Ghostly Interests

by Lily Harper Hart

  “Jay isn’t older than Collin. They’re twins.”

  Jared stilled. “What? Jay looks older, though. Collin still looks like a kid.”

  “That doesn’t change the fact that they’re twins,” Dalton said, nonplussed. “I was surprised, too.”

  “Okay, I need the contact information for Trista,” Jared said. “You’re not officially cleared, but if this checks out you can breathe a little easier.”

  “Oh, well, that’s a relief,” Dalton said, sarcasm practically dripping from his tongue. “I’m not a murder suspect but I am the guy sleeping with an older woman and I just know everyone is going to find out about it.”

  “Have you ever considered that dating an older woman probably saved you in this case?” Jared asked.

  “I … .” Dalton was at a loss for words.

  “I’m taking that as a no,” Jared said. “Here’s the thing: You dated someone in your own age bracket and the universe rewarded you. You might want to take that as a sign.”

  “A sign of what? That I have to date older women for the rest of my life?” Dalton was disgusted. “My life is over.”

  “Yeah, well, I can’t help you there,” Jared said. “How about you get out of our office and take that whole … dumbass thing you’ve got going for yourself and bug someone else with it?”

  “What are you going to do?” Dalton asked. “Are you going to arrest Jay and Collin?”

  “I don’t have evidence against either of them,” Jared replied.

  “I don’t think it’s going to hurt to go and talk to them again tomorrow, though,” Mel added.

  “Yeah, we’re definitely doing that,” Jared said. “For tonight, though, we’re at a standstill. Have a good night.”

  “With your old girlfriend,” Mel added, poking Dalton merely because he could.

  “I knew this was going to come back and bite me,” Dalton grumbled.

  “WHO is it?” Harper asked, fear bubbling up in her chest even though she had no idea who was in the kitchen.

  “I was on campus,” Annie said, her voice flat. “I was looking around. I went to the library, hoping it would jog my memory. It didn’t. I went to the university center and I didn’t remember anything. I was walking down one of those streets on the west side of campus and that’s when I saw him. I saw him and I remembered. I remembered everything.”

  “Who?” Harper repeated. She took a small step forward, her eyes trained on the kitchen. She couldn’t see or hear Zander. She didn’t take that as a good sign. He said the back door was open and then … nothing.

  “You have to run,” Annie said. “He’ll kill you.”

  “I’m not leaving Zander.”

  “He’s probably already dead,” Annie spat.

  Harper’s heart rolled painfully and she momentarily pressed her eyes shut. When she opened them again she was determined. “Tell me who is in that room.”

  “Probably not the person you’re expecting,” Collin said, moving into the doorframe that separated the living room and kitchen. “Hello, Harper.”

  Harper swallowed hard, focusing on maintaining her breathing in an even pattern so Collin couldn’t detect how frightened she was. “You? You killed Annie?”

  “Isn’t that what your ghostly friend just told you?” Collin asked, his brown eyes glowing with malevolence as he glanced around the living room. “Are you the only one here?”

  “Where is Zander?”

  “The gay guy? He’s in the kitchen. He’s taking a nap.”

  That wasn’t the answer Harper was looking for. “Did you kill him?”

  “Not yet,” Collin said. “I will before I leave here tonight, but you’re my worry right now. Zander is taking a nap. He won’t wake up from it, though. I can promise you that.”

  Harper’s blood ran cold. The amiable boy she met on campus days before was gone. She didn’t know who had taken up residence in his body, but this man was … evil. She didn’t know how she missed it. “Why did you kill Annie?”

  “Isn’t she here with us?” Collin asked. “Why not ask her? I’m just dying to know if this ghost thing is for real or not.”

  “Ghost thing,” Harper said, half talking to herself. “You know I can talk to ghosts. Molly told you that, didn’t she?”

  “Molly is a talkative girl,” Collin said, chuckling. “Well, Molly was a talkative girl.”

  “Did you kill Molly?” Harper choked on the words.

