The Dead Girls Detective Agency (17 page)

I tried my first solo Jab,
sans
Edison. Really lightly on Mr. M’s left shoulder. He flinched and rolled his shoulder back. Like a horse batting off a fly with its tail, then carried on teaching. Yet another guy I didn’t need to waste any more of my kinetic energy on.

I walked over to Ali’s desk instead. May as well concentrate on her for a bit so I could take her off the list. I sat on top of the desk of the kid next to her, and leaned in for a better look at my friend.

I hadn’t been this close to Ali since I’d been killed. That second day when I was in the school hall, she sort of wandered past without me noticing her until she was a bit blurry. And at my funeral, I guess I’d been too focused on slut boy to pay her attention. But now, centimeters away from her, I realized that Ali looked … bad.

Her normally shiny straight brown hair was kinda greasy, she wore zero makeup, and there were bags under her eyes.

Ali stared at a spot on the floor, somewhere in front of her. Unlike the rest of my class, it didn’t look like she’d zoned out because of Mr. Millington’s scintillating teacher style. It looked more like she was miles and miles away and … upset?

A tear welled up in the corner of her eye. Ali silently wiped it away. Then looked around to check that no one had noticed.

What was wrong with her?

Suddenly Ali seemed to snap out of her trance. She wiped a second tear off her cheek and swiveled in her chair, staring hard at Kristen and Jamie. What on earth had they said? I clicked my fingers to turn the volume back up on the world.
Pop!

“I have chemistry with David too—so you can’t just say he belongs to you, Kristen!” Jamie was ranting in an angry voice. “Just because you’ve been trying to cozy up to him ever since that girl died, that doesn’t mean I’m not allowed a chance with him too.”

I looked down at Ali. She was bolt upright now. Her eyes looked as wild as mine felt.

“Let’s not get into this here, shall we?” Kristen was trying to be all upper-handy. “It’s really not the time or the place. Aren’t we supposed to be here to learn, J?”

“Learn? As if! And
you
brought it up!?”

“Girls! Is there a problem here?” Mr. Millington asked from the board.

Ali slowly stood up and turned around to face the Bicker Squad.

“Oh, be serious. I’ve seen you, following David into the library, talking to him after class and I—” Kristen started.

“
STOP
!” Ali shouted.

This time there was a silence so harsh, no one even noticed when Alanna dropped her gel pen for a second time in shock. Everyone turned from Kristen to Ali, like the crowd at a tennis match watching the ball bounce from player to player.

“You two are
disgusting
.” Ali walked toward them, straightening up as she did. She’d grown a couple of inches over the holidays—now she was taller than I had been. How come I hadn’t noticed? That made me feel so, so bad. “Charlotte—that is ‘that girl’s’
name
—has not even been dead for three full days and you are fighting over her boyfriend? What is wrong with you? You’re like … vultures.”

Kristen looked totally thrown. She was not used to people standing up to her. Especially girls she wouldn’t even put on the B-squad. How dare Ali question her? In public. She blinked uncomprehendingly, then her expression hardened. Uh-oh. She was back.

Kristen’s chair scraped on the floor as she pushed it back. “What’s wrong with us?” she asked, her eyebrows high. “What’s wrong with you? Why are you getting involved? Why are you all boo hoo over some girl who dumped you as soon as she got a boyfriend anyway?”

Ali flushed. Kristen carried on. “I may not pay much attention to who you people sit with in the lunch hall, but I do know that you and Miss Feldman were like some badly dressed Siamese twins. Until hot David came along and noticed she wasn’t entirely unfortunate looking. Then she was always with him. And you were always on your own. In the library. After every single class. So why are you so desperate to stick up for Charlotte when she wasn’t that great to you anyway? Don’t you think that makes you a little”—Kristen looked Ali up and down and back again slowly—“
pathetic
.”

Ali opened her mouth to speak. I willed her with every bit of my dead body to come out with a brilliant line. If I’d have been able to think of one myself, I’d have tried a Throw and put the words into her mouth, just like Edison taught me.

But I couldn’t. And neither could she.

Ali gave a little sob and ran out of the room, slamming the door behind her. Kristen turned and confidently strode back to her seat, Jamie slumped next to her.

