As I step inside and peer around, I grumble, “I don't like what you've done with the place.”
“I didn't buy it to live in it. I bought it for freedom of access.” She snorts. “This isn't my home. It's theirs.”
The stench of damp and dank paper fills the air with that peculiar mustiness known only to old books. Something definitely died in here, and from the odor, I'd say a dozen rats. Maybe even a damned dog. It's enough to make my eyes water, and said eyes water all the more when she presses a switch for the grand reveal of a bigger dump than I'd even imagined.
The once graceful arches of wall-lining bookshelves are rotten with what looks like water damage, the intricate cornices are soggy and mildewed, and the shelves are warped. Books fill some, torn pages litter the floor, while others rest willy-nilly either on their spines or their backs.
The shocking thing is how large the place actually is. It's astonishingly big. If this neighborhood ever takes the eye of an investor looking to glamorize this shithole of an area, then Jason will make a killing on this investment. There has to be around two hundred bookcases around the walls, thousands of damaged books littering the area, and in the center, there are huge, once grand, tables that have other tomes stacked upon them. Green bankers lights are half-broken, their shades peering down onto books that customers had, once upon a time, been perusing. From the ceiling, wires hang, more modern lights had tumbled down, and half of the joists play peek-a-boo.
“This place is a fire hazard,” I mutter, gawking up at the rotten ceiling and the half-rotten floor. “Where the hell is it safe to tread?”
“Hush,” she grumbles at me, verbally chastising me as well as throwing up a hand to still my words.
“What is it?” I whisper, unable to do as bid. “Is it David? Is he here?”
She ignores me, her head tilting to the side in that way of hers that borders on the feline. It's almost creepy, but she has the cheekbones for it. All shadow and light playing within the sharp lines of her face, giving her a beauty that is almost Gothic in nature. Her hair is pulled up in a taut bun, further augmenting her cheekbones, and even in the sallow light of the bookstore, and with my grief still riding me, I can't deny she's one of the most intriguing creatures I've ever come across.
“Kenna? What the hell's going on?” She glowers at something, not me, but at something on one of the tables.
I watch as she strides to one that has a ceiling lamp dangling loosely overhead, so loose that my stomach wrenches at how a few nibbles of a rat's teeth would make the damn thing slam to the ground. She's fearless though, either that, or uncaring for her safety.
The shrink in me blares a signal at the latter rumination, and despite myself, I take a mental note to discuss that topic at a later date.
Because, crazy as it seems, there will be a later date.
Today isn't the last day I'll see her, because there's something going on here. Something I don't particularly understand, and something I'm not ready for, not so close to David's death. But… I will be some day, and how's that for a premonition?
Chapter Three
Jayce
“What the hell do you think you're doing, Kenna? God Almighty, the boy's underage!”
Kenna huffs out a breath, it disturbs the feather lolling in her smart hat, but she just folds her arms, and gives me a militant glare. “He's dead. He can do whatever he wants.”
“He's still seventeen, whether it's on this plane or the next.”
“What's going on?” Drake interrupts, again. The man cannot stay quiet.
Both Kenna and I glance at him but immediately ignore his confusion. We're used to that, causing perplexity wherever we go. “He's too young for Blackjack.”
“Blackjack? Dave's playing Blackjack?” Drake squawks. “What did I tell you about gambling, young man?”
At his chiding, the sullen boy slouching low in his seat sits up with a flush. There's the chubbiness of youth in his cheeks, a roundness that tells me his age without needing to know an exact number. His eyes are like his uncle's, in fact, he's a younger version of Drake. Damn, the ladies of his generation really missed out when this boy passed on.
“Tell him addiction isn't a problem when you're dead.”
There's a rebellious overtone to his voice, and I cock a brow at him, just as I'd cocked it at Drake. “You want to rephrase that? This man has gone loopy over you. He wants to talk to you, to help you.”
“No one can help me,” comes the gloomy retort.
