Chapter 14
Violet
“Oh, man,” Bradley said, putting his hands on his knees and hanging his head between them. “I think I’m gonna barf again.”
I stared down between my feet at the gravel of the parking lot as my head spun, the blood throbbing in my neck. “Please don’t,” I said.
“Oh, man,” Bradley said again.
We were sitting on the curb at the edge of the lot, our legs sprawled out in front of us.
Two police cars and an ambulance were parked in front of the storage units.
There were no sirens or flashing lights, because except for the fact that I’d passed out, this wasn’t an emergency.
The body inside the storage unit had been dead for a long time.
I lifted the damp cloth in my hand and pressed it to my forehead again, trying to still my rotating brain.
The ambulance was here for me, not for the dusty corpse Bradley had stumbled on.
Apparently, after throwing up, Bradley had found me passed out cold, and then he’d used a brick to smash the window to get into the small office and call 911.
I’d woken up in a stranger’s lap. The paramedic had pressed the cloth to my forehead and taken my pulse, my blood pressure.
He’d asked me to count fingers and name the president.
Behind him, a cop car had pulled up to the other storage unit, and then a second one had joined it, like two silent beetles.
The cops spoke in low tones, punctuated with crackles from their radios.
Now Bradley and I sat like two forgotten children while the grown-ups took over. The officers had taken a statement from both of us, then told us to wait for instructions. One of them was trying, with no success, to track down the owner of the storage units to discuss the window Bradley had broken.
The cool breeze brushed the back of my neck and I pressed my hand there, remembering the icy grip I’d felt right before the darkness.
“What the fuck?” The words burst out of Bradley like he couldn’t contain them. He sprang to his feet, paced back and forth. “I mean, what the fuck was that, right?” He stopped, looked at me. “Right?”
Most people—normal people—weren’t used to the dead. They didn’t see ghosts. Bradley was one of those normal people, and to cut him some slack for once, he’d just seen an actual corpse. Anyone would be a little worked up.
I pressed my hand harder to the back of my neck and closed my eyes.
I saw the dead with some regularity, but I had never had an experience like this.
I’d never felt one of the people I saw. Heard them.
I’d never passed out. Even I, the freak of nature, felt fear low in my belly. Something was very, very wrong.
Sister sent me.
I shuddered, forced my eyes to blink open, to take in the sunlight. I took a breath.
“What happened to you?” Bradley asked. He dropped to the curb next to me again. “You passed out, but you didn’t see—that thing. Why did you faint?”
The spinning in my skull was slowing, replaced by a wince of pain that quickly drained away. Now I felt tired, not just from the aftermath of fear but because of this entire situation.
“Hey, Violet,” Bradley prompted me. He knew my name now, because he’d heard me give it to the paramedic and the police, complete with spelling.
And here we were—back at this moment I’d had so many times in my life.
The moment when I chose not to tell someone the truth.
Telling the truth had landed me in a hospital, made my daughter hate me.
I lied to get along, lied to appear normal, like I had with Tess, my old employer.
I lied, and I lost jobs, marriages, and friendships anyway.
And this? This was Bradley Pine. Why did I care what he thought of me? He hadn’t learned my name until fifteen minutes ago. Screw him. I was tired.
“It was a man, right?” I said. “The body. A young man in jeans with frayed hems. White sneakers, worn and dirty.”
Beside me, Bradley went very still.
“There was a backpack, too,” I said, because when the hand had grabbed the back of my neck it had imparted some ghost of memory, imprinted it into my skin.
Another thing that had never happened before.
“A camp stove. He was living in the empty storage unit when he died. He was…a vagrant, I think.” Faded memories twisted through my brain like dissipating smoke.
“He was young, twenty or so. He had pills. He’d traded for them?
Stolen them? That part is unclear. When he took them, he died.
” It hadn’t been intentional. He wasn’t suicidal.
He’d just wanted to feel high, then fall asleep.
He’d taken all the pills at once instead of one at a time, thinking it would make the high stronger.
As he’d spiraled down, he’d realized he’d made a mistake. Too late.
I lifted my gaze and looked at Bradley’s pale, shocked face. I hadn’t told the police any of that, only that I’d suddenly felt faint. You know, to appear normal.
There went another friendship. Yet again. And I didn’t even like him.
“I see ghosts, Bradley,” I said, severing the last of it. “I’ve always been able to see them, when they show themselves to me. The man you just found—I saw his ghost. His spirit. His undead entity. His revenant. Got it?”
Bradley stared at me, his brown eyes fixed on me. Then he stood up and walked away.
My stomach roiled. Disappointment mixed with fear. I hadn’t even told Bradley about the hand on my neck, the words in my ear. Or Sister, because I had never told anyone about Sister.
He’d walked away anyway. I’d told him enough.
Sister sent me.
I had the overwhelming urge to call Lisette. I ached to hear my daughter’s voice. To hear her say anything at all, even that she hated me. The need of it was like a living thing. I needed to talk to Vail and Dodie. I needed to get to my car and get home.
Bradley’s sneakers came back into my line of vision and stopped as he stood in front of me. “Are you okay?” he asked.
I tilted my head back to look up at him. He was squinting at me from under the bill of his baseball cap, his expression unreadable.
“Like, physically,” he said. “Are you hurt?”
I shook my head. “No. I’m fine.”
He nodded, then lifted his ball cap and ran his hand over his hair. “This fucking town, man. I hate it here.”
I nodded.
“I had a pet turtle when I was eleven.” Bradley put his cap back on. “I let him out to wander in the yard, and the neighbor’s dog got him. Can you call him up? I want to know if he’s mad at me.”
It took a second for that to sink in.
“Oh my God,” I said. “You asshole.”
“What?” He was doing a good job of acting serious, but then a smirk twitched the corner of his mouth. “It’s important.”
“You are such an absolute idiot. How do you manage to get your pants on in the morning?”
“I get ’em on.” When I dropped my gaze again, he tapped me with the toe of his sneaker. “Did you get your file from Dad’s unit? Tell me you stole it.”
“I would never,” I said.
“Sure you’d never. I’m hungry.”
“Again?”
“Yeah, again. I threw up my sandwich, remember?” He tapped me with his toe a second time. “I’m done with this parking lot, Violet, and so are you. Screw what the cops said. They want to prosecute me for that window, they can deal with Dad. Let’s get out of here.”
—
Incredibly, I spent the next hour at the Turnabout Diner, eating hamburgers with Bradley Pine and not talking about ghosts. By the time I went home, I was almost sane again.