Another One Bites the Dust

by Chris Marie Green

  Louis’ voice had gone soft when he mentioned the haunted house cleaner, a pretty woman who’d caught his eye. Not exactly a romance meant to happen, though.

  “Then why’re we watching over Wendy, if the Edgetts are armed?” I asked.

  But I knew the answer. It was because a few of us felt protective of the young girl who’d been caught in the middle of everything.

  The sound of a sports car taking off made me shiver, but I let Gavin go.

  Yet, after Louis and I lingered around Wendy’s window a bit longer and it was time for me to leave for Tim Knudson’s house, I did give in to one last temptation.

  I whooshed by Gavin’s bedroom window at the front, where the curtains were open, letting in the sun. I looked at his walls: the sketches of angelic me, my arms spread, my hair waving around me as if I was suspended in watery air.

  But the newest pictures were in stark contrast to the others. It was the same me, except for the wicked expression I was wearing—devious, nasty, fire-eyed . . . The hellbitch Twyla had mentioned.

  I backed away from his window and conjured a travel tunnel before I could start believing I was that ghost.

  3

  When I busted out of my travel tunnel and onto a Pacific Beach street full of exhausted pastel-painted houses, Amanda Lee’s Bentley was nowhere in sight. But that didn’t mean she wouldn’t arrive soon.

  So I brushed along the tops of the palm trees in a neighborhood a few miles from the college bars and the shoreline itself, then lower, looking for the exact address of the house Tim Knudson shared with Nichelle Shaw.

  The first hint I had about their lifestyle was that they probably rented their place—I’d noticed on one of Amanda Lee’s computer pages that these modest houses near the beach cost a breathtaking amount of money, and unless Nichelle was naturally well-off or Tim was king of all warehouses, I doubted they owned their digs.

  The faint scent of brine from the ocean, which I could see in the near distance, was making the air thicker to travel, but I trouped through the atmosphere, finding the address. And what do you know? The first thing I came upon was Mr. Timothy Knudson in his backyard.

  He was dressed in long Hawaiian shorts and a sleeveless T-shirt that advertised a bar called Moose McGillycuddy’s on the back. Popping what looked to be a breath mint into his mouth, he shoved the roll into his pocket, casually strolling by a peeling white fence and peering between the slats.

  As I hovered, I didn’t fail to note the brunette on the other side, sunning herself on a lounger, dressed in a bikini. I think most people would call a woman like her a cougar these days—clearly older, but very well maintained, and impressively in shape.

  So Tim enjoyed spying on the hard-body neighbor. But guys were guys and they had testosterone, so what were you going to do about nature’s call?

  When I eased down to about five feet away from him, goose bumps rose on his skin. But just as I was going to reach out and touch him for a thought-reading, a female voice sang out from the screen door.

  “Hey, baby? What’re you doing back there?”

  Tim jerked away from the fence—and my invisible hand. He rubbed at his sheared hair and started toward the covered patio, which was strewn with unraveling outdoor furniture and a barbecue.

  “Just taking in the sun, Nich,” he answered. “It’s a beautiful day.”

  He had a good-natured tone and was as compact as his computer profile had indicated he’d be. Small but fit. But you could tell by the cock-of-the-walk way he moved that he might be compensating for stature.

  A dark-haired girl, Heidi’s age, with a deep beachcomber’s tan had opened the screen door and was facing Tim as he walked toward her. She wore a purple cover-up dress with her bathing suit straps visible, and the skinny thing looked like she’d never hit a 7-Eleven—she sure could’ve used a burrito or two. She had a face that was pleasant but at the same time a little stern, with a square chin that gave her a harder edge than you’d first expect.

  I joined them on the patio, careful to keep my presence on the hush. The trick here was to be very subtle about reading their thoughts, because I didn’t exactly want haunting to be advertised to them. If a haunted human got spooked, there was always the chance he might call in cleaners or even a bad entity like a demon for help, depending on how savvy or scared they were.

