“You hate it when I’m right.”
“I didn’t say you were right.”
“No, but you wouldn’t be so irritated if I wasn’t.” He got up from the couch and went over to her, taking her hands in his. “Somehow, I also don’t think you’d still be here.”
Her pout grew more pronounced, inviting him to nibble on that lip. He took her up on the invitation, and her lips parted in welcome. He could never get enough of the way touching her made him feel—the way every tiny molecule of whatever it was his spirit was made of seemed to dance for joy throughout his whole being. It had been more than a century since he’d been alive, and longer still since he’d kissed a living woman, so it was hard to remember exactly how that had felt. But he doubted it had been better than this.
“Now you’re just trying to distract me,” Ron mumbled against his mouth.
“Oh, believe me, you’re the one that’s doin’ the distractin’ here.” He pulled her into his arms. She came along willingly, sliding her own arms up to wrap around his neck and sighing against his mouth. They stayed like that for a while, just holding and kissing each other, and gratitude welled up in Joe, powering his kisses and driving his caresses. He still couldn’t believe she’d chosen to stay with him, and he felt like the luckiest man ever to haunt this limbo between life and death.
And also the least deserving.
He couldn’t bring himself to speak these things aloud. Instead, he tried to show her with every touch, with the way he gazed into her eyes between kisses. He didn’t have a heartbeat to show her how much it excited him just to be with her. He didn’t have the normal function of a living man. Their lovemaking was literally a spiritual act, a joining of their essences that was the most exhilarating thing he’d ever known.
Later, lying together on the sofa, wrapped in each other’s arms, they barely had enough energy left to enjoy the afterglow. It became harder to think, but even so, as oblivion overtook them, Joe knew how selfish of him it was to let her stay here with him instead of sending her into the light.
And as his being continued to vibrate from her nearness, he also knew he didn’t care.
She awoke sooner than she’d expected. After the way she and Joe had ended their evening, she’d expected to sleep like . . . well, like exactly what she was. Joe certainly seemed to be. Ron lay still for a few minutes, just watching him in his repose. Her heart—or whatever stood in for it these days—swelled with joy, and she once again marveled at the fact that she’d had to die to find the kind of love she’d previously only written about.
When she couldn’t take it anymore, she carefully extracted herself from the couch, managing not to disturb either Joe or Buster, who had apparently snuggled up with them at some point. With no more than a thought, she was standing in her sister’s room. The bed was empty. Ron glanced at the clock on Chris’s nightstand. It was a few minutes past three. Where was she?
Ron popped downstairs to the living room, the last place she’d seen her sister. There she was, sacked out on the couch, with her big gray tabby curled up next to her head. Ron couldn’t understand how she could sleep so peacefully after what had happened, but then she saw the bottle on the coffee table, next to the empty jelly glass.
“Oh, sweetie,” she whispered. Poor kid. Things had been going so well for her, and for the business. Ron wasn’t about to let a tool like Derek Brandt undo that and get away with it. “That does it,” she muttered, more to herself than to her sleeping sister. With a glance at Chris she added, “Sorry, but sometimes, big sis knows best.”
She stole into the office, where Chris kept a laptop booted up at all times for Ron’s late night writing sessions. Ron lowered herself into the chair behind the antique oaken desk. Instead of pulling up her work in progress, she opened a web browser and practiced a little Google-fu. She couldn’t track down Brandt’s home address, but she did find directions to the TV station where he worked.
Thankfully, she could take a much shorter route than the one suggested by Google Maps. Looking at the building on Street View, she simply closed her eyes and formed a picture of it in her mind. When she opened them again, she stood in the parking lot.
Ron grinned, a little amazed with herself. “That never gets old.”
Inside the building, she found a directory. She didn’t find a listing for his office, so she took a chance and went to the news room. About twenty desks filled the large room, surrounded by low cubicle walls. Ron floated up and down the aisles between them until she found one with Derek’s nameplate.
