Dead People

by Edie Ramer

  What if he decided to stay with her? Stay here? The two of them. After all, the ghost wasn’t bothering them anymore.

  Tricia had to do something to split them up.

  As for Cassie, she should never have fucked Luke. She must have seen that Tricia wanted him. Tricia hadn’t made it a secret. She saw him first, so Cassie should have held back.

  Footsteps ran up the stairs. Too light for Luke, so that left Cassie. Tricia leaned against the wall, out of sight of the hall, but Cassie didn’t get off at the second floor, going up to the third, to Luke’s studio.

  That settled it. Tricia knew what to do.

  If Cassie tumbled off the stairway, Luke would want to leave the house. He’d wonder if Mrs. Shay did it. He’d never suspect Tricia.

  Kurt would buy the house cheap. Luke said he’d tear the house down before selling to him, but he hadn’t meant it. If he did, Tricia could remind him what bad publicity that would be. The paparazzi would be all over him and Erin. He’d do anything for Erin. And once Kurt owned the house, Tricia would convince him to marry her. It would be as easy as crooking her fingers. Or opening her legs.

  She stepped into the hall and listened to the voices travel down to her, Cassie’s mixed with Luke’s deeper tones. Now. She’d never have a better chance.

  She hurried down to the kitchen to get the gun from her purse. She preferred not to resort to shooting Cassie—so much better to have her fall seem like an accident. But she never knew when a gun would come in handy.

  ***

  As Cassie marched into the studio, Luke put down his guitar and slid off his stool. Even wearing a Lakers’ sweatshirt and jeans, he looked long and lean and dangerous. Dangerous to her heart. She shivered.

  “You’re cold?” He raised an eyebrow. “Come here and I’ll warm you.”

  “No, thank you.” She ignored the voice in her mind shouting Great idea! “I found the entrance to the other tower. The entire library shelving on the left of the fireplace moves. You have to shove the molding.”

  His face lit up with interest. He strode toward her. “I want to see.”

  She held out her hands, palms up. “There’s something you should know first.” She sucked in a breath. She didn’t like admitting to failure. Especially to this man. “Isabel found it first. She’s in the other tower room. She wants to live there.”

  “What do you mean, live there?”

  “Just what I said.” She braced herself for his objections, her feet solid on the floor, her neck stretched high. “She likes it here and isn’t ready to leave earth. She’s adamant. It’s happened before, and I know when I’m licked. Since she won’t go, I have no choice but to go myself.”

  The planes of his face hardened. “You contracted with me to get rid of her.”

  “I won’t expect you to pay the other half of the fee.”

  “Fuck the money, I want you to stay.”

  She started to tremble and tensed her muscles to control the shakes. “Isabel’s attitude has changed. She told me she won’t make any more trouble, and I believe her. She’s come to care for Erin. She thinks of her as a granddaughter.”

  “A grandmother? No fucking way am I letting her play that role. You’re staying.” He took a step toward her.

  She held her ground. “She’s not moving. It’s a waste of money.”

  “It’s my money and I can afford it.” He took another step.

  “It’s a waste of time. My time.” Her skin warmed, her shakes coming from within now, trembles of excitement.

  He took one last step, inches from her. She knew she should back away from him. She should have backed away at the first step he’d taken toward her. Who was she trying to fool? The smell of him made her bones melt.

  “We can find a more productive way to spend the time.” Then his mouth came down on top of hers. He slid his arms around her back and pulled her to him. She stood on her tiptoes. He curved his spine and bent his knees so their bodies lined up. She moaned into his mouth.

  God, she was such a wimp. She’d held out for one whole second before succumbing, she thought scornfully, even as her body rejected her scorn.

  It was having way too much fun.

  He slid his thigh between her legs. She clutched his shoulders and moaned again. He was too good at this. She was too weak.

  The word penetrated the web of sensuality wrapping tightly around her.

  Weak? Was that how she thought of herself?

  No!

  Strong. That was the word for her. That was how she wanted to see herself.

  His hand moved under her sweater and upward.

