Chris Green - Only the Good Die Young

“I knew you were going to be in that mansion, and I joined you because I had to.”

“You had to?”

“I’ve been busy while you’ve been away, Jensen. We need to catch up with each other.”

Oh, like we hadn’t had a huge fight the other night or something.

“Alicia,” I said, “I actually had everything under control. But with you barging in like that, I’m not so sure now.”

She seemed interested. “And how far have you gotten with a confession from the killer?”

I refused to tell her about last night with Gavin and the phone that wouldn’t die. But I did say, “I’ve gotten far enough to think that Gavin didn’t murder Elizabeth.”

Amanda Lee squealed over to the side of the road, where bird-of-paradise plants waved in the aftermath of the dust from the tires. When she glanced at me, she was on fire.

“What did you just say?”

“Gavin told me he didn’t kill her.”

Her breathing was getting choppy. “Then if he didn’t, who did ?”

That was a conversation stopper. It was like a boulder had crushed the car, and us with it.

As we both cooled down, she started surveying me, like she was just now noticing that I had a mite of color left over from my latest fake Dean encounter. Yeah, like I was going to tell her about that .

She must’ve gotten my nonverbal cue loud and clear, because she lowered her voice, an attempt at calm. “After you left, I didn’t know what to do. I’m not even sure I moved from the pool house floor for hours. But all the while, I wished you would come back.”

“Because I’m your fetch-it girl.”

“No. Among other things, I wanted another chance to earn your trust. And that’s what I’m doing now.”

“By crashing the haunting? Awesome plan, Amanda Lee.”

“Just hear me out.”

I stared at her. She seemed utterly sincere, but I still couldn’t bring myself to believe that.

She deftly loosened the clasp of her old, heavy bronze necklace, doffing it and tossing it into the backseat. She breathed a sigh of relief.

“I spent all of my time after you were gone in meditation, scrying into crystals, gazing into a crystal ball, everything you can think of. And finally, I got something. Two visions.” She leaned her head back against her car seat. “They were tangential, but it was as if someone somewhere was showing me a way to finish what we started, and I realized that all our previous plans weren’t good enough.”

Was she thinking it was Elizabeth who had contacted her and was making her reevaluate how to go about the haunting? That would explain the guts she’d displayed, coming into the Edgett house and meeting the person she hated the most when, before, she’d wanted to stay completely undercover.

I closed what I had for eyes, torn about telling her what fake Dean had said about Elizabeth moving on. But even though he’d been right about Wendy showing Gavin my pictures, I didn’t trust him way more than anyone. So I kept the news to myself for now.

Amanda Lee said, “In the first vision, I saw Farah at that Locksley Foundation dinner, even though I wasn’t actually there. I heard her talking about fashion to a group of women, and when she mentioned her favorite designers, this new plan came to me.”

“A plan to fix her up with a Chanel.”

“Yes. I’ve had a collection in storage that I felt she might be interested in—”

“Part of that inheritance of yours?”

“My mother’s. The dresses are valuable, but there’s nothing I wouldn’t sacrifice for Liz.”

“So you called Farah yesterday, pretending to be a personal shopper.”

“More of a stylist, and I was able to set up a meeting with her so she could look at the clothing. She’s a tough sell, though, and she wanted to think about it, but about an hour later, she called, wanting to bargain for them. And since Farah doesn’t have an office, or a job besides working for different charities, I told her I would make a delivery to her home today, whether she was there or not. Honestly, I was hoping she would be in instead of her brother.”

A muscle twitched in her cheek, and she bent down to the passenger side, where she’d stored her purse. I shifted away from her, not because I knew she’d be cold from my essence, but because I didn’t want her touching me.

She faltered at my distant attitude, but then slowly extracted a tissue from her purse. “When I first saw him, I almost killed him.”

Like I was going to join her pity party. Sure, I had sympathy for her, but…

Fool me twice, shame on me.

“For your information,” I said, “your trip wasn’t necessary. Gavin already knows I exist.”

“I realize that, because that was what my second vision centered on. I saw that the girl, Wendy, showed him pictures of you. That was what convinced me to come here today most of all. You no longer had the advantage of surprise, and that’s a terrible loss. We need to get that back.”

I folded my arms over my chest. “A lack of surprise didn’t stop me from scaring Gavin, getting him to tell me that he didn’t kill Elizabeth.”

Amanda Lee didn’t acknowledge that. “Tell me… has he mentioned to anyone that there’s a ghost in the house?”

So much for being stubborn and withholding information from Amanda Lee. It looked like we really were in this together, whether I liked it or not.

“He let me know that he was aware of me,” I said.

“But he doesn’t want to admit it to anyone else.”

“I think he was about to show Wendy’s pictures to Farah before she left the house last night. Otherwise, I’m not sure. But I can tell you that he definitely won’t confide in a random, psychic stylist who seems like she’s off her rocker.”

She risked a smile at me, like she wanted to test the ground we were on. I didn’t smile back, giving her a definitive answer. Her gaze clouded.

Why did this have to be so hard? “I still don’t understand what your purpose was in telling him about ‘activity.’”

“I was getting around to that,” she said. “After that second vision, I realized that he’s going to be on his guard from now on, and your haunting efforts might be blocked.”

“Yeah. He figured out that I’m not Elizabeth, thanks to those pictures, so he fended off my attempts at empathy, and he refuses to sleep so I can dream-dig.”

“We need for him to think that you’re gone, then.”

My brain was catching up to what she was proposing.

She said, “Remember a few days ago, when we talked about the family perhaps calling in someone or something else to get rid of you if they became aware of your presence? I’m going to be that person.”

Wow. It made perfect sense. I wouldn’t want to go up against Amanda Lee in chess or war.

She looked satisfied that I wasn’t putting down her idea. “This is how I’m going to do it: if Gavin doesn’t call me back by noon, I plan on contacting Farah again, just to ‘follow up on the delivery.’ But I’ll find a way to work in a comment about the house’s activity. Have you had any contact with her so she might be predisposed to believing me?”

“Enough contact to make her wonder if what you’re telling her could be true.”

“Good.” Amanda Lee looked in the rearview mirror while wiping off some of the makeup that had altered her face. “This way, the Edgetts won’t call in another psychic who’ll intuit what’s actually happening. I’ll get there first. And I’ll pretend to get rid of you, lulling Gavin into letting down his defenses so you can regain that element of surprise with him. That way, you can use your empathy to read more of him, and you can dream-dig.”

I took it all in, then asked, “What if Gavin gets suspicious and hires a human to look into your background?”