“I told ya, honey bun, my girl Jason can.”
David snorts. “Who calls a girl Jason?”
“My stupid parents called me Jayce, and I was sick of the jokes, so I just changed my name to Jason.”
“It's a boy's name.”
“No shit, Sherlock.” To Drake, I grumble, “I thought you said this boy was smart.” Both guys' chests puff up, and pride rolls off them like fog from the San Francisco harbor.
“I was top of my class, and I was heading to MIT.” The ego drains off, replacing the arrogant cast to Dave's features with a look of forlorn agony.
This boy has got some issues to deal with if he ever wants to pass over. Almost like she read my mind, which wouldn't be a first, Kenna demands, “You like existing like this?”
He frowns at her. “No, of course not.”
“You want to live in this dump forever?”
“No. I don't even know what I'm doing here. I-I just woke up one morning here and I could walk through walls.”
“Yeah, same here, sugar. We've all done it. Mine was waking up in the Eiffel Tower's elevator and dropping through the floor. That wasn't a bundle of laughs I'll tell you.”
“How did you move across the Atlantic? The Ghost Titanic?” Kenna swats his hand, enough to make Dave hiss and clap his ghostly fingers to his chest. “Ouch, that hurt!”
“Then watch your Ps and Qs. Politeness costs nothing, boy.”
His lower lip pops out. “Sorry.”
“And so you should be. It's thanks to Kenna that we can get you out of this place.”
“You mean she wasn't lying?”
The hope in his voice makes me wince. “No, she wasn't. I can get you out of here, but only you can get you off this plane of existence.”
“Listen to her, David. She knows what she's talking about.”
All three of us look over at Drake who's talking to a pedestal next to the table. The earnestness of his words has all three of us hiding a smile. It's not his fault he's blind in this situation.
“He's right, I do. But to help, I need you to tell me what happened.”
“My drink was spiked.”
“By who?”
He shrugs, and the light passes through his shoulders, making him gleam like gold for a handful of seconds. “I don't know.”
“Don't you have your suspicions?” When he shakes his head, I turn to Drake. “Was he raped?”
“Jason!” Kenna and Drake hiss my name at the same time.
“What? There's no time to prevaricate. David says his drink was spiked but he doesn't know by who...so why would anyone spike a drink unless it was for sex?”
Drake looks queasy at my reasoning but he shakes his head. “No. He wasn't.”
David blows out a breath. “Good. It sucks dying a virgin, but hell, that's no way to pop your cherry. Unless it was Tiffany Reiss.” He grins. “She could have done anything to me, I wouldn’t have minded.” As Kenna and I look at him in disgust, he flushes again. “What? She's hot.”
“Rape is rape, kiddo,” Kenna chides, looking like the matron she isn't. At just over twenty-five, she looks like she could go partying with David, but she talks like an eighty-year old Mother Superior.
“I guess,” he replies, looking awkwardly down at the cards in his hand. Maybe likening Kenna to a Mother Superior was slightly ridiculous...I doubt even the nuns in Sister Act would have taught a young kid Blackjack!
“Come on, David, you need to help us help you. Why would anyone spike y
our drink? Was it an accident? Did they spike yours when they intended to spike someone else's?”
He's silent for a second, and the utter tranquility of the bookstore is so incongruous to the noise of outside, I close my eyes a second. Drake's right. This place is a fire hazard. It's a terrible place, in one of the worst neighborhoods and yet, this silence…it truly is golden.
“What's going on?” Drake grumbles, breaking that beautiful peace and quiet.
“David's trying to blow us off.”
“No, I'm not!”
“What? Why?”
Both men speak at the same time, but I wave at Drake to button it again. “Yes, you are, David. You have to know what's happening. All ghosts have some awareness of their deaths, of the moments before they pass, even if they were drugged.”
He sits up and rests his forearms on the table. Head lowered, shoulders slumped, he looks like he's about to be punished. Considering he's had the worst punishment bestowed upon him, it has to be bad, whatever it is that's riding him.
