I had only a moment to process the Jess Ballard who lay in front of me—her skin so pale it was almost blue, her lips slightly parted, a peaceful look on her motionless features, before the spectral Jess Ballard at my side gave a sigh of relief and muttered, “Finally!”
A moment later, she was sucked back into her body like water down a drain, and what had been a corpse a moment before suddenly gasped to life again. Her back arched as the air flooded her stationary lungs, and then she sat up, a string of hoarse curse words streaming from her dry, cracked lips. With a gasp, she stared down at her body, and then sighed with relief.
“Thank God. I was worried they might have taken my clothes,” she gasped through chattering teeth, as she looked down at herself. “Will someone help me out of this thing, please?”
Nova and Eva, their mouths hanging open, hurried forward with me to help Jess shimmy her legs out of the body bag. Zale had slid to the floor, and was sitting with his head down between his knees, taking great gulping breaths as he fought to stay conscious. We helped Jess as she sliddown onto the floor, but her legs wouldn’t support her, and we had to keep her upright.
“Sorry,” she mumbled, looking a bit ill. “I… my muscles aren’t quite… I need to warm up, I think.”
“It’ll be a miracle if you don’t have hypothermia,” Nova remarked, though her eyes were bright with excitement. Despite the creepiness of the situation, I could tell she was enjoying herself.
“Let’s get her back up to the car. We can blast the heat,” Eva suggested.
“And find Zale a barf bag,” Nova added.
“I’ll be okay, I just need a… a minute,” Zale said in a feeble voice.
Nova and I stood on either side of Jess and put her arms over our shoulders so that we could take some of her weight. Eva yanked Zale to his feet, and let him lean into her as he tried to get his legs back under him. It was slow, noisy progress back up the stairs, and even slower through the completely dark upper level. At one point, my elbow nudged one of the statues, and I had to dive for it to stop it from falling and shattering all over the floor, which left Jess to collapse on top of Nova when she suddenly lost my support. Finally, though, we managed to get out to the car, where Bea’s eager face was pressed up against the window.
“You did it! You found her! And she’s… she’s in there, right?” Bea asked, poking a little at Jess’ arm as she slid into the back seat.
“Ow! Yes, I’m in here! How would I be moving if I was—wasn’t—” But Jess’ teeth were slamming together too hard for her to keep speaking.
Nova went around to the trunk and pulled out two sand-crusted beach towels, which we wrapped around Jess before cranking up the heat in the car. We all crammed in and drove up the street.
“Where are you staying?” I asked Jess. “You’ve been here for a few days, you must have been staying somewhere.”
“The bed and breakfast around the corner from the town center, the one that overlooks the docks,” Jess managed to eke out between her chattering teeth.
“That’s Priscilla Baroni’s place. Do you think we can take you back there?” Nova asked. “Or do you think they told Priscilla you were dead?”
“I doubt they told her anything in the middle of the night,” Jess said. “I didn’t have any identification on me when they found me, but I did have this.” She reached into her jeans pocket, and pulled out a key on a brass keychain shaped like a cat.
“Let’s get you back to your room, then, and we can decide what to do from there,” Nova said, decisively.
We took a side street that cut us down closer to the docks, and pulled up in front of Baroni B&B. The porch light was on, but the lights inside were all dark.
“I don’t think she can get up to her room by herself,” I said to Nova. “I’m going to stay with her.”
“Well, then I’m coming, too,” Nova said. “What, like I’m going to leave you alone with this random woman who just Houdini-d herself into her own body? No way.”
It was a show of solidarity and I was appreciative, but I didn’t say thank you. Nova only rolled her eyes at anything approaching genuine emotion. So I nodded instead, which she ignored.
“I should get Bea home,” Eva said. Bea had nodded off in the intense warmth of the car, her face pressed against the window, her mouth gaping. At the sound of her name, though, she jolted awake.
“I’m fine! I wasn’t asleep!” she mumbled, rubbing her eyes.
“Yeah, okay,” Eva snorted. “Whether you’re tired or not, Xiomara will ground you for the rest of your life if she finds out what you did.”
Bea looked mutinous. “But I want to know?—”
“So do we,” Eva cut her off. “We all want to know what the hell is going on. But that’s going to have to wait for tomorrow.”
“She came to me first!” Bea countered, crossing her arms over her chest.
“Bea.”
Bea turned, startled to hear her name come out of Jess’ mouth.
