44 Book Five (4 page)

“She’s a dancer? I thought she was a bartender.”

David smiled.

“She dances in the cage most of the time, tends bar the rest of the time.”

“The cage?”

“Yeah,” he said, looking up. “Club 6 has this cage that hangs down from the ceiling and people get in it and dance, dance, dance. Eddie likes the girls at the bar to get up in there so the customers will buy more drinks from them.”

“Sounds like quite the place,” I said.

“It is. It’s a little east of seedy, but who doesn’t need that once in a while, right?”

I smiled and shrugged.

He finished counting out the register and then went in the back for a few minutes while I put the last of the canisters away.

“Anyway, we’re all good now,” he said, grabbing his stuff from behind the counter. “I saw her just last night.”

We turned out the lights and walked outside. I stood in the warm air as he locked the front door.

“So, are you helping her or what? I mean, she seems really freaked out still. She told me it’s worse than ever. I guess she’s talking about the ghost bugging her.”

“Yeah,” I said. “I’m going to try. I’m meeting her tomorrow morning.”

We walked over to our cars, which were parked close to each other out on the street.

“You going to The Shins tomorrow night?” he asked.

“Well, yeah, sort of,” I said. “We’ll be in a canoe.”

He sighed and rolled his eyes.

“Now that sounds like one hot date with Mr. Big Spender,” he said. “What’s the encore? Feeding geese in the park at midnight?”

“Ha, ha, ha,” I said.

“Anyway, I’ll be there. We actually bought tickets, so I get to sit on the grass and watch the band and everything. But maybe I’ll go over to the river and search for you guys and say hi. If I can’t find you, just shoot off a flare or something.”

I smiled.

“I’ll be there with some of those friends you met when we went out for your birthday that night.”

“That was fun,” I said. “Your friends are a blast.”

It was a really good night. It was at the beginning of the summer and Ty and I had met up with David for a night of bar hopping to celebrate my 21
^st
birthday.

“I guess we’re kind of lucky that we saw Mo play that night,” David said, standing in the street with the door open. “Now that she’s a big star and everything. Who knows if she’ll even come back to Bend? Maybe it’s straight to Hollywood.”

I unlocked my Jeep.

“Maybe,” I said, thinking Mo would be the last person to go Hollywood.

“Well, good night, Abby Craig.”

“Good night, David Norton.”

As I drove home I thought about Mo and her band. They were really pretty good. The lead singer had this low, sultry voice and it mixed well with the driving rock sound they were putting out. Mo was great on her guitar solos and I could tell that she really loved being up on stage, lost in the riffs. That it was what she was born to do. 

I thought back to her brother. His ghost had helped us stop the school bombing.

“It feels better knowing what really happened to him,” Mo had said to me the day before she left. “You know, I always felt bad about him, how it happened. Like it was my fault. But now that I know the whole story, it doesn’t hurt so much.”

It was a good thing, being at peace, and I was glad that I had helped her.

I turned up my street, thinking that maybe there was someone else I could be helping, too.

CHAPTER 7

There were a few other runners making their way around the college track.

It felt too early to be here. But here I was just the same. It was 7:08. I was sluggish, slower than a snail on gravel, my legs refusing to move any faster as I pushed them to the length of the three miles I had promised myself I’d do.

“Come on,” I said out loud near the finish.

It was only the first day of my new early morning routine. Maybe it would get easier. I couldn’t imagine it getting any harder. I was determined to build my endurance and work on my speed. The new soccer season wasn’t that far away and I was going to be ready this time, no matter how many hours I worked.

By the time I stumbled across the finish line, the sun was above the horizon, hot in my face. Sweat burned my eyes.

I sucked air for the next few minutes, walking for a while and then stretching.

Afterwards I looked around for Paloma Suárez. We had agreed to meet at eight.

“Hey, Abby,” she said, coming up behind me.

I turned and saw bags under her bloodshot eyes, a fast gray energy moving quickly around her.

“So you do this every day?” she said.

“Oh, hi. Well, that’s the plan. We’ll have to see how long I can stand it.”

