Dead People

by Edie Ramer

  What was Cassie up to?

  “Hello?” the woman asked. “Are you there? Hello?”

  “She’s here. Just a minute.” Tricia walked backward, hearing Erin’s muffled footsteps in the hall. Gritting her teeth, Tricia turned and hurried out of the room, loping toward Erin, holding the phone out to her.

  “You have a call.”

  Erin frowned suspiciously. For once, Tricia didn’t have the patience to try to coax her. The little bitch was as impervious to her charms as her father and Tricia needed to make sure Cassie wasn’t stealing anything. Tricia shoved the phone at Erin, Erin’s hand coming up automatically, her fingers curling around the smooth plastic.

  ***

  Erin’s voice was pitched high, almost...happy. Rubbing her lower back, Cassie headed toward the doorway. The air swished. In her peripheral, she saw Isabel floating alongside her.

  Cassie didn’t stop to talk to Isabel. Instead she poked her head out into the hall. Erin stood about ten feet away, a hundred-watt smile lighting up her small face.

  “Mom! You called!”

  Unease snaked into Cassie’s stomach.

  Tricia speed-walked toward Cassie, her eyebrows raised inquiringly. Cassie ignored her. She had a bad feeling about this phone call.

  She should take this chance to talk to Isabel. Or else pull her head back into the library and take down more books. Erin wasn’t any of her business, Isabel was. She should go right now.

  But she stayed where she was. Air pulsed next to her, Isabel watching Erin too.

  Frowning at Cassie, Tricia stepped into the library.

  Chapter Thirty

  “Baby, I’ve missed you,” Erin’s mom said.

  Erin felt dizzy. How had her mom gotten through? It didn’t matter, she was on the phone right now.

  Hunching her shoulders, Erin glanced up at the ceiling. She shouldn’t have called out so loud a few seconds ago. If her dad heard her...

  “Are you all right?” she said, her voice lowered, a little louder than a whisper.

  “What kind of question is that? Of course, I’m all right. Why shouldn’t I be?”

  “No reason.” Oh no, her mom was high. When she was high, she got mad fast. Like a match meeting dynamite, her mom used to say with a laugh. Erin never laughed back. “Don’t get mad at me.”

  “I’m not mad, I’m sad. I’m sad all the time. He took you away from me.”

  “He did.” The best thing to do was agree. Erin leaned against the wall, her back curved forward like a bow, her free arm clutched around her ribs.

  “He wouldn’t have known except you called the cops.”

  Though Erin tried to stop them, hot tears burned her eyes. “I called 911, not the cops. You were bleeding. I couldn’t let you die. The ambulance lady said you were almost dead.”

  “Don’t be stupid. People say that stuff so they can sell my story. I would’ve been fine. I never died any of the other times, did I?”

  Erin put her knuckles inside her mouth to stop herself from sobbing out loud. Her mom hated it when she cried.

  “What? All of a sudden you’ve got nothing to say?”

  Erin dropped her fist from her mouth. The back of her hand was damp from her saliva and tears mixed together. She wiped her hand on her pants and then wiped her dripping nose on the back of her hand. “The ambulance lady stopped the bleeding. She saved your life.”

  “Baby, I’m all alone. Without you, I may as well be dead.”

  “I didn’t want to go.” Erin heard her voice wobble.

  “Then you shouldn’t’ve called 911. The whole world thinks I’m an unfit mother. Every time I go outside the vultures are waiting, snapping pictures of me, trying to catch me drunk or high. Wouldn’t that make their miserable little lives happy?”

  A sob escaped Erin’s mouth, and she shoved her fist back in it. She rocked back and forth against the hall wall, silent.

  “Are you crying?” Her mother’s voice thickened. “I’m sorry, baby. It’s not your fault, it’s all mine. I didn’t mean any of that. Don’t cry. Please, don’t cry.”

  Footfalls hit the hallway hurrying toward her. “What’s going on?” her father demanded.

  Erin jumped, the phone clamped to her ear. “Dad?”

  “Fuck! Don’t tell him it’s me, or I’ll get in trouble.” The phone clicked, then a dial tone droned in Erin’s ear.

