“There’s a moment when everything goes quiet. The waves, the wind, the sky. You learn to watch for it—the calm before the storm.” Theo turns to face me. “Things are coming to a head. It will stop, Lexi.”
“When?”
Theo gives me a wry smile. “After the storm hits.”
The protection spell is patched up, but too many faces are grim, too many people checking over their shoulders. Fear is an oily residue on my skin, sinking into my pores. If we can’t trust the people in this club, we can’t trust anyone. Is it you? The question is on my lips for every face that passes.
I work my shift like an automaton, going through the motions of pouring and swiping, my brain in another place entirely. The apartment is dark when I get home, carrying my paper bag under one arm. I flick on the lamp by my bed, but it barely makes a difference, the light muted and dull.
“What makes someone stay on this side?”
I jump and the bag falls to the floor; Jane’s voice came out of the dim corner of the room.
“Jesus,” I mutter. “When did you get back?”
“When I realized Veronica’s ghost wasn’t going to show up and I got tired of yelling. Answer the question.”
I can see her now, her outline pale and almost glowing. She looks like a cliché of a ghost in this light, floating and insubstantial.
“It’s different for each ghost,” I say, rubbing my eyes. “For the murdered, your energy carries over after you die. At least, that’s how it’s supposed to work. But Marcus’s ghost never appeared. Maybe Veronica’s won’t, either.”
Nothing about these deaths makes any sense. Jane’s lost control of her form again, the blood on her neck black in the gloom. I sink down along the wall until our knees are brushing. I’m still learning how to touch, learning this new language that has words I can’t translate.
“What are we supposed to do next?” she asks, light making her eyes shiny and flat. The skin beneath them looks so delicate, almost translucent, the veins showing through. I wonder if I lean closer if I could see what color they are.
“We keep going,” I say. “We don’t stop until it’s over.”
Jane nods slowly. “Okay.” She blinks, and seems to finally see me. “Lexi?”
“Yes?”
“What’s in the bag?” She nods at where it rests on the floor.
“Oh,” I say, suddenly feeling embarrassed. “I, uh, I got something for you.”
Jane turns so she can see my face. “Really? What is it?”
“It’s . . . well, it’s nothing.” It seems silly now, after everything, another clumsy attempt at comfort.
“Show me,” she says.
I reluctantly tug the bag to me and pull out its contents, spreading them on the floor: a blank sketchbook and two black pens.
“They’re cheap,” I say, not meeting her eyes. “Probably not what you’re used to. I don’t have much money. I’m sorry.”
She doesn’t say anything and the silence cuts into me until I finally can’t take it. I look up and find her staring at the pens, a sad, starved gleam in her eyes.
“Jane?”
“I can’t,” she says, her voice rigid. She clears her throat and tries again. “I can’t touch them, remember?”
“I know,” I say. “But I can. And you can touch me. I thought I could hold the pen and you could, sort of, direct my hand.”
“Like a Ouija board?”
“It’s stupid,” I say quickly. “Never mind. I shouldn’t have bought—”
“No,” Jane interrupts. “It’s not. It’s . . . can we try it?”
I nod, releasing a breath. “Yeah. Sure.”
I flip open the sketchbook, the paper creamy white and slightly rough under my fingertips. I grab both pens and hold them out for Jane to see.
“I don’t know much about drawing,” I say. “One’s thinner and one’s thicker. I can get different ones if you want.”
“This one’s perfect,” Jane says, pointing at the thinner one.
I pull off the cap and fold my legs up, sitting in front of the sketchbook. I position the pen in my hand and look at Jane expectantly.
“Go ahead,” I say.
She scoots closer and reaches for my hand, then pulls back, hesitating.
“What should I draw?” she asks, almost shyly.
“Anything you want,” I say.
“It might take a while.”
I shrug. “I have nowhere to be. Just ignore me and pretend I’m part of the pen.”
