Only the Good Die Young

13

I partied like it was 1999.

For hours, we threw different music at one another, and with me being the new ghost in town, everyone let me practice my sound skills. I pulled songs out of the air—or maybe it was out of my memory—and let my favorites ring through McGlinn’s house.

The Cramps, Siouxsie and the Banshees… I got very good at conjuring anything I wanted, even though Twyla Smart-Ass interjected tunes like “Mickey” and “Jessie’s Girl” every once in a while.

Even with her love of pop songs, though, I could still tell that half of her liked my alternative stuff.

Eventually, we came to the point in all parties where everyone collapses on couches and chairs, pulls out cigarettes, and turns on the TV because you’re done but you can’t bring yourself to go home.

Ghosts are no different. We draped ourselves on the stairs around the fire, which Randy had told me McGlinn kept stoked because of the preternatural chill the bunch of us brought to the room. And instead of ciggies, the guys from Chinatown and Cassie the ’seventies housewife were nipping at the ends of frayed live wires until Yul, Lee, and Feng—gamblers who’d passed on during a fire in a mid–eighteen hundreds den in downtown San Diego—moseyed out of the house and back to their death spots for the night.

Old Seth was leaning against the wall in the corner near McGlinn, who looked like he was passed out on his lounger, although I wasn’t sure about that since he seemed out of it when he was awake, too. The bearded cowboy was idly manipulating McGlinn’s camera that’d been sitting on an end table, making the flash go off again and again. It gave the firelit room a strobe effect while the rest of us hung out.

Little by little, I’d gotten all their death stories, just as I’d done with Twyla and the Chinatown guys. Carlota, one of the Mexican women in the big skirts, was the only ghost in her group who hadn’t left yet, and she’d told me that she and her friends had been victims of a doomed wagon ride on the way back from a fiesta when a snake-spooked horse had gone crazy. Louis, the black man in the factory uniform, was a contemporary of Randy’s; he’d worked in a bayside aircraft plant during World War II after the pool of local white workers had been exhausted, and he’d died when he was driving home one night, bone-tired, his car veering off the road.

No one here had perished in their sleep or anything peaceful like that.

When I brought that up, Louis said, “If you had a good death, you’d already be in the good place.”

“Heaven?” I asked.

They all thought that was precious. Twyla laughed extra hard from her spot by the wall, where she’d wandered over to suck on a wire next to ’seventies Cassie after the Chinatown gamblers had left. The energy sent subtle waves of color through the electricity-sucking ghosts as Cassie kept mothering Twyla, doing things like telling her how darling her hair looked tonight.

From his place next to me on the fire pit stairs, Randy gave me a tolerant grin. “I already told Jen about heaven, or whatever’s waitin’ for us.”

Carlota yawned, then said, “Qué lastima, is it not?”

I nodded. I had enough high school Spanish to infer that it was a shame we didn’t know for sure.

Scott, the teen from the ’fifties who’d choked on a chicken bone in a diner during a date, said, “I don’t care about what’s waiting for us.”

Randy watched him like he saw through the teenage bravado. “I do, ’cause wherever it is we’re goin’, Magnolia’s there right now.”

Everyone mumbled good-naturedly under their breath, obviously having heard him wax on about Magnolia before.

But I wanted to hear more about her. “How do you know she isn’t still alive? She had to be young when you died. That would make her…” In her nineties? Older?

“I stopped keepin’ track of age a long time ago,” he said. “And when computers started showin’ up all around, I learned to do a search or two on my gal. She’s gone as gone can be.”

Louis floated down to the fireplace, bending down to watch the flames. The light flickered through his factory uniform, giving his gray tones a warmer quality. I’d noticed that he and Randy in particular didn’t interact much, and I wondered if it was because of some kind of segregation they’d had as humans.

Randy added, “All I have to do is find her letter, and…”

“Then you can be with her,” Scott said, clearly by rote. But then his tone gentled. “We can only hope, Rand.”

From the way no one else said anything, I knew that every ghost present realized that Randy’s letter would never be found. No delusions here. So why did Randy continue, day after day?

Boredom, I thought. And a weird kind of optimism that kept ghosts like him going.

From the socket in the corner, Twyla took too much of an electric hit, and she squealed.

Cassie the housewife gave her a chiding glance. “How many times do I have to tell you to slow down, honey?”

As everyone laughed, seconding Cassie’s comment, I looked around at my new friends, seeing in their faces a reminder of my old buds—the people I’d partied with, the ones who’d been like anesthetic to my sorrows when they’d shared beer and smokes with me.

