Sixth Grave on the Edge

11

It’s a beautiful day.

I think I’ll skip my meds and stir things up a bit.

—BUMPER STICKER

After convincing one of my best friends on the planet to give me some time on the Men in Black case, I headed over to the Fosters’ house since I was on that side of town anyway. I was now as curious as Cookie about what they looked like. Were they fair skinned like their son? If so, how was Reyes so dark? So exotic?

One possibility that came to mind was, naturally, did he look like his real father? Did he look like Lucifer? If so, and he’d chosen the Fosters to be his human parents on earth, did he not consider their fair coloring when choosing a potential family?

Of course he did. Reyes was too smart not to.

I pulled up to an empty house that was for sale and pretended to be a potential buyer, looking this way and that before settling in and checking my phone. There was also a yard sale a couple of houses up, yielding a steady flow of traffic, so I blended right in. I knew Mrs. Foster would be home soon, so I sat outside, checking my e-mail and doodling in my memo pad. My doodles turned to words that eventually turned to names. Charley Farrow, I wrote, liking the feel of it, the look of it. Charley Davidson Farrow. Or should I hyphenate it? What were women doing these days? Mrs. Reyes Farrow. Farrow. I could get very used to that name.

I glanced up just in time to see a Prius pull into the Fosters’ garage. The door came down before I could see her, just like before, but I’d see her soon enough. I took out the case file Agent Carson had given me, the one of the kidnapping almost thirty years ago.

I glanced at my sidekick and made a mental note to carve out some time to go see his wife, Mrs. Andrulis. The poor guy needed to be done with whatever it was he’d left unfinished. I couldn’t have him running around naked forever. It just seemed wrong.

“I’m having a hard time not looking at your penis.”

“I get that a lot.”

I jumped in response to the voice coming from my backseat and slammed my memo pad closed. Reyes popped in, very hot and very … corporeal. He seemed more solid now than he used to be. Less incorporeal. The departed were always solid to me, but they didn’t look solid. And while Reyes had always had more color than the actual departed, he was still incorporeal. Not quite flesh but not quite spirit. Something in between. Lately, however, he was leaning toward the flesh.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

“Nothing. I was going to a yard sale. I’m in need of a new yard and—look! There’s one for sale.”

He looked across the street straight at the Fosters’ house. “Okay,” he said, and I felt a tinge of anger rise in him. “So, what are you waiting for?”

“I’m scoping out the situation,” I said, hoping he’d believe me but knowing deep down inside I’d lost the game before it ever began. With my plans foiled, I decided to go to the yard sale anyway. I’d show him.

I climbed down from Misery and shut her door, leaving my nigh fiancé in there to simmer and stew.

Three women who’d been arguing were still arguing when I walked up. Their disagreements seemed to center around the items in the yard sale. Two were dressed to the nines in mid-twentieth-century apparel. I guessed them to have died in the 1950s or ’60s. The third one, and the smallest, was in a fluffy pink robe with a V embroidered on the chest and tiny house slippers.

“Oh, I remember that music box,” she said, looking on as a young girl picked it up and opened the lid. “Daddy made it. He gave it to you, Maddy, on your sixteenth birthday.”

“No, he didn’t, Vera,” the tallest of the three said. “He gave it to Tilda on her twelfth birthday.” She gestured to the third woman, who nodded in agreement.

The first one, Vera, was having none of that. “Madison Grace, I remember that box, and I remember the day he gave it to you.”

“He gave Maddy a picture frame on her sixteenth birthday,” Tilda said.

“No, he gave me a picture frame on my fifteenth birthday.”

“Was it your fifteenth?” she asked, looking skyward in thought. “I thought that was the year you were sent to your room for sneaking a kiss with Bradford Kingsley in the broom closet.”

“I never kissed Bradford Kingsley,” Maddy said, appalled. “We were just talking. And besides, he liked Sarah Steed.”

All three heads dropped in unison, apparently remembering their friend fondly.

“Poor girl,” Vera said. “She had such bad breath.”

They all nodded sadly before Tilda added, “If only she could’ve outrun that rooster, she and Bradford may have eventually married.”

I watched the three reminisce with no one the wiser. The tiny one, Vera, seemed to be the oldest, with Tilda second and Maddy bringing up the rear. Watching them was kind of like watching a sitcom. And since I rarely had time for TV anymore, I stood back and took complete advantage of the entertainment.

They started arguing again about a paint set as the little girl took the box she’d found to her mother. The woman’s eyes sparkled with interest. “How much is this?” she asked a man sitting in a lawn chair.

