***
A relative. Damn it. She was about to talk to a relative.
These things just never ended well.
Akira stood in the doorway, trying to decide what to say, how to approach the subject. Oh, by the way, your ex-husband was just careless, not malicious? He didn’t actually murder your kid, just hid the body? No, that wasn’t the right starting place.
Zane and the blonde woman were sitting on the couch, Zane holding both of the woman’s hands in his. Although she knew there was nothing romantic or sexual in the touch, Akira felt a slight prickle of annoyance. Not that there was anything serious between her and Zane, but still, somewhere less than twelve hours ago, those hands had been touching her in very intimate places. Seeing them touching another woman just felt wrong.
Lucas was standing next to Zane, watching his brother. Two men stood a few steps behind him, also watching intently. FBI agents, Akira wondered? They could be, she supposed. They fit her stereotypical image of FBI agents, with unflattering suits, boring ties, and short hair. Farther away, where the family room met the kitchen, another cluster of people stood gathered around a table, some with heads down over a map, some talking in quiet voices.
So many people, she thought. Hell. Could she really do this? Before she had a chance to decide, a shock—as if she’d just been doused with ice water—ran through her. She shuddered convulsively and gasped, feeling the energy pouring into her veins, jolting its way along her spine. The adult ghost appeared inside the room, no longer pink-tinged.
“Don’t do that,” she hissed at him. Ugh, it hurt. She shivered again, blinking back tears of pain.
“You could feel me?” he asked, surprised, as the people closest to the door, including Zane, all looked in Akira’s direction.
“Of course I can,” she started to say irritably, but before more than the second word slipped through her lips, she noticed the people looking at her and pressed her lips together, looking up and away and at anything but them.
Before she had time to do more than take another breath, Zane was standing in front of her, his hands on her shoulders. “You okay?” he asked. She looked up at him. His face was serious and she could see the worry in his eyes.
She had told him nothing about ghosts, she realized. Nothing at all. All he knew was that she didn’t want people to know she could see them, and that she didn’t like having her ability. And yet he was still worried about her, still quick to jump up from what he was doing to make sure that nothing was wrong. She nodded at him and tried to smile.
“They’re both ghosts,” she whispered to him. “And both here.”
His eyes widened just slightly and he glanced over his shoulder at the woman sitting on the couch and then quickly back at Akira. “What do you want to do?” he asked her in a hushed voice.
She shrugged uncertainly, feeling helpless. “Did you tell Lucas? About Dillon?” Grace and Nat and Max and Zane had all spent some time sitting in the car after Akira had confirmed that it was, in fact, haunted and that Dillon could hear them, but only Zane regularly visited. Akira didn’t know whether that was because Zane had warned the others off or whether it was too painful for them. The idea of a ghost could be comforting, but it was also an ever-present reminder of loss. She understood if it was easiest for the Latimers to let Dillon be, trusting that he was okay in her company.
She paused, because Zane was shaking his head no. “We decided to wait until he was home for a visit.”
“So, does he know about me?” she whispered. “My, um, quirk, I mean?”
Zane shook his head no again. But he didn’t have a chance to say anything further, because Lucas was abruptly speaking, his voice carrying across the room, “Folks, we need some privacy for a while. Please clear the room. Jane, why don’t you set up in the front? Mark, maybe you could take a couple of people on a lunch run?” Quickly, efficiently, almost ruthlessly, and within the space of sixty seconds, everyone except Lucas, Diane, Zane, Akira—and the ghost—was out of earshot.
“He really does read minds, doesn’t he?” Akira said to Zane.
He managed a smile. “How’d you guess?”
“All right, what was that about Dillon?” Lucas asked, crossing to where they were standing.
“Dillon?” Diane stood, also joining them by the door. “What’s going on? Who’s Dillon? Is there someone out there?”
Akira looked at them, at Lucas’ frown, Diane’s worry, Zane’s concern for her.
Great.
Double the relatives, double the trouble. Then she took a deep breath and started to explain.
Diane fainted. Then she cried. Then she got mad. Akira was impressed with the range of her vocabulary and secretly glad that her ex-husband was the ghost and not Diane. She didn’t want to know what Diane’s energy would look like, and Rob took the yelling without as much as a flicker of his own energy. Then Diane cried again.
