Chapter 9
The back door led to a paved patio with a gate. As Dell and Cole followed Jason outside into the late-afternoon sun, Dell
felt the weight of everything that had just happened sink over her. The revelations nearly crushed her.
Cole stopped walking and placed a gentle hand on her arm. “Are you okay?”
“Of course not.” Her voice cracked like glass at the end of her sentence. She shuddered as if she’d sobbed, though nothing
wet came out of her eyes. “I died and found out my fiancé is cheating on me and plotting my death all in the same day.”
Cole didn’t hesitate before wrapping her in a hug.
He held her to his warm chest, and she inhaled the clean, fresh scent of him.
She wondered if he smelled like heaven—actual heaven, given his job.
The light, crisp fragrance was better than the cleanest air she’d ever breathed.
It filled her lungs like a gulp of cool water would quench a dry throat.
She wrapped her arms around him and let him hold her, not sure and not really caring if they were breaking some kind of transition specialist–client protocol.
He eventually pulled back, much to her disappointment. “I’m sorry if that was inappropriate. You just . . . really looked
like you needed a hug.” He combed a shy hand through his hair.
She looked up at him with a warm bloom in her cheeks. “I did. Thank you.”
They continued gazing at each other, lost in a suddenly thick haze. Dell felt something pulling on her heart. Like a string
tied to something far, far off in the distance being tugged.
“You still there, D?” Jason asked, interrupting them. He’d reached the back gate and was ready to sneak into the alley behind
the house.
The spell snapped, and Dell pulled away from Cole.
“Yes,” she said, and caught up to him. She swiped his arm again.
“Okay, good,” Jason said. “Turns out, we were half right about Robbie’s life. He lives with his grandfather and appears to
work for some independent contractor tech company. His house is actually right around the corner . . .” He trailed off, glancing
up from an address on his phone.
Dell hurried after him, Cole on her heels, as they turned into the alley. It was not an alley in the sketchy big-city sense.
More like a narrow throughway lined by fences spilling bougainvillea and morning glories. When they reached the end of it,
they walked toward a sand-colored house with a half turret and stone chimney. Matching stones arched over the little tunnel
of an entryway.
They stopped at the door, and Jason took a breath. “Here goes nothing.” He rang the doorbell.
“What’s the plan here?” Cole asked.
“I don’t know,” Dell answered. “I guess jump on Robbie when I get the chance?”
“You know what the rule book says about possession,” Cole warned.
“Yes, but what else are we going to do? I need to tell Jason the whole story.”
Cole went to respond right as someone answered the front door.
An old man in a pouchy gray cardigan looked up at Jason from behind wire-rimmed glasses. His face bent into a welcoming smile.
“Yes?” he asked.
“Hi,” Jason said. “I’m a friend of Robbie’s. Does he happen to be home?”
The man’s wrinkled face lit up. “Friend? I didn’t know Robert had any friends in the real world. Come in, please. I’ll call
for him.”
Dell and Cole swapped a glance. Jason briefly looked over his shoulder to where they stood and muttered, “That was easy.”
“Robert! There’s someone here to see you!” the old man called into the avenues of the house. It was much like Dell’s house:
old, well-decorated, and full of both tight angles and open spaces.
“Not what I pictured for Robbie,” Dell said as they followed.
“What did you say your name was?” the old man turned and asked.
“I’m Jason,” Jason answered, and Dell had to stop her own introduction from spilling from her mouth because the old man’s
warm welcome had made her forget she was invisible.
“Pleasure, Jason. I’m Charlie. I’m so glad you stopped by. I never see Robert with another person. He’s always on his phone
or hooked up to that jungle of computers in his room. I wish he’d bring a girl home someday; heaven knows I’d love to meet one, but I don’t know how he’s supposed to meet one if he’s always—”
“What did you say, Grandpa?” Robbie appeared and asked. He’d come from around a hallway corner, wearing more black, but his
hair looked damp and his face freshly scrubbed.
Good, Dell thought to herself. At least he was clean if she was going to jump into his body again.
“There you are!” Charlie sang. “You have a friend here to visit. John—”
“Jason,” Jason cut in, and stepped forward with a wave and a smile.
Robbie’s face instantly paled. “No. Not you. What are you doing here? How did you even find me?” He turned like he was going
to run back down the hall, but his grandfather hooked a hand around his arm.
“Oh, Robert, don’t be rude,” Charlie said. “You never have visitors. Why don’t you make Jake feel welcome?”
