Bad Girls Don't Die (22 page)

She looked at me, eyes intense and searching, like a hurt, confused animal.

I took a step toward her, but she held her arm out to keep me away. She leaned up against the row of metal cabinets and finished reading the article. Then her fingers released it, and it floated to the floor.

“My mother . . . tried to kill me,” she whispered. Her eyes were unfocused, like she was seeing a progression of possibilities, answers.

“Megan . . .”

“All those psychics—they weren’t saying
Sarah
. They were saying
Shara
. I’m so stupid. All these years I’ve just been hearing it wrong,” she said, tears brimming in her eyes. “Grandma told me she died in a car accident. . . . Why didn’t she tell me the truth?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

“We have to go back to your house.” Her whole face seemed to harden. “I want to talk to her. I want to ask her why.”

A second passed. My heart thumped so hard it hurt.

“It’s dangerous,” I said. “Megan, remember what you said in the car?”

It’s evil.

“If my sister is possessed,” I continued, “if there’s something in the house that wants you dead, and Kasey was home when we got there . . .”

Megan lifted her chin and leveled her gaze on me. My body seemed to vibrate with a striking new fear—that Megan would do something stupid and get herself killed.

“I don’t care,” she said. “I’m not afraid.”

“She could . . . she could really kill you.” Was that what all of this was about? Megan’s mother’s ghost trying to finish what she started?

She made a noise of protest, more of a whimper than an actual word, but I knew exactly what she couldn’t say. She had to at least
try
. Wouldn’t anyone feel that way? Wouldn’t I?

I would.

But still.

“You can’t go back until we know more,” I said, trying to steady my shaking voice.

“Maybe she’s changed,” Megan said. “Maybe she’s angry because she’s stuck in the house and she wants to talk to me.”

“No,” I said.

She shook her head like she hadn’t heard me right.
“No?”

“No. Not today. Maybe tomorrow.”

“What,” she said, her voice edged with hurt, “like you’re going to stop me?”

“I will if I have to,” I said.

“Alexis,” she said. “I thought we were . . .”

“We
are
friends,” I said. “That’s why I can’t let you do this. Just give it one day. We’ll keep researching, keep looking for ways to—”

“Ways to do what, to destroy her? She needs
help
, not—” She shook her head, looking for a word.

I could imagine how much it would mean to her to know her mother. I felt her pain and loneliness as if they were my own, and my whole body ached with sadness for her.

That’s how I knew we were friends.

I shook my head.

“You can’t stop me.” Her voice was low.

“I’ll call your grandmother,” I said. “Or I’ll call the police and have you arrested for trespassing.”

She was silent.

“I’m not saying
never
,” I said. “Just not tonight, not until we know more.”

“We know plenty,” she said. I could feel her anger, as hot and raw as the tears streaming down from the corners of her eyes. “Don’t you
dare
call my grandmother.”

I didn’t even blink. “I will,” I said.

She knew it. Her shoulders slumped and her head dropped, her hair falling forward in front of her face. As she turned to leave, I heard a ragged sob escape from her mouth.

“Megan,”
I said, but she had started weaving through the bookshelves toward the front door. As I followed her, a million thoughts raced through my mind. I shouldn’t have told her. I should have kept it hidden. She was in terrible danger.

She was already climbing into her car when I caught up to her. I grabbed the door before she could slam it.

“Go straight home. Or go to Pepper’s. Don’t go to my house.” I felt a desperate surge of fear. “Megan,
please
, you can’t.”

She was sobbing silently, her shoulders trembling, her face soaked with tears. “I know,” she said, leaning forward and resting on her steering wheel.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m so sorry.”

She turned to look up at me. Her eyes shone in the fading sunlight, and a quivering breath shook her whole body.

“Why?”
she cried. “Why does she have to be
bad
?”

I put my hand on her shoulder.

“I can’t help you anymore, Alexis. I have to go now,” she said, shrugging my hand away. I jumped back as she slammed the door.

The car screeched out of the parking space and sped out to the road.

Megan wouldn’t go to my house, I knew it.

She was safe.

But I was on my own.

I
WALKED BACK INSIDE
, feeling like I might shatter into a hundred pieces.

Miss Oliver looked up as I passed the checkout desk.

I felt myself swing over to her, almost as if I’d been drawn there by a magnet.

“Excuse me,” I said. “Is there any way I can get back to special collections?”

She glowered and beckoned me closer. “If you aren’t eighteen, you need to be accompanied by a parent or guardian.” She looked me up and down with an expression that said she knew I wasn’t eighteen.

I nodded and tried to hide my disappointment. I didn’t have the energy to persist.

“All right,” I said. “Thanks. Never mind.”

Back at the microfiche, I decided to check out articles from the days following the deaths. I pulled another few sheets from drawer 5-E. Sheet after sheet of slides turned up absolutely nothing.

I felt totally lost, aimless, without Megan. But I had no choice other than to keep going.

I was rereading the printout of the first article when Miss Oliver appeared. Her eyes widened at the sight of the mess I’d made, but she seemed grimly gratified that someone was actually doing research.

“Find what you were looking for?” she asked.

I shrugged. “I guess so.”

“I wouldn’t normally say this,” she said, peering down at me, “but you seem so committed to your project that I hate to deny you access to research materials.”

I stared up at her, not understanding.

