“Wait, wait. We’ll pass over the completely awful scariness of that movie to address this new issue: isn’t it basically your life story?”
The laughing cut off like he’d flipped a circuit breaker. “No.”
Ah. “I heard Jack saying you were, like, this really powerful psychic. I assume your power didn’t just pop into your head when you hit twenty-one, right? You must have been doing this sort of thing when you were a kid, right?”
His jaw had gone tight, but his voice was casual, almost joking. “My power?” he asked. “What am I, in a Marvel comic book?”
Do Not Enter. He might as well have written it on his forehead. She pretended she knew he wasn’t joking. “Hon, in case you haven’t noticed, our lives—so to speak in my case—are a great big comic book.”
He sighed and stared at the ceiling. “Some kind of fiction book, anyway.”
“Did they scare you?” she asked quietly. “Do we scare you?”
He knew what she meant and answered readily enough. “No, not ever. Not even when I was a kid. The dead—spirits—don’t have any power. They can’t hurt us. Me, I mean. If I thought they were being too bossy I’d just ignore them. Believe me, when you’re the only person they can talk to, ignoring them gets results”—he snapped his fingers—“like that.”
“Thanks for the tip. Why do you keep correcting yourself and calling us spirits?”
“I, uh, don’t want to make you mad.”
There was an awkward pause. She squashed the strong urge to laugh off a serious moment with a bad joke and said, “Tom, that’s the nicest thing anyone’s said to me since I died.”
He smiled, looking down at his lap.
“Please don’t do that,” she added. “You’re the only one who looks at me when we’re talking. I never thought—never thought I’d miss simple human interaction so much.” She ground her teeth so she wouldn’t cry. “It’s all so—stupid. If you make fun of me I’ll sic a stingray on you.”
He stared at her for a long moment, then shot up off the bed. She assumed the airplane food was disagreeing with him until he said, “Come on,” as he strode (well, the cabin was so small he was at the door in a stride and a half) to the door.
“Jinkies, Fred, did you solve the mystery?” She carefully got up—this was no time to go caroming through a wall. “What are we doing? What?”
“Simple human interaction,” he replied, and out the door he went.
CHAPTER NINE
“Why did we come out here for this?” Nikki asked. “And when did the sun come back up?”
“I need your friends to keep an eye on my body,” he muttered, sitting down and pulling his legs into a lotus position. “I might fall over.”
“You must be putting me on,” Jack commented, watching Tom fold himself into a gangly knot. “It isn’t possible.”
“What?” Cathy asked. “What is he going to do?”
“Simple human interaction.”
“Yeah, whatever fit he’s decided to have, it’s my fault,” Nikki explained to her friends, which was silly because they couldn’t hear her. “I overshared and now he’s freaked out.”
“Mmmmmmmmmmm,” Tom said, shutting his eyes.
“You picked a rotten time to go crazy. Again, not to be all self-involved, but I’m pretty sure this whole thing is still about me.”
“Mmmmmmmmmmm.” Tom was still mmm’ing.
“It is impossible,” Jack said. “And I do not say that lightly.” Still, he didn’t sound like he thought it was impossible. He sounded fascinated, like he couldn’t wait to see what Tom was going to do next.
Nikki squatted in front of Lotus-Tom just in time to see him stand up. And now there were two Toms: Lotus-Tom and Ghost-Tom.
“How about that?” he beamed, standing over his own cross-legged body. He held his arms out. “That’s worth a kiss at least, right?”
She blinked hard, reminded herself she didn’t need to do that anymore, and cautiously reached out for him. His fingers closed over hers, warm and strong.
“Oh, boy,” she said weakly. “Nice trick.” And gave him the kiss he’d earned.
CHAPTER TEN
They were walking hand in hand on the beach, a picture right from of an ad agency travel poster, except, of course, neither of them was really there.
