The Perfect Ghost Read Online Free Page A

glared at me through the glass till I unlocked the inner door.
    She’s a force to be reckoned with, your wife, all jangle and nerves. Slim and mean and restless, a predator, ready to pounce.
    Shall we go up, or must we do this in the hallway? Can’t you just hear her, high-strung and nasal, the icy correctness of that “shall”? Nature should have made her taller so she could stare down her nose to greater effect.
    You married her because she was beautiful, you told me. I tried to see her as you might have, as you must have seen her years ago, but it was hard to conceive of any softness or kindness in that steely visage, any alluring curve in that disciplined body. She was beautiful the way a starkly modern statue is beautiful, not a marble sculpture, but a metallic one. Her profile was sharp and precise, an ice-edged cameo.
    She demanded to see your room.
    “Office,” I corrected her.
    “Whatever you want to call it.”
    “Sorry.” I indicated the duffel. “I’m on my way out.”
    “You never go anywhere.”
    “I am today.”
    “But I’m already here.”
    “You can come back some other time.” Another time when I wouldn’t answer the bell. I tried to push past her, but she feinted left and blocked my way.
    “Are you moving out?” she asked.
    “No.”
    She made a show of consulting her wristwatch. “What time will you be back?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “You won’t say.”
    “I’m late. I have to go.”
    Our volume must have risen with my desperation because Melody poked her head out the door of 1C, the apartment directly beneath mine. The prettiest thing about Melody is her name and the second prettiest is her voice, which was deep and authoritative as she asked whether I needed any help. What help she could offer was limited to the cell phone clutched in her claw-like hand; she was poised to dial 911.
    Caroline’s eyes shifted as she took in the owl-like face that peered out the door at a level slightly higher than my waist and realized that the interrupting woman sat in a motorized wheelchair.
    “It’s okay,” I told Melody.
    She regarded my duffel with alarmed and questioning eyes. “You’re leaving?”
    “Will you take in my mail? If you see anything piling up? Take-out menus and stuff?”
    “You’re going away?”
    “Don’t worry. The van’s gassed up and ready to go.”
    Melody and I are not neighborly. It would never occur to either of us to drop by for a chat or go out for a drink. I keep her cantankerous van fueled, tuned, and repaired in exchange for its monthly use when I grocery shop at the Star Market on Commonwealth Avenue, the one that’s open 24/7 and never has a wait at the checkout line at one A.M. on Tuesday mornings. On the rare occasions when I purchase milk or juice for Melody, she is scrupulous about prompt repayment down to the last penny, but we rarely encounter each other, preferring to communicate by e-mail and squeeze envelopes containing lists or cash under each other’s doors.
    “Why not lend me your key? I’ll give it to your neighbor when I’m through.” Leave it to Caroline, quick on the uptake, to find an advantage in any situation. She smirked and held out her hand as though I were bound to obey her royal command.
    Melody, evidently deciding that her interference might do more harm than good, ducked her head back into her shell and left me to soldier on alone. My breath caught in the back of my throat and I thought longingly of the swivel chair in my office, my own narrow bed, my feather pillow, all the comforts I was leaving behind. It didn’t seem fair that I had to face those losses and deal with Caroline, too.
    “If Teddy had wanted you to have a key, he’d have given you one.” I inhaled through my nose, felt my pulse quicken.
    “I forgive you.”
    “Next time, phone before you come and—what did you say?”
    “I forgive you.”
    I stared at her, flummoxed. “ You forgive me? For what?”
    “You know what I mean.”
    How you used to