“Good. I knew you’d be a fighter. That’s why I tried so hard to find you. I would go back to that forest night after night, attempting to find the place where you would materialize. And I did, on your anniversary.”
The crackle of my surroundings—the electricity that’s all around us, whether we’re ghosts or humans—snapped over my essence, pinching me.
“Why exactly did you want to find me?” I asked.
Amanda Lee looked at me again with that everything-will-be-fine smile. “The moment I heard your story, I wanted to bring your soul peace, dear. I still do. But there’s more to it.”
I thought of how, when I’d touched Amanda Lee the very first time, she’d been so cryptic. I’d had the feeling that she was purposely shutting me out.
“What have you been keeping from me?” I asked.
“Nothing nefarious.” Her smile dimmed. “As a psychic and medium, I used to have my share of people who invited me to dinner parties and afternoon teas. And every time, I realized I was there only because I sensed the dead and read the future.”
“And?” I still didn’t understand the direction of this chat. “Are you going to drag me to a luncheon so I can entertain your friends?”
“I don’t have many friends.” Amanda Lee offered a self-aware shrug.
I almost reached out to her, but thought better of it as she went on.
“I’d never fully connected to a spirit before you came along, Jensen. I would pick up energy from others, or I would hear their voices, but they would only give me fragments, pieces of conversation that didn’t always make sense. I also went to my share of death scenes, trying to find someone just like you.”
“A fighter,” I said.
“Yes. But none of them was nearly equipped to do what I’m about to ask you to do.”
I had a bad feeling about this. “Go on.”
Amanda Lee took a deep breath.
I had a real bad feeling.
“A while ago,” she said, “I was approached by one of the only true friends I do have, and he begged for my help.”
“Doing what?”
Amanda Lee’s voice was like a flatline in a quiet room. “Justice for a murder, just as you want justice for yours.”
I could feel myself blipping, like that TV on the fritz.
Justice?
Amanda Lee sat up, rushing on now that she had my complete attention. “I know the person my friend suspects as a killer is guilty—just as guilty as whoever took your life. And, just like your murderer, this one is getting away with it.”
“Why?” It sounded like a disembodied croak.
“Because this man thinks he’s above the law, and I have to agree. I’m sure he covered his tracks damned well.” Amanda Lee’s gray eyes were wider than I’d ever seen them, brimming with her belief.
It was almost like… well, like Amanda Lee had had something bad happen to her in the past, and she was identifying with this friend all too well.
My mind spun, and Amanda Lee took advantage of that.
“The victim’s name,” she said, “was Elizabeth Dalton.”
I didn’t want to hear this just as much as I did want to hear it. I turned away from Amanda Lee, gazing down the block, in the direction of Dean’s house. I imagined myself, all happy and joyful and human on the lawn with him again.
And for the first time, I heard in my head something new from the night I’d died.
Stop! Please! Why’re you doing this?
My voice, begging.
My last words?
I didn’t like the thought of having to plead like that. I didn’t like the idea of ever letting someone evil have so much power over me or Elizabeth Dalton or anyone.
Amanda Lee took a photo out of her purse. It showed an older gentleman dressed in a gray suit, his silver hair clipped and neat. He was standing in front of a fountain in Balboa Park, his arm around a much younger woman who beamed, her teeth white against her deep red lipstick, her blond hair in a slicked-back pixie cut.
“My friend Jon tells me that Elizabeth was a good person,” Amanda Lee said. “He left the country after she died, retreating to a cottage outside London, just to forget her. He can’t stand the reminders here.”
“What was she like?”
“She smiled a lot, told funny jokes to cheer up whoever needed cheering… But about three years ago, a killer found her. And he stabbed her, once, twice… thirteen times. When that wasn’t enough for him, he cut her up in…”
As she trailed off, I felt something like a stab, too, and I glanced away from the picture of Amanda Lee’s friend and Elizabeth.
Amanda Lee swallowed. “They found her pieces by some hiking trails near the beach. And when they brought the killer in for questioning, he denied it. He had a weak alibi—said he was working late by himself—but he had all the motivation in the world.”
“Why?”
“Because Elizabeth Dalton had broken off an engagement to him, and he was jealous when she found someone else to love. My friend.”
A crime of passion?
I didn’t want to think about Elizabeth Dalton as the cops had found her, piece by piece. You know why?
Because deep inside, I suspected that’s how they would find my remains one day, if they ever did.
A burning sensation crisped the fringes of my shape, searing into me, and I knew that I was only feeling the unfairness of it all.
Amanda Lee lowered her voice to a whisper, just like the one she’d used on the night she’d rescued me from the time loop in Elfin Forest.
“It isn’t right that the killer goes on without a punishment while Elizabeth’s friends and loved ones suffer.” She shook her head. “People like him should live with the ghosts of what they do. They should literally have the truth scared out of them.”
As she waited for her meaning to seep into every bit of my essence, I thought about the unknown killer in Elfin Forest with blood on his hands.
My blood.
And I had to agree.
2
His name was Gavin Edgett, and the Internet said that he had made a mint creating video games, and I’m not talking Ms. Pac-Man or Donkey Kong, either. From my marathon TV and computer binges, I noticed that a lot of modern game play basically trained a person to mutilate and butcher.
And guess what. Our suspect in Elizabeth Dalton’s murder had gifted society with Blood and Blades about four years ago.
Coincidence?
That was my question of the day, but Amanda Lee sure seemed to have all the answers after we met back at the casita.
“I’ve already done my homework when it comes to Gavin Edgett,” she said, standing by the window and watching dusk fall over her gardens. “But I haven’t gotten what I’ve needed yet. There’s nothing in the gossip columns, or my intuition, or even small talk around the community that’s offered much for a very personal profile on him.”
“Have you played any of his games?”
“As much as I could stomach. And what I saw of them told me enough.”
“That he’s violent.”
“I would say that his dark side is certainly on full display.” She sent a glance to me, her fingers entwined with the lace window curtain. “Perhaps I should leave all the game playing to you.”
I knew she was talking about more than Blood and Blades. She wanted me to mess with Gavin Edgett, affect him as much as Elizabeth Dalton had been affected, all for the sake of her friend Jon in that photo.
Revenge. Justice. She sure looked like the cool mom on the block, but there was some blackness beneath the smiles.
What was it like in Amanda Lee’s mind? If she’d had visions about Gavin Edgett and Elizabeth Dalton—enough of them to persuade her to carry out her friend Jon’s wish—how haunted was she every single day? Did all her visions steer her toward justice because she’d lived them vicariously?