Yuck. I had forgotten. “I didn’t forget something so important,” I lied.
“Wait!” Henry interjected. “If the dirt was magically repacked last time, maybe the same thing will happen again?”
“You really think we can count on that?” Lucas asked.
Neither of us answered, knowing his instinct was right. And let’s face it, Lucas wasn’t really asking us, anyway.
“Goodbye for now, Max,” I whispered. I gave him one last hug and tightened the drawstring, cinching the neck of the bag closed. Like the previous person who had wrapped Max up, I wound the long rope around the top and knotted it, just for good measure. I wanted to make sure Max would be safe, alone down there.
Oh well. At least I didn’t disappear when we took him out.
With a pang of sadness, I placed the bag containing Max back on top of the dirt floor. Lucas and Henry had already climbed out of the hole. Lucas lied down on his stomach and reached both hands down towards me. “Grab my hands,” he said. I placed my palms in his and held on as tightly as possible.
I was acutely aware of how soft his large, masculine hands were. Stop it. A romance with him could never happen for a million reasons.
Effortlessly, Lucas swung me back up to the surface. Once on my feet, I stared down at the gaping grave.
“Do we really have to refill this mother?” Henry asked warily. “My arms are aching.”
“Afraid so,” was all Lucas said.
I kept watch as they packed the dirt back into my grave. I’ll be back for your Max, I said silently. Thankfully, this part of the process was a lot faster and less tedious than digging up mounds of tough dirt. Lucas and Henry made fast progress. We must have been there at least an hour so far, but I’d still not caught sight of the security guard.
Maybe he just sleeps in the office. Probably easy money for him.
Either way, I didn’t really care why he wasn’t patrolling the area, I was just happy for the respite. I glanced over at Henry. His face looked unusually pale, but I wasn’t sure if that was the moon’s effect or if he was just really tired.
“I could take over for awhile,” I offered.
“Nope, I’m good.”
At least I tried.
We didn’t speak again, and in what seemed like no time at all, given the tediousness of the job, Henry and Lucas were standing next to me, shovels in hand, admiring their work.
“You think anybody will notice there’s no grass on top?” Henry asked worriedly. “We’ve made it look like a fresh grave.”
“That’s the one thing I didn’t plan for,” Lucas admitted. He raked his hand through his hair and let out a long sigh. “Not really anything we can do now. I kind of doubt Aurora’s friends and family come to visit daily.”
He glanced at me briefly and added, “No offense.”
“None taken, I guess.” Hmph!
“Let’s get out of here,” Lucas said.
“You don’t have to ask me twice,” Henry piped up.
We quickly made our way out of the graveyard. When we got to the gate where we had first met, hours before, Lucas turned to leave. “It’s been real,” he said with a slight wave.
“Wait!” I called frantically. “When will we see you again?” And by we, I mean me, I added silently.
“I’ll be around, as usual.” Lucas started to walk away.
Is he still miffed about my relationship with Henry? It may have been true that I didn’t know what I wanted, but the two most important people in my life didn’t seem to know what they wanted either!
I stood there dumbfounded, staring at the back of his head. If you care at all about me you’ll turn around right this instant. I watched his retreating back in disbelief.
“Come on, Rory. What’s the hold up?” Henry was beside me, tugging at my arm. I let him lead me in the direction of the car.
Once inside, Henry turned to me. He looked exhausted. “You okay?” he whispered.
I managed to force a smile. “Of course. Why wouldn’t I be?”
But inside I felt hollow. Digging up my grave had seemed like a good idea, but what had it really accomplished?
Chapter 9
I was depressed. I had lied in Henry’s bed, engrossed in my thoughts, for the rest of the night after we got back from the cemetery. The realization had hit me that there was no way out of this insane situation, and I just wanted to crawl into a hole and hide for the rest of eternity.
Sunday morning I had even less motivation. I had pretended to be asleep when Henry tried to wake me. “Aurora, my parents are gone for the next few hours. You getting up?”
