Hush

Seven

So when CeeCee's Aunt Pru said things were going to be a bit chilly tonight, this was what she must have meant.

The spirit of Francesca Powell was standing a few feet in front of me, next to the entrance of the Happy Medium. She had straight, listless brown hair and eyes that were as gray as her son's. Her face was very long and narrow, and the frown she was wearing made her look incredibly grim.

But then again, I would have been grim too if I'd been murdered by a thieving ghost.

"Are you Suze?" Francesca asked in a very timid voice. "He told me to come to you. He told me you were the only one who could help."

I took a quick look around to make sure that we were the only ones in the parking lot of the Happy Medium before I answered. It would smear my reputation as a counselor if I got caught talking to what appeared to be thin air, after all.

Once I had confirmed that the parking lot was indeed empty, aside from me and the ghost of Francesca Powell, I said, "Yes, I'm Suze. And my first question is, who is 'he?'"

Francesca shook her head. "I never got his name. But he must be about your age, I suppose."

I didn't press that subject further, but if he was my age and could see her, then she was probably talking about Paul-though I wasn't sure why she would've been in L.A., where Paul lived. My head hurt at the thought of him being involved in all of this. I hadn't had any contact with Paul since my wedding, and I wanted to keep it that way for as long as possible, with "as long as possible" being "forever."

"Look, Suze, my name is Francesca Powell," she said, "and I'm dead."

Francesca looked at me expectantly, as though I was supposed to find the fact that she was dead shocking news when I could see her spectral glow as plain as day. Between being a mediator and growing up in Brooklyn, there wasn't much of anything that I could call "shocking news" anymore.

"I've heard about you," I said. "You worked at that jewelry store down on Monte Verde Street. You were killed during a robbery."

"A robbery?" Francesca asked. "Is that what happened?"

"Are you telling me you don't know what happened?" I asked.

Francesca shook her head and didn't offer anything more on the subject.

"What happened that night, Francesca?" I asked. "What's the last thing you remember? Let's start there."

Francesca took a deep breath, which was completely unnecessary for her to do since she was dead and didn't need to breathe anymore, and said, "I had a horrible headache."

A horrible headache was an understatement. In the reports I'd found on her death, she'd died when something, likely a piece of broken off glass from one of the jewelry showcases, had gotten lodged very forcefully into her forehead. Lucky her if she'd managed to forget about that.

"And before that?" I asked. "Why were you at the store that night? After eleven?"

"I forgot to lock up that day," she said. "I was the last to leave, and I was in a rush to pick up my son from school, so I did everything but lock the front door. I didn't remember I'd left it unlocked until I was getting ready to go to bed that night. But when I did remember, I drove over with my son right away to lock it. And to check that nothing was out of place inside the store, since the door had been unlocked that whole time."

Francesca trailed off and then gave me an absolutely harrowed look. "My son was there. There was a robbery, and my son was there. Is he… Oh, God, is he alright?"

"He's fine," I said quickly. "Your son is fine."

For a given value of fine, at least.

"What happened after you got into the store?" I asked.

"I took a brief survey of the counters, and then I went to the cash register to make sure everything looked alright," she said.

"And then?"

"Then I came down with that horrible headache."

Then she got stabbed in the forehead by a ghost, she meant. I had no clue how she could've missed a piece of glass flying straight at her head, but she'd managed to do it somehow.

My next question was, "Why were you hanging around Los Angeles afterward instead of Carmel?"

"Los Angeles?" Francesca asked, and there was an ample amount of confusion in her voice.

"Los Angeles," I repeated. "You know, the place where you were when you met up with the guy who told you to come see me."

Francesca shook her head and was about to say something right as the doors to the Happy Medium burst open. It was CeeCee, who wouldn't think I was crazy if I told her I was busy talking to a ghost, but it made no difference. Francesca had already dematerialized in a shimmer of blue light.

"Men," CeeCee said. And she was very red in the face, which wasn't too difficult for her, given her albinism, but I could tell she was severely pissed.

"I'm really sorry about bringing Hugo up," I said. "Do you want to talk about it? You and Adam, I mean, not Hugo."

"It's not your fault. What happened in there was long overdue."

"What exactly happened in there after I left?" I asked.

"Later," CeeCee said. "We'll talk about it later."

And then she got into her car and drove off without another word.

I wasn't sure what kind of state Adam was going to be in when he left the Happy Medium, but I was guessing he wasn't going to be much better off than CeeCee was. I waited another couple of seconds to see if Francesca would reappear in the parking lot, and, when she didn't, I got in the Land Rover and headed home.

When I made it home a few minutes later, Jesse still wasn't back from his dinner, and I figured, he wasn't going to be back for a while. He'd left the clinic after I had, and, presumably, none of his friends were having relationship spats with each other. I didn't mind that he'd be coming home late though. There was one thing on my to-do list that I would have rather had finished before he got home.