“I’ll take two and a quarter.”

“Two and a quarter?” Vera yelled, rocketing out of her melancholy. She shook a fist at the man. “I’ll give you an even five square in the jaw. How’s that?”

“Don’t get your hackles up,” Maddy said, eyeing her elder sister.

Vera cupped her ear and leaned forward. “What?”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Vera Dawn, you can hear me just fine, now. We’re dead.”

“What?”

Tilda shook her head and looked over at me. “She does that to annoy us.”

I laughed softly and scanned the small crowd to make sure no one was paying too close attention. “Would you like to cross?” I asked them.

“Goodness, no,” Maddy said. “We’re waiting for our sister. We all want to cross together.”

That was new.

“That sounds nice. You know where I’ll be when you’re ready.”

“Sure do,” Vera said. “You’re kind of hard to miss.”

I spotted an old piece of equipment sitting lopsided on a card table. “What is that?” I asked, my eyes glossing over in fascination.

“Not really sure,” the man in the lawn chair said.

“Maddy, your grandson always was a dirty scoundrel.” She looked at me. “His poor mother hasn’t been in the nursing home a week, and he’s selling everything she ever owned.”

“Everything any of us ever owned,” Tilda said. “And that’s a lie detector. Our father worked for Hoover, don’t cha know.”

“That Hoover was an odd man,” Vera said, her nose crinkling in distaste.

Maddy frowned at her. “How come you can suddenly hear?”

Vera cupped her ear again. “What?”

I stifled a giggle. “A polygraph machine? For real?”

“What?” This time it was the dirty scoundrel of a grandson who’d asked.

“Does it work?”

“No idea,” he said before lifting a beer.

“Does it work?” Maddy asked as though I’d offended her. “It works like a dream. I used it on Tilda once when she went out with my boyfriend behind my back.”

“That wasn’t me, Maddy. That was Esther. And because you had no clue what you were doing, the results were inconclusive.”

“How much?” I asked the man.

He shrugged. “I’ll take twenty for it.”

“Sold.”

“Twenty? Twenty dollars? That should be in a museum, not in a yard sale. That boy needs his hide tanned something fierce.”

I paid the guy, then walked back over to them. “I agree. If this is original FBI equipment, I bet I can get it to the right people.”

“You can do that?” Maddy asked.

“I can try,” I said with a shrug.

“Thank you,” Vera said.

I nodded and took my prize.

“I did too know what I was doing,” Maddy said as I walked off. “I just chose to be the bigger person.”

Tilda snorted and the arguments began again. I almost felt sorry for their sister Esther. She had a lot of baggage waiting for her when she passed.

I decided to drop off the polygraph machine at home before checking in at the office. If Agent Carson and I were still friends, I would give it to her with explicit instructions to get it to the right people. Surely there was an FBI museum somewhere, and it could earn me brownie points. I was a firm believer in brownie points. They were like Cheez-Its. And Oreos. And mocha lattes. One could never have too many.

As I was driving home, however, an elderly woman appeared out of nowhere in the street ahead of me. Reflexes being what they were, I swerved to the right, narrowly missing a herd of parked bikes and sideswiping Misery against a streetlamp.

I screeched to a halt, hitting my forehead on the steering wheel

The woman had been in a paper-thin nightgown, both the gown and her hair a soft baby blue. Though I’d only seen her a second, it was enough to register the fear on her face, in her fragile shoulders. She looked nothing like Aunt Lil, but I couldn’t help but compare the two. If Lil was scared and lost, I would search the world over for her. That was the impression I’d gotten from this woman.

Thankfully, the area I was in at the moment wasn’t super busy. No one noticed my little mishap. I glanced over to check on Mr. Andrulis. He was still staring straight ahead, nary a care in the world, so I scanned the area for the woman. She was gone.

Left with no other choice, I pulled back onto the street and started for home again, only to have the woman appear again. In the middle of the road.

It took every ounce of strength I had to curb my knee-jerk reaction and slam on the brakes. Swerve to the side. Hit something. I bit down and braked slowly as we drove through the woman. After checking traffic, I pulled into an empty parking lot and got out. She was gone again.

No way was I playing this game all day. I’d kill someone at the rate I was going. So I crossed my arms, crossed my ankles, and leaned against Misery in wait. After another minute or two, the woman appeared again. She materialized right in front of Misery, looked around as though trying to gain her bearings, then disappeared again. I rounded the front of my Jeep and waited. This time when she appeared, I gently took hold of her arm.