Her sense of accomplishment quickly faded once she discovered his desk was locked up tight. Locks weren’t generally a problem for her these days, but if he had an address book in there, she’d need to take it out to read it. She could easily reach in and feel around, but pulling out a solid object was another matter.
“He probably keeps all that stuff in Outlook, anyway,” she muttered. She looked at the monitor on his desk. It was attached to a docking station rather than a desktop unit, and the laptop was gone. Not that she’d had much hope of cracking his password if it had been there.
Undaunted, she scanned the objects on his desk. Her gaze landed on a framed photo of two teenage boys standing at the end of a driveway in front of a brick, ranch-style house. Both boys bore a resemblance to Brandt, especially the younger one. At first, Ron thought they must be his younger brothers, but upon closer inspection, she realized the clothing and hairstyles were way too late ‘Nineties for the picture to be current. The younger kid must be Brandt himself.
Another framed photo showed the adult version next to a much older man—his dad, most likely—in front of the same house. So it was likely that his parents still lived there. It wasn’t quite what she’d hoped to find, but at least it was a lead. She’d probably have better luck tracking down his address there.
Ron focused on the house in the photo until it materialized before her—or, rather, she before it. She was surprised to see a classic dark green Mustang sitting in the driveway in place of the type of sedan typically driven by retirees. It was probably maintained by “The Honest Mechanic.” Ron rolled her eyes as she remembered the big show that was made of that guy inspecting Chris’s client’s car. One thing she’d noticed in her short life was that if someone went around advertising how honest they were, they were usually pretty shady.
She moved up the front walk and passed through the front door. Inside, she found another surprise: the decor was all leather, glass and chrome, very masculine. It was tastefully done—Ron especially appreciated the vintage Eames chair set off to the side of the burgundy leather sofa. She could tell it was the real deal and not a knock-off, but it screamed “young single guy” and not “retired parents.” Could she actually be so lucky?
An entry table sat beside the front door, on top of which sat a black lacquer tray that held keys and a wallet. Ron flipped open the wallet and revealed Derek Brandt’s driver’s license inside. “Jackpot!” A giddy giggle bubbled up out of her.
And morphed into a scream when a voice behind her said, “Who are you?”
Ron spun around. A teenage boy stood in the living room, staring right at her and looking somehow familiar. Ron glanced around to make sure there was nobody else in the room with them, then pointed at herself. “Me?”
“I saw you come in through the door,” he said. “You’re like me, aren’t you?”
Confused and taken off guard, Ron squinted at the kid, trying to remember where she knew him from. He stared at her earnestly, waiting for an answer, and it dawned on her: she’d seen him in the picture that stood on Derek’s desk. He looked the same. The shirt was different, but he hadn’t aged a day. “Who are you?” she asked him.
“I asked you first. What are you doing in my house?”
“Your . . . you mean Derek Brandt’s house, right?”
The kid blew out a sigh of frustration and flicked his eyes toward the ceiling. “Derek’s my kid brother. Although I guess he’s not exactly a k
id anymore, and yeah, I guess technically, he owns this house now.”
“Wait a minute. You . . . haunt this place?”
He gave her a petulant shrug. “I guess you could call it that. But shouldn’t I be the one asking the questions here, lady? Who are you and what are you doing here?”
Ron folded her arms across her stomach and lifted her chin. “I’m a ghost, like you. I came to haunt your brother.”
The kid screwed up his brow. “Why?”
“Because he was a jerk to my sister and now he must pay. Sorry. I have to ask, though, why does he act like people who believe in the paranormal are either idiotic or insane when he’s got a ghost living right here in his own home?”
The expression on the kid’s face became crestfallen. “Because he has no idea I’m here. I don’t know how to get his attention.” He came over to Ron and looked past her at the entry table. “You did that?” he asked, pointing at the wallet.
“I did what?”
“You opened his wallet. How’d you do that?”
“It . . . um, well, I just—”
“Can you teach me?”