Were we bound to repeat our pasts, even as ghosts? I wasn’t in any time loop, but I told myself that I wouldn’t fall into a useless trap again, wasting my life away and sitting around, new friends or not. I was going to do what I needed to do, no matter how nice it felt being around them.

I rose from my stair. “Well, guys, sorry to run, but I’ve got a full night.”

Louis looked up at me. He had a middle-age-dad vibe about him. I’d also found out that he had a college degree but had considered it his patriotic duty to work for the wartime effort after he’d been turned down for military duty because of a bad heart.

“You going off to do your haunting?” he asked.

Naturally, they’d all been filled in, courtesy of Randy.

“I was planning on it,” I said.

Louis stood, brushing off his uniform pants. “Not to overstep, Miss Jensen, but you could use more thinking time on this.”

Man, I’d asked him not to call me “miss” already. It made me feel uncomfortable, but it seemed to be a habit for him.

I said, “Twyla and Randy already warned me about cleaners and all the things that go bump in the night for a ghost. I’ll be okay.”

“I’m not just talking about cleaners. I mean you’re rushing into haunting. Unless you’re planning to throw some music at this Gavin and hope that does the job.”

Next to me, Randy was stoically watching him, making me wonder where he’d come from—a small Southern town where he would drink at one water fountain while Louis would drink at another?

“It’s okay,” I said to Louis. “I already did some decent tricks to the hauntee. I re-created his possible victim’s perfume, whispered to him…”

Scott used a hand to slick back his hair. “Haunting. I haven’t fiddled with a human in a while.”

Randy grinned, then said, “I favor givin’ a welt or two to the jerks downtown. That and a good hallucinazion”—as always, the word was barely recognizable—“always does the trick.”

“Welts?” I asked.

A human voice from the corner spoke up.

“That’d scare me to death,” McGlinn said, his long, face-obscuring hair moving over his words.

He speaks. But I guess Gramps and Gran, who were sitting on the couch quietly, would’ve chased us out of here by now if their grandson had passed out or fallen asleep.

Twyla got up from her electrical socket, floating Cassie the cord she’d been sucking on. The housewife shrugged, double-fisted, then sucked on them both.

“Pinches, scratches, welts… ,” Twyla said. “Humans tend to shit a glazed donut when you use any of those tricks. All you have to do is—”

Suddenly, she flew at McGlinn, motioning out to pinch him. He jumped in his lounger, then settled back, sticking his middle finger up at her. When she bent down to plant an air-kiss on his head, he shivered. Nearby, Old Seth chuckled and hooked his thumbs in his gun belt as he leaned against the wall.

Did they have a teasing thing going on that I wasn’t a part of yet?

Anyway, I wasn’t a fan of the pinching, scratching, and welts idea—those were poltergeist territory.

“I’d like to stick to the mind games,” I said. “My hauntee’s a tough guy, and scratches would probably just annoy him.”

Twyla rolled her eyes as she sat on McGlinn’s armrest. “Jen, if you’re going to haunt, commit to it.”

Louis merely turned to the fire again, so I couldn’t see his face. Scott nodded his agreement with Twyla.

She continued. “Come on, just, like, go all out. You know that if anything went wrong, we’d back you up, right?”

I almost choked on my invisible tongue as Randy stood. Twyla was offering support?

“What Twyla means,” he said lightly, “is that humans ain’t any more powerful ’n we are, and we could take ’em.”

“Does the same go for bad spirits?” I asked, thinking of one of the concerns Amanda Lee had shared with me about the dangers of haunting Gavin. “You know what I’m talking about—the entities that a human could summon to fight me?”

Louis talked over his shoulder. “That’s a rare scenario. I’d be more concerned with cleaners. But you do have friends. All you have to do is shout our names, and if we’re in range, we’ll hear.”

Very cool.

I smiled at him, and he did the same before going back to the fire, alone as usual. I was starting to think that he just liked being around the noise in this house. I’d been like that, too, when I lived by myself in my apartment after Dean had gone off to college. I would put on the TV for white noise all the time, because it made me think that I was a part of something.

Without any more debate on the subject, I said my good-byes, promising I’d be back to hang out someday soon. Randy walked me to the door, and on the way, we passed Gramps and Gran on the couch, where they were sitting and holding hands, watching their grandson across the room, just like kind sentinels.

“Will he be okay?” I asked Randy when we got to the door.

“He always is. McGlinn can recover from a wild day like nobody’s business.”