“Jason,” Jason said again, and joined Charlie in putting a hand on Robbie’s arm. “And yes, I’ve just stopped by for a quick
chat. Why don’t we take it in another room?” His voice pitched up suggestively.
Robbie looked too terrified to speak. Before he could get any words out, Jason was pushing him down the hall. “Is your room
this way?”
“Let me know if you’d like anything to drink, fellas!” Charlie called.
Dell and Cole followed down the wood-paneled hallway.
Intricate sconces lit their path, and healthy-looking houseplants reached out leaves and tendrils from their pots along the walls.
They passed a carpeted staircase, but Robbie didn’t turn up it.
Instead, he all but stumbled backward into an open doorway across from it.
“This is more like it,” Dell said when they entered a cave more than a room. The shades were pulled, the light dim. The walls
were painted a dark gray, and, other than a twin bed and a closet, a continuous desk lined the walls, crowded with monitors,
keyboards, speakers, blinking boxes Dell couldn’t even identify. A chair that looked transplanted from a race car sat amid
it all, spun to face the room, as if someone had gotten up from it moments ago. Much to Dell’s satisfaction, a little jar
of CBD gummies sat next to the keyboard.
“W-what are you—?” Robbie tried with a stutter as Jason closed the door.
“Relax, kid. This will only take a few minutes,” Jason said, and pushed him into his chair. “Dell?” he said to the empty room.
“Take it away.”
“If you must do this, at least be gentle,” Cole warned her. “He looks ready to faint.”
“I will,” she promised, feeling bad for Robbie but knowing they had no other choice.
Taking the same approach she’d used at the park, she turned around in front of Robbie and sat back into him. She felt the fishhook behind her belly button again and immediately sensed the resistance.
“Robbie! It’s me again, Dell. Listen, I know this is weird, and probably scary, but you’re really doing me a favor. I need
your help.”
“Get out!” Robbie shouted inside his head. “Why are you doing this to me?”
“Because! You are the only one we can trust,” she hedged. She hoped he hadn’t gone running to the police or maybe a head doctor since she’d last seen him.
“No!” he resisted again.
“Robbie! I am not going to hurt you.”
“Please stop. Please stop. Please stop.”
“He’s resisting harder this time,” Dell said to Cole. “I don’t know if this is going to work.”
Cole twisted his mouth in thought. “Try saying something personal to him.”
Personal, Dell thought. Like what?
“Your grandpa seems really nice,” she tried. “He seems to really care about you.”
The struggling stopped. Robbie stilled. “Grandpa Charlie is the best. Don’t do anything to him.”
“I would never,” Dell said. “How long have you lived with him?”
The tension relaxed even further. “Since my mom died. He helped raise me, and now I take care of him.”
Dell’s dead heart softened. She never would have expected such a thing, but then, she’d never really talked to Robbie, and
her and Jason’s whole opinion of him was based on stereotype.
“I’m sorry to hear that. About your mom,” she said.
“Thanks. It was a long time ago. I never knew my dad, so Grandpa Charlie stepped in. Please don’t do anything to me. I’m all
he’s got. He’d lose this house if it wasn’t for my job.”
God, this kid was laying it on thick. She glanced around at his wall of computers and wondered how much money he made as an independent
consultant if it paid for a waterfront home in the Marina District.
“What’s your job?” she asked.
Robbie paused for a long beat. “I’d rather not say.”
Her curiosity piqued, but she didn’t push. “Well, listen, I appreciate you talking to me. I know this is next-level bizarre, but I need to borrow your body again to talk
to my friend Jason. And I need your permission. It won’t take long, and I am not going to do anything but talk to him, okay?
Then I’ll leave you alone. For now.”
Robbie hesitated again, considering. “How are you even here? Inside my head right now?”
“That is an excellent question.” She glanced at Cole, wishing he’d heard their interior back-and-forth and could help with an answer, but she knew from the
past several hours even he didn’t have a good one. “Let’s just say I’m in a sort of limbo. Stuck between life and death, and I need some help—your help—to get unstuck.”
He went quiet again. “So, you’re a ghost?”
“I think so, yes.” She wasn’t sure if this was going to scare him away or bring him closer, but what he said next threw her for a loop.
“Could you find my mom?”
Dell reeled. “Oh, um . . . I—I don’t know.”
He sighed in disappointment. “Bummer. I just want to tell her me and Grandpa Charlie are doing okay. And I miss her.”
The sensation to cry boiled behind Dell’s eyes again. She had no idea what kind of promise she was making, if it was even
possible, but she knew she’d do everything to keep it. “Robbie, if you help me out today, I promise you I will figure out how to find your mom and tell her.”