  She stared up at her dad, unable to stop the tears leaking down her cheeks. His eyebrows sliced downward, then his face twisted like a monster in a movie.

  “Who was that on the phone?”

  “Nobody.” The second she said it, Erin wished she’d said one of the names from her class. But the kids in her class all knew one another for years and years, and they hardly talked to her.

  That was okay with her. Like her mom said, they were losers. She didn’t care if they didn’t sit with her at lunch or invite her to their parties.

  Her dad’s mouth tightened like one of his guitar strings. He held out his hand for the phone. “Give it to me.”

  Erin threw it on the floor and saw it bounce before she turned and ran toward the staircase. “I hate you! I want to go back to my mom. I’ll never love you. Never.”

  She sprinted up the stairs.

  ***

  Luke fought down a desire to run after Erin. What the hell did he know about ten-year-old girls? Her mother was a drug addict, but Erin wanted to go back to her. It didn’t make sense. He was doing every damn thing he could think of to make her happy. He’d bought her clothes, a computer, a bedroom set. He’d bought the house for her, for Christ sake.

  And she hated him.

  “Luke, I’m so sorry.” The voice was soft, feminine. Something in Luke’s chest leapt. Cassie.

  He turned and saw Tricia looking stricken, not Cassie with her usual glare.

  “I was busy when the call came,” she said, “and forgot all about giving her calls to you.”

  Anger and frustration poured into him, red and vivid and destructive. He clamped his teeth together, holding back words that wouldn’t change anything that just happened.

  “I’m really, really, really sorry.” Her forehead was corrugated, her mouth and eyes wide with pleading. “I hate to hurt Erin.”

  “It’s okay, we all make mistakes.” He heard the stiffness in his voice. He wanted to smash something. He wanted to shout at her. He wanted to fire her, but then he’d have to find someone else. What a fucking mess.

  She stepped in closer. Tears swam in her eyes, the hall light finding sparks of greenish-blue fire. Her mouth trembled. Her skin was like cream, her eyes like jewels, her face flawless.

  A thin layer of his anger softened, and a tightness in his chest loosened. She was so damn young and, yes, pretty, he couldn’t deny that.

  A shuffle came to his ears, a shoe sliding on the wooden floor. He glanced over Tricia’s shoulder and saw a shadow against the wall.

  Cassie.

  A breath later, she melted back inside the library.

  Tricia’s hand touched his arm, and he wrenched his gaze back to her face. “Erin doesn’t connect with me.” A sob wobbled in her voice. “No matter what I do. I feel really, really awful about it.”

  “It’s not your fault. Erin was messed up long before I laid eyes on her.” He glanced down the hall again. No shadow, no Cassie.

  “I still feel bad.” Her hand slid up to his shoulder. Her voice turned husky. “Let me make it up to you.”

  Once again, her voice yanked his attention to her face. She worshipped him with her eyes, not like the “what’re you looking at?” glare Cassie normally shot at him like a warning missile.

  “Luke?” Tricia leaned forward, her pelvis touching his.

  His body responded. How could it not? She looked like a nymph with her creamy complexion, the light in her eyes as brilliant as the North Star on a clear night. And her skin was so tight he could bounce quarters off it.

  A flash of movement caught his attention. He raised his gaze
from Tricia’s and peered down the dark hall. Was someone standing in the hall, watching them?

  His lips formed the word, Cassie.

  The urge to say it out loud was strong. But he wasn’t so dumb as to do it with Tricia plastered against him. The fullness eased from his genitals even though Tricia sighed, her breath warm against the spot between his neck and his shoulders.

  “Thanks for the offer, but I’m fine.” He curved his hands around her shoulders and propelled her backward.

  Her mouth opened and closed twice before words came out. “You don’t want me.”

  Jesus, what the hell was he doing? First Cassie, now Tricia. Who was he going to assault next? The school bus driver? She was his mother’s age but, hey, she was female.

  “I’m your employer.” He dropped his hands when she was a foot away. “I’d be taking advantage of you.”

  “You don’t want me,” she repeated.

  Christ, he hated it when women didn’t pretend everything was all right. Professor Higgins nailed it. Why the hell couldn’t women be more like men?

