Ghost Flower (25 page)

Or what?
I thought.
You should feel free to haunt me?
Something about that struck me as funny, and I stifled a giggle too.

But I didn’t catch it fast enough. “Is this a joke to you?” Coralee suddenly demanded. “Your best friend is dead, and you’re treating it like some big joke?”

“Coralee, we’re standing on a ledge, talking to the air, waiting for a
ghost
to appear. You have to admit, that’s funny.”

“It’s not.”

“There’s no one here. No one is coming. There are no such thing as ghosts,” I said gently.

She turned on me. “There are! There are too! She’ll be here. She’ll come. She’ll come for you.” Her eyes sparkled, almost feverish.

“Why do you care so much?” I asked. “I thought you weren’t even friends.”

The question, which seemed banal to me, seemed to jolt her. It was as though a mask was lifted off, or maybe put back on. The feverish, serious look disappeared from her face almost instantly, replaced by
her careful, camera-ready slate of expressions. “I care for the show,” she said, wide-eyed. “And of course I care for Liza. To find out the truth about what happened to her.”

The change was so quick and so complete that it was
almost
convincing.

“What if we already know the truth? That she committed suicide?”

“I don’t believe that,” Coralee said. “Does being up here bring back any memories?”

“I wasn’t up here.”

“How do you know? I thought you didn’t remember anything.” Her tone had a slight bite to it.

“I don’t,” I said, working hard not to sound flustered. “But I’m—I’m just sure. It doesn’t feel familiar.”

“I think you’re lying,” Coralee said.

Aurora took over for me then. I laughed and said, “You’re nuts. Look, this has been fun. But it’s pretty clear there’s no ghost coming, so I’m going to take off.” I started for the path, and my phone rang.

Unknown number.

I stopped and turned back. Coralee stared at me. I stared at her. I’ll admit, my heart had begun to race.

“Answer it,” she whispered. There was a catch in her voice.

I took a breath. “Hello?”

“Where are you?” Bridgette’s voice demanded. “You’re not at the spa like you said, and you’re not at Maria’s having breakfast like you tweeted.”

I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised that Bridgette was keeping such tight tabs on me, but I was. “How sweet of you to take an interest in my well-being. Before you say anything else, you should know that this call is being recorded.”

I put my hand over the speaker and said to Coralee, “It’s Bridgette.
I’ll see you at the bottom,” and started down the path before she could object.

“What are you talking about? How is this call being recorded?”

My balance in the platform sandals was abominable. I slid and teetered down the path, sending sprays of red pebbles and dust up all around me. “I’m at Three Lovers Point filming with Coralee. We were waiting to see if the ghost would appear.”

There was a longer than natural silence. I could tell Bridgette was composing and discarding comment after comment. “Did the ghost appear?” she asked finally.

“No, there was no sign of a ghost.” I wobbled from the slope toward the bottom end of the trail, which I remembered was mercifully flat all the way to the parking lot. What had been wind on top was a faint, soft breeze down here, barely enough to take the edge off the hot sun.

“Where are you going next and when will you be home?” Bridgette asked.

I felt like a marionette controlled by a jittery child—gangly knees and jerky elbows as I tried to pull off my jacket and walk upright while talking on the phone. In front of me I saw the sign that marked the entrance between the path and the still empty parking lot. “I don’t know when I’ll be back. I think—”

I forgot whatever I was going to say, and the phone dropped from my hand. On the back of the sign someone had written in six-inch-high dusty red letters, “BE CAREFUL, RORO.”

I heard Bridgette’s voice from the phone on the ground, but it seemed a long way away and unimportant. All I could focus on was the message. Like a scientist encountering a new species and wanting to make sure it was real, I reached out to touch the first R of
Ro-ro
. It brushed right off beneath my fingers, and disappeared into dust.

I will show you fear in a handful of dust.

If it was that delicate, the message couldn’t have been there long,
I thought. It wouldn’t have lasted. Which meant someone had been there while we were at Three Lovers Point. Someone (but no one knew we were going there) had come and written this (we didn’t hear any car pull up), and there was a reasonable explanation (Huck had come down and not seen it). It had to be a prank, a joke—

Right there, before my eyes, the R began to rewrite itself.

