Keep the Ghost

17. To be dead

I'm awoken by knocking on the bathroom door. I am spilled uselessly into the near-empty tub. My broken knee is numb and black, sitting obstinately in an inch of bathwater, daring me to try and move.

I reach for a towel that's folded on a rack overhead, dragging the thin cloth down and spreading it over my lap. The material soaks up the cooling water and clings to my skin.

"Come in," I say.

Morgan pushes open the door and focuses immediately on my mangled leg. Her eyes go wide; she turns away for a moment, making a disgusted sound. Then she turns back, eyes fixed on the wall above me. "Your knee is broken," she notes, expression slack.

"Could have been my neck," I say. "Come on, could you help me up?"

She steps in, and despite my general exhaustion, I can't help but realize I'm basically nude in front of this attractive woman.

I reach out; Morgan wraps both her hands around my wrist. "Slow," I warn, as my broken knee begins to shift. "Slow!" I shout again at no one in particular, as the pain mounts.

My right arm holds the towel loosely to my body; the left is in Morgan's hands. I rise from the tub, pushing myself upright with my good leg. Rather than stepping out, I sit on the edge, lifting my bad leg over.

She pulls me up again, and we hobble together to the bedroom. When we reach the bed, I fall backward, pulling myself up on a nest of pillows so that I'm sitting upright. I bring the towel with me, then replace it with the bed's comforter.

"Thank you," I mumble. "Now, what the hell was Jack doing? Where is he?"

"Forget about Jack," she says.

"He murdered Kayla, and I took the blame for it."

"That's right," she says. "You took the blame for it. If you bring Jack to the police now, after your suicide note and fake death, you think they're going to believe you? At the very least, you will be on trial for murder, and in prison for faking your death to escape that trial in the first place."

"But he's the real killer!"

"Sean Reilly is dead. Anyone finds out you're him, it's straight to prison, probably for a long time. Which, I might remind you, is what would happen anyway if we didn't help out."

This quiets me. I wrack my brain, but can't imagine a situation where the police arrest Jack and set me free. Not after what's happened.

So I just stare at the ceiling.

"I got you some things," Morgan says, lifting a shopping bag from the room's sole chair and setting it on the bed.

"This doesn't seem real," I mumble. "I keep thinking about that—Sean Reilly is dead."

"You're more than a name," Morgan tells me. "You're not really dead."

"It doesn't feel that way right now," I say, turning to the curtains, which glow dimly from the sunlight. There's a knot of dread in my throat, and I swallow it back.

"You need to sleep. This is all I've got, but I'm going to get you something stronger when I have a chance." She pulls a bottle of pills from her purse, then shakes four of the little blue orbs into the palm of her hand, and extends it. I let the pills fall into mine before tossing them into my mouth and drinking from the bottled water that follows.

lts@-w