Jillian Cade (2 page)

And that's why I had clients.

My father was going to come home someday, and when he did, he'd still need a job to pay the bills. To my knowledge, there was no backup plan. This was the only career path I'd ever known my father to have, so I figured I'd better keep the PI doors open. Besides, it wasn't like he always remembered to send a weekly allowance. Someone had to scrape up the cash for food, not to mention the down payment on my car.

Sure, if I hadn't taken up the fake ghost-hunting mantle, Norbert and his parents would've happily taken me in. But then I would've had to fling myself under a bus. Besides, by now I'd figured out how to manage this whole (fake) paranormal investigator thing.

It wasn't all that hard.

Since most people don't entrust their weighty paranormal cases to seventeen-year-old chicks, I operate undercover. Potential clients have to submit an application on the Umbra website. I give them a quote, and they make the payment online. After the money comes in, I give the client a set of passwords to use when meeting “the operative” (me) at a convenient location (convenient for me). We prove our identities to each other with the passwords.

That's my favorite part because I usually assign them words that are obscure or weird. It's always funny seeing them try to work the first one into a random sentence to someone who might be an undercover paranormal agent with a youthful appearance, or who might just be a teenaged girl loitering in a 7-Eleven parking lot.

Occasionally I have Norbert run backup, in case the client turns out to be a crazed perv. It happened once. Norbert nearly ran the guy over with my car, which actually said more about my cousin's driving than about his outrage or powers of intimidation. But sometimes I leave Norbert out of a case altogether. Like the one I had starting that Monday, on the first day of school. It wasn't one I could chance letting Norbert screw up.

It was a first of its kind. It was a
real
case
. . .
or at least my new client thought it was.

I flopped onto the futon and opened my laptop to review Monday's information. I would be meeting this new client—site name: “HelpMeDude”—at lunchtime on my school's campus, where he would alert me to his identity with the four random passwords I'd given him:
blanket
,
asparagus
,
skateboard
, and
Guam
.

I scanned HelpMeDude's answers on the online form. I had asked for big bucks because it wasn't the usual love potion or ghost extermination.

 

 Suspected paranormal activity bit aside, it seemed like the cops should have been on it. Not me.

Of course, the cops didn't need the money like I did.

Umbra. It means the darkest part of a shadow. Exactly where I live.

Two

Monday morning, I
shambled barefooted and bathrobed from my apartment to the house. Not even seven o'clock and it was already warm. That's how it goes when you live in the San Fernando Valley. What we gain in relative proximity to the ocean we pay for in degrees Fahrenheit. Once I reached the plastic garden gnome gracing the back porch, I unscrewed its head and fished the key out of its hollow neck. I know other people stash their extra key in a fake rock, but that's not my life.

When I was a kid, our house hadn't seemed creepy. Back then I'd thought it was cool. We had clocks with hieroglyphics instead of numbers. Statues of animals that didn't exist in real life. Candles and crystals and incense cones. Dusty books competing for shelf space with rolled up maps and glass jars of sparkling liquids.

I'd thought my life was magical.

Of course, that was before I knew there was no magic and that anyone could go broke buying up other people's
discarded junk on eBay. It was before I understood that all I had to do to get my own sparkling liquid was bring a fake ID down to the local liquor store. It was before Mom's mind started slipping away. It was before the crying, and the staring, and the rambling about things that made no sense—
“The bridge! The bridge!”
Before Dad's desperation to heal her made him crazy too. That was life until she died and Dad fled the continent in search of epic adventures, fake treasures, and even more suckers to con. Life until I became the lone member of the Cade nuclear family.

Twenty minutes later, I was back over the garage, tugging on a pair of tight, ripped jeans and shoving my feet into the Harley-Davidson boots I scored at a yard sale last year. I threw on a black tank top with the word
evil
scrawled across the front in scarlet thread. Then I smudged a thick line of black around my eyes, smeared crimson over my lips, and mussed a handful of product into my hair until the strands fell like cracks around my face.

Summers are long. Students forget state capitals and quadratic equations and how to diagram a sentence. I wanted to make sure everyone remembered exactly who I was: The Girl Who Shall Not Be Fucked With.

As I headed out, I paused to turn off the light before remembering I didn't have to. It was already off because so was the power. My fault. I had forgotten to pay the bill.