She reaches for me again and this time her hand curls around mine. I keep my hand loose, letting her direct the movement. She makes a few cautious strokes, but after a minute her lines become firmer, more defined. Slowly a face begins to take shape on the paper, eyes wide and lips pouting, and I recognize Trevor staring back at me.
“Lexi,” Jane says softly, shadowing Trevor’s hair with small crosshatching strokes. “Thank you for this.”
“You’re welcome,” I say.
Jane keeps drawing until the page is filled and I have to flip to a blank one. I sneak glances at her while she draws, lips pursed in concentration. Slowly her eyes go warm brown, the blood receding from her neck. The light bulb starts to glow hotter from her focus, casting shadows in the peaks and valleys of her cheekbones. She keeps drawing and it burns even brighter, until everything is light and warm, until it feels like every pocket of darkness has been chased away. I don’t move my hand away, even when my arm goes numb, even when my fingers cramp; I let her keep drawing, unwilling to be the first one to let go.
I don’t sleep well, my dreams full of red storms. I wake up sometime past dawn, cold and alone in my bed. I roll over, find myself reaching for something that’s not there. I try to fall back asleep, but the gray light steadily grows brighter and my limbs feel twitchy and hot.
I give up, kicking the blanket off me and throwing my feet to the ground.
“You’re awake,” Jane says, looking up at me with clear eyes. She’s sitting cross-legged on the floor, examining one of the sketches from last night.
“Unfortunately, yes,” I say, yawning.
“You don’t sleep much, do you?”
“Not always.” I shrug.
“I think this one could use more shading,” she says, looking down at the paper.
I flex the fingers on my right hand; they’re still a little sore.
“Okay,” I say.
“Not now,” she says quickly. “It’s Wednesday.”
I frown; I have to work again tonight. “What does that mean?”
“Macy will be at work after school. We need to talk to her next.”
“Right,” I say, nodding. “We’ve got a couple hours. Want to get something to eat?”
The diner around the corner is just opening when I walk up and the waitress gives me a tired nod and waves me inside.
“Anywhere you want,” she says, so I sit down at a booth with bright red upholstery and maps glued under the plastic tabletop. Jane sits across from me, sliding onto the seat with a small smile on her face.
“Something to drink?” the waitress asks.
“Coffee, please.”
“You can’t really talk to me,” Jane says as the waitress walks away. “She’ll think you’ve lost your mind.”
“Most likely,” I say softly. “But I have a plan.”
I take my phone out and hold it to my ear.
“So,” I say in a normal tone of voice. “How’s it going?”
Jane gives me a startled grin. “Oh, you know. Murdered, haunting some chick, looking for my killer, same old, same old.”
“Some chick?” I repeat. “This is how you refer to me?”
“Well, to be fair, I barely know you.”
The waitress brings me coffee with a bowl of creamer and puts a laminated menu down on the table.
“Thanks,” I say.
“See, now,” Jane says, pointing, “I don’t even know how you take your coffee.”
“Well, all tha
t’s about to change.”
I grab two sugar packets and dump in two creamers, turning the coffee almost blond.
“Okay, you like your coffee like a child does,” Jane says.
“How do you take it?”
“Black.”
“Oh, you mean bad and bitter.”
Jane laughs, and the sound rolls over my skin.
“Tell me something else about yourself,” she says.
I look down at the menu, my eyes skipping down to the cheapest option on the breakfast menu. “I don’t like runny yolks.”
“Not that,” she says. “Something real.”
“Like what?” I ask, meeting her eyes.
“Where did you grow up?”
“Here,” I say. “In a different crappy apartment.”
“Where are your parents?”
Icy fingers grip my heart, and I feel my throat close up. I take a long sip of coffee that sits on my tongue, turning bitter in my mouth.
“My mom died,” I say when I can talk again.
“Oh,” Jane says, her face going slack. “I’m so sorry, Lexi.”
“It was a long time ago,” I say, feeling a cry rattle in my chest. “And I never knew my dad. I think they were together for a couple months, but the only thing I know about him is he must have been tall.” Ivanoviches have pretty terrible track records when it comes to relationships, even the ones who can touch people.
