I couldn’t argue. My own life sure hadn’t been the same after Mom and Dad had gone. And I doubted they would’ve been all that happy about their sweet lil’, former straight-A student dropping out of college to hang out in dark forests with toking friends.
Amanda Lee turned away from the computer to face me. With those gray strands of hair framing her face, she seemed older than usual.
“Are you ready to visit him?” she asked. “To get a feeling for the kind of man you think he might be?”
A murderer?
I nodded, on board, even though I wasn’t going to speed into this whole thing like Amanda Lee had obviously wanted me to. Satisfied, she showed me the Edgetts’ address and the directions.
As full night claimed the sky, I finally took off toward that mansion near La Jolla, grabbing a travel current and speeding through that artery tunnel. I mean, why wait? It’s not like I had a ton of other things to do.
After I tumbled out of the tunnel, I hovered in the air, getting a bead on where I was. The beach, painted by sand and murmuring waves. Since I still had the ability to smell, I took a second to absorb the brine and wood smoke, too.
It was like all those summer nights with Dean.
I brushed off the thought and followed my senses toward the cliffs, where mansions loomed over the shoreline, burning light through their massive windows.
Rising high, then putting on some speed, I sketched over the rooftops, ruffling leaves on palm trees, until I got to the red roof of the Edgett mansion.
These people were rich. The place was made up of two wings, with a lagoon-shaped, rock-edged pool, a pool house, and a guest cottage. The palms waved, casting moonlit shadows over white walls and villa windows.
I listened, still hovering above the estate, until I picked up the sound of voices. Then I shot down to it, my essence pulsing with…
Was it excitement?
I took a spot near a sliding patio door, which was blocked by a screen. I didn’t want to see what it would feel like if I slid through that. Who needed to be grated ghost cheese?
“What did you just say to me?”
It was the voice of a young girl, and when I took a peek inside the mansion, I spied her near a marble kitchen counter, her back to me. But I could still see waist-length, straight black hair and a tiny sparrowlike body dressed in a dark minidress with torn tights and combat boots.
Wendy, the younger sister?
A teenage boy—Noah?—had propped his sneakered feet on the kitchen counter and was leaning back in a tall barstool. A hank of dirty brown hair covered one eye, and his skin was a toasty shade.
He’d been in the process of shrugging her off. “Aw, come on, Wen. I said it was just a spur-of-the-moment get-together.”
“It was a gathering of troglodytes, and you left a mess that the maids had to spend all day picking up. Thanks to you, Gavin’s gonna lock us down.”
“Hey, I helped clean up,” Noah said, and he looked pretty sincere about it.
Wendy shook her head and stalked all the way into the kitchen, toward the fridge.
I floated toward the open window there, getting a better look at her after she shut the appliance’s door and came out with a can that said Red Bull on it. She didn’t look anything like Noah, with his rosy tan skin and big dark eyes. Actually, she seemed Asian—a kind of cool nerd with a pink streak down the side of her hair.
Noah had sat up on his stool, revealing a T-shirt that said RADIOHEAD.
“Wen,” he said as she drank her Red Bull stuff. “I said I’m sorry.”
She took the can away from her lips. “Tell that to the homework I didn’t get finished.”
“Screw homework.”
“So says the guy who once got kicked out of prep school. Dumb-ass.”
Nearby me, I heard a strange, whining kitty sound. Sure enough, it’d come from a black-and-white cat that shot off into the bushes at my presence. I wasn’t positive it’d even seen me, but it was a sensitive little cuss.
Someone else walked into the massive kitchen, high-heeled shoes tapping on the marble floor.
“What is it with you two now?” Her voice was cultured. It actually reminded me of Princess Leia during her less “Han Solo, you really suck” moments.
“It’s the party again,” Noah said.
Wendy gave one of those loud, disgusted sounds that teens did so well. Once, I’d been excellent at them, too.
“Yeah, it was no biggie,” she said, “especially when your friends were pounding on my door and calling for ‘the geek’ to come out and play.”
The high-heeled woman walked into my view. If I weren’t a spirit who’d already resigned herself to being eternally unstylish—seeing as I couldn’t seem to find a way to change the long-sleeved blue shirt over the white tank and jeans I’d died in—I would’ve immediately been envious of Farah.
With a thick mass of smooth brunette hair spilling over her shoulder in a stylish braid, with her long legs and champagne-stem waist and her red designer cocktail dress, she belonged on the cover of a fashion mag with Christie Brinkley. She was obviously on her way to a social function, probably a charity event where she’d raise millions with just a sultry wink and smile.
I watched as she languidly rested against the marble counter, composed, even in the middle of a teenage war zone. Impressive.
But could Sex Bomb do this?
I tested out my ghost skills for the first time on the Edgetts, letting out a soft moan, just to see if they could hear me—but mostly to see if I’d be able to use this skill to invisibly mess with people. I had to know what I could do and when I should do it for when Gavin showed up.
Wendy did hear, and she tilted her head, wrinkling her eyebrows as she paused in drinking that Bull junk. She peered toward me.
Could she see me?
When she didn’t glance away, I thought she could. But then she went back to drinking, her forehead furrowed as she flipped off Noah and left the kitchen.
Farah shook her finger at Noah in a halfhearted scold. “Gavin’s on his way home. Maybe you shouldn’t take advantage of his business trips like that.”
“You’re not sticking up for me?”
“Sure.” She ruffled his hair. “All for one and one for all, right, Noah? I’ll always be by your side.”
When she kissed him on the head, a long look passed between them, and Noah glanced away.
“You’re gonna crush my good times,” he said, like he was trying to lighten up.
“That’s what sisters are for.”
“Sisters. Can’t live with ’em…”
“Can’t send some of them back to China,” she said, strolling past him and tweaking his cheek.
He watched her pass, but I didn’t see anything beyond that, because I smelled her perfume, and it made me back away from the window.
God, it was like roses. My mom used to keep those in our living room when I was a kid—
A door slammed from inside, and I went back to the sliding screen. Was it… ?
Yes. The man I’d been looking for.
Gavin Edgett.
He appeared in the kitchen, dressed in an untucked white shirt, blue jeans, and work boots. Sparks burned in me. If he’d seemed alive in that picture on the computer, the feeling was multiplied now.
Clipped brown hair, wide shoulders… chest… arms… He came off as strong and taciturn, not like a rich guy at all, but more like one who liked to sit in bars and watch football games. Yet he also had kind of a bookish vibe, like he always had something on his mind.
Still, it was his life force that filled me most of all, just like a heartbeat. He just seemed so vivid next to everyone else, and it wasn’t a good feeling.
Murderer, I kept telling myself. A killer, just like my own?