Spooked. Part 16

"Just wondering if you want to come play hide and seek with me and my dad."

She looked behind her toward her street, deciding. Finally, she turned back to Eddie and shrugged, grinning. "Sure."

That grin always took his breath away. "Okay."

He turned to tell his dad but his dad was already out of the car, coming toward them.

"Hey Emma. How are you doing?" His dad's deep voice had taken on a soft quality.

This bothered Eddie because he only heard his dad use that tone with little girls, and he knew that it was not really him. He wondered why he did that. Did he think girls were scared of him?

Did he think they should be?

His dad took off running into the woods. "Last one in is it!"

Eddie and Emma looked at each other and laughed. They both took off into the woods. Emma was faster, because she was taller, and she called over her shoulder to him, "Come on, slowpoke!" A string of giggles floated behind her toward him.

His dad and Emma stood at a large tree, his father leaning on it with one large hand. "Looks like you're it, Eddie."

Eddie shrugged. "Okay."

"Okay, you count to one hundred and Emma and I will hide." His father looked down at Emma, smiling, his eyes almost glowing. "I know a really good place to hide, Emma. He won't ever find us."

Emma gave Eddie's dad a huge smile. The one that showed the slightly crooked top tooth.

Eddie turned and leaned against the tree, his forehead resting on his arm as he began counting.

He heard leaves crunching as footsteps ran away from him.

And his father had been right. He had never found Emma.

He searched for what seemed like forever in the woods. He thought he heard Emma cry out. A short, harsh cry. But then he heard nothing. Must've been a bird.

Finally, after what seemed like a long time, his father came walking over a hill that Eddie had never thought to go down. It was dark down at the bottom-lots of bushes and some fallen old logs-and for some reason that spot scared him.

His dad lifted his hands and told him that she'd taken off home. That she'd come down with a stomachache and that she'd wanted to go home.

"Why didn't we give her a ride home?" Eddie said, alarm growing in him with every lie his father told him.

And he had known they were lies. Something bad had happened to Emma.

"She thought the car ride might make her throw up, pal. She wanted to walk."

Eddie was hoping they'd pa.s.s by Emma on her walk home.

But he knew they wouldn't.

"Listen, buddy. Don't tell anyone that we played hide and seek with Emma, okay? Don't tell anyone we even saw her."

"Why not?"

"Because you'll get her into trouble. She wasn't supposed to play with us. She told me before she left. She was supposed to go straight home. She said her dad would take his belt to her if he found out. Okay?"

Eddie looked at his dad, his eyes feeling huge. "Okay."

He wanted to talk to Emma. Wanted to make sure she was okay.

"You'll see her tomorrow, pal," his dad said.

"Daddy, you're not going to spank me, are you?"

"No, buddy. Why would you think that?"

"'Cuz your belt is unbuckled."

"Oh, thanks, buddy." His dad quickly buckled his belt. "Had to pee back there before I came and found you." He winked at Eddie and ruffled his hair.

Eddie stared at his father's hands as they gripped the steering wheel. b.l.o.o.d.y scratches snaked down both hands.

Eddie's father caught him staring. "Oh, these? I fell in the bushes, pal. That's all. They're nothing. They'll heal."

Eddie nodded, saying nothing. Another lie.

A certainty grew in his mind then. He knew without a doubt that he'd never see Emma again. And he never had.

And he'd never told a living soul what had happened that day. Even when search parties went looking for Emma, and her smiling face was on the evening news. He never told.

I didn't think about whether taking his secret from him was the right or smart thing to do. I just did it. I inhaled deeply, watching as the dark substance twirled through the ma.s.s of fog, swirling and intertwining with it, and finally moving toward me. I inhaled deeply, tasting an oily sensation moving over my tongue and into my nose. I tried not to gag on the slimy stuff as it moved into me.

