Dead to Rights

by Ellie Thornton

  “You don’t want to.” Her hands were on her hips, and her volume increased. “Because you don’t want to?”

  He turned from her and headed to his room with her in tow. “Yes.”

  “What are you, in kindergarten?”

  He rolled his eyes and titled the can back, finishing it off. “How’d you guess?” Taking one step into his en suite bathroom, he crunched the can and chucked it into the small bin by his sink.

  She took a deep breath. “Well, I’m not going anywhere. I could follow you around for days, weeks, months. I’ve got nothing else to do and lots of time on my hands.”

  Months? He swallowed thickly and felt suddenly exhausted. He had no idea how hauntings worked, but from what he gathered of lore on the subject, she could be telling the truth.

  He’d read several books on the occult as a teenager—some of which had been about ghosts. His father had insisted so he’d better be able to fake psychic. It was around that time he’d learned to hypnotize people as well. Ghosts could stick around for a long time—forever even—if their unfinished business wasn’t attended to.

  Not that it mattered. He had no intention of helping her. For years he’d been suffering over the loss of his wife, and now this ghost shows up? Demanding help? Why not Katelyn? This was some kind of cosmic joke, and he wasn’t playing along.

  Shedding his button-up, he headed for his bed.

  “What are you doing?”

  Coming up with a temporary solution to get rid of her while he thought of something more permanent. He reached for the button on his trousers, and she hastily turned her back on him. “Getting nude.”

  “Oh, come on! You don’t really think that’s going to work long-term, do you?”

  Once down to his boxers, he flopped on his bed. She hadn’t left yet. “You want kindergarten? You got it.” He started singing “One Hundred Bottles of Beer on the Wall.”

  She spun back to face him, head tilted, mouth agape. “I have three brothers, you prick. You don’t honestly think this is going to work, do you?”

  He gave her a wide grin and winked. There was only one way to find out, so he increased his volume. He could do this for days if he had to. Days. And frankly, he didn’t think she had it in her to outlast him.

  Patrick had a lot of regrets in his life. He regretted he didn’t have a relationship with his mother, and that he had one—no matter how insignificant—with his father; he regretted having stayed with the circus for as long as he had, and that he’d not been able to save his wife’s life; and he regretted pretending to be a psychic and fooling people into believing he could see their deceased loved ones.

  Lying on his bed in his underwear, staring at the ceiling, he could hardly believe that of everything in his life he regretted, seeing an actual ghost would be one of those things. Especially when after two hours of singing “One Hundred Bottles of Beer on the Wall,” she’d joined in. Of course, he’d been amused for a whole two seconds before he’d given it up. It was no fun if she played along.

  But seeing a ghost, a real one? There were so many layers to it—he didn’t know where to start. Now he could be a real psychic and stop lying to people if he wanted, now he knew life continued after death, and most importantly that his wife was somewhere other than in a plot at St. Mary’s Cemetery. He should find comfort in it, but he didn’t. Instead, all he felt was confusion, anger, and guilt; confusion and anger that the ghost wasn’t his wife, and guilt for mocking something all these years that’d been real.

  How was he supposed to deal with that?

  His own personal crucible burst through his bedroom wall, her sharp golden glare piercing through to his psyche. “All right, it’s been two days,” she snapped. “I’ve had enough.”

  “I told you I was naked,” he tried to reply just as testily, but found he didn’t have it in him. The only thing keeping the woman at bay was the threat of seeing him naked. So much for that.

  “Please, I’m a police officer. I’ve seen worse than… you.” She signaled to the length of his body with a quick gesture of her hand. The expression on her face, her downturned lips, and scrunched-up nose, suggested she’d never seen anything more disgusting.

  Somewhere in the back of his mind, he wanted to argue he was a catch, that no woman had ever complained before, but the argument died in a swirl of self-hatred and guilt. Hadn’t he spent the last two days drinking himself silly? Wasn’t he currently lying amid dozens of cans and an empty bottle of vodka?

