Meg Cabot - Darkest Hour

" - that the mediator would be me," I finished for him. "Yeah. I get that a lot."

"It's only," Clive said, apologetically, "that you're so ... "

I just glared at him. I really wasn't in the mood. Can you blame me? What with the concussion, and all? "That I'm so what?" I demanded. "Female? Is that it? Or are you going to try to convince me you're shocked by my preternatural intelligence?"

"Er," Clive Clemmings said. "Young. I meant that ... it's just that you're so young."

I sank down onto the window seat. Really, what had I ever done to deserve this? I mean, nobody wants to be visited by the specter of a guy like Clive. I'm almost positive nobody ever wanted him to visit when he was alive. So why me?

Oh, yeah. The mediator thing.

"To what do I owe the pleasure, Clive?" I probably should have called him Dr. Clemmings, but I had too much of a headache to be respectful of my elders.

"Well, I hardly know," Clive said. "I mean, suddenly, Mrs. Lampbert - that's my receptionist, don't you know? - she isn't answering when I call her, and when people telephone for me, well, she tells them . . . the most horrible thing, actually. I simply don't know what's come over her." dive cleared his throat. "You see, she's saying that I'm - "

"Dead," I finished for him.

Clive eyes grew perceptibly bigger behind his glasses.

"Why," he said, "that's extraordinary. How could you know that? Well, yes, of course, you are the mediator, after all. They said you'd understand. But really, Miss Ackerman, I've had the most trying few days. I don't feel at all like myself, and I - "

"That," I interrupted him, "is because you're dead."

Ordinarily, I might have been a little nicer about it, but I guess I still felt a little kernel of resentment toward old Clive for his cavalier dismissal of my suggestion that Jesse might have been murdered.

"But that's not possible," Clive said. He tugged on his bow tie. "I mean, look at me. I am clearly here. You are speaking to me - "

"Yeah," I said. "Because I'm a mediator, Clive. That's my job. To help people like you move on after they've . . . you know." Since he clearly did not know, I elaborated: "Croaked."

Clive blinked rapidly several times in succession. "I ... I ... Oh, dear."

"Yeah," I said. "See? Now let's see if we can figure out why you're here and not in happy historian heaven. What's the last thing you remember?"

Clive dropped his hand from his chin. "Pardon?"

"What's the last thing you remember," I repeated, "from before you found yourself . . . well, invisible to Mrs. Lampbert?"

"Oh." Clive reached up to scratch his bald head. "Well, I was sitting at my desk, and I was looking at those letters you brought me. Quite kind of your stepfather to think of us. People so often overlook their community's historical society, when you know, really, without us, the fabric of the local lore would be permanently - "

"Clive," I said. I knew I sounded cranky, but I couldn't help it. "Look, I haven't even had breakfast yet. Can you get a move on, please?"

"Oh." He blinked some more. "Yes. Of course. Well, as I was saying, I was examining the letters you brought me. Ever since you left my office the other day, I've been thinking about what you said ... about Hector de Silva, I mean. It does seem a bit unlikely that a fellow who wrote so lovingly of his family would simply walk out on them without a word. And the fact that you found Maria's letters buried in the yard of what was once a well-known boarding-house . . . Well, I must say, upon further consideration, the whole thing struck me as extremely odd. I'd picked up my dictaphone and was just making a few notes for Mrs. Lampbert to type up later when I suddenly felt . . . well, a chill. As if someone had turned the air-conditioning up very high. Although I can assure you Mrs. Lampbert knows better than that. Some of our artifacts must be kept in highly controlled atmospheric climates, and she would never - "

"It wasn't the air-conditioning," I said flatly.

He stared at me, clearly startled. "No. No, it wasn't. Because a moment later, I caught the faintest whiff of orange blossoms. And you know Maria Diego was quite well-known for wearing orange blossom-scented toilet water. It was so odd. Because a second later, I could swear that for a moment ... " The look in his eyes, behind the thick lenses of those glasses, grew faraway. "Well, for a moment, I could have sworn I saw her. Just out of the corner of my eye. Maria de Silva Diego ... "

The faraway look left his eyes. When his gaze next fastened onto mine, it was laser sharp.

"And then I felt," he told me, in a tightly controlled voice, "a shooting pain, all up and down my arm. I knew what it was, of course. Congenital heart disease runs in my family. It killed my grandfather, you know, shortly after his book was first published. But I, unlike him, have been extremely diligent with my diet and exercise regimen. It could only have been the shock, you know, of seeing - thinking I was seeing anyway - something that wasn't - that couldn't possibly - "

He broke off, then continued, "Well, I reached for the telephone to call 911 at once, but it ... well, the telephone sort of ... leaped off my desk."

I just looked at him. I had to admit, by this time I was feeling sorry for him. I mean, he had been murdered, just like Jesse. And by the same hand, too. Well, more or less.

"I couldn't reach it," Clive said sadly. "The telephone, I mean. And that . . . that's the last thing I remember."

I licked my lips. "Clive," I said. "What were you saying? Into the dictaphone. Right before you saw her. Maria de Silva, I mean."

"What was I saying? Oh, of course. I was saying that though it would bear further investigation, it did seem to me as if what you suggested, and what my grandfather always believed, might possibly have merit...."

I shook my head. I couldn't believe it.

"She killed you," I murmured.

"Oh." Clive was no longer blinking or tugging on his bow tie. He just sat there, looking like a scarecrow somebody had pulled the pole out from under. "Yes. I suppose you could say that. But only in a manner of speaking. I mean, it was the shock, after all. But it's not as if she - "

"To keep you from telling anyone what I said." In spite of my headache, I was getting mad all over again. "And she probably killed your grandfather, too, the same way."

Clive did blink then, questioningly. "My . . . my grandfather? You think so? Well, I must say ... I mean, his death was rather sudden, but there was no sign of - " His expression changed. "Oh. Oh, I see. You think my grandfather was killed by the ghost of Maria de Silva Diego to keep him from writing further about his theory concerning her cousin's disappearance?"

"That's one way of putting it," I said. "She didn't want him going around telling the truth about what happened to Jesse."

"Jesse?" Clive echoed. "Who is Jesse?"

We were both nearly startled out of our wits by a sudden knock on my door.

"Suze?" my stepfather called. "Can I come in?"

Clive, in a flurry of agitation, dematerialized. I said come in, and the door opened, and Andy stood there, looking awkward. He never comes into my room, except occasionally to fix things.

"Uh, Suze?" he said. "Yeah, urn, you have a visitor. Father Dominic is - "

Andy didn't finish because Father Dominic appeared just behind him.

I can't really explain why I did what I did then. There is no other explanation for it other than the simple fact that, well, in the six months I'd known him, I'd come to really feel something for the old guy.

In any case, at the sight of him, I jumped up from the window seat, completely involuntarily, and hurled myself at him. Father Dominic looked more than a little surprised at this unbridled display of emotion, as I am normally somewhat reserved.