Only the Good Die Young

8

Elfin Forest by day sure was a lot different than it was at night.

I had landed away from my death spot, and I supposed the woods looked like a lot of others in SoCal during spring: a thrust of green bursting out, pygmy oaks coming alive with their long, thick branches winding over the ground and then up into the air. They were almost like fingers of smoke that writhed and nearly entangled with each other in a still dance.

Power from being close to my death spot hummed through me, and I started feeling less pessimistic than I had felt back at the Edgett mansion. Then again, I wasn’t all that optimistic, either, since I didn’t seem to be nailing all this haunting stuff as well as I should’ve been.

But maybe that was the former A student in me—the one who’d wanted to be an anthropologist before my parents’ deaths had sent me reeling.

Why an anthropologist? Well, because I’d seen Raiders of the Lost Ark like everyone else, and archaeology required too many science classes, so I’d adjusted my goals slightly.

Practical, if not a little romantic.

I wandered among the gnarled branches, pulled toward my death spot. And when I saw one branch that dipped into a U just like a Mother Nature–made chair, I vaguely remembered it from the worst night of my life.

Why? Had I run past it as I fled from my killer and the sight branded itself into my psyche? I didn’t know, but as I moved closer, a turbo-humming sensation blasted through me.

I reached out to run my hand just over the bark—I couldn’t actually touch it—and the answer to why this branch was giving me the electric willies seemed closer than ever, just as out of reach as that tree was.

I kept trailing my fingers over the bark, and as I came to the dip in the branch—

A jagged screech of imagery assaulted me: darkness, a pale face—

Then, as quickly as it’d jarred me, it was gone, yanked away from memory.

I didn’t move for a second, even though my essence was still in the middle of a tug-of-war between this spot and my death place.

What I’d seen… God, it hadn’t looked like a real face. But I couldn’t hold on to enough details about it to be sure. I only had a wispy feeling of adrenaline-to-the-heart terror, as if faces like that shouldn’t exist in real life.

Unnerved, I floated away, allowing that pulling sensation to take me right to my death spot. I hadn’t visited the forest since Amanda Lee had rescued me from it, so I hadn’t been able to investigate my own murder yet. But as I skimmed along the leaf-strewn ground, that disturbing big-time humming feeling increased, got louder, making me shake. Making me think I should’ve come back here way before now.

Then there I was—Death Central.

The noise and the trembling suddenly stopped. Was it because this was where everything had stopped for me? It was almost like I was hovering over a hole that wanted to suck me in, keeping me here in a silent, dark embrace. Already my senses were getting hazy with a mixture of dread and confusion… and comfort.

But when I bent to get closer to the ground on which I’d died, that sharp screaming sensation I’d felt before lanced me one last time, like a final, humming cut.

A flash of pale, withered face, so awful that—

A big black wall slammed down in my head, dividing me from that face, like I didn’t want to remember.

But I did want. I had to want!

I slumped the rest of the way to the ground, lying there for a while as time passed and the sun tumbled from morning to afternoon. All the while, death energy enveloped me. A pure energy—not the kind I got from batteries.

It was almost like granola versus Froot Loops. Both would keep you going, but one was better for you than the other.

Eventually, I heard footsteps shuffling through the leaves, but I didn’t move. A casual hiker or nature lover wouldn’t see me anyway. Then I heard a familiar voice.

“I had a feeling I might find you here.”

Amanda Lee.

I still didn’t stir. It was just so cozy here, but only cozy in the way your bed feels on days when you’re too depressed to get out of it.

She spoke again. “I kept thinking you would return to the casita, and when you didn’t, I began to worry. This was the first place I checked.”

I turned my head to glance at her. A tall woman in laced-up dark boots and a Southwest-patterned skirt and a red silk blouse, her auburn hair pinned back from her face to feature those gray streaks curving near her high cheekbones. Her gray eyes showed me she wasn’t lying about being worried.

“You were checking in on me?” I asked. “Couldn’t you just look at your bulletin board if you wanted to get a load of me?”

Amanda Lee folded her hands. “I didn’t mean for you to see my war room.”

“If you’re expecting me to say sorry for spying on you, sure, I’ll do it.” I sat up. “But I didn’t go there to spy.”

