The Jodi Picoult Collection #2 Read online

  “Ms. Wakeman?” The tires rolled to a stop beside her. Shelby didn’t lift her head at first, until she heard panting. She glanced up out of curiosity, to find the most enormous dog she’d ever seen lolling its head out the window of a black truck. A hand pushed the skull to the side, revealing the cop who had come to her house last night.

  Eli. That was his name.

  She swiped at her cheeks, trying to minimize the damage. “Uh, hello.”

  She could feel him staring at her. Was this what it felt like for Ethan in sunlight—all this incredible heat rushing to the surface of her skin? To her surprise, though, the policeman didn’t mention the obvious—that a crazy woman was sitting on the curb, bawling. He said, “Watson is on his way to get a cup of coffee.”

  “Watson?”

  Eli touched the crown of the dog’s head. “Watson.”

  Shelby felt her mouth curve into a smile as she stood. “The dog drinks coffee?”

  Covering the dog’s floppy ears, ostensibly to keep him from hearing, Eli confided, “He’s trying to stunt his growth.”

  At that, a laugh burst out of her. It hung before Shelby, obscene as a belch, and she held her hand to her chest, stunned to realize that she could produce such a sound.

  “Watson would be honored if you’d join us.”

  Shelby tentatively put her hands on the open frame of the window. “Watson should learn to speak for himself.”

  Reaching around the dog, Eli pulled the passenger door handle, so that it swung open in front of Shelby; a red carpet, a beginning. “What can I tell you,” Eli grinned. “He’s shy.”

  Ross took a long drag of his cigarette and tossed the butt into the bushes edging the porch. It turned out that being present at the moment you lost someone you loved didn’t make it any easier. It turned out that being numb on the outside didn’t keep you from bleeding internally.

  Ross no longer knew what to believe. Could he love Lia, and still love Aimee? Could Aimee have come back, as Lia had, but chosen not to? And if that was the case . . . was the connection he’d thought to be so strong between them not anything special at all?

  If he let his mind trip down this road, it negated everything he’d done for the past ten years. Ross had chased after his fiancée—first by courting his own death, later by investigating the paranormal. Yet maybe a relationship he’d chalked up to fate had only been a matter of coincidence. Maybe he’d met Aimee, had loved Aimee, had lost her—simply so that at some point later in his life he would be ghost hunting, and would meet Lia.

  But Rod van Vleet was going to get rid of Lia’s ghost. Maybe not the first time he got some hack to try—maybe not even the second—but eventually, there was a good chance that Lia, wherever she was now, would leave. After all, what did she have to stay for, now that she knew who . . . and what . . . she was?

  If finding a ghost had taken Ross several years, he imagined that locating a specific one who didn’t want to be found would take him several lifetimes.

  Why not end this one, then, and start the next?

  He stared at the cigarette burn he’d made on his flesh weeks ago. Just a few inches farther down his arm was the scar that reminded him how close he’d come, once, to dying. It wouldn’t be hard to do it again. There were pills as bright as marbles in Shelby’s bathrooms. There was a Swiss Army knife in Ethan’s nightstand drawer. He had canvassed the house weeks ago, a traveler making sure he knew the quickest path of exit in case of emergency.

  Except, Ross knew, he wouldn’t pass easily to the other side. He’d become a ghost, held to this world by the pain he’d have caused his sister, by what he didn’t do for Lia.

  Maybe he would help Eli Rochert after all. Maybe then, if Lia was somewhere where she could see him, she would have reason to stay . . . no matter what van Vleet did to make her go.

  Frustrated, he jammed his hands into his shorts, and felt his fingers brush something. From each pocket he withdrew a bright copper penny, dated 1932, so shiny it might have been minted that morning. He had a vision of himself in a coffin, these pennies on his eyes, payment for crossing the River Styx. Would Lia be waiting? Would Aimee?

  “What are those?”

  Lost in his thoughts, Ross was startled by the sound of his nephew’s voice. “What are you doing up?”

  Ethan was wrapped in clothing from head to toe, even though the porch was protected from sunlight. “I don’t know. You don’t sleep, either, do you?” Ethan approached, looking at the pennies. “Those and a dollar’ll get you a cup of coffee.”

  “When did kids turn so cynical?”

  “When the world started going to crap,” Ethan answered. “We’re Generation Z.”

  Ross raised his brows. “What comes after that?”

  “I guess they just start over again.” He sat down on the porch swing and set it rocking, as Ross lit another cigarette. “Can I have one?”

  “What do you think?” Ross shook his head. The very things that branded him such a failure in the eyes of society made him seem positively cool to boys Ethan’s age.

  “Mom says you shouldn’t smoke around me.”

  “Then don’t tell her.”

  “I won’t.” He grinned. “Besides, dying of lung cancer instead would be a surprise.”

  Ross leaned against the porch railing. He was exhausted; he couldn’t sleep if he tried; and now he had to make polite conversation with a nine-year-old when he really wanted to go into hibernation or stick his head in a gas oven or both.

  “I heard you and that cop talking about a ghost last night.”

  “You weren’t supposed to be listening.”

  Ethan shrugged. “I guess there really is a place you go to . . . afterward,” he said. “What do you think it’s like there?”

  A small ache winced across Ross’s breastbone at the realization that Ethan wasn’t asking out of curiosity, but preparation. He remembered the first time he’d held Ethan as an infant, how he had looked into his blue-black eyes and thought, I already know you. “I don’t know, bud. I’m not expecting harps and angels.”

  “Maybe it’s different for everyone,” Ethan suggested. “Like, I’d have a half-pipe and get to be out in the sun all the time. Enough awesome stuff so that I totally forget about what it used to be like down here. What would you want?”

  What sort of world order would let a kid like Ethan die—a kid with his whole life in front of him—yet keep Ross alive and miserable, although there was nothing left for him and never would be? This world, which he would throw away in a heartbeat, was something rare and precious to people who could not afford to take it for granted.

  Purgatory, he thought, was just a synonym for tomorrow.

  Ross sat down on the porch swing and slipped an arm around Ethan’s narrow shoulders. “What I’d want,” he said, “is to come visit.”

  Like Lia had.

  “I can’t believe it.” Shelby stood on the porch at the Gas & Grocery and watched Eli’s bloodhound lap tepid coffee from a borrowed bowl.

  “Well, this is easy. It’s when he starts getting the urge for sweetmeats and escargots that it gets to be a drag.”

  Watson seemed to have an excess of skin. It fell over his forehead in a roll that nearly obliterated his eyes. He glanced up at Shelby and poked his snout into her stomach. “Watson!” Eli scolded.

  “It’s all right.” Shelby rubbed behind the dog’s ears. “He just thinks I’m esculent.”

  “Would that be a good thing?”

  “It means edible.”

  “Smart dog,” Eli murmured, lifting his own cup of coffee to his mouth and swallowing his words.

  They were distracted by a station wagon, crunching on the gravel and rolling to a stop. A handsome man with a white streak in his hair and a woman dressed as flamboyantly as a tzigane stepped out of the car. “For the love of God,” the woman said. “Haven’t these towns ever heard of Ralph’s?”

  “Relax, Maylene. All I need is a Sterno and matches. They must stock them for