Free The Dead Girls Detective Agency by Suzy Cox

drop out of school to audition for Zoey 101 ” because she knew if she said I could, I’d totally forget the idea?
    “See you,” Nancy said again, retuning the TV screen.
    Fine. Let Nancy try and pull her mind games. I was not going to be played. I was sixteen. I was dead. What was the worst that could happen?
    I looked up at the clock in HHQ. Five thirty a.m. Right about now, most of my classmates would be asleep. I still wasn’t in a place to see how my parents were doing. But there was something—well, some one —I needed to see before I headed to school. Without looking at Nancy again, I walked out of HHQ, quietly shutting the door behind me.
    But as I started up the Attesa stairs, something made me stop. Maybe I’d developed some weird, spooky sixth sense since I’d been here, but I definitely felt someone behind me. Standing in the shadows. Watching. Someone who’d probably been listening to Nancy and me too. And it totally creeped me out.
    I whipped around—the hallway was dark anyway, but with the door to HHQ shut, just a few shafts of light from the lobby illuminated the corridor. Nancy couldn’t have gotten out of the office without me seeing, and Lorna was hardly the boo!-surprise! type. Which—unless some other dead teen had shown up in the night and no one thought to mention it—left only two dead people it could be.
    “Hello?” I said into the darkness. “Who’s there?”
    A small orange light appeared in answer. Glowing faintly at first, then strengthening, and fading again. I squinted. Whoever was holding the light took a step closer to me. The ember glowed again. Suddenly I realized it was the tip of a cigarette; its lit end burning more brightly every time someone inhaled.
    And—as he walked toward me like a guy who had never ever been in a hurry—I could see that someone was Edison.
    He stopped an arm’s reach from my spot, his head cocked to one side, like he was trying to figure me out, then took another draw. I guess when you’re dead you don’t worry what the surgeon general says those things do to your lungs. Edison wet his lips, opening his mouth a crack, and slowly blew the smoke right at me. I desperately tried not to dissolve into a coughing fit. Yep, Edison was just the kind of guy to be skulking in the shadows.
    Standing one step up the Attesa stairs, I was almost tall enough to be on eye level with him. It should have made me feel more confident, but it didn’t. Edison kept on looking down at me, way too intently. His green eyes seemed to pop like fireflies in the darkness—his all-black getup making the rest of his tall, thin body blend in with the darkness. I stared back, trying not to let on he was scaring me. God, would he just say something?
    “All that stuff about the Rules? It’s BS,” he said, finally releasing me from his gaze and taking another deep drag. Edison’s breath must really reek. Kissing him would be horrible. Like licking a stale, ghostly ashtray.
    Not that kissing him was something I was thinking about. At all.
    “They were made up by the Goody Two-Shoes who was here before that one.” He pointed his thumb at the door to HHQ. His mouth rose into a grin, one that made me want to run and find my mom. “The Rules are only there to keep newbies under control. To make sure you don’t do too much thinking for yourself. Or draw attention to us.”
    What? I was sure Nancy wouldn’t— couldn’t —lie. She was too logical for that. Even with Tess around.
    “So here’s the news flash, angel.” He leaned in and whispered in my ear; his lips in danger of grazing my skin, “you’ve got nothing to lose by breaking them. And a whole lot more to gain—some of it seriously fun.” Edison leaned back and raised an eyebrow. “When you want to know what you’re really capable of now, you come find me,” he said. “Or maybe I’ll come find you …”
    He turned and walked back into the darkness. Leaving a small plume of smoke behind him. And me