She blinked, then furrowed her brows, squinted her eyes, presumably against my brightness, and looked up at me.

“Hi,” I said softly about a microsecond before she hauled her foot back and kicked me in the shin so hard, it brought tears to my eyes. I let go of her, took hold of my shin, and hopped around, cursing under my breath. After gathering myself, I turned and glared at her. “That had to hurt your toes.” She was barefoot, after all. “Please tell me that hurt your toes.”

“Where are you taking him?” she demanded, her wrinkled face, like cracked porcelain, puckering in anger. She raised a fist at me, reminding me very much of Vera from the yard sale.

“Your name isn’t Esther, is it?” I asked. She could have been the sister they were waiting for.

“My name is none of your concern, hussy. You give him back this minute.”

Hussy? “Hashtag color-me-confused,” I said her. “And this week’s insanity award goes to the crazy lady with the blue hair.”

“I ain’t crazy, and you give him back. I heard about women like you.”

She eyed me up and down like I repulsed her. I was horridly offended.

“No. I’m not giving him back.” I leaned in and said through my teeth still gritting in pain, “You can’t have him.” Then I frowned in thought. “Who?”

“Like you don’t know.”

I had a thousand comebacks, but none of them made sense. One can only say things like Your mama and Stick a sock in it in certain situations. So I gave up on the smart-ass route.

“Look, little crazy lady, I have no idea who you’re talking about.”

She focused on something over my shoulder, and I looked back at Mr. Andrulis.

“Wait, Mr. A? He’s yours?” I asked, suddenly hopeful.

Her anger evaporated the minute she looked at my naked dead man. “We were married over fifty years ago. And I catch him in a car with a hussy. After all this time!” She broke down and sobbed into her fists. In the span of sixty seconds, she went from angry to nostalgic to grief-stricken.

“You didn’t happen to be on medication when you died, did you? Perhaps something in an antipsychotic?”

Her gaze slid up over her fists. And back to anger.

“Look,” I said, putting a hand on her shoulder. “He’s only here because he’s been waiting for you.” That was an educated guess. He’d never told me why he was there. Wait, maybe it was to get away from his spouse. Maybe he’d come to me seeking refuge. That would suck since I just handed him over to her.

I walked her around to the passenger door, suddenly realizing to my utter mortification we had an audience. Correction, since the onlookers could hardly see the little crazy lady, I and I alone had an audience. Wonderful. I opened Mr. Andrulis’s door and put a hand on his arm to hopefully draw him to me. With his wife close by, it could work this time.

And it did. He slowly turned toward me, then glanced over at his wife.

“Charles?” she said.

Luckily I realized she was talking to him and not me before I answered.

She stepped closer and I moved out of the way. “Charles, what are you doing with this hussy?”

Oh. Em. Gee.

“After all these years—”

Dawning realization and a knowing smile crept across his face. He lifted a hand and wiped a tear off her cheek.

They didn’t say anything else. They embraced and hugged for several minutes as I surveyed the damage to the side of Misery. Freaking light pole came out of nowhere. Fortunately, the scratches were very superficial. Surely they could just be buffed out.

My audience, which consisted of three kids on Huffy bikes, stood waiting for me to explode again and argue with air, their phones at the ready. I so did not want to go viral. Praying they hadn’t thought to record my earlier confrontation with Mrs. Andrulis, I went about my business, ignoring them. But any second now, I was going to have to explain to the Andrulises who I was and what I was and let them know they could cross through me if they wanted to. I’d have to pull the talking-into-the-phone routine. But before it even came to that, they were through.

It happened so fast and unexpectedly, it made me dizzy. I sank onto one knee as their memories flashed in my mind. Charles Andrulis was born in Chicago and stationed at Kirtland Air Force Base for two months before he was blindsided by a redheaded concession worker at the local movie theater. It was love at first sight, but he was so afraid to ask her out, so afraid she’d say no, that he simply stole her employee-of-the-month picture off the wall. He was sent to war a week later, but he carried that picture with him everywhere, cursing himself for being so stupid, vowing to ask her to marry him the next time he saw her. If he made it back alive.

He did and he did.

He made it back alive albeit a bit roughed up, but by the time he got out of the hospital and back to New Mexico, the redhead no longer worked at the theater.

But she’d been good friends with a couple of the employees there and he found her the next day, working the reception desk at a local law office.