Her lips were still tingling from the kiss. He’d seized her so hard she’d nearly bent backward, she’d flung her arms around his neck so hard he’d nearly choked, and they’d mashed their mouths together like teenagers who had the equipment, but not the finesse. It had been the greatest kiss of her life.
What a damn shame.
“So, what’s this? I mean, your physical body is back on the beach, but you’re here with me?”
“Yup.” He seemed abnormally cheerful.
“So you have two powers.”
“Yup.”
“What’s this other one called?”
“Spirit walking.”
“I had a pair of those once,” she commented. “Easy Spirit walking shoes.”
He punched her shoulder lightly. “Hilarious.”
She was delighting in everything; his hand in hers, the roar of the surf, the texture of his beard (she’d have beard burn after that kiss, and that was just fine), his scent. Being incorporeal wasn’t so bad if you had someone to be incorporeal with, and although she knew a large part of her problem had been loneliness, the truth was, she had been lonely before her encounter with Señor Stingray.
She had cried on Cathy’s wedding day, but hadn’t some of them been tears of jealousy?
“When I was little,” he was saying, “I used to go right out to the spirits. I didn’t realize until years later that I didn’t have to do that, I could see and hear them just fine without having to leave my body. Still, it was fun—a great way to sneak out of the house.”
She laughed so hard, she almost fell through the beach. “I’ll bet! Leave your body all tucked in under the covers, then . . . whoosh! Oh, your poor parents.”
He smiled down at her and she was struck again by his extreme height: he had five inches on her at least, and she was not a short woman. And his thinness. Shirtless, his collarbones looked like dull knives.
“You know, you really need a milkshake. And the food here is great. We’ve got to fatten you up. I mean, doesn’t this”—she pinched his incorporeal arm for emphasis—“take it out of you?”
He shrugged.
“Because if it didn’t, you’d probably do it all the time, right? And I bet you don’t. Do that all the time, I mean.” Oh, God, I said “do it.”
He shrugged again. “It doesn’t matter. I wanted to—” He almost choked off the rest of the sentence.
“What?”
“I wanted to touch you,” he said, sounding like someone was strangling him. “See if you felt as good as you looked.”
She stuck her foot between his ankles and he went sprawling on the beach, and then she pounced on him like a puppy with a new chew toy. “Yeah?” she challenged. “Well, I don’t think you can tell by just one lousy kiss.”
“Lousy?”
“It was terrible.” She rubbed her chin into his chest and ignored his giggles. “Definitely time for a do-over. Remember that? When we were kids, if something didn’t go right, you’d get a do-over?”
He stopped laughing. “I was never a kid.” Then he cupped the back of her head with one big hand, pulled her down, and kissed her—almost bruised her—and she kissed him back. They were rolling around in the sand like a couple of beached flounders, and she thought, There’s something wrong with him. He’s . . . broken.
When they finished, they were lying inside a tree. “That can’t be good for any of us,” she said, standing up and automatically starting to brush off the sand—then remembered sand didn’t stick to her anymore. She could go to the beach anytime she liked and not have sand get everywhere! Hmm, advantage number two. “Don’t you want to get back to your body? Aren’t you tired?”
“After that? Hell, no.” He adjusted the waist on his shorts and grimaced. “Tired is the last thing I feel.”
I won’t look, I won’t look, I—who am I kidding? She stole a peek at his bulging crotch, then said, “Forget it, pal. I’m not that kind of ghost.”
“Just checking,” he grumbled, and slung an arm around her shoulders, and they trudged back to the lodge.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“Uh . . . where’d everybody go? And where’s your body?”
“Good damned question.”
Lotus-Tom was gone. She could see the marks in the sand where he’d been sitting, and there were more marks—drag marks? Like there’d been a scuffle? And then—
“Footprints,” she said, and pointed. “Going back to your cabin.”
“Mmmm.” She could see he was pissed. She didn’t blame him. How embarrassing to lose track of your physical body! She could relate. “Lucky for us you used to be a Girl Scout.”
