Was he breaking into a home while here? I’d have to find out.

“Okay, pumpkin,” I said, lifting her into my arms with a groan. The departed were also heavy. How a person who walked through walls could be that heavy was beyond me. “Why don’t you take me to him?”

She pointed again, and Jessica and I followed her lead. We came to a swinging door to the kitchen.

I flattened against the wall. “Is he in there now?” I whispered to Strawberry.

She stopped chewing the Barbie’s little plastic head and shrugged, her lashes round with concern. This guy really scared her.

I turned to Jessica. “Go in there and see if the coast is clear.”

“What?” she screeched. “Me? Why me? You go in there and see if the coast is clear.”

I let out a loud sigh. “Jessica, you’re departed now. He won’t see you. You can stick your head through this wall, and no one will be the wiser.”

“Screw that.” She set her jaw and turned away from me.

Wonderful.

“Fine,” I whispered. “You can keep watch out here. Just warn me if anyone comes, capisce?”

Honestly, what was the good of having departed ex-friends if they refused to spy when I needed it most? I leaned forward and tried to peek in through the round window on the door, but years of grime and a huge face with a sheepish smile kept me from looking very far.

“Rocket,” I whispered, and then in a soft hiss, “is there a man in there?”

He continued to smile and I thought for a moment he didn’t understand, but he turned and looked over his shoulder at last. He faced me again and shook his head, the smile still shaping his pudgy features framed by a bald head. A little like Malibu Barbie’s.

I hefted Strawberry closer and pushed into the kitchen. “Hey, Rocket Man,” I said, using my free arm to give him a hug.

“Miss Charlotte, you’re not dead yet.”

“I’m aware of that, thank you. Have you seen the man who has been coming here?”

He nodded and pointed to the “cold room,” literally an old walk-in freezer. Strawberry’s description of it being a cold room must have come from Rocket, who’d lived – and died – here in the ’50s, because now it was just as warm as the rest of the place.

I plopped Strawberry onto an aluminum counter and eased up to the darkened room, keeping my flashlight front and center. Jessica, completely ignoring my orders to stand guard, was right behind me, clinging to my sweater as we inched our way to the half-open unit. One quick sweep told me it wasn’t occupied, but it had been recently. More than one McDonald’s bag littered the area where someone had been sleeping. The stench of old cigarettes clung to the air as a makeshift ashtray overflowed with butts. Blankets and a dingy pillow lay on one side of the unit, while other homey items like a lantern and a couple of  p**n  magazines sat beside them. I could only hope Blue Bell and Strawberry hadn’t seen the skin mags. Or him while he read them. No telling what a UV flashlight would pick up.

“I have a couple of names for you,” I said while studying the area. It didn’t really look like your everyday, garden-variety homeless lair. There were no clothes. No supplies like normal homeless people had. No blankets or cans of food like my friend Mary had in her shopping cart.

I did a quick check on Strawberry. She sat chewing on Barbie’s head, scanning the area with a worried expression. Why she would be afraid of a human was beyond me. If that’s what she was afraid of.

“You feel different, Miss Charlotte.”

I looked at Rocket from over my shoulder. “How so?”

“There’s more of you in there now.” He was staring at my stomach.

After a soft laugh, I said, “Yes, there is.” I was amazed he’d picked up on that. The bun was so brand-new. I’d conceived only a couple of weeks earlier. Hadn’t even had a pregnancy test yet, but I felt her warmth from the moment her journey began. Still, how Rocket felt her, I’d never know. She wasn’t even the size of a black-eyed pea yet. Maybe that’s what I’d call her: Black-Eyed Pea. B-E-P. I could call her Beep for short.

“How did that happen?” he asked, regarding me as though I’d grown another head.

I was so not going there. He’d lived without the facts of  life thus far – so to speak – he could live without knowing about the birds and the bees a little longer. I sorted through a pile of trash in one corner, lifting items between my thumb and index finger as though they’d bite me, hoping to find a name or other identifying information, but all I found were old McDonald’s receipts, tissues, and cigarette butts. “Are you ready for the names?”

He leaned over me to study my every move. “Ready, set, go.”

“Okay. Fabiana Marie Luna. Born in Belen.”

He straightened and lowered his lids, his lashes fluttering as he searched his files, and I wondered what it would be like to have all those names, billions and billions of names, floating around in my head. I could barely remember my sister’s name at times.

He bounced back to me and refocused. “Dead.”

“Damn,” I said, stepping to a piece of paper I’d seen wedged between the wood slats in the floor.

“No breaking rules, Miss Charlotte.”

“Sorry, Rocket Man,” I said, lifting the paper out of the crack. Cursing was breaking the rules, and Rocket was all about rules. “How about Anna Michelle Gallegos.”