Chris Green - Only the Good Die Young

The only ghost.

The only friend?

“Jon,” I said. “He doesn’t exist. You don’t have a friend who asked you to look into Elizabeth’s murder for him.”

She shook her head.

My ghost-heart began to crack, especially as she stayed on her knees, just like she was about to beg me to understand.

I thought of that photograph Jon had been in. The dignified older man, the way he’d been standing next to Elizabeth.

“But I saw that picture of him with her,” I said.

“He was her last cousin, and he passed away two years ago. They were at a wedding, and I found the picture in her private effects after she died. She… left what she had at my house. There was no one else to claim her belongings.”

Something I’d heard in Amanda Lee’s thoughts rushed back to me.

“‘Someday they’ll all know,’” I repeated. “That’s what Elizabeth told you once. What does that even mean?”

Amanda Lee turned her face up to me again, and in the moonlight, I could see in her the greatest pain a person could have. Heartbreak.

It took me a second. Maybe two. Then…

Oh.

Her eyes got misty. “We met online. A book readers’ club. She loved mysteries, so did I, and we started up a friendship. I’ve told you I’m not one to get out much. I always find myself lying to people about my abilities because they never understand them—they’re always a joke. ‘Can you tell me my future?’ ‘Can you use your divine powers to tell us who Jack the Ripper was?’ It never stops.” Her voice had gone too hoarse, so she had to take a moment. Then, “It’s so much easier to keep to the house, to the computer, where you don’t feel that you have as much responsibility to another person as you would if you met face-to-face.”

Her smile wobbled. “But Liz was such a force of nature, so easy to talk to and so persuasive, that I wanted to come out of my shell. I told myself, just this once, I would give friendship a try. And we met for coffee nearby. Much to my surprise, coffee turned into dinner. And it went from there.”

My head was swimming with questions, most of which were probably too indelicate to ask.

So I played dumb. “You’re telling me that you’re out to get justice for your best friend, then.”

Amanda Lee gave me a look that could’ve been pity for my naïveté.

See, when I was alive, I didn’t know anyone who was a homosexual. They were people on TV who protested against politicians because of their stance on AIDS. They were the focus of jokes in movies and from kids who lisped and minced around for a laugh.

Amanda Lee was right—I was knocked for a loop.

“You come from a different time,” she said, no doubt vibing what I was thinking. “I told you that I withheld the truth about knowing Liz because I didn’t want you to think I was too close to this case. But I also wasn’t sure what you would think of me after you found out that we were…”

She couldn’t even say it.

“Someday they’ll all know . ”

Was she more afraid of what I would’ve thought about her relationship with Elizabeth, or was she more fearful of saying it out loud?

“You and Elizabeth never told anyone?” I asked.

“No. Neither of us was ready to come out. This was a first for us.”

She was still gauging how I was taking the news. Truthfully, I was still digesting it.

“Were you afraid of how other people would treat you?” I asked.

“I was.” Amanda Lee wiped a hand over her face. “Lord knows why. I don’t have a family left who would care. And my neighbors? Hardly. I wasn’t ready to admit who I was. Liz was closer to that point, though. She wanted to reveal everything to the world.”

Amanda Lee had been ashamed of being in love with another woman. And now she was ashamed of that shame.

How awful. I was still wary of her and her lies, but I felt sorry for her, too.

Even in my frustration with Amanda Lee, I made an attempt to make her feel better about Elizabeth, at least. “It sounds like she loved you a lot.”

She pressed her lips together, nodding. The soft part of me wanted to put my hand on her again, to comfort her, but I knew I would just make her cold.

When she was ready to talk again, she said, “Liz didn’t even care that I was older than she was. And she accepted everything about me—my shut-in tendencies, my out-of-the-ordinary abilities. But it seems those psychic talents didn’t help her in the end. They didn’t show me what would happen that night.”

“It wasn’t your fault,” I said flatly.

Her eyes were red now as she fixed a gaze on me. “Oh, I know very well whose fault it was. And when Liz told him that she’d broken up with him to be with another woman, he flew off the handle. He ultimately showed her well and good that he wouldn’t ever stand for being cast aside, especially in this way. His manhood couldn’t take it.”

“Gavin confronted you and said that?”

“No. Liz didn’t tell him who I was, but she said he took the breakup hard. And it wasn’t long afterward that she was dead.”

I didn’t tell her that I hadn’t seen sure proof of a murderer in him yet, but I was beginning to think that I didn’t want him to be guilty as much as she did.

She hadn’t even gotten any readings off him as evidence. So what the hell should I believe?

All I knew was that losing someone you loved changed your life in a lot of ways you would never expect. It changed how you thought, how you acted, how you made decisions. It bent those choices around until you wouldn’t have recognized the way you were acting anymore.

She bowed her head, shaking it. “I’m sorry for the way I went about this. But I couldn’t take the chance of alienating you. You were my only hope, and finding justice for Liz means too damned much. It means everything.”

“I know. She’s a priority.” Even more than catching my own killer. I paused. “And what about your husband, Michael? Did he ever exist?”

Amanda Lee paused, gave me another shameful glance, then shook her head again.

Shit. Where did the lies end?

“But,” I said, “I saw you with a wedding ring that night I looked in your room… .”

“It wasn’t from a wedding.” Her words choked off until she found them again. “There was no marriage for me and Liz. I never even had the chance to give her something that showed we were bound together, no matter what.”

I was speechless.

Amanda Lee rushed on. “I needed to give you a reason for my being so motivated in this case, and I was willing to go as far as I had to. If that included a made-up friend or a husband who’d had a tragic death, so be it.”

That was the last straw, and frustration powered me to the other side of the room, away from her. I felt like a churning ball of bad energy.

“So the truth is that you put salt around your house to keep me out, not just a bunch of generic spirits. You kept those bulletin boards a secret. Then you lied about Jon, Michael, and Elizabeth, too. You used me as a tool. So how can I know that you’re not setting me up to do harm to the Edgett household with more of your lies? How can I ever trust you again?”

Quietly, the proud woman in front of me on the ground began to weep. “I… never wanted you to… turn away from me… .”

I trembled, deeply affected, feeling my own anguish in her.

And I couldn’t stand to watch it.

“Damn you,” I said, my voice sounding funny. Could ghosts cry?

When she looked at me again, it was with a sense of profound regret. She was making this so hard.

“I don’t know what to do,” I said. “I want to help Elizabeth, but I don’t know if I’m doing it for the right reasons now. Because here’s the thing—you don’t want justice, Amanda Lee. You want vengeance. I’ll do one but not the other.”