I Spy Dead People (11 page)

She blows a raspberry. "No. They're normal."

I want to point out that waiting almost twenty-four hours to report your fourteen-year-old missing is far from normal. But getting into a parenting debate is so not what this moment is about.

"Why are you here?" I cross my room and sit opposite her at the foot of my bed. As I wait for a response, I remind myself I'm sane. This moment is real, and it's okay I'm talking to the dead.

She shrugs. "Beats me. It's quieter than my house though. Mom's blubbering all over the place."

So she realizes she's not alive? Good. That's not exactly something I want to tell someone.
By the way, you've croaked. Sorry you won't be able to hang with your friends, eat ice cream, or kiss a boy ever again. But if you stick around, you can watch me do those things
.

No, thank you. And Linzy seems the type to not take bad news well.

"She's upset she lost you."

Her body tenses. "Or that her cash cow won't be supplying her with fancy lunches and parties with celebs anymore."

Is she saying her mother used her?

She glances up from her manicure. "You look surprised. She was my manager."

That might explain some of it but not the sad tone in Linzy's voice.

"I'm sorry."

She frowns and lies on her back, staring up at the ceiling. "For what? You don't know me."

Exactly. So why is she here?

"You said this is the first time I've seen you. How long have you been here?"

She shrugs. "Feels like forever."

"You went missing three days ago."

She scrunches up her nose. "Is that all?"

"How did you die?"

She shrugs again.

"You don't know? How can you not know? I'd think that would be something you'd never forget."

Another flippin' shrug. "It was unpleasant. Why relive it?" She laughs at her words.

I jump off my bed, annoyed that she's so blasé about the whole thing. "You know, you could be a bit more invested, or at least care about what I've been through."

She frowns. "How is this about you?"

"I'm the last one who saw you alive, talking to that person in the car. Who was that? Your ex-boyfriend?"

"How'd you see me? You followed me? What are you, some kind of perv?"

I roll my eyes. "That only applies if I peer into your windows. I was curious why you snuck out and where you were going."

She raises her brows. "Sounds nosy and still a bit pervy."

I ignore the comment. "So, was that your ex or some actor from your show?"

If she says it was Shia or Leonardo, I'll know I'm asleep and this is a nightmare.

She shakes her head. "Nope."

"Then who?"

"Why should I tell you anything? Especially since you spied on me."

"Good thing I did, otherwise no one would have had a clue you might be in trouble."

"That's stupid. Mom probably called in the Armed Forces as soon as she realized I wasn't in my room."

"Not so much. They waited until the following night to even call the cops." It's after I say it that I realize I should've let her think her folks had hired a necromancer to bring J. Edgar Hoover back from the dead so he could direct an FBI investigation.

Linzy's expression drops. "Whatever."

She stares at my window. The blinds are drawn, so she's not looking at anything outside. She's hard to read, but if it were me, I'd be beyond upset.

"When I went missing, what was it like?" Her tone is melancholic.

It's finally sinking in. Good. Now we can figure out why she's still here and how to get her to move on. "Awful, I guess. I told the chief what I saw. I helped the best I could."

She gets onto her knees, and a smile tugs at the corners of her mouth. "Chief Williams is handling my death, not one of her minions?" She giggles.

"Is that funny?"

"No. It's awesome. Was everyone upset and frantic when I disappeared?" Her eyes widen. "Were there fliers with my face put up all over town? A search party with dogs? What did Mom give them with my scent?"

And Dad thinks I'm morbid. "I don't know. I was mostly home."

She sits back down. "Well that's disappointing. Fill me in on everything you do know. Don't skip over a detail."

I start with the night I followed her.

"Yeah, yeah, I know all of that. I was there. Get to the good stuff, to what I don't know."

I take a deep breath and let it out slowly. I tell about finding her in the river, talking to the chief, and finding her on my bed. I don't know the juicy tidbits she wants—the behind-the-scene law enforcement stuff. Did Chief Williams lose sleep combing every inch of the town? Were there false leads that made the police angry and sad because the first twenty-four hours in a disappearance is most important? At least according to
Law & Order: SVU
reruns. Stabler and Benson were always frantic when a kid went missing.