  “Molly is in a better place,” Collin said. “Of course, Annie was supposed to be in a better place, too. Imagine my surprise when little Molly told me she was still hanging around tonight.”

  Harper licked her lips, her heart beating so hard she was having trouble focusing. Somehow she had to get control of this situation. She had no idea where to start. “Why did you kill Annie?” she repeated.

  “Ask Annie,” Collin prodded.

  Harper looked him up and down. With the bright light of the kitchen illuminating his frame he looked bigger than she remembered. She scanned his body, searching for a weapon, but she didn’t see anything that would suggest he was armed.

  “Ask Annie,” Collin repeated, grotesquely contorting his face.

  “Why did Collin kill you?” Harper asked, keeping her gaze on Collin as she asked the question of Annie.

  “Because I slept with Jay,” Annie replied.

  “You slept with Jay?’ Harper wrinkled her nose in disgust.

  “She told you she slept with Jay?” Collin was intrigued. “Ask her why she did it?”

  “She can hear you,” Harper explained.

  “I thought Jay was interested in me,” Annie said. “I … just wanted someone to love me.”

  “And you thought Jay was going to love you?” Harper asked. “The guy is a raging hormone and jackass. How could you have possibly thought he was going to love you?”

  “After Professor Dalton … .”

  “Another great choice,” Harper muttered.

  “After him I felt low,” Annie said. “I was sad. I thought for sure I would be the one to make him fall in love with me. I don’t know how I was so wrong.”

  “That still doesn’t explain why you thought Jay would love you,” Harper said.

  “What is she saying?” Collin asked.

  Harper held up her finger to still him. Even as she listened to Annie she was trying to formulate a plan. She had to get to Zander. She wouldn’t leave him. That meant she had to get her hands on a weapon to fight off Collin. She needed time to think.

  “I didn’t think Jay would love me,” Annie said. “Not really. I thought … I don’t know … maybe he wasn’t as bad as everyone kept saying.”

  Harper relayed Annie’s comments to Collin, causing him to scowl.

  “The problem with that is I really liked Annie,” Collin said. “I went to Dalton and asked to be paired with her for a project. I knew he would go for it because he was embarrassed about her causing scenes and threatening him. I was going to make her forget about Dalton.”

  “I didn’t know,” Annie said.

  “Did Jay know you liked Annie?” Harper asked.

  “Of course he knew,” Collin spat. “He always slept with the women I liked. I tried to keep it a secret, but he overheard me talking to Dalton. He made it his mission to go after Annie then.

  “He went out of his way to shower her with attention,” he continued. “He met her before class and he walked her to her car after class. He didn’t even like her. He barely thought she was pretty. He only slept with her because I wanted her.”

  “Why didn’t you ask him to stop?” Harper asked.

  “Ask him to stop? My brother gets off on the misery of others. That would’ve been the same as cutting my balls off and handing them to him on a silver platter.”

  That was a horrific visual. Harper swallowed hard. “He’s your brother. Surely he cares about you.”

  “Jay only cares about himself,” Collin shot back. “He wants to win. He wants everything in his life to go righ
t and everything in my life to go wrong.”

  Harper wanted to argue with the sentiment, but she knew it was a waste of time. Jay had no redeeming qualities. “I’m guessing he lorded it over you when he finally slept with Annie.”

  “He did,” Collin agreed. “Apparently they took photos of themselves in bed. Jay showed them to me.”

  “Oh, no,” Annie said, her ghostly hands flying up to her face.

  “You took a lot of photos,” Harper said to Annie. “That was stupid.”

  “I wanted proof that someone loved me,” Annie wailed.

  “Except you picked people who could never love you,” Harper pointed out. She was starting to think Annie was just as broken as the people she was most attracted to. “If you were so upset with what Jay did, why did you go after Annie instead of him, Collin?”

  “Because he’s my brother and I would be a suspect in his death,” Collin replied. “Everyone knows I hate him. Even if they didn’t know it right away, killing Jay would only cause grief for my family. Killing Annie made me feel better.”

