Chris Green - Only the Good Die Young

Or it could’ve been just because I was so close to where I’d grown up, being near Escondido and all.

Whatever it was, I decided to make a tiny detour before heading for the coast. I mean, I was in town, you know?

I went for my old neighborhood in Escondido—the one where I’d grown up and had the best years of my life playing paper dolls on the front lawn with Dede Fitzpatrick, my next-door neighbor, and where my parents had always brought out their folding chairs on Saturday evenings with a box of wine and the other adults would just wander over with glasses and watch us kids play hopscotch on the sidewalk.

When I landed in front of the beige one-story track house, I gaped.

Damn, it seemed small. And at some point, it’d been painted beige instead of yellow. The bushes in front had been taken out, and the porch swing was gone. Most of the houses around it were run-down with junky cars parked on the street. No one was outside playing or drinking wine.

My not-really heart sank.

“To everything, turn, turn,” said a low voice just over my shoulder.

I startled, spinning around to find…

Oh, shit. Fake Dean.

My electric pulse seemed to jam in my essence. In spite of myself, I wanted to touch his chin-length blond hair, run my fingertips over his slight stubble. Worst of all, I just wanted to lean my head against his chest while he put his arms around me.

Asshole.

“What’re you doing here?” I asked.

“You were thinking about me earlier, so I thought you might be happy to see me.”

Crap. While meeting Twyla, I’d let actual positive thoughts of him enter my mind. How did he know that, though?

He was next to an anemic birch that hadn’t existed when I was a kid, and he leaned against it. When it tilted a little, I realized that he was putting weight on it.

What the hell? What was he made of?

He anticipated my question. “And you thought I was a ghost. A reaper. Isn’t that what you were telling everyone at first?”

I didn’t answer directly. “Have you been keeping tabs on me or something?”

He sent me a teasing smile. “Now, Jenny. How much fun would it be for me if I gave you all the answers right away?”

“Oh, so you do usually give answers to ghosts like me. Or do you just get off on this kind of constant mind fuckery?”

His expression said, Oo, feisty.

“I’ll tell you one thing,” he said in the real Dean’s smooth, charming voice. “I’m not a reaper. More of a… I guess you could say keeper.”

I didn’t like the way that sounded at all.

As I took a step back from him, I realized that… yes, I had a body again, just like him.

He angled his head, inviting comment.

“But we’re not in the star place,” I said.

“So whatever could that mean?”

I began walking—literally walking—away from him, past my house, getting away while I could.

As if I could.

“Hey.” From the sound of his voice behind me, he hadn’t moved. “Don’t you want to go inside for a tour of your old house? I can arrange it so the new family never even realizes we’re there.”

“Bug off.”

Fat chance, because he suddenly appeared right in front of me, and I smacked into his broad chest.

Goddamn it, why did he have to have muscles like Dean?

My heartbeat skittered along. “You know what one of my ghost friends said about you?”

“That I get my jollies from toying with new ghosts. Yeah, I overheard that, too.”

“How?”

He sighed, crossing his arms over his chest. Under the streetlights, I saw triceps flex in the back of his arms, and I couldn’t help remembering the real Dean’s arms, honed from surfing, strong and smooth. Forever young.

“Jenny, Jenny,” he said. “Are you going to ask me anything I can actually answer?”

“Like what?”

“You can start with something like ‘ Do you genuinely exist just to get your jollies from new ghosts?’”

We stared at each other, and I realized that fake Dean wasn’t going to leave anytime soon unless I played his games.

So I went along with him. “ Do you exist just to piss me off, dick-weed?”

He laughed, enjoying the hell out of himself. “Mostly. However, I do have other responsibilities.”

“You’re saying that I’m just one of many lucky targets.”

“I do stay busy.”

I kept staring him down, but it was hard when those sparkling light brown eyes were getting to me. The true Dean could always flip my stomach with a look and a cocky grin, just like this one.

And if he kept looking at me like that, I was going to forget he wasn’t my Dean.

I dragged my gaze off him, giving up. “What do you want from me? Just tell me once and for all.”

“Maybe we should couch this in different terms. If you could ask anything of me, what would it be?”

His switchback left me confused.

He continued. “I know what you’re up to with Elizabeth Dalton. You’re trying to solve a murder that isn’t your own, and that’s not normal ghost behavior, darlin’. Your kind is usually more self-involved.”

Chills flew up my spine. He hadn’t missed anything that had been going on with me, and it was like I’d been standing in front of a window at night, never realizing that there was someone outside watching every move I made. But, sick pup that I am, I was kind of turned on by that, because it was Dean. Or the closest I’d ever come to him again.

My voice sounded thick. “I suppose you’re going to help me solve Elizabeth’s murder because you’re impressed with my gumption or something. Is that why you’re hounding me?”

Sarcasm was still dripping from my words when he took a step closer.

“You’re different, and different makes my existence just as interesting as it makes any creature’s. That doesn’t mean I’m going to solve her murder—or yours—for you, though.”

“So why did you ask what I wanted from you?”

“I was truly curious to see if you’d request a solution to her murder or yours first.”

Bastard. “Gee, did I pass your test? If those are the kinds of traps you set up for your lucky targets, then you must be really bored in whatever land you come from.”

His face lost its amusement, and I knew I’d hit a target. Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to verbally go at it with this thing like I was doing.

Then he tilted his head again. “Is it out of the realm of possibility that I might be a helpful kind of entity and I’m only giving you a hard time before getting down to business?”

That sounded ominous, so I zipped my lip.

Then he seemed to consider something and changed his tone, sounding like he was actually a rational being.

“It’s too bad that even my powers are limited. If I could’ve, I would’ve put you in contact with Elizabeth so you can ask her what really happened.”

“And what would be the cost of that?”

He only smiled, but it was a smile that mixed me up even more. It seemed sincere.

Was he experiencing an emotion other than amusement right now?

His tone softened. “Next time you see Amanda Lee, you might want to tell her that Elizabeth moved on immediately after her death.”

It took me a second to process that he’d just come right out and given me a huge piece of information without my having to sell my soul to him or anything. I’d been half fearing that this was the reason he kept stalking me and he was merely getting around to it in his own time.

Why had he just said this, though?

He took another step closer, and I could smell Dean again—soap, sea salt, skin. Oh, man.

He added, “Elizabeth is in the same place your parents are. Does that make you feel better?”