“Crop up? How?”
I typed.
“The answer to that depends on the individual. But this I know: Once you’ve learned to talk to the dead, you never forget how.”
“What does that mean?”
I typed.
“Are you saying that I should just go ahead”
—I stopped typing, hit the backspace to delete, and began typing again—
“that I should tell my friend to just go ahead and start talking to this—ghost?”
“I know you’re skeptical. But look, if you—that is, your ‘friend’ ”
—typed RUNE,
“doesn’t believe in ghosts, then why not think of it as an alter ego, a part of the secret self trying to break through with a message? Why not ‘dialogue’ with it and see where it might lead?”
I thought of Calvin.
“The unknown is a scary place, isn’t it?”
typed RUNE when I didn’t answer for a full minute.
“Very,”
I typed back.
Onscreen, RUNE instant-messaged once more before signing off from the chat list.
“Supernatural. Perhaps. Baloney? Definitely not. After all, why do you think it’s called an after
“This is crazy, all right,” I muttered. “And maybe I am, too.”
CHAPTER 13
The chief problem about death . . . is the fear that there may be no afterlife, a depressing thought, particularly for those who have bothered to shave. . . . I do not believe in an afterlife, although I am bringing a change of underwear.
JACK WATCHED PENELOPE log off the supernatural chat room site and begin frantically searching for information on what she assumed was her “mental condition.”
“Online Psychological Testing . . .” she mumbled, reading the screen. “Addictions, Anxiety, Bipolar Disorder . . . no, no, no. . . .”
Funny thing, the computer, thought Jack. Before Penelope, he hadn’t given the boxy typewriter two looks. For one thing, it appeared a cold, remote medium, like his old office’s Underwood. Every now and again, Jack would notice the screen above the keyboard reading “Inventory” or “Account Orders,” and Sadie typing away with a glassy-eyed look that reminded him of his old gum-chewing secretary.
(Not a bad-looking dame, his secretary, but not his type—that is, not much upstairs, which was actually why Jack had hired her. She had no interest in getting wise to his clients’ secrets or Jack’s. Just typed, filed, and answered phones, which was what he needed. In the end, the private dick business came with enough female distractions on the job as it was. Why compound that interest?)
Anyhow, in old Aunt Sadie’s hands, the computer seemed like little more than a typewriter. But not in Penelope’s. With that sharp cookie at the wheel, that plastic box had come alive, racing down alleyways he’d never even known existed.
Take that gab-room thing. Ten people all over the world spilling guts and squaring beefs, one after the other, faster than a bookie giving odds at post time. (Even though some of them did remind Jack of those uptown hustlers, full of gin and big words.)
And those information searches the doll was doing right now. Answers to all sorts of questions with the stroke of a few keys. People, places, events. It spun Jack like a top.
If he had a nickel for all the shoe leather he’d worn out tracking down information for just one case, he’d have died a rich man.
In fact, it seemed to Jack this new century had enough ready gadgets to make it possible for your average housewife to become a private dick—which reminded Jack of why he needed to talk to Penelope tonight in the first place: Brennan’s murder. And that syringe Josh had swiped.
“Depression . . .” murmured Penelope, staring at the “Psych Subjects” screen for a long moment. She clicked on the glowing blue D-word and the green screen dissolved into a white page with large black type at the top: CLINICAL DEPRESSION SCREENING TEST.
Because Penelope was nearsighted, she’d removed the black rectangular frames when she’d first sat down to read the computer screen, giving Jack a rare glimpse of her naked face.
The light from the computer screen reflected in her eyes, burnishing the copper irises with tiny flecks of buried gold and making her pale skin appear smooth as cream. With her lips slightly swollen from her nervous gnawing, and her reddish-brown hair mussed, Jack thought she looked as though she’d just risen from a night of lovemaking.
What he wouldn’t give to occupy a body again for just a few hours. He’d pull her up, out of that chair, into his arms. What he wouldn’t give to feel his hardness against her softness . . .
“This is a self-assessment test presented by mental-health. com,” Penelope murmured. “Please click the boxes that apply to you: Feelings of sadness and/or irritability. Check. Loss of interest or pleasure in activities once enjoyed. Check. Difficulty getting out of bed. Check. Inability to concentrate, work, or make decisions. Definitely a check—”
Penelope’s fingers stilled over the keyboard. Her body stiffened the way it always did when he penetrated her mind.
“I’m not sure it’s a good idea to take psychological advice from a person who professes to believe in ghosts.”
