Breathing heavily, she clutches a long fingered hand to her chest, flutters her eyelashes, and gives a general impression of a girl who's about to swoon. “Drew McKinney?” she asks me, her voice wispy and frightened.
I fold my arms and frown. Knowing her from Fray's memories lets me see the tiny details that say she's not really scared, she's just trying to make sure I am. “Yeah?”
“Thank God I found you!”
“Yeah,” I mutter, completely irked by her attempted manipulation. “God be praised. What do you want?”
Finn rustles beside me, probably wondering why I'm taking the time to wait on someone I'm treating with so much antagonism, but he doesn't say anything yet.
“You're in great danger,” Elza says, the words tripping over themselves in their rush to come out.
“No shit. Today's the day I die.”
Her head shakes, making the curls in her hair hair dance. “No. Today is the day Finn murders you.”
I snort out a laugh.
“I'm not joking!” Elza wails, her eyes so wide with honesty that she can only be lying.
“Right,” Finn grumbles. “And why do I murder her?”
“You?” Elza squints at him. I take an amount of pleasure from the way the expression makes her look like a puzzled hamster. Nice to know she's not always pretty. “Who are you?”
“He'd be Finn,” I fill her in. Would have thought she'd recognize him.
“No.” She shakes her head. “Not him. I mean Finn Finnegan. Finn Finnegan is going to kill you.”
“Who's Finn Finnegan?”
The woman stares at me like I'm nuts. Or stupid. Maybe both. It makes her look less like a hamster and more like a bulldog. “The lousy bastard who forced me into marriage against my will.”
“Fray?” Finn guesses.
“Fray,” Elza snarls, the viciousness behind the name the first genuine emotion she's shown. “As though changing his name's going to change what we all know he is.”
“Why would Fray want to kill me?” I raise my eyebrows and let her have time to answer. This ought to be good.
“You think him incapable of murder?” she poses back. “Did he tell you how I died?”
I shrug. “He claims he killed you.”
“He sliced me with my favorite kitchen knife.” Lines of red flash across her pearly white skin. She's over doing it a bit, if you ask me. Though I notice Finn's breath rushes in, implying he's more impressed with the display than I am.
“At least he knew which one was your favorite. A lot of guys wouldn't.”
Elza trembles as she stares at me. She's going for horrified, I'm sure. But the innocent shock is drowning beneath a much more believable anger. “Our babe was in the room with us!”
Our babe. Our. Interesting. That detail was definitely different in Fray's recollection. As far as he recalls, the boy was his brother's.
“Yeah,” I say slowly. “He showed me the memory.”
I can tell Finn's staring at me but I don't spare the seconds to do anything about it.
“And you still trust him?” Elza gasps. “He murdered me in cold blood!”
“Maybe.” I take a deep breath. “And maybe you deserved it. But even if you didn't, that was a very long time ago.”
“Oh?” Her lower lip quivers as she straightens her body and looks me in the eye. “And all the people he's killed since me? Where any of them recent enough? What about Al Finnegan and his wife?”
To my side, Finn sighs. “Al Finnegan died of perfectly natural causes.”
“Did he?” Elza sneers. “And his wife? What did she die of?”
Finn doesn't answer, which is answer enough. Whatever it was, murder by ghost is a possible explanation.
“And you, Finn,” Elza goes on. “What do you gain from Drew's death?” She moves her eyes between us. “A lover, perhaps?”
Another miscalculation. She could have seen us before we knew she was there. She looked like she'd been running instead of teleporting, so maybe she'd been around for the goodbye kiss. I'd even be willing to accept that our body language gives our relationship away to anyone who's looking. But knowing we weren't together before I died betrays more background knowledge than she'd let on to having. Not to mention...
“How do you know Fray's going to hurt me?” I ask.
She blinks as I move her thoughts from my Finn back to hers. “I foresee it.”
“Foresee? You're prescient?”
She shakes her head. “No, I just see the future.”
“Right.” I forgo mentioning that this is the definition of prescient. “You foresee Fray killing me. How?”