Randy slid through the door and to the porch with me. It was a chillier than usual night with wood smoke from McGlinn’s fire on the breeze.

“So… you’re off to that mansion?” asked Randy.

“Well, I’m sure not going back to Amanda Lee’s.” I chased the bitterness from my tone. “There’s just a lot to get done with Gavin Edgett, and I want to see it through.”

Randy laid a hand on my shoulder, even though I couldn’t feel much but a hmmzt. “We all need independence, so good on you for not goin’ back to your human like a puppy.”

“I know.” I nodded. “I’m so over her.”

So why did I feel like shit about staying away? It sucked to think of Amanda Lee still crying in the pool house, especially because it’d sounded like she’d been pinning her final hopes on me, and I wasn’t sure what my absence would do to her.

“’Kay, kid,” Randy said, making a chipper clicking sound with the side of his mouth while winking at me one more time. “Be careful out there.”

“And you don’t work too hard with that letter.”

When he smiled, I saw the recognition of futility in his gaze.

Ouch.

Still, I winked back at him, then conjured a travel tunnel and dove into it.

As I tumbled through, I was in a sentimental mood. It could’ve been because of Randy, or because of seeing Gramps and Gran watching McGlinn. It even could’ve been the comradeship of being with friends again.

Or it could’ve been just because I was so close to where I’d grown up, being near Escondido and all.

Whatever it was, I decided to make a tiny detour before heading for the coast. I mean, I was in town, you know?

I went for my old neighborhood in Escondido—the one where I’d grown up and had the best years of my life playing paper dolls on the front lawn with Dede Fitzpatrick, my next-door neighbor, and where my parents had always brought out their folding chairs on Saturday evenings with a box of wine and the other adults would just wander over with glasses and watch us kids play hopscotch on the sidewalk.

When I landed in front of the beige one-story track house, I gaped.

Damn, it seemed small. And at some point, it’d been painted beige instead of yellow. The bushes in front had been taken out, and the porch swing was gone. Most of the houses around it were run-down with junky cars parked on the street. No one was outside playing or drinking wine.

My not-really heart sank.

“To everything, turn, turn,” said a low voice just over my shoulder.

I startled, spinning around to find…

Oh, shit. Fake Dean.

My electric pulse seemed to jam in my essence. In spite of myself, I wanted to touch his chin-length blond hair, run my fingertips over his slight stubble. Worst of all, I just wanted to lean my head against his chest while he put his arms around me.

Asshole.

“What’re you doing here?” I asked.

“You were thinking about me earlier, so I thought you might be happy to see me.”

Crap. While meeting Twyla, I’d let actual positive thoughts of him enter my mind. How did he know that, though?

He was next to an anemic birch that hadn’t existed when I was a kid, and he leaned against it. When it tilted a little, I realized that he was putting weight on it.

What the hell? What was he made of?

He anticipated my question. “And you thought I was a ghost. A reaper. Isn’t that what you were telling everyone at first?”

I didn’t answer directly. “Have you been keeping tabs on me or something?”

He sent me a teasing smile. “Now, Jenny. How much fun would it be for me if I gave you all the answers right away?”

“Oh, so you do usually give answers to ghosts like me. Or do you just get off on this kind of constant mind fuckery?”

His expression said, Oo, feisty.

“I’ll tell you one thing,” he said in the real Dean’s smooth, charming voice. “I’m not a reaper. More of a… I guess you could say keeper.”

I didn’t like the way that sounded at all.

As I took a step back from him, I realized that… yes, I had a body again, just like him.

He angled his head, inviting comment.

“But we’re not in the star place,” I said.

“So whatever could that mean?”

I began walking—literally walking—away from him, past my house, getting away while I could.

As if I could.

“Hey.” From the sound of his voice behind me, he hadn’t moved. “Don’t you want to go inside for a tour of your old house? I can arrange it so the new family never even realizes we’re there.”

“Bug off.”

Fat chance, because he suddenly appeared right in front of me, and I smacked into his broad chest.

Goddamn it, why did he have to have muscles like Dean?

My heartbeat skittered along. “You know what one of my ghost friends said about you?”

“That I get my jollies from toying with new ghosts. Yeah, I overheard that, too.”

“How?”

He sighed, crossing his arms over his chest. Under the streetlights, I saw triceps flex in the back of his arms, and I couldn’t help remembering the real Dean’s arms, honed from surfing, strong and smooth. Forever young.

“Jenny, Jenny,” he said. “Are you going to ask me anything I can actually answer?”

“Like what?”

