The Ghost in Love by Jonathan Carroll Page B

that.
    â€œThat’s mad. Benjamin, that is totally insane.”
    â€œI know it sounds like that, but it’s the truth.” He spoke quietly and with great conviction. He knew she was going to take a lot of convincing.
    â€œBen, this is creepy. You’re scaring me now.”
    â€œImagine how
I
feel! All I’m asking you to do is go to her apartment with me and see for yourself. Don’t take any of it on faith. See for yourself.”
    She tugged on the brim of her cap. “You’ve said that twice.”
    He nodded. “I’ll say it again: Go see for yourself. Knock on her door and watch what happens. I’ll be right beside you.”
    They continued talking. The more she listened, the more confused she became because he was so convincing. It was without question the craziest thing he’d ever said to her, and Ben wasn’t given to saying crazy things. But the way he described this, it became increasingly hard
not
to believe him.
    â€œWho is she?”
    â€œJust some woman. A stranger.”
    â€œHow do you know her?”
    â€œI
don’t
know her, German. That’s what I’ve been telling you: I have never laid eyes on this woman in my life.”
    â€œYou’re telling me that one day this just started happening with a stranger you’ve never met?” Her voice was wary and weary.
    â€œYes.”
    She brought a hand up to her bottom lip and kept it there while watching him. German once thought she knew this man well, but what he had just told her changed everything. It explained why he had ended their relationship. And why he had been acting so oddly for months. It explained everything and nothing. She wished to the bottom of her soul that she had never heard any of it.
    â€œWhat am I supposed to do with this, Ben? What am I supposed to do now?”
    â€œMeet this woman and see that everything I’ve told you is true.”
    She stood abruptly and walked away, pulling the dog behind her. Ben watched for a few moments and then followed. In front of the apartment building, German stopped and said without turning around to face him, “What should I say to her?”
    â€œTell her you want to talk about her accident. Say you’re a journalist doing an article on posttraumatic stress. Or that someone in your family—”
    â€œI’ll handle it,” she said curtly, throwing up a hand to cut him off. She didn’t want to hear any more. She only wanted him to shut up.
    When German rang the bell, Ben stood beside her. When Danielle opened the door, she looked directly at German and only at her. The expression on her face clearly said she saw only the woman and her dog.
    â€œHello. Are you Danielle Voyles?”
    The first time it happened to Ben
was the night months earlier when they saw the man stabbed at the pizzeria. After talking to the police and giving their separate testimonies, the couple went straight to a bar and drank themselves back to an uneasy calm.
    Both of them liked sitting at a bar, never in a booth. High in a corner of this joint was a large flat-screen television mounted on a wall. It was tuned to a sports channel. They drank and talked and tried to regain their composure after witnessing the harrowing event earlier in the evening.
    Now and then Ben looked up at the television to see what kind of game was on. A time or two his eyes lingered there while German spoke to him. It didn’t bother her. They had known each other longenough now so that she knew he could be looking away but still listening carefully to her. It was one of her boyfriend’s idiosyncrasies and didn’t bother her.
    The next time he glanced up at the television set, he frowned. Because instead of the Roma versus Lazio soccer match that had been on the screen moments ago, now there was a close-up of a glistening pink open mouth. It was undergoing extremely graphic oral surgery. Ben’s first reaction was to exclaim, Hey, look