finally, all those CSI reruns were going to pay off. As soon as I got out to my Jeep, I stripped off my jeans and tucked them into a plastic grocery sack, tying off the top to preserve the evidence. Of course, this meant I had to drive home in my underwear, but I had a ratty old wool picnic blanket in the back of the car. I wrapped it around my waist, and headed home.
Beltline was the most direct road, but it was the main drag through Avalon, and always clogged with traffic. The street led past the most important places in town: the red brick downtown area, the university, my school, the hospital, and if you kept going it would take you to the mall near the state highway bypass, the “new” high school (built only twenty years ago), and the treeless subdivisions where my dad refused to live. Going south you’d pass the Wal-Mart, the bars that catered to people who wanted to drink more than dance, and eventually the lumber mill and the paper plant, thankfully far enough away that it only stank when the wind was very strong from the southwest.
The upshot of this arrangement was that Beltline was the last road you’d want to take when you were bottomless in a topless Jeep.
The back way home wound through a residential area, between a park and the west side of the university campus. There was exactly one traffic light on the route. I was stopped there, mulling over the glow-in-the-dark spooge, when I heard my name.
“Maggie?” Justin MacCallum was loitering on the corner, wearing a sweat-soaked T-shirt and athletic shorts. His short hair stood up in damp spikes, which emphasized the clean, chiseled planes of his face. And the rest of him … Wow. Michelangelo could have sculpted those thighs.
He smiled as though I hadn’t been in a total snit the last time he’d seen me. “I thought that was you.”
“What are you doing here?” Not the most intelligent question, but at least I managed to drag my gaze up to his face.
“I was running in the park.”
“Running from what?” The light turned green and the car behind me honked. With a gesture to Justin, I pulled through the intersection and into the tree-shaded parking lot.
I turned in the seat as he jogged over. “Actually, I have a question for you.”
He looked surprised. But then, so was I. The words had sort of popped out of my mouth. My thoughts were going in a bizarre direction, and I would have rejected the idea completely, except maybe I still had my Nancy Drew thing going on, and good detectives don’t eliminate things without examining them from all angles.
“Okay, shoot,” he said, with a crooked sort of smile.
The afternoon was warm and humid, and the wool blanket was extremely itchy, but I tried not to scratch. “Is there really such a thing as ectoplasm?”
“Ectoplasm?” His eyebrows shot up in surprise.
“You know how in Ghostbusters, when the ghosts leave behind that slime when they touch something?”
“Why are you asking me?”
“Because you’re the one getting a degree in weirdology.”
He opened his mouth to argue, then shut it, mulled over a few responses, and finally settled on, “Do you think you’ve seen a ghost?”
“I don’t know. Maybe.” I’d begun thinking about phantoms when Karen told me about the shadow, even before I found the fluorescent soot. “I’m considering all possibilities.”
Justin seemed intrigued; he leaned on the roll bar of the Jeep and I couldn’t help thinking that he smelled awfully good for such a sweaty guy. “Okay. The way I understand it, ectoplasm is—supposedly—an ethereal substance that manifests when a spirit is present, like while a medium is channeling at a séance.”
“So it’s sort of like a psychic snail trail?”
His brows twitched in suppressed laughter. “I haven’t heard it described in quite that way.”
I thought about taking issue with his amusement, but stayed focused. “But does the stuff actually exist?”
“There was a lot of research done when that kind of spiritualism was popular at the turn of the twentieth century. But there are so many frauds, it’s hard to say.”
I pursed my lips, dissatisfied with the nonanswer. “What about you? Do you think it exists?”
“I keep an open mind.” He smiled at my frustrated sound. “I have some books.” A pause, while he seemed to mull something over. “That’s my dorm there. Drive over and I’ll get them for you.”
“Sorry. I can’t. I’m not wearing any pants.” Now there was a phrase I never thought I’d say out loud.
“Oh.” He glanced down, then quickly back to my face. “I just thought that was a very ugly skirt.”
“Thanks.” I grabbed my phone from the drink holder. “What’s your number? In case I have more questions.”
He rattled it off and I punched SAVE.
“What if I want to get in touch with you?” he asked.
“About my alleged psychic powers?”
“Maybe.”
“Then think about me real hard, and I’ll know to give you a call.” I flashed a sunny smile, put the Jeep in gear, and drove away. For the first time that day, I felt as if I’d gotten the upper hand in a human interaction.