Taking no more chances, he walked straight up to her—or, well, limped up—in full dress uniform, struggled to get to one knee in front of her, and proposed. At which point, the feisty redhead slapped the ever-lovin’ crap out of him. But not before she, too, fell in love. They were married a week later and what followed was a whirlwind of children and grandchildren, of long workdays and short family vacations, of struggling to survive and loving each other through the worst of times.

When I blinked back to the present, the air cool against the wetness on my cheeks, I realized something that had never even occurred to me before. Life really was short. The Andrulises’ lives were rich and colorful, even the bad parts. But it was worth every second. Charles had never once regretted marrying … Beverly. Her name was Beverly.

I liked her.

I carried the heavy polygraph machine up the two flights of stairs to my apartment, vowing to get an elevator installed the first chance I got. How expensive could they be? My phone rang the minute I sat it on my kitchen table. The convent where Quentin lived on the weekends appeared on the caller ID. Sister Mary Elizabeth, a very interesting woman who could hear the conversations of angels, was on the other end. I could tell something was wrong the moment she spoke.

“Charley?” she said, her voice quivering.

“Hey, Sis, what’s up?”

“It’s Quentin. The School for the Deaf called. He left campus this morning and has been gone all day. He’s never done this. Have you seen him?”

Alarmed, I asked, “Have you tried his phone?”

“Yes. I’ve texted him several times and tried to do a video chat with him. Nothing. He’s not picking up.”

The alarm level rose. That was so unlike Quentin. He was the sweetest kid on the planet. Well, most of the time. He was a beautiful blond-haired, blue-eyed sixteen-year-old whom I’d met when his physical body was possessed by a demon. The demon was ripped to shreds by my handy-dandy Rottweiler guardian, and Quentin had been a friend ever since. He had no family and lived at the convent with the sisters when he wasn’t at school. I wasn’t sure how the Catholic church felt about that—but so far, so good. At least he hadn’t been kicked out yet, but if Quentin started misbehaving in any way, I couldn’t imagine the church would let him stay there much longer.

“Okay, let me see what I can do.”

The moment I hung up, Cookie rushed upstairs and barreled into her apartment. I walked across the hall and watched her as she searched it.

“What are you looking for?”

“Amber,” she said, diving for her phone. “I went to pick her up from school and she wasn’t there. The office said she was marked absent all day. Why didn’t they call me?” She was panicking, but I was amassing an all-consuming kind of dread.

Surely they wouldn’t have.

Before I could tell Cookie about Quentin, my phone rang again. “It’s Amber,” I said to her, then put an index finger over my mouth to shush her before answering. I had a feeling I knew what was going on. And I had a feeling I knew why Amber was calling me instead of her mother.

“Hey, kiddo, how was school?” I said, unable to resist.

“Aunt Charley?” she said, her voice quivering more than Sister Mary Elizabeth’s, and that dread I’d felt rose like a tidal wave inside me.

“Pumpkin, what’s wrong?”

“We’re at the top of the tramway. Something happened. I need you to come get us.”

“Are you hurt?”

“No, we’re … okay. It’s just, Quentin is kind of freaking out. He won’t talk to anyone but you. He’s really scared. We were supposed to be back before school let out, but we got up here and he just lost it. I’m so worried about him.”

Relief washed over me so completely, my knees almost buckled. “Stay on the line. I’m leaving now.”

“Please don’t tell my mom.”

Damn it. I knew she’d called me for a reason. “I won’t. Stay right where you are.”

Cookie pawed at me, frantic for information on her daughter. I covered the phone while retrieving my bag and keys. “They’re okay,” I said to her quietly. “They decided to skip school and take the tram to Sandia Peak. But something happened with Quentin.”

“Oh, my goodness, what? Is he hurt?”

“No. She said he’s scared. Either he has a fear of heights he didn’t know about or something else happened. Something supernatural.”

She grabbed her bag. “I’m going with you.”

“No, she didn’t want me to tell you, and you have to pretend I didn’t.”

“What? Charley, this is no time to be the beloved aunt. She skipped school. Anything could have happened. She is going to be grounded for the rest of her natural-born life if I let her live that long.”

“I just promised her I wouldn’t tell you. Besides, you have a date to get ready for.”

“A date?” she screeched. “You’ve got to be kidding. I can’t go on a date.”

“I went to a lot of trouble to set this up. You can’t leave me hanging, Cook. And this is just as much for Amber. You need to act like you know nothing about this.”

“Why? So you can be the hero? I am perfectly happy with being the bad guy in this, Charley. She will be punished for skipping school and pulling something so dangerous.”

