Might as well get this over with.
I stopped at the exact spot where I’d taken my last breath, then laid myself over the dirt at the base of a tree. A sense of mind-scrambling comfort mixed with discomfort swallowed me. It was like the area was embracing me while pushing me away at the same time. But the death energy I was getting . . .
God. It was like nothing else. Bad for me and good for me. Dark and light. Dangerous and safe, just like this was the one place I really did belong.
I absorbed as much as I could before the visions started coming.
Panting, sprinting away from the running footsteps right behind, dogging me, closer, closer, chest hurting, icy, can’t breathe—
Just breathe!
Sliding to the bottom of the oak, hiding. Breathing. Trying not to breathe.
It’ll hear me if I do.
But what is it?
No sound. No nothing, except for the hoot of an owl.
A snapping branch.
Then . . .
Mask. Old wrinkled lady, terrifying, a mouth opened like it was laughing. And it was. Laughing.
And it had an ax . . .
“Stop! Please! Why’re you doing this?”
My voice rang out as I pulled back from my death spot. I’d just said my final words out loud, sending a flutter of birds away from the branches above me.
Rising off the dreadful spot, my form sang with energy, stronger than before and, in a way, weaker. So much emotionally weaker because of the repressed memories that wouldn’t quite come.
A voice behind me made me startle.
“Ghosts. I don’t know if I should be entertained by your predictability or be sad.”
My body felt . . . solid. Like it was a real-deal body, with true arms and legs and everything else. And there was only one entity in Boo World who had some kind of weird magic that made that happen whenever he was around.
I tried to keep my words from shaking. “Haven’t seen you around lately. I was hoping you’d lost interest in me.”
“You’ve just recently become intriguing again.”
Fake Dean was leaning against a tree like a bad boy in school who leaned against a set of lockers, brazenly checking you out as you told yourself not to look. And then you looked.
Whatever this entity was, it wasn’t the real Dean. My actual old boyfriend was in his early fifties now, his hairline receding, the father of two kids in suburbia. I knew because I’d watched him soon after being released from my time loop. This Dean, though?
He was like a bright dream with sunny hair that came to a straight edge at his whiskered chin. Tan, surfer-lean, muscled in all the right places. His whiskey-brown eyes and crooked smile both made me feel drunk, and I hated him for that, even though I shouldn’t. Not when he’d saved my bacon a month ago, at the end of the Edgett disaster when I’d possessed a willing Gavin’s body so that we could prevent Farah from committing suicide. We’d been too late, but the brief possession had fully drained me, dragging me back toward another numb time-loop limbo.
That’s when I’d felt something pulling me up and up, and I hadn’t known that I’d been taken to fake Dean’s star place until I awakened, reenergized by his touch. When I’d seen that the celestial bodies around me were actual glowing bodies and not stars at all, I’d realized something about fake Dean.
He was no ghost. At first, I’d thought he was a reaper, come to take me to the glare. And, indeed, there’d been a powerful light-infused lotus pool in the star place.
But I’d found out from my ghost friends that they’d never met a reaper, or wrangler, like fake Dean.
I did discover something concrete about him, though—he was a “keeper,” a collector, and he had a thing for new ghosts who were too naive to avoid him. New ghosts, in particular, who were active and amusing, just like me—Jensen Murphy, solver of a murder. My justice-driven pursuits had entertained him and energized him, so he’d wanted to keep me, thinking I’d be the biggest barrel of laughs ever or something.
I know. Insane. I still hadn’t figured him out all the way. I mean, the guy could transform into other bodies, seducing me by using whatever shape he needed, but I think he’d shown me his true face for a millisecond when he’d gotten really pissed at my backtalk.
A wispy beast, roaring.
Not. A. Ghost.
“Let me guess,” I said. “I reintrigued you today, when Heidi Schmidt came to me and Amanda Lee for help.”
“Bingo.”
“So you’ve still been keeping an eye on me, even after I told you to go lay an egg the last time.”
“Just because you say you’ll never come to me willingly doesn’t mean I’ve given up. Because I don’t give up, Jenny.”
For about the hundredth time, I tried to calm myself when he used the nickname my Dean had called me. There was something about the way he said it, smooth yet gruff, a rasp of need just under the surface.
He noticed my agitation. “Seems there’s good reason for me not to give up.”
“Eat my shorts.” Ugh. That was so Valley, more Twyla than me.
“Is that an invitation?” He eased away from the tree, beginning to walk away in those blue jeans and a T-shirt that only added to his coolness. “Come with.”
I barked out a laugh. “Seriously?”
“I’m not going to pull a trick on you.”
“Hmm, let me turn this over in my mind. Let’s see. Every time I find myself alone with you, I end up in your star place, whether I want to go or not.” I weighed my options with my hands. “Believe the bogus jerk? Not believe the bogus jerk? What should it be?”
“What if I told you that I’ve found you a place all your own—and it’s far enough away from Amanda Lee to make you happy? I know you’ve been thinking of getting one.”
I just stared at him. Was he kidding?
