The Dead Girls Detective Agency (7 page)

Wow. That was the most wound up I’d seen her. Nancy must be stressed. “We have to go. Lorna, make the circle and—”

“David! Visitor!” a female voice boomed from downstairs. His mom. I recognized it well. Though I wasn’t sure she should be shouting at her recently bereaved son when he was in mourning.

David didn’t move. Except to sniff a bit.

“Will someone give the boy a tissue or ten?” Lorna rolled her eyes.

“David! I said you have a visitooor!”

David shuffled on the bed and slowly sat up. His eyes were red and puffy. His floppy blond hair stuck to his face. There were little pink wrinkles on his cheek where the pillow had made an impression. His sweater had ridden up, revealing a crumpled Nirvana T-shirt underneath. He was a mess. A cute mess. It killed me to see him this way. It was all my fault. Well, the fault of the psycho who decided to go public-transport-Bundy on my ass.

There was a light knock at the door. It must be the visitooor. Maybe it was one of his friends from band practice. He’d been sort of managing this group of seniors, Camels on the Freeway, and Tom, the drummer, and he were really good friends. He said he was doing it because “managing was where the creative control was at.” Though looking over at the unused guitar in the corner, I suspected there may be another reason.

Another knock, more urgent this time.

Nancy and I stared at each other. I hoped she had a plan. I didn’t even have an obituary yet, I certainly didn’t have a plan.

“David, can I come in?”

That was not Tom. Or Pete (the Camels’ bassist). Or even Plectrum (lead singer—go figure). It was a girl’s voice. A
girl
. You know, as in
not
a boy.

And, by the way, David’s mom did not let him have girls in his bedroom. She didn’t even let me upstairs in his town house—and we had been dating for around a year and a half (okay, exactly seventeen months). In high school years we were pretty much married with two children, a house in Connecticut (yuck), and a dog. But if we were watching TV in the den (“with the door open, kids, or not at all”) and I needed to pee, I was allowed to go only in the small downstairs bathroom. Just in case I—I don’t know—ran upstairs, got into David’s room, and in some way infected it with girl germs that made him like me more than his mother.

So what was his mom doing letting some other girl upstairs? David didn’t hang out with any other girls.

The door creaked open. Just a crack. And a professionally blow-dried blond head popped around the wood.

“Hey, I am
so
sorry to hear your news.” Somehow she shimmied her way from the door to his duvet in under a second—simultaneously looking concerned and pulling off a killer look-how-Angelina-my-lips-are pout.

Kristen.

Kristen, the Tornadoes’ head cheerleader.

Kristen, the prettiest and most popular girl in school.

Kristen, the bitchiest girl I’d ever met.

Who didn’t like me.

Who never talked to
us
.

What was
she
doing
here
?

“Jamie, my deputy head cheerleader, she was on her way to Barneys when she saw Jenni, who’d just been to Bloomingdale’s, and she told her that a girl from our school had died underground.” She sniffed, like that was the worst place you could possibly go. “Well, we just had to find out who it was right away—”

I bet they did.

“And when we heard it was poor, poor, poor”—okay, enough already—“poor Charlotte, I just had to race over here and see if you were okay.”

Get the gossip more like. Apart from earlier today when we’d had the whole me-bumping-into-her/books-falling incident, I didn’t think Kristen even knew I was alive. But she certainly knew I was dead. Oh, the irony.

“That’s kinda sweet of you,” David said. He sat up properly. He still hadn’t noticed his sweater was hiked up somewhere around his middle. Kristen kindly pulled it down for him. I started to seethe. And get hot. What the freaking hell did she think she was doing here? Why was she trying to comfort him? He was
my
boyfriend. Mine. She was not having him. Oh no. Over. My. Dead. Body.

Oh.

Hotter. I was so mad, I was feeling even hotter. It was that warm bath feeling. The same one I’d had up the Empire State. Just before I … Uh-oh.

“Lorna, Lorna, quick, she’s going to apparite, she can’t control it.” Somewhere behind me Nancy was talking, but all I could see was that … ho (and I
hated
that mean-girl word) now stroking my boyfriend’s hair. And David? He was clearly so traumatized and upset by my death that he was letting her do it.