No
, I thought.
This can’t be happening
. I stared, mesmerized as centimeter by centimeter, the R that I’d brushed away rematerialized from nothing.

“Liza,” I whispered. “Are you here?”

A breeze caressed my cheek, and I heard a low whimper, followed by an earsplitting scream.

A
t first I thought I was the one who had screamed, but it was actually Coralee. I’d been so enthralled by the sign that I hadn’t realized that she and her crew had joined me.

“Did you see that?” she asked them urgently. “Did you get that, the letter being written by an invisible hand?”

Grant shook his head. “We were too far away and it was too—”

“Do it again. We have to do it again,” she said, frantic. She looked at me. “Make it happen again.”

“I don’t know—”

Not waiting for me to finish, Coralee reached out and erased the B with her hand, then stepped back.

Nothing happened. It stayed erased.

Then, as we watched, each of the letters began to disintegrate in turn, as though being brushed off by someone we couldn’t see, until there was no sign of the message left.

“She must be gone. She was here, and now she’s gone,” Coralee said, her voice high-pitched and confused. She rounded on me and pointed a finger at my chest. “She did this for
you
.” Her tone was
half-accusation, half-disbelief. She was clearly upset.

“Maybe that was all she had time for,” I said to soothe her. “Maybe she only has limited power.”

“That’s right,” Coralee said, more to herself than anyone else. “That must be right. And the important thing is, now we have proof. Proof that this ghost exists.” She stopped like she’d just realized what she’d said. “We did it. We have proof.”

The sound of sirens approaching brightened her up even more. “This is the part where the authorities try to explain it away. Grant, make sure you get every word.”

“I’m going to leave,” I said.

“O-M-Good one,” Coralee said, sounding like her old self. “You can’t go anywhere. You’re a prime witness. You were the first one down here to see it.”

Coralee was right—there was no way I could get around it. At least a warning like this should make the police stop suspecting Aurora of having killed Liza.

Or so I thought.

Detective Ainslie, accompanied by N. Martinez, arrived on the scene first. They questioned Grant, Coralee, and Huck but not me. “I’ll be questioning Aurora with her lawyer and the rest of the Silvertons at her home,” Detective Ainslie explained. The look N. Martinez shot her made me think that there was more going on than simply asking me what I’d seen.

I stood by the burgundy unmarked Ford sedan and observed the forensics team swarming over the sign and the surrounding area. I knew it was hot because everyone was in short sleeves, but I was freezing. I kept replaying what I’d seen in my mind, first the letter R writing itself, then the way all the letters had vanished, leaving no trace, only moments later.

BE CAREFUL, RORO.
Of what?
I wanted to know.
Of whom?

I watched Detective Ainslie talk to Huck while N. Martinez inter-viewed Coralee. I found myself wondering if he thought Coralee was pretty, if she was his type. She kept surreptitiously urging Grant to film, and N. Martinez kept openly telling him to turn the camera off. But he seemed more amused than annoyed, and at one point, when I saw him swallow an involuntary laugh, I felt a pang of pure, potent jealousy.

Idiot
, I told myself.

I was trying to gauge his reaction to Coralee’s resting a finger on his knee when I looked up and saw Grant approaching. “It’s nice to know some things don’t change,” he said.

“What do you mean?”

“There was never a dull moment around you before, and there isn’t one now. Of course, this is the first ghost.”

“I like to keep things—”

Before I could finish what I was saying, he did the most remarkable thing. He reached for me and pulled me to him, and his mouth came over mine, soft, sweet, and warm.

I sighed.

He cupped the back of my head in his hand and tilted it back, kissing the corners of my lips, then gently slid his tongue between them. The tip of my tongue found his, and as he brought his mouth down harder on mine I nipped at his lower lip with my teeth.

He gave a low, throaty groan that made me shiver and gathered me to his chest, so my head was cradled under his chin, and said, “Man, I should have done that last night.”

My cheek rested against a firm, round shoulder. “I thought you didn’t want to. Because you thought I was—”

“Because I thought you were wonderful,” he interrupted, tilting
his neck to bring his lips to my ear. “I always have. And I’ve always been intimidated.” He pulled away slightly, so he was looking into my eyes. “But I lost you once. I don’t want to lose you again.”