I had ignored him, willing him to leave me alone.
Finally, Henry had left. “Going to play b-ball with Tad,” he’d told me. But once he was gone, I still didn’t move. I opened my eyes and stared at the ceiling, studying the huge, sloping rafters above me. What now, Aurora?
Lucas hated my guts, it seemed. Who the hell had I been kidding? As usual, I had been stuck in my own dreamland in my head. A vampire and a dead girl, what a lovely sounding couple, I thought sarcastically.
Not that I was looking for love. With everything that was going on, I didn’t even have the time! So now I had two kisses from two guys, different, but both good. And the crazy part was I had no clue if either Henry or Lucas still wanted to be with me.
And then there was the issue of my family. I couldn’t stay at Henry’s house forever. He hadn’t bugged me recently about revealing myself to anyone, but I knew it had to be in the back of his mind. He had been a real sport about the whole thing, but he must want his room to himself, to not have me lurking around all the time.
My thoughts were interrupted by the sound of a male voice. My body went rigid and I struggled to hear. Definitely talking.
I thought nobody was here? Is it possible I didn’t hear his parents get home?
I strained to listen. It sounded like Mr. Matthews was standing on the stairway leading up to the attic. There was a door in the second story hallway that you had to go through to get to the attic steps. Did David come into the stairway for privacy?
His voice was getting louder. Please don’t come into Henry’s room, I prayed silently.
“I told you not to call me at the weekend,” he was saying. He sounded agitated. “If Valerie ever finds out about this, she’ll leave me. I don’t have a pre-nup. I can’t afford that.”
This was awful! Why would he say something like that if he wasn’t having an affair? And how can I ever tell Henry about this? He’ll never believe me. His parents have always seemed so solid. Maybe not head-over-heels in love, but happy, complacent.
“I can meet tomorrow,” Mr. Matthews said. He laughed. “I’ll figure out something.” He paused. “No, we met there last time. I don’t want anyone getting suspicious. How about The Hilton in midtown at noon?”
David hung up the phone and walked back down the stairs, humming to himself.
Holy shit! I have to follow him tomorrow.
My first instinct was to call Lucas, my original partner in crime for investigating Henry’s father. But that wasn’t going to work. He had made it clear that he wanted nothing to do with investigating Henry’s father. And besides, who knew if he was still mad at me? I could never tell with him.
Like it or not, I was going to be all alone for this one. I briefly considered not following David, but I owed it to Henry to find out the truth, after all he had done for me. I just hope if I confirm the worst tomorrow Henry won’t shoot the messenger when I tell him.
That cinched it. I’d just have to take the bus. It’s how I’d gotten around when I’d been alive and none of my friends had their licenses yet.
I was still trying to figure out how I would make sure Henry was out of the house in order to follow Mr. Matthews without any suspicion when Henry got back from his basketball game.
He seemed surprised to see me still camped out on his bed when he got back up to his room.
“Have you just been sittin
g there all day?” he asked me.
“Yeah, what else is there to do?” I muttered.
“I guess it doesn’t help that my parents got back so early. I thought they were going to visit friends. Sorry about that.”
“It doesn’t matter,” I said. “I’d probably have done the same thing as I’m doing right now, even if I’d had the house to myself.”
“How was the basketball game?” I asked, changing the subject. Up until now I’d been lying with my back away from Henry. I turned to face him. “Damn, you’re sweaty!” I exclaimed.
Henry looked like he’d just had a grueling workout. Sweat was dripping down his red face and his clothes were drenched.
“It was harder than usual,” Henry admitted. “My arms are really sore after all that shoveling I did last night. Probably should have taken the day off. I hadn’t mentioned it to you with everything that’s been going on, but I’m training for the basketball team at school next year.”
“Really?” I asked in surprise. I hadn’t ever thought of Henry as the athletic type.
