Shivering, she crossed her arms over her chest. It looked like a belly-deep shivering that I remembered so well, when you had experienced something shocking and it was just starting to get to you.
She was watching Gavin, whose back was hunched as he planted his hands on his thighs, still kneeling and shaking his head, like he was attempting to get Elizabeth out of it.
I floated closer to Wendy. Time for another interview, but this one wouldn’t have to be a mind invasion. I mean, it wasn’t like I thought she had anything to do with Elizabeth’s death, but what if she could help me out with Gavin?
“Wendy—” I started.
She interrupted. “Why’re you doing this to us?”
What could I say? I’m a ghost and this is what I do?
“This is about Elizabeth Dalton,” I said.
She glanced at me, puzzled. “Elizabeth? What does she have to do with—”
“She was murdered.”
“Right.” Wendy hugged her stomach.
I gentled my voice. “How well did you know her?”
“Well enough. She was nice to me. Gavin loved her. Why?”
This was going to be the tough part. “Ghosts haunt for a reason. A lot of times, we’re concerned with righting wrongs, and as far as Elizabeth is concerned—”
“I still don’t understand why you’re scaring us.”
“Wendy, I need to find out if Gavin had anything to do with her death.”
She flinched. I’d gut-punched her.
“Who are you?” she asked. “Elizabeth’s friend in the otherworld or something?”
“Close enough.”
“Then if you know her in your ghost city, or whatever, she would’ve told you that Gavin never would’ve hurt her.” She looked around, obviously aware that my friends were here, too. “I don’t see her. Why isn’t she the one asking questions?”
“Because she’s moved on, but there are still some people left on earth who care what happened to her.”
“And they summoned you.”
Pretty much, but I only shrugged, unwilling to continue this discussion when there was so much more to get to the bottom of.
She went back to watching Gavin pull himself back together, and I waited for a second, then said softly, “I don’t think he killed Elizabeth.” But that didn’t rule out the other male corpse I’d seen in his mind.
She added, “So you’ll leave him alone now?”
I couldn’t. Not until I knew who that dead man was. Not until I figured out those dreams I’d seen in Gavin and what they meant. And not until I got a lead on who’d killed Elizabeth if Gavin hadn’t.
I realized at that point that Wendy and Gavin weren’t emitting fear or anger. Just sadness and numbness. I had nothing to feed off from them, and I began to feel the effects of all the work I’d done tonight—especially materializing. I felt grayer by the minute.
I glanced at Scott, who’d wandered over to the diving board during all this.
“Sweetie, smart ghosts don’t get involved with human problems,” Twyla had told me. And it sure looked like Scott was smart enough to get out of the game while the getting was good. Same with Twyla, because she was leaning against the outside wall, her hand on an electrical breaker box. She was charging up, smiling dizzily in the afterglow of her spree.
This was my mess to clean up.
Now Wendy was getting used to me. “Did you hear me ask if you’re going to leave my brother alone now?”
“I heard you, but I can’t do that.”
“Why? Did he commit another murder or something?” A cutting joke.
But not to me. “Why don’t you ask him?”
Another flinch, and after she gave me an ultraconfused glance, she purposefully walked to Gavin. He was still so lost in the Elizabeth hallucinations that he obviously hadn’t even started to wonder why Wendy was talking to herself out here.
She kneeled down beside him. “Are you okay?”
“Liz… ,” he whispered.
“I know.”
She looked up at me—see, he’s a good guy and you shouldn’t have put him through this—and put her hand on his shoulder. That seemed to soothe him. But her voice had quavered. No matter how tough she acted, she was still jarred.
“Gavin, did you do what she says you did?” she asked.
When he glanced up, he seemed more tired than ever. Bruised inside. Totally ethered out.
“Who’re you talking about, Wen?”
She bent her head, her pink hair streak hanging over her face. She’d been talking to him like he could see ghosts, too, and I bet she just realized it.
“I just need to know if you’ve ever killed anyone,” she said, skipping over his question.
He reared back onto his heels, and from the naked expression of horror on him, I knew that Wendy had stripped off the layer he’d always worn on the outside.
“What makes you say that?” he asked.
“Just tell me no, and this will all be over.”
“Wendy, you’ve got to answer me.”
She stood, backing away from him. “Why can’t you just say no?”
“Why would you ask me that?” His voice went bone-deep.
Once again, the steely man was back, and Gavin’s face lost all expression except for the shadows in his eyes.
Wendy glanced at me, like I could explain everything to her. She seemed afraid now, like she’d realized that she didn’t want to know anything terrible about her fantastic, loving big brother.
But then the door to the pool house opened wide, the hinges groaning, and every gaze went there.
Farah stumbled out, clutching her phone in her hand. She was, as they say, as white as a sheet.
I gritted my nonexistent teeth at the sight of her. Why couldn’t Noah, who’d had such promising empathetic thoughts, have been the first one up and about so I could continue the interviews with him?
Gavin and Wendy had gone still while watching their sister. She couldn’t even walk straight. Actually, she looked drunk, even though I knew she wasn’t.
“He needs help,” she said, pointing back to the pool house. “Noah. Passed out.”
Even though the Edgetts seemed to hate one another most times, both Gavin and Wendy got up. He went to catch Farah before she fell while Wendy ran into the pool house.
On the way, she glared at me, and I offered an okay-it-was-my-fault shrug. She was obviously liking me less and less. I wouldn’t have liked me, either, if I’d accused my favorite brother of murder.
Gavin was trying to get the phone out of Farah’s hand as they walked, but she wasn’t having it. She stopped, pushing away from him, cradling the device.
“I need to call that woman,” she said, slurring. “The amateur ghost chaser. She failed. It’s here again.”
“The spirit?”
Farah nodded emphatically, and a seriously weird laugh came out of her. A frightened trill. But it wasn’t until she followed up with a fully nerve-racked bigger laugh that the willies crept over me. And when there was a rustle in the bushes next to the building and Rum Tum Tugger appeared in all his black-and-white glory, she laughed even louder.
“There’s the cat! Here, Tugger! Are you working with the ghost? Are you two in on this together?”
“Farah… ,” Gavin said.
“It’s still here,” she said again as the cat ducked back into the bushes. “I know who’s been following me through the house. I know who it is. She never left the mansion tonight like we thought, because she’s here for revenge. I saw her.”
“Who?” Gavin asked. He’d collected his emotions fast. Then again, I was pretty sure that’s what he’d done for his family for a while now while raising them, keeping them together.