As I approached Norbert's
house, I wondered how long Aunt Aggie and Uncle Edmund would continue to let me live alone. Dad had talked them into it when he left last year. Since they lived so close, they could watch out for me without
hovering
. But of course no one thought I'd fly solo for this long. A couple weeks on your own is one thing. Living as an adult for an entire year when you're only a sophomore—and now a junior—is a different story.

I pulled into Norbert's driveway and gave the horn a quick tap. Sure enough, he scampered outside accompanied by his parents. Of course they wanted to see their kid off to his first day of high school. It's what any responsible parent would want.

“Angel love!” chirped Aunt Aggie. It had probably been unrealistic to think she would ignore me slumped behind the wheel of my own GTO.

I cranked the window down and gave her the best smile I could. “Hi.” It sounded weak, even to me.

Aunt Aggie didn't care. Her arms swooped through the open window, and she hugged me in a way that no badass should ever be hugged. I couldn't return the favor because my elbows were pinned to my sides, so mostly I just fluttered my fingers against the sleeves of her cotton housedress.

“I can't believe you're in eleventh grade!” she trilled.

“Mmph,” I managed from where my face was pressed into her shoulder.

Aunt Aggie finally released me. I averted my eyes from the red smudge my mouth had left on her dress. No need to blot my lips then.

As Norbert slid in beside me, Uncle Edmund dropped a paper sack onto my lap. “Muenster and sweet pickle on white with mustard,” he said.

“You didn't have to—” I started to say, but he waved off my protest.

“A brain needs nourishment. You kids have a great day at school.”

“Thanks.” I jammed my car into reverse and backed out of the driveway.

“Bye!” called Norbert.

“I love you!” sang out Aunt Aggie, waving.

Uncle Edmund gave a military salute. “So say we all!”

In my rearview mirror, I watched him sling an arm over Aggie's shoulders. They stood there, both of them beaming, as we drove off.

We were a block away when my cell buzzed from the backseat.

“I got it,” said Norbert. He performed some very interesting calisthenics as he twisted and stretched to get my backpack without unbuckling. Finally, he sat back up straight, holding my phone. “Text from your dad.”

“Delete,” I told him.

“He wants you to send him some records,” said Norbert. “They're in—”

“Did he happen to mention anything else? Maybe tell me to have a nice day at school?” I took a corner with a little extra aggression.

“No,” said Norbert. Then
his
cell phone buzzed.

“Let me guess.”

Norbert looked at his phone and nodded. “Your dad.”

“Delete.”

“You should call him.”

“You should mind your own business,” I said. “Besides, I don't have the time.”

“The new case?”

“I got this one,” I told him, holding firm. This case was actually sort of real, after all. It was no place for my wide-eyed cousin.

“Oh.” Norbert looked crestfallen. “But what about school?”

“I told the client to meet me on campus at lunch. He's only dropping off a file. It'll be an easy grab.”

“All right,” said Norbert. “But if you need help later, let me know, okay?”

“Deal,” I said, not meaning it.

As it turned out, I didn't even have time to worry about Norbert. Once we arrived, he went on his merry little way without so much as a backward glance. Good for him. My hope was that no one would mess with him once they realized he was my cousin.

The rise of my infamy had coincided with my mother's spectacular spiral downward. The first person to make a public comment about her had also b
een the last. It had been Mario Amello, captain of the football team. He had a good foot and at least a hundred pounds on me, yet he had gone home with a bloody lip, three sprained fingers,
and a pair of seriously bruised testicles. I came away with a one-week suspension and a reputation for violence that prevented any hope of a future social life.

The upside: fewer distractions. The downside: a very specific kind of loneliness.

After I got my class schedule, I went searching for my locker. I trudged up two flights of stairs, past hordes of other students who were all exchanging hugs and waves and big dumb OMGs about their stupid summers. I caught pieces of conversations as they floated by me. Apparently, most of my classmates had toured colleges or gone to the beach or been, like, totally bored. No one else had fake-exterminated fake ghosts in fake haunted houses. Go figure.

I found my locker near the biology lab. Awesome: a year of smelling like formaldehyde. I dropped my backpack on the floor so I could dig the combination out of my jeans. Except the combination wasn't in my right pocket. Or the left one. Or either of the back ones. Really? This? Already?

I was reaching down for my backpack—maybe I had shoved it in there after all—when I heard a voice from behind me.

“Six, thirty-nine, seventeen.”

