Between (10 page)

“Just stick around for a few minutes while I smoke.” He shudders to himself, his back still toward her. “I can’t deal with reality right now.”

“Well, you’re gonna have to eventually.” Josie sniffles. “We all are. Somehow.”

As Richie sits at his desk, carefully rolling a joint, Josie says, “Hey. You want to hear a crazy story? About Liz?”

He doesn’t look at her. “I’m betting I’ve heard it already, but go ahead.”

“No,” she says, growing excited, “I’ll bet you haven’t. You know how my mom is really into the paranormal, right?”

“I know how she’s a space cadet, sure.” He glances at Josie. “Just like you, sweetie.”

“
Sweetie
?” I shriek. I cross the room to Richie. I put my arms around his neck. I press my cheek to his. Again, I can’t truly feel him, and he gives no sign that he senses me. But I can tell we’re connecting. I can feel our breathing, in sync, and I know that a part of me is still with him.

“Well, a few years ago she took me and Liz to the Spiritualist Church in Groton. My mom and I go there all the time. Liz almost never went with us, but that one instance—I don’t know, I guess she must have been bored, and it was just something to do on a Saturday. They had psychics there—a whole bunch of them.”

I step away from Richie, almost unable to bear the feeling of being so close to him. Richie rolls his eyes. He’s never believed in anything like the supernatural. He doesn’t believe in ghosts. He doesn’t believe in much, really.

“So, you guys talked to the psychics? Or what?”

Josie nods. “We all did, yeah. But here’s the interesting part. One of them—this guy—he seemed drawn to Liz. He kept glancing at her from all over the room, while he was giving other people readings. Finally, just as we were leaving, he came up to us and took her by the arm and said something really creepy.”

Richie licks the paper on the joint, rolls it shut. “Well? What did he say?”

“He told her to beware of the redhead in disguise. He said the redhead would put her in danger someday. And you know, he was so
insistent
upon it, like it was very serious that she listen to him and take what he was saying to heart.”

Richie holds the joint, staring at Josie. “Are you gonna smoke this or what?”

She shakes her head. “I don’t want to.” There’s a pause. “You don’t think that’s interesting?”

Richie swallows. “No. I think it was a dumb guy trying to get a few extra bucks out of a sweet girl. As far as I know, Liz didn’t even know any redheads. Did she?”

Josie gazes at him. “No.” She pauses. “Do you really want me to leave?”

“I’m sorry, Josie, it’s just really soon.” He hesitates. “Come back tomorrow, okay?”

“
Tomorrow
?” I blurt. “Today is too soon, but tomorrow he’ll be okay?” I stare hard at Richie. “He’s heard that story before. I told him that story right after it happened.”

Josie stands up. “Okay,” she says. “I’ll see you tomorrow.” And she leaves without—thank God—so much as a hug good-bye.

Once he’s alone in his room, Richie opens his back window. He lights the joint. He stares at the
Elizabeth
, resting so peacefully in the water now, showing no signs of the horror that took place just a few nights ago. As he’s exhaling, he says out loud, “I’d heard that story before. Liz told me that story right after it happened.”

Seven

Josie hasn’t been gone ten seconds when there’s a light knock on Richie’s door. He doesn’t seem happy that, presumably, she’s back. For a few seconds, he doesn’t say anything; he just sits, staring out his back window, smoking his joint.

Tap, tap, tap
.

The joint crackles as a seed pops. Richie is unfazed, holding in a deep inhale, glancing warily at the door.

“Go away!” I shout. “He doesn’t want to see you!”

Alex seems uncomfortable, like he doesn’t know quite how to handle me. “You’re upset,” he says. “Try to calm down.”

Tap, tap, tap.

But there’s no way I can calm down, not right now. “He repeated what I just said, almost verbatim,” I tell him. “Do you think he can sense me?”

“I don’t know.” Alex appears to think about it. “It
was
weird. And you said you could feel him when you touched him?”

“Kind of. Almost. I think that I’ll be able to do it—maybe if I concentrate hard enough.”

Alex shakes his head. “I don’t know, Liz. That’s never happened to me before. There are some people who can see me—”

“What do you mean?” I almost scream the words. “Some people who can see you? Like who?”

“Babies,” he says. “Babies can see me. I have a cousin. When I died, he was almost two, and he could definitely see me. But when he got older—as soon as he started speaking in really clear sentences—it was obvious he couldn’t tell I was there anymore.” Alex pauses. “Animals can see me, too. My cat can see me.”