Lucas, though, got colder. The charm disappeared, leaving only the dangerous toughness in its place. If he’d been the brother interviewing her in Tassamara, Akira would never have taken the job, she knew. And while Diane cried and screamed, he disappeared to arrange the search for the bodies.
Rob had lost his job several months ago, he told Akira. The house was headed into foreclosure, and he and Diane had split up. He’d bought the swing set when Diane was pregnant, and Diane had always said it was too big for the boy. When Daniel fell while Rob was at the house taking care of him, Rob broke. He’d taken Daniel’s body and driven the car to an old quarry that was filled with water, a place that he and Diane had gone diving in earlier, happier days. He’d headed straight into the water. He hadn’t been thinking about a next, about what happened after, he’d just despaired.
“I couldn’t imagine telling her,” Rob said, watching Diane cry. “I didn’t know how much worse it would be not to be able to tell her.”
She nodded. He wasn’t the first ghost she’d met who had been surprised and frustrated by his afterlife.
“So what happens now?” he asked.
Akira shrugged. Personally, she was hoping for a ride back to the airport and a smooth flight home. But he wouldn’t mean what would happen to her, he wanted to know what would happen to him and Daniel and she had no idea.
“Aren’t you supposed to find us a white light?”
Akira sighed. She’d warmed up to Rob’s ghost during the past half-hour and if he could handle Diane’s diatribes without losing control, he could probably handle what she had to say, too. “The 1970’s has a lot to answer for. Watergate, bellbottoms, disco. And that whole white light idea.”
Zane was perched on the couch next to the sobbing Diane, patting her back helplessly and handing her tissues. At Akira’s words, he looked up. She could read the plea in his eyes, and she tucked her hands behind her back and sidled sideways, closer to the door. He was doing a fine job with the tissues, much better than she would in his place. His look changed to one of mild exasperation and she tried to look apologetic without implying that she would be helpful. Crying relatives were better than angry relatives but not by much. She never knew what to say or do.
“I suppose that makes sense,” Rob said. “In the earliest afterlife myths, there’s no white light. In fact, in Plato’s Republic, in the story of Er, there’s a rainbow.”
“The story of who?” Akira asked.
“Er. Yes, Er. Not Um. I know the jokes.” He was looking around. “But there should be a passageway first. A door. A staircase. Something like that.”
Abruptly, he disappeared. Startled, Akira looked around. Was he gone? But no, he’d just walked through the glass. He was outside, talking to the little boy. Now that Akira had absorbed some of his energy and he had calmed down, he could get close to the little ghost without hurting him. Akira slid open the door and stepped out onto the patio.
“Do you see a door, Daniel?” the father was saying.
“Dada, Dada,” the little boy chortled happily, hugging his father’s legs. “D
ada.”
“Oh, Daniel,” Rob scooped the ghost boy up, hugging him close, and burying his face in the boy’s blond head for a second. Then he said again, “Do you see a door, Daniel? Look around really carefully.”
The boy obeyed, then shook his head. “Back door, Dada?” he asked, pointing at the house.
“Not the door to the house, another door.”
Daniel shook his head again, then frowned, and kicked to be let down. “Dis way?” He sounded almost curious, as he walked past the swing set. Rob watched him, eyes searching as if he was trying to see what Daniel was seeing. “Come, Dada,” the boy ordered, holding out his hand. “Come wit me.”
“I don’t see it, Daniel.” Rob sounded sad. “But you go ahead.”
“No, Dada.” The little boy shook his head, and waved at his father imperiously. “You come. Come me. Dis way. You see?”
The grief on Rob’s face was so intense that Akira could hardly bear to look at him, and his voice was choked, as he repeated, “I don’t see it, Daniel. You go ahead and I’ll—and I’ll catch up to you someday.”
“No, Dada.” Returning to his father’s side, Daniel took Rob’s hand. “Dis way,” he insisted.
Rob looked down and smiled sadly, letting himself be tugged along, as he said, “I’ll come with you as far as I can, Daniel, but then you have to go on your own, all right? You won’t know her but Grandma will be waiting for you and you’ll like . . . oh.”
On that final word—a startled but at the same time almost calm exclamation—Rob and Daniel disappeared.