“You’re a better man than me,” she said. “
Híjole
. I wouldn’t do it, even if they paid me.”

We walked over to a table near the school’s library.

“Are things any better?” I asked, sensing the answer before she spoke.

“No,” she said. “Worse.”

“It’s been my experience that they usually want something. Maybe help. Do you have a feeling about what he might want?”

She let out a long breath and looked at the tall trees surrounding the track.

“Me,” she said finally. “He wants me.”

“Why do you think that?”

"I know that sounds crazy,” she said. “Maybe I’m just being dramatic. I don’t know, maybe it’s all in my head. If nothing else, Abby, I’m hoping you settle that. If it’s just me being crazy or not. Because the people I talk to, that’s what they all think. That I’ve gone off the deep end.”

“I’ll do what I can,” I said, not sure what that might be.

“Can you just stop by the club and see if you see him? I’ve asked the bouncer, the customers, even the owner. This creepy guy is standing not ten feet away, and I’m the only one who can see him. If you came by, maybe you can tell me what you see.”

“Yeah, I can do that. No problem.”

"Thanks, Abby. I can’t tell you how much that means. You know, I even asked my sister to come in this last weekend. That shows how desperate I am. She doesn’t want me working at the club. I don’t know how many fights we’ve had over it. But she didn’t see him either. She’s a nurse over at the hospital, so her first thought was that I need to see a counselor or something. She thinks I’m mental. And the worst thing is that she might be right.”

I nodded slowly, remembering that feeling, how everyone thought I was a freak after my accident because I said I still saw Jesse. Even though he was dead. And I sure knew how it felt to have a sister who disapproved of my job. Kate had made progress, but she was still uncomfortable with me working on the river. Not that I could blame her. After all, I had drowned.

It didn’t mean that Paloma was really being haunted, but it did make me want to help her.

“So David tells me you’re a dancer?” I said.

She shook her head.

“Oh, so David remembers me now? How lucid of him. Yeah, they hired me as a bartender last year, but when business slowed down in the winter they cut my position. Eddie, the owner, said I could stay on as a cage dancer. At first I thought, no way,
pinchebuey
, but with the economy the way it is, I didn’t feel like I could say no. He still lets me mix drinks when we get busy. Plus, it’s not like I’m a stripper or nothing. I’m not wearing much, but my vital organs are covered.”

“Well, if there’s a real ghost hanging around the club, I think I’ll be able to see him,” I said. “I can stop by in the next few days.”

“That would be awesome.”

“Has he done anything to you?” I said.

“No. I guess not. So far he just stares.”

My legs were tightening up.

“Do you mind if we walk a little?” I said.

“Let’s do it.”

We headed back to the track and started walking on the two outside lanes.

"So when did it all start?" I asked, putting on my sunglasses.

"I started seeing him about a month ago. Just once in a while at first. In the corner or on the other side of the dance floor. Or up against a wall in the back of the club. He would just stand there and look at me, and then he disappeared. Like I said, at first I thought he was a customer, although now that I think back on it he never did order anything.”

“Then what?”

“Then he started hanging around more. And he moved in closer. Last week, he was standing right at the bar, next to the last seat. Leering, full of… hate, I guess. I finally asked the bouncer to toss him, but of course he didn’t know what I was talking about.”

I felt a sudden cold creep down my back.

“One night last week, I couldn’t take it anymore. I decided to go up to him myself and tell him to leave. I wasn’t going to put up with it all night again, him staring at me like that. Like he wanted to do terrible things. I walked right up to him and told him.”

“What did he do?”

“He just grinned at me,” she said. “His eyes looked right into me for a moment and then he just disappeared there in front of me. Faded. It was like some magic trick. I’ve been drinking lately just to get through my shift, maybe drinking more than I should. During the day I think that maybe that accounts for it. But when I see him I feel shaky and sober at the same time. And I know he’s real.”

“What does he look like?" I asked.

"Well, he's kind of stocky. Not too tall. But he has this strong, big chest. I’d say he’s in his 40's and has dark features. Dirty black hair hanging down over his forehead. And a mustache.”

