The Jodi Picoult Collection #2 Read online

  “I’m an amateur, I suppose, compared to what you do.”

  “Have you found anything?” Ross asked.

  She shook her head. “Has anyone?”

  “Sure. I mean, beyond spirit photography and mediums, there’s been research from Princeton and the University of Edinburgh. Even the CIA did valid studies on ESP and telepathy.”

  “The CIA?”

  “Exactly,” Ross said. “The government even concluded that people can get information without using the five senses.”

  “That isn’t proof of life after death.”

  “No, but it suggests consciousness is more than something physical. Maybe seeing a ghost is just a different form of clairvoyance. Maybe ghosts aren’t even really dead, but alive somewhere in the past, and . . .” Ross’s voice trailed off. “Sorry. It’s just that . . . most people think what I do is crazy.”

  “I get that a lot too.” Lia smiled a little. “And don’t apologize. I’ve never met a scientist who doesn’t get all excited about his work.”

  A scientist. Had Ross ever been called that? It set off fireworks of feeling inside him—pride, astonishment, fascination. Certain that anything he did was going to ruin this moment, he reached for a cigarette as a delay tactic, and offered one to Lia. Her hand rose like a hummingbird, then darted behind her back. It had hovered long enough, however, for Ross to notice the thin gold band she was wearing.

  And there went his world, crashing down again.

  “He won’t know,” Ross said, meeting her gaze.

  Lia stared at him. Then she took a cigarette from the pack and let Ross light it for her. She smoked like she was swallowing a secret—this was a treasure to be hoarded. Her eyes drifted shut; her chin rose to expose the line of her neck.

  In that moment it did not matter that she was someone else’s wife; that she was still looking over her shoulder; that whatever few minutes Ross had with her would only be borrowed. This might well have been the beginning of a mistake, and even that could not prevent Ross from letting her leave just yet. “Let me buy you a cup of coffee,” he said.

  She shook her head. “I can’t—”

  “No one will find out.”

  “Everyone comes to this diner. If he knows I was with you . . .”

  “So what? Then you’ll tell him the truth. We’re two friends, talking about ghosts.”

  Wrong answer. Lia paled visibly, and Ross saw right through to her fragility again. “I don’t have friends,” she said quietly.

  No friends. And you’re not allowed to have a cup of coffee, and you have to sneak out in the dead of night. Ross could not even conjure a mental image of this tyrant who dominated Lia so completely. In today’s world, what husband would do such a thing? What woman would think so little of herself to let it happen? “What if I cover your head with a paper bag and tell everyone you’ve got leprosy?”

  She fought a smile. “I can’t drink coffee through a paper bag.”

  “I’ll ask for a straw.” Lia was weakening, he could see it in the sway of her knees. “One cup,” Ross pleaded.

  “All right,” she agreed. “One cup.” She took a long drag of her cigarette, her throat contracting as her eyes pinned him. “Have we met?”

  “Two nights ago.”

  “I meant before that.”

  Ross shook his head. “I don’t think so,” he said, but he felt as if he’d known her forever. Or maybe he wanted to know her forever. Was there a difference?

  He wanted to ask her why she was afraid of her husband. He wanted to ask her what had brought her to the diner today, at the same exact moment that Ross had come there. But he was afraid that if he said anything at all, she would disappear like the threads of smoke that hung between them.

  “Do you really think there’s a ghost there?” Lia asked.

  “On the Pike property? Maybe. If it is an Indian burial ground.”

  “An Indian burial ground?” Lia seemed stunned by the idea. “I don’t think so.”

  “Do you know much about the area?”

  “I’ve lived here all my life.”

  “And there’s never been anything to suggest that the land might have once been part of an Indian settlement?”

  “Whoever told you that is making it up.”

  Ross considered this. It was entirely possible.

  “But this Indian . . . it isn’t your first ghost,” Lia stated.

  “It will be, if it ever shows up.”

  “No, I meant, this isn’t the one that made you want to look.” She ducked her head, her hair swinging forward to cover her face. Her part was crooked at one spot in the back, as if her hand had jumped while holding the comb. “My mother died the day I was born. She’s the one I try to find, sometimes.”

  He realized then that Lia’s acceptance of the paranormal was not born out of open-mindedness, but—like his—out of desperation. That what he recognized about her was, quite simply, the same pain he saw in himself.

  Lia held out her forearm, pushing away the sleeve of her sweater, where a web of scars netted the flesh. “Sometimes I have to cut myself,” she confessed, “because I’m so sure I won’t bleed.”

  It had been so long since someone understood. “My ghost,” Ross said, his voice swollen and unfamiliar. “Her name is Aimee.”

  Once he had started, he could not stop. He spoke of the things he loved about Aimee—the ordinary ones, like the wide pool of her smile; and the others, like the spot where her elbow was always rough and the way she could not pronounce the word “drawer.” He spoke of the flash and fury of the accident, without any of the particulars that would only break him apart all over again. He spoke of what it felt like to learn that some mistakes were made in indelible ink. He spoke until his throat was raw and all his grief had been laid at Lia’s feet like an offering.

  By the time he finished, she was crying. “Do you really believe that you can love someone very much, very very much, even though you’re a world apart?”

  The words were torn out of her; Ross knew better than to believe this question came from his pain alone. “How can I not believe it?”

  She started to back away. “I need to go.” Ross instinctively reached for her—and just as quickly, just as automatically, Lia moved out of range.

  “Lia, tell me what he’s done to you.”

  “He adores me,” she whispered. “He loves a woman who doesn’t really exist.”

  Whatever Ross had been expecting as evidence of mistreatment, this was not it. Could you love someone so much that, even without meaning to, you hurt them?

  Lia brushed the edge of his sleeve, the tears on the tips of her fingers leaving a patch of cold. “When you find Aimee,” she said softly, “you tell her how lucky she is.”

  By the time Ross lifted his head, she was walking away. There were questions writhing inside him: What could she possibly have done that made her feel so unworthy of her husband’s affection? And if Lia loved him, why did it seem to be breaking her heart?

  Ross had not meant to upset her. He’d only wanted her to understand that she wasn’t alone. “Lia,” he called out, hurrying after her, but she only glanced over her shoulder once and began to walk faster. Her cigarette butt smoldered on the sidewalk.

  “Hey.” The waitress he’d spoken with earlier stuck her head out the diner’s back door. “You still looking for a table?”

  Ross followed her inside. He was ushered to a booth that hadn’t been cleaned yet. As he slid into the banquette he handed her one of his cigarettes, as promised.

  She laughed, tucked it into her sleeve, and wiped down the tabletop. “You flying solo today?”

  He glanced out the window. “Yeah. I guess I am.”

  The waitress scooped her tip across the table. She pocketed the bill and the quarters, snorting at the penny that was left behind. “It always pisses me how people think I’m a piggy bank,” she muttered. “Like I’d want this in my pocket any more than they do.”

  “A hundred of them wi