Haunted tm-5 Page 8

  "Paul," I said, tugging on the sheets. "I'm just curious. I mean, have you ever done it? Does it actually work? Could Craig really take over his brother's body?"

  But Paul wouldn't let go of Dr. Slaski's papers.

  "It's not because of Craig that you're asking, though, is it?" His blue-eyed gaze bore into me. There wasn't the slightest hint of a smile on his face anymore. "Suze, when are you going to get it?"

  That was when I finally noticed how close his face was to mine. Just inches away, really. I started instinctively to pull away, but the fingers that had been holding down Dr. Slaski's papers suddenly lifted and seized my wrist. I looked down at Paul's hand. His tanned skin was very dark against mine.

  "Jesses dead," Paul said. "But that doesn't mean you have to act like you are, too."

  "I don't," I protested. "I - "

  But I didn't get to finish my little speech, because right in the middle of it, Paul leaned over and kissed me.

  9

  I won't lie to you. It was a good kiss. I felt it all the way down to my poor, blistered toes.

  Which is not to say I kissed him back. I most definitely did not. . . .

  Well, okay. Not that much, anyway.

  It was just that, you know, Paul was such a good kisser. And I hadn't been kissed in a very long time. It felt nice to know that someone, at least, wanted me. Even if that someone happened to be a person I despised. Or at least someone I was pretty sure I despised.

  The truth was, it was sort of hard to remember whether or not I despised Paul. Not while he was kissing me so thoroughly. I mean, it isn't every day - unfortunately - that hot guys go around grabbing and kissing me. In fact, it had really only happened a handful of times before.

  And when Paul Slater did it... well, let's just say that the last thing I was expecting was to like it. I mean, this was the same guy who'd tried to kill me not so long ago. . . .

  Only now he was saying that this wasn't true, that I'd never been in any danger.

  Except that I knew this was a lie. I was in plenty of danger - not of being killed but of completely losing my head for a guy who was bad for me in every way and even worse for the guy I loved. Because that's exactly how Paul Slater's kiss made me feel. Like I'd do anything - anything - to be kissed by him some more.

  Which was just plain wrong. Because I wasn't in love with Paul Slater. Granted, the guy I was in love with was

  A. dead, and

  B. apparently not real interested in pursuing a romantic relationship with me.

  But that didn't mean it was permissible for me to fling myself at the very next hottie who happened to come along. I mean, a girl has to have some principles ....

  Such as saving herself for the guy she really likes, even if he happens to be too stupid to realize they are perfect for each other.

  So even though Paul's kiss made me feel like throwing my free arm around his neck and kissing him back - which I may or may not, in the heat of the moment, actually have done - it would have been wrong, wrong, WRONG.

  So I tried to pull away.

  Only let me tell you, that grip he had on my wrist? It was like iron. Iron.

  And even worse, thanks to my having encouraged him by kissing him back a little, half his body ended up over mine, pressing me back onto the bed and probably wrinkling Dr. Slaski's thesis pretty badly. I know it wasn't doing any good for my Calvin Klein jean skirt.

  So then I had like a hundred and eighty pounds or something of seventeen-year-old guy on top of me, which is not, you know, any picnic, when it isn't the guy you want to be on top of you. Or even if it is, but you are doing your best to stay true to someone else . . . someone who, to the best of your knowledge, doesn't even want you. But whatever.

  I managed to wrestle my lips away from Paul's long enough to say in a sort of strangled voice since he was crushing my lungs, "Get off me."

  "Come on, Suze," he said in a tone that, I'm sorry to say, sounded as if it were heavy. With passion. Or something, anyway. I'm even more sorry to say that the sound of it thrilled along every nerve in my body. I mean, that passion was for me. Me, Suze Simon, about whom no guy had ever felt all that passionate. At least so far as I knew. "Don't tell me you haven't been thinking about this all afternoon."

  "Actually," I said, pleased that I was able to answer this one truthfully. "I really haven't. Now get off me."

  But Paul just went on kissing me - not on the mouth, because I had fully turned my head away, but on my neck and, at one point, part of one of my ears.

  "Is this about the student government thing?" he asked between kisses. "Because I could care less about being vice president of your stupid class. If you're mad about it, just say the word, and I'll drop out of the race."

