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?”