Ghost Flower (32 page)

Marching off to meet Colin.

Colin who acted as though he and Ro had never broken up even though I knew, from the scratched-out face on the photo, from what Roscoe had said about a broken heart, that they had. Colin who tried to suggest that one of the Silvertons would try to kill me. Colin who didn’t like it when things didn’t go how he planned. Colin who had a temper.

Colin who felt so guilty about whatever happened that night that he threw away a basketball scholarship he’d worked years to get and enlisted in the Army. Colin who, according to Xandra, had actually been texting Liza. To come meet him. Because he was there.

It was someone who was there that night. Someone you know.

But the accident with Liza’s bike. The rash on Stuart’s hands. What was the explanation for those?

I started to shiver as I got up and walked back to the hospital. “You’ll be fine after a good night’s sleep,” the doctor had said.

But where could I go that I would feel safe? Whom could I trust? I was nearly at the door to Althea’s room when I saw the answer.

Or thought I did.

Coralee was coming down the corridor toward me as though it had better watch out for itself.

She said, “Your grandmother is sleeping, but we got some great footage of the doctors. I think
Ghost Bike
might be my hardest-hitting webisode yet.” She sounded upbeat, but I noticed that there were dark smudges under her eyes.

I looked behind her. “Where’s your crew?”

She waved a hand. “Off editing somewhere. It’s a twenty-four-hour operation keeping CG on the A-I-R.” When she said C-G, she made curves with her hands and interlocked them.

“You’re lucky,” I told her. “My initials wouldn’t work for that.”

She patted me on the shoulder. “We’ll think of something.”

“Smiley face. Could I come home with you tonight?”

She did a fake double take. “What? You actually want to hang
out
?”

“I just thought it could be nice,” I said. Which was a good-sized piece of the truth but not the proverbial whole. Since she wasn’t in Althea’s will and hadn’t been at the party the night Liza died, Coralee was one of the few people I could think of who wasn’t possibly trying to kill me.

I saw an expression on her face I hadn’t seen before, and for an instant she looked both younger and more mature, as though I was seeing the smart little girl she had built her entire brash exterior to protect. But also as though she wasn’t sure she wanted me near her.

Sensing her hesitation, I said, “It’s okay if this isn’t a good night.”

“It is.” Her voice sounded smaller too. “Sure. Um, that would be, yeah, fun.”

She was back to normal by the time we got to the Golden Mile, the Golds’ massive estate. The front of it was a construction zone because it was always in the process of being renovated.

Given that her mother was a famed domestic diva, Coralee’s room was a surprise. It had dark red walls and mahogany furniture and looked like the room of a little girl. The only grown-up thing was the queen-sized bed with the dark wood headboard, but even that had a floral quilt on it that looked girlish and slightly frayed.

I was thinking that maybe when everything around you changed all the time, it was nice to know something would always be the same, when I became aware of Coralee watching me intently.

She was standing with her back to the door, like she was blocking it. Our eyes met, and she said, “I can’t believe I finally have you here,” half-like she was talking to herself. “You just walked
right in. You had no idea, did you?” She smiled, but not like herself. Her face had completely changed. It now wore an expression of pure hate.

Without taking her eyes off me, she reached behind her, and I heard the door lock.

“W
hat—what’s going on, Coralee?” I asked.

“It’s time for us to have a little talk,” she said.

“A talk?” I repeated. My palms were damp.

She nodded. “There are two things you should know.”

She took a step toward me. I took a step back. “W-what?”

She held up a finger. “The first one is, I hate you. I’ve hated you for years.”

I nodded. My back was pressed against her dresser. “But I thought—”

“Shut up,” she hissed. She held up another finger. “The second one is, I was there that night. At the party.”

I felt like my knees were going to go out from under me. It was only then, too late, when I saw what an idiot I’d been. Coralee was the one person who could have done everything—she could have made the phone call during the séance, she would have known when we were going to Three Lovers Point, she knew I was going to talk to Colin, she saw me leave the tennis tournament with my grandmother. “Are you saying that you’re the one who killed Liza?”

Her hand snaked out, and she slapped me. “Don’t you dare,” she said.