“I did used to be a Girl Scout, smart guy. Nobody in my troop sold more cookies than I did. Nobody. God, what I wouldn’t do for a Thin Mint right about now.”
He grunted, unmoved by her cookie lust, then marched to his cabin and walked through the door.
Wow! Do I look like that, all cool and vanish-ey? She did the same thing, and, since the cabins were so small (but then, who came to Little Cayman to hang out in their cabin?), nearly walked through the bed as well.
Lotus-Tom had been put on the bed, his legs untangled. And someone—Cathy, probably—had tucked the covers up to his chin.
“For God’s sake,” Ghost-Tom said.
Jack, sitting beside the bed and rereading Your Essential Life, didn’t look up. Of course he didn’t. But it was nice that they’d posted a guard.
Ghost-Tom was climbing into Lotus-Tom, who immediately sat up on the bed and said, “Don’t ever do that again.”
Jack dropped the book. “Don’t ever do that again. I’m an old man; my heart can’t take it.”
“Spare me.” Lotus-Tom—er, just Tom, now, she supposed, threw the covers back and climbed out of the bed. “I know you meant well, but it’s really, really disturbing to come back to where you left your body and then have to look for it, all right?”
“Aw, get over yourself, ya big baby,” Nikki commented helpfully, grinning when he shot her a glare.
“My wife was worried about you. She wanted to get you indoors, as there was no telling when you’d return to your—when you’d come back. So we brought you back here. Not without difficulty, I might add. You’re a lot heavier than you look.”
“Ohhh, snap,” Nikki said.
“I have big bones,” Tom said sulkily.
“My wife is resting, but I’ll go wake her if you found anything out.”
“Found anything out?”
“About Nikki,” Jack said patiently. “About how to help her.”
“Uh . . .”
“Go on,” Nikki urged. “Tell them you used the time to find out what a great kisser I am.”
“It’s a long and complicated process,” Tom said.
“How can you lie like that?” she almost shrieked.
“I’ll have to spirit walk a few more times to get to the bottom of this.”
“Yeah? Well, you can make out with a hermit crab for your pains, chum.”
“So,” Tom finished cheerfully, “no need to wake up your wife.”
“Oh.” Jack bent over and picked up his book. “As you wish. She’ll be relieved you’re back. Is Nikki okay?”
“She’s fine,” Tom said.
“I’m fine? Buster, the next time I can touch you, I’m giving you such a kick in the balls. . . .”
“You missed supper—and lunch—but I can go get you something from the lodge.”
“Not hungry,” Tom replied. “That’s fine, take off.”
“Are you sure?” Jack was lingering by the doorway. “I don’t think I’ve seen you eat since you’ve gotten here.”
“Oh, I had some crackers on the plane. Now shoo.”
“Good advice,” Nikki snapped, and marched through the wall.
“I didn’t mean you!” she heard him yell after her. Too bad.
CHAPTER TWELVE
She had avoided the lot of them by lurking—haunting—the other side of the island. And she’d learned a crucial thing: no matter how powerful the psychic was, a ghost could hide from him if she really wanted to. And she really wanted to.
But, after sulking for a couple of days she decided to go back to the lodge side, just to check on Cathy if nothing else. And there was nothing else. Certainly she’d never care if she ever saw Mr. Makeout again.
There were a number of coast guard boats tied off and quite a few people milling about the lodge. Another unmarked van was idling in the driveway, and something in a big bag was being loaded into it. Nikki had a sickening feeling she knew what it was. And why Cathy and Jack weren’t there.
She carefully walked into their cabin only to find the three of them sitting in odd postures. It took her a minute to put her finger on what they were doing, and then it hit her: they were waiting.
“It’s about damn time!” Tom snapped by way of greeting. He had, more’s the pity, put on a shirt today to go with his cutoffs. Then, to her friends: “She’s here.”
Cathy’s eyes were rimmed in red; she looked like she’d been playing with the wrong color eyeliner. “Nikki, they found—they found you today.”
