Chapter 6: Terms of Refusal

Callum caught Mrs. Leung under the arms before her head struck the stair rail.

Her body weighed almost nothing against him. That frightened him more than the fall.

"Chair," he said.

Winnie dragged one from beside the folding table. Jo swept a stack of folders off the seat and helped him lower Mrs. Leung into it.

The old woman's hand remained closed around the brass key.

Callum pressed two fingers to her wrist. Her pulse stumbled, recovered, then stumbled again. The tips of her fingers had turned gray under the nails. When he touched the back of her hand, it felt colder than the fog.

His own heart supplied its delayed second beat, thorough and unhelpful.

"Call an ambulance," he said.

Jo already had her phone out.

The Ashby Merritt employees backed toward the building entrance. Winnie planted herself between them and the door.

"You can wait," she said.

"We have other deliveries," the woman in the green vest replied.

"You have this one."

Callum crouched at Mrs. Leung's feet. He eased down the sock on her right ankle.

The branching vein had spread above the ankle bone. It divided under the skin in narrow black lines, too regular for bruising and too crooked for any vein he knew. Each pulse pushed it another fraction upward.

He had seen that mark before.

The morgue photographs had shown Declan's left foot turned outward on the steel table. A dark branch crossed his ankle under the identification band. The medical examiner had called it dependent discoloration, then used the word anomalous twice while explaining why a twenty-six-year-old man had died of exposure in July.

Declan's hands had been cold. His lips had been pale. There had been too little blood in him and no wound large enough to account for it.

Callum had filed each fact under impossible and kept moving.

Mrs. Leung looked down at him. "Why are you holding my foot?"

"I'm checking your circulation."

"My circulation knows where it is."

Jo knelt beside the chair. "Mrs. Leung, what's your grandson's name?"

The old woman clutched the purple jacket to her chest.

"I know."

"I know you do."

"He likes the crackers with the red box."

"What's his name?"

Mrs. Leung's mouth worked. Fear gathered in the creases around it.

The ghost stood across from Callum. Daylight showed the stairs through the lower half of her skirt, but her face had acquired sharp color from his heat.

"Do something," he said.

Her attention dropped to the key.

Callum pried Mrs. Leung's fingers open. She resisted weakly.

"I need this."

"It's mine."

"Only for a minute."

He took it.

The green plastic tag slapped against his palm. ASHBY MERRITT had been printed under the tree in small white letters. The key itself was newly cut, its teeth bright.

The root under Mrs. Leung's skin kept climbing.

Callum set the key on the pavement.

Nothing changed.

"All right," he said. "Taking it away isn't enough."

The ghost watched him.

"What closes it?"

She opened her mouth and shut it again, one hand flying to her ribs. The root bruises under Callum's shirt clenched in answer.

"Tell me."

She straightened by degrees, and said nothing.

Jo glanced over from Mrs. Leung. "What did you do to her?"

"I asked a question."

"Try one that doesn't hurt."

"I didn't know it would."

"Start learning faster."

Jo turned back to the old woman and spoke into the phone, giving the dispatcher the address and symptoms. She did not ask Callum's permission before reporting the strange discoloration at the ankle.

She raised one hand between them and closed her fingers around an object that was not there, as if taking it from her own palm.

"She accepted the key," Callum said.

She pointed at him.

"I know that part."

She held out her empty palm again. This time her other hand pushed the offer aside.

Callum looked at the key on the pavement.

"Refusal."

Her shoulders eased.

"She has to refuse it?"

She flinched. The rule would not pass her lips.

Instead, she turned both palms toward Mrs. Leung.

Callum picked up the key and held it near the old woman's knee. "Mrs. Leung, you need to say you don't want this."

She reached for it.

He drew his hand back.

Jo caught his wrist. "Stop."

"The key is draining her."

"And she's confused. You're waving it in front of her and telling her what to say."

Jo took the key from him. She set it on the ground, beyond Mrs. Leung's reach, then placed both hands over the woman's chilled fingers.

"Mrs. Leung, listen to me. This key came with papers asking you to leave your home. Do you want it?"

Mrs. Leung looked toward the Ashby Merritt employees.

The man with the lockbox said, "It's only a replacement."

Jo rounded on him. "You speak again and I'll staple your business card to the emergency petition."

He shut his mouth.

Jo faced Mrs. Leung and asked the question again in Cantonese.

Callum understood none of the words. He understood the change in Mrs. Leung's face. The frightened uncertainty gave way to offense.

She answered Jo in a thin voice.

Jo asked another question. Mrs. Leung's reply came louder.

"What did she say?" Callum asked.

"She asked whether they think she is stupid."

"Promising."

Mrs. Leung leaned forward. Jo supported her shoulders while Winnie steadied the chair.

The old woman pointed at the key and spoke directly to the employees.

