Chris Green - Only the Good Die Young

Louis finally said, “That bird, though… it killed the spider.”

My turn. “Based on the original dream, we figured the bird was a protector.”

“Or a shadow of guilt,” added Amanda Lee.

Louis leaned an elbow on the top step. “It seems to me that the bird killed the spider to protect that little girl, who was brought down by the spider’s web.”

“Amanda Lee thought she was an expression of Gavin’s repressed feminine side,” I said.

“His anima?”

Amanda Lee seemed like she hadn’t heard him correctly, but then she asked me a question that confirmed she had. “Louis said that, didn’t he?”

“Yes.”

“Has he studied Jungian psychology and dream analysis?”

Louis’s smile told all. With the amount of time he hung out in libraries, he probably knew everything by now.

“I’d say so,” I said to Amanda Lee as Twyla turned to Scott and made a finger-shoved-down-the-throat gesture. He only laughed, like he was used to Louis’s turbo brain.

As for Amanda Lee, she seemed like she’d love to take on another ghost pet, and my hackles rose, not because I felt like I was being replaced but… well, would Amanda Lee make plans for him, just like she’d done for me?

She asked me, “Does Louis know everything about the first dream?”

“We’ve talked about it before.” At McGlinn’s party.

He said, “Not that I’m adding much to the conversation right now. Honestly, I’d like to spend some time thinking all this through, Miss Amanda Lee, before I volunteer more theories.”

“I would love to hear them, Louis. And please, it’s Amanda Lee.”

“Won’t do any good to ask him to call you that,” I said, smiling at Louis, who only shrugged.

Twyla was still gagging, but Scott was ignoring her now.

Who wasn’t? “I have a theory, and you’re not going to like it, Amanda Lee. It’s about that part of the dream when Elizabeth appeared in that bloody blindfold shaking her head.”

“Ooo!” Twyla raised her hand, wanting desperately to be constructive. “I know this one. Elizabeth’s, like, the statue of justice.”

I could tell Amanda Lee still couldn’t hear her as much as she could Louis, and I repeated what Twyla had said, then added my two cents.

“That’s a good thought, but I think Gavin’s dream was trying to tell me something through Elizabeth. She’s saying that we’re not seeing everything we should be seeing, and she was shaking her head because we’re on the wrong track with all our theories.”

Of course, Amanda Lee didn’t agree. “But what about all the blood you’ve seen in his subconscious? All the guilt and darkness and fire… ?”

Louis came to a slow stand. “Not to belabor the point, but I could be applying myself to this with a little elbow grease.”

“There’s a computer in the casita where you could look up dream analysis and come up with more ideas,” I said. “Amanda Lee could fill you in on anything you might be missing.”

He glanced at her. “May I?”

“Be my guest.”

As he whooshed over to the small house, I kind of felt like he’d indeed taken my place. But Amanda Lee was watching me with a look that said she wasn’t going to use Louis like she’d used me.

She’d learned something tonight. I just hoped the lesson stuck.

Twyla was halfway down the steps now, near where Scott had already stood up, too.

“Why does Louis get to have the fun?” she asked.

“Don’t be a brat,” Scott said, sticking his hands in his jeans pockets. Then he sent me a sideswipe smile. “But I’m wondering the same thing. I wanna be in on this, too.”

“What?” I asked. “Solving the mystery?”

Before Twyla could go, “Duh!” Scott laughed.

“Face it,” he said, “you need some help. You don’t know how to get into that mansion anymore, so you won’t have easy access to your suspect.”

“And you’ll help… how?”

Twyla fluttered the rest of the way down the steps, just like she anticipated what Scott was thinking. And she looked ecstatic about it.

Scott said, “We can do a little booing of our own so you can lure Gavin or anyone else you want to question to wherever you need them to be.”

Amanda Lee was leaning toward the conversation, like she was listening to a garbled radio transmission. I didn’t take the time to translate for her.

“You want to play good cop, bad cop?” I asked Scott, already loving the idea.

“Why not? My dad was one, so I know how the game goes.”

“I can do it, too,” Twyla said. “I’m, like, a major Remington Steele. And guess what. While Louis is doing his thing in that tiny house over there, your fellow ghost budders can make sure no one interrupts your time with haunting tonight. We’ll be useful to the max!”

I glanced at Amanda Lee, then at my ghost friends—or “ghost budders,” as Twyla had said.

To me, even with their gray tones, they were so lively and full of… well, spirit. I hadn’t realized until now how cold and sad human life could be, how soulless, just like most of the Edgett family.

I spoke to Scott and Twyla. “Okay, you two. But you have to promise that you’ll leave the actual haunting to me. I need to see all the pieces of Gavin’s mind firsthand so I can figure out the big picture. Deal?”

Twyla raised her hand to high-five me, and when I gave in, our hands only met charged air. But that didn’t take away from anyone’s enthusiasm. Even Amanda Lee seemed to know that we were ready and raring to go, and she looked scared and excited at the same time.

I mean, the dark spirit was still out there, and we were going to where it’d last been seen and everything. But tonight I was going to do one of two things to end this case with the help of the ghost budders.

Finally haunt a confession out of Gavin Edgett.

Or prove his innocence once and for all.

After a brief visit to my death spot, Scott, Twyla, and I made our way to the Edgett mansion near midnight.

We peered in the windows, but they were shuttered and curtained. Was it sleepy time for the Edgetts? Had the maid Constanza retreated to her quarters by now?

I could at least try to find out, and I went to my favorite mansion entry point, the chimney. Plus, I wanted to see if the cleaner had successfully banished me from the domain, after all.

After I dove down, then bounced out of the flue right away, Twyla and Scott were waiting for me on the roof, braying at the sight of me being expectorated, just like the chimney was hocking a loogie.

“I know,” I said while my head rang. “It’s hilarious to see a fellow ghost humiliated.”

Twyla was the most amused. “You looked like a special little child running into a sliding glass door.”

Ignoring. “Now that we know for sure that I can’t get in, how’re you guys going to handle bringing Gavin out here? I assume you have a plan.”

“We did come up with something,” Twyla said, cockily smoothing back the straight Goth side of her hair.

Scott was reclining on the roof, acting just like he wanted to catch some UVs, even if it was full night. “How would you like to have your own place to haunt, Jen?”

I didn’t get it at first.

“’Cause if you want one,” he said, grinning, “no sweat.” He jerked his chin toward the pool house down below.

My own place to haunt.

Using something other than the mansion would give me… oh, let’s just say some further intimacy with my dear Gavin. If I wasn’t barred from the pool house.

Just as I was about to float off the roof to go there and check it out a bit more, I shivered, because suddenly I felt… something. And it sure wasn’t Scott’s or Twyla’s essence. Whatever it was, it felt like eyes watching us.