Kiss & Hell (18 page)

“Just tell me what happens and save the inane trivia.”

“The moment you leave, it’s almost like we’re tied by a rope or something—tethered is the best way to explain it. You leave, and without so much as a blink of my eye, I’m right there with you. I don’t feel anything. I don’t have any warning—it just happens. Hey, didn’t you mention something about a binding last night?”

She had, and that was the only thing she could think of that would make him keep popping up the way he did. “It’s called a binding spell and I imagine explaining that to you is about as easy as you explaining trigonometry to me. If that’s what this is, the simple answer is this: you’re attached to me and before this thing with you is over, we’re sure to have plenty of embarrassing encounters. Much like this one. You need clothes and shoes—fast.”

The bus ground to a halt, the screech of its brakes reminding her she was just one stop away from Kellen’s.

She slid farther down in the seat. If they could just make it through one more stop without causing a scene . . .

“Hey, duuude, nice pink swag.”

Or not.

Delaney peered over the top of the seat to see a group of six or so kids plunk themselves into the seats.

Clyde ignored the group of kids, who’d decided to sit two seats away from him, leaning back in the seat and crossing his ankle over his knee while tucking the bathrobe’s ends between his legs. He crossed his arms over his chest and stared at them dead-on. They nudged each other, laughing with a mocking cackle only snotty teenaged kids were capable of. The tight knit caps they wore in various colors covered their shoulder-length, stringy hair; their hoodies were oversized and bulky; their jeans clung to just above the tops of their butts. They mumbled something about an ass, but she didn’t quite catch what they were referring to.

Clyde’s jaw set hard, the grind of his teeth reaching her ears.

Ever nonconfrontational, she offered advice to Clyde. “Ignore them,” she whispered. “They’re just smart-ass kids.”

“Who need an ass whoopin’.”

Wow, look at the geek go all ghetto. “I’d have never guessed you were this easily riled, Clyde. Wasn’t it you who said you were tame?”

He shrugged his wide pink shoulders. “Oh, I don’t care what they say about me, it’s all the wondering what your ass looks like that I object to.”

Delaney’s eyes instantly narrowed in the boys’ direction as they whispered and laughed.

Thug motherfuckers.

When the bus stopped, Delaney rose with caution, but Clyde nudged her along, sliding behind her, placing one hand at the small of her back and the other on her shoulder. Passing the group, she grew tense, her steps stilted. Yet Clyde’s strong, quiet presence urged her forward.

As they reached the stairs one kid leaned over the seat and muttered just loud enough for them to hear, “Man, I’d so tap that.” His friends chuckled with conspiratorial snorts.

“Tap this, you rude little shit,” Clyde growled under his breath, raising his index finger and pointing it at the boy’s backpack, resting at his feet. A spark shot from his digit, lancing the pack and creating a puff of gray, sooty smoke, leaving each boy blissfully speechless.

“Wow, nice aim, huh?” He chuckled the words low in her ear when they took the last step onto the sidewalk. “I’m getting pretty good at that,” he said with arrogance, then tripped into her back, knocking her forward with a lurch.

Whirling around, Delaney poked a finger at his shoulder. “Are you fucking nuts? You can’t do stuff like that, Clyde—not in public. What if you get caught?”

Clyde pulled his foot up to knee level, rubbing the toe he’d apparently stubbed. “By a bunch of teenagers? Who’d believe them, anyway?”

“No, what if someone else saw that, like the bus driver? It’s bad enough you’re in a pink bathrobe, barefoot, wandering around New York like some homeless-shelter reject, but shooting fireballs from your fingers just might be the noose for your thick neck. You don’t need to draw any more attention to yourself—so knock it the hell off and quit showing off your demonic prowess.” She pivoted on her heel, marching toward the deli where she picked up her and Kellen’s lunch every Sunday.

Clyde’s footsteps slapped against the pavement as he followed behind with big, klunky feet. At the deli’s door, she faced him, caring little that people milled about the sidewalk, casting confused glances their way. “Now, I’m going in to grab a fried tofu and watercress salad. You want one, too?”