Finally, it was done. My breath left me, the weight of the secret leaving me weak. I fell forward onto my hands and knees, and took several breaths to steady myself. I opened my eyes and stood. Mr. Tanner, looking toward the woods, had an expression of bewilderment on his face. Without the poison of his secret eroding him from the inside out, he seemed more youthful. He stood taller, the weight of the secret no longer pushing him down.

I felt Edward Tanner's intention to go to the police about what had happened to Emma. His dead father's secret, and the guilt he felt for being an unwitting accomplice in her murder, no longer bound him to silence.

Thank you. Emma's whisper floated up around me.

I felt exhausted, but I forced myself to turn my attention away from Mr. Tanner, and send out my mental tendrils again.

My breath caught in my throat as I caught the image of my face in the thoughts of one mind. I could sense sadness, fear, and a thin, fading thread of hope among the group. But my face and name stood out strongly in the thoughts of one person. Someone male. I scanned the crowd from my vantage point in the woods, looking through slight openings in the mist, and my gaze fell on Cole Nichols. I reached out to his mind, gently touching, and saw my face in a photograph next to the photos of Eliza, Kerry, and Brianna. Someone had placed it there while I was stealing Mr. Tanner's secret, and I hadn't noticed.

Shock hit me. This vigil was also for me.

I watched Cole's face: his brows furrowed, his eyes narrowed, and his jaw set in anger.

Where are you? He stared at my school picture, as if my image could answer him.

My heart fluttered in my chest, and I moved back from his thoughts.

Of course. They thought I'd been taken, just like the other missing girls. I'd been grouped with those girls, and the collective hope from those at the vigil was that we'd all come back alive.

But no one really believed that any of us, the vanished girls, would come back. They all believed that if they found us at all, they would find our bodies.

I felt unworthy of Cole's focused attention.

But I was now one of the lost.

We went back to Mick's house-Fiona, Mick, and me. His dad still wasn't there, and there was no immediate plan for him to come home. Mick was used to this, and if it upset him, he didn't let on. I was guessing that with everything going on, he was glad his father wasn't around. It would most likely throw a wrench into Mick's offer to Fiona and me to stay at his house.

"I'm sorry I couldn't find out more," I said. We sat in front of a gas fireplace in his living room, and I took in the heat, letting it seep into me and warm me. I had been feeling so cold, especially with Fiona's friends in the mist having been wrapped around me for so long. The stuff you hear about cold spots? It's true. The air a ghost occupies is cold. Even more so when several of them are surrounding you.

"It's okay," Fiona said. "We'll try again. You're tired."

I nodded, feeling the weariness deep in my bones. "I am."

"Why don't you go lie down? You can use my room," Mick said.

Some shut-eye would be welcome. I was so foggy-brained that I could barely think. "Maybe."

"Come on," Mick said. "I'll take you."

I let him lead me down the stairs to what looked like it might have been a recreational room at one point, but had been converted to Mick's room. He had his own bathroom and entrance. Gla.s.s doors led out into the large backyard.

I stood, arms wrapped around myself, and stared out into the blackness. Mick's hand moved over my back, caressing, trying to comfort me.

"It'll be okay," he said, his voice low.

"How can it be? We can't trust a single person outside this house, Mick." I turned and looked at his face in the murky light of the room. "What are we going to do?"

He shook his head, his hand now gently moving up and down my arm. "I don't know, but we'll figure something out."

Weariness made me feel hopeless, and I swallowed the lump forming in my throat. "It's like this town has had so many dark secrets for so long, that it can't hold any more. Like it's...gone bad. Or something."

Mick nodded. "Yeah. It's as good a theory as any. Get some sleep. Then you'll be ready to kick some a.s.s."

I smiled weakly, tiredness hanging over me, making my muscles impossibly heavy. "Right."

"Come on. I'll tuck you in."

He led me to his bed and I sat heavily on it, wanting only to fall backward and sink into softness. I waited patiently until he'd taken my sneakers off and lifted my legs onto the mattress. I lay on top of the bedspread.

