Life After Theft (3 page)

“Your email,” I said, coming up with one last test. “You have a Yahoo or Gmail account or something?”

“I did,” Kimberlee said, clearly not following my stream of logic.

“Okay, tell me your username and password. There’s no way I could know that, so if it works it would prove that you’re not some figment of my imagination.”
Cool, calm, logical
.
I can do this
.

“Not a chance,” Kimberlee said.

“Why not?”

“I don’t want you cyberspying on me!”

“It’s not cyberspying—it’s proving your story.”

“My email is private. Don’t go there.”

I hesitated. “Facebook?”

She snorted. “That’s hardly better.” After a moment of hesitation: “How about my MySpace page? I didn’t use it for, like, years before I died, but it’s still there and definitely mine.”

I nodded. “That’ll work. What is it?”

After a few moments’ thought she rattled off her MySpace username and I found the page. Not surprisingly, it was pink and seizure-inducingly sparkly.

And covered with pictures of a definitely alive Kimberlee from junior high school. She looked a little different but it was definitely her. I squinted at a couple of group shots and recognized Langdon, the guy who had almost squished me to a pulp today. “Hey!” I said, pointing. “That’s Langdon.”

Kimberlee rolled her eyes. “So?”

I turned back to the computer and took a deep breath. “Okay,” I said, “this is definitely Kimberlee Schaffer’s MySpace page. What’s the password? And none of this guessing stuff. You nail it the first try, or I ignore you for the rest of my life.”

“Fine,” Kimberlee said, leaning forward with a predatory look in her eye, “but I get a part in this deal, too. If the password works you believe me, one hundred percent. No more made-up-person stuff. Deal?”

I swallowed hard. “Deal.”

“UMMM,” I SAID SLOWLY AS
I stared at the screen.

“What?” Kimberlee said, tension spiking her voice about two octaves. “It didn’t work? You typed it wrong, then—do it again!”

“You have over three thousand new messages.”

“Oh,” Kimberlee said. Then she straightened casually, as though she hadn’t been on the verge of hysteria an instant ago. “Well, dying makes you popular.”

I stared at Kimberlee as if seeing her for the first time. All the ghosts in movies were see-through and white and did that glowing thing. And they floated. Kimberlee looked solid and walked right on the ground like anyone else. The lights made her hair shine a little, but she definitely wasn’t glowing. “Can I touch you?” I asked curiously.

She put her hands on her hips and pushed her chest out. “I admit, I haven’t gotten any action in a while.”

“Not like that,” I protested, mortified. “I mean in terms of, uh, physics. Can I touch your arm, or will I go right through?”

Kimberlee studied her arm quizzically. “Everyone else goes right through. Course, none of them can see or hear me either. You can try.” She held out her arm.

I lifted my hand for a second before wussing out and turning back to my computer. “I don’t want to.”

“Come on,” she said. “If you don’t, I will.”

I felt something cold pass through my shoulder and a massive chill shot down my spine. “Okay,” I said when I could talk again. “That was the creepiest thing that’s ever happened to me. And after today, that’s really saying something.”

But when I turned to her, she looked disappointed.

“What?”

She gave me a one-shouldered shrug. “I—I hoped you’d be different, that’s all.”

“Sorry,” I muttered. Not that I could help it. “So,” I said, feeling suddenly very awkward. “You’re a ghost, huh?”

“Nothing gets past you, does it?” she said, rolling her eyes. “Are you going to help me now, or what?”

“Uh . . .”

Her perfectly plucked eyebrows furrowed. “Look,” she began hesitantly, “you can see me. And hear me. So you’re the only one who can help me. You
have
to say yes.”

I sighed. “What do you need help with?”

“My unfinished business.”

“Your what?”

“In books and movies people become ghosts when they have unfinished business. That must be why I’m still here.”

“Did someone tell you that? Did you have some, I don’t know,
angel
, I guess, tell you what you need to do?”

She shook her head. “Uh-uh. I just woke up in the middle of the school and I was dead. I’m guessing on the rest.”

“What’s your unfinished business?”

She twisted a ring around on her finger. “I kind of stole some stuff when I was alive and I think I need to return it.”

