me. Interesting that she cared so much about them now, when all she’d talked about before was how difficult it was to be around them.

  “Except I don’t actually know if you are okay. The version of you that they know, anyway. And they might get a call about you—her—being very not okay at any time.” I didn’t know much about our legal system, but vouching for the safety of a girl who later turned up hurt or in jail or something struck me as a particularly bad idea.

  She bit her lip.

  There was a loooong gap between the final ring and the voice-mail signal, and even the happy little chime sounded angry.

  “Shit,” I muttered.

  “Are you going to listen to it?” she asked, seeming more anxious than I would have imagined.

  “No,” I said, stuffing the phone back into my pocket. No sense in confirming things were as bad as, or worse than, I figured they already were.

  “They’re going to be worried,” she mumbled, sounding annoyed; but she wouldn’t look at me, focusing instead on a splotch of something on the chipped and fading tile floor and kicking at it with the tip of her gym shoe. After all this time, she couldn’t fool me. If she was annoyed at anyone, it was at herself for caring.