Chapter 6
They walked the two blocks back from the park to find the exact scene Dell had feared. Her body being removed from the house
in front of a small sea of reporters.
“No!” she yelped, and hurried up the street.
Robbie’s body refused to move at the pace she wanted it to. Used to buzzing through the world like a little worker bee, she
felt like a giant sloth with loping arms and legs and limited lung capacity. This kid had never worked out a day in his life.
“God, walk faster, Robbie!” she muttered under her breath. His voice had gone dormant in her mind.
As they approached the scene, she noted it wasn’t Tommy out in front of the reporters doing his best to block their rubbernecking
but her brothers and Jason. Evelyn had probably instructed her son to stay inside. Or maybe he was still giving a statement
to the police. Either way, there would be plenty of photos of a body bag being wheeled from their house.
In a desperate panic, she called out to Jason. “Jason!”
He turned from the sidewalk scene at the sound of her voice—Robbie’s voice—but didn’t react when he didn’t recognize who’d called him.
“Jason, it’s me!” she wailed, and waved her arms.
“No!” Cole appeared and pulled them down. Apparently, he could still touch her despite her inhabiting a physical body. “You
look like the kid, remember? He won’t understand at first.”
Dell paused, remembering what he’d said about prepossession haunting. Little things to let them know you’re there.
“Right,” she said. She took a breath and thought about how Robbie could use a breath mint and decided to change her approach.
She casually walked up to the crowd outside her front steps and tried again. She tapped Jason on the shoulder.
When he turned, instead of the welcoming look she was accustomed to seeing on his face, he scowled. “Robbie? No, go away.”
He turned his back again.
Not yet discouraged, Dell tapped his shoulder once more. “Can I talk to you for a minute?”
He half turned his head. “This isn’t a good time, Robbie. Kind of a rough morning going on over here.”
“You’re telling me . . .” Dell muttered.
Jason whipped around again. “What was that?”
Thankful for his attention, she opened her mouth to speak again, but he cut her off with his meanest scowl. Dell shriveled.
She’d seen him wield it on plenty of deserving victims but had never been on the receiving end of it.
“Listen, Robbie, I don’t know what you’re up to, but we’re dealing with an emergency, can’t you see? We’ve got enough uninvited
eyes already, so go away!” His voice snapped with an angry bite, which made Dell flinch again. It also rattled something loose inside her.
She reached for his arm and didn’t let go. “I really need to talk to you, and I need you to listen.”
“What are you—?”
She pulled him away from the crowd before he could finish asking. They stood off to the side, in front of her neighbor’s front
steps. Mrs. Freeman wouldn’t venture outside to overhear them; she’d be too busy snooping through her lace curtains. They
had as much privacy as they were going to get without Dell kidnapping him for a chat.
“Little things,” Cole said from where he’d joined beside them.
Dell cast him a glare, not needing his micromanaging but, at the same time, thankful to have someone there for support who
knew what was happening. She turned her gaze to Jason, a man she’d looked at and talked to countless times, but never had
she seen the alarmed unfamiliarity he looked at her with now.
“Jason,” she started calmly, trying to think of the best approach. Despite everything they’d been through together, she had
no precedent for convincing her best friend she was a ghost. “I know you recognize me as Robbie from the park right now, and
I am, but I am also me, Dell.”
Jason winced and glared at her. He shook his arm loose. “Is this some kind of sick joke? Go home, Robbie.”
“No! Jason, please. It’s me,” she said, and reached for him again. “I swear. Listen, you’re my best friend. We’ve known each other for nearly half our
lives now. We went to school together. We used to live together, we—”
“More personal than that,” Cole coached.
Dell grumbled and turned to him. “Would you please just let me handle this?”
Jason followed her gaze in the direction she’d spoken, and Dell remembered he couldn’t see Cole. “Who are you talking to?”
“No one,” she said. “But what I was saying was, it’s me. Dell. Your best friend.”
Jason cast her another angry glare. “Robbie, knock it off. Dell—” He paused and cast a glance back at the house. The paramedics
had her body nearly into the ambulance now. He lowered his voice. “Dell died this morning, okay? So I don’t need you here spouting nonsense at me. Go back to the park and leave me alone.”
“No! That’s what I’m telling you, Jay. I didn’t die. I’m right here!” She gestured at herself—at Robbie—with a pleading look.
Jason flinched. “What did you call me?”
It took her a second to realize she’d used his nickname. “Jay! I called you Jay. And you call me Dell, which everyone does,
but my real name is Verdella.”