“You can start with something like ‘Do you genuinely exist just to get your jollies from new ghosts?’”

We stared at each other, and I realized that fake Dean wasn’t going to leave anytime soon unless I played his games.

So I went along with him. “Do you exist just to piss me off, dick-weed?”

He laughed, enjoying the hell out of himself. “Mostly. However, I do have other responsibilities.”

“You’re saying that I’m just one of many lucky targets.”

“I do stay busy.”

I kept staring him down, but it was hard when those sparkling light brown eyes were getting to me. The true Dean could always flip my stomach with a look and a cocky grin, just like this one.

And if he kept looking at me like that, I was going to forget he wasn’t my Dean.

I dragged my gaze off him, giving up. “What do you want from me? Just tell me once and for all.”

“Maybe we should couch this in different terms. If you could ask anything of me, what would it be?”

His switchback left me confused.

He continued. “I know what you’re up to with Elizabeth Dalton. You’re trying to solve a murder that isn’t your own, and that’s not normal ghost behavior, darlin’. Your kind is usually more self-involved.”

Chills flew up my spine. He hadn’t missed anything that had been going on with me, and it was like I’d been standing in front of a window at night, never realizing that there was someone outside watching every move I made. But, sick pup that I am, I was kind of turned on by that, because it was Dean. Or the closest I’d ever come to him again.

My voice sounded thick. “I suppose you’re going to help me solve Elizabeth’s murder because you’re impressed with my gumption or something. Is that why you’re hounding me?”

Sarcasm was still dripping from my words when he took a step closer.

“You’re different, and different makes my existence just as interesting as it makes any creature’s. That doesn’t mean I’m going to solve her murder—or yours—for you, though.”

“So why did you ask what I wanted from you?”

“I was truly curious to see if you’d request a solution to her murder or yours first.”

Bastard. “Gee, did I pass your test? If those are the kinds of traps you set up for your lucky targets, then you must be really bored in whatever land you come from.”

His face lost its amusement, and I knew I’d hit a target. Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to verbally go at it with this thing like I was doing.

Then he tilted his head again. “Is it out of the realm of possibility that I might be a helpful kind of entity and I’m only giving you a hard time before getting down to business?”

That sounded ominous, so I zipped my lip.

Then he seemed to consider something and changed his tone, sounding like he was actually a rational being.

“It’s too bad that even my powers are limited. If I could’ve, I would’ve put you in contact with Elizabeth so you can ask her what really happened.”

“And what would be the cost of that?”

He only smiled, but it was a smile that mixed me up even more. It seemed sincere.

Was he experiencing an emotion other than amusement right now?

His tone softened. “Next time you see Amanda Lee, you might want to tell her that Elizabeth moved on immediately after her death.”

It took me a second to process that he’d just come right out and given me a huge piece of information without my having to sell my soul to him or anything. I’d been half fearing that this was the reason he kept stalking me and he was merely getting around to it in his own time.

Why had he just said this, though?

He took another step closer, and I could smell Dean again—soap, sea salt, skin. Oh, man.

He added, “Elizabeth is in the same place your parents are. Does that make you feel better?”

That’s when I welled up, my throat burning.

“Where are they?” I managed to ask.

He laughed gently. “That’s been your question of the day, hasn’t it? But I can’t tell you any more than you’ve learned. Not even I know what’s beyond us, because once you go there, you don’t come back. It might be heaven or hell, nirvana, or even a parallel dimension where everyone gets another chance in a reincarnated life.”

“You don’t even know?”

“No.”

I had the feeling he was lying to me, just as he might’ve been when he’d so “earnestly” told me about Elizabeth moving on. But I wanted to hear about my parents and decide for myself if he was telling the truth. I wasn’t about to sass him again.

“My mom and dad are happy?” I asked.

“Yeah, Jenny, wherever they are, I can guarantee it. I know a guy who knows a guy who knows that good people move on and get their just reward, like humans have always hoped.”

Now that I had a body, I was able to tear up, and my vision went bleary. Fake Dean became a watery blob of white T-shirt and blond hair. I didn’t want him to see me crying, though, and I turned away.

He was right behind me now. “Hey, I didn’t think that would make you weepy. That’s good news, isn’t it?”

I nodded, speechless, my throat scratched so thoroughly that I didn’t think I’d ever be able to talk again.

I could hear him breathing right behind me, and goose bumps covered my skin. If he put his hand on my shoulder, I might break apart. If he took one more step toward me, I might crumble.

Finally, I swallowed enough so that my throat was better. “Why’re you telling me these things?”

