Proposal (2 page)

 

Tres

M
ARK SHOOK OFF
the hand I'd placed on his shoulder, his gaze wild.

“What?” he cried, appalled. “No!
That's
what ­people think, that I killed her? But that isn't what happened
at all
. I would never hurt Jasmin!”

“Sure,” I said, in my most soothing tone.

As a psych major—­did I mention that I'm in school, too? Not medical school, like Jesse. I'm still only an undergrad.

But I'm majoring in psychology. And after graduation, I'm going for a master's in counseling. I want to help kids like I was, kids who have secrets they feel like they can't tell anyone. Since I was one of those kids, I'll know how to recognize them, and hopefully be able to help them.

Well, except the ones I'm too late to help, like Jasmin. And Mark.

“Look,” I said to him, as he continued to stare at me in disbelief. Sometimes it takes a while for it to sink in to spirits, especially young ones, that they're dead, and how they died—­even when they're the ones responsible for said death. “What's done is done. You can't go back and change it. You can only move forward. Jasmin has, which is why she isn't here. And now it's time for you to move forward, too, Mark.”

“M-­move forward?” He looked confused.

“Yes. To your next life, the afterlife, heaven, hell, whatever.” I didn't want to get too technical about it because I don't really know where spirits go after I encourage them to step into the light. All I have to do is get them there. “You can't hang around here, though, taking out your anger issues on Jasmin's grave. That isn't healthy for anyone, especially you.”

“I'm not talking about
anyone
. I'm talking about that asshole Zack Farhat. He keeps coming and putting flowers on Jasmin's grave, which isn't right, because—­”

“Sure,” I said, still using my fake soothing tone. “The thing is, Mark, the sooner you start letting things like this Zack guy go, the sooner you can be with her.”

I was completely lying. I didn't think for one minute that Mark was going to get to be with Jasmin in his next life—­or wherever he was going—­after what he'd done to her. But lying to him seemed like the quickest way to get the job over with. “It doesn't matter anymore.”

“Yes, it does,” he said. “It
does
matter. Why do you keep saying it doesn't matter? And why do you keep saying
I
killed Jasmin. I didn't.”

The temperature had begun to drop—­which was odd, since I'd checked the weather on my phone before coming out, and it had said we were in for a warm front. This should have been my first clue, but I missed it. Of course I missed it. I was so angry over what he'd done, I'd let my emotions cloud my common sense.

“I'm saying those things don't matter, Mark. They don't because you and Jasmin are dead. You both died instantly when you slammed your car into the side of that cliff out by Rocky Creek Bridge last week. Remember? You should. You were the one who was driving.”

It was at that exact moment that the wind picked up, and the fog began to swirl around us, along with some of the stray petals from the floral arrangement Mark had destroyed.

But even then, I didn't realize what was happening.

“That isn't how it happened
at all
!” Mark thundered. “I would
never
do that! I would never hurt Jasmin. I told you,
I loved her
!”

“Yeah, we all know how much you loved her, Mark.” I can't believe I didn't pick up on the signals then. But he'd really pissed me off. Murderers have a tendency to do that. “I know you proposed in the restaurant—­all the servers saw you get down on one knee and present her with your grandmother's ring. They said it was incredibly sweet. But in the car, something happened, didn't it? It must have, because no one could find the ring in the wreckage. It wasn't on Jasmin's finger, and it wasn't in its velvet box anymore, either. What happened to it, Mark? Did you two have a fight coming home? Did she change her mind, and toss it out the window? Is that why you slammed your car into that cliff?”

His face had gone bloodless—­as bloodless as it was possible for a ghost to look. That was all the encouragement I needed to go on, even though it was the worst thing I could have done.

But it was cold, and it was Valentine's Day, and I was in a cemetery with a boy who'd selfishly killed his girlfriend and now wouldn't even allow others to leave flowers on her grave.