  “Go away.” He rolled onto his side, turning his back to her.

  “I’m not going anywhere. I gave you time. The realization of what I am was a shock, I know, but enough is enough.” She came to the end of the bed. “Look at you. Your sheets are stained, you’re surrounded by trash, and I can’t smell you, but I’d be willing to bet if I could that you’d stink. It’s time to snap out of it. I need your help. My family—”

  “And I told you I’m not helping you, so get lost.” He ignored the twinge of guilt he felt at turning her away. He had so much guilt from so many things that she was a blip on his radar.

  She sat on the edge of the bed and pinched her nose between her brows with her thumb and forefinger. He found the gesture fascinating. She was a ghost; could ghosts get headaches?

  She glanced over at him, and he couldn’t help but let her hold eye contact. “You’re the only one who can see me. Don’t you understand? If I’m not with you, I might as well not exist. So, yeah, you’re cranky and argumentative, and you can be downright rude, but I’ll take that over being invisible every day. Like it or not, you’re stuck with me.”

  Stuck. With her… He sat up. “Why you?” Why not his wife? Why did this little slip of a creature get to be here when his lovely girl was somewhere else? Why was he saddled with someone not his wife? And if his wife was still somewhere, then why not here, with him?

  Despite his lack of clothing and the cooler spring weather outside, the room suddenly felt stuffy. Too warm to endure. It made breathing difficult.

  Her brows drew together, creating a slight pinch line between them. “What do you mean?”

  “Why you? Why not—” His wife was none of her business.

  She quirked a brow at him, her expression softening.

  He swallowed the lump in his throat. “Why are you the only one I can see? And why can’t anyone else see you?”

  “Great questions.” The snark in her voice was unmistakable.

  He stood and went to the bathroom. When he was almost to the door, she followed, so when he was in the bathroom and out of her sight, he shed his boxers and tossed them out the door before she could come in, then closed the door.

  “Oh, yuck,” she called out but didn’t pass through.

  He hopped in the shower, leaving the water cold, and cleaned himself up. Why not his wife? Of all the ghosts that must be out there, why not Katelyn?

  Elizabeth sat on the bed, fuming. She supposed he could actually be in there showering, but he could just as likely be lying on the floor again, trying to drown out her voice. She closed her eyes. There were so many things she hadn’t done before she died and now her afterlife was sitting here listening to a shower run through a bathroom door; punishment for a life lived for plans she’d do later.

  But when it came down to it, she decided if she had unfinished business, it had to be her brothers. There was nothing more important to her than them. It was the only logical reason she’d still be here.

  And finding someone who could see her, it had felt like kismet for a whole five minutes. Now she was starting to wonder if this wasn’t purgatory. Her punishment for something. She thought she’d lived a good life, if not a life filled with travel, adventure, and love.

  The water stopped, and Patrick started whistling Beethoven’s 5th Symphony. She was pretty sure he was mocking her.

  Several minutes later, the bathroom door opened and out stepped the pebble in her shoe. She sat bolt upright, startled by his exit. He strode across the room int
o his walk-in closet in only a towel, and though she’d seen him in his boxers and a T-shirt, she averted her eyes. Wow, he was good-looking with his hair wet and slicked back and his face freshly shaved.

  It wasn’t long before he exited the closet fully dressed in black suit pants with a white button-up shirt and a gray vest.

  She shook her head to get rid of the haze there and stood. “Where are you going?”

  “To see a friend.” He rolled his sleeves to his elbows as he passed her.

  “Why?”

  He turned on her, stopping only inches away. “Why not?”

  “Well, I…” She blinked. “I need—”

  “Help?” He stared at her, his eyes now crystal clear. The shower had done him good, in more ways than one.