He made a face at her, clearly not at all bothered by the fact that people were eyeing him like he was a sociopath loose on a day pass from the funny farm with his nurse. “A
fried tofu salad
? I can’t think of anything less appealing. But if you wouldn’t mind, I’d appreciate a pastrami on rye, extra brown mustard. I only like the brown mustard.”

“All that fat and protein will clog up your arteries, Clyde Atwell.”

His expression was deadpan. “I have no arteries, Delaney Markham.”

Oh. Yeah. Dead. “Fine. Eat dead animal. Now, here’s the score. Don’t move from this spot,” she ordered, pointing to the cracked, lumpy pavement. “In fact, stand over there by the side of the building and hold on tight so the next time I turn around you’re not up my ass. Feel me? We don’t need the Sunday lunch crowd mocking and pointing.”

But Clyde wasn’t looking at her, his eyes, sharp and clear behind his glasses, were focused on the interior of the deli.

“Yooo-hooo, demon light? Pay attention.” When he didn’t stop gawking, Delaney turned to see what he was so enraptured with. The fingerprint-smudged glass gave her a direct view to the deli counter, where a long line had formed. “Clyde? What’s wrong?”

He pointed a finger at the glass, right between the
O
and the
L
in
O’Leary’s
. “Tia.”

“Who-a?”

“Tia.”

“And Tia is . . . ?”

“My girlfriend.”

nine

Enter Tia.

The ridiculously, sickly hawt Tia. Just what they freakin’ needed to make this day perfection. “Where?” she asked dumbly, hoping against hope it wasn’t the hot broad with the bod of steel.

“Right there.” He pointed over her head.

Her stomach sank in defeat. “Who is she again?”

“She’s my girlfriend, er, ex-girlfriend, er, whatever she is to me now that I’m dead.”

Right. He’d mentioned a Tia in one of their conversations. Delaney turned fully, gazing into the packed deli. “Which one?”

“There. The one with the short, platinum blonde hair, the clingy, light blue dress, and white heels.”

The one with the ass so pert and tight you could crack hard-shelled nuts on it by dropping them from above her prone body? Well, of course
she
was Tia.

Tia, Tia, Tia.

Neener, neener, neener.

Whooooah, sistah.

Where’d that come from?

Delaney looked up at him, setting aside her sudden stab of jealousy. “She’s damned fine, Clyde. Überhot.”
Good on you
. Clyde’d hit it big with Tia. She was Hawaiian Tropic model hot. Long lean legs, toned calves, a belly so flat it was almost concave, wide blue eyes, and pouty lips. Definitely fantastical. But then, so was Clyde, in his own college professor way. The only person who didn’t seem to know that was Clyde. He’d made mention several times of his lack of finesse with the ladies—which made her wonder why someone like Tia had hooked up with him, and if he’d looked like he did now before his death. She definitely didn’t look like she’d spent more time in a classroom than she had being spray tanned in some pricey salon.

Ooooh, Delaney—judgmental much?
Looks were sometimes deceiving, and maybe Tia had an IQ to rival a Mensa member.

Maybe. Or maybe it was only her bowling scores that could rival a genius IQ.

Me-ow.

“Yeaaaah,” Clyde agreed on a sigh that, to her ears, sounded wistful and faraway, thus jabbing the tip of the jealousy stick right in her left eyeball.

“Okay, so established. Tia’s sickly hot,” she acknowledged.

Good gravy. So Tia was spectacular on the eye. There were lots of women in the world who could hold that title. Marcella was one of them, and Delaney wasn’t jealous of her at all. Well, okay, so she did feel some envy when Marcella wore all those tight jeans. But that was it. Really . . .

What Tia looked like shouldn’t make a difference to her. What should was grilling the shit out of her bleached blondeness until she got some answers about Clyde and his life and now death. “Hey, stud muffin, want some advice? You’d better hit the bricks. I think she’d shit the aerobics instructor she got that rockin’ ass from if she saw you. You’re dead, remember? For three months now. If that won’t freak her out, she’s got bigger balls than most, but I get the feeling that’s not the case.”