“Er, class?” Mr. Millington said, looking nearly as distraught as Ali. “Can we stop this now and get back to the matter at hand? We’ve not covered RAMs yet, so we’re in danger of getting behind on lesson plans and …”

I bounced through the door—so desperate to find Ali, that I hardly even noticed the tickle of the wood. Where would she go? Where did she always go when she was upset?

I looked at the clock. Nine forty-five a.m.: fifteen minutes before class ended and everyone piled out into the halls. Which meant there was one place that was nearby and safe right now: the girls’ restroom.

I pushed myself through the wall (yep, definitely getting used to the tickle) and heard a snuffling noise coming from under the door of the cubicle farthest from me.

“Ali?” I asked, out of habit.

But of course, she couldn’t hear me. She had no idea I was here.

“I’m sorry, Charlotte.” Ali sniffed. “I know it’s crazy to talk to you when you aren’t around anymore, but I don’t know what else to do.”

It wasn’t crazy. For a while after my grandfather had died last year, I’d talked to him. Maybe not out loud, but …

“I should have been there for you. Even if our lives were changing and there were new people in them,” she said.

I pushed my head through the metal toilet door—Ali sat on the floor, hugging her knees to her chest and crying quietly. “Maybe if I’d been a better friend, you’d still be here,” she cried. “I mean, if I’d gotten the subway after school with you that day like I always, always used to, then maybe you wouldn’t have tripped and fallen under that train. You were always the clumsiest person I knew. Remember that time when we were eleven and we were practicing kissing on pillows and you fell off my top bunk and broke your arm? If I’d been there on the subway, maybe I could have grabbed you, held you back, and everything would be different.”

I pulled the rest of my body through the door and crouched on the floor beside my friend.

“It’s okay,” I said, even though she couldn’t hear my words. “You couldn’t have done anything. I didn’t trip. I was pushed. I’m the one who’s sorry. Sorry for letting a stupid guy come between us.”

“Or if you really did have to die—if it really was your time—I wish you hadn’t gone when things weren’t good with us,” Ali said, her sob turning into a hiccup. “I should have been less jealous of you and David. Hung out with you guys more when you asked me to, instead of being weird about it. Now I’ll never get to tell you how much I’ll miss you.”

“I’m so, so sorry,” I said.

I forgot myself—forgot the train and the push and the Rules and Kristen the hell bitch—and leaned over to give Ali a hug. I put my arms around her, being careful not to touch her body in case I passed into it. Instead I surrounded her and listened as she quietly cried.

“Charlotte?” she said. “Are you …? Oh, stop being stupid, Ali,” she told herself.

I wasn’t sure quite what just happened—maybe I needed her to feel my presence as badly as she needed a sign that I’d heard her. Whatever, I didn’t move.

As we sat there in silence, neither of us certain the other knew we were there, I was a hundred percent sure about one thing: Ali hadn’t killed me. There was no way.

She was the only one who had stood up for me. The only one. I wished I could tell her that I knew that—and how I’d do the same for her if things had gone another way. I wished I could go back to the time when we were best friends. The time before everything got so messed up. I thought David had my back, but after everything I’d seen since I’d died? Well, I didn’t for a second think he’d killed me either, but he wasn’t who I thought he was. No matter how much I tried to justify that kiss, I just couldn’t.

Down the hallway the bell rang. Ali pulled herself up off the floor and started rummaging in her blue Gap satchel for her makeup bag to fix her blotchy face. She always looked terrible when she cried.

I went out of the cubicle and found a chair to the side of the restroom door. I concentrated hard and Jabbed it three times, until it was nestled under the bathroom door’s handle. There, now no one would be able to get in until Ali had had time to get herself back together. I owed her that much at least.

And so, so much more.

Chapter 16

“
SO YOU JUST LEFT HER, LIKE, SITTING ON THE
grimy bathroom floor, crying her eyes out?”

“Well, no, not exactly. Ali was pretty much okay by the time I ported back here—there wasn’t much I could do, was there? If I’d apparited while she’d been reapplying her eyeliner, she may have been scarred for life. And I feel like I’ve been a shitty enough friend without doing that to her too.”

Back in HHQ, I waited until Tess was out of the way before I filled Nancy and Lorna in on what had happened at school.

“Wow,” Lorna said. “Ali sounds really cool. A real girl’s girl. Not like Kristen.”

