Lunatic Revenge (27 page)

Mrs. Farmer grabbed her by the arm. “Do you know Carla Holloway? Did she
tell
you this?”

“No, ma’am. I asked you who Carla is, remember? Uncle Pat and I just moved here, remember? We really don’t know anyone.”

“Then how . . .”

“Maybe I’m psychic, okay? When you go home this evening, get out your new checks and look through the pads. You’ll find a couple of checks will be missing from each one. Confront Carla. She’ll fold. And don’t forgive her to the point of letting her keep babysitting for you . . . because she’s using the money to buy drugs.”

“Oh dear Lord,” Mrs. Farmer gasped, and reached for her cell phone.

Tara ducked her head and made a run for the hall. She’d done all she could do. The rest was up to Mrs. Farmer.

She made it to second period just as the last bell rang. That teacher frowned as she slid into her seat. Tara heard a soft masculine whisper from behind her.

“Good save, Moon girl.”

She turned. Flynn O’Mara grinned at her. Tara rolled her eyes and then dug her book out of her backpack, trying not to think about how stinkin’ cute Flynn was. Kind of had that classic heartthrob look, but with more muscles and straighter hair.

Henry showed up about fifteen minutes later and began trying to get Tara’s attention. She sent him mental signals to be quiet, but he wasn’t getting the message. Just before class ended they heard a loud commotion out in the hall. It sounded like doors banging—dozens of doors—against the walls. Henry threw up his hands and vaporized. That’s when she realized whatever was going on out in the hall might have something to do with Millicent. The door to her classroom opened and flew back against the wall with a loud bang. The fact that it seemed to have opened by itself was not lost on the teacher or the students.

“Wait here!” the teacher cried, and dashed out into the hall.

Moments later Tara heard the fire alarm go off. The teacher came running back into the room.

“Walk in an orderly line and follow me!” Students grabbed backpacks and folders and fell into line behind her as she strode quickly out the door.

Tara’s stomach sank as she slid in between Flynn O’Mara and a girl with blue hair.

“It’s probably nothing,” Flynn said over her shoulder.

Tara shivered. She knew better. It was something all right. It was Millicent. But why?

The halls grew crowded as students filed out of the classroom and made for the exits. To their credit, the exodus was somewhat orderly. As soon as they reached the school grounds, security guards began directing them to the appropriate areas. In the distance, Tara could hear sirens.

She kept looking back toward the school building. What had Millicent done?

Henry appeared in front of her, as if to say
I told you so
, then disappeared just as quickly again. A pair of fire trucks pulled into the school yard. Firemen jumped down from the rigs and hurried into the building. As Tara watched, smoke began to pour out of one of the windows on the second floor.

OMG! Millicent had set the school on fire? Why would Tara’s lifelong ghost pal set the school on fire?

The moment she thought it, Tara heard Millicent’s voice in her head.

I didn’t set the fire. It was already burning between the walls. Give me a break. I was trying to help.

Sorry,
Tara told her.

As if that wasn’t enough drama for the day, a loud rumble of thunder suddenly sounded overhead.

Ghosts couldn’t control the weather, so this wasn’t Henry or Millicent’s doing. A strong gust of wind suddenly funneled between the school and the gym. She shuddered. Even though the day was warm, that wind gust was chilly. Then it thundered again. She looked up at the underside of the building storm clouds, frowning at how dark they were getting.

“Are you cold?” Flynn asked.

She turned to find him standing right behind her.

“A little. Who knew we’d need jackets today? It was in the nineties when I left home this morning.”

“Take mine,” he said, as he slipped out of his denim jacket and then put it over her shoulders.

“Then you’ll be cold,” she said.

“Nah. I’m good.”

She slipped the jacket on. The warmth from his body still lingered in the fabric, giving her a momentary impression of how it would feel to have his arms around her. It was an image that made her blush.

The wind continued to rise, with thunder rumbling every few minutes.

Tara shivered nervously as she looked up at the clouds. She hated storms.

“We’re going to get soaked,” she muttered.

A shaft of lightning suddenly snaked out of the clouds and struck nearby, sending the crowd into a panic.

“Into the gym!” Coach Jones yelled.

He waved his arms and pushed kids toward the gym.

“To the gymnasium!” a teacher echoed, and the crowd began to move. When the next shaft of lightning struck, this time in the football field nearby, they began to run. And then the rain came down.

Tara ran as hard as everyone else, but the ground was getting muddy and more than once she lost traction and slipped. If she fell, she would get trampled before anyone knew she was even down there. No sooner had the thought gone through her mind than her feet went out from under her. She was falling and all she could see were the legs of hundreds of students aiming straight for her.

Suddenly, Flynn pulled her upright. “Hang on to me, Moon Girl!”

She grabbed hold of his hand. Together they made it into the gym. They were heading for the bleachers before they realized they were still holding hands. They turned loose of each other too quickly, then grinned for being so silly.

“Thanks for your help,” she said, and took off his jacket. “It’s soaked. Sorry.”

“It’ll dry. Are you okay?”

“Yeah. Sure. Thanks again.”

He eyed the dark hair plastered to her head and the wet t-shirt she was wearing as his grin widened. “You might wanna keep that jacket for a while.” She looked down, then rolled her eyes. Everything—and she did mean, everything—showed, right down to her blue bra and the little mole next to her belly button.

