CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Dillon grieved.
Akira couldn’t blame him.
The house was quieter, lonelier without Rose and Henry. Akira missed Henry’s calm presence in the kitchen and Rose’s lively charm, and it was worse for Dillon. The boys in the backyard were no company at all, so all he had was Akira.
He took to spending more and more time in his car.
“Grace bought you ten new Kindles, Dillon. Don’t you want to come into the lab and try to fry them?” Akira asked in desperation one miserable day at the end of August. It was lunch time and she was sitting in the car, air conditioning at full blast.
Whoever had chosen this car had been an idiot, she thought wearily. A black car parked in the sun in Florida in August was an oven, and even with the air-conditioning, she felt as if she was baking. But it was even hotter outside the car, and she was worried about Dillon. She knew he could stretch to reach the lab if he wanted to, but he hadn’t been willing to make the effort for days.
What she really needed, she thought, was a ghost psychologist.
“Maybe later,” Dillon said from the backseat. “You should go in, though. It’s hot out here for you.”
“That’s for damn sure,” Akira muttered, checking the a/c settings for the third time. Maybe it was broken?
“Tell me again how it happened.”
“Oh, Dillon.” Akira partially turned to face him, leaning back and letting her head rest against the warm glass of the window. She felt sticky with sweat. “I’ve told you.”
“When Henry died, he couldn’t find Rose,” he prompted her. “Start there.”
Akira sighed. At least he didn’t want to hear about the door again. She hadn’t seen the door herself, so she couldn’t really describe it, but she felt as if she’d spent hours trying to explain it to Dillon. And then he’d spent days trying to look over his shoulder, because of how she’d described Rose’s way of looking at the door, as if it was somewhere behind her. It was almost as if he hoped he’d find it, just out of sight behind him.
“Henry was in a place that wasn’t a cloud and wasn’t foggy and wasn’t a white light or a rainbow light,” she started obediently, “but it looked something like mother-of-pearl, and he was trying to find Rose. He didn’t tell me anything about how long he looked or what it was like to be looking for her, just that he couldn’t find her. And then he was in the kitchen of the house.”
Damn it, she thought, watching his face. Maybe she was the one who needed a shrink. Was she really making herself miserable worrying about a teenage ghost? But she couldn’t help herself. She hated seeing him so unhappy. And even more, she hated not knowing how to help him.
“Do you think maybe my Gran is looking for me?” Dillon’s words were almost casual, but his blue eyes were intent on Akira’s. “Maybe that’s why she’s still here?”
What? Oh, hell. Oh, no. Is that what he was thinking? Over the course of the past few months, they’d almost stopped talking about the ghost in the Latimer house. Grace’s researcher was still working, uncovering ever more obscure ghost stories, but Grace hadn’t interviewed a new medium in weeks. Akira had been perfectly content to adopt an out of sight, out of mind philosophy when it came to that particular ghost.
“Even if she was,” Akira said, trying to pick her words carefully. “There’s nothing we could do about it.” Dillon didn’t look convinced and she sighed. “Dillon, there’s no way to get close to a ghost like that. It’d be like walking into fire. The power will rip you apart.”
“But maybe if she saw me, she’d calm down,” Dillon said stubbornly.
“It doesn’t work that way,” Akira insisted. “Ghosts that have turned red, they’re not thinking any more. They’re just energy.”
“You said it was like they were psychotic or hallucinating. You can talk to people who are hallucinating.”
“Not if they’re attacking you. The energy is destructive. You wouldn’t be able to reach her.”
“You said ‘her.’ You think it’s my gran, too.”
“What difference does it make?” Akira demanded.
“I’ve been thinking about it a lot,” Dillon answered. “I want to go to see her.”
“What? No!” Akira’s response was immediate and instinctive. There was no way, absolutely no way, that she and Dillon were going anywhere near that house.
Five minutes later, she shivered in the cold. The only good thing about arguing with a ghost was that the more upset Dillon got, the cooler it got in the car.
“Well, there’s nothing you can do about it,” she finally said, feeling put-upon but triumphant as she pulled out her trump card. “You can’t get there without the car, and I won’t drive the car there.”
“Fine, I’ll walk,” Dillon snapped at her. “I know the way.” With an indignant push, he forced himself out of the car and started walking.
Akira watched him stomping across the parking lot, feeling self-righteously annoyed at him.
And then self-righteously annoyed and a little guilty.
And then a lot guilty and only a little annoyed.
It was his grandmother, after all. And he’d lost Rose and Henry. He was lonely. And being stuck in the car couldn’t be fun. Maybe she should have found a nicer way to say no. But he was so stubborn!
With a quiet thunk, the passenger door opened, and Zane slid inside the car. “Hot day for this,” he said. “Dillon, can’t you make it into the lab? Make life a little easier on Akira?”