I gape at him. “You’re kidding. Why didn’t you tell me this sooner?”

He shrugs. “I didn’t think it was important.”

“Maybe not. But it’s definitely interesting.” I shake my head. “Anyway, you agree that Richie and I are still connected somehow, right?”

Alex nods. “Okay. You might be right about that. So what?”

Before I can answer, we hear the knock at the door again.

Tap, tap, tap.

Richie sighs. He stares at the joint for a second before tossing it out the open window. The room is thick with smoke. “Come in,” he says, coughing.

I’m fully expecting Josie again. But it’s not her; it’s the cop, Joe Wright. Any other boy might panic, but Richie isn’t any other boy. He’s never worried much about getting caught with drugs. He’s never worried much about anything. He is cool, calm, and always collected. When I was with Richie, I felt like things were under control. Looking at him now, though, I realize that he’s just a kid who didn’t have a clue how to keep me safe. After all, I died less than ten feet away from him, while he was sleeping. Why didn’t he wake up? Surely there was some kind of noise: a splash, a scream,
something
. But he was drunk. He was stoned. He was in too much of a stupor to wake up, even to save my life.

“Who let you into my house?” Richie asks Joe.

“Your girlfriend.” Joe waves a hand back and forth beneath his nose. “You might want to invest in a window fan, kiddo. I can smell that from the stairs.” Joe is still wearing his dress shirt and tie from my funeral earlier. Without his policeman’s uniform, he looks like any normal guy. He’s probably in his late thirties. He’s cute and fit, his dark hair short and neat, a sprinkling of freckles spread evenly across his tan face. He looks kind enough, nonthreatening, but I know Richie isn’t going to open up to him easily. As a rule, Richie does not trust adults—especially not authority figures.

Richie blinks at him. “Just so you understand, Josie is not my girlfriend. Liz was my girlfriend.”

“Okay. Sure.” Joe takes two steps closer to Richie and peers at his face. He takes his index finger and brushes it against Richie’s cheek. Then he holds up the finger for both of them to see. “Lipstick,” Joe says.

“Oh, that’s fabulous.” I effect a slow clap. “That’s some stellar police work right there.”

“What’s your point?” Richie asks, unfazed.

“My point is that Josie wouldn’t look me in the eye when she let me in.”

“So what? She’s upset. We were just at her sister’s funeral.” Richie stares at him. “What did you expect her to do? Give you a big smile? A high five?” He shakes his head. “Local cops, man.”

Joe ignores his comment. “I know you were at the funeral. I saw you. Did you see me?” He pulls out Richie’s desk chair. “Mind if I take a seat?” he asks. Before Richie can answer, Joe sits down.

“I shouldn’t be talking to you,” Richie says. “You can’t come into my house like this. I ought to call a lawyer.”

Joe raises an eyebrow. “You think you need a lawyer?”

“No. I didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Would Liz agree with that? You were just kissing her sister.”

“Her
step
sister. Well—that’s complicated. Her half sister, maybe.”

“Her half sister?” Joe is obviously interested. “Why would you say that?”

“Because some people think Josie and Liz are half sisters. Lots of people think so.” He pauses. “But not Liz. She never believed it.” Richie pulls a piece of gum from his pocket, puts it into his mouth, and chews slowly, as though he’s reluctant to share the information with Joe. “See, there’s always been a lot of talk around town that maybe Liz’s dad and Josie’s mom had a … a
thing
, before Liz’s mom died. They were high school sweethearts. And some people—my parents, for one—think Josie looks a lot like Mr. Valchar.” Richie shakes his head, obviously uncomfortable with the topic. “I don’t know if it’s true or not. But it doesn’t matter. It’s totally irrelevant. And we might have been kissing a little bit, but you’ve gotta understand, it’s not like what you’re thinking.”

“Then what is it like? And you can cut the attitude, by the way. I could arrest you for possession right now, you know.”

Richie spreads his hands in a careless gesture. “Do it. I don’t care. I don’t have anything to lose.” I’m surprised he’s telling Joe so much about my family history. Maybe he just wants to talk about me.

“I’m sure you don’t. Where are your parents right now? I saw them at the funeral earlier.”

He nods. “Yeah, they managed to make an appearance.”

“But they aren’t home now?”