“He's going to keep you from dying.”
“What?” Finn demands, sounding confused.
“He'll keep you from dying the way you're supposed to,” Elza tells me. “But he won't keep you from dying at all. He'll just replace your intended death with something that won't leave you in Shadow. You'll pass quietly out of existence. You're not really dead now, not like you'll be then.”
Holy shit. I'm shaking my head, but I'm also shaking in fear. Or maybe anger.
“Why?” I ask again, latching onto the anger. Anger I can work with. Fear's useless.
Elza gives me a pitying look. “The same reason he killed me.”
“I didn't reject him and start screwing his brother.”
Bristling at the wording, she loses her sympathy and glares harshly. “No. You rejected him to screw his grandson.”
So. Much. Wrong. With. That.
Grandson?
And I didn't reject Fray. Fray rejected me. Sort of. And... Grandson?
“So you do know who I am?” Finn asks.
Yep, she must. There are probably signs of relation between Finn and Fray that are obvious to anthropologists, but there aren't any tells a normal person would see. Finn and I both stare at her until she gives an aggrieved sigh.
“You're Cooper Finnegan,” she admits, her voice dull. “You're my several times great grandson. I didn't want to confuse things getting into all that. You think you'll be able to keep Drew, but you won't. Because he's conned you even worse than you've conned her.”
“Nobody deceives Drew,” Finn states. “She's too smart.”
We can only wish that were true. But it isn't, not by a long shot. I never caught on to any of Cris's deceits. I trusted Ricky. Maybe only as far as accepting coffee from him and going out to his car, but that was clearly too far. Why on earth should I assume Finn couldn't fool me just as easily? Surely I'd have to be an idiot to believe Cooper Finnegan loves me so much he's willing to loose me to keep me alive. Why wouldn't he take the option that leaves me dead but gains him a live-in girlfriend until he goes off to college and then a pretty young thing to come back to whenever he feels like spending a few hours away from his real life?
Guess I'm an idiot. But we knew that already.
Elza's eyes widen. “I have to go.”
I'm about to ask her where but she vanishes too quickly.
“That was strange,” I comment.
Finn grunts.
“If she's been here all along, why don't you know her?”
He shrugs and mumbles, “Don't know. Some ghosts don't get out much.”
Yeah, I guess... “What now?” I ask, looking to Finn. Is it my imagination or have I been asking that question a lot lately?
Finn's gaze rips into me, tearing me apart as he ransacks my eyes. The internal debate on whether he wants to say what's on his mind is clear, but what that is remains a mystery. And I'm not going to find out any time soon because his front door opens and his mom rushes out.
Barefoot and in pigtails, Ms. Finnegan sprints over the grass looking like a long lost cousin on The Beverly Hillbillies in worn jeans and flannel. Her shirt's checkered with greens that bring out her eyes, which I suddenly realize are the same shade as Fray's.
“Was that who I thought it was?” she asks, her voice getting in on the mountain theme with a panic-thickened accent as she c
omes to a stop very close to where Elza was a few moments ago. “Elza McCormick Finnegan?”
Finn's staring at her, his jaw slightly dropped as his mind tries to catch up with the fact he's just been outed as a medium, that his mother may have some idea about what's going on, and that she seems likely to be thrusting herself into the middle of it all.
“Um... Yeah,” I answer, not seeing much choice.
“When did she get out? Who released her?”
I look to Finn, who's still busily processing current events. “I don't know.”
With a sound of frustration, she yanks the scrunchy holding her left pigtail out and starts grinding her teeth. She tears down the other side of her hair, then demands, “Well, where's Fray?”
“Um...” Desperate, I give Finn a beseeching look that he ignores. “He was at the hospital last time we saw him.”
“With the living version of you?” Finn's mom reaches behind her to pull all her hair into a single rope and wraps both scrunchies around it. She meets my gaping expression with calm. “I ran into her yesterday. After I... Ran into you.”