Ron pressed her lips shut and eyed the kid. “What’s your name?”
“Jimmy.”
Ron smiled and held out her hand. “Hi, Jimmy. I’m Ron, and I think I’m your new fairy godmother.”
Chapter Two
Derek couldn’t sleep. He’d been doing just fine until about forty-five minutes ago, when he’d woken to what he thought was the sound of voices. Of course, they faded as soon as he was fully conscious, which told him he must’ve been dreaming. Even so, to be on the safe side, he’d gotten up and done a tour of the house, checking that all the doors and windows were locked and the alarm system was still armed. Peeking out through the blinds, he saw no one in his yard, nor in the street out front.
Satisfied, he’d gone back to bed, where he’d lain wide awake for the last half hour. The story his station had aired that night—make that the night before, he amended as he looked over at the clock and noted it was after four the next morning—didn’t sit well with him, and he wasn’t sure why. It wasn’t guilt, that much he knew. He usually slept like a baby after his segments aired, and up until thirty minutes ago, tonight had been no exception. That crackpot scam-artist Wilson woman had gotten what she deserved.
She was what was bugging him, he realized with a jolt. It wasn’t just because she wasn’t what he’d expected. She was attractive, for one thing, and devoid of all the new age mystic, hippy-dippy nonsense he’d come to expect from her type. There was also the fact that his production team hadn’t turned up any evidence that she was actually scamming her customers, at least monetarily. But plenty of that sort weren’t in it for the money. They were attention-hungry emotional vampires who got off on preying on people’s vulnerabilities.
But there was something familiar about the Wilson woman, and it went beyond the fact that he was well acquainted with her type. He felt like he knew her—or should know her—from somewhere, but he couldn’t put his finger on it.
It didn’t matter. She still needed to be exposed, and he was glad he’d done it.
He rolled onto his side and closed his eyes stubbornly, but sleep still wouldn’t come. He kept picturing her face looking out at him through the van’s passenger window. Her expression had been cold, impatient and irritated and accusing, and startlingly familiar. He couldn’t stop wracking his brain to figure out why.
And there had been something else in her eyes, too. Something he didn’t like to think about, no matter how justified in his actions he knew himself to be. Her eyes had held a look of hurt. Not just hurt, but betrayal, and also a sense that she wasn’t surprised. Like he’d done this to her before, and she was stupid to expect anything different.
She’d looked at him like she knew him. And that this was just par for the course.
Derek muttered a curse as he threw back the covers and swung his feet over the bed. It was approaching five o’clock, and getting back to sleep seemed like an unlikely prospect. At least it was a Saturday—his day off. He decided he’d have coffee and breakfast and then go for a run to clear his head. After that, maybe he’d do a little more digging on Christine Wilson.
In the kitchen, he turned on the automatic coffee maker that he’d filled the night before and then grabbed his favorite mug from the dish drainer next to the sink. He set it next to the coffee maker, then went to the fridge.
As he rummaged for something to whip up a quick breakfast, he heard a sound like something sliding across the counter. Pulling his head out of the fridge, he looked over at where he’d set his mug and frowned. He could’ve sworn he’d set it to the left of the coffee maker, but now, it was on the right.
“You got four hours of sleep,” he muttered to himself. “It’s a wonder you’re not seeing the condiments do the can-can.” He leaned into the fridge to get a carton of eggs, then turned back around and promptly dropped them on the floor at the sight of his mug floating in the air in the middle of his kitchen.
Derek stared, mesmerized, as the mug began to move about as if doing a little dance in the air. Then the cold, sticky-slimy egg guts oozed over his toes, snapping him out of his trance-like state. He swore and jumped back, ignoring the oddly-behaving mug as he ran to grab a wad of paper towels and contain the broken egg mess. Once he was sure the eggs wouldn’t spread any further, he stood up and looked at the mug, which now hung suspended in the air.