“The library closes in thirty minutes,” she said, speaking a little more slowly. “If you need to look at any . . .
special
books, I’ll let you.”

“Oh . . .” Then I got it. “
Oh!
Thanks, I’ll be right there.”

I had one more stack of slides left to look at. I considered skimming them, but I wanted as much time with the special collections as possible. So instead I slipped the whole pile into my bag and made my way up to the front desk.

The library was deserted except for a few die-hard academics. The clock hands pointed to eight thirty.

Miss Oliver beckoned me around the back of her desk to a door I’d never even noticed before. She unlocked it, reached inside and flipped on a light switch.

“I’ll come get you”—she checked her watch—“in twenty-five minutes.”

I nodded and slipped past her through the doorway. The door closed with the sharp bark of wood against wood, and I was alone.

The only light was the dim green glow of a dying pair of fluorescent bulbs. It took my eyes a moment to adjust. And then I saw the shelves.

They took my breath away.

Seven feet tall, overflowing with books of every shape and size, all colors and ages and thicknesses. They completely encircled the L-shaped room, with a few lined up in the middle of the floor as well. On closer inspection, most of the special collections didn’t seem all that unusual—just a bunch of dusty old books. I crossed my fingers that I wouldn’t have any trouble finding the section I was looking for.

I didn’t have to worry.

The paranormal books filled an entire giant bookshelf of their own. And unlike the rest of the books in the room, they seemed almost to hum. They really
were
special.

Thinking I should be methodical, I started at the bottom. But pulling out each book, opening it, and then carefully returning it to the overcrowded shelf was too slow.

New strategy: I grabbed a book randomly from one of the middle shelves and looked at the cover. It was a paperback called
Interpreting and Healing the Aura
, and the cover was an eighties-style man with a feathered haircut looking serenely up at a rainbow. A halo of pale gold glowed from his head. Close, but not quite right.

I pulled more books out, one by one, and glanced at the titles. Most were completely irrelevant. I know what they say about judging books by their covers and all, but I was running out of time, so I decided to ignore the newer books and focus on the ones with dark leather covers—the old ones.

I pushed a white paperback out of the way to get to a black leather spine with gold writing on it.
The Origins of Pagan Holidays.
Forget it. I pushed another white paperback out of the way to get to a half-disintegrated blue cloth book—
Supernatural Case Studies in Northern Ireland 1952–1966
. Then I saw a black spine peeking out from behind a white paperback and reached up to push the white book out of the way.

What was with all the white paperbacks?

And then I realized.

There was only one white paperback on the shelf— and I couldn’t seem to stop picking it up.

When I touched it, a tiny lightning bolt of electricity jumped from the book to my fingers. I yanked my hand away and took a closer look at the cover.

Unlike the cheery rainbows and seagulls on the other paperbacks, this one had a rough charcoal illustration of a woman whose face was distorted in a scream, her eyes rolling back in pain, or fear, or something.

The title was
Dealing With Hostile Spirits: A Definitive Guide
. I flipped it over to inspect the back cover and saw a picture of the author—an Asian man in his fifties. “Walter Sawamura is an internationally renowned expert on the subject of . . .”

Sawamura . . . ?

The Sawamuras, Walter and Joan.

The people who lived in our house after Megan and her mom.

So an expert on ghosts—not just ghosts, but hostile ones—moved into our house after a mysterious suicide. And moved out as soon as he could manage.

Suddenly the thin white paperback seemed to weigh a hundred pounds.

Then I snapped out of it. I had to be ready to leave before Miss Oliver came back for me. I stuffed the book in my bag and started for the door, which flew open just as I was reaching for the doorknob.

I shrieked and jumped backward.

Miss Oliver looked at me like I was out of my mind. “A little jumpy, are we?”

I didn’t feel like making small talk. “I’m fine.” I turned sideways to squeeze past her.

We were the last two people in the library. As I neared the exit I saw the security sensors set up on either side of the door and stopped short. The bar code on the book in my bag would set off the alarm, and then she would catch me—or I would have to run.

I took a deep breath. If I bolted, would she chase me? Did she know my name?

“Wait a second,” Miss Oliver called from behind the counter.

“We’ll walk out together,” she said, reaching beneath her desk and flipping a few switches. All of the library lights switched off, and the red power light on the security sensors faded.

No alarm sounded as we walked through in silence, and I waited as Miss Oliver locked the front door and lowered the gate and locked that too. I had no idea that libraries were having such security issues. Maybe because of people like me, who steal rare books and microfiche slides.

“Is someone coming for you?” Miss Oliver asked, looking around.

“Um, no,” I said. “But it’s okay. I’ll just walk.”

“Walk?” she asked doubtfully. “That isn’t safe. Where do you live?”

“Whitley Street,” I said.

She looked at me like I was a stray cat who’d taken up residence on her porch. “I’ll drive you,” she said at last, unlocking the door of the only car in the lot, an old square Buick with dulling paint.

We rode in silence. When we reached Whitley Street, I pointed to my house. She slowed the car.

“
This
house?” she asked.

How many times had my friends’ parents asked me that question, in that tone of voice? It was so clear to me now—they really meant, “
This
awful house, with the horrible, violent past? You live, eat, sleep, brush your teeth in this terrible place?”

“Yep, this one,” I said. It was the same thing I’d always said.