Nightmare (4 page)

I couldn't figure out if her warmth was pretense or not. Either
way, I still didn't want to talk to her.

"Anyway, I was wondering if you might be able to help me,
or at least point me in the right direction." Jordin paused, as if
hesitant to continue. Finally she plowed ahead. "I need to know
if it's real."

I raised my eyebrows, an unspoken question.

"The paranormal," Jordin explained. "Is it real?"

So much for the "innocent fellow student" theory.

Without a word, I turned and walked quickly through the
dorm entrance, leaving Jordin Cole alone in the courtyard.

She tried again the next day.

She got in line behind me at the school bookstore. I knew
Jordin had to have been intentionally trailing me to find me
here.

"Your major doesn't involve people skills, does it?" she said
in a conversational tone, as though our prior conversation had
never ended. "Which is kind of stunning. I mean, you're a TV
star. You have actual fans. I guess most of them have never met
you, or they might rethink that."

I glanced at her sidelong. "Do we have to do this?"

"I get it," she said. Her voice was a little louder than I would
have preferred, causing several heads to turn in my direction.

"I totally understand," she continued, and I was over this
already. Mostly because of Jordin's too-casual use of the word
"totally." She continued, "If my parents were world-famous ghost
hunters with their own reality show, I'd avoid every weirdo who
asked me questions about the paranormal, too."

"They're not ghost hunters," I said, almost mumbling, refusing to face her full-on, because it would feel too much like we
were having an actual conversation.

"Huh?"

"My parents," I repeated. "They are not `ghost hunters.'
They're not ghost busters. The correct term is `paranormal investigators.' And since you don't have a clue what that means, and
I don't really care to explain it, please just go forget you ever
met me."

"No, no, I know!"Jordin said, backpedaling and regrouping
fast. "I'm just really new to this stuff, and that's totally why I
need your help."

"No" was my definitive answer. I wasn't going to get into
this, not with Jordin Cole or anyone else. "No, I can't help you with whatever it is you want. I can't get you an autograph, I can't
get you on the TV show, and I'm not interested in helping you
contact your dead relative."

"I don't want any of those things," she said.

"Then what do you want?" I asked pointedly.

"Well, I was kind of hoping you might be willing to consider-"

"What do you want?" I pressed, raising my voice while stepping up to the counter and running my check card through the
machine.

Jordin froze, and looked me in the eyes. She seemed to change
in front of me, and her hyper-friendly exterior faded.

"I want to touch the paranormal. I want to know that it's real.
Or not. I don't want to be told. I don't want to read about it. I
want to experience it for myself."

"Go to the library," I replied. "Internet search: 'Paranormal investigators, New York City.' Tons of amateurs out there
eager and willing to show you around any haunted house
in the area you want. Might even let you tag along on a real
investigation."

"But I don't want them! And I don't want to visit any haunted
house," she said. "I don't know anything about this stuff, but I
know that no one else has your level of expertise. Your parents are
the authorities in this field-respected by pretty much everyoneand you were on tons of episodes of the show as one of their best
investigators. Until-"

I cut her off. "Do you know the question?"

Jordin blinked. "What?"

"Do you know the question?" I asked again, picking up my
purchased textbooks and hugging them in my arms. "Look at every quest, every search, every journey that's ever been undertaken, and at its heart you'll find a question. A question that
needs answering. And that drive for answering it is what fuels
the quest. The search for the paranormal is no different than
any other quest. At its core, there is a question that needs to be
answered. Do you know that question?"

Jordin looked away, searching her thoughts. "Why do ghosts
exist?"

I shook my head and turned to go. "You go have a nice
life."

It was three days later before Jordin made contact again.

I was leaving a statistics class when she ambushed me as
I walked out of the lecture hall and onto the busy university
sidewalk.

"Hey, girlfriend. I figured it out," she said, chipper and
pleased with herself. "The question that drives the search for
the paranormal."

I stopped under the shadow of a well-manicured tree, satisfied that we were out of earshot of anyone nearby.

"I'm not your friend," I remarked, unimpressed and once
again unnerved that she knew how to find me so easily. "I'm not
even on your social ladder."

"What happens when we die?" Jordin continued.

Despite myself, my eyebrows rose. "Not bad. And here I
thought you were just a pampered, bored heiress."

Jordin was rich. Beyond rich. Richer than rich. And everyone
at school knew it. Some kind of inheritance or something, I
couldn't recall the details.

"That's because you don't know me," she replied, shrugging.
"And I understand why you don't care to. But I still need your
help."

"You may know the question," I noted, "but that doesn't
mean you're ready to try and answer it."

"The question ... it makes sense," Jordin said slowly, thoughtfully. "Do you know the answer?"

I shook my head, unable to mask my boredom with this
conversation. "Not really."

"But don't you want to?" Jordin said, confused at my
indifference.

"Do you have any idea what a real paranormal investigation
is?" I retorted, what little patience I possessed dwindling. "We
run toward the things that most people run away from. It's all
about cataloging the unexplained. Gathering real, scientific evidence in the worst places and conditions you can imagine. And
in cases where real people are being terrorized in their homes,
it's about helping them. Are you honestly interested in any of
those things?"

"Sure."

"You are not!" I shot back.

