“Can you tell who hurt him?” Ten crossed his fingers that Everly would be able to figure it out.
“I’ll try to ask him.” Everly shut her eyes. Her right hand hovered over the friendship bracelet, slightly shaking. “Hi, Bash!”
The teenager appeared, standing beside Everly. “This is my Daddy Ten. You met him today.”
“It’s good to see you, Tennyson.” Bash offered a smile. “Say hello to Ronan. He can’t see me.”
“Bash says hi, Dad.” Everly smiled at Ronan.
“Hey, Bash. I’m glad you’re here. Your father is convinced that your death wasn’t an accident, that someone hurt you on purpose. My partners and I have taken on your case, and we want to do everything we can to get to the bottom of what happened to you that night at the frat party.” Ronan’s eyes were on Everly.
“Simon and the others were supposed to announce which of the pledges would be asked to join the fraternity. Mandy told me that I wouldn’t be one of the ones accepted because I’d broken a rule.”
“What rule?” Ten asked after telling Ronan what Bash had said.
Bash shifted his eyes to Everly and blushed. “I’m not sure I can say it in front of your daughter.”
“It’s okay, Bash,” Everly assured him. “I help my daddies out with their cases all the time. I’m tiny but mighty.” She flexed her muscles to prove her point.
“Well, I slept with Mandy. She was Simon’s girlfriend, and he made her come on to the pledges to see if they would take her up on her offer. Me, being the naïve kid I was, went for it. I assumed if she was trying to get it on with me that her relationship with Simon must have been over.” Bash shook his head. “She’d told me the news as I was snapping selfies of us together.” Guilt was written all over his face. Ten couldn’t tell if it had to do with having sex with Mandy, telling Everly, or both. “I should have left right then and there. To be honest, all of the guys in the frat were jerks. I wouldn’t have wanted any of them to be my friends, but Dad was a member of Theta Phi. He always talked about how special his relationship was with his brothers. I wanted to have that same kind of friend circle and, more than that, wanted him to be proud of me for making it into a frat. You must think that’s pretty stupid, huh?”
“Not at all,” Ten assured the young spirit. “Friends are what make our world go round. Ronan’s detective partner, Jude, lives across the street. My partner, Carson, lives next door. Fitzgibbon is down the block, and so is my mother. I understand exactly what you were looking for.” Ten bit his lower lip for a second. “I hate to ask, but what made you stay that night?”
“Mandy said I’d have a second chance to get into Sigma Chi. I believed her.”
“Was there a second chance?” Everly asked.
Bash nodded. “At ten that night, Simon announced the pledges who’d made it. He said that there was one final test for me to go through if I wanted to be admitted. I could have walked away, then and there. My heart was broken from Mandy’s betrayal,and the last thing I wanted was to have to watch her with Simon when I wanted her to be with me, but I still had my pride, so I agreed to go along with Simon’s last test.”
“What happened?” Ronan asked after Ten filled him in on what Bash had said.
“Simon said I had to come up to his room for a private challenge. I’d worked too long and hard to get into Sigma Chi to lose out at the last second, so I followed him up to his room, where he told me to lay face down on the bed. I still had my clothes on, so I didn’t worry about him messing with me. He was dating Mandy, so I went along with it. I don’t know what I expected to happen, but Simon sitting on my back, pulling my arms behind me, and pressing my face into the mattress wasn’t it. I bucked against him, trying to get him off of me, and it worked. He got off my back. What I didn’t know at the time was that Mandy had come into the room. Simon told her to repeat what he’d just done. She refused, and he told her that she’d be next if she didn’t do what he said. I should have gotten up and run out of there, but I didn’t. I knew how light she was and that there was no way she could hurt me. So I went along with it. Seconds later, Simon climbed on my back, adding his weight and pushing my face into the bed.”
Ten watched as a lone tear trickled down Bash’s face. Everly reached out for the spirit’s hand.
“I tried to get them off me. It didn’t work. Finally, I stopped struggling. When I did, Mandy got off me and welcomed me into the frat. I didn’t realize I was dead until Simon started shouting my name. I kept telling them I was right there, but then I turned back to the bed and saw my body still lying face down on the mattress. Simon laughed like a loon and said, ‘Shouldn’t have effed my girlfriend, asshole.’”
“Jesus, he was murdered,” Ten said to Ronan before explaining what had happened.
“How did you get into the basement?” Ronan asked with obvious shock in his voice.
“Simon grabbed some of the guys. They carried me down the stairs and arranged me to look like I’d fallen. They left me there for the rest of the night. I stayed with my body until the police and the ambulance came the next morning. The last thing I remember was seeing my parents with one of the police officers. I could hear my mother screaming. I’d never heard a sound like that before.”
“Your mom is looking for you, Bash.” Everly gave his hand a squeeze. “She loves you very much and just wants to find you.”
“How did she die?” Bash’s voice was barely above a whisper.
Ten could tell the spirit was worried that he’d been the cause of his mother’s death, further decimating his small family. “She had a fast-growing breast cancer.”
Bash’s devastated look turned to relief. “What happens now?”
“Ronan, Jude, Captain Fitzgibbon, and myself have a meeting with Simon tomorrow. We’ll use what you told us to try to get him to confess to your murder. I imagine the next step after that is to find Mandy and arrest her as well and then the guys who carried you to the basement. They were accessories after the fact. When all of that is finished, we’ll go see your father.”
“Will I be able to speak to him?” Bash asked.
“You will. I’ll bring along a friend of mine, who can help you materialize and give you time to say what you like to your father.”
“Is that friend Bertha?” Bash asked with a grin.
