Undead and Unreturnable (7 page)
"Oh,
gracias
," she said. "
Muchas
nuchas
gracias
. I am thanking you so much. Thank you."
"Uh…
de nada
. Oh, I almost forgot… Annie is very, very sorry she stole the money, and she hopes you have a lot of fun with it. She's… uh,
lo
siento
. Annie
es
muy
muy
lo
siento
para
… uh . .
.
para
stealing?
El
dinero
?"
Emma nodded, still smiling. I prayed she had the faintest idea what I was talking about. If she didn't,
Annie'd
be paying me another little visit.
Then we just looked at each other. To break the newly awkward silence, I asked, "
Dónde
está
el
baño
?"
She gave complicated directions, which was okay because I didn't have to go anyway, and we left after much waving and shouted good-byes.
"She didn't appear to get a word of that," Jessica observed, pulling her checkbook out of her purse, groping for a pen, and scribbling something. "But she seemed to know about the account."
"Maybe she reads more English than she speaks. Or maybe she understands the words
First National Bank
and her own name."
"Maybe." She ripped off the check—I saw it was for $50,000—and casually dropped it into the suggestion box on our way back to the car. "This place really needs new wallpaper. Who picked mucous green?"
"You're asking me? This place is like my worst nightmare. Look at all these poor guys. Shuffling around and just pretty much waiting to die."
"There were some people in the game room," Jess said defensively. "They looked like they were having fun putting the big puzzle together."
"Please."
"Okay, it sucks. You happy now? I wouldn't want to end up here, I admit it."
"A problem you'll never have, honeybunch."
"Well, that's true. And neither will you."
I cheered up a little. No, one thing that was most definitely not in my future was spending my last days scuffing along in Wal-Mart slippers and eating applesauce.
"You remember that time you volunteered at Burnsville Manor in high school, and you only lasted a day because that old guy punched you in the knee when you tried to make him finish his—"
"Let's stop talking for a while," I suggested, and the cow had the giggles all the way back to the mansion.
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," she gasped,
ten minutes later
. I couldn't believe she was still hee-hawing about ancient history. "It's just, you went there with such high moral intentions, and you didn't even last a single shift. And you limped for a week!"
"Rich people should never criticize the working class," I snapped.
"Hey, I work fifty hours a week at The Foot."
Dammit
, she was right. It had always been something of a mystery to me why she bothered. She pretended like the nonprofit was a tax shelter and she needed the break every April 15, but we all knew it was a lie. Bottom line was, she liked going there, liked seeing her dad's money teach welfare moms how to program computers and get good jobs.
She ran the place with an ever-shifting staff, and me. I did the books when she was between office managers. I didn't much mind the work, but I didn't live and breathe it the way Jess did.
"She seemed like a nice lady."
"Jess! She didn't say five words to us the whole time. She could be a drooling psychopath for all we know."
"Do you think some of the ghosts are bad guys? And ask you to help other bad guys?"
"Great. Because I didn't have enough awful things to contemplate." Horrible thought! One I immediately shoved out of my head.
"Sorry. It was just an idea. Do you think there
are
any old psychopaths?"
"Sure. They're not all killers, you know. It's a psych problem, like schizophrenia. It's not just the property of thirty-
somethings
. The ones who don't
get
caught
prob'ly
get old like any of us."
"I read somewhere that there aren't nearly as many psychopaths—sociopaths?—out there as the media want us to think. Something like one tenth of one percent of the population is a deviant sociopath."
"Well, good. Like the vampires aren't bad enough. They all seem like psychos to me."
"Tough one to argue," she admitted.
"You're right, though! It seems like every book, movie, and made-for-TV miniseries is about a brave young woman—always a shrink or an FBI agent—tracking down a serial killer who has mysteriously targeted her. Or her family. Or her dog. And she, along with the brave hero, must alone face the threat of the drooling
nutjob
—"
"
Taking Lives
wasn't so bad."
"Oh my God!" I shrieked, nearly driving into a stop sign. "Worst movie ever! I almost gave up on Angelina
Jolie
after that one."
"Too cerebral?"
"Oh, yeah, real cerebral.
Jolie
has sex with a guy who may or may not be the villain." Hmm, that didn't sound like anybody I knew, right?