“Remember, I’ve been watching,” he said. “I saw the latest stunt she pulled.” He crooked his finger at me. “Let’s go. It’s within walking distance.”
“Just tell me where it is and I’ll find it myself.”
“Nope.”
“I have the ability to discover abandoned properties all on my own, you know. It’s called initiative.”
“Maybe. But you’ll never know why it’s deserted. Wouldn’t you like to hear whether the owners will ever come back and kick you out? I can tell you anything you want about it.”
I hated him. I loved him—or, at least, the part that I still saw as my Dean. The longer I talked to him, the easier it was to believe that he’d never driven away in his Camaro to Columbia University, leaving me behind.
As fake Dean moved through the forest, I followed at a distance, too intrigued to refuse, even if I should’ve.
5
From the outside, the house made me sigh.
A cottage twenty minutes and a world away from my death spot. It reclined on a small hill in a peaceful, swanky, more residential part of the Elfin Forest area, boasting a private driveway. Quaint primrose paths wound their lazy way toward a porch with an actual old-fashioned swing.
All fairy tales and Leave It to Beaver reruns, I thought as I listened to the faint murmur of a creek nearby. The rustle of leaves from the protective oaks that stood over the house only gave it more of a homey feel.
“Somebody has to live here,” I said. “This can’t be abandoned.”
Fake Dean strode right up to the entrance, reached into the porch lantern, took out a key, then unlocked the door and walked inside, just as if he were totally normal.
Not a ghost, I reminded myself. He could unlock doors, touch things.
Then again, I could do the very same activities when I was in his presence, and he could actually touch me. Truly touch—just like I was normal. Whoever or whatever he was, he didn’t play fair.
But I wasn’t about to run away from him like a little girlie, so I went into the house, too. If this was the star place he was luring me into, then I’d escape. It was just such a pain to do that ever
y time.
The minute I saw the inside, I cared a bit less about being trapped. The cottage still had its furniture, although it was draped by white dustcovers with bows at the back. Under those, I could see the shapes of sofas, ottomans, overstuffed chairs, and a piano. To the right, the open kitchen was one of those paradises that had an island—be still my beating, wish-I-could-cook heart!—and a loft rose above everything else in the main room. There was even a fireplace with the andirons still standing.
“Who’d leave a house like this?” I asked.
“It’s a vacation home for a snowbird widow from Minnesota.” Fake Dean rested against the back of a sofa, hooking his thumbs in his belt loops as my Dean used to. “She won’t be back, not even as a ghost.”
“How can you be so sure . . .” I stopped when I realized that this was an A1 mysterious entity I was talking to, a powerful enigma that seemed to see all. A month ago, this dipthwack could’ve saved me the trouble of finding Elizabeth’s murderer. He would’ve even been able to tell me who had killed me. But, to this guy, that’d be like ruining a sporting event. He took pleasure in seeing me very active, playing what he considered a game, just like I was his own investigative gladiator.
He was smiling lackadaisically at my question. “I know what I know, Jenny. Suffice to say that the owner is going to get into a small plane accident during a trip she takes to wine country this spring instead of coming to this house like she usually does. She won’t hang around Boo World long enough to return here, and the daughter who inherits the property will say that she intends to vacation in this darling abode, but she lives in Hawaii, so why would she bother?”
“Then I’m free to put down stakes here.”
“Extremely free. There’s a caretaker who comes around, but that’s it.”
A thought occurred to me. “The owner . . . Do you know so much about her because you’re going to take her up to your star place, and she’ll be hanging around there, like your other collectibles?”
“If that were the case, you know she’d be doing it willingly.”
He sent me a slow look that told me he was only beginning to make me willing, too. And someday he knew I would be.
My heartbeat was like the erratic pulsing of a spent neon sign: on, off, bright red, then dark, sputtering back to red again.
Something in the back of my mind said, You know you like it whenever he touches you—and you’re just waiting for that to happen now. It’s the best feeling in the world, and it only makes you stronger every time. . . .
I walked away from him, my sneakers actually sinking into the plush carpet. Everything was so real around him. And being in such a cozy home, just like the one I’d lived in as a girl, only multiplied the sensation.
“So what do you think?” he asked.
“I like it. But . . .”
“I promise you, Jenny, this isn’t a trap to get you where I want you to be.”
“How much is your promise worth?”
He lost his grin. “Everything.”
He said it with such seriousness that my newfound heartbeat nearly stopped. Maybe it was the longing in his gaze, too. It’s hard not to feel special when you can see naked yearning like that in someone or . . . well, something.
“You make this so damned hard,” I said, touching the counter, loving the slick tile under my fingertips.
“What, trusting me?”
“Yes.”
“I know, I really do.” He shrugged, standing away from the sofa, coming toward me. “But you’re a hard sell, and I’ve been pushing more with you than with most newbie ghosts. How can I win you over?”
I thought for a moment, and he laughed.
“I guess saving you from a time loop wasn’t enough.”
“It did go a long way.” I really was grateful for that, although I hated to admit it.