  Oh God. Strength, I know you’re there, where are you?

  The hand was warm, the fingers nimble. She made up her own lyrics, “Luke be nimble, Luke be quick.”

  She needed to be quicker. Quicker to move away. In a moment. She needed just one more moment with him.

  She inhaled, breathing in his scent, his essence. He held her as if he didn’t want to let her go. As if he felt the same need as her, more than a bodily need, the elemental need of one woman for one man.

  He rubbed his erection against her belly. Her hands clenched, her heart clenched. Hell, her entire body clenched.

  If she didn’t stop now...

  She wrenched out of his hold, stumbling backward. She gazed into his eyes, dark with passion, a flame burning inside them. His face was tense, cords standing out in his neck.

  “I promised Erin I would leave when Isabel did,” she said, her voice sounding harsh to her ears.

  “Your promise won’t be broken. By your own account, Isabel isn’t going anywhere.”

  “Don’t give me semantics.” She backed away, reaching behind her for the door and not feeling it, not there yet.

  “I’ll talk to Erin.”

  “Good. She’ll need that, but she doesn’t need me. Neither do you. I won’t stay with a man who doesn’t support me, a man who thinks what I do is weird. I deserve better than that.”

  He frowned, but didn’t say anything. The backs of her eyes prickled. Sometimes silence said more than words.

  “Goodbye,” she said, and heard the hitch in her voice. “It was...interesting. If Isabel goes back on her word and turns nasty, I’ll come back and do everything I can to get her to leave.”

  “I want you to stay.” He stared at her, and she knew he was willing her to stay, she felt his power tug at her skin, at her heart—

  “No.” She twirled around.

  She heard his steps. The flat of his hand slapped against the door jamb, his arm blocked her. “You want to stay. You know you want to.”

  “It’s my body you want,” she whispered, “not me.”

  “You think I couldn’t have another body just like that?” He snapped his fingers. “It’s you I want, all of you.”

  “Even my ability to talk to ghosts?”

  He didn’t move physically, but she was so close she could see the withdrawal in his eyes. Her throat closed and pain slashed through her. Using her arm like a battering ram, she pushed past him and rushed through the doorway onto the landing. Even as every cell in her body screamed at her to go back, she gritted her teeth, grabbed the railing and hurried down the steps.

  She didn’t hear footsteps clattering behind her and a spark of hope inside her died. She realized she was listening for his footsteps, she wanted him to chase after her and say he accepted all of her.

  Tears burned her eyes but she wouldn’t let them fall. Reaching the second floor landing, she saw the figure of a blurred man. She blinked the tears away, her eyesight clearing.

  “Joe,” she said. She put out a hand, and then heard someone running in the hall below. Joe looked over the banister then disappeared. Her hand still reached out, but no one was there to take it. She let it drop to her side and slumped against the wall, her eyes closed.

  “Cassie?” Tricia called. “Are you up there?”

  Footsteps raced up the stairway. Cassie forced open her eyes and pushed away from
the wall, standing straight. Leaving Luke was her choice. The right choice. She wasn’t going to crumble into tiny pieces. Her life would go on without him just fine.

  Despite her pep talk, she couldn’t make herself smile. Tricia wasn’t smiling either. Her blonde hair was windblown and the color on her cheeks could’ve been from the cold but Cassie guessed anger. Another person who hadn’t forgiven her for sleeping with Luke.

  “I didn’t realize how late it was.” Cassie glanced at her watch and saw the school bus should be dropping Erin off any moment.

  “Time flies when you’re fucking,” Tricia said, three steps down from her.

  Cassie blinked. So much for the perky cheerleader act.

  “Don’t give me that innocent look.” Tricia took the last three steps, then stood next to her on the landing. “I was in Luke’s room. I saw the sheets and the two used pillows.”

  “So?”

  “So if you wouldn’t have come, that would’ve been me with him.” Tricia strode behind Cassie on the landing, toward the last flight of stairs.