  True, no ghost I knew had ever seen a demon since those things generally didn’t interact much with us. They preferred to slink around humans they could possess, both willingly and unwillingly. Still, careful was the word.

  Nichelle had wandered onto the patio, closer to the fence. “Were you frolicking in the sun?”

  It looked like Tim wasn’t comfortable with where she was heading. “Baby . . .”

  She sent a betrayed look over her shoulder at him while she moved to the fence to take a gander. After she peeked at the cougar, she shook her head, then headed back to the house, sliding the door behind her, leaving Tim outside.

  I seized my opportunity, slipping over Tim’s head before the screen could close all the way. I could’ve just made my essence skinnier, but it’d take a hellishly long time for me to dribble through one of the tiny openings. And as far as making myself into Jen-suey by trying to move through the screen all at one time?

  Ugh, and no, thank you.

  “Nich, come on,” Tim said from the patio as she headed for the kitchen, with its yellow tiles and a lineup of dried herbs sticking out of jars. I was right on her tail.

  Nichelle opened the fridge door, her teeth grinding. I think her pride was wounded but she wasn’t about to let him see it.

  I took advantage of the refrigerator’s chill, touching her upper arm, hopefully going unnoticed, finding a way inside her to get an empathy reading.

  With an electric shock, I was in, experiencing her thoughts as they came.

  Watching Tim holding a hose in front of the house and watering the lawn, checking out the brown-haired mom two doors down as she washed the car with her kids, laughing, spraying one another until T-shirts stuck to skin . . .

  A jump to another image.

  Watching Tim lounging in a beach chair at a coastal party, sunglasses dipping down his nose. Brown-haired college girls in the water, dodging the waves, bathing suits small, breasts bouncing.

  Perv. Anger hot and red. And he tells me he has eyes only for me. . . .

  Another image.

  In bed, him facing away. Reaching out to touch his back. “Tim, maybe later we can try again . . . ?” Him shrugging off the sheet, pushing out of bed, leaving—

  On a sharp gust, I burst out of Nichelle, heaved across the kitchen, a little weaker than before I started.

  I righted myself in time to see her blowing out a breath while shutting the fridge door. Shivering, she put a plastic bottle of diet soda on the counter, her skin still bumped with the chills that she would no doubt think she got from the refrigerator.

  By this time, Tim had entered the house, the screen door chopping shut just before he took a stand in the kitchen.

  Nichelle gave him a stern why-were-you-ogling-the-neighbor look while fetching a single glass out of the cupboard, then pouring a soda only for herself, clearly making it a point to show Tim that she wasn’t about to do the same for him. She maintained steady eye contact and gulped down the drink.

  It took a heck of a long, awkward time for her to do that while he just stared at her, like he was daring her to call him on peeping. So I quickly glanced around their place for more details about them: a small house with outdated shag carpeting. Faux leather furniture, the sofa expectorating some stuffing from one arm. A TV like I used to have back in my day. Truthfully, the most interesting things about their house were:

  1) A huge fish tank in back of the sofa, boasting a massive castle as the bubbling centerpiece, and

  2) Shelves full of fairy-tale memorabilia. Princess figurines, golden plates, what looked like Alice in Wonderland chopsticks, and even cast-iron statuettes of Snow White and he
r dwarves.

  I’d have to stay away from those since touching iron was like poison for a ghost.

  A stray thought barged into my mind. You know, I could actually get into someplace like Disneyland for free now. Who’d ever know? And how awesome would it be to relive the good days on stuff like Adventure Thru Inner Space? Ah, days of making out with Dean on that one . . .

  Whoa. A little Ghost ADD there?

  When Nichelle set her glass on the counter, I came back to attention.

  Tim crossed his arms over his chest, still waiting for her to say something.

  “I know Mrs. Cavendish is pretty,” Nichelle finally said in a firm voice. “But maybe you could refrain from salivating over her in my presence?”

  “This again.”

  “What again?”

  “Your jealousy.”