I reached for my cell phone, opened up my phonebook, and pressed the call button on the contact listed as El Diablo.

The reason I hadn't just taken Paul's number out of my phone was because somehow, deep down, I knew that the day when I needed him to talk to him on mediator business out of my own volition would come. I was dreading that day, but there wasn't much I could do to avoid it.

Paul's greeting was nothing short of what I expected it to be.

"Tired of de Silva so soon? I guess all that wait just wasn't worth what he turned out in the bedroom, huh?"

Expected or not, I bristled anyway. After all these years, Paul still got under my skin with minimal effort.

"Everything in that department is fine," I said. "More than fine. Like, almost eight inches worth of fine."

I could practically hear Paul shudder through the phone before he said, "I did not need to know that."

"You were the one who wanted to knock my sex life. But I'm not calling you for sex. I'm calling you because I just got through speaking to a ghost who knows you."

"Oh. The chick I brought back, right? Are you calling me to complain or something? I thought you'd like it if I scooped her up and brought her back to this dimension, so you could go all do-gooder on her. Though knowing how low you're willing to stoop lately, I'm guessing you're mad because you were the one who exorcised her in the first place or something?"

"Brought back to this dimension?" I asked. "Wait a second, you found her in Shadowland?"

"Yeah, Suze," Paul said, and he used this slow voice like he was dealing with a cranky toddler. "Sometimes there are ghosts out in LA, too, you know. I pop in upstairs to drop one off, and there was a perfectly good one already waiting there. Go figure."

"So… You didn't exorcise her in the first place or anything?"

"I brought her out of that place, not put her there. Keep up, Suze. Letting de Silva screw you must've lowered your IQ or something."

He didn't say "screw," and neither did I when I told him to go screw himself a couple of seconds later.

"Didn't you hear I've got the hottest A-lister in Hollywood around to do that for me now?" Paul said.

I should've ended the conversation right there. I would have saved myself a lot of trouble if I had, but instead I said, "What's up with that anyway? I thought you said you weren't the marriage type."

"Jealous?"

"You wish. You really wish."

"What? You mad that we might follow in your and de Silva's footsteps and do the whole marriage thing with two point five abominable kids."

I didn't say anything for a moment. And not because Paul was right about me being jealous—because I most certainly was not. No. I didn't say anything because he'd used the word "abominable." For the record, I am not superstitious. Beyond ghosts, I do not bother myself with believing in anything supernatural, much to Father Dom and Jesse's chagrin. But I felt the same sinking sensation in my stomach that I'd gotten when Paul had told me that Jesse was cursed.

"You're not serious about the whole abomination thing, are you?"

"Whatever kids you and de Silva have are going to be demons. There is no doubt in my mind about it."

"I'm serious, Paul," I said sharply.

"What, are you already pregnant or something?"

I hesitated for a second too long in answering him, and my silence revealed enough.

"Well, shit. There's no turning back now. You've officially ruined your life," Paul said.

I wanted to tell him that if having kids ruined your life, he'd ruined his thrice over, but I restrained myself. Instead, I said, "Just tell me if it'll be cursed."

"Apart from the curse of being raised by you and de Silva? Nothing I can think of."

I thanked him, for getting Francesca to me and for confirming that the kid inside of me wasn't Rosemary's baby or something, and then I concluded our phone call with the very heartfelt suggestion of, "Go eat a dick."

After I hung up the phone, the first thing on my mind was how the hell did Francesca wind up exorcised. If it wasn't Paul, then I couldn't think of a single mediator out there who would bother with exorcising a non-violent spirit like Francesca. Which meant there must've been another mediator out there somewhere pulling some strings.

But why?

They say there are no coincidences in a murder investigation, and I've mediated enough murder victims to believe it. It must have had something to do with Francesca being murdered at the jewelry store that night. Someone must have wanted to, I don't know, keep her quiet? Keep her away from any mediators who might've tried to help her move on and inadvertently gain justice that would've spelled out incarceration for the living perpetrator?

But then that would've meant that our ghost robber wasn't working alone, unless a ghost could exorcise another ghost. And I didn't think they could. Maria Diego had needed Jack to do the exorcism for her when she'd wanted to exorcise Jesse, after all. So some mediator out there must've been helping behind the scenes. And it made sense.

God, why hadn't I seen it before? What would a ghost do with money? They were dead, also known as in a permanent state of having absolutely no need to accumulate wealth. The ghost robber must've made some kind of unholy alliance the likes of which the world hadn't seen since the nightmare team that was Paul Slater and Felix and Maria Diego.