“You don’t have to apologize.” She found a seat of sorts on a thick, level oak branch that stuck out from the trunk, but she tested its weight before she gingerly rested on it. “I like my privacy, even if we’re partners.”

“I’m not sure that’s the word for us. Partners don’t use tricks to put each other at a distance. That’s what the salt around your windows and your chimney was for, wasn’t it? Shutting me out?”

She shook her head. “That was nothing personal. I’ve been barring spirits from my home for years.”

Still. “I’m just going to lay it out, Amanda Lee. I can’t work with you if you keep secrets in general, and the first one I want to know is what’s going on with those bulletin boards.”

Her shoulders lost a bit of their tension, like she was relieved that I hadn’t asked about the ring she’d been longingly gazing at while sitting on her bed in her nightgown. Maybe she thought I hadn’t seen that part. Or maybe she thought I had already gotten the idea that it was from her dead husband.

“The bulletin board with your picture,” she said, “is a collection of your data—articles published after your death and reports that a private investigator gave to me. I told you before that I had been looking into your life and death, trying to contact you because I wanted to help you.”

“You wanted to do more than that,” I said, referring to her other agenda.

“True. But I’m not lying when I tell you that I also want to solve your murder. I merely have… priorities.”

Fair enough. “And the other bulletin boards on the wall?”

She didn’t even hesitate. “I studied those victims before you. I used the same private investigator friend who’s been looking into the Edgetts. I’ve consulted on some of his cases in the past when he’s stuck. But I’m here to tell you that I’ve never been successful in making contact with those other people on the boards.”

“So why keep their information posted?”

She seemed baffled at the question. “Why? Because dismantling their boards would be the same as dismantling them. They had suspicious deaths, just like you, and…”

Oh my God. I knew what she was going to say before she said it.

“You’re thinking of using me to solve their murders, too?” I asked. “And maybe to haunt their killers when we’re done with Elizabeth and before my tether is broken?”

“The idea had crossed my mind.”

Hell. Amanda Lee had ambitions, didn’t she? Her husband’s death had given her some major purpose, scarred her, maybe even resurrected her into a different justice-seeking crusader. Like the Wonder Woman of dead people.

I could’ve been deeply offended that Amanda Lee had manipulated me, the only ghost she’d ever fully connected to. She’d dragged me into her mission.

But I couldn’t muster up the outrage when I understood her so well.

“You’re a real piece of work,” I said.

She was running a thumb over her wedding ring finger, like she was touching a phantom piece of shining jewelry.

“You know the reason I am what I am,” she whispered.

I looked at the fractured woman in front of me. It was all in her eyes as she stared into the distance, as if seeing her Michael standing there, always with her.

I could feel myself pulled closer to her, even if I wasn’t willing myself to move anywhere.

“Do you ever see him?” I asked.

“No.”

That was probably a good thing, because when I’d seen my Dean… Well, trouble. It had ensued.

She glanced down at her ring finger. “I’m afraid this case is making me maudlin. I was never like that before. Believe it or not, I used to be a social butterfly, happy. I used to have a lot of friends, back when I was young.”

“Before Michael died?”

“Actually, before I began…” She motioned to her eyes, but I knew she meant the second sight. “It kicked in when I was twelve, and I began to withdraw from all my friends. They didn’t understand why, and I never told them. The sight made me too different. I couldn’t relate to anyone normal anymore. But at college, I met…”

“Michael. And he didn’t care?”

She shook her head, pursing her lips, and I could tell she was on the edge of crying.

So I shut up. And since she’d explained that ring I’d seen on her finger without my having to ask her, my trust in her shot up about five degrees from zero.

“You’ll tell me everything from now on?” I asked after a decent amount of time had passed and she had gathered herself back up.

A faint smile made her gaze go soft. “As much as you need to know. A woman always has secrets. You should realize that.”

Gulp. Had she caught on to the way Gavin piqued my interest in ways he shouldn’t be poking?

No, she wouldn’t still be smiling at me if she knew.

Sniffing, dabbing at her eyes, Amanda Lee stood. “Is the air cleared between us now?”

“Sure.” I was more than willing to give this another chance. There was too much at stake for the both of us.

She seemed appreciative of that, and I was pretty certain that if she could’ve given me a sisterhood hug, she would’ve done it.

“So you had a day off from me,” she said instead.

“Just like Ferris Bueller.”