I dreamed of blue fire that night, burning in a big, beaten metal bowl, with engravings scrolling around the edges. There was liquid in the brazier, too. It didn’t quench the fire, but made the clean blue flame hiss and spit and throw out thick black smoke. As the darkness rose, it didn’t drift aimlessly, but pulled into the center and coalesced into a shapeless mass.
I watched, both repulsed and fascinated as the thing built itself from soot and shadow. It seethed above the flames with sentient awareness. Though it had no eyes, I knew the moment it looked back at me. Somehow, on some strange dream plane, it saw me. More than that, it recognized me.
A shock of fear and revulsion jolted me awake. My eyes opened but I lay frozen, afraid to move in case some thing was there, in the room with me. I heard nothing but the blood pounding in my ears, saw nothing in the stripes of moonlight that fell through the curtains. I forced myself to turn my head, to search the darkness, but I was alone.
Just a dream. I repeated it like a mantra.
Then I whispered it like a prayer.
I woke in a lousy mood. I had washed underwear and shirts the night before, but my last marginally clean pair of jeans had been bagged and tagged. I found a casual skirt and put it on with a sunny yellow T-shirt and a pair of Converse. Mom’s reaction when I reached the kitchen was predictable.
“Is that what you’re wearing?”
I got my coffee cup out of the dishwasher as I answered. “No. I just put it on to annoy you.”
“If you would go to bed at a decent hour, you wouldn’t be so grumpy in the morning.” She frowned at my extra-tall travel mug. “You wouldn’t need to drink so much coffee, either.”
“It’s my drug of choice, Mom. Be grateful.”
She sighed. “I know. I just thank God you turned out as well as you did.”
I cast her a grumpy look on my way to the door. “It’s nice to know you think I could have turned out worse.”
Her voice followed me out. “You need to eat some breakfast!”
I scored an excellent parking spot at school, and was downing the last of my coffee when a shadow fell across me.
“Cheese and Crackers!” I screeched and mopped at the splashes on my skirt. “What is it with you and sneaking up on people?”
Bobby Baywatch smiled. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you.”
“It’s been a rough couple of days. I’m a little jumpy.”
“I noticed.” His hair had pale highlights from the sun, which might have looked girly on someone else. With his tan and his lifeguard physique, though, it worked.
“Can I help you carry anything?”
“Let me get out of the car, first.”
I loved my Wrangler. My trusty steed was safari brown—mostly—and bore the scars of a long and useful life. But it was impossible to exit with any grace. It figured I would be wearing a skirt.
Once I’d lost my dignity but gained my feet, I handed him my books then grabbed my backpack and the plastic bag of jeans. He ignored my attempts to reclaim the heavy stack of texts, and started walking toward school. “Hey, Sir Lancelot.” I trotted after him. “Isn’t there a Jessica looking for you somewhere?”
He shortened his stride; considerate of him not to make me run to keep up. “There might be, but that’s her business. I’m friends with Brandon and Jeff. I don’t … None of the girls is …”
“Your girlfriend?” I felt sorry for any girl who was, since he couldn’t even say the word.
“Right.”
“My mistake. Three guys, three girls. You always look paired off like tasty packs of snack cakes.”
“Well, we’re not.”
We passed the tennis courts and the gym, and curiosity got the better of me. “So are you stalking me, or what?”
He stopped, and I did, too, since he had my books. “Listen, I’m sorry about what happened in the locker room yesterday.”
The day had been so jam-packed with wackitude that it took me a moment to realize what he meant. As soon as I did, my heart twisted in dread. I could literally feel the blood drain from my face, like someone had pulled a plug. “The picture? She actually sent it out?”
“No.” His quick reassurance didn’t make me stop wishing for a bathroom to hide in. “She just showed it to the gang.”
“Oh, just to the six people who hate me the most. Great. I hope you had a good laugh.” The blood had rushed back to my head, making my ears burn.
“Well, I didn’t laugh.”
I groaned and covered my face with my hand. Okay, get a grip, Maggie. What would D&D Lisa say? So they laughed at me. No novelty there. At least I could honestly say that nobody’s opinion mattered less to me than the Jocks and Jessicas.
Bobby Baywatch was watching me like I might burst into tears. “I’m really sorry.”
I glared up at him, not hysterical, just pissed. “Why do you keep apologizing for things that aren’t your fault?”