“Perfect,” Tara muttered. “Just perfect.”

“Yeah. I agree,” Flynn said.

She thumped him on the arm and then crossed her arms across her chest.

“Stop looking,” she hissed.

“I’m trying, but hey . . . don’t blame me for an appreciation of the finer things in life.”

Tara laughed despite herself, then put his jacket back on and climbed the bleachers. She sat down a little away from a crowd of sophomores and began wringing the water out of her hair.

I like her
, Flynn thought.
I like this crazy girl
.

Flynn paused. If he followed her up and sat down beside her, it would only intensify what he was already feeling. There was no pretense with her. She was a little odd and definitely different from the other girls in school, but he had plans for his last year of high school that didn’t include getting messed up by another female. Bethany Fanning had done it to him big time over the summer, and he wasn’t in the mood to go through another dose of female drama. Still, something told him that Tara Luna wasn’t fake, and if there
was
drama in her life, she wasn’t the kind to exaggerate it.

He felt someone push him toward her, but when he turned around, there was no one there. Frowning, he climbed the bleachers and then plopped down right in front of her. That way he was close, but not staking out territory.

Tara had seen Millicent give Flynn a push. So, Millicent wasn’t satisfied with playing havoc at school today. Now she was playing matchmaker.

I delivered him. You do the rest.

“I can do just fine on my own, thank you,” Tara said beneath her breath.

Flynn frowned. “Sorry. I didn’t know you’d set up boundaries. Want me to move?”

“No. No. Not you. I wasn’t talking to you. Sit here . . . wherever you want. Sorry.”

Flynn’s frown deepened as he looked around. “Then who were you talking to, if not to me?”

“Ghosts,” Tara said. “I was talking to ghosts.”

“Yeah, right. Whatever. I can take a hint.” He got up and moved away.

Now see what you did.

“Just stop meddling,” Tara snapped.

Whatever
, Millicent said, echoing Flynn, then made herself scarce.

Tara slumped. Could this day possibly get any worse?

The Lunatic Detective

Excerpt

Chapter One

Worms crawled between the eye sockets and over what had once been the bridge of her nose. The lower jaw had come loose from the joint and was drooping toward the breastbone, as if in eternal shock for the circumstance. The finger bones were curled as if she’d died in the middle of trying to dig her way out.

Tara stood above the newly opened grave, staring down in horror.

“Is that you, DeeDee?”

But DeeDee couldn’t answer. There was the problem with her jaw.

All of a sudden, someone pushed Tara forward and she felt herself falling . . . falling . . . into the open grave . . . on top of what was left of poor DeeDee Broyles.

That was when she screamed.

Tara Luna sat straight up in bed,
the sheet clutched beneath her chin as she stared wild-eyed around her bedroom, her heart pounding against her ribcage like a drum. All of a sudden, the loud roar of an engine swept past her window.

VVRRROOOMMM! VVRROOOMMM!!

She flinched, then relaxed when she saw the familiar silhouette of her uncle, Patrick Carmichael. She glanced at the clock and groaned in disbelief as the roar of a lawn mower passed beneath her bedroom window again. It was just after eight a.m.—on a Saturday! Couldn’t he have waited a little longer before starting that thing up?

I think you’d look great as a red-head.

Tara rolled her eyes. Millicent! She’d just had the worst dream ever and was not in the mood for any input on hairstyles from the female ghost with whom she shared her life.

“I am not dying my hair.” She swung her legs over the side of the bed and stood up.

I was once a red-head . . . and a blonde . . . and a brunette.

Tara arched an eyebrow, but resisted commenting. She’d always suspected Millicent had been quite a swinger in her day because she was still way too focused on men.

“I’m going to shower,” Tara announced, and headed for the bathroom across the hall. She opened the door just as Henry, the other ghost who shared her world, came floating by. Before she could stop herself, she’d walked through him.

She swiped at her face. “Eww! Henry! I hate when that happens!”

Henry didn’t appear too pleased with her either, and vaporized himself in a huff.

He doesn’t like to be displaced.

“Yeah, well I don’t like to be slapped in the face with frozen spider webs, and that’s what that feels like.”

Interesting. I remember once when I was in France—

“Millicent. Please? I just woke up here.”

A pinkish tinge suddenly flashed across Tara’s line of vision, then she heard a very faint pop before Millicent’s voice disappeared. “Oh great. Now she’s ticked, too.”

Still, finally glad to be alone, Tara closed the bathroom door behind her. Just because Henry and Millicent were no longer alive in the strict sense of the word, didn’t mean she wanted them as company while she showered.

A short while later, she emerged, wide-awake and starving. She dashed across the hall to her room, and dressed quickly in a pair of sweats and a new white tee from Stillwater, Oklahoma’s world famous burger joint, Eskimo Joe’s.

As she entered the kitchen, it was obvious from the dirty dishes in the sink that Uncle Pat had already cooked breakfast. She began poking around, hoping he’d left some for her, and hoping it was regular food and not one of his experiments.

Her uncle had a tendency to mix things that didn’t necessarily go together. It was, he claimed, his way of ‘going green’ by not wasting perfectly good food. If she could only convince him to quit stirring everything into one big pot to heat it up, she would be happy. She didn’t mind leftovers. She just wanted to know what it used to be before she put it in her mouth.