“Gee, thanks for the vote of confidence. You sound utterly shocked.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. And I meant it. “I just never knew you to be interested in sports before,” I explained.
“There’s a lot that you don’t know about me now,” Henry said.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I couldn’t keep the hurt out of my voice.
“It just means that since you’ve been back, all we talk about is trying to figure out why you’re here and when you should tell people.”
I gulped. Henry was right. I don’t think I’d asked him one thing about what had happened in his life for the past year. “I’m sorry.” I seem to be apologizing a lot these days.
“Do I look upset?” Henry asked. “Don’t worry about it. I’d probably be the same way. I didn’t tell you that to make you feel bad. I told you because you looked like you’d gotten the shock of your life to hear that I’m trying out for the basketball team next year.”
Henry stood up. “I’m going to get a shower,” he said, walking to the bathroom. “Oh, and I’m playing again with Tad and the guys tomorrow, same time.”
At least I won’t have to worry about getting him out of the house now.
I vowed to myself to be a better friend. I had to stop being so self-obsessed and realize that other people had lives too.
Henry playing basketball, I mused. But really if I stopped to think about it, it wasn’t that ridiculous of a notion. He was taller than I’d remembered and obviously had been working out.
It would be fun to sit in the gym bleachers, cheering him on. I never thought that I’d miss school.
I had always found studying to be such a drag; even though I made good grades, it was tedious as hell. But now I found myself missing everything about school, from the steel gray walls to the mystery meat in the cafeteria.
I felt a pang. I was never going to experience that first bite of the mystery meat again. Laughing with my friends as we tried to guess what the mush was on our plates. Obsessing over how many calories in the huge chocolate chip cookies they always stuck on the lunch trays.
I was going to have to make some tough decisions, and soon. I had to get back to school next year. Maybe Henry was right; if he tutored me all summer, I might be able to catch up and start back with my classmates for senior year. And weighing most heavily on my mind was the fact that I needed to tell my parents about my existence. But how? Maybe Henry can help me figure that part out. Oh my god! I’m doing it again. Making it all about me.
I sighed and turned back over on the bed. Tomorrow I’d be a better friend. Today I wanted to wallow in my misery.
Chapter 10
Deciding to put both Lucas and Henry out of my mind, I spent the next few days closely watching David Matthews. Well, as closely as possible for someone who was supposed to be dead.
When he was gone during the day, I snuck into his office and checked his calendar to see if he had updated it with any new appointments.
You would think a top-notch criminal defense lawyer would have had more sense than to leave his password written down on a small piece of paper taped to the underside of his desk. It had taken me all of five minutes to locate it.
So far, my sleuthing hadn’t yielded anything of interest. Everything on his calendar – and I had checked it weeks into the future – looked like it was a legitimate appointment. But then again, I doubt he had recorded that day at the hotel as “Meeting with my mistress.”
And David and Valerie seemed as solid as ever. They ate dinner together with Henry every night; I guess they had a rule that no matter what hours they had to work, it wouldn’t interfere with ‘family’ time.
It just didn’t add up. Sure, I could totally understand them getting older and growing apart. Didn’t that happen with almost everyone? Especially after you added a kid to the mix. Even I, in spite of being a total sucker for the sappy romantic comedy, understood that after the happily ever after fairy book ending, there were bills, kids, and a shit load of responsibility. Of course I wanted to believe that the endless nights of passionate lovemaking and wining and dining would go on forever, but who was anybody really kidding?
Well, maybe it would with Lucas. Anything is possible when it comes to him.
I had almost been able to put that kiss with Henry out of my mind, mostly because he seemed totally normal with me. Which I guessed was a good thing.
As for Lucas…I hadn’t heard from him for days, not since we’d dug up my grave.
My pride was hurt. I’d thought that I had two amazing guys who really liked me, and now it seemed I had zilch.