“Because you’ve wondered, and I just want to see you happy.” He blew out a breath. “Most of all, though, I don’t like to see you sad.”

I looked up and cuffed a rogue tear away from my cheek. Once, when real Dean and I had fought about something stupid—I couldn’t even remember what it was—he’d said those exact words to me.

This Dean’s words swayed me more than I would’ve liked.

He must’ve seen that in me, because he was more forthcoming now, like I’d let down my guard a little more than I should have and that’s what he’d been hoping for.

“And here’s more to keep you from being sad,” he said. “Just because Elizabeth Dalton was murdered, that doesn’t mean she had to stick around and haunt this plane. Not every spirit lingers or falls into a time loop. Sometimes there’s so much anguish connected to their deaths or the people they leave behind that they can’t stand the aftermath. Some spirits seek the light right away. Others go your route and fall into a numb imprint.”

I held my breath. Was he about to tell me something to do with my death?

When he put his hand on my shoulder, I didn’t shrug him off. He was so warm. Not even Gavin’s life force or a fire could match the glow this entity put in me. And, honestly, I sank into his touch ever so slightly, missing it so bad. Just wanting to relive Dean for a few more minutes.

His voice was low and quiet now. “You’re wondering about the night you died.”

I couldn’t even swallow because of the lump in my throat, so I only clipped out a nod.

“You don’t want to know,” he said. “And that’s because you’re not prepared to know. I’m not going to tell you, either, because I’ll be damned if I send you back into a loop with the shock of the details at this point.”

I found my voice. “I already saw the ax, the mask.”

When I shut the images right out of my mind, I guess that only proved his point, because his fingers bunched on my shoulder, massaging me, getting a better grip on me.

My gut wrenched, twisted, but in a way that heated me up even more.

I even forgot he wasn’t really my Dean, because sweet gestures like this had defined my old boyfriend. He would slide his hand over to cover my collarbone, moving his fingers gently, making me go weak, knowing that it would distract me from whatever issue was dogging me that day.

“If you won’t tell me about my murder,” I said, breathless, “then tell me about the Edgetts.”

His voice eased through me, all vibration and warmth. “You mean that Gavin guy?”

Jealousy?

Even that turned me on in a way it shouldn’t have, just like Gavin himself. Both of these guys were bad ideas, but maybe I’d been without men in my life for so long that I was a glutton for them, no matter who they were.

A beating instant passed as Dean’s touch got a little more possessive on my shoulder. I held back a small sound of pleasure.

Get away from him, my common sense was telling me. But common sense was a distant second to everything else right now.

“I’ll tell you one thing about the Edgetts,” he said. “Watch out. That girl Wendy captured your image on her camera phone.”

I recalled when she’d aimed her phone at me, then the flash. Shit.

“Tonight, she shared the pictures with Gavin,” Dean said.

His fingers branded my skin and I bowed my head, totally under his control.

Needing his touch so badly.

That was a ghost’s curse, wasn’t it? Needing what we couldn’t easily get?

His hand eased up to my neck, skimming over my flesh. My body responded, starving for touch after being robbed of it for so long. My skin prickled, my nipples tightened, the spot between my legs ached hard. My eyes closed, fighting it.

Go away, Jen. Don’t be stupid.

But I was staying, remembering Dean’s skin against mine. Remembering how he used to run his fingertips up my spine and down again, then kiss his way up my back to the nape of my neck, melting me.

Even though I had a body, I felt as if I was floating again. Rising, full of heat, dizzy with wanting…

In a haze, I opened my eyes, and I didn’t see grass or sidewalk around me anymore.

I saw purple. Stars floating past.

The star place?

Just as I started coming out of my lapse, I felt him holding on to me as we rose. And I saw that those stars were closer than before, and they had that strange shape I’d noticed during the first visit.

But now, so near, they definitely looked like…

Pale, glowing, hanging bodies?

Jarred, I screamed, breaking away from fake Dean, falling, falling through the purple…

As I tumbled through space, using all my energy to control my essence, he didn’t follow me. But why wasn’t he giving chase?

Rushing toward the ground, I thought for sure I was about to splat over the asphalt below me.

Pull up!

I summoned everything I had, curving up and scooping into the sky just before I could smack into the street.

Hovering, trembling, I heaved in a pseudobreath, realizing I was back in my old neighborhood, the streetlights yellow and wan. I looked up to the sky at the true stars, wondering what was actually hanging and glowing in the “star” place.

And why fake Dean had called himself a keeper instead of a reaper.