“That’s it? No unrequited love? Revenge unrealized?”

“Nope.”

“And you want me to return it so you can be on your merry way?”

“That’s the plan. It’s the only thing I can think of. I had a great life. Pretty much everyone loved me—except the people who wanted to
be
me—and I had everything I ever wanted.”

“Which forced you into a life of crime?” I have never understood rich people stealing.

“Whatever. Will you help me?”

I laid my arms on the desk and let my head rest against them. “I return a couple a things for you and you leave me alone?” I asked, more to the carpet than her.

“Yes.”

“Forever?”

“I promise.” She laughed. “I’d pinky swear, but, you know.”

I did know—and I didn’t want to do that again.

I was kinda starting to miss just being crazy.

“Jeff?”

I looked over at her. Her smirk was gone. So was her pout.

“Please?” she asked, her tone completely genuine.

I’m such a pushover
. “Fine. I’ll do it.”

She squealed and clasped her hands together. “Thank you thank you thank you!” and then in the same breath, “We gotta go to the cave.”

“The cave?”

“It’s where the stuff is.”

“You’re in Santa Monica and you hid stuff in a
cave
?”

“It’s on my parents’ private beach. I found it when I was, like, ten. It’s been my secret place ever since.”

“Okay,” I said. “We can go tomorrow.”

“Why can’t we go today?”

I dug around in my backpack and held up a copy of
Les Misérables
, and
not
the abridged version. “Because I have a hundred pages of this to read tonight. Not to mention calculus homework and a history outline everyone else has already been working on for a week.” The thought of all the homework I’d had heaped on me today was almost enough to make my ghost problem seem small.

Almost.

“Unlike some people, I still have a life,” I muttered.

Kimberlee’s lips pressed into a straight line and before I could apologize, she spun on her heel and disappeared through my bedroom door.

When Kimberlee popped up silently beside my locker the next morning, I tried to apologize for my harsh comment. “I was stressed,” I said quietly, hoping no one was close enough to catch me talking to myself. Again. “I should have kept my mouth shut.”

“Whatever,” she said, not meeting my eyes as I slammed my locker shut. “I just want to get this over with.”

I had almost reached the stairs that would take me up to Bleekman’s room when a flash of red grabbed my eye. I tuned Kimberlee out and my eyes tracked the redhead.

Finally, something good about Whitestone.

Fingers snapped in front of my face. “Hello? Focus!”

Kimberlee. It was a testament to the sheer hotness of the other girl that I had, for ten seconds, managed to forget Kimberlee entirely.

Hot Girl was standing less than twenty feet away, digging through her locker with her back to me. I was trying to figure out a nonlame way to approach her when she stopped and turned. I glanced away, afraid she’d been able to sense my eyes burning a hole in her back. Maybe a few inches
below
her back. After what I hoped was a safe amount of time, I glanced in her direction again. It took me a few seconds to find her.

Hugging a guy in a letter jacket.

I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the two of them. It was like a car wreck—you don’t really want to see the guy all mangled inside, but you can’t look away. And it wasn’t some third-string nobody—this guy was majorly ripped and could probably break my neck with two fingers. Maybe one. It took me a second to realize that he wasn’t very tall—but what’s a little height when you’ve got shoulders like steel girders? The redhead leaned against the lockers next to him and smiled.

I knew that kind of smile. It was a special smile reserved for special people. Like, boyfriend people.

Damn
.

But really, why
wouldn’t
she be taken? She was totally gorgeous and—considering she was at Whitestone—almost certainly rich. Girls like that don’t just wander around single.

“Enjoy your little trip down fantasy lane, loverboy?” Kimberlee was leaning against my locker looking totally bored.

Oh yeah
.

But I couldn’t help glancing back at the hot girl again.

“Trust me; leave that one alone,” Kimberlee said, following my gaze. “She was this total slut as a freshman, but she doesn’t really date now. Probably not even into guys anymore.”

I looked over at Kimberlee with my best
duh
face and flicked my head in her direction. “Human tractor over there?”

“Wait, wait,” she said, laughing. “Him? Mikhail?”

She
would
think this was funny.