  “You stole her iPad because you wanted the photos, didn’t you?” Harper asked.

  “I stole the iPad because I wanted all evidence of Annie’s relationship with my brother destroyed,” Collin countered. “I knew the cops would come to campus looking for suspects. With the iPad destroyed there would be no link to Jay.”

  “Therefore there would be no link to you,” Harper finished.

  “Exactly.”

  “You thought you were in the clear until Molly told you about GHI and Annie, didn’t you?”

  “I honestly did,” Collin said. “I thought the cops would either pin it on Dalton or eventually let it go. The semester is over. I won’t be returning to the campus until the fall. I was free and clear … until you.”

  “I won’t tell anyone,” Harper said. “I … Zander won’t either. You can go and I promise I won’t say anything.”

  “We both know that’s a lie,” Collin said. “Molly told me all about how loyal and true you are. You wouldn’t cover up a murder. Stop saying you would.”

  “I would do anything to protect the people I love,” Harper argued. “I love Zander more than anyone else in the world.”

  “I guess it’s a good thing you’re dying with him then.”

  Twenty-Five

  Jared and Mel said their goodbyes at the police station door, both agreeing to meet up early the next morning to form their plan of attack. Jared was more convinced than ever that Collin or Jay was the guilty party. Now he just had to figure out which one was the culprit – and why.

  While Jay was the easiest suspect, he didn’t appear to have a clear motive. He wouldn’t have cared if Annie spread it around campus that they slept together and he dumped her. Everyone already knew that was how he operated.

  Collin was harder to fit into the mold of a killer and yet that was the direction Jared was leaning. The young man was overshadowed by a better-looking brother and often overlooked by the opposite sex. If he convinced himself that he belonged with Annie and then she rebuffed him for his brother … that could be motivation for an already fragile mind.

  As he was pulling out of the police station parking lot Jared initially turned right so he could head toward his house. He’d only gone a few blocks when he changed his mind and turned in the opposite direction – the one that led to Harper’s house.

  He was feeling that urge again. He wanted to see Harper. He couldn’t explain it and he didn’t want to fight it.

  An hour hanging out with her and Zander couldn’t hurt anything. Maybe he could even get that kiss he’d been dreaming about.

  “I CAN’T believe you’re the kind of person who would kill innocent people,” Harper said, her hands shaking as she rubbed them against her hips. Her fingers were numb and she was worried, thanks to her overwhelming fear, that she was going to pass out. If she did, both she and Zander were done for. She knew that. She had to stay focused if she wanted to save them both.

  “Well, believe it,” Collin said, rolling his eyes. “My therapist says I’m a sociopath. I didn’t believe him until now. The idea of killing you doesn’t upset me. In fact, I kind of want to open your head up so I can see how your brain works.”

  “What?”

  Collin reached around to his back and withdrew a large hunting knife. Harper had no idea if it was hidden in his pants or in a sheath, but now she was officially terrified.

  “I want to see how your brain works,” Collin said. “Do you think your brain looks different compared to a normal person’s because you can see and talk to ghosts?”

  “I’ve never really considered it,” Harper said.

  “I’ll compare it to your friend Zander’s brain. Although, his might look different because he’s a fairy. Do you think his brain looks different because he’s a fairy?”

  Harper felt sick to her stomach. Collin was gesturing wildly with the knife. Zander was somewhere unconscious in the kitchen. Molly was probably dead. Annie was as white as a … well, ghost … and utterly silent to her right. No one was coming to help. Harper was on her own and she had no idea what to do.

  “I think you’re sick,” Harper said, fighting off tears. “I think that years of competing with your brother have made you sick. I think he’s sick, too. I think you two feed off each other. You try to one-up one another. This is just your latest way of doing it.”

  “I love being psychoanalyzed,” Collin said, a wide grin splitting his face. “My parents have sent me to therapy since I was thirteen and they found out I killed the neighbor’s dog because it wouldn’t stop yapping.”