The sinking sensation I felt in my stomach was so strong I initially mistook it for more nausea. If only I could've been that lucky. The truth of the matter was that what I was feeling stemmed solely from the fact that I was about to deal with something a hell of a lot trickier than I would have liked it to be.

I had to take a seat on the couch to gather my thoughts. I needed to think of a plan of action. I needed to figure out what I was going to do first. I needed to…

I needed to answer my phone apparently.

Jesse's name and photo, the one of him reading while my old rat, Romeo, lay on his shoulders, flashed across the screen. He must've sensed how I felt.

"Susannah, are you alright?" Jesse asked when I picked up the phone a few seconds later.

"I'm not in mortal peril from anything," I said quickly.

"That's an oddly specific denial."

"Isn't it what you want to hear?"

"Only if it's true, querida."

I sighed and said, "There's some ghost stuff going on, but it's nothing that can't wait until you get home."

"I'm on my way now," Jesse said. And I wasn't sure if his dinner had already been wrapping up or if he was leaving in the middle of appetizers or something. He hung up the phone before I could ask him anything else.

Jesse was home in less than fifteen minutes. He greeted me in the living room with concern in his voice, and he was clearly looking me over for any visible injuries.

"What's going on?" he asked.

And then I told him. Everything.

Or, most everything. I left out the part where I called Paul, for instance, and I also didn't mention anything not specifically related to the ghost girl, such as our unborn child. But I told him everything else.

"So every time this thief was mentioned and you either outright said that you hadn't started doing any investigation or otherwise left your efforts unmentioned, you were lying," Jesse said.

"The point here is that a ghost and a mediator are probably working together to knock off jewelry stores and murdered someone in the process," I said.

Jesse did not seem to share my opinion on this matter of what the point actually was.

"Are you always going to do this, Susannah? Keep things like this to yourself until you feel like you can't handle them alone?"

"It wasn't about keeping secrets. It was about acting quickly. If I hadn't acted when I did, then I wouldn't have caught a look at the ghost. Carmel's out of jewelry stores for it to rob now. And I was only holding off on telling you until Dr. Whitehall got settled in at the clinic like you wanted."

Jesse did not look satisfied with this answer.

"Is that everything?" he asked.

"Is what everything?"

"Is that everything you've been lying to me about?"

No was what I was thinking, but yes was what I said out loud.

And then I said, more genuinely this time, "Jesse, I'm really sorry. How about… If you forgive me, then I'll do that thing you really like tonight. You know, with my-."

I trailed off as I felt my phone buzz to alert me to a new text message.

You don't even understand how lucky you are. How beyond lucky. How the stars have all aligned for this moment to come into fruition lucky. - CeeCee

My phone buzzed again a moment later with a link to an obituary.

"Shit," I said. "It's her. It's the ghost girl I saw the other day."

Jesse walked over to me quickly and began to read the obituary along with me over my shoulder.

Alexa Jane Vanguard, 30, died May 2, 2016 at St. Francis Hospital after a long bout with lymphoma. Alexa was a graduate of the University of California at Berkeley and previously Robert Louis Stevenson High School. Alexa made the best of her short years on this Earth as a freelance fashion photographer and journalist. Her work has appeared in Marie Claire and Teen Vogue. Alexa is survived by her parents, Mr. Alexander Vanguard and Mrs. Samantha Vanguard, and her younger sister, Christina Vanguard. She will be dearly missed.

"Alexa Vanguard," I said. The picture of her in her obituary looked older than the person I'd seen in the jewelry store, but cancer patients typically came back a few years younger than when they died. Your body enters into ghost-hood at a time when you felt most alive, so I've never once encountered a ghost who looked like they were in the midst of chemotherapy.

"I'll call her," I said, "and we can settle this now."

"Are you hearing yourself right now, Susannah? You're just going to call up this ghost who has already proved herself more than capable of murdering someone? Nombre de Dios, I have no idea how you survived by yourself in New York."

"I survived fine," I said. "Besides, you're with me now. And you're all big and strong, and I'm sure you will protect me from harm as any good nineteenth century gentleman would do for his lady."

"Well, actually, Susannah, I have been thinking it would be nice to have the house all to myself again, like old times."

I hit him in the arm, but he remained unfazed.

He said, "You're forgetting that this ghost is only one part of the problem. We need to find out whoever's helping her before we make it obvious that we're involved."

"So we pump our new friend Alexa for information," I said with a shrug.

"It'll be a lot harder to torture a ghost for information than it would be to torture a living human being. Given that ghosts can dematerialize and can heal themselves. A little more research, and then we'll act," Jesse said.

And we both knew he was right.

"Now," he said, in a decidedly different tone, "what was it you were saying earlier? About what you were promising me if I considered forgiving you?"