  “My jealousy? My friends,” she said, “tell me, ‘Nich, he’s so possessive and somehow you take it.’ ‘Nich, he hasn’t kept a steady girlfriend in his life. What makes you think you’re gonna change him?’ It’s times like this that I wonder why I’m not listening to them.”

  Tim looked very collected on the outside, wearing a shit-eating smile that he was probably betting would drive her nuts. But what about inside?

  Instead of hearing this argument play out, I knew it was a perfect time to read him while his temper was up.

  So I slid in back of him, an inch away from his body, mocking his form with my own essence.

  Then I lightly touched his exposed skin and . . .

  An older woman’s voice. “You’re never going to amount to anything, Timothy. You’re as useless as your father was, wherever he is.”

  Nichelle’s voice bleeding into the first. “I wonder why I’m not listening to them?”

  An image overcoming the thoughts: Nichelle right in front of him, her lips parted as he tore off her shirt. Her gasping as he did the same to her bra. Mouths pressing together, heat, lust . . .

  Another image, grinding over the last, different, yet still angry.

  Sitting at a bar, watching football with blue and gold Chargers jerseys all around. A man in a Raiders shirt cheering for the other team in the corner. Boos drowning him out.

  Anger, churning.

  More taunting from the Raider in the corner. Friends on stools close by. “Just ignore him, Tim.”

  Can’t. Won’t.

  Stepping across the room and, in a flash of fury, fist lashing out, connecting with his nose.

  Satisfaction, laughter.

  Blood on knuckles . . .

  Another scene, like a color slide jamming away the other image.

  A warehouse, gray and concrete, boxes, forklifts. Scruffy men eating from brown bags.

  “What’re you having today, Timbo?” A burly man devouring a burger. “Can’t imagine you’d need to eat much of anything to keep that little body in motion.” Laughter.

  Anger, building . . .

  I withdrew from Tim all on my own. Usually the shock of having me inside made a person’s body and psyche automatically want to get rid of me. But, with Tim, it was almost like I fit. Like I’d quickly become part of the thoughts that’d been flitting through his mind while playing a game of word association, one scene building off the next.

  Even odder about Tim? Inside, he almost felt formless, flailing, one emotional image sparring with another, like his spat with Nichelle had forced his thoughts into an angry dog pile.

  There hadn’t been any indication that he was going to hurt Nichelle in particular, though. And if I hadn’t gotten that vibe from him during a romantic dustup, when would it ever happen?

  I needed to go deeper with Tim if I wanted better answers.

  As I adjusted to my waning strength, craving an electric charge-up, I saw that Nichelle had walked out of the kitchen with a new soda. From the sound of the back screen door opening and closing, I took an educated guess that she’d gone outside to soak up the sun, just like the cougar next door.

  That left me alone with Tim.

  He planted his hands on the edge of the tiled counter, pushing back from it, like he was gathering himself. His breath was deep and even, controlled, but the veins in his neck were standing out.

  Heidi had been right about his temper.

  He stood up, then went to a bedroom like he’d already left the conflict with Nichelle behind. He didn’t shut the door as he stripped off his clothes, and I took that moment to float up to a corner and survey my surroundings, which definitely had a womanly touch with its striped wallpaper, ferns, and the lingering scent of honey-laced soap coming from the adjoining bathroom. When I focused on him again, he’d put on a warehouse uniform.

  He grabbed a set of keys from the top of an old wicker dresser, not bothering to say good-bye to Nichelle as I followed him outside. There, he climbed onto his seen-better-days motorcycle, pushed on his helmet, then revved up and took off.

  I let him go when I saw Amanda Lee’s Bentley across the street a few doors down. On the trunk of the sleek car, Scott sat, his hand resting on the contours just like he was feeling up a girl. When he saw me, he snatched his hand away, crossing his arms over his flannel shirt, jerking his chin at me in a hello.

  I waved at the greaser, letting him know that I was going to take over Amanda Lee duty, and he pointed at me, grinning, then summoned a travel tunnel and dove into it.

