Kellen gave her a dubious look. “I did just take a sabbatical from teaching because of it, didn’t I? I’d say it’s going the way of the country’s economy as of late. To shit. I can’t get a handle on this the way you did, D. Maybe I’m not patient enough. But I gotta say you were much better at putting the pieces of some ghost’s story together than I’ll ever be. I spend more time ducking the shit they throw at me than I do understanding what they want. Remember the last guy who showed up and wanted me to pass on that message to a woman, only I didn’t know the woman was his
wife
?”
Both Clyde and Delaney winced. “I do,” she said.
“Do you suppose I deserved to be slugged because I found said wife with his old boss—in bed? I thought he just wanted to know she was happy. I told him she seemed pretty happy with the whole glow thing she had going on.”
Delaney shook a finger at him as she settled back onto the couch. “I told you, you have to be careful what you relay to them. They’re crafty and some use their afterlife to gather information so they can exact revenge. You’re a conduit now, but you have to be a sensitive one. What I still don’t get is that they’re able to touch you . . . I never . . .”
But Kellen wasn’t listening. It helped to rant about this gift, which had been thrust on him without warning, to someone who understood. “Oh, yeah. It’s a real perk. I had a black eye for two weeks from that bastard. That’s without even mentioning the craziness that ensued in my classroom.” Between dead sports heroes and singers showing up and the mayhem when an angry ghost had chucked the globe of the world at him, just missing a student by a hair, Kellen had had to make the choice to take a sabbatical so he could figure out this ghost thing. Delaney had offered to let him run the store with the help of Mrs. Ramirez.
Business had picked up since Delaney’s showdown with Lucifer. So when she and Clyde had decided it was time to start a family and move to Long Island, they’d offered it to Kellen as a way for him to at least have some income while he got his gift of sight under control.
Delaney hopped back off the couch again and paced. “Wait. Did you touch Marcella?”
He shifted in the big, poofy chair he sat in by the couch. “Touch her?”
“You know what I mean, Kel. Did you touch her? Did she touch you?”
“I grabbed her arm.”
Threatened to take her out
. So, yeah. He’d touched her. And yes, she’d touched him. The fire she’d created with just her fingers had left a burning imprint.
“Oh. My. God,” Delaney yelped. “I know why she wouldn’t tell you where she’s been, Kellen. And if I’m honest, I have to say, we have a shitload of work to do on your ghostie antennae. She’s a ghost, Kellen! Don’t you see? She walked through the store’s door. You touched her and I’d bet she touched you. I’d also bet my new AeroGarden only
you
can see her. Oh, shit. How the hell did this happen? We have to find her.”
“How am I supposed to find her, Delaney? None of the ghosts you were once buddy-buddy with will give me the time of day, much less help me locate Marcella. I don’t even know how she got to the store in the first place.”
“That’s because you keep stomping all over them with your size elevens. You’re just a big Neanderthal when it comes to being a sympathetic ear. And she got to the store because I’d bet my last case of Saint-John’s-wort you were thinking about her.” When Kellen made an effort to dispute her claim, despite the fact that it was dead-on, she threw up a hand. “Don’t bother. You’re only kidding yourself if you think we don’t know you thought Marcella was hot. She needed a conduit to call her from the afterlife—which means you were doing some heavy breathing in the thinking department.” Her smile was smug.
“But I’ve thought about her before,” he defended, only to realize he was just digging a bigger hole. He slumped down in his chair, clamping his mouth shut and shooting Clyde a dirty look for snickering.
Delaney scrunched her lips up. “I’ll just bet my bippy you have, brother. But despite your crappy medium techniques, you’re getting stronger, and your will to see Marcella in person must’ve been strong.”
Narrowing his eyes, he sank further into the chair and compressed his lips tighter.
“Now,” Delaney said, “I know exactly what we need to do.”
“You want me to get the chimes, honey?” Clyde rose, running a loving finger down Delaney’s nose.
“Why do we need chimes?”
“A séance, bruiser. We’re going to summon Marcella from the other side. So go hone your vibes, brother. Make sure they’re properly greased. We have a hot Latina ghost to catch.”
three
“Does this feel just a little ridiculous to either of you?” Kellen asked Clyde from across the kitchen table. The table they all held hands around. Chimes hung from the stained-glass ornamental light above, and candles scattered the room, their flames whispering soft orange and blue.