“I know,” I said, putting a hand on her arm. “And she’ll do the right thing. You watch. But let her be the one to tell you, Cook. If she knows I told you, she’ll never trust me again.”

“I can’t be worried about your relationship with her—”

“She tells me everything, Cook,” I said, trying to get my meaning across. “She asked me the other day about contraception.”

After an absorption rate of approximately twenty-four bytes per second, taking into account the limited RAM we were working with, Cookie screamed at me. “She’s twelve!”

I winced and pressed the phone against me harder, hoping Amber hadn’t heard. It did sound bad when I said it aloud. “I was going to tell you, I swear.” Then I beamed at her. “She told me she wants to wait until she’s married to have sex.”

Cookie calmed instantly.

“But she doesn’t know when she will want to have kids, so she was asking me the best methods.”

“And you fell for that?”

“I have a lie detector built into my genetic code, remember? She hasn’t done anything. I promise. And in case you’re wondering, Quentin is a virgin, too.”

“I so don’t want to know how you know that.”

“I scrolled through her texts one night when she was over,” I explained regardless. “I had to make sure there was nothing going on. I’m the one who brought him into your lives. It would kill me if something happened to Amber that you’d resent me for.”

“Charley, Amber is her own girl. I would never blame you—”

I heard Amber talking into the phone and held up a finger to put Cookie on pause. “I’m here. I’m headed that way now.”

When I pressed the phone to my shirt again, Cookie just said, “Go.”

I tore out of the apartment and ran to Misery. The tram was only about fifteen minutes away from me, then another twenty-minute ride to the top. I prayed Quentin would hold on.

It didn’t take me long to figure out what the problem was, why Quentin wouldn’t take the tram back down the mountain. There simply weren’t many things creepier than a dead girl in rags staring you down. She must have picked up on the fact that Quentin could see her like she did with me. She stood in front of me, her long dark hair in matted strings over her face, hiding most of it. But her eyes shone through the strands. Especially when she got close, as in an inch from my nose, and glared, her eyes completely void of life. It didn’t matter which direction I turned, she was there, nose to nose, staring me down like a gangsta. She’d probably crawled out of a TV screen at some point in her life. Or death. Either way.

But I had to give it to Quentin. He was right not to want to come back down. She was creepy as heck. I didn’t want to take the ride back down either.

I’d taken out my phone and tried to talk to her, but she just stared. Not really seeing. I couldn’t even look out over the gorgeous landscape. If I turned to look out a glass panel, she’d appear in front of me, hovering outside the rail car, creeping me out even more.

“Look,” I said to her, gripping my phone harder, “cut this crap out and cross through me.” Everyone quieted and shuffled their feet. I couldn’t blame them. My one-sided conversations with the departed often sounded weird even on the phone. But I couldn’t help that now. “You are scaring people. Are you doing it on purpose?”

Nothing.

We were nearing the top of the tram, and I didn’t know if I could get Quentin down the mountain if she was still hanging around. Maybe I could make him close his eyes. But it would be better if she’d just cross.

I lowered my head and gathered my energy. I’d never tried something like this, but maybe I could make her cross whether she wanted to or not. I waited until the energy inside me calmed, then sent it out, softly, coaxingly, to lure her in. It seemed to be working. She moved closer to me. And ran smack into my face.

Wonderful. Now I was standing in a car full of people with a dead girl stuck to my face. This was so wrong.

As Angel was about to tell me. “That looks so wrong, pendeja. It’s creeping me out.”

I spoke through clenched teeth. She clung like a magnet. I couldn’t shake her off without looking like a complete spaz. Not that something like that ever stopped me, but still.

“Join the club. How do I get her off?”

He laughed, enjoying my agony. Her right eye was practically touching my left one. Our eyelashes met when I blinked. When I moved, she moved. When I stepped back, she floated forward. It had been a long time since I’d been this creeped out.

“You look like Siamese twins.”

“Conjoined twins,” I corrected him, “and for the love of pancake syrup, get her off me.”

“I ain’t touching that. She’s like that girl from the movie.”

“The Ring?” I asked, surprised that he’d seen it. He died long before it was made.

“No, the movie where that girl who gets possessed turns her head all the way around.”

“Oh, The Exorcist.”

“That movie was messed up.”

“Yeah, I can see the resemblance. Now, get her off me!”

He doubled over as the car came to a stop. The passengers couldn’t seem to get off the car fast enough. No idea why. The attendant stood there, waiting for me to disembark.

