Infamous by Suzanne Brockmann Page B

Sylvester—Neil was this one’s name—was still trying to hit the mother lode. There was a sign on the outskirts of town that announced the arrival of a whole parcel of modern hotels, plus a Food Lion and a Target. Building would commence as soon as the movie had wrapped, and the hotels and stores would soon stand ready for the hordes of tourists, inspired to make a pilgrimage to Jubilation by Trace Marcus’s nuanced performance as that greatest of American heroes, Silas Quinn.
    I spat on the dusty ground—or I would have if I could have. But not being able to spit was okay with me, because just as I didn’t have spit to spray around, I also didn’t have thirst.
    Which, along with being able to sneak into museums without paying, was one of the relatively good things about being a ghost, and actually, if you want to know the truth, I’m partial to the word
spirit. Ghost
makes me think of chains and moaning and Christmas Past and haunted houses.
    And although the kid swears up and down that I’m haunting him, it’s not like that at all.
    But wait. I’m getting in front of myself again.
    Point one: Another of the good things about being a
spirit
is that you can walk around in the blazing Arizona sunshine without a hat and never break a sweat or need refreshment of any kind.
    Point two: If I
were
haunting A.J., he’d damn well know it. I think of my time here with him as a friendly visit, a trip down memory lane. A.J.’s helping me, and I’m helping him, even though he doesn’t know it yet, and even though I’m not sure exactly
how
I’m helping him, aside from the obvious—that I’ve finally gotten him to emerge from that isolated and lonely workshop where he builds furniture, day in and day out.
    The furniture’s beautiful, true, but his life is slowly slipping away from him. It’s time for him to live it.
    I don’t possess a real clear master plan as to how I’m going to make that happen, but I’ll figure something out.
    See, I’ve gone nimbly through 101 years of life, plus all of those additional years of afterlife, by the seat of my pants.
    Why stop now?
    Inspiration will strike when it’s good and ready. There’s no need to try and force it. Besides, the kid’s a think-things-through-er. He’s not big on impetuous spur-of-the-moment decisions. I figure at the rate he’s moving—and I do believe that crunching between my teeth comes from eating the dust of both a tortoise
and
a snail—I’ve got another four months, which is the entire remaining length of this movie shoot, to figure out what to do next.
    Maybe I’ll talk him into taking a trip to London. Or a cruise up the Nile.
    Anything to keep him from locking himself back into his workshop in Alaska. For years now, he’s been living in some kind of self-imposed purgatory. It’s not hell, but it sure isn’t heaven.
    The boy deserves better than that.
    Although he’s not a boy anymore. Hasn’t been in a long time.
    I found him sitting in his truck with his AC running, checking the messages on his cell phone, looking none too pleased at the fact that his mother, Dr. Rose, had called him five different times since they’d spoken last, which was just yesterday evening.
    As I slid into the seat next to him, he didn’t look too happy to see me, either. He never does these days.
    “When you were ten years old, you thought I was the King of Alaska,” I reminded him.
    He was grumpy. “I’m not ten anymore.”
    “And yet,” I said, “I remain the King of Alaska.”
    That made him laugh, although to be honest, it was more of an exasperated exhale.
    “So,” I said, slapping my hands together with a crack that made the kid drop his cellular phone, “you figure out what you’re going to do about Alison Carter?”
    “I’m going to figure out a way to tell her your story,” A.J. told me grimly, as he awkwardly retrieved the phone from the floor mat beneath his feet, “and then I’m going to figure out a way to prove it.”
    I shook