Her words snapped him back to attention. “Damn. You’re right.” He instantly ducked down, hanging his dark head to his chest to push his way through the crowd, then latched onto the side of the brick building.

Delaney followed right behind. Tia might be the key to what had happened to Clyde the day he died. Maybe they shouldn’t let this chance meeting pass them by. “Do you think Tia knows what happened the day you died, Clyde? Maybe I could talk to her.”

His face went blank in thought. “Couldn’t say for sure. I imagine she got the gory details from the coroners. I’m sure there had to have been at least an investigation into my death because the chemicals I was working with were my demise, but she wasn’t there, if that’s what you mean. I sent her home hours before it happened. I’m grateful for at least that much. And even if she did, what would you say to her anyway, Delaney? Hey, I talk to dead people—got a minute for your iced squeeze Clyde?”

Yeah, early on, when this thing had been thrust upon her, she’d innocently enough believed she could approach people and just tell them what their loved one wanted to share from the great beyond. But she kept running into roadblocks like, “You’re nuttier than squirrel shit, hack,” and her all-time favorite, “freak,” no matter how much proof she had that she really could talk to ghosts.

She’d learned a few hard lessons that way. That no matter how dead-on you were, no matter how secretive the information was that you shared with a grieving relative, the skeptical, the fearful, just weren’t going to buy it. She only shared with those who were open to the possibility of the other side, and those who weren’t, she tread ever so lightly with.

So he had a point. Which brought up another point. “You know, I did a Google search on your name the other day and found next to nothing. I searched obituaries for the last three months all over the country for a dead Clyde Atwell and came up dry—why is that?” There was no keeping the suspicion out of her question. “It’s like you said, wouldn’t there be a coroner’s report? Unless they haven’t released your body because the circumstances surrounding your death were suspicious . . .”

“I have no answers for you. I’ve already told you what I know—what I remember. I screwed up. It was late, I was tired, and what I was working on exploded. I only remember seeing the flames and hearing the explosion for a split second—after that, I was in Hell.”

She ran her tongue over her lips. “What chemicals did you mix and is it likely that whatever you mixed and blew yourself to smithereens with was so stupid the police might find it suspicious that a smart guy like you would do something like that?”

Clyde became clearly chagrined. “I cut myself on some metal, so I cleaned the wound with some H
₂
O
₂
, more commonly known as hydrogen peroxide. But it wasn’t the kind you buy over the counter. It was highly concentrated—sort of like the kind hairdressers use to bleach hair. Like an ass, because I was, as usual, absorbed in my work, and me, me, me, as Tia used to say, I was trying to dilute it when I knocked the
entire
bottle over. It collided with some sulfuric acid I was using to clean metal, fell into the Bunsen burner I could have sworn I’d turned off, and exploded. And yes, I can see the police finding it pretty ironic that someone like me with a degree and a rather above-average IQ would do something so goddamned dumb. So sure, they could find it suspicious that I mixed those two chemicals together, because it was damned careless, but I don’t think they’d get very far.”

“Why’s that?”

His impatience became crystal clear in not just his face, but the agitated tension in his stance. “I’ve said this a thousand times, Delaney. What I was researching was absolutely harmless. I wasn’t on to the next cure for cancer, or even the common cold. I was researching a new hypoallergenic coating for jewelry—pretty innocuous. I don’t have a lot of money—or didn’t. I made a decent living, but not sizable enough to kill me over. I have some stocks and bonds, but nothing substantial. No valuable property or jewelry. No inheritance. So if the coroner is holding my body for investigation, there won’t be much to find and certainly nothing suspicious.”

If that was true, Clyde was a strange, strange bird, and she said as much. “You’re a strange bird, Clyde. I don’t get it. I don’t get how you ended up in Hell, but the more you show up in your pink bathrobe in places like the bus and my shower, the more I want to figure out why you did. And don’t think I’m going to take everything you say at face value. We’re going to start picking apart your life like meat off a chicken carcass.”