He reached out and took hold of it, plucking it out of thin air with no resistance. He stood there a moment, just looking at it in his hand, trying to wrap his mind around what he’d just seen. He couldn’t do it. Finally, he rubbed his face and decided everything would be better once he’d had his coffee.
Almost on autopilot, he went to the coffee maker and started to pour some into the mug, but at the last second, he thought better of it. He set the mug on the breakfast bar, then retrieved another mug from the cupboard and filled it instead. He turned and leaned against the counter, keeping both eyes on the floater as he sipped his breakfast blend.
Several minutes went by in which nothing happened. By the time he finished his first cup, he felt better able to deal with this situation and started going over the possibilities.
He could’ve dreamed it. Maybe he’d dozed off without realizing it. Maybe it was like sleep paralysis, except without the paralysis and just the wild hallucinations.
That didn’t really make him feel better. Besides, unless he was still dreaming, he’d definitely broken the eggs. The evidence still lay soaking in a wad of paper towels on the floor.
A joke, then. Someone, somehow, had gotten in and rigged the mug. But how? Wire and tiny drones? He scanned the ceiling and didn’t spot any remote-control flying objects. He crossed to the breakfast bar and passed his hand over the mug. No wires. Maybe the drone had been attached to the mug somehow?
Derek picked it up and examined it. It looked normal in every way. The weight felt the same as it had the countless times he’d picked it up. It was a solid, molded piece of ceramic. No moving parts, nowhere to hide a chip or a tiny motor.
Who would do something like that to him, anyway? He couldn’t think of anyone who had a motive, except … of course. Christine Wilson. Except that was ridiculous, wasn’t it? Even if she could rig up such a thing, how would she have gotten in? His house was locked up solid. The alarm was still armed.
Derek rubbed his face and went to pour some more coffee. As he took a sip, he was about ready to go back to the waking dream theory and forget he’d seen anything strange when suddenly, the mug shot off the counter. He spat out his coffee as the thing started doing cartwheels in the air. Then, just as suddenly, it dropped with a crash and shattered all over the floor.
Instinctively, he backed all the way up to the edge of the kitchen. With his heart beating like a hammer, he tore his gaze away from the broken shards of his former favorite mug and went to the utility room. He registered on some level that he was in a mild
state of shock as he went through the motions of doing something sane in the midst of insanity.
Focusing on the task at hand, he found a discarded pair of flip-flops next to the door leading out to the garage and slipped them on to protect his bare feet. Then he found a broom and dustpan and headed back into the kitchen.
And froze in his tracks.
All of the cabinet doors stood open.
“What the--”
Before he could finish, a door slammed. Then another. One by one, each cabinet door slammed shut, moving from the far end of the kitchen toward where he stood.
Derek dropped the broom and dustpan. He was halfway across the house before he heard them clatter on the kitchen floor.
“We scared him,” said Jimmy.
“Yeah!” Ron could barely talk, nearly doubled over with laughter. “Did you see how fast he took off after the cabinet thing?” She held her hand up for a high-five, and it hung there a moment before she registered the look on his face. Feeling sheepish, she lowered it and tucked her hands under her arms.
“I didn’t want to scare him!”
“I really don’t see how that was avoidable,” Ron said. “But look at you! Look how far you’ve come already. You did great! Now he’ll have to start paying attention.”
Jimmy shook his head. “How’s it going to help if he’s too scared to even stick around?”
Ron waved a dismissive hand. “He’ll be fine. A guy like that’s not going to let a little thing like inanimate objects becoming animated chase him out of his own home.”
“How do you know? Do you even know my brother?”
“No, but I know his type.” She went to him and put a hand on his shoulder. He seemed surprised at the touch. “Look, kid, one thing you’ve got to get through your head is that he’s not your little brother anymore. He’s a grown man . . .” Her voice trailed off as she realized how familiar those words sounded. Frowning at the thought, she went on. “I know it’s hard. It’s hard to watch them outgrow you. To think they don’t need you anymore.”
Kindred Spirits Page 2
