She was feeling a lot more comfortable--and she finally told me more about her ghost.
"Corban doesn't believe we're haunted," she told me as she threaded her way through the city.
She glanced at my face and away.
"I haven't actually seen or heard anything either.
I just told him I had, so he'd leave Chad alone." She took a deep breath and looked at me again.
"He thinks Chad might do better at a boarding school--a private place for troubled kids that a friend of his recommended." "He didn't look troubled to me," I said.
"Aren't `troubled' kids usually doing drugs or beating on the neighbor's kids?" Chad had looked like he'd rather have stayed home and read than go to play ball.
Amber gave a nervous half laugh.
"Corban doesn't get along very well with Chad.
He doesn't understand him.
It's the old Disney clich? of a quarterback dad and bookworm son." "Does Corban know he's not Chad's father?" She hit the brakes so hard that if I hadn't been belted in, I might have become better acquainted with her windshield.
She sat there in the middle of the road for a moment, oblivious to the honking horns around us.
I was glad we were in a stout Mercedes rather than the Miata she'd driven to my house.
"You forget," I said blandly.
"I knew Harrison, too.
We used to joke about his eyelashes, and I've never see eyes like his since.
Not until today." Harrison had been her one true love for about three months until she dropped him for a premed student.
Amber started forward again and drove for a little until traffic settled down.
"I'd forgotten you knew him." She sighed.
"Funny.
Yes, Corban knows he's not Chad's father, but Chad doesn't.
It didn't used to matter, but I'm not so sure.
Corban's been ...
different lately." She shook her head.
"Still, he's the one who suggested I ask you to come over.
He saw the article in the paper, and said, `Isn't that the girl you said used to see ghosts? Why don't you have her come over and have a look-see?"' I figured I'd been pushy enough, so I asked a question that was less intrusive.
"What does the ghost do?" "Moves things," she told me.
"It rearranges Chad's room once or twice a week.
Chad says he's seen the furniture moving around." She hesitated.
"It breaks things, too.