Keep the Ghost

26. What I haven't done

We sit around the last embers of Mr. Banks' fire, in leather recliners that smell like a new wallet. Morgan drank several more glasses of scotch, and I didn't. Jack left in a fury, hours ago.

"I don't get it," I say. "What am I expected to do?"

Morgan takes a sip from her glass. "When you get life insurance, a company pays money to your wife or kids in case you die—so they don't starve without you. I'm going to pretend to be Ronald Silver's daughter, and collect after Jack makes it look like he died. Assuming we survive, later on, you'll pretend to be the son of whoever I pretend to kill next."

"I get that," I say. "But who is Ronald Silver in the first place? Don't people get suspicious when someone who looks like Jack pretends to kill himself over and over again?"

"Saying we kill ourselves is not really accurate. I killed myself, like you, to start a new life. Once, to emancipate myself. But our scam, our art, is to create a fake life, and then end that one. Ronald Silver never existed, and never will. Let me ask you—if you found a boat, belonging to a man, upturned on a beach somewhere—wouldn't you wonder if the boat's owner was missing? And then his children, who perhaps look an awful lot like Jack and I, insist the boat's owner took the boat out just two days ago. And we take you to his home, filled with trinkets and photographs of a man no one has ever seen in person, but who seems to be completely real. We convince the authorities—after we lay down some bribes to keep anyone looking too hard—that someone who never lived, has died. This is our craft, and you'll be learning it."

"And the thing about not drowning?"

"Drowning is the easiest way to do it. There's always the problem of coming up with a body, so it's best to create a situation where the body may not be found."

"And what will it take to make Ronald Silver seem real?"

"Surprisingly little. Now, let's celebrate," Morgan tells me.

"What are we celebrating?"

"New house, new city. Have you seen the backyard?"

I shake my head 'no.'

"Come on, then," Morgan says, rising from the recliner, glass of scotch in one hand. I follow her across the kitchen, where she snatches the bottle of liquor. We exit through a wooden door paneled with frosted glass, and are met by a warm Florida night.

The backyard seems like the sort of painting Mrs. McPherson would pick lovingly out of a garage sale while Kayla and I gagged from out of eyesight. Too cliché, too Americana. A wooden gazebo perches on a green mound, and behind that, a white picket fence. A small red shed made to look like the classic American barn fills one corner.

In front of all this lays a swimming pool that glows neon blue against the dark of the evening. Underwater lights give it an unearthly aura, radiance made to bend and dance in the fluid.

Morgan takes a seat on a nearby deck chair, inches from the edge of the water, and slips off her black flats. Pale feet extend from blue jeans and reflect the liquid light, toenails flawless, painted a wet, deep red.

I sit in the chair next to her, reclining back and staring up at a starless night sky. I don't know what to say, and so say nothing.

"Don't be a buzzkill," she complains after a moment.

"What did I say?"

"You didn't say anything. You never say anything." There's another pause, where I continue to 'never say anything.' Morgan continues: "How about we go out, tomorrow? Do whatever you want, whatever you can think up. I'll pay for it all."