Mick seemed to sense that I was too exhausted to even move to get under the blanket, so he left me as I was and covered me with a quilt that had been folded at the foot of the bed.

I wanted to thank him, but my eyes were closed now, and a thick, uncompromising sleep pulled me under and away from him before my lips parted to say the words.

Daylight filtered through my eyelids, making them appear a strange, burnt orange that reminded me of sunsets. I was aware right away that things were very wrong. The merciful few seconds between sleep and waking where I could believe everything was fine and that Delia was downstairs making m.u.f.fins or pancakes or one of her killer cheese omelets were missing.

My stomach growled as I stretched. I was ravenously hungry. I'd definitely have to find some food. I squeezed my eyes shut for a moment, trying to wake a little more, and then swung my legs over the bed and stretched again. Sleep had done me good. Most of my body aches were gone and I felt stronger.

I thought about Delia and wondered what the spook had done with her. What happened when it had finished with her? Would it go back to h.e.l.l or would it find somebody else to possess? What if shadow spooks began to take more people in the town? Then the next town and the next? What the h.e.l.l would we do then? Where would we go? I had to find Strummer and somehow persuade him to send this one back, and hoped he had enough control over it that it would oblige.

I found the small bathroom and emptied my bursting bladder. The decor was distinctly feminine, with pink and gray walls, and three incredibly dusty votive candles on the back of the toilet. This was only a half bath, but I could feel Mick's mother's influence strongly. I thought it strange that after so many years neither Mick nor his father had changed a thing in here.

Washing my hands, I glanced up at my reflection and blinked. I'd lost weight in the last little while. My cheeks were slightly sunken and my green eyes seemed huge under my dark fringe of bangs. My face had definitely taken on a haunted look.

I splashed water on my cheeks and thought of the missing girls.

Where are you? I asked them. Please help me find you.

I toweled my face with a hand towel that smelled of mildew. It had obviously been a while since anyone had washed it. I figured that under the weight of crushing grief, everyday things like washing a hand towel just seemed unimportant. But there was a roll of paper towels sitting on a ledge near the sink, and crumpled paper towels in the little trashcan near the toilet.

Perhaps Mick's mother's hands were the last to place it, clean and fresh, on its rack, and he couldn't bear to wash it yet.

Making my way upstairs, I felt my stomach complain. The sound of paper crinkling gave me hope.

"She lives," Mick said, smiling. He sat on the couch, leaning over a breakfast sandwich and a foam cup in front of him. Fiona sat on the floor with her own foam cup in front of her and a bagel between her teeth.

A box of doughnuts was on one end of the table, and two extra cups; I hoped one was for me.

Mick motioned to the box of doughnuts. "There's another breakfast sandwich in that bag right there, and this is coffee. That one there is hot chocolate. I wasn't sure what you'd feel like."

"Oh, you are the absolute one, Mick."

He grinned. "I have my moments."

I chose a breakfast sandwich and almost swooned when I bit into sausage and egg. "Mmmmm."

"They are good, aren't they?" Mick asked.

I looked at Fiona, who watched us both, a ghost of a smile on her face. "You guys are so cute."

"Well thanks, Fiona. You're cute, too," Mick said.

But I could see that his face had flushed, and I knew mine had, too, because I felt the heat of it on my cheeks.

We ate in silence for a while, enjoying the simple joy of eating and drinking a hot, comforting drink. When we had each had our fill, there seemed to be a collective, silent acknowledgement that we had to get our a.s.ses in gear.

"Have you guys checked out the news lately?" I asked them, sipping on my hot chocolate.

Fiona shook her head. "I'm afraid to."

"Yeah. Me, too," Mick said.

"I know," I said around a mouthful of breakfast sandwich. "But shouldn't we at least figure out whether this weird s.h.i.t is going on anywhere else?"

"It's a freaky world, Lorelei," Mick said. "There's always weird s.h.i.t going on, everywhere."