Ninth Key by Meg Cabot Read Free Book Online Page A

when the phone rang a few seconds later, I assumed it was CeeCee, who’d promised to call with the answers to our geometry homework — I’d fallen a little behind, what with all the mediating I’d been doing…not that that was the excuse I’d given CeeCee, of course — so I picked up.
    “Hello?” that same, soft voice said into my ear. “Did you just call me?”
    I said a bunch of swear words real fast in my head. Aloud, I only said, “Uh. Maybe. By mistake, though. Sorry.”
    “Wait.” I don’t know how he’d known I’d been about to hang up. “You sound familiar. Do I know you? My name is Tad. Tad Beaumont.”
    “Nope,” I said. “Doesn’t ring a bell. Gotta go, sorry.”
    I hung up and said a bunch more swear words, this time out loud. Why, when I’d had him on the phone, hadn’t I asked to speak to his father? Why was I such a loser? Father Dom was right. I was a failure as a mediator. A big-time failure. I could exorcise evil spirits, no problem. But when it came to dealing with the living, I was the world’s biggest flop.
    This fact was drilled into my head even harder when, about four hours later, I was wakened once again by a blood-curdling shriek.

Chapter
Five
     
     
    I sat up, fully awake at once.
    She was back.
    She was even more upset than she’d been the night before. I had to wait a really long time before she calmed down enough to talk to me.
    “Why?”
she asked, when she’d stopped screaming. “Why didn’t you
tell
him?”
    “Look,” I said, trying to use a soothing voice, the way Father Dom would have wanted me to. “I tried, okay? The guy’s not the easiest person to get hold of. I’ll get him tomorrow, I promise.”
    She had kind of slumped down onto her knees. “He blames himself,” she said. “He blames himself for my death. But it wasn’t his fault. You’ve got to tell him.
Please
.”
    Her voice cracked horribly on the word
please.
She was a wreck. I mean, I’ve seen some messed-up ghosts in my time, but this one took the cake, let me tell you. I swear, it was like having Meryl Streep put on that big crying scene from
Sophie’s Choice
live on your bedroom carpet.
    “Look, lady…” I said. Soothing, I reminded myself. Soothing.
    There isn’t anything real soothing about calling somebody
lady,
though. So, remembering how Jesse had been kind of mad at me before for not getting her name, I went, “Hey. What’s your name, anyway?”
    Sniffling, she just went, “Please. You’ve got to tell him.”
    “I said I’d do it.” Jeez, what’d she think I was running here? Some kind of amateur operation? “Give me a chance, will you? These things are kind of delicate, you know. I can’t just go blurting it out. Do you want that?”
    “Oh, God, no,” she said, lifting a knuckle to her mouth, and chewing on it. “No, please.”
    “Okay, then. Chill out a little. Now tell me —”
    But she was already gone.
    A split second later, though, Jesse showed up. He was applauding softly as if he were at the theater.
    “Now that,” he said, putting his hands down, “was your finest performance yet. You seemed caring, yet disgusted.”
    I glared at him. “Don’t you,” I asked, grumpily, “have some chains you’re supposed to be rattling somewhere?”
    He sauntered over to my bed and sat down on it. I had to jerk my feet over to keep him from squashing them.
    “Don’t you,” he countered, “have something you want to tell me?”
    I shook my head. “No. It’s two o’clock in the morning, Jesse. The only thing I’ve got on my mind right now is sleep. You remember sleep, right?”
    Jesse ignored me. He does that a lot. “I had a visitor of my own not too long ago. I believe you know him. A Mr. Peter Simon.”
    “Oh,” I said.
    And then — I don’t know why — I flopped back down and pulled a pillow over my head.
    “I don’t want to hear about it,” I said, my voice muffled beneath the pillow.
    The next thing I knew, the pillow had flown out of my