I sit across from Linzy, a mixture of fear, pain, and uncertainty swirl in my belly.

She looks down at her lap. I can't see her expression, but I imagine it's not filled with joy. How is someone supposed to take the news of finding their body in the river?

"Do you think there will be pics of me…like that, in the paper or on TV?" Her voice cracks.

"There were reporters gathering, but none of them got close enough."

She blows out a long breath. "Thank goodness. The last image of me cannot be bloated and full of muck."

Is that all she's concerned about? "Did you go to the river? Maybe you went for a swim and got sucked under?"

She curls up her top lip. "Are you serious? I never go to the river. It's disgusting and stinks. That's Shayla's place. She's a sewer rat."

Wow, possibly true but harsh much?

"So, how'd you get there?"

She shrugs again. It seems to be her favorite habit. "I don't remember that. Someone must've put me there."

"You say that so casually. If that's true then someone killed you first."

She doesn't reply, just stares at her hands. "There are a few people that dislike me enough."

Whoa. Seriously? I've made some frenemies, like Aaron. But no one hates me enough to actually kill me.

"Okay, who?" Figuring out who the suspects are and then narrowing them down is the first step in good detective work. Especially since I don't know her life, and right now the entire world is a suspect.

She leans back against my pillows. "Well, there's Shayla, Mom, April, Margo, and maybe Elias."

I blink several times. I expected her to give me two names tops, not a handful, and not anyone I've already met. I jump up, grab my notebook and pen off my desk, and return. "Okay, let's start at the beginning. Why would your own sister want you dead?"

Her eyes become huge. "Are you serious? Shayla and I hate each other. We wish the other wasn't born. Now she doesn't have to whine about all the attention I get. Not just from the world but from Mom and Dad. They don't love her as much as they do me."

That's so sad. If Vincent was still alive, would I have to compete for Dad's love? I already know Mom cared about him more than me. If not, she wouldn't have stayed away all these years.

I scribble notes onto my page. "Okay, but surely your Mom wouldn't kill you."

Linzy shrugs. "She told me she hated me the other day."

Whoa. What goes on in their house? "Why?"

"She was complaining she had nothing to wear to a luncheon with cast members. I told her that she shouldn't worry about it. No one cared what she looked like. I'm the star. I'm the one the paparazzi follow and hound. I'm young and beautiful, and she's not."

Ouch.

"She said I was evil and she hated me." Linzy laughs.

I narrow my gaze. "What's wrong with you?"

She gives me an innocent look. "What?"

"She cares enough to let you have a career. You're fourteen not forty. You could be hanging at the mall with your friends. You're so ungrateful. She's your mother. How would you feel if she left you? No wonder someone killed you. You're horrible."

I don't know what came over me. I'm not usually so verbal when someone pisses me off. Well, I am in my head, but not to their face. I always worry the person won't like me anymore, and not having friends sucks. But I guess with Linzy I don't care. It's not like we'll become best of pals. She's dead.

"This is stupid." She jumps up.

The bed doesn't move. No dips or anything.

She walks to my door. "I'm outta here." Instead of opening it, she walks through it.

I race to it and fling it open. She's not in the hall or on the stairs. Where'd she go?

 

"Do you want to talk about it?" Kinley sounds tired through my cell.

"Um, talk about what?" Does she know about last night, about Linzy's ghost? No, that's impossible. How could she?

"Troy and the kiss."

My stomach knots up. I'd almost forgotten about my humiliation. "Oh that. It kinda pales in comparison to everything else that went on, huh?"

I'm lying on my bed, clutching Mr. Floppy, the stuffed bunny Dad got me when I was seven and afraid to go to the dentist. He has two buck teeth (the bunny, not Dad or the dentist) and somehow this was comforting to my seven-year-old brain.

"Yeah, I can't believe Linzy's dead and you found her. That had to be horrible."