“Yeah,” I plunged on recklessly. “That's what I thought. They'll never find that ring, because that's a coastal road, and it's probably at the bottom of the ocean by now. But that's why you killed her, isn't it? Because she rejected you. You're both so young, and she was going away to an Ivy League college next year, while you're grades weren't so good, so you were staying here and going to community college because that's the only place you got in—­which there's no shame in, believe me. I go to one, too. But maybe proposing to her was your way of trying to force her to be faithful to you while she was away, and in the heat of the moment, she accepted. But then the closer the two of you got to home, the more she realized what a mistake she'd made, so she—­”

“
No!
” he roared, so loudly that I was surprised ­people from homes and businesses nearby didn't come running outside to see what was going on.

But there's only one other person besides me in the Monterey Bay area who could pick up on spectral sound waves—­especially now that Jesse is going to school so far away—­and that person happened to be away at a seminarian retreat in New Mexico. I knew because Father Dominic likes to keep his present (and former) students up to date on his daily activities on Facebook.

The day my old high school principal started his own Facebook account was the day I swore off social media forever. So far this has worked out fine since I prefer face-­to-­face interactions. It's easier to tell when ­people are lying.

Unless, of course, they're ghosts. Then it gets a little tougher.

Now the wind was really picking up. Not only that, but the temperature had plunged another four or five degrees, seemingly in the past few seconds, which was, of course, impossible.

But so is what I do for a living. Which I'd really like to give up, because in addition to being dangerous, I don't even get paid. At least as a guidance counselor, I'll have a salary, 401K, and health benefits.

“Look, Mark,” I said, ducking as a memorial stake vase that had been uprooted by the strong wind sailed in my direction, then clanged against J. Charles Peterson's headstone. “Road rage is incredibly common. Almost seven million car accidents occur a year because of it. I get that maybe you didn't
mean
to do it. But if Jasmin didn't throw that ring out, where did it go? Until you admit it, you're going to be stuck here on this plane of existence, which isn't going to do you any good—­”

“I'm telling you, I didn't do it!” Mark roared. “And she didn't throw away the ring! It was Zack. It has to be.
He
did it!”

Floral arrangements from other graves began to whiz by, traveling dangerously close to my head. I was being pelted with flowers, which sounds pleasant, but isn't. Those things hurt when being whipped at high velocity by the wind.

“I thought I saw his pickup in the parking lot at the restaurant, but Jasmin said I was being paranoid,” Mark went on. “Then I saw the headlights behind us out on the coastal road.”

“Wait . . .” I said, from behind the arms I'd flung up to protect my face from the dead bouquets being hurled in my direction. “What?”

But it was too late. Far, far too late. Too late for Mark and Jasmin, too late for Zack, and maybe too late for me, too.

“Why won't anyone listen to me?” Mark demanded. “He had his brights on, but I still recognized that stupid souped-­up monster truck of his. He was going way over the speed limit, which was forcing me to go over the speed limit, too. And you know there's that lane closure just past Rocky Creek Bridge—­”

I felt my stomach lurch. I had seen this on the news.

I had seen a lot on the news.

The problem was, I'd listened to it. I'd believed it. Me, the girl whose kind the media insist don't exist. Why would I believe
anything
they said?

“Mark,” I said. Clouds scudded across what had earlier been a clear night sky, which was odd, because the weather app on my phone hadn't said a word about rain. Thunder rumbled, and suddenly, in addition to flowers, I was being pelted with hard, stinging rain. “Are you sure—­?”

“What do you mean, am I sure?” he snapped. “Yeah, I'm sure. I'm telling you, it was him. I don't remember what happened after that, but ever since I woke up, I've been watching him put flowers on
my
girl's grave.”

This was not good. This was not good at all. “Mark—­”

“And now you're telling me everyone thinks
I
killed her, and that he's some kind of saint, and I need to move on?”

I swallowed, using my arms to shield my head from the pouring rain. “Okay, look,” I said. “I wasn't aware of
all
of the facts in the case until recently, Mark. But now that I am, why don't we take some time to re-­evaluate the situation and—­”

“Take some time to re-­evaluate the situation?” Mark echoed. He was in tears, and I didn't blame him. I felt like crying myself. “No thanks. Now that you told me what's really going on, I think I have a better proposal. And it sure as hell isn't that I should move on, or take some time to re-­evaluate the situation.”