He leaned back and eyed her suspiciously. Few people knew her real name. She’d ditched it so long ago it really only existed
on official records. Hope swelled in her chest—Robbie’s chest—that this was a little thing to convince him.
She jumped on the opportunity and tried for more. “Those are my brothers, Alex and Andy,” she said, and pointed at them. They
stood between the ambulance and the reporters with their arms up, trying to block any more photos. “They are real estate developers.
They run our family’s business. Andy is married and has two kids and Alex is single. Shit, wait. No. Other way around,” she
said, and smacked her hand to her forehead. Damn their identicalness.
Jason gave her another suspicious look, though slightly less so. She could feel him swaying.
“I live here with my fiancé, Tommy. He’s the mayor’s son. I used to live here with you until we got engaged. You run front
of house at my restaurant.”
She thought she had him, but his gaze narrowed, and he folded his arms. “I don’t know what you’re up to, Robbie, but so far
this is just a list of information you probably found from your hacker lair in your mom’s basement.”
“No! It’s not, I swear,” she said, and desperately reached for him.
He shook her off. “Please leave me alone.”
She grumbled and dug deep, realizing she needed to bring out the big guns. “You have a shellfish allergy. Your left foot is
slightly bigger than your right. You weirdly think Hawkeye is the hottest Avenger. On your twenty-first birthday, we drank
appletinis, and you puked on the dance floor. You had a goldfish named Sushi. You actually don’t even like sushi. You think
milk chocolate is superior to dark. You hold very strong opinions about McDreamy versus McSteamy, which caused the greatest
falling-out of our friendship to date.”
He blinked at her as his mouth slowly fell open. “McSteamy all the way,” he said as if in a trance.
“Nope. Still disagree. McDreamy one hundred percent.”
He continued staring at her, his eyes searching as he leaned in closer, as if he were trying to peel back layers. “Dell?”
he quietly whispered.
“Really? That’s what did it?” Cole said skeptically. “A Grey’s Anatomy reference?”
“Shut up,” Dell shot at him, and kept her eyes on Jason.
“Yes, Jay, it’s me.” She could see the realization in his eyes like a rising sun.
No one else on the planet knew all those things about him.
Even the world’s best hacker couldn’t have found them out, because they were only stored in the collective vault of their friendship.
“Oh my God,” Jason breathed. His eyes misted over. “Is it really you in there?”
“Yes,” she said, and felt Robbie’s eyes wet—a welcome sensation she’d already begun to miss.
Jason squeezed her arms as if he were testing to see if she was real. Then he pulled her into a hug and kissed her temple.
“I knew this couldn’t be real. I knew something wasn’t right.”
“I knew you would believe me!” she said from where her face was buried in his neck.
“Of course I believe you, D,” he said, and held her tighter. “God, Robbie needs a shower.”
She wetly laughed and wiped her eyes. “I’m just borrowing his body to talk to you. You can’t let them take me away, Jay. I’m
not dead, not really. I’m—” She glanced over at Cole, unsure what to say. He didn’t offer any input. “I’m trapped, I guess.”
“Trapped?” Jason asked. “What does that mean?”
“I don’t exactly know, and it’s a long story, but I need your help.”
The thunk-thunk of ambulance doors being closed drew their attention back toward the crowd.
“Oh no,” Dell said, fearing they’d missed their chance to intervene.
She’d begun to spiral when Jason grabbed her hand—Robbie’s hand. “Come on. Let’s go somewhere more private, and you can tell
me everything.”
Ever thankful for him in life, she was even more thankful he was willing to help her in death.
“So, let me get this straight,” Jason said while he paced in front of Robbie’s park bench.
Dell sat on it, still in Robbie’s body, while Cole monitored from beside them.
The sun was nearing the sky’s midpoint now, splashing down warm light.
“There’s some kind of bureaucratic administration that oversees death, and because some guy mixed your name up with someone else’s, you’re now dead? ”
“Yes,” Dell said with a nod.
“And he’s here? Right now?”
“Yes. He’s standing next to the bench.”
Jason all but leaped sideways.
“Don’t worry. He’s harmless. Just incompetent.”
“Thanks for that,” Cole said with a frown.
“Calling it like I see it,” Dell said to him. “But I’m not all the way dead,” she said to Jason. “He came here to fix his mistake while I’m still in limbo.”
Cole shuffled his feet as Jason sat on the bench beside her. He leaned in to study her. “I never realized Robbie has green
eyes.”
“I never realized how tall he is.”
Jason continued studying her. He slowly blinked his long lashes as wonder swam in the dark pools of his eyes. “What did it
feel like?”