“What about you?” I ask, desperate to stop trawling my memories.
“Well, you met my mom,” Jane says, shrugging. “Although she was better when my dad was around. They got divorced when I was eight and he moved to Toronto. He got remarried and had other kids, so . . . he doesn’t really keep in touch.”
“That’s shitty,” I tell her.
“Yeah,” she says. “Parents kind of suck sometimes, don’t they?”
“People,” I correct. “People kind of suck sometimes.”
“Okay, new topic,” Jane says, clearing her throat. “Umm, let’s see. Have you ever been in love?”
I almost spit out my coffee. “Me? No. God, no.”
I feel guilty as I say it, even though it’s the truth. I care about Phillip, but love is something else entirely. At least, I think it is.
“Me, neither,” Jane says. “That’s unfair. Everyone should get to be in love before they die.”
“Well, maybe you still can,” I say.
Shit, that was stupid. Why did I say that? Jane looks up at me askance and I rush to try and fix it.
“In quantum mechanics, objects exist in cloud of probability; they have a chance of existing at point a, a chance at point b, on and on and on. Maybe you still exist somewhere else, in a different form, in a different universe, and that you still has a chance to fall in love.”
Jane blinks at me and doesn’t say anything, and then the waitress is at my elbow.
“Have you decided?” she asks.
I glance down at the menu, feeling my face flush, the phone still glued to my ear. I order the pancakes because it’s the first thing I see and my brain doesn’t want to work anymore.
“I hate pancakes,” Jane says quietly as the waitress leaves.
“Really?” I say, and she gives me a wry smile. “Me, too.”
Cold Rose Creamery is in a small shopping center in Santa Monica, next to the kind of clothing store I know I can’t afford because there’s only a single rack of shirts inside. Jane and I wait in the car until the after-school rush has come and gone, the bell over the door finally silent.
It jangles once more as I enter the shop, the air-conditioning and the smell of vanilla hitting me at the same time. There’s a boy and girl behind the counter and one girl sitting at a table with a computer, all of them young and pretty in an indistinct way. There are so many people in this city, so many lovely girls with white teeth and fresh cheeks, so many beautiful boys with soft smiles and dimples. They blur together after a while, every face starting to look like the next. They never change, never get older, each face replaced with the newest crop of hopefuls that move here every year, an endless churning of the gorgeous and disposable.
“Delilah’s here, too,” Jane says, glancing at the girl with the computer, her hair a shiny, shellacked blond.
“Hi there,” says the girl behind the counter. She has a mass of curly black hair and freckles on her brown skin, a pink apron tied around her front. “What can I get for you?”
“That’s her,” Jane says sadly.
I clear my throat and take my hands out of my pockets. “You’re Macy, right?”
She blinks at me. “Yeah?”
“I need to talk to you. It’s about Jane.”
Her mouth goes slack for a moment, and then she’s coming out from behind the counter.
“Have you seen her? Did someone find her?”
The girl with the computer looks up, her eyes wide.
“No,” I say, before anyone gets too worked up. “But I’m helping her mom, trying to figure out what happened.”
“This is about Jane?” the blonde says, coming over.
“Brian, will you be okay if I take a break?” Macy asks the boy behind the counter with black hair and tattoos.
“Yeah, sure,” he says, giving me an appreciative look that I do not return.
“Here,” Macy says, pointing to a larger table by the window. I slide into a seat, Jane next to me, and the two girls sit across.
For a moment we just stare at one another; Macy looks tired, the skin under her eyes dark.
“This is Delilah,” she says, motioning to the blonde.
“I’m Lexi,” I say. “I . . . grew up with Jane.”
“She never mentioned you,” Delilah says, frowning, and I decide I don’t like her much.
“We weren’t close anymore,” I say.
Macy narrows her eyes at me. “Look, if you’re some kind of reporter just trying to get quotes—”
“No,” I say quickly. “I’m not, I swear.”
