Remembrance (The Mediator #7)(29)

If only I’d kicked Paul in the throat instead of the groin on graduation night. If I’d broken his hyoid bone and killed him, I probably would have gotten off on self-defense. If I offed him now that he was so well known—thanks to Los Angeles magazine and his own parents suing him—the case might garner a lot of publicity, and if convicted, I’d probably get some jail time . . . though still way less than Jesse, seeing as how I’m white, and a woman.

But any jail time is too much for a girl who can only sleep with three down-filled pillows on 100 percent cotton sheets.

Oh, what was I saying? I could never kill another human being . . . at least not one that I knew.

Or could I? In order to protect everything—and everyone—that I loved?

When did everything become so complicated? If it wasn’t some jerk from your past showing up to blackmail you into having sex with him, it was a baby homicidal spirit wrecking your office. Non-compliant persons, both living and deceased, seemed always to be popping up from out of nowhere, ruining my life. Was I never going to be able to kick back and enjoy myself for a change?

It’s unconscionable—to use one of Sister Ernestine’s favorite terms—that I was thinking this exact thought when an NCDP appeared in the water beside me.

But I was so absorbed in my dark thoughts about Paul, listening to my own breathing and heartbeat, watching the shadow my own body made on the floor of the pool as I did my laps, that I didn’t notice, despite Pru’s warning not an hour earlier.

I didn’t notice until its clawlike hands were wrapped around my neck, and it was shoving me under the bright blue water.

And suddenly, I was the one about to die.





nueve


I flailed in the water, swallowing deep gulps of it, while clutching at the sharp little fingers digging into my throat.

“Don’t you hurt Becca,” an all-too-familiar voice hissed into my ear when I managed to surface for one all-too-brief gasp of glorious air. “Don’t you come near her again!”

There was nothing I could say in response. Even if there had been, I couldn’t speak. Her grip on my throat was so tight I couldn’t utter a sound, nor could I dig my fingers beneath hers to loosen her grip. Besides, she’d plunged us both to the bottom of the pool, her body—which should have been weightless—suddenly heavy as a refrigerator.

And I was the stray dog someone had decided to cruelly chain to that refrigerator for kicks before shoving both into the bottom of the lake.

All I could do was fight my way back to the surface against the weight inexorably bearing me down. But when I finally did reach the glorious air, instead of taking it in, I could only cough out the burning chlorinated water I’d swallowed.

And she continued to cling to my neck like a thousand-pound weight. How was that possible, when she was only the size of a doll, and a ghost besides? For someone whose name meant “light,” she was anything but.

Once, in my quest to find the most effective cardio I could do in the shortest amount of time, I’d read that treading water vertically while bearing a heavy weight was the way to go. It’s an integral part of U.S. Navy SEAL training: they tread water while holding a dive pack above their heads.

That had sounded way too brutal to me, but now I realized it was exactly what I should have been doing all along. Who knew U.S. Navy SEALs and school counseling interns had so much in common?

The next thing I knew, the kid had me strung up in midair like a salmon on a fishing line. I dangled there by my neck, still struggling to unloose her fingers, gasping for air, wondering in the distant part of my brain that could still register thought what I would look like to any of my fellow tenants who might happen to glance down at the pool from their balconies. They wouldn’t be able to see the NCDP that was holding me by the neck above the water level. Would they think I was performing some kind of odd water ballet? Suze Simon, amateur mermaid. Perhaps they’d applaud, and compliment me later . . . if I lived until later.

Then she plunged me back into the deep end, and I wondered how I could have been so smug—and stupid—to think that she hadn’t followed me home.

She’d not only followed me home, she’d watched me get out of my car, wave good night to my neighbors, then go inside to check my messages.

Sure, my apartment was ghost proof.

But it had never occurred to me to sprinkle a protective layer of salt around the pool. It wasn’t even one of those environmentally safe saltwater pools that Andy goes around recommending on At Home with Andy. It was filled with human-harmful—and extremely foul-tasting—chlorine and other chemicals that were currently burning my throat.

“Lucia,” I croaked when I’d finally managed to sip enough air to allow speech. “I don’t think you understand. I’m on your side.”

“No, you don’t understand,” she hissed in my ear, her long fingernails scraping at the skin of my cheek in an almost loverlike caress. This wasn’t at all creepy. “Becca’s mine. My friend. No one will ever hurt her again.”

Okay, okay, I wanted to say. I got it already.

But I couldn’t say anything more, because it hurt too much. My lungs were too full of water and my hair was plastered over my face (why hadn’t I listened to Christophe about that swim cap?) and she still had hold of my throat. She’d pulled me well away from the sides of the pool, so I couldn’t grab anything—except handfuls of water—to hit her with or find anything to push against. Where were my boots when I needed them? Oh, right, with Maximillian28.