The Ghost Files 2 (The Ghost Files - Book 2) (3 page)

“Well, if the Department of Health and Human Services agreed to cover your medical expenses as related to injuries sustained while in their care, would you do it?”

Sometimes I forget Dan’s father is a lawyer and then he goes and reminds me with the professional tone he usually reserves for Dan.

“Dad, she wouldn’t have anywhere to go, to stay. She doesn’t have any money…” Dan trails off, his eyes widening and then a grin splits his face.

“And that is exactly why I was hesitant to broach the topic with her,” Mr. Richards sighs. “It wouldn’t be at all proper, Daniel.”

“What?” I ask, confused at the almost silent conversation going on between them with facial expressions.

“Dad knows I’ll let you sleep on my couch.”

“She’s only sixteen…”

“Seventeen tomorrow,” Dan reminds his father.

“Whether it’s the legal age of consent or not doesn’t mean I’m going to condone it—”

“Whoa, Dad, hold up there,” Dan interrupts him. “You got the wrong idea. Mattie and I are not…we’re friends…we…”

“I’m not blind, son.”

My eyes keep darting back and forth between the two of them, fascinated. It always amazes me to watch them interact. It reminds me of what I missed out on growing up.

“Yeah, you kinda are, Dad.” Dan shakes his head. “She’s…she means a lot to me, but—”

“But nothing…” Mr. Richards sighs. “You two are not going down that road, at least not until she’s in college.”

“Do I get a say in this?” I ask.

“No.” They both give me glares.

“Why even bring it up then, Dad?” Dan asks, frustrated. “You know she can’t afford to be on her own. She can’t work, not with her hands still damaged. They have bandages on them more often than not. She has to have a way to get to all her physical therapy appointments, school,
and
she has to be able to feed herself, which she can’t do without working!”

“Until today, I
had
thought about her staying with you,” Mr. Richards says. “You two act more like brother and sister, but then sometimes, I don’t know, I see more there than that.”

“Mr. Richards,” I say, my voice soft. “Dan and I are not involved, if that’s what you’re thinking. He would never take advantage of me like that. You raised a good man.”

“But you could be, Mattie, if in close proximity for a long time,” Mr. Richards replies. “The look you two were sharing just a little while ago, you were hiding something from me.”

“Yeah, we were hiding something,” I tell him, “but not that.”

“What were you hiding, Mattie?”

I say the first thing that comes to mind. “I think Joan is on the powder train.”

“She’s on drugs?” His dad swerves the car at that statement and I think for two seconds we are gonna end up splattered against the semi-truck in the other lane, but he recovers almost instantly.

“I don’t know.” I shake my head. “I haven’t found any drugs, but I’ve been around enough junkies to recognize the signs.”

“Plus I don’t think she’s getting fed enough,” Dan tells his dad and my stomach picks that moment to rumble.

“How would you know that, Dan?” I ask him. I haven’t seen him in over a month.

“You’ve lost weight, Squirt,” he says.

“Could be stress,” I deny. I can’t get removed from this foster home and he knows it.

He snorts when my stomach growls again.

Mr. Richards’ face is troubled, but we are pulling into the parking lot of Jake’s. It’s my favorite little hole-in-the-wall in Charlotte. They serve the absolute best burgers in town. And their chili fries…ohmygod! So good!

“We’ll talk about this on the way home, kids,” Mr. Richards pulls into a parking spot. We both wince at the word “kids.” We are not kids.

The restaurant is packed when we enter but that doesn’t stop me from seeing Meg, my best friend, jumping up and down and hearing everyone shouting “Happy Birthday!” I smile. I’ve never, ever had a birthday party. I glance up at Dan, who is grinning like an idiot.

“Happy birthday, Squirt,” he whispers in my ear.

“Thank you, Officer Dan.” It’s the nicest thing anyone has ever done for me.

Someone grabs my hand and I’m pulled away from Dan. I look up to see him rolling his eyes at Mason as he drags me towards the table. I’d met Mason a few months ago and he has been a good friend since.

Mason stops a few feet from the table and then turns to look at me. I blink and blink again. He looks kinda blurry and distorted.

It hurts my eyes for a minute, but then I can see…Eric?

Chapter Three

Ohmygosh! Eric…how? He grins at the question on my face and instead of heading for the table, he leads me towards the back where the rest rooms are. I see Meg wink at me knowingly…she has no idea.

