Randy spoke. “Not everybody can see everything,” he said.
“Wendy turned out to see more than I expected, though,” I said. “How did that even happen?”
Amanda Lee let her hand fall from her cross. “We all work differently. You triggered something in her, Jensen, and her life will never be the same.”
Scott’s turn. “I just hope that dark spirit doesn’t come back for them or whoever it was after.”
“I wish I’d found out what that was,” I said.
Randy smiled. “You can’t do everything, either, Jen.”
Being a ghost, with all these powers, made me think I could. It seemed such a waste to screw around like Twyla for the rest of my existence when there was so much I could do.
But hadn’t Randy insinuated that, someday, I would change?
We all just sat or hovered there for a minute… until something hit me.
“Shit,” I said. “Shitshitshit. The Edgetts’ dad died on their property. You don’t think…”
“Shee-it,” Randy said, catching on.
I could tell Louis, Scott, and Amanda Lee were thinking the same thing.
Was the dark spirit Daddy Edgett, who’d come through a portal?
Amanda Lee was just about pulling at her necklace now, a vein throbbing in her throat. “This isn’t the end. We put one wrong to rights tonight, but there’s still so much to do.”
With other humans who might need closure? Or just the Edgetts and their maybe-dark-spirit dad?
I didn’t get the chance to ask, because Randy saluted me.
“Dawn’s comin’,” he said, then quickly summoned a travel tunnel to get the hell out. He was gone within fifteen seconds.
I shrugged to Amanda Lee. “Randy’s got a letter to look for.”
Louis nodded, almost to himself. I’d noticed he’d stayed after Amanda Lee had hinted at her penance. Scott, too.
“One thing you could do,” I said to Amanda Lee, “is set your mind on finding out whether Wendy’s mom ever moved on.”
I wasn’t about to ask fake Dean about that. Give me a break.
“Would you keep an eye on Wendy, as well?” Amanda Lee asked us ghosts. “And… Gavin?”
We all nodded. I wasn’t just doing it for Amanda Lee’s conscience, either. I’d grown a soft spot for Wendy, and I was worried about how she was dealing with tonight’s abysmal events.
Gavin, too. Yeah, there it was. I admitted it.
Amanda Lee stood, holding her hand out to me. “But most important, we’ve got your murder to solve. Can you trust me enough to do that?”
Louis smiled at her. “I’m with you.” Then he smiled at me, letting me know he was in for a penny, in for a pound.
“Count me in,” Scott said, floating up the stairs, standing on the other side of Amanda Lee. He looked like he wanted to make up for disappointing me tonight.
She couldn’t see them, but I could, and they made quite a team. Two ghosts I trusted and one human I still wasn’t sure about.
Funny. Even though I technically didn’t have a spine anymore, I’d somehow grown one. I wasn’t going to ever be manipulated again as Amanda Lee had done to me.
And with or without her, I was going to make my killer regret murdering me.
I went up to the porch, sweeping my essence over Amanda Lee’s outstretched hand, and for a second, Louis and Scott joined us in a huddle.
But when she shivered, we all backed off.
I told them there was somewhere I had to be, and I asked Louis and Scott to let me travel there alone.
The cops had obviously let Gavin and Wendy go home, and the mansion was ablaze with lights through some of the windows that had curtains open now. Even though I knew how to overcome salt barriers, I didn’t want to tangle with any incantations that’d been said against me by the cleaner, so I stayed outside. Besides, I’d had enough drama for the night, and I knew that the Edgetts wouldn’t want me nearby, so I respected that, peering in the windows instead, deciding to stick around in case the dark spirit, aka maybe-bad Dad, came by.
I found Gavin and Wendy in her room, where her curtains were parted.
They were on the floor, leaning back against the bed, which had a suitcase open on top of it and clothes strewn around, like Wendy had been packing items so they could get out of this house and maybe to somewhere with fewer memories before she’d abruptly stopped.
Below the bed, she was slumped in Gavin’s arms, fast asleep. I imagined how she might’ve been having a fit of emotion and they’d both sunk there and he hadn’t dared to move for fear of waking her up.
Gavin was finally sleeping, too, although his face looked tougher than ever, still a fighter, still a protector.
I almost left them in peace, but then I saw the pencil that must’ve fallen out of his hand and the drawings near his leg that he must’ve been creating as he’d cradled sleeping Wendy.
Drawings of a young woman with light, flowing hair. One who wore a long-sleeved blouse over a tank top, plus jeans and tennis shoes. She looked like… well, a denim angel.
She looked like me.
Touched in a way that was just as protective as Gavin was for his family, I backed away from the window, just one of many ghosts for the Edgetts.
A justifier who was going to do as much reckoning as she could.