Clyde cleared his throat. “If I were you, my friend, I wouldn’t mock your sister. I’ve been to that rodeo and I came out of it bruised and battered. Nothing feels ridiculous after what I’ve been through. A séance was how I found Delaney in the first place. So don’t hate.”
Delaney cracked an eye open and flicked his wrist with her fingers. “This is exactly what I mean, Kellen. What ghost would want to enter this realm with the kind of negative vibe you put out? You can’t guide anyone if you mock their very existence while you do it. You know they exist, so I just can’t get a handle on your problem with inviting them to a warm, nurturing environment created by you, the newbie ghost whisperer. It’s so important you make them feel welcome and secure. Now, get in touch with your spectral side and help me out. You’re the only way we’ll reach Marcella, and if I don’t find her, it’s you who’ll end up with knots on your head from the noogies I’ll give you.”
Kellen sighed. Negative vibe, his ass. It wasn’t like he wasn’t trying to get a grip on this thing. When Delaney had the gift of sight, he’d seen some pretty whacked stuff. It wasn’t that he didn’t believe, either. He believed. He’d just liked doing it from the outside looking in. Adjusting to this had been a challenge, to say the least, and Delaney could only do so much now that she no longer had this thing she called a “gift.” “Sorry. Okay, so what do you need me to do? Chant? Taunt her with Pier 1 sale circulars?”
Clyde snorted but quickly buried his mouth in his shoulder when Delaney’s brow furrowed in admonishment.
His sister sighed, this time long and aggravated. “Just think of her. It’s not like it’s a hardship. You’ve watched her ass swivel out of a room more times than I can count on all our fingers and toes put together, and that glassy-eyed look you used to get said it all. Get a visual of her in your head and go with it.”
Kellen closed his eyes as much to block out his sister’s accusatory glance as to bring up the mental image of Marcella. The one he’d had when he’d found her old scarf in the box at the store. It wasn’t the purest of thoughts, he’d be the first to admit, but it was the one that had haunted him since she’d taken off. “Marcella? C’mon. I know you’re out there somewhere. Gimme a break and make an appearance. Delaney’s here and she won’t get off my back until she knows you’re okay.”
“Ugh. Very nurturing, Kellen. And you wonder why these ghosts leave you with black eyes. I’d give you one myself if it weren’t for the fact that I’ve seen more than my fair share of violence this last year. Now, get on board or the next ghost that fancies clocking you one is going to have my utter and complete support.”
He knew that tone. It was the one that said he’d better stop thwarting the process Delaney had spent fifteen years cultivating. To mock would be to deny the good his sister had done in the past. “You’re right. I’m sorry. I’m in. Here we go. I’m visualizing . . .”
Once more, the image of Marcella in an innocent, yet hotly seductive baby-doll nightie he’d seen in some store window popped into his head. Her hair, black and thick, fell over her shoulders and streamed down her back in loose curls. It framed her face, wisping across her high cheekbones while her eyes glowed green and smoldering. Her lips were full and glistening with that pink lip gloss she was so fond of. Olive skin shimmered smooth and clear beneath the frilly, pastel pink of the material, tucking around the smooth skin where her hip met her thigh.
This was exactly how he’d conjured her up earlier today, by smelling her perfume on that scarf she’d left behind. Kellen shifted uncomfortably in his chair when his jeans grew tight, guiltily waiting for Delaney to tell him to knock it off and get serious.
When she didn’t, he relaxed a bit. No one had to know what the image of Marcella he’d called up was.
A low thrum of vibration began at his feet, traveling along his calves and upward until his ears hummed with a buzzing that grew almost uncomfortable. The air around them became its own living entity, thick and oppressive. The candles fluttered and the chimes sang . . .
“I would never wear a cheap nightgown like that, Kellen Markham. How dare you create a visual image of me in cotton? I’m a silk girl, through and through.”
Marcella’s laughter tinkled in her ears when Kellen jumped, knocking the table with a jolt of shaking teacups. She was only guessing at the visual he’d used to summon her. Clearly he was as much a man as he’d ever been, with the lingerie creativity of a kindergartner. Though, the very idea that he’d fantasized about her in anything but a headlock was titillating—and best left alone.
