“Holy shit!” Savy’s fingers raked Clay’s forearm. “Are you seeing this? It’s him! He’s standing right over us!”
There’s nothing to be afraid of, Boyle assured her. Clay and I are friends. He’ll explain—
“He’s trying to say something, but no sound’s coming out.”
“He’s telling you there’s nothing to be afraid of,” Clay told her.
Savy begged him with her eyes. “You see him too then?”
“I don’t see anything. But I can hear him. Crystal clear.”
“Fuck, I can’t hear him, but I can see him.”
Well, fuck me, Boyle said. Between the two of you—
“—you’re a fully formed spirit,” Clay marveled.
“He’s backing toward the stairs.” Savy sat up, jumping to her knees. “He looks upset.”
“Roc, you told me ghosts like to confess things. So—what did Karney do to you?”
“You know him, Clay,” Savy realized. “You’ve known him all along.”
At this point, Boyle abandoned pretense and lifted the record again. I’m angry. And a little freaked out your bedtime buddy can see me. I shouldn’t have said anything. I just can’t believe… he, of all the pricks with small dicks in the world, he’s a rock star now?
There was a moment’s pause, in which Savy told Clay, “He’s walking backward down the stairs. Or—maybe he’s floating down them.”
“Please, tell me,” Clay called.
You want to help? Keep writin’ music. Put everything into your band. Do things right. And steer clear. You hear me? Steer clear of Rooster Rock Star. The Hailmaker isn’t far behind.
“The Hailmaker?” Clay shouted into the dark.
Several moments passed, enough for him to realize that Savy was gripping him to the bone. “He’s gone,” she said at last.
Playing his first gig, opening for one of the world’s biggest rock bands, sleeping with Savy Marquez (in the purest sense of the phrase), then discovering the identity of someone complicit in Boyle’s murder—who happened to front the band he’d just opened for—was enough to keep Clay’s eyes open the rest of the night. He imagined people fell into comatose states of shock from less.
After Boyle’s appearance, Clay and Savy had relocated themselves to the main house, taking refuge in Clay’s bedroom which, since Deidre’s posthumous removal, had been as safe and unhaunted a place as any. “How long have you been able to hear him?” Savy asked.
“Since a few days after moving in,” Clay admitted. “Someone was playing guitar in the Generator. I went to investigate, found the Rickenbacker, then found—or heard—Rocco too.”
“That’s a hell of a secret.” In the blue-gray of predawn, Savy looked younger, a kid again, as vulnerable as her little brother had waking in front of the TV. “Does he follow you around? Or stay on the property?”
“I’ve only known him to appear in the Generator. Where he died. That’s his anchor to this world. He says he can’t go anywhere else.”
“Why was he so interested in my Demons album?”
Clay let his breath out and thought, Here it is, boy-o—the truth or bust. “I guess there’s not much point in us keeping secrets anymore.”
“No,” Savy replied, “we should be very candid with each other.”
“Rocco knows Davis Karney. I think Karney was his old dealer. In those days, he went by ‘Rooster’—that ring a bell?”
“Never heard him called Rooster. I did read an interview he did in Rolling Stone early in his career, where he gushed over Rocket Throne—how Rocco Boyle was the whole reason he wanted to play. Of course these days Karney seems to think he invented music.”
“I think Karney was here… that night.”
“The night of the suicide?”
“The night of the murder.”
Clay waited—for Savy to jump up from the desk chair, or fall backward screaming.
All she did was curl her finger through a lock of hair.
“You’re not surprised?”
“I’ve always felt it in my gut. With Kurt Cobain, you could go back and see the warning signs. It was in his lyrics, his behavior. He talked about suicide and dying all the time. But Rocco was writing his best music, off drugs, in a good place.”
“People have facades. I assumed Boyle was different behind closed doors.”
“But knowing his ghost is still behind that door—that’s what doesn’t add up.” Savy’s finger twisted and twisted. “After I saw Rocco the first time through your skylight, I had my suspicions. If you kill yourself, you want to be done with this world. You’re not going to wander the halls of the place you were miserable in, right? It’s only spirits who want to stick around that have the force and motivation to. Like people who go before their time. Or victims... of something.”
“Not long ago, Deidre’s ghost was here too,” Clay confessed. “In the main house. In this room. She was the one who gave me the stitches. And she kept threatening me, thinking I was with someone who’d hurt her and Rocco. Someone named Rooster. It got so bad Rocco finally showed me how to lay her to rest—in that bottle I buried at the house ruins. I trapped her inside.”
“And Rocco told you”—Savy sounded out of breath—“Davis Karney is his killer?”
“He only said Davis was there. He told me he’s trying to protect us by keeping us in the dark. He doesn’t want us involved.”
Savy stared back at Clay, her eyes hardening. “But we’re going to get involved. You know that, right?”
“Where would we even start? And what would we do—show up at Karney’s door and ask where he was the night of April 24th, six years ago?”
To Clay’s dismay, Savy nodded. “We’ll approach him, mention you live at the Boyle House. Invite him over to jam. Maybe he’ll be tempted to return to the scene and Rocco can deal with him directly, like Deidre wanted to deal with him. Or maybe Karney’ll refuse, but we’ll see the truth in his eyes. Then we can tip a few reporters. This town is full of desperate writers fishing for a story—well, here’s Moby Dick.”
Now Clay’s fingers were in his own hair, twisting. “Karney’s supposed to be a total hermit,” he reminded Savy. “Who even knows where he lives?”
“What if