  Collin threw himself on the couch and leaned back, resting his head on the pillow as he fingered the edge of the knife blade and stared at Harper, practically daring her to make a run for it.

  “Keep on psychoanalyzing me,” he said. “It’s the only thing keeping you alive right now. You might as well have some fun before you die and tell me what you really think.”

  Harper decided to take him up on his suggestion. “You’ve got it.”

  JARED moved around Harper’s house slowly, the hair on the back of his neck standing on end. There was a Jeep Cherokee in the driveway he didn’t recognize and something felt “off” about the situation. He had no idea why he was on edge, but something told him to approach the house carefully.

  He quietly stepped up on the patio, glad the outside light wasn’t on so he could move closer to the window without detection. Someone would have to be staring directly at him to see him. He stared into the house.

  He caught sight of Harper first, relief washing over him. She was fine. He was overreacting. Nothing was wrong. He told himself that over and over – and yet he didn’t believe it.

  Harper’s face was white and she was standing ramrod straight in the middle of the living room. She was focused on the couch and whomever she was talking to was out of Jared’s line of sight. He slipped farther down the outside wall of the house until he got to the window that looked into the kitchen. That room was lit up and Jared could see a prone body on the floor.

  “Zander,” he breathed, reaching for the gun on his belt.

  Someone was in Harper’s house and that someone had either incapacitated or killed Zander to get to Harper. Jared could only hope it was the former because if it was the latter he had a feeling Harper would never recover.

  Jared moved to the back of the house, pulling his cell phone out of his pocket and texting Mel to bring backup before switching the phone to silent and shoving it back in his pocket. The smart thing to do was wait for backup. Jared’s head told him that. His heart told him he needed to get to Harper now, though. It was his heart he listened to as he walked through the open kitchen door.

  “I THINK your parents knew you were sick even before you killed the cat,” Harper said. “I think your brother was always the favored child because they knew there was something wrong with you.

  “I think you were smarter than Jay, but it didn’t matte
r because he was better looking and your parents knew that he was going to amount to more than you were,” she continued.

  “That’s fascinating,” Collin said. “You might be right. Go on.”

  “I think the more Jay got his way in this world the more bitter you got,” Harper said. “You wanted to be the special twin, but you couldn’t be. Jay was always going to be ahead of you. Every time you found something you wanted, Jay took it away from you.

  “You thought he was doing it as part of a competition,” she said. “In a way he was. He knew there was something wrong with you, too, though. I think he was playing the same game you were – only he was out to win.”

  “I won,” Collin countered. “I won because I’m the one who killed Annie and got away with it. I’m going to win again when I kill you and your little fairy boyfriend and get away with that. I thought of everything … except the fact that you can talk to ghosts and that would come back to bite me. Once you’re dead there’s nothing to connect me to Annie. That’s another win for me.”

  “What about Molly?” Harper asked.

  “What about her?”

  “People know you were out on a date with her tonight,” Harper said.

  “You know I was out on a date with her,” Collin countered. “Jay does, too, but he would never suspect me of doing something heinous like killing Miss Molly. I’ll tell everyone she changed her mind and took off on her own.”

  “Jared knows, too,” Harper said, relishing having the upper hand on at least one thing.

  Collin stilled. “What? The cop? How?”

  “He was at the coffee shop with me when Molly told me about the date,” Harper replied. “You’ll be his prime suspect.”

  “No, that’s not possible,” Collin said. “Molly never mentioned seeing him this afternoon.”

  “That doesn’t change the fact that it’s the truth,” Harper said. “Our other co-worker knows, too. Zander told him this afternoon.” It was a lie, but Harper was hoping it would be enough to scare Collin out of his course of action. There was no way he could get to Jared and Eric and kill them, too. He had to realize that.

  “Well, this sucks,” Collin complained. “Now I’m going to have to kill a cop. Do you know what a pain that’s going to be?”