  "No, this has nothing to do with the student government thing," I said, still trying to wrench my wrist from his fingers and also to keep my neck away from his mouth. His lips seemed to have a curious effect on the skin of my throat. They made it feel like it was on fire.

  "Oh, God. It's not Jesse, is it?" I could feel Paul's groan reverberate through his entire body. "Give it up, Suze. The guy's dead."

  "1 didn't say it had anything to do with Jesse." I sounded defensive, but I didn't care. "Did you hear me say it had anything to do with Jesse?"

  "You didn't have to," Paul said. "It's written all over your face. Suze, think about it. Where's it going to go with the guy, anyway? I mean, you're going to get older, and he's going to stay exactly the age he was when he croaked. And what, he's going to take you to the prom? How about movies? You guys go to the movies together? Who drives? Who pays?"

  Now I was really mad at him. More, of course, because he was right than anything else. Also because he was assuming that Jesse even returned my feelings, which sadly, I knew was not true. Why else would he have stayed away from me so assiduously these past few weeks?

  Then Paul plunged the knife deeper.

  "Besides, if the two of you were really right for each other, would you even be here? And would you have been kissing me like you were a minute ago?"

  That did it. Now I was furious. Because he was right. That was the thing. He was right.

  And it was breaking my heart. Worse than Jesse already had.

  "If you don't get off me," I said, through gritted teeth, "I will jab my thumb into your eye socket."

  Paul chuckled. Although I noticed he stopped chuckling when my thumb did actually meet with the corner of his eye.

  "Ow!" he yelled, rolling off me fast. "What the - "

  I was up and off that bed faster than you could say paranormal activity. I grabbed my shoes, my bag, and what was left of my dignity, and got the heck out of there.

  "Suze!" Paul yelled from his bedroom. "Get back here! Suze!"

  I didn't pay any attention. I just kept on running. I tore past Grandpa Slaters room - he was still watching an old rerun of Family Feud - then started down the twisting staircase to the front door.

  I would have made it, too, if a three-hundred-pound Hell's Angel hadn't suddenly materialized between me and the door.

  That's right. One minute my way was clear, and the next it was blocked by Biker Bob. Or should I say, the ghost of Biker Bob.

  "Whoa," I said, as I nearly barreled into him. The guy had a handlebar mustache and heavily tattooed arms, which he had crossed in front of him. He was also, I shouldn't need to point out, quite, quite dead. "Where'd you come from?"

  "Never you mind that, little lady," he said. "I think Mr. Slater'd still like a word with you."

  I heard footsteps at the top of the stairs and looked up. Paul was there, one hand still over his eye.

  "Suze," he said. "Don't go."

  "Minions?" I called up to him incredulously. "You have ghostly minions to do your bidding? What are you?"

  "I told you," Paul said. "I'm a shifter. So are you. And you are way overreacting about this whole thing. Can't we just talk, Suze? I swear I'll keep my hands to myself."

  "Where have I heard that before?"
I asked.

  Then, as Biker Bob took a threatening step toward me, I did the only thing that, under the circumstances, I felt that I could. I lifted up one of my Jimmy Choos and smacked him in the head with it.

  This is not, I am sure, the purpose for which Mr. Choo designed that particular mule. It did, however, work quite handily. With a very surprised Biker Bob incapacitated, it was only a matter of shoving him out of the way, throwing open the door, and making a run for it. Which I did, with alacrity.

  I was tearing down the long cement steps from Paul's front door to his driveway when I heard him calling after me, "Suze! Suze, come on. I'm sorry for what I said about Jesse. I didn't mean it."

  I turned in the driveway to face him. I am sorry to say that I responded to his statement by making a rude, single-fingered gesture.

  "Suze." Paul had taken his hand down from his face, so that I could see that his eye was not, as I had hoped, dangling out of its socket. It just looked red. "At least let me drive you home."

  "No, thank you," I called to him, pausing to slip on my Jimmy Choos. "I prefer to walk."

  "Suze," Paul said. "It's like five miles from here to your house."

  "Never speak to me again, please," I said, and started walking, hoping he wouldn't try to follow me. Because of course if he did, and attempted to kiss me again, there was a very good chance I would kiss him back. I knew that now. Knew it only too well.