Argh
. I shoved that thought into the tiny corner of my brain where I kept all bad thoughts:
Prada
going out of business, Sinclair coming to his senses and leaving me, me leaving him, the Ant moving in. "Jess, I love you, but—"
"Here we go."
"—you keep your taste in movies up your ass. I'm sorry, but it's true."
"Says the woman who bought
Blade IV
on DVD."
"That was research!"
"Oh, research my big black ass. You've got a thing for Wesley Snipes."
"First of all, what ass? And second, do not." I had pulled into our driveway, and we were just sitting in my Stratus, arguing, when I noticed that in addition to Jon's truck, there was a navy blue Ford Escort in my driveway.
Cop.
Detective Nick Berry, to be exact. I didn't have to see all the Milky Way bars on the passenger side floor to know, either. He'd had the same car ever since I'd known him.
"What's he doing here?" Jess asked.
I brought my head down so fast on the steering wheel, the car honked. "What now?" I groaned.
"Hmm, someone else who's desperately in love with you stopping by unannounced," Jessica said with annoying cheer. "Must be Tuesday."
"This is a serious problem."
"Oh, will you spare me please? 'I'm Betsy and I'm an eternally beautiful and young queen with the coolest guy in the universe boning me every night, and whenever he gets tired, other guys are lining up to take his place.
Waaaaaah
!' "
I gave her The Look.
"Sometimes," she admitted, "it's hard to empathize with your problems. Like they weren't trampling over me to get to you when you were alive."
"That's not true!" I said, shocked.
"What's more irritating—being invisible, or you not having a clue about your effect on men?"
"Jess, stop it. The last word I'd pick to describe you is
invisible
. You've dated senators, for God's sake."
She dismissed the Democrat with the great hair with a wave of her newly manicured hand. "Fortune hunter."
"Well, that one guy, no kidding. Okay, maybe there were three or four. But I'm just saying, having these guys popping up is a serious problem. And remember—half the time it isn't even me, it's my weird vampire
mojo
that's bringing them in. Like they say, just because they don't seem like problems doesn't mean they really aren't. Problems, I mean. For example, I'd like to have your tax troubles—"
"No, you wouldn't."
"Okay, I wouldn't. But I'm just saying. There are things going on in your life that I wish were going on in mine. Like lunch. Chewing. Sunrises."
"I'm usually in bed by then," she confessed.
"Well, you shouldn't be. Enjoy them while you can." It wasn't like me to be so serious about any particular subject, and I think she got it, because she just nodded and didn't make with the jokes.
"Before I get caught up in whatever fresh hell this is, please don't let me forget I'm supposed to baby-sit Baby Jon tomorrow night."
"Jon the Bee, Baby Jon the baby. Like that's not confusing. And don't forget your dad, John the Eternally Annoying."
"Don't give me anything new to worry about, I'm begging you."
"Me? It's not me, honey."
I got out to face the new problem. Maybe Nick was only there to break up my wedding. Sad when that was the cheerful thought I clung to.
"I'm the local liaison for the Driveway Killer task force," Nick explained, fussing with his coffee and finally putting it down on the coffee table in front of him.
"Driveway Killer?"
"The one who's yanking these poor women right out of their own driveways, strangling them, and then dumping the nude bodies in public parking lots?"
"Oh,
that
Driveway Killer." It was embarrassing to admit, but I never watched the news and I never read the paper. Not before I died, not after. (Well, I skimmed the birth announcements, but only since the Ant's eighth month, and never since Baby Jon came squalling into the world.) I mean, seriously. Why bother? It was never, ever anything good. Even in
I mean, I never even checked the weather reports anymore. And I sure as shit didn't watch TV; I was a DVD girl.
So while Nick was looking amazed that I could live in the same state with rampant media coverage (was there any other kind?) of a killer, Jessica was just nodding. My massive ignorance of current events was nothing new to her.
"Yeah, I've read about him."
"Who hasn't?" I asked gamely.
They ignored me, which I deserved. "And you're on the task force?"
"Yeah."
"To catch a serial killer."
"Yeah."
She tried to muffle it, but the laugh escaped anyway. I knew why—what had we just been talking about ten minutes ago? It was ludicrous.