His shoulders lifted in a shrug. “I guess because they’re my friends, I feel responsible.”
“Maybe you need to find new friends.” I reached for my books, but he held them out of reach.
“Let me walk you inside. Maybe it will help.”
His intention dawned on me, absurd as it was. “Are you offering me the protection of your reputation?” My sense of humor was returning along with my perspective, and I gave a short laugh at his chagrin. “Boy, you do feel guilty.”
“I’m sure not offering because of your charming personality.”
“Oh, ouch.” I put out my hands. “At least let me carry my own books. This isn’t Our Town.”
He handed them over and we walked the rest of the way into school, mostly in silence. Embarrassment aside, I didn’t have a social standing to preserve, but it was a nice gesture. I didn’t want to like him, but he was making it hard not to, just a little.
With a half hour before the bell, I found Professor Blackthorne in his chemistry classroom, drawing molecules on the board. He heard my groan and turned.
“Not a fan of organic compounds, Miss Quinn?”
“I would say no, but I’m here to ask a favor.”
“A chemistry favor?” He didn’t quite rub his hands together in anticipation. “Have you brought me something interesting?”
“Maybe.” I set the grocery sack on the lab bench and untied the handles. As the plastic bag opened, we both took a hasty step backward. A horrible odor escaped, like when you accidentally open something green and fuzzy from the very back of the fridge, only about fifty times worse.
“Good God, girl!” Blackthorne blinked his watering eyes. “Did something die wearing these trousers?”
“They didn’t smell that bad last night. Maybe the fumes built up in the closed bag.”
“Possible.” The stench was dissipating slightly in the well-ventilated lab, but I felt sorry for the first-period class. Blackthorne put on a pair of gloves before he touched the denim. “Now, let’s see what you’ve brought me.”
“Do you have a blacklight?”
He pointed toward a cabinet where I found a handheld lamp. I turned off the overhead; even with the residual light from the windows, we could see the eerie phosphorescence under the ultraviolet glow. “I sat on something.”
“Obviously.” He scratched his chin. “I’m loathe to think in what sort of seedy places you’ve been spending your time.”
“Okay, that’s just … eiew.”
“No Dumpster diving recently? Well, smells can be deceiving.”
“There’s a test to figure out what that stuff is, right?”
“Certainly. Gas chromatography.”
“So can you work some CSI magic on those pants?”
“Not here. This is a high school chemistry lab. I have difficulty getting money to buy paper towels.” Brow furrowed, he drummed his thumbs against the slate lab bench. “We could send it to Dr. Smyth at the university. She owes me a favor.”
“Excellent!”
“They may have to take a sample from your trousers, though.”
“You mean cut a hole in them?” I really liked those jeans; they made my butt look great. Honestly, the sacrifices a detective has to make. “When do you think she can do it?”
“I’ll take them to her after school. She’ll have to work it into her schedule, though.” He bundled the jeans back up, then put the grocery sack inside a small trash bag and tied it closed. I didn’t blame him for doubling up. I’d thought the stench was bad in my dream, but smelling it through my real, live nose was the difference between a cheap pair of headphones and a symphony orchestra of stink.
“Hey, Professor Blackthorne.” I followed him to the chalkboard. “Is that what sulfur smells like?”
Hexagon chemical bonds had his attention again. “Hmm? No, sulfur doesn’t have a smell.”
“I thought it did. That whole ‘stench of brimstone’ thing.”
“Burning sulfur gives off sulfur dioxide, which is probably what that phrase means. It’s noxious and extremely irritating to the lungs.” He added a few more notations to the diagram on the board. “Though you may be thinking about the thiols—the sulfhydryl group. They are quite odiferous. In fact, ethanethiol is added to natural gas so that leaks can be detected by the ‘rotten egg’ smell.”
“So maybe that’s what’s on the jeans?”
“Do you want to open them back up and take a whiff, or wait for the chromatograph?”
“Um, no. I’ll wait for the test.”
“As you wish.” I shouldered my backpack and started out. His voice stopped me at the door. “If you want my opinion, and not a scientific fact, I’d lay money that either putrescine or cadaverine will be in the mix.” He went back to writing, talking more to himself than to me. “Yes. I think I’ll make a bet with Dr. Smyth. See if the nose still knows.”
Boy, I could have gone my whole life without knowing I’d gotten something named after a putrid cadaver on my butt. On the upside, though, I was no longer ambivalent about destroying those pants.