  After it swirl-popped back into itself, I went to Amanda Lee, who’d probably sensed Scott but hadn’t seen him. But she knew that my friends were usually around her whenever I wasn’t.

  She rolled down a window, and I slipped inside, taking a seat as she closed the car back up so she could wallow in the low air-conditioning. She’d had the presence of mind to bring another battery pack on the floor, and I clung to it, sighing with pleasure. I’d learned from the Edgett haunting experience to charge up frequently, because I didn’t ever want to go back into a time loop after overextending myself.

  “You’re done for the day?” she asked.

  “No. I’ll be coming back here after Tim’s swing shift, when he’s asleep. I got enough out of him to know that it’ll be worth the effort.”

  Tim’s dream was bound to give me more information to go on since I could go to a deeper level of consciousness that way. I might be able to see what he was keeping bottled up inside on a more profound level.

  “I’m going to meditate on him when I get home,” Amanda Lee said, pointing to a beer bottle in a drink holder. “This was in the front yard, and I was getting some readings, but they were fuzzy, so I brought it with me to spend more time with it.”

  “Did you get readings from anything else, like his bike?”

  “Not a lot.” She started to drive, making it obvious that she’d done all she intended to do at the house for the time being.

  “Wait. No neighbors saw you in the driveway or told you to beat it?”

  “I merely acted as if I had every right to be there. That’s the secret to belonging.” She grinned, probably because even she had to realize that hearing Amanda Lee Minter talk about belonging was majorly ironic. She’d confessed before that she’d never had a lot of friends. “None of the neighbors were in their front yards, so I had time to do more than just consult the bike. I was able to get a reading from a towel near the stoop. It belonged to Nichelle, so I received feedback only from her.”

  “When I empathized with her, I saw that Tim’s not the ideal boyfriend, but that only means she should break up with him, not get him put in jail.” Content for now, I moved away from the battery pack and hovered above the seat. We’d already gotten on the 5 freeway, where the ocean shimmered alongside us. In the lane next to us, I checked out a guy in a red convertible. Blond, with a surfboard in back. Just my type, if he wasn’t so alive.

  “What did you get from that towel?” I asked.

  “Let’s just say I was hearing lyrics from ‘Afternoon Delight.’”

  At first, I didn’t realize that Amanda Lee was being clever. I was literally
thinking back to when I used to hear the song on the radio: lyrics about rubbing sticks and stones together, making sparks ignite, then the thought of rubbing someone else getting the singer real excited . . .

  “Oh,” I said. “I see. So Nichelle was with Tim on that towel?”

  Amanda Lee was lifting her eyebrows in a ladylike way. “Yes, with Tim. Up close and personal.”

  “I had one of those readings, too, except it was from Tim’s point of view. Wow, those two are horny.” I thought of what Twyla had mentioned about rough sex and arguments as foreplay. Our couple of the moment could very well have that process down pat.

  What could I say about it, though? I guess some people are like that. Jealousy could even be a sick way of getting turned on.

  Were both Nichelle and Tim codependent messes?

  “At least she was Afternoon Delighting on the towel with Tim,” I said. “I didn’t see anything that would indicate she’s unfaithful to him. I also didn’t get anything telling me that he’s stepping out on her. He looks at other women, that’s for sure, but I’m not certain he ever acts on his hormones.”

  I went on to describe my brief tour de la casa for Amanda Lee: the fairy-tale collection, the fish tank, the very ordinariness of everything. “When I go back tonight, I’ll take a better look, but dream-digging is my first priority.”

  Empathy readings could get you only so far because they were so shallow. I knew that without a doubt, because when I’d gone into Gavin Edgett’s dreams, there’d been a crazy world of subconscious clues that Amanda Lee had interpreted and we’d both pieced together, using them to eventually solve Elizabeth’s murder. But I needed a suspect to be asleep for that.

  At the thought of Gavin again, I started buzzing inside, remembering how I’d finally gotten to speak to him, dream-person to dream-person. It was the closest I would ever get to spending much quality time with him, because materializing only lasted so long and sucked my energy like you wouldn’t believe.