She blushes a little at the reference to seeing me yesterday, when she thwarted my plot to have my way with her son, then rushes on. “Let's just say she thinks I'm crazy now.”
“Okay,” I whisper, not sure how all of this changes things.
“Of course,” Finn's mom continues, “just about everyone who's ever met me thinks the exact same thing.” Her eyes snap to the side. “I was wondering when I'd see you.”
I follow the lethal glare to find Fray standing frozen, like he's the one seeing a ghost.
After a few heartbeats, Fray clears his throat and forces his shoulders to straighten. “You would have seen me earlier, except you keep taking those pills.”
Finn's mom snorts very Finn-esque snort. “I'll take another as soon as we're done with this.”
“You do that,” he says softly. He walks closer to me, but I can't let his obvious hurt over his great-granddaughter's reaction to his presence make me less pissed at him. Because it's the fact she's his great-granddaughter that's pissed me off in the first place.
“Why if it isn't Finn Finnegan,” I grit between clenched teeth.
He sighs with defeat, eyes flickering to Finn's mom in accusation. His eyes leave her to go to Finn, don't like what they see, and come back to me. “Thought my mother named me Fray, did you?”
Finn tries to grab me but he's not fast enough to keep me from reaching out and slapping Fray as hard as I can.
The crack of the contact zips through the air.
Finn's teeth grit together. His hands are in fists and I know that even though he tried to stop me, he's standing there thinking slapping wasn't nearly enough.
“Finn Finnegan,” I repeat.
Holding his hands up with the palms facing forward, Fray takes a step back from me.
Finn's mom watches us with folded arms and an air of patience, not acting at all inclined to intervene. In fact, I suspect she'd be more than willing to help kick Fray's ass all over the mountain.
“Finn Finnegan,” I say a third time, moving so that my hand can make another assault.
This time, he grabs my wrist and holds the hand in place. “Would you stop doing that?”
I smack him with the other hand.
“Drew!” he snaps. “I'm sorry. You never asked what my given name was.”
Okay. That's true. But, still... “You could have mentioned you happened to have the same name as my boyfriend.”
One of his shoulders shrugs. “It didn't really seem relevant.”
I can't help it. I hit him again.
Finn puts his arms around me, pinning mine before I snap and do actual damage. “It seems like a hell of a coincidence.”
Taking a slow breath, Fray shifts like a man who's hoping everyone will suddenly forget he's present. For half a second, he looks at Finn's mom like he expects her to jump in with an assist. “It isn't exactly.”
“How not exactly?”
Fray scratches the side of his jaw. “Well...”
“Good grief, Fray,” Finn's mom snaps. “You haven't changed at all, have you? Still allergic to straight answers?”
Their eyes lock together. “Bess...”
“Stay out of my mind, Casper, or I'll have Fiona on you so fast your head'll spin.”
“What?” Finn asks. I don't think he meant to, it's just the sort of question that falls out when someone uses your sister to threaten dead people with.
Our elders ignore us to continue glaring at one another.
“Remember Fiona's room?” I whisper to Finn as the staring match goes on. “You said she didn't have the sight, but could she be an exorcist?”
“Yes,” Fray answers for him. “Takes after her father.”
My eyes fling wide. Whoa. Finn's folks are a Shadow Walker and an exorcist? No wonder it didn't work out.
“Elza was here,” I announce. “She mentioned your son.”
There's pain in Fray's eyes when they move to mine. His voice is as a quiet as a zephyr when he answers me. “I never had a son, Drew. You know that.”
He believes it. There's no doubt in my mind he believes it. And Finn's mom nods to show she believes it too.
“What are you thinking?” Finn asks.
Fray doesn't have to ask. Fray can see my thoughts, see the things I can't make myself say. And I know he's doing it because I can see his eyes. Any doubt I had that he's related to Finn vanishes as the frolicking greens die, replaced by a cold form of gold, like leaves succumbing to fall in the space of two seconds. They darken until the gold is nearly a black. And then they simmer.
