Farah was right behind him, taking baby steps on her pumps and holding a clutch bag in her hand. “Gavin, come on… .”
But he was focused on Noah, who’d slipped off his stool and pushed back his rebel hair.
Gavin tossed his sunglasses on the counter. “I’m gone less than twenty-four hours and you manage not only to piss off the neighbors but to lie to me about studying for that history test. Didn’t we have a deal after you were expelled from your last school?”
“I haven’t cheated since then,” Noah said in a much less confident tone than before. “Besides, I just invited a few friends over, and someone posted it on Facebook.”
Gavin wasn’t hearing any of that, though, and I wasn’t, either. I was just watching… feeling.
It started out as a shiver, deep in the belly, and it spread outward, tingling.
But spirits couldn’t get turned on. Could they?
And why would I, out of all the spirits in the world, be drawn to this could-be killer?
Maybe it was just because I hadn’t seen Gavin up close in that picture of him, but I was fixated on his eyes. They were a pale blue, surrounded by thick lashes… .
Gavin was still talking, low and level, using the type of tone parents usually used when you’d pushed them too far.
“You think this is your own private palace?” he asked Noah. “You think it’s yours to dirty up with your friends?”
A wave of emotion from Noah crept into me and… Good God, I could feel his fear. It was like pure energy, working its way into me, taking the place of the strength that was leaking out of me bit by bit because I wasn’t close to my death spot.
Noah sputtered. “I—”
“I asked you a question,” Gavin said with such an edge that his voice sounded serrated.
A picture came to me, whipped up by imagination: Gavin angry. Gavin stalking Elizabeth Dalton…
Farah placed a hand on Gavin’s shoulder, then ran it down his arm. “Maybe we should shelve this for now.”
Gavin shrugged away from her touch, giving her a look that I couldn’t decipher.
She backed off, glancing away, retreating to the edge of the kitchen.
But I wanted to know what was driving Gavin right now, what was filling his head. So I started to flow into the screen door, thinking that maybe I could pass through if I just tried hard enough.
Nope.
I gasped at the pain of the screen separating my essence. Gasped so loud that everyone in the room turned toward me.
Rushing all the way back to the other side of the screen, I felt my essence being sucked back together.
I felt… exposed.
Could they see me now? Were any of them sensitive like Amanda Lee?
Gavin slowly walked toward the patio door and, emboldened, I came toward it.
All that was separating us was that screen, and I could smell him—the scent of soap and skin, shockingly human. He was bigger than I’d thought, broader and taller, his face all rough-hewn angles. The warmth from his body hushed against me, but that’s where it stopped—just outside, around my edges, as if my invisible outline was the only smart part of me and wouldn’t allow him to burrow any further.
But… that life force of his.
Without thinking, I raised my hand, putting it near the screen.
He paused, raising his hand, too, and I could’ve sworn he knew I was there.
His blue eyes widened; then…
Then he shivered, stepping back, and I just stood there, like he’d cut me.
But that was how I should’ve been feeling, right? Repulsed by this possible killer. And I was just now realizing it again.
As he went back to the kitchen, laying into Noah, I didn’t move. My energy seemed lower than before, but I think it was because I felt like nothing.
I would recover, but I just needed a minute.
Just a minute.
I took a little bit more than that, actually. I floated outside that patio door for I don’t know how many minutes. Enough time for everyone to leave the kitchen. Enough time for the numbness of being ignored to skulk away. Enough time so that I needed to start figuring out a way to get inside the mansion, where I’d be able to tail Gavin and collect information on him.
But then, just as I was about to move around the side of the mansion, I heard something behind me.
A whisper.
“Jenny.”
I looked behind me at the pool, not seeing anything except for the play of wind over the blue-lit water.
Then I heard it again, this time from near the guesthouse.
“Over here, Jenny.”
I rose high into the air, like I couldn’t control myself. That voice…
It sounded just like Dean’s used to.
I listened for it to carry on the wind another time.
One second. One minute.
Two minutes.
The voice didn’t come again, and I started to get back to business.
But then my old boyfriend stepped out from around the pool house.
Dean?
I almost dissipated. Was I only seeing what I wanted to see, like all those people who’d witnessed Elvis?
This wasn’t the older man I’d watched earlier today, tossing a football back and forth with his son.
This was the beautiful guy who’d looked down on me one night on the beach, years and years ago as we’d sat on a blanket under the stars, as the moon had made his straight blond, chin-length hair so light that it almost glowed. This was the boy with the whiskey brown eyes that had looked at me with such affection.
And those eyes were seeing me now.
Actually seeing me, when I’d believed no one but Amanda Lee could.
He smiled that crooked smile that had won me over the first time he leveled it on me.
What the hell was happening?
“Why’re you so surprised?” he asked. “I told you when I drove off to Columbia that I’d come back for you someday so we could be together.”
“Dean?”
He held up a hand. “You gonna get outta here with me or what?”
Before I could think straight, I nodded, barely, unsurely, because I still wanted this, wanted the past, wanted him—
Out of nowhere, a whoosh of sparking air blew me back, and I lost my balance, tumbling near the ground, rolling in the air and righting myself again near the pool.
By the time I regained my equilibrium, he was gone.
I turned around and around, looking for him. He’d completely disappeared. Why? What had—
He popped in front of me, taking me into his arms.
“Then let’s go,” he whispered, dragging me into an electric current and plunging me into absolute darkness.
3
One second I was by the swimming pool; the next—
I popped out of nowhere, rolling over the ground, everything around me a vicious tumble of confusion until my momentum stopped and I was lying on my back, out of breath, staring skyward until my vision adjusted.
But all I saw was darkness. Pure, spreading, unending deep purple.
What just happened?
As my brain tried to catch up, I angled to my side, planting one of my hands on the ground.
That’s right. It was planted. As if I’d become solid for some reason…
I quickly glanced around, but I didn’t see my old boyfriend anywhere. Had it even been Dean?
If not… then what the hell?
When nothing attacked me—no Dean, no more truly messed-up supernatural surprises—my pulse finally slowed, my lungs filling with crisp air as I seriously took in my location.
At first, everything above and around me didn’t register very well.