I spun around. Standing in unacceptable violation of my personal space was a tall guy with messy blond hair, green eyes, and bright white teeth. Also, an inappropriate number of angles and muscles. For no apparent reason, my heart paused for a second, recovered, and kept beating
. . .
a little too quickly.

That was new.

The guy wore what looked like a military jacket covered with musician buttons and metal pins. He smiled down at me, brandishing a slip of paper between two of his fingers. My locker combination.

“It fell out of your pocket.”

“You shouldn't be looking at my pockets,” I snapped, snatching the paper from him.

He was obviously brand new, gathering from the fact that he was (a) still smiling at me, (b) hot, but (c) not yet face-suctioned to Corabelle LaCaze or Angel Ortega. Those girls had game for miles, whereas I still didn't even know the location of the stadium.

“I like pockets,” he said.

I could see what was going on. He was trying to assert his dominant place in the social hierarchy by messing with me. Or by flirting with me. Or by messing with me
while
flirting with me. Regardless, it was just what I didn't need: a hot, deviant pickpocket on my ass (literally). I turned and concentrated on opening the lock. And trying to ignore him. But after two failed attempts at getting the combination right, I had to admit to myself that I couldn't focus. He leaned against the adjoining locker, watching me
. . .
and apparently enjoying himself.

It made no sense whatsoever. It was high school, for crap's sake. There had to be a cheerleader or two around that he could gawk at.

“Do you mind?” I asked.

“Not at all.”

I finally succeeded in yanking open the padlock. I slid the shackle out of the locker handle. “Ask around about me,” I said, avoiding his eyes. “If you're looking for a new school romance, you're barking up the wrong girl. I'm not the chick with a tough exterior concealing a wounded, golden heart, the one who's aching for the right guy to notice her so he can crack her shell and sweep them both into the sunset. I might look like that girl, but I'm not her.”

“Then which girl are you?”

“The one who wants to be left alone.” Even as I said it, there was that teeny-tiny part of me that knew it wasn't true, but I forged ahead anyway. “I'm Jillian Cade, and chatting with me is not going to improve anything about your life, especially your social standing.”

My monologue did nothing in the way of discouraging him. In fact, it appeared to have the exact opposite effect. His green eyes widened. He straightened and suddenly got all formal, jutting out a hand toward my own. He was even closer now, close enough for me to get a whiff of minty toothpaste and boy shampoo.

“I'm Sky Ramsey, and if your father's name is Lewis, then I beg to differ. Chatting with you
has
, in fact, improved my life. Significantly.”

Ah. There it was. He wasn't talking to
me
. He was talking to the daughter of Lewis Cade.

I didn't answer.

“You are the single pro next to a very long list of cons about moving here,” he added, dropping his hand when it was clear I wasn't about to shake it.

There was no reason to be disappointed. Despite the fact that this guy—I mean Sky—was much prettier than the usual flock of Lewis Cade fanboys, that's exactly what he was. Another brainwashed lemming looking to fling himself over the cliff of my father's lies. God forbid a normal boy be into me, just once.

“You are a fan of fiction,” I informed him, “not a fan of me.”

Sky raised an eyebrow. “Fiction?”

I was great at promoting my father's paranormal baloney when operating undercover, but I drew the line at real life. Fake Me ran my father's fraudulent cases. Real Me called it like it was.

“Poorly written fiction,” I clarified.

“One man's trash is another man's treasure,” said Sky. “I've read everything your father has written—poorly or not—and the truth is that I would love to meet him.”

“You're too late. He's away on business.”

“I'm not going anywhere.”

“It might be permanent.” My voice hardened. “And even if he was here, I've got better things to do than arrange his playdates.”

Sky laughed. “Funny,” he said, which startled me. No one at school ever thought I was funny. Then again, I wasn't exactly the class clown. He reached out to touch my arm. “Look, I didn't ask to move to Van Nuys. Your name is the one familiar thing around here. I'm happy to meet you. That's all.”

He gave my arm a gentle squeeze, and before I could think of anything to say in return, he sauntered away down the hall. I stared after him, wondering what had just happened. I turned back to my locker. I was about to toss my Muenster and pickle sandwich inside it when I realized it wasn't empty. Leaning against the interior wall was a brown envelope.

What the hell?

I pulled out the envelope, ripped open the top edge, and upended it. A torn scrap of paper—maybe the size of my palm—fluttered out. I lifted it and scanned the printed text.

“What. The. Hell.”

This time I said it out loud. The thing I was holding made no sense. It had no reason to exist.