As soon as we’re out of earshot, Eric wraps me in a hug and whispers, “Happy early birthday, Mattie!”

I stare up into Eric’s blue eyes and I feel the butterflies start in my stomach, no scratch that. They’re on a marathon flutter-a-thon. Why is it that the only person who can make me feel like this is dead? So not fair.

“How?” I ask.

He smiles that cocky smile I’ve grown so fond of. I’d met him while still at Mrs. Olson’s when he’d tried to scare me away from finding out what happened to my foster sister. In his eagerness to keep me safe, he’d accidentally landed me in the hospital. Back then I’d nicknamed him Mirror Boy, as that was the first place I’d seen him—in the mirror with his face so mangled, it was hard to tell he was a guy. Now, I just see him as the cute boy he’d been before Mrs. Olson killed him.

“I hijacked a body.”

I roll my eyes. “Obviously, but how?”

“It’s not as easy as you think,” he tells me. “I actually tried to body jump Dan over there, but that didn’t work out so well. He’s got some kind of internal shielding that makes me bounce right off. Freaky weird. Mason here was easy. He has an open mind and it let me in without any resistance.”

“You didn’t hurt Mason, did you?” Mason is a really, really nice guy and I didn’t want him to suffer no matter how excited I am to see Eric in the flesh.

“Nah, he won’t even remember this,” Eric shakes his head and then his face turns serious. “You have to promise me something, Mattie.”

“What?” I ask.

“That you won’t get into any kind of ghost trouble for at least a week.”

“A week? Why a week?”

“It takes a lot of energy to possess someone,” he says. “It’s gonna take me at least that long to recover once I leave this guy’s body. He has the hots for you, by the way, and I don’t mean just a crush. He has it
bad
.”

“Why would you do this if it costs you so much?” I demand.

“Glad you asked that, Mathilda Hathaway.” He smiles and there is no trace of Mason in his face. I just see Eric. He leans in before I can do anything and kisses me.

For all of five seconds, I freeze. I mean…wow. Then emotions flood me and I realize I’m feeling Eric’s emotions. Even though he’s in a body, he
is
still a ghost and I can feel that part of him. He’s elated, triumphant, and…and happy. This is all he’s wanted to do since he first saw me. I see all this in a flash and it overshadows everything I feel.

Now, does that mean I don’t enjoy it? Heck no. The boy can kiss and kiss well.

“Mason!”

Eric ignores Dan’s shout. So do I for that matter, which only makes Dan mad. He yanks us apart and glares holes into Eric. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“Giving Mattie a birthday kiss,” he replies with his cocky smile. “What’s it to you?”

“What did I tell you about this? She needs time to get over everything.”

“Chill, man,” Eric winks at me. “Mason won’t remember this in the morning.”

Dan frowns and I laugh. “Um, Officer Dan, that’s not Mason. That’s Eric. He kinda hijacked Mason’s body for my party.”

Dan’s facial expressions range from outright disbelief to a kind of comical horror. He was forced to admit I can see ghosts, but a part of him still doesn’t want to believe it. Though after that thing we saw in my bedroom…

“Come on!” Dan whisper shouts. “You can’t really expect me to believe that… that… that…”

“Dan, didn’t you agree that when it came to ghosts, you’d trust me?” I ask him.

He nods reluctantly.

“Then when I tell you that this is Eric, this really
is
Eric.”

Dan opens his mouth as if to argue then thinks better of it. Smart boy. After that thing from earlier, you’d think he’d be a little more believing…wait, maybe…

“Eric, what kind of ghost smells like rotten eggs?” I ask. His kisses had momentarily distracted me.

“None,” he frowns. “Where did you smell that?”

“There was this thing in my bedroom,” I tell him. “At first I thought it was a random ghost, but it wasn’t like my normal ones. It touched me and I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move, couldn’t do anything. If it wasn’t for Dan, I don’t know what might have happened.” I shudder at the thought. “It was weird. It’s face was all distorted, almost a solid white, but its eyes were black.”

“Don’t forget that nasty black goo that oozed out of its mouth,” Dan grimaces.

“Goo?” Eric asks. “Did you see it, Dan?”

He nods.