“Mark,” I yelled. I had to yell in order to be heard over the thunder and rain. “Don't. Seriously. Don't do anything you might regret. If what you're telling me is true, then you have a really good chance right now of joining Jasmin, wherever she is. But if you do what I think you're about to do, you're going to lose that chance forever. Come with me instead. I'll help you cross over, and then I'll take care of this Zack person. That's my job, not yours. You really don't want to—­”

But it was too late. In a swirl of tears and rain and rose petals, he was gone.

And I was screwed.

 

Cuatro

W
HEN
I
GOT
back to my dorm that night, it was bedlam, and not just because of the sudden “super cell” that had swept into the tri-­county area, soaking me to the bone and causing flash flooding on roads throughout Monterey Bay.

It was also because there was a man in my room.

Did I mention that I live in an all-­girl dorm? Probably not, because it's too embarrassing. It wasn't my idea, believe me. It was my stepdad's.

I guess I lucked out in some ways despite my alleged “gift,” since even though my birth dad died when I was little, the guy my mom married back when I was in high school (and for whom she moved across the country, dragging me from Brooklyn, NY, to Carmel, CA, when I was sixteen), turned out to be pretty decent.

Upside: Andy adores my mom, has his own home improvement show (which recently went into syndication, so he and my mom are currently swimming in payola), and is an amazing cook.

Downside: He has three sons—­none of whom I have ever even remotely considered boning, sexy-­erotic-­novel style—­and, being almost as Catholic as my boyfriend, is way, way too overprotective.

So I guess shouldn't have been surprised when I was applying for campus housing and overheard Andy telling my mother that the only way I was going to be safe from all the sexual assaults he'd heard about on National Public Radio was if I lived in an all-­girl dorm.

Never mind that I have been kicking the butts of the undead since I was in elementary school, and that almost the entire time I resided under Andy's roof, I had a hot undead guy living in my bedroom. These are two of those secrets I was telling you about. Andy doesn't know about them, and neither does my mother. They think Jesse is what Father Dominic told them he is: a “young Jesuit student who transferred to the Carmel Mission from Mexico, then lost his yearning to go into the priesthood” after meeting me.

That one slays me every time.

So I didn't protest the decision. I didn't do so well on the SATs (the things ­people like me are good at, you can't measure with a multiple-­choice test, let alone an essay), much to the everlasting mortification of my high-­achieving, feminist mother. It didn't help that my best friends CeeCee, Adam, and Gina got into extremely good schools, boosting my mom's dream that I was going to Harvard and live in Kirkland House, like Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg.

Instead the only place I got into was the local community college, where I live in a suite in what's not-­so-­jokingly referred to as the Virgin Vault, with a practicing witch, a klepto, and a girl whose family's religion doesn't allow her speak to men outside of their faith.

I keep assuring Mom it's cool. Another one of our suite mates came out last semester as a lesbian (to the surprise of none of us but herself), and a fifth is sleeping with a guy who's in an actual motorcycle gang.

“See, Mom?” I'd told her. “Way better than Harvard. There's so much more diversity!”

Like most of my jokes, she didn't find that one funny.

But, seriously, these are my girls, each and every one of them. I'm secretly doing case studies on each of them for my biological psych class.

Except that tonight I didn't have time to stop and chat, let alone have a friendly cocktail. I needed to change out of my sopping wet clothes, find out where this Zack guy lived, and then get back out there and stop Mark Rodgers from making the biggest mistake of his life.

Well, of his death, if you wanted to get technical about it.

But the girls were all in an uproar, as I discovered as soon as I keyed in with my ID card.

“What the hell is going on?” I asked Lauren, the witch. The rest of the girls from our floor were in the common room on beanbag chairs in front of the television, on which a film starring Drew Barrymore was playing (we each have single bedrooms while sharing a communal bathroom, kitchen, and TV slash study slash common area,
Orange Is the New Black
prison style, though to date no one has been shanked).

The game was that every time Drew or one of her zany coworkers wondered whether or not men were worth it, we were all supposed to chug.

But the game got suspended when I walked in. Everyone turned, raised their red cups, and started squealing.