"我唔要㗎。你攞返去啦。"

The thread under her heel jerked.

Mrs. Leung reached down, caught the green tag, and threw the key toward the lockbox. It struck the pavement short of the man's shoes.

"I don't want your key," she said in English. "You take it back."

The black branch at her ankle contracted.

It did not vanish cleanly. Each narrow line pulled downward, dragging a ridge under the skin. Mrs. Leung cried out and seized Jo's arm. Jo held on while Winnie braced both hands around the woman's calf.

"Stay with me," Jo said. "The ambulance is coming."

The mark withdrew another inch.

Mrs. Leung's foot convulsed. Her shoe scraped against the pavement, and the last dark thread snapped down through the shoe.

Color returned slowly to her toes and fingertips. Her next breath did not cloud the air.

Jo asked the grandson's name again.

Mrs. Leung answered in Cantonese before the question was finished.

Jo closed her eyes once. When she opened them, she looked ready to dismantle Ashby Merritt with office supplies.

"She knows him," she said.

Mrs. Leung pulled the purple jacket across her lap. She found a crushed packet of crackers in one pocket and scowled at it.

"He will complain about this," she said.

Winnie's grip loosened around her ankle. "Then he's definitely your grandson."

The old woman gave her a wounded glare.

The paramedic siren sounded on Stockton Street.

Callum rose. His knees objected, and the building tilted before correcting itself. She had moved closer during the rescue, and his warmth gave her hands the color Mrs. Leung's had lost.

"You knew," he said.

"Yes."

"Because you've seen this before."

She looked at the discarded key. "Frequently."

"Who taught you how to stop it?"

The question hurt her. A shadow moved under the skin at her throat.

Callum changed course.

"You couldn't take the key before she accepted it."

"No."

"After she accepted, taking it away didn't close the path."

"No."

"Her refusal did."

The ghost looked toward Mrs. Leung. "She closed it."

Jo heard that. "Yes, she did."

Callum rubbed his thumb over the root bruises under his shirt and turned toward the folding table.

White welcome packets covered half its surface. Each had an apartment number printed in the upper corner. Brass keys lay on top of several, their green tags aligned with bureaucratic care.

"How many of these have you delivered?" he asked.

The employee in the vest folded her arms. "We're scheduled to visit every unit between eight and ten."

Jo stood.

"No one accepts another packet," she told the gathered tenants. "No keys, no checks, no gift cards, no document anyone calls complimentary."

"They're required for building access," the employee said.

"The existing keys work."

"Some residents requested replacements."

"Then you can put that representation in writing."

Jo pointed to the cook in checked trousers. "Mr. Ho, take the third floor. Tell everyone not to sign or accept anything."

He nodded and headed upstairs.

"Winnie, can you call Mrs. Ng and the Szes?"

Winnie had already taken out her phone. "Calling."

The man in slippers picked up the recycling bag he had abandoned earlier. "I can do fourth floor."

Jo handed him two clinic flyers. "Knock first. Don't take anything from management while you're up there."

The tenants moved without waiting for Callum to explain what he had seen. Cantonese traveled up the stairwell ahead of them. Winnie drew a thick red line across one packet and wrote REFUSED above it, then added Chinese characters beneath.

The Ashby Merritt woman reached for the stack.

Jo put her hand on it first.

"These stay until I photograph them."

"They're company property."

"Excellent. You admit the tenants haven't accepted them."

The woman withdrew her hand.

Callum looked at the ghost.

She stood apart from the living cluster, almost transparent again. No one thanked her. Most could not have seen what she had done, or what she had been unable to say.

Mrs. Leung had saved herself. Jo had given her words Callum did not possess. Winnie and the tenants were already closing doors throughout the building.

"You saved her," he said.

The ghost glanced at Jo. "Mrs. Leung refused. Ms. Lau made certain it was her choice."

"You helped."

"Your powers of observation may yet justify the van."

The paramedics came around the corner with their bags. Jo rose to meet them, taking command of the account before anyone from Ashby Merritt could revise it.

Callum stayed beside the table.

Keys and relocation packets had gone to every unit. Buyout checks would follow. So would gift cards, access codes, drinks at previews, anything that could be placed in an open hand with a concealed debt attached.

He pictured Declan's ankle on the morgue table.

Callum had mistaken sabotage for malice. The ghost must have spent years breaking glasses, spoiling drinks, frightening hands away from keys. When that failed, she had needed the living to refuse her.

He looked from the stack of white packets to her.

"How many people?"

She took him in through the morning fog. "Your profession does love an inventory."

"How long have you been doing this?"

"Long enough to resent your late arrival."

Banter, then. He could work with banter.

"What do you need?"

Her attention sharpened.

Callum nodded toward the packets. "If you want my help, tell me what you can."

The ghost looked him over as if assessing a damaged building for continued occupancy.

"That," she said, "sounds almost like an offer."