“Mattie, that’s not a ghost. I’m not sure what it is, especially if your boy here can see it, but you need to stay away from it.”

“Not like I have a choice, Eric,” I tell him. “And Dan is not my boy.”

“If you say so,” he laughs. “We’d better get back to the table. They look like they’re going to hunt us down if we don’t.”

True enough, Meg looks like she wants to burst over here and demand answers. She has a thing for Dan, but refuses to act on it because she thinks I might like him. Makes her a great friend in my book. Truth is, I
might
have a thing for him, I just don’t know myself. Mr. Richards could be right in that having us live together could force the issue. The real question is, do I want to force the issue and find out?

“Are we late?” I hear a breathless voice and turn to see Mary Cross and her mother coming over to our table. Mary was the only one of Mrs. Olson’s victims I actually managed to save. She and I shared a hospital room for over a month while we recovered from our torture. To say we were friends would be a gross understatement. You don’t survive something like that and just be friends. Mary’s family, same as Dan, at least to me.

“No, you’re not late.” I grin and give her a hug, careful of her left arm. It was shattered in so many places they’re still doing reconstructive surgery on it.

“Come on, guys, sit down,” Meg tells us and waves at the waiter to take orders.

Megan is the first best friend I’ve ever had. I’ve always made sure I was in with the popular crowd at school no matter what district my new foster home was in, but I’d never actually been “friends” with any of them. Meg refused to let me get away with that. She bowled me over and forced me to be her friend. That’s just the kind of person she is, though. Everyone’s sweetheart. Not at all like me, the messed up foster kid who grew up learning to survive by herself. I’m still not sure why Meg and I are friends, we just are.

“So, did you get boots?” she asks me, laughter twinkling in her green eyes.

“I swear to all that is holy, if you think you’re taking me hiking
or
camping…”

She bursts out laughing. “Do I
look
like an outdoorsy person to you?”

Well, no. Meg is definitely NOT an outdoorsy person. She’s a mall kind of girl. “Then why do I need boots?”

“It was on the list of needed things,” she shrugs. “Anyway, I can’t wait! We fly out tomorrow morning.”

“Fly?” I feel a bit of panic at the word. Like in an airplane? My eyes go wide at the thought of twisting, burning metal, screaming people…uh, no. “I don’t fly, Meg.”

“Oh My God!” Meg exclaims. “Don’t tell me the great and fearless Mattie Hathaway is afraid of flying!”

“I’m not afraid,” I deny. I am, but no way will I admit that. “I just prefer to keep my feet on the ground is all.”

Dan snorts, not believing a word of it.

The waitress saves me from having to answer. She drops by to take drink orders and hands out menus. Mine is easy, double bacon cheeseburger and chili cheese fries. My mouth waters just thinking about it.

I look up to see my social worker, Nancy Moriarity, coming to our table. She’s wearing a smile the size of a kid who just stole the last chocolate chip cookie and waving a manila envelope, which sets Mary squealing. What in the world? I look from one to the other.

Eric leans in and whispers, “I think you’re about to get the best birthday gift ever.”

“Why, what do you know?” I ask suspiciously.

He only grins at me, which in turn causes me to stick my tongue out at him and he bursts out laughing.

“Happy birthday, Mattie!” Nancy beams at me and the waiter brings her a chair. Once she’s seated, she hands the manila envelope over to Mary’s mother. “Do you want to tell her or should I?”

“You’re coming to live with us!” Mary nearly bounces out of her seat before the words are even out of Nancy’s mouth.

My head snaps round to her. “What?”

She is grinning like The Cheshire Cat. "We’re taking you home with us, Mattie.”

I frown at her and then look at Nancy.

“We didn’t say anything to you before because we didn’t want to get your hopes up,” she tells me. “Mrs. Cross applied to be a foster parent so she and Mary could give you a proper home.”

A home? A real home? For me?

Mrs. Cross smiles at me from across the table. “You gave me back my daughter, Mattie. The least I can do is to give you a home where you can be yourself and not worry about…temperature spikes.”

My eyes go a little round at that.

Mary nods. “I remember everything, Mattie. Mom understands.”

Dan reaches over and squeezes my hand. He can see the panic on my face. He understands how hard this is for me. I’ve never had a home before, never even contemplated it. Now, here I am being offered one by people who understand that I can see ghosts and won’t call me a freak.