Dead People (24 page)

***

“Coward,” Tricia muttered.

“Excuse me?” Cassie tore her gaze from Luke’s backside and considered the younger woman, who looked back at her with her eyes narrowed, like she was a war criminal.

Already the scene Cassie had witnessed seemed like a bad play, the voices traveling down the hall, the acoustics perfect, ending with Tricia trying to purr her way into a seduction.

Watching them, Cassie had felt a pressure inside her head, like raging sinuses. As she’d neared them, she had no plan. She just needed to do
something.

Action turned out to be unnecessary. She should feel sorry for Tricia. And while she was at it, she should fashion a halo to wear around her head.

“Do you think he’s gay?” Tricia asked, her voice small.

Cassie stared at her. Was she nuts? Couldn’t she smell the testosterone? “No.”

“Maybe he’s involved with someone in California.”

“No.” Her mind rejected the thought emphatically, without hesitation
.

“You sound awful sure.” Tricia frowned. “I thought I sensed something between you two. Are you interested in him?”

“No.”

Tricia shrugged but her frown deepened. “What were you looking for in the library?”

Cassie scratched her thigh. “I saw Isabel earlier. She was looking for a book she thought was in the library.”

“She never reads books.”

“Apparently she read this one. It’s a romance.” Cassie looked around. If Isabel heard this lie and realized she was using her as an excuse... She lowered her voice. “Very hot. She hid it from your mother, and couldn’t remember where she put it.”

“That’s silly. My mom wouldn’t care. I’d better start dinner now.”

As she walked away, Cassie peered at the stairs. If Luke had found her searching the shelves, he wouldn’t have believed her story about Isabel reading smutty books. Wouldn’t it be better to find him and tell him? The timing was lousy, but with Luke Rivers, the timing was always lousy.

She may as well get her head chopped off now instead of later.

Chapter Thirty-one

Stepping onto the landing outside Luke’s studio, Cassie stumbled. His door hung open an inch. His voice slugged the air, rough with anger, hard with pain.

She slapped her hand on wall, stopping herself from crashing to her knees or crying out anything inappropriate.
 

“She’ll take that knife, stab you in the back. She looks innocent, but it’s all an act.”

A shudder went through her. Maybe she should come back another time.
 

Her stubbornness popped up. She’d spent too many years of her childhood backing down. No more.

Stiffening her spine, she stepped forward.

So he had problems. Big deal. Who didn’t have them? Since he wasn’t helping Erin, he could listen to her story about the ghost in the cemetery. The ex-slave’s connection probably had nothing to do with Isabel’s ghost, but every time Cassie thought about the house, her skin itched. Somehow she knew it was important.

If Luke got snarky with her, she’d show him how evil
this
woman could be.

She raised her hand to knock.

“You’re going to let him have sex with you.” A woman’s voice spoke in her ear.

She jumped. “Dammit,” she said, her voice drowned out by Luke bellowing,
“When you see her, don’t turn around, the evil woman kicks hardest when you’re down.”

“You needn’t swear.” Isabel materialized in her sloppy pants and top. Her carrot-colored hair looked lopsided this late afternoon. Apparently she hadn’t learned the secret of undead grooming. It was all in the attitude.

“You want him to put his penis inside you,” Isabel continued. “He’ll shove in and out until he’s satisfied, not caring that you won’t reach that same satisfaction. I can see the signs.”

“And I can see that you’ve never had good sex.”

“Women who claim their sex lives are good are lying.” Isabel’s voice rang out. “All men are selfish in bed. Because they’re bigger than women, they think they can dominate them.”

Cassie stared at Isabel, vaguely aware that the music had stopped. She shivered, not from the coolness of the tower stairway but because this was the connection she waited for every time, the moment the ghost said without words,
Yes, I’m ready to talk to you.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Cassie kept her voice neutral when she wanted to squeal. Finally, Isabel was opening up to her.

Isabel tilted her head back two inches more than the average live person’s neck would bend. “I’ll talk if you talk. You tell me the intimate facts about your sex life, and I’ll tell you mine.”

Cassie stopped herself from wincing. She should have seen this coming. “I don’t have a sex life.”

The door creaked. Cassie was turning to look at it when Isabel said, “Fine, then I’ll go away.”

“No!” Cassie whipped her gaze back and saw Isabel was already fading. The wall showed through her transparent body. Alarm bells clanged in Cassie’s mind. “Don’t go.”

Isabel hovered, halfway between solid and mist, her spectral body so thin Cassie saw dust motes swim in a ray of pink light behind her head.

“I’ll talk,” Cassie said. “I haven’t had sex for four years.” And she hadn’t missed it. Until lately. She had Hunk, her vibrator, nicknamed after its model name in the on-line catalog, Hunk Of Burning Love.

Isabel solidified. “Can you truthfully tell me you enjoyed it?”

“Yes,” Cassie said without hesitation. “I’m a sexual person.”

“If sex is so wonderful, why do you have a four-year gap?”

“It’s the sex I like, not the men.”

Isabel pointed an accusatory finger at Cassie. “Don’t try to tell me you’re one of
them.
A Lesbian. I won’t believe it. I’ve seen the way you act around
him
.”

Cassie felt her cheeks heat up. “I don’t want anyone.”

“The more you deny it, the less I believe you. All right, I have another question. Do you take care of that itch by yourself? Is that satisfying?”

“Sometimes it’s more satisfying.”

Isabel snickered.

Cassie smiled. This was the strangest conversation she’d had with a ghost.