“They’re busy people.” He snorts. “They’re very dedicated to their art.”

“I see.” Joe takes a moment to look around the room. His gaze falls to all the pictures of me and Richie on his desk. “Look,” he says, “the case is technically closed. But I’ve got some free time—you know, we local cops always have time on our hands—and I’m gonna ask some questions about this one. The story you kids told me adds up, okay, but it’s all so … so
circumstantial
. There isn’t a lot of hard evidence. I want to find something that makes me certain of what happened. Besides, Liz is the second kid in twelve months to get killed in Noank.”

Richie sits down on his bed. “Who was the first?”

“He doesn’t even remember me,” Alex says. He seems genuinely bothered by the fact.

“Why do you care?” I ask.

He thinks about it for a moment. Then he says, “I don’t know. I just do.”

“Alex Berg,” Joe says. “Come on, you aren’t
that
high. He was the same age as you. Hit-and-run last August by the Mystic Market.”

“Oh, right.” Richie nods in slow recognition. “Sure, I remember. I’ve seen flyers up in town.” He appears to be thinking. “Liz and Caroline went to his funeral. I wouldn’t go with them. Funerals creep me out, you know? Anyway, what does that matter? It had nothing to do with any of us.”

“It matters,” Joe says, “because people are worried. First there’s a hit-and-run. Now this. Two healthy kids dying in less than a year. It’s a small town. Parents are concerned.”

“It was an accident,” Richie says. “Nobody killed Liz.”

Joe nods in agreement. “Probably not. I hope not. But you see, Richard—”

“Richie,” he corrects.

“You see,” Joe continues, “here you are, stoned, screwing around with your dead girlfriend’s stepsister, or half sister, or whatever she is. On the same day as Liz’s funeral. And I don’t know how to explain that, from a moral perspective. It seems pretty insensitive, wouldn’t you agree?”

Richie stares at the shiny hardwood floor of his bedroom. “Why can’t you just arrest me for possession?”

“Why would I want to do that?”

“Because I’m a loser.”

“Liz didn’t think so.”

Richie looks up. “Yes, she did.” He swallows. All of his characteristic confidence is gone; I barely recognize him. “She was cheating on me.” There are tears in his dark, bloodshot eyes. “It had been going on for months, and I never even realized. Not until Josie told me.”

“Ohhh.” Alex shakes his head at me. “You
bad
girl.”

My mouth falls open. “He’s wrong,” I say. “I don’t know what he’s talking about.”

“You were cheating on him,” Alex explains. “Listen.”

So I do.

“It was right after Christmas,” Richie says. “I’d been noticing for a while that Liz was disappearing, sometimes for long periods of time. She seemed different. I was worried. She was always skinny, but lately she’d been losing an awful lot of weight. I mean, that’s why they think she died, right? The hypoglycemia, combined with all the booze in her system? We did a body mass index on ourselves in health class last spring, and she was way underweight.” He appears to be thinking, remembering. “Anyway, it wasn’t just all the weight loss. I don’t think the two were connected. It was more than that. She’d become kind of distant with me. And at first I thought, okay, so she’s obsessed with running. She was always great at distance, but speed was never her thing. I figured she was trying to get faster. Maybe she was taking it a little bit too far. I mean, it wasn’t unusual for her to get up at five in the morning and go for a two-hour run before school.” He shakes his head. “Crazy. She was nuts about it.”

“What made you think it was something else?” Joe asks. “Something other than just an obsession with running? Josie told you?”

Richie nods. “Yeah, Josie told me. It was a couple of weeks before junior prom. I’d been trying to get in touch with Liz all day, but she wasn’t answering her phone. So I walked to her house—you know she’s only two doors down—but she wasn’t home. I got to talking with Josie. That’s when she told me.”

“He’s wrong,” I say firmly. “I never would have cheated on him. Never.”

“Think hard,” Alex says. “Can you remember anything at all?”

“No, but it doesn’t matter! I don’t have to remember to be sure. It’s impossible.”

Alex takes a long moment to study me. “I can’t believe you,” he says.

“What can’t you believe?”

“That you’re still like this. Even after everything that’s happened to you, you’re still a nightmare of a human being. If he says you cheated on him, you probably did. At least,
I
believe him. You’re selfish. You’re superficial. If someone better than Richie came along and took an interest in you, I bet you’d cheat in a second.”