“Ma’am, do you need help?”

“Can you just give me a minute?” I asked.

“I have to load the next group of passengers.”

“Okay, you go get them, and I’ll just stand here and reflect on the beauty in front of me.”

Angel fell to the floor, laughing so hard, he had to draw his knees to his chest. Little shit.

“I’m going to beat you to death with a frying pan.”

“Oh, please, pendeja, you don’t own a frying pan.” He wiped his eyes and tried to sober. “That girl’s messed up in the head. Just heal her. You can make her cross.”

“I tried that. Now I have a girl stuck to my face. I can only barely see through her. How am I going to go through life with a girl stuck to my face?”

And again with the fit of laughs. The next group of passengers were boarding. I had to get off this car now. I gave it one more shot. I reached out to her, into her, let my energy meld with hers until I found her huddled in a dark corner of her mind. I wrapped my energy around her, cradled her, and coaxed her closer. That was when I felt it. The trauma of what had happened to her.

“If you’re staying, miss, you need to disembark now,” the attendant said.

“I’m staying,” I said breathlessly, the agony inside her seizing my lungs until she finally relaxed and slipped through.

She’d crossed, but when that happens, I see things. I catch glimpses of the departed’s life. What their favorite pet was or what their first snow cone tasted like. But I didn’t get that with this girl.

“Ma’am, I need to close this door. We’re on a schedule.”

I was still in the middle of her crossing. Images flashed bright hot in my mind, hateful and terrifying. The unimaginable things she suffered through had left her forever scarred, the abrasive texture of her memories undeniable proof. She’d been abused by her mother and ignored by her father, never seen, never cared for, and completely abandoned on the day he committed suicide, leaving her in the sole care of a monster. Even her brother ignored her, most likely because he was scared to incur their mother’s wrath as well. So, instead of standing up for his sister, he joined in, laughing when her mother called her stupid, turning a blind eye when her mother tripped her and she fell with a pot of boiling water. She’d burned her hands and face in the water. Those burns were still visible when she died.

These were the things I didn’t want to see. The things I couldn’t wash away, no matter how much scrubbing I did. Miranda—her name was Miranda—was the product of a failed system. While I didn’t see her death specifically, it was crystal clear she’d died at her mother’s hands in a way that was so horrific, so nonsensical, my mind rebelled, my stomach contracted, and the world pitched to the side. I stumbled when I tried to get off the car. Angel caught me and lifted me to him. No, not Angel. A man. At the moment, I didn’t care whom. I accepted the help, grabbed on to the tan jacket sleeves, and hefted myself up. I just needed to get through the worst of it. Despite everything she’d been through, the most prevalent emotion that she’d carried even into her death was a deep and abiding love for her brother. The same brother who looked the other way when her mother came at her.

I swallowed back bile as the images began to fade. Not that they would ever fade completely, but I needed to find Amber and Quentin. I would have fallen out of the car if not for the man holding me. The attendant hurried over, and I waved him away before pushing out of the man’s grasp and lunging toward the corner of the landing. I grabbed hold of the railing and proceeded to empty the paltry contents of my stomach onto the wood platform. Sinking to my knees, I almost hyperventilated as my stomach convulsed way more times than was necessary, dry heaving until it became embarrassing.

After a solid minute of that crap, I wiped my mouth on my jacket sleeve and took out my phone to dial Amber.

She picked up immediately. “Are you here yet?”

“I’m here,” I said, filling my hot lungs with the cool air of Sandia Peak. It was always several degrees cooler at the top of the mountain, and it felt good. Helped calm my stomach and clear my head until I could at least see to ascend the dozens of ramps that led to High Finance, the restaurant at the top of the peak.

“We’re sitting outside the restaurant, against the back wall. Please, hurry, Aunt Charley. Something’s wrong and I can’t understand him. He’s signing too fast for me to understand.”

“I’m almost there, sweetheart,” I said, bolting to my feet.

The man held out a hand and I looked up to thank him, only to come face-to-face with Captain Eckert. He’d followed me. Had he been in the same car? I never saw him. He was wearing a tan jacket and knit cap, clearly a master of disguise. Then again, I did have a girl stuck to my face on the ride up.

I could tell by the disappointment lining his features he hadn’t wanted me to see him. I longed so very much to confront him right then and there, but at that moment, I needed him.