“If you must know...” What the hell, why not share the love of her life with Isabel? It wasn’t something she could tell her usual confidant, Joe. Any mention of Hunk and Joe’s complexion turned a lovely celestial blue. Cassie leaned toward Isabel. “I have a tool to take care of myself that works out very well. It’s—”

The door rattled.
 

She darted a glance at the door, her breath sucked in, her heart thumping. A guitar strummed inside the studio, sounding like the wind crying.
“Evil woman, get out of my life. Wherever you go, you bring trouble and strife.”

Cassie’s released her pent-in breath. She glanced down at her hands and saw they were shaking.

“Not the best rhyme I’ve heard.” Isabel sighed. “I miss my Elvis albums.”

“I’ll play him for you one day.” Cassie shoved her hands behind her and wondered if Luke had an Elvis CD. If not, she’d buy one.

Isabel shook her head but her outline fuzzed, her ectoplasm leaking. “Maybe later.” Even her voice waned.

Oh no! Don’t fade away. Just when she was making progress. Cassie hated it when that happened. Like buying a great dessert, then discovering it tasted flat.

“Do you want to go downstairs? I’ll tell you about my vibrator.” To keep her from leaving, it would be worth it. It wasn’t as if anyone else would know.

“Will it bring me back to life?”

Cassie crossed her arms. The promise of everlasting life was one thing she never used as a bargaining chip. She talked to ghosts, she didn’t raise them. Dead was dead.

“Nothing will do that.”

“At least you’re truthful.” Hair by hair, Isabel faded.

“Wait! You didn’t keep your end of—” Cassie stopped with her mouth open, looking at air.

The door opened. “Did you want something?” Luke stuck his head into the hall.

Cassie shut her mouth with a snap. “How long have you known I was out here?”

“Just now. I heard you shouting. Why? What’s the problem.” Although he frowned, Cassie saw his lips quiver, as if he was suppressing a smile.

He’d heard them talk.

Bastard.

“Never mind.” She turned and stomped away.

Behind her, he chuckled.

She gritted her teeth. He’d listened to every word she said to Isabel. About enjoying sex, about her four year gap. She clomped down the steps, though he’d probably laugh at that too.

Good thing she didn’t care what Luke or any man thought.

***

Luke strummed his guitar. He’d been on a roll with his evil woman song, but the chat between Cassie and Isabel had changed his mood and his lyrics.

Words popped into his mind, looping through the pathways in his brain while he found a tune to match, slow and sensual. Looking out the tower window at the sunset over the trees lining the driveway, he sang.

“You like sex, I like it too. Let’s get together, me and you. I’ll make you forget your mechanical man. And, baby, you can lend me a hand.”

He kept strumming. The words were middle school level, but they made him smile. Something he hadn’t done much of lately.

Lights blinked on in the driveway beneath the window. He slipped off the guitar strap, slanted his guitar against the curved tower wall, and pressed his forehead against the window, looking down, waiting to watch Cassie’s car drive away.

Even as the coolness from the glass seeped into his skin, he asked himself what the hell he was doing. The last time he’d hung around to catch a glimpse of a woman, he’d been twelve, waiting for Marilee Hutzbender to come home from her cocktail waitress job in the tight T-shirt that outlined her large hooters and a short skirt that showed off her rounded thighs.

A light bulb didn’t switch on in his head, just a Disney-sized lightshow. Pulling back from the window, he slapped his forehead. That was it! Cassie’s rounder face was different from Marilee’s dimpled cheeks and constant smile, but she could be Marilee’s body double.

Christ, he was a dog. Living out his adolescent fantasies with his ghost whisperer.

His sexy ghost whisperer.

“
I like sex,”
she said in his mind. “
I like sex.”

“Me too,” he murmured, watching her car cruise down the driveway. “I fucking like it too.”

***

The sun lowered, day turning into night as Cassie stopped off at the main street diner and picked up a pint of chicken dumpling soup, a turkey sub sandwich, and a slice of pumpkin pie the owner practically forced on her by asking, “You want dessert? The pumpkin pie is good.”

Although dark clouds hid the moon, she knew it must be a full one. If the clerk had said, “You want a penis? The penis is good,” she would have said, “Sure, throw one in.”

But she didn’t need to do that. She had one in her Home Away From Home motel room. She kept it in the drawer by her panties and bras, ready for action in case she needed it, batteries loaded.

And Luke knew about it.

Her breath hyperventilated as she walked out of the restaurant, and she forced herself to slow her breathing down. In and in and in, out and out and out. Slooooooooooowly.

After all, so what if Luke heard her? In tenth grade, Rory Winston, the cute boy in her algebra class, heard her talking to the ghost of a former English teacher who killed herself in the girls’ bathroom. Now
that
was humiliating.

At her cousin Lauren’s wedding, Emerson, Cassie’s half-brother, told the room in the middle of a toast that she talked to dead people. She’d smiled and laughed along with her stepmother and everyone else except her father, who glared at her as though Emerson’s announcement was her idea.

Her date had never asked her out again.

That
had been humiliating.

She stomped down the sidewalk. Why was she thinking about this old stuff? Many people went through a lot worse. She was alive and healthy and had work she enjoyed.

So what if her best friend was a ghost? So what if she didn’t have a husband or boyfriend? She had something a lot more reliable. Hunk never cheated on her and never orgasmed before she did. Always the perfect partner. No messes. No cheating. No semen running down her thighs and onto her bed sheets. No turning over to snore on his side of the bed, leaving her to sleep on the wet spot.

No promises.

No lies.

No disappointments.

Who needed a man? Especially the one she pictured while Hunk was doing his thing.

The last man she’d slept with used her to write a book. Luke would write a song.

All Hunk required from her was batteries.

Any woman’s ideal lover.

Chapter Thirty-two