“There's a surprise for you in your room,” Lauren said, handing me a cocktail. “Where were you, anyway? I tried to call to tell you, but it went straight to voice mail. I was worried you'd been caught in that storm. And”—­she nodded at my dripping hair—­“I see that you were.”

“Library,” I said, taking a single grateful gulp of the cocktail. I couldn't let myself have more, since I was going to be driving again in a few minutes, to wherever Zack Farhat lived. “Studying.”

“Ha,” she said, with a grin. “You, studying, at the library. Good one!”

“Ha.” I smiled back at her. “Yeah, I know. I was at the mall.”

“Sure you were. Here.” She plucked something off her desk. “This came for you. It was too big to fit in your mailbox, so they left it on the shelf for you to pick up downstairs, but I was afraid Ashley might swipe it, so I grabbed it.” Ashley was our resident klepto. She was making progress with her therapist, but like anyone with an impulse control disorder, she had to take it one day at a time. “Looks like someone's got a Valentine.”

I glanced down at the package, excited that it might be from Jesse, even though we'd agreed we weren't going to contribute to the mass hysteria surrounding Valentine's Day, since we loved each other unconditionally every day, and he didn't think I was the sort of girl who needed reminding of that fact with a cheap mass-­produced card, candy, or stuffed bear.

(Not to mention that Valentine's Day was no longer the sweet tradition it was when he was a child, when ­people used the Pony Express to send handmade greetings to their sweethearts. See what I mean about some of his secrets being a little on the dark side?)

He was partly right. I don't care about cards, and I haven't owned a stuffed animal since I saw my first supernatural entity when I was a toddler.

Candy I wouldn't have minded, though. What girl doesn't like candy?

Nor would I have said no to a dinner at one of those bistros I'd passed on my drive out to the cemetery. Those ­couples snuggled under those heat lamps looked so happy and contented, I wanted to pull over and snuggle up next to them.

Snuggle up next to them or pound their faces in out of jealousy. I wasn't sure which.

But I'd never have mentioned a word of this to Jesse, because I didn't want him to think I was the kind of girl who'd enjoy being taken out for what was undoubtedly grossly overpriced, probably not even very good surf and turf on a night that—­he was right—­has turned into a completely manufactured, mass-­produced, grotesque commercial modern holiday.

Plus I didn't want to stress him out while he was interviewing for residencies.

Besides, our time was going to come . . . after we'd both graduated from our separate schools and were helping others to overcome their own deep dark secrets the way we have.

Note sarcasm. Not that I doubted Jesse was going to be hugely successful at his chosen profession. I just wasn't sure about the overcoming-­our-­dark-­secrets part. It might take a while for Jesse to move past having been murdered and then forced to live as a paranormal being for a century and a half.

And given the mess I'd made of tonight's mediation, I'd say my chance at being even a passable school counselor was nil, at best.

So I wasn't that surprised when I glanced in the upper left-­hand corner of the obscenely large red envelope Lauren had handed me and saw that it wasn't from Jesse. It was from someone I recognized, however. Only too well.

Paul Slater
.

My own Zack Farhat.

I felt a chill up my spine that had nothing to do with my wet hair and sopping clothing.

“Thanks, Lauren,” I said, and hastily shoved the envelope into my messenger bag. “I'll just go change and then join you guys for a quick drink. Then I have to dash out again. I, uh, have an errand to run.”

“Or maybe not,” screamed several of the more sociable girls from in front of the TV.

But since they were always saying stuff like this, I didn't think much of it . . .

Until I threw open the door to my room and found six feet or so of unadulterated Spanish-­American male hotness stretched out on my bed.

“Oh,” Jesse said, lowering the review book he was reading for Step 2 of his USMLE exams. “You're home. Finally. I was getting worried.”

“Oh, boy.” I was too shocked to think of anything more witty to say. “Am I glad to see
you
.”

I leaped on him like a long lost dog on its owner. I did everything but lick his face. I probably licked his face a little, actually. It was embarrassing, but it's a very nice face.

“Well,” he said, when I finally let him up for air. “If I'd known this was how you were going to say hello, I'd have gotten here sooner.”

