She’d learned something tonight. I just hoped the lesson stuck.
Twyla was halfway down the steps now, near where Scott had already stood up, too.
“Why does Louis get to have the fun?” she asked.
“Don’t be a brat,” Scott said, sticking his hands in his jeans pockets. Then he sent me a sideswipe smile. “But I’m wondering the same thing. I wanna be in on this, too.”
“What?” I asked. “Solving the mystery?”
Before Twyla could go, “Duh!” Scott laughed.
“Face it,” he said, “you need some help. You don’t know how to get into that mansion anymore, so you won’t have easy access to your suspect.”
“And you’ll help… how?”
Twyla fluttered the rest of the way down the steps, just like she anticipated what Scott was thinking. And she looked ecstatic about it.
Scott said, “We can do a little booing of our own so you can lure Gavin or anyone else you want to question to wherever you need them to be.”
Amanda Lee was leaning toward the conversation, like she was listening to a garbled radio transmission. I didn’t take the time to translate for her.
“You want to play good cop, bad cop?” I asked Scott, already loving the idea.
“Why not? My dad was one, so I know how the game goes.”
“I can do it, too,” Twyla said. “I’m, like, a major Remington Steele. And guess what. While Louis is doing his thing in that tiny house over there, your fellow ghost budders can make sure no one interrupts your time with haunting tonight. We’ll be useful to the max!”
I glanced at Amanda Lee, then at my ghost friends—or “ghost budders,” as Twyla had said.
To me, even with their gray tones, they were so lively and full of… well, spirit. I hadn’t realized until now how cold and sad human life could be, how soulless, just like most of the Edgett family.
I spoke to Scott and Twyla. “Okay, you two. But you have to promise that you’ll leave the actual haunting to me. I need to see all the pieces of Gavin’s mind firsthand so I can figure out the big picture. Deal?”
Twyla raised her hand to high-five me, and when I gave in, our hands only met charged air. But that didn’t take away from anyone’s enthusiasm. Even Amanda Lee seemed to know that we were ready and raring to go, and she looked scared and excited at the same time.
I mean, the dark spirit was still out there, and we were going to where it’d last been seen and everything. But tonight I was going to do one of two things to end this case with the help of the ghost budders.
Finally haunt a confession out of Gavin Edgett.
Or prove his innocence once and for all.
21
After a brief visit to my death spot, Scott, Twyla, and I made our way to the Edgett mansion near midnight.
We peered in the windows, but they were shuttered and curtained. Was it sleepy time for the Edgetts? Had the maid Constanza retreated to her quarters by now?
I could at least try to find out, and I went to my favorite mansion entry point, the chimney. Plus, I wanted to see if the cleaner had successfully banished me from the domain, after all.
After I dove down, then bounced out of the flue right away, Twyla and Scott were waiting for me on the roof, braying at the sight of me being expectorated, just like the chimney was hocking a loogie.
“I know,” I said while my head rang. “It’s hilarious to see a fellow ghost humiliated.”
Twyla was the most amused. “You looked like a special little child running into a sliding glass door.”
Ignoring. “Now that we know for sure that I can’t get in, how’re you guys going to handle bringing Gavin out here? I assume you have a plan.”
“We did come up with something,” Twyla said, cockily smoothing back the straight Goth side of her hair.
Scott was reclining on the roof, acting just like he wanted to catch some UVs, even if it was full night. “How would you like to have your own place to haunt, Jen?”
I didn’t get it at first.
“’Cause if you want one,” he said, grinning, “no sweat.” He jerked his chin toward the pool house down below.
My own place to haunt.
Using something other than the mansion would give me… oh, let’s just say some further intimacy with my dear Gavin. If I wasn’t barred from the pool house.
Just as I was about to float off the roof to go there and check it out a bit more, I shivered, because suddenly I felt… something. And it sure wasn’t Scott’s or Twyla’s essence. Whatever it was, it felt like eyes watching us.
“Do you guys feel that?” I whispered.
Scott glanced around, but Twyla just fluffed the teased side of her hair.
“Feel what?” she asked.
Maybe I had ghost nerves because of tonight’s activities. Maybe the dark spirit from earlier had shaken me more than I’d admitted before. Or maybe it had come back… ?
Paranoia, the destroyer.
“It’s nothing,” I said, focusing on the pool house below again. The creepy sensation was gone, anyway, and I wasn’t going to torture myself with oh-my-Gods and what-ifs. “You guys do know that the pool house is surrounded by a salt circle, too, right? I already checked when we flew by it earlier.”
Scott and Twyla glanced at each other, laughed, then darted up and coasted off the roof at the same time, down to the blue-lit lagoon pool.
I took one last look around the roof area, finding nothing out of the ordinary. No more chills for me. So I joined Scott in front of a shuttered villa window that had salt sprinkled on the sill, as well as around the rest of the pool house.
Behind us, Twyla had taken the scenic route, screwing around, and she zinged by us so fast that she caused some wind. A sill-bound potted plant toppled to the ground, shattering, spreading dirt and daisies over the concrete.
I was just about to yell at her when Scott whispered, “All part of the plan, baby.”
Twyla landed in front of the ornate wooden door. “A guy like Gavin will come out to check a noise like that, if he heard it. We can always graduate to something, like, more attention-worthy if we need to. Let’s see if this gets anyone out here first.”
“We don’t want to make any threatening noises,” Scott said. “No exploding pool houses or anything.” He looked sidelong at Twyla. “Got it, troublemaker?”
“Ha-ha. Your confidence in me touches my tender heart.”
“It’s just that you get a little excited sometimes, that’s all.” Scott slicked back his greased dark hair, totally in no hurry.
She merely bent to the foot of the door, then pursed her dark-shaded mouth, giving a great exhalation that disturbed the line of salt at the threshold, creating a slim opening. Without further ado, she zoomed through the lane and under the door.
“Hey… ,” I began.
Scott was having the time of his life, laughing at my surprise. “First of all, she got in because she’s not the one who was being banished from the dwellings here. You and the dark spirit were the focus of the cleaner’s energies.” He went back to his hair. “As far as the salt goes… see, humans have their nifty tricks that make them feel safe, so they use stuff like salt to keep us away. Basically, though, it works on ghosts who just fell off the turnip truck and don’t know to pucker up and blow. And it works way better on demons than us.”
This really was a game to these two. Luckily, they were good players. “Don’t cleaners know how easy it is for experienced ghosts to bypass salt?”
“Jen.” Scott made a clicking noise with his tongue. “It’s pretty obvious this cleaner is sparky, but untried. She’ll learn, though.”