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Chapter One
Cool autumn air blew in violent gusts that whipped the graying sheers at the bedroom window, swirling a collection of dried leaves and twigs across the hardwood floor in a rustle of displaced movement.
With arms crossed and one bare foot tapping the worn floor boards, Kayla Sloan scowled down at the Ouija board lying open in a pathetic plea and blew out her breath in a hiss. “Forget it. I’m mad. Opal’s covering me, and it’s already after five. I have to get back behind the bar before the Halloween rush hits.”
She hooked the buckle at the hip of her charcoal pleated skirt and ignored the planchette poised over the word Hello. Stuffing her foot into a black and orange striped, thigh-high stocking with more aggression than strictly necessary, she bit her tongue against the string of obscenities poised on its tip.
Resentment swelled in her chest, and she huffed, “All he did was ask. I wouldn’t have said yes. I never do.” Well, almost never. But Aaron didn’t know about that night a year ago and she sure as heck wasn’t going to tell him. “I know you think you’re protecting me–which is the only reason I haven’t had your poltergeist ass exorcised out of here. But there is no excuse, ever, to plant a rash like that on someone’s face.”
She stepped over the customized board, strode to the small vanity next to her closet, and looked into the mirror. Not bothering with her own reflection, she stared at the space beyond her shoulder, where her brother Aaron stood. “Well?”
“Oh, so now you’re going to listen?” His voice came from within her head rather than from the ghostly image of a material form long gone behind her. Generally, Aaron preferred to use the board. Communication through the Ouija required less energy but after that scene with the passably cute wine distributor, Kayla wasn’t in an accommodating mood. She wanted the semblance of a normal conversation. She wanted to forget that the man with whom she was fighting had been dead for ten years.
Aaron’s snapshot image hadn’t moved in the reflection, but his restless energy was all around her, disrupting the air in the room so the leaves blew in spirals around her ankles.
“That guy was a prick, Kay.” Even now, his voice carried the arrogant grit he’d picked up in high school.
“That guy was a business contact. A nice man with a friendly smile who had no reason to suspect asking me to grab a cup of coffee would land him an emergency trip to the dermatologist.”
Arron’s image stuttered, for an instant he stood with his hands shoved deep in his pockets, his shoulders caught mid-shrug, then he was a few feet closer. “I couldn’t help it. It’s All Hallows Eve, so I’m stronger than usual.”
She glared at his reflection. “Bull! I can tell you’re lying by the way you’re throwing those damn leaves around.”
“Fine. He was an asshole, and I didn’t feel like watching you fall for his bullshit,” Aaron snapped, his words gaining volume as they now came from outside her head rather than from within. She closed her eyes and drew a slow breath wondering how many times and how many ways they could have this same conversation, the one they hadn’t had a chance to finish ten years ago. The one Aaron wasn’t capable of letting go.
She could still see Aaron’s red face, his eyes locked on hers across the back seat of their parents’ SUV, remember the hush of their voices as they tried not to wake Opal beside them or more importantly let their parents know what they’d been fighting about.
“God, Aaron, why can’t you just get out of my business?”
“Because you’re my little sister and I’d rather have you pissed at me for a couple of days than played by that douche all summer. Kayla, I get that you’re into him, but you gotta believe me—Tate’s no good for you.”
That’s what he’d told her Aaron would say. People thought he was a player, but the rumors weren’t true. “You just don’t like him.”
“Damn right, I don’t. He’s a college sophomore picking up my high school sister, which I wouldn’t be down with even if he was an otherwise stellar guy.”
“It’s a couple of years—”
“It’s more than a couple of years. This prick isn’t a good guy. Did you know he got Jerry’s sister into coke last year? Or that the reason he’s trawling the high schools for dates is because every girl on campus knows about the score card he keeps for the girls he’s been with? I’ve seen it, Kayla, and there’s no fucking way I’m letting your name go on it with a B- listed for head.”
Kayla gasped, her stomach lurching.
It couldn’t be true. Except it had to be, because Aaron didn’t lie. He wasn’t some shit who got off on giving his little sisters a hard time. Even with the four year age gap between them, they’d always been close. He looked out for her and until this week, she’d loved him for it.
Bottom line, he wouldn’t make this up.
Aaron shook his head, blowing out a frustrated breath. “Damn it, Kayla, I need to know you get this. Look at me!”
She should have looked. Maybe if she’d met his eyes for that single second, it would have been enough. Maybe Aaron would have been able to see she understood. But instead her focus had caught on the blur beyond his window, the truck that was too close, coming too fast—and then it had been too late. Somehow the overprotective urgency of her brother’s last minutes had followed him, become ingrained in his spirit in a way that, even ten years later, he still couldn’t let go.
Clearing her throat, she turned to face him and froze. Suddenly Aaron wasn’t a series of still frames thrown around the room, but her brother, stepping toward her, brows furrowed. Heightened emotion—hers, his? She suspected it was a combination of them together—had a way of strengthening Aaron, causing his form to fill out. She’d seen it before, but never like this. Never had he looked so real, so alive, that tears pricked her eyes and her arms ached with the need to wrap around him.
Maybe Halloween really was making him stronger.
“Your nice guy keeps his wedding band in the ashtray of his car,” Aaron stated flatly, crossing his arms over his chest.
Kayla pulled her chin back with a grimace. “His wedding band? He’s married? Wait, were you able to leave the building?” She’d thought he couldn’t do it. Or maybe wouldn’t—sometimes it was hard to tell with Aaron. “How do you know about his car?”
“Stray thought I picked up,” he said with a shrug, flickering just a little. “It happens sometimes.”
