Life After Theft
Page 9

“No. I’m leaving,” I said, as much to myself as to Kimberlee, “and I am not coming back.” I looked over the edge and tried to find the handholds I had used climbing up. It’s only ten feet. Just jump! I let myself down as far as I could while holding on to the ledge, then tried to fall slowly. My feet hit the sand a moment before my ass did. My tailbone stung, but at least I was out of the klepto cave. I looked over at my car and forced myself to walk calmly instead of running—which would probably make me fall and look like an idiot.
Again.
Kimberlee was right beside me. “They’re organized,” she pleaded. “It’ll be easy. A bag for each person. The boxes are sorted by category. A couple of trips and we’ll be done.”
By category? “A couple of trips? A couple of trips? Maybe if I had a semi. That,” I said pointing up at the cave, “is a lot of stuff, Kimberlee. You have a problem.”
“Had.”
“What?”
She shrugged. “Can’t do it anymore, can I?” She laughed shakily for a few seconds before falling silent.
“Real funny,” I scoffed. I ducked into my car and slammed the door before she could say anything else. As I drove I stared at Kimberlee in the rearview mirror until the road curved and cut her out of sight. As soon as I got out of her cul-de-sac, I stomped my foot on the gas and drove home as fast as I dared.
How the hell was I going to get out of this?
When I got to the house, Mom was gone, but Tina—our housekeeper—was washing down countertops and a good smell was coming from the oven.
“Ah, Jeff, there you are,” Tina said. “Your mother is at a taping and your father is on a conference call. You know, the ones your mother keeps telling him to stop taking. I have to take off as soon as I pull the muffins out of the oven. Healthy ones—don’t tell your father. Tell him they are cupcakes and he will eat them.” Tina had only been with us for two weeks, but she was already determined to make my dad into a health-food junkie—clandestinely, of course, though her methods were hardly James Bond.
I slumped down on the counter and let my backpack slip to the floor.
“You look awful.”
Thanks, Tina.
“Bad day?”
Actually, Tina, it was swell. I saw this girl—of course, she’s totally untouchable, for me, anyway. Oh, and there’s this other girl—she’s untouchable, too, for everyone! But she’s all mine, whether I want her or not.
“Just long,” I said with a shrug. “Lots of homework.”
She reached up and patted my head in a way that was comforting in spite of the awkward grandmotherliness of it. “You’ll get it all done. You’re a smart boy.”
“Thanks,” I said, smiling a little. “I better go upstairs and get to work.”
But rather than start on my homework, I fired up my Xbox. After what I’d just seen, I deserved to chill out a little. I played GTA for about an hour and imagined everything my car ran into was Kimberlee, or one of her boxes of stolen stuff. I kept looking over my shoulder, expecting to see her or hear one of her smart-ass comments, but all I heard was the cathartic symphony of gunfire and people screaming.
Why was this whole ghost thing happening to me? Kimberlee said I was the first person to see her—ever. Nothing in my life was all that special. I certainly wasn’t special.
Maybe it was something about Santa Monica. In the three weeks since we’d moved here my life had turned upside down. My mom was on TV, my dad was a retired workaholic who couldn’t keep his fingers out of the old business, and I had a ghost. And a housekeeper. A year ago, any of those things would have sounded like a joke. Getting them all at once—well, who could blame me if I needed some time to adjust? But last time I checked, seeing ghosts wasn’t a symptom of homesickness or stress.
I did have to give Santa Monica points for the redhead I’d spotted at school, though. Serafina, Kimberlee had said. Man, she was gorgeous. But I couldn’t even think about her for more than a few seconds before coming back to the same humongous problem that suddenly overshadowed every aspect of my life.
Kimberlee.
I wondered if Santa Monica had any good exorcists.
Five
“JEFF? JEFF?”
“I’m up, Mom.”
“Open your eyes, Jeff.”
I rubbed my face with my hands and squinted with one eye.
“Holy hell!” I shouted as Kimberlee came into focus. I jerked away from her and pulled my blankets around me. “Get out of my room!”
“Why?” she asked, noting the death grip I had on my bedding. “Naked under there?”
“Yes. Now leave!”
She scrunched up her nose. “Ew, gross. I was totally kidding.”
I rolled my eyes. “I’m not naked. But I’m just in my boxers.”
Kimberlee shrugged. “Nothing I haven’t seen before.” She grabbed for the end of my comforter.
I gripped the blanket tighter and tried to scoot out of reach. When her hand passed right through the comforter and my face went white, she laughed like it was the most hilarious thing in the world.
“You’re such a freak,” she said, studying me with her arms crossed over her chest.
“You wanted to see my underwear.”
“I showed you mine. It’s your turn.”
“Turn around so I can put some jeans on.”
She spun with her arms over her head like a ballerina.