She laughed a bit.

Actually, I hadn’t seen that movie when I was alive. I’d found it on the TV after settling into the casita, curious about what’d happened in the ’eighties after I’d left it. Ferris was way cool, and surely he was still cool in this day and age.

“Anyway,” I said, “the most important thing for you to know is that I didn’t take a day off from Elizabeth’s case. I think I made progress with Gavin.”

Amanda Lee’s smile erased any of the lingering sadness. “What sort of progress?”

Ghostly whispers, orange blossom perfume, Gavin getting his gun… I spilled all of it, even the part where I pushed matters a bit too far and entered Gavin’s mind.

“I wasn’t going to do that so early,” I said. “It just…”

“Happened? If it was successful, then I would say it doesn’t matter.”

Hey—she wasn’t put off by my inexperienced phantom fumbling. Cool.

Amanda Lee strolled over to my death spot since I had floated away from it to get closer to her. As she looked down at the patch of nondescript ground, it was almost like she was standing over my real body.

I rose from the dirt. “There’s a bunch more to tell you. There’s this other ghost I met—”

She turned to me, lifting those eyebrows.

“Oh, don’t worry,” I said. “He was a good ghost, a kid from the ’forties.”

“Really?” Fascinated now.

“Yeah. He told me all sorts of ghost tips, gave me pointers on how to empathize with humans and… Did you know that I can cause hallucinations?”

Fascination times a thousand. She looked delighted.

“That makes perfect sense,” she said. “That’s why haunted people see horrific images—because you can make them.”

“If I can get the hang of it.” I shrugged. “I went back to the Edgett mansion this morning to try some of that ghost stuff out, but Gavin wasn’t home.”

“Last night’s haunted activity chased him off?”

“Not really. He just went to work, wherever that is.”

“La Jolla. His office is on Prospect Street.”

She was all over it, as usual. “Good to know. But today, I thought that it might be smart to comb the mansion for any clues, or at least to get to know my subjects, right? So I hung around. I studied Wendy, mostly, you know, just in case I do the poltergeist thing.”

“Wise move.”

I felt like she’d stuck a gold-star sticker on my bulletin board.

“Wendy’s got some anger for sure,” I said. “So it isn’t out of the realm of possibility that she’d be frustrated enough to psychokinetically throw around some furniture in the near future—especially in Gavin’s room. She’s pissed that he’s not home enough, just like their dad, who pretty much abandoned them.”

Amanda Lee just took it all in.

“But I have to tell you,” I said, “that since I don’t have a handle on these powers yet, I also might’ve gone too far with Wendy.”

Her smile dimmed. “How so?”

“Like I mentioned, I wanted to experiment with the powers Randy told me about. I figured I shouldn’t start right out with them on Gavin. Besides, I realized that I don’t have to just use those powers for haunting—I can use them for good.”

“What did you do?” Total maternal tone now.

“I tried both on her?” It was a question, even though there was no question that I’d done it.

Amanda Lee made a tell-me-everything gesture with her fingers.

All right. “The empathy went fine with Wendy, and from the little I saw in her mind, she’s still carrying a lot of grief around about her adopted mom’s death years ago. And there seems to have been some sort of ugly incident when she was younger involving other people in the household. I’m not sure who, though, besides Gavin.”

“Describe, please.”

“In her mind, I heard him yelling down a hallway after there was a female scream.”

“Elizabeth?” Amanda Lee’s eyes had gone wide.

“I’m not sure. But it’s something to go on.”

“Maybe so.” She had narrowed her eyes and was absently pacing now, circling my death spot. “Did you say that you also tested out this hallucination power?”

“Briefly.”

I must’ve been unsettled, because my psychic mentor stopped moving around and fixed her steady gaze on me.

I went on. “Randy, the ghost I met, told me that I had to use a more intense touch, going deeper, to cause hallucinations. So I did that with Wendy. All I wanted to do was make her feel better after a bummer day.”

“And… ?”

I thought of how I’d mind-melded with the girl, feeling the sun and sand on my skin just as much as she must’ve while witnessing the hallucination I’d brought her.

“See, I knew what I wanted to do when I went into her—make her feel better, right?” I said. “But I hadn’t planned what to specifically show her. I just thought, Beach, and the details just came all on their own, without any effort from me. I experienced them just like I was her, Amanda Lee. I was there in the room, looking at the beach as Wendy, hallucinating, too.”

