Bone Crossed (Mercy Thompson #4)(39)

"To making money," said Amber, holding up her glass. "Lots of it."

I pretended to sip the wine with the rest of them and was pretty sure that my idea of making money was several orders of magnitude less than theirs.

HE LEFT AT LAST IT HADN'T BEEN AS HORRIBLE AS I'D feared. The Monster was charming and, I hoped, unaware that I was anything except a not-very-interesting VW mechanic. Except for that one moment, I'd mostly avoided notice.

Almost euphoric at my near escape, I didn't worry about ghosts at all while I changed. Then I went back downstairs to help Amber with the cleanup.

She must have been worried or something, too, because she was nearly as giddy as I was. We had an impromptu water fight in the kitchen that ended in a draw when her husband stuck his head in the doorway to see what the noise was all about, and nearly got a sponge in the face for his trouble.

Discretion suggested that having escaped detection once, I should head home in the morning. But Amber was a little drunk, so I decided that conversation could wait until later. Dishes clean, clothes wet and soapy, I left Amber necking with her husband in the kitchen.

I opened the bedroom door to find Chad in the middle of my bed, his arms crossed over his chest. I could smell his fear from the doorway.

I closed the door behind me and took a good look around the room. "Ghost?" I mouthed.

He glanced around the room, too, then shook his head.

"Not here? In your room?"

He gave me a cautious nod.

"How about we go in your room, then."

Terror breathing out of every pore, he slipped off the bed and followed me to his room: brave kid. He opened his bedroom door cautiously - and then pushed it open, being very careful to keep his feet in the hallway.

"I assume you don't usually keep that bookcase facedown on the floor," I told him.

He gave me a dirty look, but he lost some of his fear.

I shrugged. "Hey, my boyfriend has a daughter"  -  boyfriend was such an inadequate word - "and I had a pair of little sisters. None of them keeps a clean room. I had to ask."

Except for the bookcase, it was hard to tell what part of the mess was a normal boy's habitat and how much the ghost had caused. But the bookcase, one of those half-sized things people put in kids' rooms, was easy to fix. I squeezed past Chad and into the room. The bookcase was even lighter than I'd thought.

When I started reshelving his books, he knelt beside me and helped. He read a little of everything - and not entirely limited to things I'd think a kid would read: JurassicPark, Interview with the Vampire, and H. P. Lovecraft sat next to Harry Potter and Naruto manga numbers one through fifteen. We worked for about twenty minutes to put everything to rights, and by the time we finished, he wasn't scared anymore.

I could smell it, though. It was watching us.

I dusted my hands off and looked around. "You usually keep your room this neat, kid?"

He nodded solemnly.

I shook my head. "You need help. Just like your mom. My little sister kept fossilized lunches under her bed for the dust bunnies she raised there."

I picked up a game from the neat stack. "Want to play some Battleship?" I wasn't leaving him alone with that thing in there.

Chad armed himself with a notebook, and we went to war. Historically, war has often been used as a distraction for problems at home.

Both of us lay on our bellies on the floor facing each other and fired our missiles. Adam called, and I told him he'd have to wait - battle must take precedence over romance. He laughed, wished me good night and good luck, just like that old war correspondent.

Chad's two-point boat was devilishly well hidden, and he destroyed my navy while I hunted it fruitlessly.

"Argh!" I cried with feeling. "You sank my battleship!"

Chad's face lit with laughter, and someone knocked at the door. I supposed I hadn't needed to make so much noise since Chad couldn't hear me anyway.

"Come in," I said. Reading my lips, Chad looked suddenly horrified, and I reached over and patted his shoulder.

The door popped open, and I rolled halfway over and looked back over my feet as if to see who it was. Most people would have needed to look, so I did, but I'd heard him coming - and Amber had never stalked angrily in her life. Stomp, yes. Stalk, no. Trust me - any predator knows the difference.

"Isn't it after bedtime?" Corban said. He was wearing a pair of sweats and an old Seattle Seahawks shirt. His hair was rumpled as if he'd been to bed. I supposed I'd woken him up.

"Nope," I told him. "We're playing games and waiting for the ghost to show up. Want to join us?"

"There isn't a ghost," he said to his son, out loud and in sign.

I'd started to like Corban over dinner, he had seemed like a decent guy. But he was being a bully now.

I rolled up until I was facing him. "Isn't there?"

He frowned at me. "There are no such things as ghosts. I am very happy you've come here to visit, but I don't approve of encouraging nonsense. If you tell them there isn't one here, they'll believe you. Chad has enough to deal with without everyone thinking he's crazy." He'd continued to sign, even though he was talking to me. I didn't know if he left out the bit where I was supposed to tell Chad and Amber there weren't any ghosts.

"He's a damn fine naval commander," I told Corban. "And I think he's too smart to make up ghosts."