And he seemed to catch on to that fact, because he strolled even closer. Crap. Whenever he got near enough for me to smell the beachy salt and the soap on his skin, I heated up that much more.
His voice was soft, alluring. “There was nothing stopping me from just keeping you with all of my stars after I saved you.”
Hello? Willingness? “I can’t ever see myself agreeing to have something feeding off my happy emotions like they obviously gave you permission to do.”
All those comatose bodies, so beautiful, so heavenly, had benefited from this keeper’s attentions; he’d planted sublime thoughts inside them so they would never have to think about death or pain. And no matter how much I was resisting, I’d briefly considered going under, myself. Imagine an eternity where I didn’t see grotesque granny masks or axes, where I lived every day with my Dean and my parents, who would never have died in the world fake Dean could’ve given me in the star place.
He braced his hands on the counter—hands that had been all over my body once upon a time. I couldn’t look away from them.
“You’re not a good liar,” he said.
“I’ll do better from now on.”
“Then start with this.” He nodded toward the main room. “Is this the kind of house you always wanted with him?”
With my real Dean.
I opted for the truth here. “We could’ve ended up somewhere similar. I don’t look like I’d ever be a full-time mom or anything, but I seriously thought about that stuff with Dean. You know the rest. After my parents died, I kind of went on a different path.”
“The former straight-A student quitting college and losing ambition. Who could blame you? The world had lost its color, its purpose. You needed to regroup.”
Why did he have to be the only one around who totally understood? Even my best alive friend, Suze, hadn’t gotten it.
When he sat on a barstool and leaned his muscled forearms on the counter, I saw me and my own Dean utterly belonging here. For a sec, I even gave in to the fantasy of this fake Dean and me, living out the future I could’ve had.
“There’s another plus about this place that I haven’t mentioned,” he said, grinning again.
“What?” Heart beating. Veins pumping with clipped pulses. Why did I get the feeling that he’d looked right into me and saw my biggest desires?
“We can play house.”
Yup. He saw all.
I couldn’t help a laugh at how fruitless it was to try to keep anything from him. “Very funny. I wouldn’t even know what to say to you when you walk through the door. It sure wouldn’t be, ‘Honey, you’re home!’”
“You could call me honey.”
“I don’t know what to call you.”
“Yes, you do.”
He wanted me to call him Dean.
Reaching out a hand, he opened his fingers. “Try playing along. Just once.”
Trust your Dean. That was what he meant.
Common sense told me not to give in to him, but there was something else whispering to me, and it was saying that he would continue pursuing me until he got what he wanted. And, right now, it seemed like such a good idea to feel someone’s human-esque fingers tracing my skin. Especially his fingers.
“If you screw me over . . .” I whispered.
“Would I ever do that to you, Jenny?”
Yeah, I thought. You did it when you left me behind to go to school, saying that you’d see me again. But it hadn’t been the same after that at all.
“Give me another chance,” he added.
I realized that the entity had actually taken on the personality of Dean now, trying to seduce me with my old boyfriend’s words, not just his image.
And, as usual, it was working.
Locking gazes with him, it was as if I’d been shot through with adrenaline, my heart kicking in earnest now, life breathing through me as I touched his fingertips.
A surge of power almost made my legs fold, and I began to pull my hand away. But he wrapped his fingers around mine, increasing the voltage.
“Don’t you miss this?” he asked. “Who has ever made you feel this way besides me?”
“Jenny,” he murmured, standing, pulling my hand closer to him.
When he laid my palm flat against his heart, I felt the beat, just as if it were my own.
Ba-bump, ba-bump . . .
It was like being in a bed, under a bundle of covers, when all around, it was cold. It was like being wrapped in cotton, treasured and kept.
Most of all, it was like the moment I’d realized I’d fallen in love with Dean for the very first time.
I didn’t pull my hand away. I couldn’t, because it was the last thing I wanted to do. My Dean. Everything I’d lost.
“Jenny,” he whispered again, making my chest go tight.
If I moved, all of this might disappear.
His voice came on low waves of vibration. “You know I’m the only one who’s ever going to make you feel.”
I thought of Gavin, and how I wished . . .
“He can’t do this for you.”
Suddenly, the entity’s voice wasn’t Dean’s anymore. It was guttural and velvety at the same time.
I jerked my hand away from him and, for a horrifying flash, I thought I saw a different face on him: misty white. High cheekbones. Bottomless dark eyes.
But just as I took a tripping step away from him, he was back to being Dean, golden and humanlike.
He shook his head.
“You’re going to find,” he said in the voice I was used to, except tighter now, “that humans will only let you down. Don’t ever expect anything from them, especially if you’re looking for affection.”
It almost sounded like he was . . . jealous of Gavin?
He softly laughed off the moment, his eyes light brown again, just like they’d never changed. As I backed away from him even more, it was like he knew that his whole trust campaign was in jeopardy, and he raised his hands in a type of gunslinger “see, I’m not armed” gesture.
“If you really don’t trust me,” he said, “all you have to do is ban me from this house, and I won’t be able to come back in.”
Another One Bites the Dust Page 6