Now I was really confused. My palm went to my cheek. “I don’t—”

“Why don’t you tell me what happened between the two of you on Three Lovers Point the night she died?”

“I wasn’t there.”

“Then how did a button from your coat get up there?”

I frowned. “How did you know about that? The police said—”

“I have connections. Stop stalling, how did it? If you weren’t there?”

I shook my head. “I don’t know.”

She slapped me again, and I reeled back. “Stop lying!” she said, and she was almost hysterical now. “It’s no use—I know what happened.” Her voice quivered. “You and Liza went up to Three Lovers Point together. You made her come with you—you were always making her do things—and she didn’t want to. I think you were joking about jumping, going over, and she tried to stop you. And when she did, she fell. She fell trying to save you, rescue you the way she always was. And you ran.”

“What? Are you nuts?”

“I think you killed her,” Coralee went on, sounding more rational even as her words sounded less. “It may have been an accident, but I think you killed Elizabeth Lawson. And you ran away like a coward.”

I was frozen. The temptation to tell Coralee the truth about myself, to make her take back these horrible accusations, nearly overwhelmed me. But I couldn’t.

“You don’t really believe that, do you? Coralee?”

I thought her expression might have wavered. She said, “Why is she haunting you? Why you?”

“I don’t—”

Her hands snaked out, this time to grab my shoulders. Her grip was firm and hard. “Why you and not me?” Her tone was demanding, but the anger seemed to have been replaced by something more feverish.

“What are you talking about?”

Her face crumpled. There was no other description for it. Her face crumpled, and she let go of my shoulders and stumbled backward, falling onto the bed and bursting into tears.

“Did I do—?” I started to say. She shook her head before I finished and pressed the heels of her palms into her eyes.

I sat down next to her and waited for her to stop crying. Her hands dropped from her eyes. She took a ragged breath and said, “I’m sorry. I didn’t really think you killed her. I mean, I did, before you got back. But then when you returned.” She shook her head, not meeting my eyes.

“Were you and Liza close?” I asked. Nothing I’d heard or studied suggested she and Liza had been especially good friends.

Coralee said, “Yes.” She closed her eyes and took another deep breath. “Liza and I—we—we were in love.” A tear trickled down her cheek. She opened her eyes and looked at me. “We loved each other, and it’s been killing me that she’s haunting you and not me.” She laughed drily, but her body trembled with the effort of keeping back a sob. “I just wish I could see her again.” The last words came out as though they had been mined by anguish deep inside of her.

I was stunned. I put my hand on her shoulder to comfort her, and she grabbed it and held it. “I’m so sorry,” I said. “I—I had no idea. How long had you two been together?”

She flopped back onto her back with her head on one of the pillows. Her voice was scratchy from crying. “Almost six months.
It happened when she left the tennis team, after Christmas break. Remember, she’d come back with broken fingers? Coach said they were healing fine and she could just take a break, but Liza insisted on quitting completely. I went to talk to her and ask her why she was leaving because, no offense, I thought she was the best player on the team. She got mad at me and told me to mind my own business and—” She tilted her face toward mine. “Did she ever really yell at you? Like really?”

I lay on my side on the pillow next to her and shook my head.

Coralee let out a whistle. “She was incredibly hot when she was angry. There was so much she bottled up inside, and it almost never came out but—” She turned back to looking at the ceiling. “Anyway, she was yelling at me, and I just—I just kissed her. She was the first person I’d ever kissed. And she kissed me back. And that was that.”

“You kept it so secret,” I said.

“We were afraid. My family, her family, her older sister, you. Everyone at school. We didn’t know how people would act. Now it would be different. But that was three years ago, and we were only freshmen…” She shrugged.

“I thought—the police thought—you two didn’t get along.”

“Ah.” Her eyes went back to the ceiling. “We thought that would be good cover. Then no one would suspect. And no one did. Mostly we hung out here. That’s why I haven’t redone my room—because it still reminds me of her.”

I said, “Why did you go to the party that night?”

She didn’t answer, asking instead, “Do you remember Victoria, Liza’s older sister? The one who went to boarding school?”