“Tell them I told you about spring break when we went camping,” Jane says.
“The last time I talked to her she said you guys went camping for spring break,” I say.
Macy’s face clears slightly. “Yeah. Damn, that was miserable.”
“Probably would have helped if we knew how to camp,” Delilah says.
Jane laughs, and for a second my heart hurts, because I’m not a part of this.
“Jane has the worst ideas,” Macy says, smiling. “Remember when she made us go rock climbing? Or when she tried to make macarons?”
Delilah mock shudders, but her laugh dies quickly. “God, she’s a terrible cook,” she says softly.
“You still ate them,” Jane says. “Even the burnt ones.”
“You were friends for a long time?” I ask, trying to bury my jealousy.
“Since freshman year,” Macy says. “Del and I have known each other forever, and then Jane popped up in our homeroom. The three of us just clicked. Sometimes you can tell about a person, you know?”
Delilah nods. “She just came over and started talking. She wasn’t shy, didn’t seem nervous about starting high school like the rest of us.”
“Yes, I was,” Jane says. “I just hid it better.”
“I only want to help,” I tell them. “That’s all. I’m worried about her. I know Isaac broke up with her that day.”
“Jerk,” Macy says angrily. “What kind of bullshit is that?”
“Whose idea was the club?” I ask.
“Mine,” Macy says.
I focus on her, wondering what’s hiding beneath the pretty exterior. “Why that club?” I ask sharply.
“She wanted to go dancing,” Macy says. “And they have a big floor.”
“You’ve been there before?”
Macy shrugs. “A couple times. They don’t card you, and the drinks are really good.”
I frown; was Jane being at the club just bad luck? Wrong place, wrong time? She has no magical ability, so why did someone pick h
er? There has to be something that connects the victims; it can’t just be random, can it?
“Did you see anything that night?” I ask, thoughts tumbling over in my head. “Anything suspicious when you left?”
“We were drinking,” Delilah says guiltily. “I got tired and I wanted to leave.”
“We both wanted to leave,” Macy says soothingly.
Delilah’s eyes grow wet, and her bottom lip wobbles. “Maybe if we’d just stayed—”
“Del, it’s okay,” Macy says. She rubs a hand over her face. “The police are looking for her, remember?”
“Yeah,” Delilah says, but her voice shakes.
Macy glances at me and then back to her friend. “Look, I need a smoke.”
Delilah wrinkles her nose. “Oh, Macy—”
“You don’t have to come,” she says. “Lexi will keep me company. Why don’t you go tell Brian to make you a milkshake.”
Delilah nods, and Macy gestures to me. “Come on.”
Jane and I follow her out onto the patio, a large umbrella blocking the worst of the sun.
“You want one?” Macy asks, holding out a crumpled pack of cigarettes.
I’ve only smoked once before, when Ilia practically dared me to. But something about the way she’s eyeing me makes me agree.
“Sure,” I say, and pull a cigarette from the pack.
“You don’t smoke,” Jane says, crossing her arms. She stands next to Macy, scowling at me. “You know how bad that is for you, right?”
I ignore her and let Macy hold her lighter to the tip of the cigarette. I breathe the smoke in, tar and heat and something bitter. It almost tastes the way death tastes.
“Thanks,” I say, letting smoke trickle out of my mouth. I feel light-headed, like I stood up too fast.
“No problem,” Macy says, lighting her own cigarette. “Sorry about Delilah. She’s not dealing with this well. I figure it’s kinder to lie to her.”
I go still, not bothering to pretend to smoke anymore.
“Jane’s dead,” Macy says, her voice rough. “But I think you already know that.”
“Shit,” Jane says.
I look at Macy, really look at Macy. She licks her lips and flicks the ash from her cigarette, but her eyes never leave my face, tracking every small movement I make. Shit is right; nothing is getting past this girl.
“Why do you say that?” I ask, not bothering with a lie.
Missing, Presumed Dead Page 12