  Probably on her way up to offer herself to Luke, Cassie thought, and pushed down a wave of hurt. This was a lousy day. She needed to get out of this house.

  She was stepping down, one foot in the air, when two hands slammed into her back. Her loose grip slid off the banister and she fell forward, her arms windmilling, airborne.

  The next instant she slammed into something solid, something flesh and bone. Startled, she looked into a man’s face. Joe’s face. His arms came around her back and they tumbled against the wall, sliding down half the staircase before Joe stopped them.

  The breath was knocked out of her, a stair tread dug into her rib and her shoulder ached. She lifted her hand and touched Joe’s face. Smooth and warm. As if blood coursed beneath his skin.

  “You’re alive,” she whispered.

  He grinned, letting go of her, sitting on the step below. “Not quite but close.” Then he stood and his expression changed, all trace of lightheartedness gone. In his stern, unforgiving face. Cassie saw the cop he was before someone shot and killed him.

  “I don’t know who you are,” Tricia said, “but you came at a bad time.”

  Joe faded at the edges, still visible but less solid.

  “You’re a ghost.” Tricia laughed, a hysterical edge to her voice. “How fitting.”

  Cassie scrambled to her feet and turned to tell Tricia off, but her words died when she saw the gun barrel leveled at her face. Fear laced through her.

  This day kept getting worse.

  “It’s a good thing you’re so cozy with ghosts.” Tricia shook the gun at her. “You won’t need to adjust when you’re on the other side.”

  Chapter Forty-nine

  Isabel’s silent laughter shut off as though someone pulled a plug. She reared back from her watching place a few feet above the two women and one ghost. When Tricia pushed Cassie down the steps, it had seemed unreal, like a cartoon. Then Tricia pulled out the gun, and it stopped being funny.

  Without another thought, Isabel flew straight up and zipped through the closed door to the tower. Landing on the studio floor in a run, she stumbling forward until she stopped with one foot outside of the tower wall, sticking into air.

  “What the fuck—” Luke said.

  Pulling her foot inside, Isabel glanced down and saw she was visible. Good. This time she wanted to be visible. To be heard.

  She whipped around and faced Luke. “Tricia has a gun and wants to kill Cassie.”

  Without a word, he dropped his guitar, the instrument smashing down as he headed toward the door. Halfway there, he stopped.

  “Erin’s coming home. Go to the front door and don’t let her come in.”

  “I can go outside the house. I’ll meet her when the bus drops her off.”

  “Go now!” Then he leapt for the door. She heard it open as she flew through the walls, closing her eyes the way she used to when she was alive and the nurse gave her flu shots.

  She knew when she was outside. She almost felt the wind on her face, she almost smelled the freshness. She did hear the diesel engine of the school bus slowing on the road in front of the house.

  Her eyes opened and she floated down the twisty driveway. Later she’d pay attention to the tree-lined drive she’d seen so many times, but now she blocked it out, intent on reaching Erin.

  The bus engine grew louder as it pulled away. Isabel flew around the last curve, passing a parked taxi, and saw a black-haired woman on her knees just inside the long driveway, out of sight from the bus driver, holding Erin.

  “Mama, you’ve come to take me away,” Erin cried, her arms tight around the woman’s neck.

  “I can’t, baby, not right now.” The dark-haired woman half sobbed. “I’m in rehab again and for the first time I actually want to make it. I knew you’d be worried, so I snuck out. They think I’m at the doctor’s, but I had to fly out here to tell you I love you. I’m sick and I’m trying to get better now. So I can be a better mom.”

  Isabel peered behind her. She wanted to go back and see what was happening, but she needed to stay with Erin in case her mother kidnapped her.

  But what if Tricia shot Luke and Cassie?

  Oh dear. Why hadn’t Luke called 911? She hadn’t thought of it, but she had an excuse. She was dead. He was alive but thought he could handle it.

  Wasn’t that just like a man?

  ***

  Luke barreled down the stairway and saw Tricia standing in the corner of the second floor landing, the gun aimed toward Cassie halfway down the stairs, next to Joe. Tricia glanced his way for a second. Her eyes gleamed and waves of excitement radiated from her.