“Come with me,” I said, grabbing on to his jacket again for stability. I dragged him until we were both running up the ramps, rushing past the sightseers enjoying the gorgeous scenery the Land of Enchantment had to offer. Eckert helped me every step of the way, catching me when I stumbled, picking me up once when I fell hard onto my right knee. My vision was still impaired by Miranda’s memories. I couldn’t quite navigate the uneven grounds right. The world tipped perilously onto its side over and over. I kept expecting the captain to ask me if I’d been drinking, but to his credit, he kept his mouth shut.

Angel was still there, too. He followed behind us.

Uncaring of anything the captain thought about me anymore, I spoke to him. “Go find them, hon, and tell me exactly where they are.”

“Already did.” He dashed past us and led the way. “Over here,” he said when we topped the stairs to the restaurant. He pointed and I rushed over to Quentin and Amber.

“Aunt Charley!” She ran into my arms. “I’m so sorry. Something’s wrong. He won’t talk to me anymore.”

Quentin sat against the back wall of the restaurant with his head between his knees, his arms covering himself protectively. Miranda had been creepy. I’d give him that. But this was more.

I touched his arm, but he didn’t respond.

“What’s wrong with him?” Amber asked. “We were just going to ride up here and look around, then be back before school let out.”

“When did he start getting upset?” I asked her.

“On the ride up. He got real nervous and then just kind of shrank into himself. He couldn’t look out the windows and kept waving me away from him. A lady asked me if he was afraid of heights, but he said he wasn’t.”

“No, hon, he wasn’t,” I said. I barely took note of the captain hovering nearby. Whatever he was up to, whatever he was planning, he could bite my ass. I rubbed Quentin’s shoulders, trying to coax him back to me while I fought the aftereffects of Miranda’s memories. I squeezed my eyes shut and shook my head to clear it. Her agony was so great, so all-consuming. She’d loved her mother so much and never understood why the woman who gave birth to her didn’t love her back. But the fault surely rested on her shoulders. She’d been so certain. She’d caused her own misery. She deserved it.

It didn’t matter now. She was in greater hands than mine. Hands that truly knew how to heal. He’d help her understand that none of that was her fault.

And if he was as just as I hoped, her mother would spend eternity burning for her transgressions.

I fought so many things at once. Pain, agony, helplessness, and anger. The anger was all mine. I clenched my jaw so tight, my teeth hurt.

After swallowing hard, I tried again with Quentin. “Angel,” I said, waving him closer.

“I’m sorry about that girl, Charley. I didn’t know.”

“I didn’t either, hon. But what can I do for Quentin?”

“I don’t know. He’s still alive. That’s not really my area.” When I turned back in disappointment, he said, “But he’s like the girl. He’s not thinking right. Maybe you could do what you did with her.”

I started to argue with him but stopped and rethought his suggestion. It was certainly worth a shot. I petted Quentin’s blond hair and let my energy gather in my core. Let it build and swell like a rising storm. But before I could send it out, Quentin looked up, his cerulean blue eyes glistening with fear and uncertainty. I let the energy inside me disperse and touched his handsome face. As though it took him a moment to recognize me, he furrowed his brows, then blinked and rushed into my arms.

We sat like that a long time, on the back deck of the restaurant, swaying to the music streaming from inside. Well, I swayed to the music. After a long while, I glanced at my gang. Amber was standing close by, wringing the knit cap in her hands. Angel was sitting against the wall next to us. He seemed very curious about Quentin, and I couldn’t believe I’d never introduced them.

Captain Eckert was leaning against the bright red railing that encircled the restaurant in thick wooden planks. It was a beautiful place and a stunning view.

“What’s wrong with him?” the captain asked.

I pasted on my best glare. “I’ll deal with you later.”

Though the captain wasn’t used to being treated so harshly, especially by one of APD’s lowly consultants, he didn’t argue. He didn’t threaten. He just stood there, observing, probably taking notes and weighing the possibility of getting me fired for mental instability.

After a while, Quentin finally pulled back and told me he couldn’t get on the cable car. He couldn’t go home.

“Is it the girl?” I asked him.

A look of surprise flashed across his face, but it didn’t last. He knew who I was, what I was, and that we had a lot in common. He nodded.

“I saw her, too,” I signed. “She was scared and lost.”

He gaped at me. “She was scared and lost?”

“Yes, she crossed through me. She didn’t want to at first, but I … convinced her. She was very hurt by her family.”

“They abused her?” he asked.

I nodded. “Bad.”

“Like hit her?”

“And worse. She was so scared.”