  The movement came again in the corner of his eye. His gaze flickered from Tricia’s upset face. A figure turned into the hall. First he saw the round globes of Cassie’s breasts, then the curvy line of her hips.

  “Don’t you have anything to say?” Tricia’s voice shrilled.

  Luke stepped back. “I’m a bad bet, Tricia. You’ll be happier with someone your own age.” He gave a decisive nod. An old battle tactic in the war between the sexes. Say your piece, then get the fuck out of Dodge before the bullets flew.

  He glanced at Cassie striding toward them.

  “Is everything okay?” Cassie asked.

  “Hunky dory.” He stepped around Tricia. “I’m going upstairs to see if Erin needs me.”

  He retreated before either of them could stop him. He wrote songs in his studio. That’s the venue he chose to spew his emotions. Not in a hallway with two women.

  Laughter cackled. Isabel.

  Christ. That made three women. How’d he get so fucking lucky?

  ***

  “Coward,” Tricia muttered.

  “Excuse me?” Cassie tore her gaze from Luke’s backside and considered the younger woman, who looked back at her with her eyes narrowed, like she was a war criminal.

  Already the scene Cassie had witnessed seemed like a bad play, the voices traveling down the hall, the acoustics perfect, ending with Tricia trying to purr her way into a seduction.

  Watching them, Cassie had felt a pressure inside her head, like raging sinuses. As she’d neared them, she had no plan. She just needed to do something.

  Action turned out to be unnecessary. She should feel sorry for Tricia. And while she was at it, she should fashion a halo to wear around her head.

  “Do you think he’s gay?” Tricia asked, her voice small.

  Cassie stared at her. Was she nuts? Couldn’t she smell the testosterone? “No.”

  “Maybe he’s involved with someone in California.”

  “No.” Her mind rejected the thought emphatically, without hesitation.

  “You sound awful sure.” Tricia frowned. “I thought I sensed something between you two. Are you interested in him?”

  “No.”

  Tricia shrugged but her frown deepened. “What were you looking for in the library?”

  Cassie scratched her thigh. “I saw Isabel earlier. She was looking for a book she thought was in the library.”

  “She never reads books.”

  “Apparently she read this one. It’s a romance.” Cassie looked around. If Isabel heard this lie and realized she was using her as an excuse... She lowered her voice. “Very hot. She hid it from your mother, and couldn’t remember where she put it.”

  “That’s silly. My mom wouldn’t care. I’d better start dinner now.”

  As she walked away, Cassie peered at the stairs. If Luke had found her searching the shelves, he wouldn’t have believed her story about Isabel reading smutty books. Wouldn’t it be better to find him and tell him? The timing was lousy, but with Luke Rivers, the timing was always lousy.

  She may as well get her head chopped off now instead of later.

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Stepping onto the landing outside Luke’s studio, Cassie stumbled. His door hung open an inch. His voice slugged the air, rough with anger, hard with pain.

  She slapped her hand on wall, stopping herself from crashing to her knees or crying out anything inappropriate.

  “She’ll take that knife, stab you in the back. She looks innocent, but it’s all an act.”

  A shudder went through her. Maybe she should come back another time.

  Her stubbornness popped up. She’d spent too many years of her childhood backing down. No more.

  Stiffening her spine, she stepped forward.

  So he had problems. Big deal. Who didn’t have them? Since he wasn’t helping Erin, he could listen to her story about the ghost in the cemetery. The ex-slave’s connection probably had nothing to do with Isabel’s ghost, but every time Cassie thought about the house, her skin itched. Somehow she knew it was important.

  If Luke got snarky with her, she’d show him how evil this woman could be.

  She raised her hand to knock.

  “You’re going to let him have sex with you.” A woman’s voice spoke in her ear.

  She jumped. “Dammit,” she said, her voice drowned out by Luke bellowing, “When you see her, don’t turn around, the evil woman kicks hardest when you’re down.”

  “You needn’t swear.” Isabel materialized in her sloppy pants and top. Her carrot-colored hair looked lopsided this late afternoon. Apparently she hadn’t learned the secret of undead grooming. It was all in the attitude.