Maybe the Matthews men are really good at putting things out of their minds, I mused. But could Mr. Matthews really be capable of doing that to his longtime love? The question had been rolling around in my mind since I first overheard that odd telephone conversation. I knew I should stay out of other people’s business, but I just couldn’t drop it. I had known Henry, and his parents, for that matter, for way too long to just sit idly by and watch David make a fool of Valerie.
All of this scrutiny into Mr. Matthew’s affairs had gotten me to thinking about my own parents. I had always heard that a tragedy would either bring two people together or rip them apart. I remembered seeing Mom rest her head on Dad’s shoulders that first day at my grave, confirmation that my death had produced the latter of the two scenarios.
But I couldn’t help but wonder, what if Kayla wasn’t around? Would Mom and Dad have still toughed it out, or did my death kill their relationship? Every time they looked at each other, did they think of their daughter, killed in some gruesome way before her time and beyond their comprehension?
I knew now more than ever that I had to very carefully plan for my re-emergence into their lives. I had disturbed so much – and who even knew if my parents could stand the sight of each other any longer? I would have to be careful about how – and when – I showed them that I was back. Henry hadn’t mentioned again that I needed to reveal myself to them, but I knew he would bring it up sooner or later.
I could still see my mom so vividly in my mind. Tall and slender, I had always looked up to her when I was a little girl. I have the prettiest mommy in the world, I used to tell her.
I don’t know when the last time I said that to her was. I felt an unshakable sadness. Suddenly, all I longed for in the world was to hear the familiar click of her opening my bedroom door to check on me when she got home from work.
Mom was a pharmacist, and two days a week she worked until the pharmacy closed at seven. On those nights, Dad would roll up his sleeves and attempt to cook dinner for Kayla and me. Although after the chicken incident, we usually made it a pizza or Chinese night.
The Chicken Incident, aka The Great Chicken Debacle, aka The Time Daddy Tried to Kill Us had become infamous in the Stone household. I smiled thinking about it.
My dad, who was not the most fantastic cook in the world to be
gin with, tried to keep it simple on the nights when Mom was working late. After Kayla and I had complained one too many times about the hamburger helper and fried egg dinners (not served together, of course), Dad had promised us he’d make some ‘real’ food. Perhaps more than a little overzealous, my dad decided to make a fancy, and complicated, prosciutto wrapped chicken.
The ingredients themselves cost nearly a hundred dollars. He had started preparations the night before, as the recipe called for an overnight marinade. Kayla and I had watched in amusement while he clumsily fumbled around the kitchen.
When he had finally finished preparing the chicken and was ready to put it in the oven, it almost looked like a piece of art. Kayla and I had been impressed; now all he had to do was make sure he didn’t over or under cook it.
And boy, oh boy, did he overcook it. The chicken was supposed to be baked at 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Dad transposed the numbers and set the oven to five hundred and thirty degrees.
After about a half hour in the intense heat, a burning odor had wafted into the living room. We had all jumped up to run to the kitchen just as the smoke alarm was triggered. The room was filling up with thick smoke billowing from the oven.
Luckily, my parents had a mini fire extinguisher in the kitchen cabinet for just such an occasion. Dad had extinguished the small fire that had started in the oven, and the rest, as they say, was history.
I chuckled at the memory.
On the nights that my mom wasn’t working late, I would try and guess what she’d be cooking that night when I got bored during my 6th period history lecture. My favorite was when I would come home and could smell mom’s rich lasagna sauce before I even got through the door.
Kayla and I would tease mom that the odor was absorbed by the couch covers, permanently stuck in the carpet, and melded into the walls. We had even once told her that it would depreciate the value of the house, if they ever decided to sell it.
On lasagna night, we would harass mom with gusto. It had become a standing family joke. Truth be told, we loved mom’s lasagna. Passed down from generation to generation, it put the microwave oven prepared Olive Garden grub to shame.
Stalking Dead (Vampire Hunter Book 2) Page 3