“Go on, talk to us.”
He looks up at me, silvery tears in those dead eyes of his. Saddened, I crouch down, wishing I could pat his shoulder or squeeze his hand. Looking up at him, I murmur, “Once it's out, it's out. And we can deal with it and get you to a better place.”
“I was supposed to do so much, Jason. I was supposed to be a millionaire, make Uncle Drake proud of me, make mother proud of me for once.”
“Your Uncle Drake is proud of you. Why would he be here if he wasn't dying inside from losing you?”
David looks up at his uncle with beseeching eyes, but at my words, Drake jolted to attention. When he starts to speak to the pedestal again, an ornate perch that had once been a church's lectern, I grab him and say, “Down here, Drake.”
It's almost touching watching the older man crouch, stare blindly ahead at something he can't see, and still try to console the son of his heart. It isn't the first time I've seen someone go to these lengths to make a loved one feel better, but this time, it matters. And I have no idea why.
I can feel Kenna's eyes on me, and I look up in time to see her quirk her brow in a silent message. I frown at her, silently telling her to shut up, before returning my attention to the men in the room. “...I couldn't be more proud of you, David. Whatever you were supposed to accomplish in this world, you'd already done so much and in such a short space of time. No one could be prouder than me.”
David's tears fall. “I should have told him,” he whispers to me.
“Told him what?”
“About the bullies.”
Drake looks at me. “What's he saying?”
“He says he was bullied.”
“What? By who?” he barks, the noise reverberating around the room, making David jump. Hell, it surprises me. Drake is a softly spoken, seemingly mild-mannered man, even if his arrogance does turbo charge all that.
“You heard him. Who?”
“Nate Cambright.” David looks down at his lap. “He was pissed I got the Aldredge Scholarship and not him.”
“Who, Jason? Who was bullying him?”
“Some kid called Nate Cambright? He wanted the scholarship David won.”
For a second, Drake's stillness takes on such lengths, the whole room vibrates with it, and then, he jumps up and starts striding back and forth. “I knew it, I knew something was going on. But Jackie wouldn't listen, she wouldn't have it. I should have gone with my gut. That son of a bitch. I'll kill him for this. I'll fucking kill him.” He stops, that odd stillness overcoming him once more, and then he lifts his hands, covers his face and starts to sob.
Kenna, David, and I glance among ourselves for a second, then I jump up and head over to him. Resting a hand on his back, I pat him lightly, feeling awkward as fuck. I go out of my way not to touch people, to avoid it at all costs. Touch infers intimacy, and I've avoided that nearly all of my life.
It doesn't make me the best person in the world to give comfort to anyone.
“We'll make this right, Drake. We will.”
“How can we? His father works on Wall Street, he'll bring in more lawyers than I have clients and that fucking bastard of a son of his will walk away Scot-free.”
David whispers, “He's right. There's no way to make any of this stick. It might not even have been him. He was the one behind all the bullying though. He had goons that pulled shit on his behalf, but I don't know for sure that it was Nate who put the drugs in my Coke.”
“How bad was the bullying?”
Watching him gulp is an answer in and of itself. “Bad.”
“What did they do to you?” Kenna asks quietly.
“The usual.” He starts to nibble his bottom lip. “It was starting to get really bad though. Just before...well, just before I died. I couldn't hide the bruises so much, and they nearly dislocated my shoulder because they tried to push me down the stairs after gym one day. I lied to my mom, told her I'd hurt myself in class.”
“Bastards,” Kenna hisses.
“No one else was interested in me. The only ones who'd find it amusing to spike my drink would be Nate and his goons.” David sighs. “Plus, I think...”
“What? What do you think, David? It's important that you focus and tell us everything you know.”