  “Yes.” She lifted her chin. His indifference was off-putting. Would he shoot her down? Again? “I have unfinished business. Why else would I be here?” She shoved aside the thoughts she’d had only moments before he’d come out of the bathroom that this was some kind of punishment. It had also briefly crossed her mind weeks ago that if she was still here, she could solve her murder. She’d given that idea up quickly, though. Whoever killed her wasn’t as important to her as her brothers’ safety, so solving her murder was irrelevant.

  “What is your unfinished business?” He smiled, the skin at the corners of his eyes crinkling a little. He was toying with her.

  “My brothers. I’ve basically been taking care of them all since they were little. My youngest brother, Luke, lives with me and isn’t even out of high school yet. I need to know they’re all right.” Then, she could move on.

  “Why am I the only one who can see you?”

  She wanted to take a step back; his proximity and the intensity of his stare made her a little nervous. It was ridiculous. It wasn’t like he could touch her or would even if he could. “I don’t know.”

  “Have we ever met before?”

  “Not that I can recall.” But what if she could touch him? She had knocked those flowers over the other day.

  “Have you seen or spoken to any other ghosts?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?” He almost sounded aggressive now.

  “I don’t know,” she replied with as much force as she could muster.

  “What do you know?” He held eye contact without blinking. “Because as far as I can tell, you know very little.”

  A zap of fury shot through her, not unlike how she felt when they’d been at the store. She grabbed on to that feeling, letting it increase inside her.

  “I don’t want you here. I don’t want to help you. I don’t want anything to do with you.”

  She reached out and shoved him. Of course, it didn’t work, and not only did her hand go right through, but she’d also done it with such force that she fell right through him and dropped in a heap.

  After a dazed moment, she glanced at him.

  He stood in the exact spot where he’d been when she tried to push him, except his back was now stiffer than a board. He slowly turned and stared at her. “What did you do?”

  She opened her mouth to speak, but found the words stuck in her throat. “I didn’t… I don’t.” She swallowed. “I didn’t… You felt that, didn’t you?”

  His eyes went wide. “I have to get out of here.” He rushed from the room, and a few seconds later, the front door slammed closed.

  Elizabeth stood on wobbly knees. She’d been a ghost for a month already and still hadn’t figured out the logistics of how all this spirit stuff worked. Logically, she knew her knees weren’t really wobbly, and that she wasn’t really sucking in air; she didn’t have knees anymore or lungs. Just a spirit body.

  The weak knees weren’t exactly how it felt to have weak knees when she had her body, just as the nausea she felt when she passed through someone didn’t quite feel like nausea. It was something altogether different, though she didn’t have the words to describe it.

  Of course, the head-to-toe tingling was always the same and seemed to have pretty much the same affect on everyone she’d passed through. Not that she made a habit of it. It’d only happened twice before, and she’d sworn never again. It was too disconcerting.

  She stared at the closed door and knew she needed to follow Patrick, but what was the point? He’d shot her down at every point. First, she was a crazy fan, and then a hallucination, and then an annoyance he wanted nothing to do with. And now he knew about her brothers, and he still didn’t want to help and had run to prove it.

  Or, to be fair, he’d run because she’d gone through him. It was probably just as disconcerting to him as to her. If the look on his face was anything to go by, it wasn’t good. If it felt like a violation to her, it surely must have felt that way to him.

  She ran her hands down her face. What if he never came back? Would she be stuck here forever? She had to stop him before he went out of her boundary.

  Steeling herself, she rushed around the couch and through the door. She ran to the stairs and took them two at a time. He was no longer in the front lobby but outside hailing a cab. He got in before she reached him and pulled the door closed.

  Making a snap decision, she jumped in the cab next to him. She had a block before she hit the barrier. One block before she was whipped back at the speed of twenty-five miles per hour.

  He spoke to her under his breath so the cabbie wouldn’t hear him. “Stop following me.”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to do that. Please, don’t leave.” Thirty feet.

  “I’m not staying.”