  He didn't follow me. I made it down his driveway and out onto the oceanfront road - imaginatively named Scenic Drive - with what was left of my self-esteem still more or less intact. It wasn't until I was out of sight of Paul's house that I yanked off my shoes and said what I'd wanted to say the whole time I'd been striding, with as much hauteur as I could, away from him. Which was, "Ouch, ouch, ouch!"

  Stupid shoes. My toes were in shreds. No way could I walk in the torturous mules. I thought about flinging them into the ocean, which would have been easy considering it was below me.

  On the other hand, the shoes were six hundred bucks, retail. Granted I had gotten them for a fraction of that, but still. The shopaholic in me would not allow so rash a move.

  So, holding my shoes in my hand, I began to mince my way down the road barefoot, keeping a sharp eye out for bits of glass and any poison oak that might be growing alongside the street.

  Paul had been right about one thing: it was a five-mile walk from his house to mine. Worse, it was about a mile walk from his house to the first commercial structure at which I might reasonably expect to find a pay phone where I could start calling around to see if I could get someone to pick me up. I could, I supposed, have gone up to one of the huge houses belonging to Paul's neighbors, rung the bell, and asked if I could use their phone. But how embarrassing would that be? No, a pay phone. That was all I needed. And I'd find one, soon enough.

  There was only one real flaw in my plan, and that was the weather. Oh, don't get me wrong. It was a beautiful September day. There wasn't a cloud in the sky.

  That was the problem. The sun was beating down mercilessly upon Scenic Drive. It had to have been ninety degrees at least - even though the cool breeze from the sea didn't make it seem uncomfortable. But the pavement beneath my bare feet wasn't affected by the breeze. The road, which had seemed comfortably warm beneath the soles of my feet when I'd first come barreling out of Paul's cold, cold house, was actually extremely hot. Burning hot. Like fry-an-egg-on-it hot.

  There wasn't anything I could do about it, of course. I couldn't put my shoes back on. My blisters hurt more than the soles of my feet. Maybe if a car had gone by, I'd have tried to flag it down - but probably not. I was too embarrassed by my predicament, really, to have to explain it to a total stranger. Besides, given my luck, I'd probably manage to flag down a serial killer and find myself out of the frying pan - literally - and smack in the middle of the fire.

  No. I kept walking, cursing myself and my stupidity. How could I have been so dumb as to have agreed to go to Paul Slaters house? True, the stuff he'd shown me about the shifters had been interesting. And that thing about soul transference ... if there really was such a thing. I didn't even want to let myself think about what that might mean. To put a soul in someone else's body.

  Shifting, I said to myself. Concentrate on the whole shifting thing. Better that, of course, than on the soul transference thing ... or worse, the even more unpleasant topic of how I could be so carried away by the kisses of someone other than the guy I happened to be in love with.

  Or was it just that, after Jesse's seeming rejection, I was simply relieved to find that I was attractive to somebody ... even somebody whom I did not particularly like? Because I did not like Paul Slater. I did not. I think the fact that I had been having bad dreams about him for the past few weeks was proof enough of that... no matter how fast my traitorous heart might beat when his lips were pressed against mine.

  It felt good, as I walked, to concentrate on this instead of my extremely sore feet. It was slow going, walking down Scenic Drive without any protection from the shards of gravel and, of course, the hot pavement beneath my soles. Of course, in a way I felt that the pain was punishment for my very bad behavior. True, Paul had lured me to his house with promises that he would reveal some information I had very badly wanted. But I ought to have resisted just the same, knowing that someone like Paul would have to have a hidden agenda.

  And that that agenda would most likely involve my mouth.

  What galled me was that for a minute or so back there, I hadn't cared. Really. I'd liked it, even. Bad Suze. Very bad Suze.

  Oh, God. I was in trouble.

  Then, finally, after about half an hour of painful mincing, I saw the most beautiful sight in the world: a seaside cafe. I hurried toward it - well, as fast as I could on feet that felt as if they had been hacked off at the ankle - mentally ticking off who I could safely call when I got there. My mom? Never. She'd ask too many questions and probably kill me besides for agreeing to go to the house of a boy she'd never met. Jake? No. Again, he'd ask too many questions. Brad? No, he would just as soon leave me stranded, as he happened to hate my guts. Adam?