Arms. In front of my face were Lorna’s and Nancy’s arms. They were circling me now. Trying to get me out. And just as I felt the warm buzzing in my toes and looked down to see them begin to glow, the room spun. And spun. And spun some more.

Until I felt sick. Until we were back in the Hotel Attesa’s lobby. And until all I was left with was porting sickness …

And the image of the hottest girl in school pushing David’s dirty blond hair out of his eyes.

Chapter 7

“
I CAN’T DO IT—NOT TO HER. SHE WAS THE LOVE
of my life. We were together for too long to disrespect her in this way. It’s … it’s not fair. It’s not
me
.”

“Oh, but you can. She left you alone. And she’ll never be back. You can’t be lonely for the rest of your life. You deserve a chance at happiness. She’d want that for you. She loved you—she wouldn’t want you to sit here alone, unhappy forever, would she?”

“But this feels so wrong. I can’t. I won’t. I—I—I—… Oh, okay then …”

It was the morning after the day I died, and I was standing outside HHQ, the door slightly ajar. And I could hear a weird, muffled conversation going on inside. Between a man and a woman. Who sounded like they had a lot to discuss.

I slowly pushed the door open a few inches more.

I never—if I was stuck in the Attesa for a million years—expected to see the sight waiting for me on the other side.

“I shouldn’t have kissed you,” a male voice was saying. “I was upset. It was wrong. You caught me by surprise.”

Nancy was sitting with her legs tucked underneath her, as close to the TV screen as she could get, drinking in the conversation taking place between the actors on it like it was the first pumpkin latte of Halloween.

So that’s who was talking—some actors in a shitty TV drama. It seemed that, as well as being an ace detectress, Nancy was a soap-opera addict. Surely there was a Rule that forbade that kind of pointless vegging out, when you could be crime fighting?

“Uh-hum!” I coughed loudly. And totally not realistically. Nancy jumped so hard she hit her glasses on the screen. “What are you doing?” I asked sweetly. I was going to enjoy this.

“Um, I’m, I …,” she mumbled guiltily.

“It’s the, um, new episode of
General Hospital
,” she said quietly. “It’s sort of my favorite show. I used to watch it every day after I’d finished my homework. I missed it when I came here. I inadvertently discovered this TV and if you, um, twiddle this knob”—she pointed at the largest of the rusty ones below the front of the screen—“it can pick up the Living’s daytime TV!”

“When you’re not crime solving, of course,” I said.

“Oh, of
course
,” Nancy echoed solemnly.

“
General Hospital
, hey? I’ve got some questionable TV habits myself, Nancy.” Don’t mention
Gilmore Girls
, don’t mention
Gilmore Girls
, or the fact it got so bad that in fifth grade you named your teddy Lorelai. “What does someone as smart as you see in a show like this?”

“I think Jason is kind of dreamy—” Nancy admitted.

“Jason? Is he still in it?” I asked, before I could stop myself. “Not that I’ve ever seen it either.” Damn, upper hand destroyed. I needed a subject change. Fast.

“Nancy,” I said as assertively as I could. “I’m going out. Alone.”

That shocked her out of her soap-induced coma. “Out? Alone? In the city? Charlotte, do you really think that’s wise after everything that happened yesterday?”

She pushed her hair behind her ear and her glasses did their wiggle thing. It was totally her nervous habit.

“I mean, first off you over-apparited up the Empire State—and by the way, I’ve checked the local news and there are no stories about a small dark-haired girl disappearing on top of the Empire State Building, so that’s a major relief.” Yeah, because it’s the kind of story that makes the evening news, right? Whoa, kid skips a line without paying in New York shocker. “Then you mind-pulled us into David’s
bedroom
—and you very nearly turned into an apparition there too. Imagine if he and that blond girl had seen you as a spirit! They’d be shouting about ghosts all over New York. And that wouldn’t help our investigation, would it? Rule Five: We can appear to the Living when it
helps
our investigation. Not just because we feel like it. And not when …”

Blah blah blah. I’d stopped listening to her. I was really starting to like Nancy but sometimes she could drone on more than the previews before a new movie. My brain had skidded onto another subject already. And it was Nancy’s fault. “That blond girl.” Kristen. Eww. Even thinking her name made me want to punch a wall. Which would have been pointless seeing as my hand would just have gone straight through it.