  He put his head down. Let her shoot him instead of Cassie. Let her—

  She kept the gun aimed at Cassie. “One more step and I’m shooting Cassie.”

  He halted, breathing hatred at her.

  “Go stand by her.” When he didn’t move, she said, “Now!” Her mouth pressed together, an angry line as she looked at him for one brief second. He saw in her unwavering eyes, in the set expression of her face, that she meant it. If he didn’t go down the steps and stand next to Cassie, she would do exactly what she said.

  His hands tightened into fists, his arms and neck tensed. It was the hardest thing he’d done, but he walked past her and down the steps until he stood next to Cassie.

  She gazed at him sadly. “You shouldn’t have come. You should have escaped.”

  “I called 911,” Luke said, looking at Tricia holding the gun on all three of them. There had to be a way to fool her so Cassie could escape. Somehow he’d find a way to outsmart her.

  “I don’t believe you.” But Tricia glanced toward the front of the house, then back to them. Her left hand curled over her right, aiming the gun barrel at him. “But in case you really did, I’d better get this over with.”

  “They’ll know it’s you,” Cassie said, her voice calm and even. Soothing, Luke thought, the voice she used for ghosts.

  “No, they won’t. I’ll kill all of you, then shoot myself in the fatty part of my thigh.” She narrowed her eyes, her head lowered as she pointed the gun at Cassie. “No one will suspect I shot myself.”

  Luke tensed, his legs apart, his knees slightly bent, ready to leap forward.

  “Why?” Cassie asked.

  “You think I don’t know you’re trying to delay me?” Tricia laughed, but her stance relaxed, her head coming up. “I don’t hear sirens. You really didn’t call 911, did you?”

  “You’re right, I didn’t call 911.” He would’ve said anything to buy time.

  “I may as well tell you.” She looked proud of herself, a half smile on her face.

  Luke forced himself to breathe. All this time he’d thought the last-minute confessions on TV were contrivances to let the audience know the killer’s plan, but now that it was happening in front of him, he understood the psychology behind the confessions. Tricia was eager to tell them her schemes. She wanted to brag abo
ut her brilliance.

  “We’re listening,” Cassie said into the dead silence.

  “It’s simple.” Tricia’s expression was animated, her eyes bright, leaning forward slightly to make sure they didn’t miss a word. “People think the house is haunted. Kurt will buy the house for a cheap price, and I’ll marry him for it.”

  Luke readied himself to jump in front of Cassie. Tricia was insane. And the most insane thing was she still looked like the perfect babysitter, the all-American college girl.

  She was right. No one would suspect her.

  “It’s not the first time you killed someone,” Cassie said, with just the right touch of interest in her voice. “You poisoned Isabel, didn’t you?”

  “She was a bitch. She deserved it.” Tricia’s features hardened. “When I found out Thomas Shay’s nearest relatives would inherit the house, I had to kill her. I was supposed to inherit, not a niece and nephew.”

  A blast of frigid air slipped past Luke, touching him, and he steeled himself not to shiver. Joe already stood on the other side of Cassie, so that left Isabel.

  “You aren’t related to Thomas Shay,” Cassie said.

  “I’m his daughter!” Tricia screamed, her face contorted, finally looking as ugly on the outside as she must have looked on the inside. “It should have been mine!”

  “His daughter?” Cassie asked. “Is that what your mother told you?”

  Luke frowned. He couldn’t imagine anyone staying to work for her lover’s widow for years, for the father of her child.

  “My mother always said my father was a wealthy married man who died when I was three. Just like Thomas Shay.” She narrowed her eyes at Cassie. “Remember, you said I looked like him?”

  “If Thomas was your father, why didn’t your mother sue for child support?” Cassie asked.

  “Because she felt guilty for having an affair with a married man.”

  Laughter cackled. Isabel’s outline filled in and she looked almost human, floating level with him and Cassie, inches away on the other side of the railing. “You aren’t Thomas’s daughter.”