“Yeah, I gathered from all the ruckus.”
Silence. A dead silence, one might say. Then Cathy added timidly, “So I guess she can go on, now?”
“Go on what?” Nikki asked.
“Cathy and Jack think that now that your body’s been found, there’s no reason for you to keep haunting them.”
“I’m not haunting them!” she yelled. “How many times do I have to say it? I’m stuck, but I’m not haunting. I want them to get on with their lives, crissake, what’s it been, three months?”
“Four and a half,” Tom corrected her.
“Right! My point! Tell ’em I said to get lost! Go back to their lives! Bye-bye, Charlie!”
Tom blinked, then turned to Cathy. “She says finding her body made no difference. She wants you to get back to your own lives. She wants you to leave.”
“But—but she’s still here.”
“Yup,” he agreed.
“Look, if I could poof on to heaven or the next plane or the next life or whatever, don’t you think I would have by now? I think—don’t tell them this—I think I’m stuck here because they’re stuck here. I’m not haunting this place, they are.”
“She thinks your refusal to move on is why she’s trapped here.”
“I told you not to tell them!” she howled.
“My God, that’s awful,” Cathy gasped. “But—but tell her we can’t just leave her here in limbo like this.”
“Then she’s doomed,” Tom said. “Sorry to sound dramatic, but there it is. She can’t move on if you can’t move on.”
Cathy bit her lip and looked down at her lap. Jack patted her arm with one hand, and tapped the nightstand with the fingers of his other hand, an obnoxious habit he had when he was thinking about something difficult.
“Besides, she won’t be alone,” Tom added. “I’ll stay here. You know, help her onto the next plane, all that stuff.”
“What?” Nikki was appalled, intrigued, and appalled all over again. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Oh—you will?” Cathy brightened. “You’ll stay with her? That’s different. I mean—now that they’ve found the body—there isn’t anything else for us to do. At least she can see you, talk to you.”
“Right! Well, half right. Good-bye! And take him with you.”
“Shall we discuss your fee? Because—”
“No, no.” Tom waved that away. “The fee you already paid is more than I make in six months. That’s fine.”
“Well.” Cathy bit her lip again and looked at her husba
nd. “I guess we’d better pack.”
Nikki walked back outside before Tom could hear something she might regret. They were doing what she wanted, right? They were
(abandoning)
leaving her, right? It’s what she wanted all along, to have a chance to
(be alone)
pick up the pieces, to let them
(live)
get back to their lives.
So how come she felt so shitty?
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
They packed. Took the van. Flew away. The other van (she assumed it was the coroner’s van, if such a tiny island had such a thing) left. The coast guard left. Everybody left.
And now, finally, new guests were coming. She supposed that was a good thing, for the lodge at least. But she sure didn’t like seeing strangers in what she thought of as Cathy and Jack’s place. Guests who never knew she had existed, and certainly didn’t care either way.
And she got what she wanted, right? Cathy and Jack had moved on. Her body had been found, identified, claimed, and, by now, buried next to her parents in the Hastings Cemetery. Everything was as fine as could be, under the circumstances. Right? She’d missed her own funeral, but who’d want to go to that anyway? Right?
Tom stayed. And because he was the only one she could talk to, she swallowed her anger and started speaking to him again.
“So, did they get back okay?” she asked.
“It speaks!” he cried. He had sat down in one of the chairs and was pulling off his sandals; now he threw them in the corner and leaped to his feet. “Is it Halloween already?”
“Har-de-har-har. I was just wondering if my friends made it back okay.”
“They’re fine. Do you know how long I’ve been waiting for you to get over your mad-on? A damned month!”
“Oh, it hasn’t been that long.”
He muttered something. It sounded like “fucking dead people.”
“What?”
“Spirits have no sense of time. At all.”
“Oh. Well, this spirit doesn’t, anyway.”
“And why were you mad, anyway? Was it so awful that I liked spending time with you and wanted to do more of it?”
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