She hesitated. "Look, my reasons are ... my reasons. But I
have to do this. And I want you to help me."

I shook my head at the ground, almost laughing.

"What?" she asked.

"You really think you're somehow different than every other
`ghost hunter' wannabe I've ever met, don't you."

"I know I am, sister. Because I'm the first wannabe to tell
you that there's no limit to where we could go or what we could
investigate."

Ahyes, and here it comes ...

"I do know who you are, Jordin," I said.

"Then you know that when I say the sky's the limit, it's an
epic understatement. Anywhere, anytime," she said. "The most
haunted places in America-or the world. There's got to be some
places out there you always wanted to investigate, but never got
to. Or favorite locations that you meant to get back to, but never
got around to. I can make it happen. My only request is that you
take me with you."

"Quite a sales pitch," I replied, mildly amused. "Practiced
it much?"

"I can do this for you, Maia," said Jordin. "I can help you
finally find the answer to the question. I want to."

"That's ... kind," I replied, eying her sidelong. "But I'm still
not interested."

"Because you're serious about your studies here, your career.
You want to be taken seriously. You don't want to be known as
,the ghost hunters' daughter.' I get it. But nobody forced you
to go along with your parents on all those investigations. And
I think that despite this new life you're pursuing, some part of
you still wants to know the answer. Find that proof that the
paranormal's real. What if I could help you do that? We might
even legitimize your parents' lifelong quest."

I didn't even try to hide my curiosity. Jordin was a lot smarter
than I first gave her credit for. She was also a lot kookier.

"Okay, say for a moment I got myself some temporary insanity
and agreed to ... to whatever it is you're wanting to do. Paranormal investigation is not some hobby or whim to be undertaken out of curiosity. For the unprepared or the uninformed, it's extremely dangerous. If you're not strong enough, you can lose
yourself to what you'll encounter."

She seemed unfazed. "I can handle it."

I frowned. "What are you hoping to find?"

Jordin perked up and whipped out a five-by-five-inch journal.
"Stuff like this." She opened the book, and it was overstuffed
with newspaper clippings, printed website pages, and dozens
upon dozens of photos. Most of them were poor in quality, probably made on a copier or printed on a low-res printer. But it
didn't matter; I recognized most of the images as rather notorious photos. There were famous pictures like the Brown Lady at
Raynam Hall in Norfolk, Boothill Graveyard in Tombstone, the
Cashtown Inn in Gettysburg. Some of the best so-called evidence
of the paranormal.

Jordin had collected for herself a record of supposedly real
hauntings from the last twenty to thirty years. Amateur photos and reports, predominantly, of paranormal sightings that
average people "happened" to unintentionally catch. Many
of these sightings were quite well-known among paranormal
investigators.

I examined the book for a moment, trying to stay poker-faced.
But I couldn't keep it up.

"What?" she asked.

I kind of shrugged. "It's just ... it's garbage, Jordin. All of
this. You're operating on pop culture-fueled notions of what
ghosts and spirits are, and it's nonsense. Ninety-nine percent of
the stuff in your little book here is nothing at all like what you'd
experience in a genuinely haunted place."

She was confused. "What are you talking about? This is some
of the best evidence ever captured-"

"Evidence," I repeated, and I couldn't help being amused at
the word. I grabbed the book and flipped it open to random pages
as I talked. "Lens flare," I said about one photo. "Reflection," I
said regarding another. "Blatant photo manipulation."

"But. .."Jordin backpedaled. "Look at this one. That's one
of the best orbs ever captured on film!"

"Your orbs," I said with a tone that refused all argument,
"have done more damage to the field ofparanormal investigation
than all the crackpot psychics and mediums out there combined.
They're nothing but bugs or dust that get too close to a lens for it
to focus properly, so a light artifact is created on the final image.
An amateur photographer can tell you this."

Jordin was frowning. She regrouped quickly, flipping to
another page. "Look at this one, though. You can't tell me that
isn't-"

I snapped the book closed and handed it back to her. "Even
the best photos in here-and I'm not saying some of them
aren't compelling-are unverifiable. Any one of them or all of
them could be the product of Photoshop. This is the eternal
problem of paranormal investigation. The only people who
ever investigate it are amateurs, because no reputable scientist
will touch this stuff, and no scientific journal will publish an
amateur's findings. It's a catch-22. All of these photos were
taken by amateurs because there are no paranormal professionals, so it can't be labeled as evidence. Amateurs can't be
vouched for, and the conditions they research in can't be controlled, so their evidence has no value as scientific currency,"
I concluded, trying to communicate to Jordin with whatever
delicacy I possessed that arguing her case on behalf of science
was a hopeless cause.

Jordin was reveling in romanticized notions of what the paranormal was like, but her ideas were an insult to the reality I knew.
And I wasn't finished.

"Making matters worse is the fact that a lot of the investigative groups out there don't get along with each other. My parents
have done a lot to legitimize the field, and they've never done
anything underhanded, but there are other investigators out
there-highly reputable ones-who will swear to you on a stack
of Bibles that they know my parents fake most of the evidence
they find. They `know' it because they believe their own tactics
are more scientific, or because they're just plain jealous of my
parents' success. Every group claims to be more reliable than
all the others, and it just comes down to a big shouting match
of `my word against yours.' It's all a game, and there's no way
to win."