I thought about what Grant had said, about Victoria telling Liza I was a bad influence. “Not really.”

“I think Liza idolized her, kind of. When Victoria was home from
school, Liza dressed different and talked different, like a little version of her sister. She would barely answer my calls or texts, or else she’d let Victoria answer her phone and have her tell me that Liza was busy. And I’d hear laughing in the background. Like I wasn’t good enough for her and her sister’s friends. Like Liza was embarrassed about me.” Coralee twisted a length of her glossy hair around her finger. Her voice was lower and sad when she went on. “It happened for the first time over spring break. I spent pretty much all of it right here, crying. But when we got back to school, everything went back to normal. I was so happy, I didn’t even ask her why she’d been so mean. And then she did it again when her sister came home for the summer. Disappeared.”

“So you came to the party to see her?”

Coralee nodded. “Yeah. She finally called me back that morning and said you were having some kind of nervous breakdown, so she couldn’t leave you. Something about Colin and a breakup? That’s how I knew about you and Colin, actually. Liza had told me about picking up his notes for you from the Old Man and leaving yours for him, so no one would know you were in a relationship. We weren’t the only people in Tucson keeping things secret.”

“I guess not.”

“Anyway, I was desperate to talk to her. I hadn’t seen her in two weeks, since Victoria got home, and when I heard she was out with you, I got jealous. So I went up to the party to just, you know, talk to her, but when I got there I couldn’t find either of you. All I managed to see was your cousin, talking to J.J.”

I remembered Grant mentioning a J.J. “The J.J. who worked at the golf club? He was at the party?”

“He was, but not
officially
. That was kind of J.J.’s thing, right? Sure, he worked at the golf club, but mostly he was kind of a thug
of all trades. People like Bain love hanging out with people like J.J. because it makes them feel cool and edgy, and they like to imagine that J.J. wants to be them.”

That sounded about right for Bain.

I sat up on one elbow. “Was that the J.J. that Madam Cruz channeled at the séance?”

She laughed. “Yes and no. It was that J.J., but I told her what to say. So she wasn’t channeling him.” She saw my expression and rushed to add, “She’s a real medium; she could channel people. But she’s also a friend of Mom’s, so she agreed to pretend to get in touch with J.J. as a favor to me. She kept it separate from the rest of the séance because she didn’t want to upset any real spirits.”

“Why?”

Coralee yawned, as though this confession had tired her out. “I just wanted to see what Bain would do. It was delicious, with the strangling and then Grant coming over and ghost whispering. ‘Vitamin Must-See TV.” She turned serious. “Don’t tell Grant he isn’t a ghost whisperer, okay? He has so few pleasures. Besides you. But you’re going to break his heart, aren’t you?”

“I don’t know what you are talking about.”

“L-O—nevermind. I’m too tired.” She yawned.

“But no one saw you at the party. Why didn’t you go in?”

“And say what? That I was looking for my girlfriend? I don’t think so.” She yawned again. “I’m beat. Would you mind if we went to sleep now?”

“No.”

She lent me a blue camisole and matching shorts to change into and slid into a nearly identical yellow set herself. We crawled under the covers, and she stretched to turn off the beside light. “Goodnight, Ro.”

“Goodnight, Coralee.”

I hadn’t quite drifted off to sleep when she said, “You know, Liza wanted to tell you. About us. She thought you’d understand, and she also said you were starting to get mad because you knew she had a secret and it made you feel bad she wasn’t telling you. I wasn’t sure. I thought you were kind of a bitch, but Liza said I didn’t understand you.” I heard her let out a deep breath. “I guess she was right.”

The next morning I was up before her. I tried to be as quiet as possible getting ready, but as I went to leave, she said, “Thank you. For letting me talk about Liza. I miss her, and it—it was great to be able to think about her again.”

“You’re welcome.”

“Hugsbye,” she mumbled sleepily.

“Hugsbye.”

In the car on the way to the hospital, I checked my phone. When I saw the battery had died, my mouth went dry, and my chest got tight.

Don’t ignore me,
I heard Liza’s voice.
Pay attention.