For a moment I wrapped myself in his eyes, his kiss, his words. Then I realized I wasn’t the girl he was talking to, and I felt a sharp stab of guilt. It wasn’t me he felt this way about; I wasn’t really the one he thought was wonderful. Was it fair for me to let him think I was?

Especially since when he’d been kissing me, when I closed my eyes, he wasn’t the person I’d been imagining kissing either.

“Your heart is racing,” he said.

“Yeah. It’s—it’s been a long time since I’ve been kissed.” Out of the corner of my eye I saw Detective Ainslie approaching. Which meant N. Martinez was probably close by as well.

I pulled out of Grant’s arms. “I think my ride is coming,” I said, tipping my chin toward the police.

“Yeah, I should get back to the boss.” He kept his eyes on mine. “I’ll call you later.”

“That would be great,” I said.

He gave me a little salute and turned and pivoted, and I turned and was looking right up at N. Martinez.

He didn’t say a word, just opened the door of the car for me. I felt like I owed him an explanation for something, but I had no idea what. Or why. God, he was annoying.

“Thank you,” I said, getting into the car.

“Since we’re not supposed to talk to you without your lawyer present, it would be best if you didn’t speak,” he said.

“Sure, okay. It’s just—”

He looked at me curiously as though wondering how I could fail to grasp simple rules. Gritting my teeth, I nodded and shut the car door.

When we arrived at Silverton House, we found the entire Family waiting for us in the dining room. Uncle Thom was at one end, with three empty seats beside him. Detective Ainslie and I took seats, but N. Martinez assumed a station behind me, beside the wall, where I couldn’t see him.

The questions began sensibly. “What were you doing up at Three Lovers Point?”

“After the séance, Coralee became convinced that the ghost was real, and she wanted to see if we could make it come out.”

“Did you believe the ghost was real?”

“I didn’t then,” I said.

Detective Ainslie cocked her head to one side. “And now?”

I spoke without thinking, being more honest than I’d meant to be. “I don’t know what to think. I saw the message on the sign. There was no one around, and no one could have written it. And when I erased part of it, it came right back. Like—” I swallowed. “Like someone invisible was writing it. How could that happen?”

“Our lab will figure it out, of course, but it could be faster if you just told us what you did.”

I stared at her silently, trying to make sense of what she’d said. Fortunately Uncle Thom stepped in, demanding, “What are you suggesting?”

“That your niece wrote the message herself, and then encouraged Coralee Gold to destroy it,” Detective Ainslie said matter-of-factly.

“But I didn’t write it,” I protested, half-rising from my seat. “How could I have?
When
could I have?” I felt Uncle Thom’s hand on my wrist, urging me back down. “And I definitely didn’t encourage Coralee to destroy any evidence.”

Detective Ainslie said, “On the video it shows her asking you to do it, and you shaking your head.”

“I wasn’t refusing; I was more—stunned. It happened so fast.” I made a plaintive gesture with my hands. “And I never thought that what she was doing was destroying anything. When I rubbed the letter off the first time, it came back.”

“The time when you were there by yourself,” Detective Ainslie wanted to confirm.

I nodded. “Yes, but Coralee and Grant and Huck all saw it.”

Detective Ainslie pressed her lips together. “They
think
they did. They aren’t sure. It was far away.” She consulted her notes. “How far ahead of the others would you say you were as you went down?”

I thought about it. “I was on the phone, so I’m not sure. Maybe two minutes.”

“According to the footage shot by Mr. Villa, you were almost five minutes ahead of them.”

“Okay,” I shrugged. “Five minutes then.”

“That would have been plenty of time for you to write that on the sign. As the first one down.”

“I guess but—I still don’t understand. Why would I do that? Warn
myself
?”

“To make it appear you’re in danger.”

“Maybe I really
am
in danger,” I said, my voice sounding tight and high-pitched in my ears as the reality of it sank in for the first time.

Detective Ainslie smiled. “Of course, that’s the other option. And that is why I’d like to offer you round-the-clock police protection.”