“She's thinking I was killed by my brother,” Fray utters in a voice molded by centuries in the grave. “She's thinking maybe I wouldn't be fond of a child spawned by my brother and my adulterous wife. She's thinking all things considered, I could well despise the entire line.”
I swallow, trying to breathe around the vice of emotion clasped around my ribs. I want to look at Finn's mom, to gage her reaction to the words, but my gaze is locked onto Fray.
“She's thinking if I wanted to hurt the youngest member of that line, erasing the girl he loves from existence would be a good place to start.”
Fray's deathly stare moves from me to Finn but the anxiety gripping my body doesn't let up any. “She'd be right about the last part,” Fray admits in an eerie whisper. “And an attack that damaged you that much would just about destroy your mom in the bargain.”
Finn's breathing has stopped, his muscles locked together. His mom's shifted stance, but oddly enough she's not looking angry. A new sympathy has taken over her expression, a new softness lights her eyes. Her voice is gentle as she steps up to finish Fray's speech. “Drew's wrong about who wants to hurt us though.”
Fray glances at her with surprise, but when he looks back to me his eyes just as chilled as before. “My nephew was motherless because of me. His father couldn't stand him, because he looked exactly like his mother and nothing like either of us. I was the only thing the kid had. I stayed at first for revenge, I won't lie to you about that. But the last two hundred and fifty years, I've been doing my best to watch out for his family. And fighting Elza every step of the way.”
My heart throbs in my ears.
“Why?” Finn asks, softly enough I nearly miss the sound over that of my heartbeat. “Why would Elza hate us so much?”
Fray shakes his head as he looks back to the youngest Finnegan. “I don't know. She never tried to kill the line. Just to murder any chance of happiness any of them had. As if she doesn't think any of you deserve to have the things she missed out on.”
The regret on Fray's face when he looks at Finn's mom is heartbreaking.
“No,” I tell him, my breath shaky and my knees barely holding me up. “It's because the child really was your son.”
His eyes are squinted when he gives them to me again. “No, luv. I told you already. He was my nephew. I came to terms with tha
t a long time ago.”
Finn's mom is frowning, looking thoughtful. She's not taking either side yet, but I can see her re-evaluating things she thought she knew.
“You're wrong,” I respond, confidence mounting inside of me and making my voice firm. “She just wanted you to think that. She wanted him to think that. She wanted it to be true. But it wasn't. That's why she hates them all so much.”
Tears poke at the edges of my vision as I say the last sentence. What an awful thing to have to tell someone, that someone he once loved despised him enough to spend lifetimes getting back at a family for the sin of being descended from him rather than someone else. And what an awful blame to lay on his feet. Because while it's easy to step back and say it's not Fray's fault, that Elza's actions are entirely her wrong, it simply isn't in his nature not to feel guilt at being the focus of her hatred.
I'm not sure if he believes me or not. I almost hope he doesn't.
My hand squeezes Finn's arm, then I wiggle out of his embrace so I can turn and face him. My poor Cooper Finnegan isn't looking like he can handle much more excitement today, but there's no way to call time out or postpone events for a few days. “They're probably on the Parkway by now.”
With a hiss of breath, Finn snaps back to reality. “Shit. I have to go!”
“Wait!” his mom blurts. “Where are you going?”
Oh. Right. Finn fills her in with as few words as possible. “The other Drew's about to be shoved over a wall at one of the overlooks on the Parkway.”
“Then what are we doing here?” she yells in response.
Nearly a blur of sudden motion, Finn's mother leaps through the open door of his truck and squirms across to the passenger seat while Finn pulls me into a hug and plants an extra goodbye kiss on my forehead.
“Be careful,” I say, my voice cracking.
The words make him smile before he gives my lips a swift brush and lets go of me. Shaking his head with a quiet laugh, Finn backs away and turns to join his mom in the truck. “The girl has front row tickets to her own murder and she's telling me to be careful.”
“You wouldn't want to run off the road and miss the show,” I point out.
“Yeah.” A hand on the door, he gives me a long look. “I promise to survive if you do?”
I'd Rather Not Be Dead Page 23