Akira shook her head. “He’s not in the car.”
“Oh?” Zane looked at her, the question clear.
“He’s decided he has to go visit your mom,” she said gloomily, watching Dillon’s back as he crossed the parking lot. She wondered how far he’d get. She knew he’d managed to get several blocks away from the car: before she left, he and Rose had been having fun seeing how far up Millard Street they could get. There was a little park at the end of the street that they’d been trying to reach.
“Isn’t that going to be tough?” Zane asked.
“Impossible, I think.” Akira slumped a little in the seat, closing her eyes and leaning back against the headrest. Was Dillon suicidal? Could a ghost be suicidal? Maybe, if he was trying to destroy himself. If only she’d made Rose and Henry wait. If only she’d thought about Dillon, not just Henry. How could she have been so stupid? She berated herself silently, not for the first time.
A warm hand closed around hers and she opened her eyes, startled.
“Talk to me,” Zane said. “What’s going on?”
Akira chewed her lower lip. How did she want to explain this?
“Stop that,” Zane said. He leaned forward, dropping her hand, and sliding his hand up and around the back of her neck. He tugged her to him, gently, and she went with it, leaning into him as he took her mouth with his own, his lips and tongue caressing hers.
She felt the warmth rising in her veins, the rush of pleasure flowing through her. It had been months now, she thought fuzzily, and it was still the same—his touch, his taste, his smell, they hit all her triggers, more and more all the time.
He pulled away and she let him go reluctantly. “You’re better than Xanax.”
He chuckled. “Thanks. I think.” He brushed his lips against hers again, and then prompted, “So, Dillon?”
“He has this idea that maybe your mom is like Henry, that she’s trying to find him like Henry tried to find Rose.”
Zane blinked. “Huh.” He looked out into the parking lot thoughtfully. “That makes sense, actually. And it sounds like her.”
“It sounds like her?” Akira repeated, not sure what he meant. They hadn’t talked about his mom, not since that first night. She’d been so sure when he dropped her off at her house that it was over between them that steering clear of the subject had been almost instinctive. He’d been convinced that his mom would never hurt anyone; she’d been equally convinced that there was a dangerous ghost in his house. It
seemed like a subject best avoided.
“Determined,” he said. “She was Grace on steroids.”
Akira couldn’t help smiling at the image. Grace ran the company with a polite southern charm that did nothing to disguise the organized efficiency of her every movement. Grace on steroids?
“Scary?” she asked.
“Only if you were doing something she didn’t like. But then, yeah. This one time—well, it’s not important.” Zane was smiling, as if it was a good memory, but he sobered as he went on. “I could definitely see her staying to try to find Dillon.” He paused, opened his mouth as if he wanted to say something, then closed it again.
Akira bit her lip.
Damn it.
She knew what he wanted to say as surely as if she was the one who could read minds. Daniel and Rob and Henry and Rose had shown her that ghosts could or maybe should be going somewhere. She didn’t know why Dillon couldn’t find the way, but if Zane’s mom was refusing to go without Dillon, then maybe . . .
“Ow. Hell.” The voice from the backseat was disgruntled. Akira turned and Dillon glared at her. “I will get there,” he said defiantly.
“Did it just get colder?” Zane asked, sounding startled as he reached to put his hand by the air-conditioner vent.
“Dillon’s back and he’s still mad at me,” Akira reported matter-of-factly. Dillon crossed his arms over his chest and looked sulky as he leaned back in the seat and stared out the window.
Akira almost smiled. He would probably be annoyed if she told him he was cute when he was angry, but he was. His messy dark hair and pout made him look like a much younger child.
And then her smile faded as she realized that she wasn’t scared of Dillon. Not in the least. He was angry at her, and she knew that made him dangerous, but she still wasn’t scared.
Because she loved him. Somehow she had let a fifteen-year-old boy ghost who worried about everything slip under her defenses and enter her heart.
And then her eyes slid sideways to his uncle, who was watching her intently, eyes dark, slightly frowning, and she realized that she loved him, too.
He wasn’t who she’d ever thought she’d want.
He barely cared about science. He wasn’t serious. He wasn’t intense. He didn’t want to have deep, philosophical conversations about the meaning of life and how the universe might work. He’d rather watch baseball, one of the most boring sports ever invented.
But picnic tables and pool tables. Fire ants and Kindles. He might not make it obvious, but he paid more attention, noticed more, than anybody she’d ever met.
And this ghost—she was his mom. What would it be like, to know your mother was trapped in your house, lost in a ghostly vortex of despair?
Akira sighed. She thought she might be about to do one of the stupidest things she’d ever done.
If her father was still alive, he’d kill her for this.