There was a loud bang, then a grating noise outside Trenton’s window. He cried out as a large red blob came into view. Next to him, the ghost disappeared. She simply evaporated, like a mirage when you approach too close; one second she was a brushstroke of shadow, and then even that was gone.
It was Katie, wearing a hat far too hot for the weather. She got an arm over the windowsill. She was red-faced from the climb.
“What the fuck?” Trenton crossed over to her and grabbed the back of her jacket—his jacket, he realized, which he’d left at her house last night—too angry even to be impressed by the fact she’d managed to drag the ladder all the way from the greenhouse.
“A little help?” she panted.
He hauled and she pulled, and finally she managed to get her legs over the windowsill. Then she snaked herself headfirst into his room, banging her knees on the floor. Trenton almost asked if she was okay, then decided against it.
“What the hell are you doing here?” he said, backing away from her so that there was at least ten feet between them.
She sat back on her heels, whipping off her hat, which was too large. Underneath, her hair was wispy and obviously unwashed. Trenton wished he didn’t think she looked cute.
She unzipped her jacket—his jacket. “What’s it look like I’m doing?” She tossed the jacket on his bed. “Return service. You don’t have to thank me.”
“Thank you,” Trenton said.
“You’re welcome.”
She stood up, wincing as she bent and unbent a knee. Underneath the jacket, she was wearing a T-shirt with a faded rainbow logo, so small and tight he could see the silhouette of her bra straps when she turned around. It was the same thing she’d been wearing last night, and Trenton wondered whether she’d been to sleep yet. He thought of that guy, Marcus, and the stupid tattoo—pictured that hand working its way across Katie’s thighs—and then tried really hard to think about something, anything, else.
“So these are your digs, huh?” she said, walking the small room, forcing him to step aside and around her.
“We have a front door, you know,” Trenton said. Every time she came close, he smelled her: the same mix of lemon, Marlboros, chemicals. He felt her, too. He could feel the warmth of her skin but also the blood flowing underneath it, the pulse working beneath her skin, her lungs expanding, all those countless valves shutting and opening. She was so alive, it frightened him. He didn’t feel half so alive as she seemed.
“I like to make an entrance.” Katie said it lightly, but she wasn’t smiling. She seemed anxious—hopped up, maybe. “Besides, I’m allergic to parents. Your parents are home, aren’t they?”
Trenton decided not to correct her use of the word parents by pointing out, once again, that his father was dead. “My sister is,” he said.
“Same thing.” She spun around in a circle, still scanning the walls, as though trying to learn some secret from them. Trenton was suddenly embarrassed that his father had never removed the cluster of sports decals from one corner of the room. But Katie didn’t comment on them. “So why’d you pull an Irish exit last night?”
“A what?”
“You left without saying good-bye.”
“You looked like you were busy,” Trenton said, before he could stop himself.
She turned to him at last. Her eyes were bright. “You’re mad about Marcus.”
“I’m not mad,” he said, crossing his arms, then realizing it seemed like he was trying too hard to look casual and dropping them again. “Why would I be mad? I don’t care what you do. I don’t even know you.”
“Okay.” Katie exhaled. She sat down on his bed and drew her knees up to her chest without asking whether she should take off her shoes. Trenton noticed the way the bed sagged under her weight. He wondered whether, even now, the ghost was watching. Weirdly, he felt guilty. “I just thought you might be upset, because . . . ” Katie trailed off.
“Because why?”
She looked up at him from underneath the heavy fringe of her bangs. “Well, because it kind of seemed like you wanted to kiss me last night.”
Trenton wanted to laugh, but his face was frozen. A high whine, like the noise of a cornered animal, worked its way out of the back of his throat.
“I wouldn’t have stopped you,” she said quietly, so quietly it was practically a whisper, and Trenton thought he might have misheard. He couldn’t think of a response. He could do nothing but stare. Then he heard footsteps coming down the hall toward his room.
Instantly, Katie rocketed off the bed.
“Trenton?” Minna’s voice came through the door. “It’s me. Let me in.”