I suddenly had an uncontrollable urge to look around and make sure no one fitting that description was nearby.

“But the strangest thing about him are his eyes,” Paloma said. “They’re striking. The kind of eyes you never forget. They're light blue and super bright. That was the first thing that I noticed about him. And when I looked into his eyes the last time I saw him, it felt as if I got stuck in quicksand. Like I was caught. Trapped. It was really horrible.”

She started crying.

“When I finally broke free from him, from those eyes, I knew. I knew he was..."

She hesitated.

"What? What did you know?"

Her eyes went wide with terror.

“That he was really bad. No, not bad. Evil. That I was staring right into evil.”

She stopped in her tracks for a moment like she had lost all her strength from telling me the story.

“Sorry,” she said. “I’m just exhausted. I… haven’t… I barely sleep anymore. I just dread the entire day because I have to go back there.”

“You only see him when you’re at the club?”

“I look for him everywhere I go. I’m paranoid I might see him at the store or at the gym. I walk around with sharp rocks in my gut. I can’t even eat anymore. But so far, yeah, just at the club.”

I sighed.

“Can you take a little time off work?”

“Eddie isn’t too big on time off. I would quit if I could afford it. And I’m afraid that if I leave I might have trouble finding another job anytime soon.”

Maybe her paranoia was contagious, but I suddenly felt his dark energy all around. I shuddered.

“So you see a lot of ghosts?” she asked.

“A few. But the ghosts I’ve seen and interacted with haven’t been like what you’re describing. But I’ll come and take a look. Maybe there’s more to the story. Maybe I can help you figure out why he’s hanging around.”

“Thanks again, Abby,” she said. She hesitated before giving me a hug.

“See you at the club,” I said. “I’ll call you to confirm.”

She smiled and nodded and started walking away up the hill to the parking lot.

“Do you have a boyfriend?” she asked, turning back around.

“Yeah,” I said.

“Bring him.”

CHAPTER 8

Ty stood over me as I gasped, stunned by the cold water. I held tight to the paddleboard while I tried to catch my breath.

“Damn!” I said, bobbing in the river.

Crawling back on top of the board was easy enough, but I had trouble standing up again. I was on my knees, the board wobbling under me as the current carried me downriver. I was about to tumble in one more time.

“You’re okay,” Ty said. “Just take a breath and balance yourself before you try and stand. Take your time. You’ll get it.”

I extended my legs, threw my butt high in the air and jerked up with absolutely no grace whatsoever.

“Sweet!” he yelled. “Good work.”

I was using his roommate’s paddleboard and we were on the Deschutes, in front of the Old Mill.

We headed back up river, side by side, to the park. It was a good arm workout going against the current, especially under the bridge where the water was strong. We carried our boards to his truck and slid them in.

“Do you have a few minutes to sit in the sun so I could dry off?” I asked.

We both had to get to work, but I was feeling happy and lazy and didn’t want to leave. We walked over to the grass and he pulled me down and then on top of him, laughing.

I laughed too.

“Well, not too bad for your first time,” he said.

I smiled, staring into his eyes, and sat up.

“Your technique got better and better as time went on,” he said. “You had more confidence on that last stretch. You did great.”

“Well, thanks. I did fall in, though.”

“That’s just part of learning. I’ve fallen in a thousand times.”

“Okay, if you say so,” I said. “It was pretty fun. Sign me up for another lesson.”

“You’re on. So you practicing after work today?” he said.

“Yep,” I said. “I have a game tomorrow night.”

“I want to come running with you sometime,” he said. “And as you know, I’m always available to be your goalie.”

I laughed. Ty was really bad, but I liked playing with him.

“Come on, I can’t get better if I don’t get out there, right? I’m not like you. I was on horses when I was a kid, not soccer fields.”

“I know,” I said, pretending to play a violin. “Poor deprived Ty guy.”

We both laughed before I took off running toward the parking lot, his footsteps right behind me.

CHAPTER 9