I flailed in the water, swallowing deep gulps of it, while clutching at the sharp little fingers digging into my throat.
“Don’t you hurt Becca,” an all-too-familiar voice hissed into my ear when I managed to surface for one all-too-brief gasp of glorious air. “Don’t you come near her again!”
There was nothing I could say in response. Even if there had been, I couldn’t speak. Her grip on my throat was so tight I couldn’t utter a sound, nor could I dig my fingers beneath hers to loosen her grip. Besides, she’d plunged us both to the bottom of the pool, her body—which should have been weightless—suddenly heavy as a refrigerator.
And I was the stray dog someone had decided to cruelly chain to that refrigerator for kicks before shoving both into the bottom of the lake.
All I could do was fight my way back to the surface against the weight inexorably bearing me down. But when I finally did reach the glorious air, instead of taking it in, I could only cough out the burning chlorinated water I’d swallowed.
And she continued to cling to my neck like a thousand-pound weight. How was that possible, when she was only the size of a doll, and a ghost besides? For someone whose name meant “light,” she was anything but.
Once, in my quest to find the most effective cardio I could do in the shortest amount of time, I’d read that treading water vertically while bearing a heavy weight was the way to go. It’s an integral part of U.S. Navy SEAL training: they tread water while holding a dive pack above their heads.
That had sounded way too brutal to me, but now I realized it was exactly what I should have been doing all along. Who knew U.S. Navy SEALs and school counseling interns had so much in common?
The next thing I knew, the kid had me strung up in midair like a salmon on a fishing line. I dangled there by my neck, still struggling to unloose her fingers, gasping for air, wondering in the distant part of my brain that could still register thought what I would look like to any of my fellow tenants who might happen to glance down at the pool from their balconies. They wouldn’t be able to see the NCDP that was holding me by the neck above the water level. Would they think I was performing some kind of odd water ballet? Suze Simon, amateur mermaid. Perhaps they’d applaud, and compliment me later . . . if I lived until later.
Then she plunged me back into the deep end, and I wondered how I could have been so smug—and stupid—to think that she hadn’t followed me home.
She’d not only followed me home, she’d watched me get out of my car, wave good night to my neighbors, then go inside to check my messages.
Sure, my apartment was ghost proof.
But it had never occurred to me to sprinkle a protective layer of salt around the pool. It wasn’t even one of those environmentally safe saltwater pools that Andy goes around recommending on At Home with Andy. It was filled with human-harmful—and extremely foul-tasting—chlorine and other chemicals that were currently burning my throat.
“Lucia,” I croaked when I’d finally managed to sip enough air to allow speech. “I don’t think you understand. I’m on your side.”
“No, you don’t understand,” she hissed in my ear, her long fingernails scraping at the skin of my cheek in an almost loverlike caress. This wasn’t at all creepy. “Becca’s mine. My friend. No one will ever hurt her again.”
Okay, okay, I wanted to say. I got it already.
But I couldn’t say anything more, because it hurt too much. My lungs were too full of water and my hair was plastered over my face (why hadn’t I listened to Christophe about that swim cap?) and she still had hold of my throat. She’d pulled me well away from the sides of the pool, so I couldn’t grab anything—except handfuls of water—to hit her with or find anything to push against. Where were my boots when I needed them? Oh, right, with Maximillian28.
There was only one thing I could think of to do, and that was to grab her. I needed to get her to loosen the iron grip that was cutting off my oxygen and causing the lights around the pool to slowly dim.
But my arms were feeling strangely heavy. Lifting them felt like lifting the two-hundred-pound weights Brad kept in his garage and was always challenging everyone to try to bench. I’d sapped too much vital energy fighting to stay afloat to be able to land a good punch, even if I’d felt okay punching a dead kid in the face, and I was really starting to, considering this particular dead kid was being such a pain in my ass.
But I could still grab. I thrust my arms up over my head until my fingers closed around something wet and stringy. At first, in my state of near unconsciousness, I thought it was seaweed. But why would there be seaweed in my apartment complex’s swimming pool?
Then I realized I’d managed to grab twin chunks of her blond curls.
Hair pulling is dirty business—it’s what toddlers and drunk girls on reality shows always resort to. But this was different. It was her or me, and it sure as hell wasn’t going to be me. I had a wedding scheduled to Dr. Hector “Jesse” de Silva for next year in the basilica at the Carmel Mission. I had no intention of missing it if I could possibly help it.
I pulled with all my might, and to my utter relief, the clawlike fingers disappeared from my throat. Lucia’s tiny, tenaciously strong body flipped over my head and shoulders and went splashing down into the water in front of me.
She landed on her back, so I could see her face. Her expression was priceless, one of utter surprise, like, How did I get here?
I would have laughed if I hadn’t been so busy trying not to die.
For a moment we simply floated in the deep end of the pool, me busy choking up pool water, the dead girl appearing stunned by her defeat, even though it was only temporary. A spirit with that much power would quickly regather her energy—while I had none left. I had vastly underestimated the depths of her rage and determination to keep anyone from interfering with Becca. I had no idea what was going on with her and her human host, but whatever it was, Lucia wasn’t going to let anyone part them.
Still, in those few seconds, her long blond hair circling us like a golden halo (oh, the irony), I couldn’t help being struck by how incredibly sweet and vulnerable she looked. She was still clutching the stuffed horse she’d been carrying earlier that day, still dressed in her riding jodhpurs and boots, looking every bit like a pony-loving cherub who’d happened to trip and fall into the pool.
Then tried to drown me.
That was it. I was out of there.
I turned and began swimming away from her with everything I had left of my strength. If I could only reach the gleaming chrome ladder I saw a few strokes ahead of me, then pull myself up, I knew I’d be all right.
Of course I was only fooling myself. But I had to believe in something.
I kicked hard for the ladder, beginning to think I was going to make it—though my heart was pounding as if it were about to burst—when an icy cold, sharp-clawed hand clamped down around my ankle and attempted to yank me back into the crystal depths.
No.
Then at almost the exact same moment, a similarly steel-gripped, but also similarly familiar warm hand wrapped around my wrist and began pulling me toward the side of the pool. What was happening? Was someone trying to rescue me?
Oh, dear God, no. Not one of my do-gooding fellow tenants from the Carmel Valley Mountain View Apartment Complex, thinking I’d gotten a muscle cramp. Lucia would pull him into the water, too, and then the pool guy would find both of us facedown at the deep end tomorrow morning.
Could this day get any worse? I couldn’t save myself and a civilian, too. I didn’t have the strength left.
“Stop,” I begged, pulling on my wrist, preferring to be drowned by Lucia than allow her to take out an innocent bystander as well. “I’m fine. Please go away.”
But the grip on my wrist only tightened. I floundered as I tried to stay above the surface, pulled in two different directions by two entirely different but equally determined—and seemingly preternaturally strong—forces.
“You’re not fine, querida,” I heard a deep voice rasp.
My heart began to pound in a different way than before. Jesse.
I saw him kneeling by the side of the pool, his hands grasped tightly around my wrist. His expression was hard to read since his back was to the bright security lights, but I was sure he must be furious. The shirt and tie he was required to wear to work were both soaked.
“And sorry to disappoint you,” he said, “but I’ll never go away.”