Katie dropped to her knees, as though thinking of trying to crawl under the bed, where Trenton had shoved his suitcase and a load of dirty socks. She drew back.
“What are you doing?” he whispered, and then said, louder, “One second.”
Katie crawled across the floor and opened the closet door. This was mostly empty: his only suit and nice dress shirt, which his mother had insisted he bring, hung forlornly on an otherwise empty rack. Katie backed into the closet, put a finger to her lips, and then closed the door. Metal hangers clinked together faintly.
“Trenton?” Minna said again. “Today?”
Trenton crossed to the door, feeling a slight thrill in his stomach: there was a girl, a pretty girl, hiding in his closet. At Andover, girls snuck into boys’ rooms all the time—but never his room.
“What is it?” he said, opening the door, hoping he wasn’t blushing.
Minna was wearing a hooded sweatshirt, cinched tight around her face, which made her look even thinner than usual. “Look, I’m sorry about yelling earlier, okay?” she said, not looking at him.
“Okay,” Trenton said. He almost preferred when Minna was a bitch, because then he didn’t have to remember how close they had once been. “Is that it?”
She turned her eyes to him. “I asked Danny—my friend, the cop, remember?—about that woman who died. Here.” She passed him a piece of paper, folded in half. “He e-mailed me the details. So if we see him again, be sure to thank him.”
Trenton unfolded the piece of paper. It was a short e-mail, subject: SANDRA WILKINSON. Trenton felt dizzy. Sandra. The ghost had said something about a Sandra, and a stolen letter.
That means he couldn’t have invented it. He couldn’t have made her up.
Sandra Wilkinson, aged 41, was found at home on the morning of March 14, 1993 by Joe Connelly, roofer. Single shot to the face, removed two of her teeth. There were no prints on the gun but her own, but the door was open and there were signs someone had been with her the night before. Inquest returned inconclusive verdict.
Then, after several spaces:
This is the kind of thing you wanted, right? Looking forward to seeing you. Danny.
“Happy now?” Minna asked.
His hands were shaking. He folded up the piece of paper and put it in his back pocket. He was surprised to feel that there was already something folded up there and then remembered, with a jolt, his suicide note. “What about the girl—the disappearance. Have they found her yet?”
Minna had already started to turn away.
“No. No, they haven’t found her,” Minna said. “She’s probably hacked up to pieces and buried in a well somewhere.”
“That’s disgusting,” Trenton said loudly.
Minna shrugged. “Sorry,” she said, not sounding sorry. “You asked.”
Trenton closed the door and locked it. His heart was beating very fast. He was remembering, then, the time their new kitten had gone missing and they’d found it after a week, fur matted, frozen stiff with cold, at the bottom of the old well.
His closet door opened, and Katie crawled out.
“It smells like my grandma’s bathroom in there,” she said. She stood up, slapping the back of her jeans.
“You can go now,” Trenton said. He was tired, and he was sure she was making fun of him. I wouldn’t have stopped you wasn’t the same as I wanted to. Maybe she’d come all the way here just to make fun of him.
“Don’t be like that,” she said. She came close to him, and it seemed as if she might say something else. Instead, she reached out, snatched the piece of paper from his hand, and started to read. “Cool,” she said. “So someone was murdered in your house?”
“Maybe,” Trenton said, taking the paper back. “It was never proven.”
“The good crimes never are,” she said, as if she had some great knowledge of it. He’d liked her better last night, in the darkness on the porch, underneath a black tarp sky that made everything seem small. She had seemed more real to him then. “Hey, you know what we should do?” She didn’t wait for him to answer. “A séance.”
“A what?” Trenton said, although he’d heard. He couldn’t help it; he thought how nice it was to hear her say we.
“You know, a séance. Ouija board and candles and all that. We’ll call up the ghost, make her tell us who did it.”
As she said the word ghost, Trenton thought he heard an echo voice in the walls, in the room and floor, a response too faint to make out. “I don’t think that’s such a good idea,” he said.