“You’re barking up the wrong tree. Mikhail is—” Her mouth snapped shut and her eyes took on this funny look. She sighed melodramatically. “I must be wrong. After all, just because he was dating someone a few months ago doesn’t mean they’re still together. I’m so out of the loop.” She sighed again.

Was she being sarcastic? I felt like I’d missed something, but couldn’t imagine what.

“You really better stay away from her now,” Kimberlee continued. “Mikhail could break you in half without even trying.”

“Just tell me her name,” I whispered.

“Why?” Kimberlee shot back. “So I can help you keep ‘having a life’?” So much for her
whatever
.

“I’m helping you,” I reminded her.

“Fine,” she said, sounding way more pissy than I thought my request could possibly justify. “It’s Serafina. Serafina Hewitt. I’ll meet you outside of Keller’s class at three fifteen sharp so we can go to the cave. Back out and you’ll be sorry.” She shot a finger gun at me and walked through the wall of lockers.

AS SHE’D PROMISED
, Kimberlee was waiting for me after school, just inside the front doors. “Finally,” she muttered.

I pushed open the door and instinctively held it a few seconds to let Kimberlee out. She snickered as she walked by. “Holding the door for your imaginary friend?”

“That’s only an insult to yourself.”

She tossed her hair. “Whatever. Where’s your car?” she asked.

I grinned. I couldn’t help it. A black BMW Z4 convertible was my mom’s idea of a good, sensible car. Something about them lasting forever? I turned to Kimberlee. “This way.”

I headed to the farthest end of the lot, where almost no one parked. The spaces on both sides of my Z4 were empty. That was worth the walk.

Kimberlee stroked her fingers along the black hood as though she could actually feel something. “I saw this yesterday when I followed you home,” she said, as if following people home was completely normal. “Daddy’s?”

I put my shades on as I pressed the unlock button on my keychain. “Nope. She’s all mine. Kimberlee, meet Halle.”

“Halle?”

It’s not that I’m embarrassed that I named my car, but, well, it’s kind of personal.

Kimberlee stood outside the door. After almost thirty seconds I rolled down the window. “You coming?”

“I thought you were going to open the door for me.”

“I thought I wasn’t supposed to do stuff like that for my
imaginary friend
.”

She rolled her eyes. “Fine.” She slipped through the door and settled in the seat.

I stared at her, everything I’d learned in physics screaming that this made no sense. “Why don’t you fall through the bottom of the car?” I finally asked.

“I don’t know,” she said testily. “Why don’t you?”

I shook my head and put the key in the ignition.

“Should I put on my seat belt?”

“Can you?”

That shut her up.

“Come on, why Halle?”

Okay, not completely. “
Not
telling you.”

“Spill!”

I didn’t have the stamina for another battle of wills with Kimberlee. “I named her after Halle Berry. She played Storm in the X-Men movies.”

“You’re such a nerd. Why her?”

I could feel my face getting hot. “Well, you know . . . ’cause she’s hot. And black. And my car is hot, and black.”

Kimberlee smirked. “So you want to ride her all over town?”

“
What?
No, it’s a compliment! Like naming a boat! I just—it’s just a stupid . . . Forget I said anything. Can we just drop it now?”

“Whatever you say, Grand Wizard.”

I shook my head and started the car. She was just baiting me. Again. How did I keep walking into her traps?

“You drive like my grandma,” Kimberlee said after a few minutes of inching along.

“You think that’s an insult? Try harder.” I knew what this car could do. The first week I got it I took a trip to Vegas and made it from Phoenix to the Hoover Dam in just over two hours. My car is
fast
. And I admit, I roared into school moving pretty quick yesterday, but then I realized the kids here all drive like they’re on crack. Seriously. So after a near miss with a red Miata, I’d decided that slower was better.

At least until I got out of the parking lot.

Kimberlee pointed me down several streets, each wider and more stately than the last, until I pulled up in front of a huge white mansion.

“Whoa, sweet.” Our house was supernice, but this was the kind of house you see on the home-design shows my mom watches. The
feature
homes.

“Turn down that little road over there. It’ll take you to the beach,” Kimberlee said, clearly not impressed.

“Are you sure nobody’s going to arrest me for being here?” Because I was most definitely
not
sure.