Last night's events went from bad to worse. I don't want to see Troy for a while, and I'll never get the image of Linzy's bloated face out of my mind. But seeing her on my bed and then talking to her almost makes the dead part unreal. If I share this with Kinley, she'll hang up and think I'm crazy. I think I'm crazy. But part of me wants to know, too. What if Kinley did believe me?

"Do you believe in the supernatural?" I hold my breath.

"The TV show or vampires and werewolves?"

"More like ghosts. Like what happens to us after we die."

"Well, we go to heaven or hell, right?"

I'm not sure of my spiritual beliefs, and I don't want to get into a discussion on religion. One of Dad's super religious uncles loves to corner people and preach at them. I avoid him every Christmas Eve celebration. It's the one holiday we travel back to New York for.

"Do you think it's possible that our spirit can hang out here for a while before moving on?"

I listen to the silence.

"No. If that was possible we'd see their spirits, right? And I've never seen any."

"What if only some people can see them? Like mediums." I definitely don't think I'm gifted or anything. This is the first time this has happened to me, and I've been around death my entire life.

"Nah, that just sounds like something people say when they want to feel special or get attention."

My chest tightens. That's what Andrea said in the end—that I was trying too hard to be her friend after the Aaron ordeal. I guess I texted too many times and was pushy. He accused me of wanting attention, being needy. It's not true. I only wanted a friend. I don't want Kinley to think that's what I'm after though.

"Why?" she asks.

I shrug even though she can't see it. "Just wondering."

There's a knock on my door, and Dad sticks his head in. "Chief Williams is here. She'd like to ask you a few more questions."

I nod then say to Kinley, "I gotta go. Call you later?"

"I'm probably never leaving the house again, so I'll be here."

The Abbotts and Dad have given us stay notices. We aren't allowed in town without adult supervision. I don't mind so much at the moment, but I have a feeling that it'll get super annoying over time. At least the Abbotts never said a word about Dad not being with us last night. I don't think they realized he showed up afterwards.

I hang up and go to the window. The chief's car is in the driveway, behind Dad's. Reporters are all over the street, mostly in the Quinn yard, some in ours. Good thing we have A/C. I wouldn't be able to keep my windows shut and drown out their noise without it.

I head into the kitchen and stop short when I realize Troy's at the table beside his mom. Dammit, Dad. Thanks for not telling me every name on the guest list. I glance down at my oversized tee, plaid PJ shorts, and pink fuzzy slippers. The ones with the hole in the side. I know how I look at a time like this shouldn't be important, but it kinda is.

When I look back up, the Chief, who'd been talking to Dad, glances at Troy for a second. He averts his gaze to the table. I don't know what's worse—having to face Troy or having his mother know what happened.

"Good morning, Piper." The chief motions to a chair next to her, across from Troy.

I swallow hard, take it, and keep my gaze on my hands, which I place on the table. I can't bear to look any of them in the eye. Dad will know I'm hiding something just from the guilty expression I'm sure covers my face. Him finding out I tried to kiss a boy would be a social death sentence.

"I was wondering if you remember anything more about last night?"

I shake my head immediately. Not that I had time to think about it, what with a visit from a ghost, but I doubt there'd be more info anyway. I already told her it all. "No, nothing more."

"And how is the press? Have they become a nuisance yet?" She directs this one at Dad.

"When are they not?" he asks wryly. "For the most part they're behaving, but we haven't tried to go outside yet."

They talk about the reporters, and I steal a quick glance at Troy.

He catches my eye and smiles. Not the bright and happy kind but enough of one for me to think he's not mad. Not that he has a reason to be. I didn't do anything wrong, other than assume he wanted to kiss me, but sometimes people get weird when you invade their personal space, or when they know you think of them in a way they don't reciprocate. Like Aaron.

I can't believe I made the same stupid mistake as when I was in Georgia. What's wrong with me? I could've sworn the signs were there, though. As it turned out, Aaron got close to me because he was a fan of Dad's. Is that why Troy's been so nice? He doesn't seem interested in Dad. Maybe the chief told him to act nice?

I take a deep breath, and the chief glances at me then her son. To Dad she says, "Can we talk in your office?"