“Beaches aren’t hard to imagine, but I wonder if the details are coming from your own subconscious, which is still intact even as a ghost.” Amanda Lee processed all of it, just as she did with everything else, and it didn’t take her long to add, “You’re going to have to be careful going forward. When you haunt our killer, you could end up scaring yourself if you have no idea what’s coming. Mind that, Jensen.”

The good news just kept on trucking, didn’t it?

Even so, I said, “If you’re afraid that a hallucination could spook me just as much as it could Gavin, don’t worry. If I find proof that he’s our man, I won’t hold back on wielding the full force of any images.”

Wasn’t I sounding bold? I’d had no control over those beach images with Wendy, only the good intentions. This haunting deal was packaged with more strings attached than I’d anticipated. But I’d known it wouldn’t be easy.

And I still wasn’t scared.

Seriously—how bad could I freak myself out? Sailor Randy hadn’t said anything about ghosts booing themselves back into a time loop. Or maybe he just hadn’t gotten around to it.

I’d have to hunt him down again soon to get more info.

“Don’t worry, Amanda Lee,” I said. “I’m not going to quit on this.”

“Especially because we’ll find your killer, too?”

I tried to smile, but I have to say—the longer I stayed here, near my death spot, the more surreal everything was starting to seem. It was still comfortable, but in the same way it’s comfortable to huddle under a thick blanket in the dark of night when you think there’s something in the closet.

And there were more somethings in closets than I had ever suspected while I was living.

How had Elizabeth Dalton reacted when her own personal bogeyman came calling? Had she been afraid at first to see Gavin? Had he been phoning and harassing her after they’d broken up and she’d tried to run away from him when he’d confronted her in person instead?

What had been going through her mind?

“I just wish,” I said, “you could’ve gotten in contact with Elizabeth on the other side. It’d be helpful.”

She looked away from me, then at the ground. Had I said something wrong?

“I know,” I said. “You’ve been trying to contact her. I don’t mean to make you feel bad about being unsuccessful.”

“No, I don’t feel bad. I told you that this case does things to me.” After a second, she added, “It’s so hard to wallow in lost chances. You and Elizabeth make me think of Michael and how life can end in the blink of an eye. One moment, everything is beautiful. The next, the phone rings and…”

Something psychic must’ve struck her right then, because she got really thoughtful, resuming her pacing around my death spot.

She came to a hard stop at the nearest tree, laying her hand against the trunk.

“So many times,” she said, softer now, “I would come here, trying to find you. But there’s something different today. New sensations. Maybe it’s because you’re here with me with far more power in you than the night you emerged from the residual haunting imprint.”

Was she saying she had something now? Information about my death? I started to tremble in my core. I wanted to know.

Didn’t I?

“Come here, Jensen,” she whispered with such urgency in her voice that I zipped over to her.

Then she made another request. “Lie down. I think there’s a lot of psychic energy that’s been gathering with you nearby, and it suddenly flared.”

I wasn’t scared.

Numbing myself, I lay down, realizing intuitively that I’d assumed the exact pose of my death. I shuddered.

Amanda Lee reared back her head, her mouth agape.

At first, I thought she might be having a heart attack, and I surged upward, wanting to help her with one of my ghost powers. What kind of power, though?

Who the hell knew?

She fell backward, away from my death spot, before I could even reach out to her, then stumbled and regained her balance. Her eyes were open, one hand clutching the silken front of her blouse.

Then she slowly walked toward me, raising her other hand.

Night of the Living Dead, I thought, just standing there and waiting for her to get to me.

She arrived, and before I knew what she was doing, she took that hand and swiped it through the air, passing it through me.

Making contact and delivering an image that rocked me.

Running, fast, faster. Gotta get away… .

Was it here? Near?

Silence.

Maybe it was gone.

Maybe I’d lost it a few minutes back. Maybe if I didn’t breathe, it wouldn’t find me again—

Stop! Please! Why’re you doing this?

My voice, pleading. Then my scream, because out of nowhere came that mask, that hideous, gaped mouth of a hag, leering, laughing, only inches away.

Then the ax, raised over its head…

Speeding down toward me—

Banging my vision to black.