  “You want him to put his penis inside you,” Isabel continued. “He’ll shove in and out until he’s satisfied, not caring that you won’t reach that same satisfaction. I can see the signs.”

  “And I can see that you’ve never had good sex.”

  “Women who claim their sex lives are good are lying.” Isabel’s voice rang out. “All men are selfish in bed. Because they’re bigger than women, they think they can dominate them.”

  Cassie stared at Isabel, vaguely aware that the music had stopped. She shivered, not from the coolness of the tower stairway but because this was the connection she waited for every time, the moment the ghost said without words, Yes, I’m ready to talk to you.

  “Do you want to talk about it?” Cassie kept her voice neutral when she wanted to squeal. Finally, Isabel was opening up to her.

  Isabel tilted her head back two inches more than the average live person’s neck would bend. “I’ll talk if you talk. You tell me the intimate facts about your sex life, and I’ll tell you mine.”

  Cassie stopped herself from wincing. She should have seen this coming. “I don’t have a sex life.”

  The door creaked. Cassie was turning to look at it when Isabel said, “Fine, then I’ll go away.”

  “No!” Cassie whipped her gaze back and saw Isabel was already fading. The wall showed through her transparent body. Alarm bells clanged in Cassie’s mind. “Don’t go.”

  Isabel hovered, halfway between solid and mist, her spectral body so thin Cassie saw dust motes swim in a ray of pink light behind her head.

  “I’ll talk,” Cassie said. “I haven’t had sex for four years.” And she hadn’t missed it. Until lately. She had Hunk, her vibrator, nicknamed after its model name in the on-line catalog, Hunk Of Burning Love.

  Isabel solidified. “Can you truthfully tell me you enjoyed it?”

  “Yes,” Cassie said without hesitation. “I’m a sexual person.”

  “If sex is so wonderful, why do you have a four-year gap?”

  “It’s the sex I like, not the men.”

  Isabel pointed an accusatory finger at Cassie. “Don’t try to tell me you’re one of them. A Lesbian. I won’t believe it. I’ve seen the way you act around him.”

  Cassi
e felt her cheeks heat up. “I don’t want anyone.”

  “The more you deny it, the less I believe you. All right, I have another question. Do you take care of that itch by yourself? Is that satisfying?”

  “Sometimes it’s more satisfying.”

  Isabel snickered.

  Cassie smiled. This was the strangest conversation she’d had with a ghost.

  “If you must know...” What the hell, why not share the love of her life with Isabel? It wasn’t something she could tell her usual confidant, Joe. Any mention of Hunk and Joe’s complexion turned a lovely celestial blue. Cassie leaned toward Isabel. “I have a tool to take care of myself that works out very well. It’s—”

  The door rattled.

  She darted a glance at the door, her breath sucked in, her heart thumping. A guitar strummed inside the studio, sounding like the wind crying. “Evil woman, get out of my life. Wherever you go, you bring trouble and strife.”

  Cassie’s released her pent-in breath. She glanced down at her hands and saw they were shaking.

  “Not the best rhyme I’ve heard.” Isabel sighed. “I miss my Elvis albums.”

  “I’ll play him for you one day.” Cassie shoved her hands behind her and wondered if Luke had an Elvis CD. If not, she’d buy one.

  Isabel shook her head but her outline fuzzed, her ectoplasm leaking. “Maybe later.” Even her voice waned.

  Oh no! Don’t fade away. Just when she was making progress. Cassie hated it when that happened. Like buying a great dessert, then discovering it tasted flat.

  “Do you want to go downstairs? I’ll tell you about my vibrator.” To keep her from leaving, it would be worth it. It wasn’t as if anyone else would know.

  “Will it bring me back to life?”

  Cassie crossed her arms. The promise of everlasting life was one thing she never used as a bargaining chip. She talked to ghosts, she didn’t raise them. Dead was dead.

  “Nothing will do that.”

  “At least you’re truthful.” Hair by hair, Isabel faded.

  “Wait! You didn’t keep your end of—” Cassie stopped with her mouth open, looking at air.

  The door opened. “Did you want something?” Luke stuck his head into the hall.