Chapter 2

"Don't freak out on me, Larry, but I think I'm dead."

That one stopped me cold. I'd just asked her where she was, knowing from her voice that she had to be somewhere nearby—right in my apartment, in fact—and that was her answer? It sounded completely nuts.

On the other hand, where was she? Her voice was right in my ear, but there was nobody there.

"Don't—" I stopped. Susan didn't play games, not like that. Maybe I didn't know a lot about her, but I knew that much. This was beyond weird, but something was going on and it for sure wasn't ordinary. "Tell me what's happening, sweetheart," I finally said.

"I'm— I'm not quite sure. I was hit by a car, I know that. Then ... well, then nothing, I was just here. Except I know I'm really not here, am I? I am, but I'm not. I can see you, I can hear you, I can even talk to you, but I can't touch you because I don't have any body to touch you with. It's a little strange. To say the very least."

"So you're what—a ghost or something?" I asked with what was meant to be a chuckle but came out pretty hollow-sounding even to my ears.

" ... I guess," she said. "I don't know what else to call it. But right now we don't have time to worry about it, because I have a lot of things I need to tell you, and I need to tell you some of them now."

I had no idea how to respond, so I temporized. "OK, what? What things do you need to tell me?"

"Oh, you're going to hate this," she went on unhappily. "You're going to hate this and you're going to hate me."

"No." I cut her off before she could continue. "This whole business is beyond impossible, but the one thing that's even more impossible is that I could ever hate you. That I could ever do anything but love you. Now just talk, and we'll deal with it. Or—" I threw up my arms in exasperation. "Or I'll deal with it, anyway. If—and to me that's a pretty big 'if'—if you really are dead. But that's one I honest and truly don't want to believe."

"Then how do you explain this?" she asked. "Me, here and yet not here? Larry darling, that car hit me hard. It hurt, hurt everywhere, for the quick second I could feel it. Then, well, then I didn't feel anything. I'm pretty sure that's because I don't have a living body to feel it with any more. But that's enough, for now you have to listen, because I think you could be in danger, too."

This was all getting weirder by the second. Danger, me? What in the name of God was she talking about?

"Where to start?" she said. "Well, look, do you remember when I left yesterday—"

"Day before," I corrected her automatically.

"OK, whenever. Do you remember I told you that you didn't know me at all? Well, you don't. You don't even know my name. Susan Malone, that's not it, that's just the name they gave me, along with—"

"Who's 'they?'"

She sighed. "The feds. The marshals, whoever. Larry, I'm in the witness protection program. My real name's Ariel Shaughnessy. Does that ring a bell?"

"No."

"It wouldn't, not with you, you never pay attention to the news. But look it up on your computer. No, don't, not now anyway," she added hastily as I reflexively started to move toward the bedroom where my system was set up. "There's still stuff I don't want to tell you, don't need to tell you, not right now. You'll find out eventually, but I hope I'm not around when you do. Not even like this."

"Susan," I started. "Well, Ariel, then, or which do you prefer? What's all this about?"

"I prefer Susan, she's ... unblemished. New. But anyhow, like I said I'm in the witness protection program. Or I was, when I was still alive. And that's because of Ariel. She knew stuff, I knew stuff, and I had proof. Stuff that would send a really important man to jail for a really long time, like the rest of his worthless fucking life." Her voice got very hard as she said the last.

"Who?"

I could hear her draw in a deep breath. "Bobby Golden. Senator Robert M. Golden to you and most other people. 'M' for 'murderous fucking bastard.' I was going to nail his ass to the wall in court. I was going to do that. If he didn't get me first. But I guess he did."

"What does that mean?" I was really floundering, none of this was making any sense. I was talking to a disembodied voice, some kind of spirit if I believed in such things, and it was saying terrible things about one of the most popular politicians around, so popular that even I knew the name. Was I having hallucinations? The thing was, I didn't feel hallucinatory, I felt like I always did. Nothing made sense.

"Honey, the car that hit me, it wasn't an accident," she said in a flat tone. "It was aiming at me. And it made contact, dead center."

"Wasn't an accident?" I echoed. Why was I sounding so ... idiotic?

"Car's coming down the street and you just get vague and walk out in front of it, that's an accident," she said. "Car's parked in front of your building and suddenly accelerates from a standing start just as you cross, and then follows you as you try to dodge—and I tried, I remember that—well, that's no accident. It was Walter driving, I'm sure of it. And I guess he got the job done, you don't get half-assed work with Walter."

"I'm sure you don't," I agreed vaguely. "But who's Walter, and why would he try to kill you."