“What are you doing here?” I asked a little breathlessly. There were parts of him I could feel pressing against me that I definitely wanted to feel more closely, but both of us were fully clothed, making the kind of closeness I was hoping for impossible without some disassembly. “I thought you had rotations or interviews or a lobotomy to perform or something.”

“So you do pay attention when I tell you what I do on a daily basis,” he said drily. “How sweet. Actually, I wanted to surprise you. I've been waiting here for you for hours.” He held up his cell phone. “Do you ever actually check your messages?”

“Sorry, my phone was off. Then it got soaked, and wouldn't turn on. I was—­”

“Don't even try to tell me you were at the library.” Amusement danced in his night dark eyes. “You might have fooled your friends with that one,
querida
, but you'll never fool me. Where were you, really? And could you put down that drink? I think you've christened us both enough for now.”

“Oh, sorry.” I set my V and C on the floor, then peeled off my messenger bag and coat, and dropped them beside it. I didn't want to kill the mood by telling him the truth about how I'd been off nearly being murdered by an NCDP. He had a tendency to get cranky when he heard that kind of thing. He was even more overprotective than my stepfather. But in a boyfriend, that kind of thing is actually attractive. “I was helping out a friend who's flunking Statistics. But you know what? That's boring, let's get back to you. What are you doing here, for real? I thought we agreed that Valentine's Day has become a gross commercial holiday and we don't believe in it.”

“We don't,” he said. I didn't miss the appreciative way his dark-­eyed gaze flicked over my form-­fitting tee, which had gotten damp despite my leather jacket. Yeah, I've still got it. “But this morning a few ­people at the hospital were discussing what they were doing tonight for Valentine's Day with their significant others, and when I mentioned that we don't believe in the holiday, they—­”

“Properly shamed you?” I threw myself on top of him again. “Oh, my God, give me their addresses so I can send them all fruit baskets.”

He held me close. The bulge was still there. I could feel it, hard as a rock, against my stomach. I snuggled my face to his neck, inhaling. I didn't think I'll ever get enough of the smell of him, though it's changed over the years, from a combination of smoke and old, leather-­bound books to the clean, sharp odor of antiseptic soap, thanks to the many times a day he has to wash his hands due to the patients he sees on rotations.

I never knew the smell of antiseptic soap could be so sexy.

“Some of the doctors said I might need to reorganize my priorities, yes.” He grinned up at me. “So I did. I got in the car and started driving.”

“But how did you get in
here
?” I asked, pretending I had no idea what was going on below his waist. “Men aren't allowed in the Virgin Vault.”

“Apparently exceptions can be made for dashing young med students who come bearing restaurant reservations.” He glanced at his watch. “Which we've now missed.”

“Oh, Jesse, I'm sorry. If you'd called me sooner I could have changed my schedule.” Which would have been immensely preferable to the mess I'd created in the cemetery. “Where were we going to go?”

“It was too late to get a reservation anywhere decent,” he said. “And besides, I couldn't afford it on my impoverished student budget. So I was going to take you on a picnic at the beach, to watch the sunset.”

I felt even worse. “Oh, my God. Were we going to snuggle under a blanket next to a bonfire?”

“Yes. Although considering this storm, which seems to have come out of nowhere, I suppose it's just as well my plans fell through.”

I refrained from mentioning that I'd caused the storm, the torrential rain from which I could still hear pelting my window. Well, not me, but my client, who'd gone from being merely non-­compliant to murderous.

Was it wrong of me suddenly not to care? From what Mark had said, it sounded like Zack Farhat deserved what he had coming.

Okay, yeah, this was wrong of me.

“It was going to be very romantic,” Jesse was saying. “I even brought champagne. Well, not real champagne, since I can't afford that. It's sparkling wine, from California—­”

“I prefer sparkling wine from California,” I interrupted. “California is the state of your birth.”

“But now,” he went on, lifting a bottle from the far side of my bed, “it's warm. It wouldn't fit in your miniature refrigerator. You have too many energy drinks in there. Susannah, you should stay away from those things. You know they're full of—­”

“Minifridge,” I corrected him. “It's called a minifridge, not a miniature refrigerator. And I like warm champagne.”