He looked down. “I could feel that, too. I could feel how dark her world was. How empty. It made my stomach hurt.”

“Mine, too, but how did you feel that?” I was beginning to realize Quentin could do more than just see the departed.

“I didn’t tell you.”

“So, tell me now,” I said. I reached over and ruffled his hair.

That got his attention. He smoothed it into place, peeking at Amber, then did the same to mine, ruffling my chocolaty locks while wearing a mischievous glint in his eyes. My hair was a mess anyway, so I just left it.

“If the spirit touches me, I can see how it feels,” he said.

“Wow. That’s crazy.”

“It’s messed up. I don’t like it.” He shrank back when he thought about it.

“I’m sorry. Sometimes the departed carry a lot of baggage.”

“Like suitcases?” he asked, confused.

I chuckled. “Sorry, hearing idiom. Like they have a lot of problems weighing them down.”

“Oh, yeah. Just like people, I guess.”

“Yeah, but that’s super cool that you can do that.” When he stabbed me with a dubious stare, I said, “Try it on Angel.”

“Screw that, pendeja.” Angel jumped up, but I took his arm before he could vanish on me and jerked him back down. “This is Angel.”

Angel graced him with the ever-popular head nod, then stuck out his hand to shake. Quentin shook his hand, then asked him, “Do you know ASL?”

Angel shrugged, so I interpreted.

“No, man, I’m sorry. I wish I did.”

I relayed that message but added, “He will learn.”

Angel’s brows shot up, and he nodded in agreement. “That’d be cool.”

“Okay, now that that’s settled, did you feel anything when you touched him?”

Quentin shrugged. “He’s pretty happy. It’s nice.”

“It’s because he has me,” I said, then winked at them both.

“I want to learn that stuff,” Angel said, now very into the idea. “You have to teach me.”

“I ain’t teaching you anything,” I said, speaking and signing at the same time. “Go hang with him at the school in Santa Fe. You’ll learn all kinds of signs.”

“That’s true,” Quentin said; then he looked up at Amber. The minute he did, she fell to her knees in front of us. “I’m so sorry,” he said to her.

“Please, don’t be,” she signed. I was so proud of her. She’d learned a lot in the last two weeks since meeting him. Kids. Freaking little sponges. “I understand. You see things I can’t. I want—” She struggled with the next words, then added, “—I want me and you to be the same. I want to see what you see.”

He frowned. “No, you don’t. It’s not fun.”

“I know it’s not easy. I’ve known Charley for a long time. She always tries to help dead people and gets in trouble. I wish,” she voiced but didn’t know the sign, so she started that sentence again. “I want I could help her.”

I made sure to put it into my next sentence so she’d pick it up. “I wish we were off this mountain. Your mother is going to kill me about fifteen minutes after the nuns trample me to death trying to get to you. They are all worried sick.”

Their guilt hit me in one rock-solid wave. Good. Served ’em right. Then a thought occurred.

“Wait a minute,” I said as we stood and gathered ourselves. “How many times have you two done this?”

“This is the first time,” Quentin said, his expression full of earnestness.

“I meant, how many times have you two skipped school?”

Their gazes instantly locked; then Amber’s dropped to the ground in guilt.

“Quentin!” I shouted. Or, well, signed really fast. “Amber is twelve years old.”

“I’ll be thirteen next week!” she said.

“I’m thirteen,” Angel said.

I ignored him. “You are sixteen, Quentin. That is so wrong.”

He gaped at me. “You think—?” He stopped and shook his head at me. “No way. She’s just a kid. We’re friends.”

Well, I’d put my foot in it. Amber winced at the pain that overtook her. His words had hurt. Clearly she thought they were more.

I turned to her and voiced my next words, holding my hand up to block Quentin’s view so he couldn’t read my lips. He tried to see past it, but I spoke fast. “He’s lying,” I said to her. “Whatever you do, for the love of all things holy, please don’t let your mother know you two have kissed.”

Quentin may have been able to hide that one, but there was no way Amber could have managed it. Guilt once again radiated out of her.

I gasped and turned to Quentin, appalled. “You kissed her?”

“What? No.”

Amber caught on. She stamped her foot. “Aunt Charley, you tricked me.”

I was still busy being appalled at Quentin.

He stuffed his hands into his pockets before he said another word.

“Wise decision,” I said before stalking away. Or trying to. The world toppled again and I tripped, flying headfirst into Captain Eckert. Oh, well. Better that than pitching myself off the side of a mountain. And he’d be fine once his cracked ribs healed.