“Nate threatened me. He told me if I went to that party, I'd regret it. When I got the scholarship, the fact I took it from Nate, kind of made me infamous. Some of the people who didn't like Nate invited me to the party, like to snub him? When he found out, that's when he warned me not to go.” He shakes his head. “That was stupid of me, I guess.”
Kenna frowns at him. “Don't be ridiculous. You did well for getting that scholarship, David. You earned it. The only person at fault is Nate. He should have worked harder to beat you. Academically.”
“I guess,” he tells her, looking unconvinced.
“Is he certain that Nate Cambright was behind this?”
Drake's voice penetrates the ghostly conversation. “It's more circumstantial than I'd like. Nate threatened David, told him he'd regret it if he went to the party where his drink was spiked.”
“Can he remember anything else?”
“What did they spike the drink with?” David asks, and I pass on the question to Drake who answers:
“Ketamine.”
“Special K?” He huffs. “Then it's Nate. He was dealing it at school.”
When I pass that on to Drake, his eyes bug out. “Are you being serious? You knew and didn't tell me?”
“What? And make my life a thousand times worse?” David shakes his head. “Nate's the most arrogant SOB because of who his dad is. He thinks nothing can touch him. If people know I died of a Special K overdose, then they'll know he was the one to spike my drink.”
“David, I've heard of Ketamine. It's hallucinogenic. Before you passed, you'd have been hallucinating. Think back,” Kenna tells him. “Do you remember anything from that time?”
“I've thought about that night every day since, Kenna.”
She narrows her eyes at him when he bows his head. “You're keeping something back. I can sense it.”
“No, I'm not. Why would I?” He licks his lips. “The only thing I can remember is...well, I do remember Nate getting in my face. He was laughing at me. Taunting me.”
When I tell Drake that, he bites out, “What are we going to do? He needs to pay.”
“Well, first things first, we need to get David out of here.”
Drake frowns. “How do you even do that?”
“That's for me to know and for you not to find out.”
His glower doesn't affect me. Hell, Kenna does nothing but glare at me for most of every, single, freakin' day! “If it's going to affect my nephew, then I think I deserve to know.”
David's chest puffs up again. “That's my uncle,” he tells Kenna, who really isn't impressed.
“Yeah, I got that.” She rolls her eyes. “Tell him not to get his panties in a twist.”
I sniff.
“It's not like I'm going to do something bad, for God's sake. I'm going to make it so he's no longer connected to this place.” As I fold my arms across my chest, I won't lie, there's a pout to my lips. “I thought you'd approve.”
He blinks at me. “Oh.”
“Yeah. Oh. Watch it, buster,” I snipe. “Do you want to come with me, David? Or do you like this dump?”
Apparently I've astounded both men, because David's ghostly lips work but no noise pops out. He looks like a silvery goldfish. When he gulps, I know he's way too close to tears for my own comfort. “I'd like that,” he whispers, his tone quivery. “Kenna says it's cool where you live.”
“It's certainly better than this shithole,” I remark, peering around the admittedly grim bookshop. But, it's not like if I pretty up the place it will make it better for its current residents. Ghosts actually come here because it's, well, I guess it suits their mood. Ghosts aren't exactly happy, after all.
“Are you sure you don't mind?” Drake asks me, taking a step closer, then hovering in the same spot. He practically screams indecision.
I shrug. “What's one more?”
“Well, that didn't make you sound like a bitch,” Kenna retorts, and David, back on form, snorts out a laugh.
“What I mean to say,” I amend as I throw a glare her way. “...is David will be happier at my place while we get this situation sorted out. Plus, if he remembers something, then I'm there for him to talk to, and so is Kenna.”
Drake scrubs a hand over his face. “I'd like to know how we're going to do that. I have a good practice, but nothing that could stand against a bastard like Nate Cambright's family. Nate didn't even need the scholarship like David did, and yet he made his life hell. If the son is capable of that, what's the father like?”
“We'll think of something,” I tell the room at large. “But at least now, we have more information at hand.”
Ghost Whisperer Page 4