  It was going to have to be Adam. He was the only person I knew who would not only happily drive out to get me but who would relish his role as rescuer . . . not to mention also greatly enjoy hearing about how Paul had sexually harassed me without afterward desiring to beat Paul into a bloody pulp. Adam would have the sense to know that Paul Slater could kick his ass any day of the week. I would not mention to Adam, of course, the part where I'd sexually harassed Paul right back.

  The Sea Mist Caf6 - that was the restaurant I was limping toward - was an upscale restaurant with outdoor seating and valet parking. It was too late for lunch and too early for it to be serving dinner, so there were no diners there, just the wait staff, setting up for the supper rush. As I came hobbling up, a waiter was just writing the specials on the chalkboard by the door.

  "Hey," I said to him in my brightest, least look-at-me-I-am-a-victim voice.

  The waiter glanced at me. If he noticed my disheveled, shoeless appearance, he did not comment upon it. He turned back to his chalkboard.

  "We don't start seating for dinner until six," he said.

  "Um." This was, I saw, going to be more difficult than I'd thought. "That's fine. I just want to use your pay phone, if you have one."

  "Inside," the waiter said with a sigh. Then, his gaze flicking over me scathingly, he added, "No shoes, no service."

  "I've got shoes," I said, holding up my Jimmy Choos. "See?"

  He rolled his eyes and turned back to his chalkboard.

  I don't know why the world has to be populated by so many unpleasant people. I really don't. It really takes an effort to be rude, too. The amount of energy people expend on being a jerk astounds me sometimes.

  Inside the Sea Mist, it was cool and shady. I limped past the bar toward the little sign I'd seen, as soon as my eyes adjusted to the dim light - compared to the blazing sun outside - that said Ph
one/Restrooms. It was sort of a long walk to the Phone/Restrooms for a girl with what I was pretty sure were massive third-degree burns on the soles of her feet. I had gotten halfway there when I heard a guy's voice say my name.

  I was sure it was Paul. I mean, who else could it have been? Paul had followed me from his house and wanted to apologize.

  And probably make out some more.

  Well, if he thought I was going to forgive him - let alone kiss him again - he had another think coming, let me tell you. Well, actually, maybe the kissing part -

  No. No.

  I turned around slowly.

  "I told you," I said, keeping my voice even with an effort. "I don't ever want to speak to you again. . . ."

  My voice trailed off. It wasn't Paul Slater standing behind me. It was Jake's friend from college, Neil Jankow. Neil Jankow, Craig's brother, standing there by the bar with a clipboard, looking thinner than ever . . . and now that I knew what he'd been through, sadder than ever, too.

  "Susan?" he said, hesitantly. "Oh, it is you. I wasn't sure."

  I blinked at him. And his clipboard. And the bartender who was standing near him, holding a similar clipboard. Then I remembered what Neil had said, about his dad owning a lot of restaurants in Carmel. Craig and Neil Jankow's father, I realized, must own the Sea Mist Cafe.

  "Neil," I said. "Hi. Yeah, it's me, Suze. How . . . um, how are you doing?"

  "I'm fine," Neil said, his gaze going to my extremely dirty feet. "Are you . . . are you all right?"

  The concern in his voice was, I knew immediately, actually heartfelt. Neil Jankow was worried about me. Me, a girl whom he'd met only the night before. Whose name he hadn't even gotten right. The fact that he could be so concerned about me while other people - namely Paul Slater, and yes, I was willing to admit it now, Jesse - could be so very, very mean, brought tears to my eyes.

  I'm okay," I said.

  And then, before I could stop it, the whole story came pouring out. Nothing about the ghosts and the whole mediator thing, of course. But the rest of it, anyway. I don't know what came over me. I was just standing there in the middle of Neil's dad's cafe, going, "And then he made a move on me, and I told him to get off and he wouldn't so I had to jab my thumb in his eye, and then I ran away but my shoes really hurt and so I had to take them off and I don't have a cell phone so I couldn't call anyone and this is the first place with a pay phone that I could find - "