Queen of the Dead by Stacey Kade Read Free Book Online Page B

to think better of it, which, frankly, would be a first. “Fine,” she said with an eye roll.
    “And do not even think about going in there to try to talk to him yourself.” I jabbed a finger at her. It would be awfully tempting for her, I knew, with him so close by. It was one thing for Mrs. Ruiz, someone we’d never met before, to approach Will directly with an immediate need. Something different for Liesel to continually harass him.
    “I won’t,” she said with exasperation. “God.”
    “Because I will put you even farther down the list, behind people who aren’t even dead yet.” I frowned at her. “How did you find me here?”
    We were very careful about not meeting spirits at Will’s house. It was the one place where he could be guaranteed some peace and quiet. And since we weren’t omniscient after death any more than we’d been in life, and had significantly less access to a phone book or the Internet, most spirits had no idea where he lived.
    “I followed you here a couple days ago,” she confessed.
    Damn. I was going to have to start being even more careful. One more thing to worry about.
    “Don’t do that again, and if you tell anyone where he lives, you’re off the list completely,” I said to her, though I wasn’t entirely sure I had the authority to make that decision. “Now go before I change my mind.”
    But she didn’t scurry away as I expected.
    She brushed off the front of her dress, though it held no dirt or grass stains. “I meant what I said…earlier,” she said, keeping her eyes focused on her task.
    I bristled.
    “You’re going to have to pick a side at some point, his or ours.” She looked up, a challenge in her gaze.
    “I’m on my own side,” I said.
    She nodded, but I could see she wasn’t convinced.
    Whatever. I turned and walked away. Like what Liesel Marks thought mattered to me. I wasn’t working on her behalf.
    Will and I had an understanding. He helped me. I helped him. That was all there was to it, and the only thing that mattered.
    * * *
    Arguing with Liesel had put me in a less than stellar mood—I mean, who did she think she was, anyway?—so I walked home instead of trying to catch a ride…or ten. Trust me, there is nothing more frustrating than sliding into a car to hitch a ride only to have it turn thirty seconds later in a direction you don’t want to go.
    But by the time I breezed through the front door of my old house—literally through ; this passing through solid stuffthing was awesome so long as Will wasn’t around to trip me up—I was feeling better.
    Home, for all that it had been a chaotic nightmare when I was alive, was sort of comforting now in its familiarity. School was out. My friends (and enemies) had graduated. I was dead.
    But home was still home, you know? The one thing that hadn’t really changed.
    The downstairs was empty. The lights were on in the kitchen, but my mom wasn’t there, which was kind of weird. Now that she wasn’t drinking anymore, I usually found her in the kitchen eating a Lean Cuisine right out of the black microwaveable tray while she watched a lame sitcom or chatted online with her old college friends. (I know; creepy, right? The elderly have invaded Facebook. That is just wrong in so many ways.) Pretty much the rest of the time, she was either at an AA meeting or working. She’d gotten a job at the Clinique counter in Von Maur and got to wear one of those cool white lab coats.
    “Hello?” I called more for my peace of mind than anything. Occasionally, I still had trouble with the idea that I was in the world but not of it, if that makes sense. It was comforting to keep up the habits and conventions of the living.
    There was no answer, of course. But I thought I heard her moving around upstairs.
    Our house is a big, brick two-story with a dramatic foyer open to the second floor and a sweeping staircase in the front hall, which, let me tell you, would have rocked for prom photos if I could have ever