Unfortunately this meant the cat was out of the bag. There was no way to hide the fact that she was now spectral versus demonic. That Kellen had called her up with such ease didn’t just disturb her because it would upset Delaney, but because she’d been ensconced in trying to figure out how to pick up objects, and he’d interrupted. She knew some ghosts could do it. She just wasn’t one of them. Again, another class she might have spent more time listening in instead of sulking while she slumped down in her chair like a two-year-old in a time-out.
“She’s here?” Delaney leaned in Kellen’s direction with a hopeful look.
God, she looked fantastic. Marcella grinned a watery smile, letting her hand hover over her friend’s hair, remembering the feel of it so soft and unmanageable. Marriage had been just what the heavens had ordered, apparently. At least from the looks of the cozy house she and Clyde had chosen. Braided area rugs in deep greens and burgundies scattered the floors. Seven cushy dog beds lay by an old woodstove in the living room. Scarred paneling, worn and well loved in a deep brown, traveled from floor to ceiling. Little pieces of Delaney’s old life, like her prism meant for demon catching, sat on chunky wooden end tables with multicolored tiled surfaces.
The kitchen, where everyone was seated, was almost exactly as Delaney had once described the one she wanted if she ever married and could afford a bigger place. Rustic white cabinets, distressed to match the rest of her furniture, lined nearly every wall, and drying herbs hung from their tops in tied bundles of sage and mossy green. An antique stove Marcella was sure she used to whip up herbal remedies rather than cook with took up a good portion of the back wall. Paned windows hung over the steel basin sink, allowing a view of a big backyard with pine and maple trees. Whimsical bells and chimes hung from hooks next to lush green spider plants. Every corner of each room screamed Delaney’s dream come true.
Marcella scrunched her eyes shut before looking to Kellen, leaning in to let her lips press against his hair. “You can tell her I’m here, and that I think the house is beautiful.” Her voice caught on her last words. How in all of fuck she’d become so weepy these days befuddled her.
“She’s here,” Kellen confirmed, jamming a finger into his ear and wiggling it.
Delaney rose from her high-backed chair and scanned the warm room with eyes that squinted. “Damn you, Marcella Acosta, where have you been? What happened after that night that left you like this?”
She floated in front of Kellen. Because it was a nifty little power, because she could, and because it left her feeling like she was just a little in charge of a situation that had gone careening out of control. “Okay, so I wasn’t entirely honest with you earlier today. I’m not a demon anymore. I’m a ghost, and I would have been happy continuing on as a ghost if you’d left me alone instead of sucking me like a milk shake through a straw here to Delaney’s. I’ll have you know, it’s uncomfortable, to say the least.”
Kellen’s lips thinned again, the signal he was about to protest, but Marcella threw up a hand with the most pathetic excuse for unmanicured nails he’d ever seen. “And before you get that thing called indignation you have so cornered going, I didn’t tell you because I figured you’d be more likely to buy a story like that I was off partying far easier than you would my ending up a ghost.” While that hurt, she never expected anything less. She’d refined her party-girl, livin’-on-the-edge persona over the years, knowing full well Kellen found women like that despicable.
She noted the fleeting look of guilt on his face before it hardened in a defensive expression. Marcella planted her hands on her hips. “And I see I was right. Now we have a problem because Delaney’s going to be very upset and start whining about sacrifices—which we both don’t want, amigo. I did what I did because my future has no end. Delaney’s does, and when it ends, I want it to end with Clyde and a dozen kids surrounding her. So let’s keep the drama to a minimum, okay? Between the two of us, I just know there’s something we can cook up that’ll make her believe I’m happy right where I am. Got it?” She had him by the short hairs, and he knew it.
He didn’t look thrilled about it, but he nodded curtly while Delaney and Clyde looked directly through her, waiting. “Good. Tell D I don’t know how I ended up a ghost. One minute we were trying to take down that candy-ass Satan, the next I woke up on what I lovingly call Plane Drab. I don’t know how I got there, and I don’t know why. I would have contacted her sooner, but contact isn’t as easy as it seems. So tell her she’s right when she said there were kooks out there who couldn’t really see ghosts. I know because I attempted to use their services and failed dismally.