I got that ghosts don’t sleep. But even if I was still alive, there was no way I would have gotten three seconds of shut-eye last night. I’d had something of “a day,” as my grandmother would say. If you triple “a day” by a trillion billion percent. And that does not lead to calm thoughts when the sun goes down.

Death, haunting lessons, extreme dizziness, the Empire incident. I’m not saying they paled in insignificance at the sight of that heinous head cheerleader preying on David in his moment of weakness and need, but it did not help. And that was before I even let myself miss my mom and dad.

I had a horrible feeling death was about to get worse before it got better.

All night I lay on my new bed in the Hotel Attesa and thought way too much. Not about what was going to happen to me now or how I’d get my Key but about everything—and everyone—I’d lost. Who hated me enough to commit murder? To push me in front of a speeding subway train, just to get me out of the way?

And out of the way for what?

By the time I heard the morning cabs honking outside, I still had no answers. It wasn’t like I was the kind of girl who made enemies—or friends—easily. Who was bothered enough about me to want me dead? All I knew was that I had to get out of the Attesa and do something. And when I said “out” what I meant was “check up on David and the evil cheerwhore.”

“Basically, Charlotte, it’s a bad idea. I know you’re new, but even you can see that.” Nancy was pleading now. Her green eyes all big and
pleeease
at me. Despite the fact that the
General Hospital
couple on-screen were now having a major fight—oh! another male character had come in brandishing a gun—Nancy hadn’t even noticed. That’s how serious she was about my stay-put-iness.

Whatever. I was serious too. My mind was made up.

“Look, the way I see it,” I said, “I may be here for some time, so the sooner I get a handle on the Rules, the better.” I patted my blazer pocket where my copy was kept, as if somehow having it on my person meant the wisdom would seep into my body and make me Nancy-smart. “And that includes when to apparite and when not to.”

One look at her face told me my argument was going nowhere. It was a shame Nancy would never have kids. If her daughter had ever tried the I-only-missed-my-ten-p.m.-curfew-because-I-was-studying-at-Carly’s-house line, Nancy would have seen right through it.

Time to change tack.

“I thought a lot during the night and I’ve realized what the trigger is that makes me apparite: It’s thinking about how much I miss David,” I said.

Nancy gave me her special mom-face again. Man, did she have it down. Did she practice it in the mirror before every new ghost came in for instruction?

“Like, on the observation deck,” I said, “I was thinking about David and
boom!
I went all pink and visible and glowy. Then in his bedroom, when I wanted to tell him that he didn’t need to be upset about me? Glow city.”

“Yes, that’s very perceptive of you, Charlotte,” Nancy said, going to pat my hand. I pulled mine away. “But with the greatest respect, you may know what your trigger is, but unless you can control it—control thinking about David in that way—then it’s no help.” She sighed. “Look, you haven’t even been dead for twenty-four hours yet.” I might not have known the difference between a proton and an electron in the chemistry quiz yesterday, but, like, I’d forgotten how long I’d left the Living for.

“It’s amazing that you can apparite already—it takes some new ghosts weeks to learn what you can do already. You have a real talent.” Cue: big, encouraging smile. “But why don’t you practice some more with me and Lorna, first? Even Tess can be helpful, if you get her in the right mood.” As if. “Then, in time, when everything you’re feeling about your death is less raw, then I’m sure you’ll be able to control your powers better. Or maybe you’ll be out of here so quickly that you never have to master them.”

Nancy looked at me kindly. “That’s just what I think anyway.”

She had a point.

It was just that I didn’t want to hear it. Not in the least.

“But—but—but—,” I said, “you’ve taught me the most important lesson I need to know.”

Nancy looked at me blankly.

“How to unapparite.” Was that even a word? “How to stop myself appearing to the Living as an apparition.” That sounded better. Well, a bit. I went on. “If I start to app … to become an
apparition
, all I have to do is blow. That’s what you said, right? Then all of my energy goes out and I’m back to being an invisible dead girl. No one is freaked out. All good.”

“Yes …”

“So, really, you have nothing to worry about.” I beamed. Smile and she will believe you. “So I’ll head out, do some preliminary investigations …” Phew, she was nodding. “And if I, you know, feel the glow, I’ll just blow my energy out and think myself right back here. I promise. No drama.”