Nancy walked over to the blackboard and neatly drew a red line through Ali’s name. Of course she had a whole different color chalk to do the cross-throughs. I wondered what color she had to draw a big old check when we figured out who my killer was.

Or maybe I wouldn’t be here to see that part.

“Knock, knock!” Edison poked his head around the door, making me almost fall off my swivel chair. I did my best to act like it hadn’t happened. “Afternoon, ladies, just thought I’d stop by and see how the investigation is going.”

“Good,” Nancy said. “Thank you for asking, Edison. It’s nice to see you getting involved in a case. It’s not often we see you down here.” She peered at him suspiciously over the top of her black frames.

“Well, sometimes, Miss Radley, even busy guys like me have a moment to spare.” He jumped up and sat on the table next to me. “And I thought, what better way to spend it than by dropping in on you and Lorna.” He looked down, his bright green eyes serious and focused intently on me. “And how are you, Charlotte?”

Edison’s face was a picture of concern. He bent down and gave my shoulder a supportive squeeze. Even though I was sitting down and I really, really, really hated him, my legs still felt weak. Bad legs. “Hang in there,” he said. “If anyone can find your Key, it’s Nancy. She’s the best detective the Attesa’s ever seen.” He gave her his most winning grin.

I smiled in spite of myself.

“So, we know one person definitely didn’t kill me. Now what?” I asked, moving out of squeeze distance of Edison’s arm and trying my best to ignore him.

“Well, we’ve been spying on the Living for days now and we haven’t turned up any decent leads,” Nancy admitted. “Despite the uninventive nature of your death, your murderer is clearly very clever. You were killed in a majorly public place, yet everyone thinks you jumped or clumsily slipped. And ever since the night you died, your murderer has done nothing to give us a clue.”

Awesome.

“So, basically, what you’re saying is that we’re fresh out of ideas and I’m going to be stuck here for eternity?”

“Wouldn’t be such a bad thing,” Ed said, under his breath so only I could hear.

“No,” Nancy sighed. “What I’m saying is that light haunting isn’t working. I think it’s time we went to Dead-Com Two.” She paused dramatically. “We need to start possessing the Living to really find out what they’re up to.”

“Possession? Eugh, like, again, Nancy?” Lorna wrinkled up her perfect little button nose as if she’d just smelled some especially potent trash. “You know I
HATE
possession more than jeggings. It’s just sooo gross getting in other people’s bodies. It’s like wearing someone’s dirty underwear. You don’t know where the people have been. Or if they’ve taken care of themselves when they were there.”

Ed was swinging his feet so they occasionally bounced off my chair. He was way too close for comfort.

Right, focus. Possession. Possession sounded … exciting. I’d seen
The Exorcist
. Okay, so I hadn’t actually seen it because when I borrowed it from Drama Club Drew in ninth grade Mom confiscated it on account of the fact, as she put it, it “messed me up for months when I saw it and no daughter of mine is having sleepless nights.” But I had seen the
Simpsons
episode where Maggie’s head spins around. And the trailer for
The Exorcism of Emily Rose
. So I sort of knew what we were talking about here. Jumping into human’s bodies, so we could control them. Cool.

“Come on then, Nancy, tell me the possession rules. There are bound to be a gazillion of them,” I said, pulling my still-unread Rules book out of my blazer pocket.

“Oh, Rule time,” Ed said, standing up and dusting some invisible dirt off his skinny jeans. “This would be my cue to go. Good luck with it all today,” he said to Lorna and Nancy.

He turned to face me and dropped his voice. “Hey, don’t go running through that Door just yet, will you, Ghostgirl?” And walked out.

I listened as the door clicked shut. Bad boy, nice guy, flirt: Edison was one big sandwich of contradiction, with a side order of WTF? And I was not wasting any more of my time trying to figure him out.

“There are actually only two Rules for possession,” Nancy was saying. “One: Get in quick, and two: As soon as you’re done, get out quicker.”

“Really?” I asked.

“Really,” Nancy said. “It’s easy. But there’s no point hanging around the Living’s bodies any longer than we need to. That’s just weird. So let’s go show you how it’s done.” She closed her eyes. By now, I knew what they meant. “Everyone think ‘Times Square’ and on the count of three, port. One … two … three!”