“There’s no one else in the house.”Finn turns, folding his arms over his chest. His tone is condescending, but too much so. Can’t meet my eyes, fidgeting more than he already does—which is a lot, but this is a new level.
He’s a bad liar.
I turn the name over on my tongue before letting it loose. “What about Ingrid?”
Finn stiffens, face paling. He looks like—well, like he’s seen a ghost. “Am I supposed to recognize that name?” he asks, and it’s clear that he does.
Ingrid disappeared the year before he did. Even if he hasn’t gotten acquainted with her ghost, he must have heard about her. Her disappearance got more airtime than anyone’s.
“You really don’t?”
He holds my gaze for a long second, like he’s daring me to call his bluff. But I’m too much of a coward to do it.
“I really don’t,” he says, falling back into casualness in a blink. He jams his hands into his pockets and rocks on his heels.
“Did what happen to you…I mean, is what happened to you the same as what happened to Aisha and Sloane?” And Ingrid.
“I think so,” Finn says.“We don’t really know what happened to us.”
It seems unlikely, but his presence itself is unlikely, and I don’t know how to push the subject without coming across as cruel. Digging into things he clearly wants to keep buried.
Eventually, Finn clears his throat and says, “Got any plans tonight?”
I frown. In the month or so I’ve been here, the only thing that has gotten me out the door is work, the grocery store, or the urge to simply get away for a bit. Which consists of walking up and down the block.
Finn shrugs, suddenly sheepish.“I was thinking, maybe you could show me…”He jerks a chin toward the piano beside me, the one practically collecting dust.“If you want to. If you’re not busy. I always wanted to learn to play something other than guitar but never got around to it.”
My irritation softens. It’s easy to forget that he isn’t supposed to be here, like this. That if anyone understands loss the way I do, it’s him.
Which is precisely why he’s so dangerous. That and the fact he’s dead.
I can’t help the sly grin on my lips. “Does it look like I’m busy?”
“No, but it’s not like you go out much—”Finn stops at my scoff, his cheeks flaming.
I glower at him.
“I mean, I’m always here, and you’re—”He stops again.
“Do you really want to finish that sentence?” I ask.
Finn frowns. Decides to finish digging his own metaphorical grave. “You’re always here,” he says.
I snatch a discarded sneaker and chuck it in his direction. It passes through him like mist, falling to the floor.
Finn grins, lopsided and bright, so dazzling it makes my silly heart skip a beat.
“You sound like my mother,” I say.
“Great minds think alike,” Finn says.“So?”
“You realize you don’t have fingers, right?”
Finn is quiet for a second and then he laughs. It’s a hearty sound, not quite what I expected from him. I hate that it’s endearing.
“Thanks for the reminder,” he says. “But in their defense”—he waggles his fingers—“they work sometimes. The radio is proof of that.”
I want to say no. To push and push until he backs away, leaves me to my cave, but a part of me is even more afraid that it’ll work. That he’ll truly disappear.