  Twenty feet. “The way I see it, the only way you’ll get answers is by helping me. And it’s for sure the only way you’ll get rid of me.” Ten feet. “Come on, crazy or not, you have to admit that’s logical.”

  Eight feet, seven, six…

  “None of this is logical.” He raked a hand through his golden waves.

  She closed her eyes and cringed. Three. Two. One.

  Nothing happened. She opened one eye. The cab was still moving. In fact, it was now well past the barrier. “I’m still here.” She laughed.

  “Oh, joy,” he said.

  She turned in her seat and watched the apartment building she’d been attached to for weeks disappear behind her. “I’m out.” She squealed and rubbed her hands together. “You have no idea how liberating that is!”

  He leaned away from her. “I’m sure you’ll enlighten me.”

  She sucked in a breath as an unwelcome thought struck her. “Have you left your neighborhood in the last month?”

  He glared at her but didn’t answer.

  “Tell me,” she demanded.

  He rested a hand on the driver’s backrest. “Could you hurry?”

  The driver nodded. “Sure thing.”

  She leaned back and thought about the shape of Patrick’s apartment—the takeout boxes and messy space. He hadn’t gone anywhere. He’d been hanging out in and around his apartment only. She’d be willing to bet the diner on the corner of his block was the farthest he’d been. That was why the boundary had changed by a building or two, and never more. She wasn’t tied to his apartment building. “I’m tied to you.”

  The muscles in his jaw clenched. “I thought we already established that.”

  She turned to him. “No, you don’t understand. I can’t get more than a block away from you. Whatever is keeping me here is literally keeping me with you.”

  Chapter Seven

  The one-story art studio Zak owned had once been nothing but concrete walls and florescent lights. Now it had big windows, studio lighting, and paintings done by up-and-coming artists from all over California. At least, the ones in the front studio; the paintings at the back of the house came from questionable origins all over the world. Zak spent much of his time selling art from both ends of his studio.

  Patrick knew he’d be there, as Tuesday nights were one of Zak’s best nights for sales. Striding through the double glass doors, Patrick made a beeline for the back of the studio while keeping
an eye out for his friend in the crowd of wandering patrons. He went through a door at the back reading “Employees Only.”

  “What are we doing here?” Elizabeth hissed, ever on his tail.

  “Zak,” Patrick called as he made his way to a back area meant for storage with a large shipping dock for trucks.

  “Patrick,” Zak called out. “Is that you?”

  Coming into the storage area, Patrick stopped. Several containers were packed against the walls, the truck dock was open, letting in a cool breeze, and on the flat-screen in the corner played the old movie Heart and Souls. That was a little too on point for Patrick’s liking. A large painting sat on an easel next to a long table with canvases, paints, brushes, and other such things.

  Zak stood from his stool in front of the painting and crossed to him—his black suit and purple button-up, with matching purple socks, making him look as sharp and eccentric as ever. “It is you. I can hardly believe it. When was the last time you got out, a month ago? Month and a half?”

  “I knew it.” Elizabeth crossed her arms.

  Zak took Patrick’s lapels and then brushed the shoulders of his suit coat. “You look good. I was starting to think you didn’t have any nice clothes… or clean ones, for that matter.”

  Elizabeth chuckled. “I like him.”

  Patrick glared at her, then brushed Zak’s hands off. “Can you lay off on the insults, please?” Patrick stepped past him and stared at the large painting that depicted a Roman scene with partygoers in togas feeding one another grapes, drinking, partying, and reveling. Their smug, happy faces mocked him—like they knew. “I’ve had a hard day—a hard several days in fact.”

  “What’s wrong?” Zak asked.

  He turned to his friend and decided there was no point beating about the bush. “I’m being haunted.”

  Zak took a step back. “Pardon me?”

  “Haunted. You know, by a ghost.”

  “Oh, yeah.” Elizabeth rolled her eyes. “This is gonna go over well.”