by Sharp, Tracy
I found her number in my speed dial list and hit Send. No answer. It went to voicemail.
I felt my eyebrows furrow and I nibbled on my thumbnail.
“Text her,” Mick said. “I’m sure she’ll respond as soon as she gets it.”
What if she didn’t get it? What if she couldn’t?
I felt suddenly cold.
Chapter Eight
I wanted to trust him. To be able to tell him the truth. But I was still scared. If I could get him to trust me enough to talk about why he wanted his father dead, I might be able to trust him enough to tell him about my special talent.
We sat at the kitchen table, eating frozen mini pizzas that I’d added shredded cheese and extra pepperoni to. They were microwavable, so it didn’t take long for dinner to be done.
“So will your parents be worried?” I asked him, not wanting to be too obvious. “Do you need to call them?”
He shook his head. “I pretty much come and go as I like. My mother died a few years ago. Dad’s busy with meetings all the time.” He took a bite and chewed, rolling his eyes. “Pillar of the community and all.”
“Really? I’m sorry; I don’t know anything about him. Should I?”
“Depends on who you are, I guess. He’s thinking about running for mayor next election.”
“Wow,” I said, taking a sip of my mochacino. “Is that why you hang around the group home so much?”
He shrugged. “I guess. Just because your parents didn’t toss you out, doesn’t mean you’re not an orphan. You know?”
I nodded. “You feel like an orphan, huh?” Was I an orphan?
“Most days. But I’m fine. I can take care of myself. When Mom died, he didn’t exactly pick up the slack where child care was concerned. So he used to drop me off at the group home a lot. I’m closer to those girls and the people who work there than I’ve ever been to him.”
“I’m sorry, Mick. That sucks.”
“Yeah. Well.” He shrugged, trying to let on that it didn’t really bother him. “Could be worse.” He started on his second mini pizza. “What about you?”
I stiffened. This was it. Tell him the truth or not? “My father dropped me off at Delia’s when I was four. I haven’t seen him or my mother since.”
He paused before taking another bite. “Shit, Lore. That’s harsh. Why did he do that?”
I couldn’t do it. Not yet. I didn’t know him well enough. “I guess they changed their minds about being parents. I don’t know. I never asked.”
“That’s really weak.”
“Delia has been great. I love living with her.” I eyed my cell phone, which hadn’t rang or beeped. Worry twisted in my stomach, making me put the remaining half of my pizza down on my plate. “Where is she?”
“I’m sure you’ll hear from her soon. She must’ve just gotten caught doing something,” Mick said, but I could tell he was just trying to make me feel better, hoping she’d show up any minute.
So we sat, making small talk and looking out the kitchen window for Delia’s headlights in the darkness beyond, sticking together like two orphans.
***
Just as I was about to start calling Delia’s friends, and then the hospitals, I heard her car come up the drive.
We were leaning back against the opposite ends of the couch, just hanging out—me not wanting to give voice to the fear I felt about why Delia wasn’t home yet, and Mick trying to keep me calm. The beam of light from her headlights swept over our faces and I jumped up to look out the window, relief flooding me as I saw her car stop.
She kept her headlights on and the motor running.
I frowned. This was definitely out of character. Where else could she be going at this time of night? It was ten o’clock.
“What is it?” Mick asked me, noticing the look on my face.
“She kept her car running,” I said.
“She must be planning to go somewhere else. Maybe she just stopped back to check on you.”
“Where else would she be going? It’s too weird.” I watched as Delia climbed out of her car. She stood stiffly for a moment, as if she’d forgotten what to do next, and then she slammed the door, too hard. She began making her way up the walk, her movements slightly awkward and stilted, like her limbs wouldn’t quite work right. I involuntarily took a step backward, apprehension blooming in my chest. Something wasn’t right.
Mick pushed himself off the couch, watching me warily, his face growing alarmed. “Shit, Lore. What is it?”
I shook my head and we listened to the key moving in the lock. “Something is off. She’s not right.”
The door opened and Mick and I stood watching each other, round-eyed.
“Lorelei.” The voice sounded raspy and too low, as if Delia hadn’t used her vocal cords before.
My heart leapt into my throat. I spoke low, so only Mick could hear me. “That is not her.”
His eyes widened. He barely whispered, “Who the hell is it?”
“It looks like her but that is definitely not her,” I said under my breath.
Delia’s footsteps thumped loudly, slowly, up the stairs.
“Looooooreleeeeeeeeiiiiii,” the voice rasped, sounding like sand spinning through a blender.
“We have to get to the door,” I said.
He nodded, held a hand up, palm out, in a gesture telling me to stay put.
I nodded, stepping back.
He moved toward the stairs and stood at the landing, looking down at Delia, whose head was bobbing just above the railing as she climbed the next step.
“Hi Delia!” Mick said cheerfully. “I’m Mick. I’m a friend of Lorelei’s. She isn’t here right now.”
Delia stopped dead in her tracks. I squatted down.
“Where is she?” Delia croaked.
He paused. “She had to go down to the police station to answer questions about Kerry,” he said. “She asked me to stay here and let you know when you got home.”
Only the sound of heavy breathing could be heard, a deep rattle from an endless well.
Then the smell hit me. Fetid, like something dead. Rotting.
I felt myself shaking, and was afraid I’d fall over. I leaned against the couch to steady myself. I squeezed my eyes shut. Oh, please go away. Whatever you are, just go away.
Without another word, Delia’s footsteps began descending the stairs. I knew without looking, and with mounting horror, that she was going down them backwards.
A drop of sweat rolled down my neck and between my shoulder blades. I hoped that the Delia thing couldn’t smell fear.
Whatever it was, it wasn’t human.
***
“You can’t stay here, Lore.” He stood at the window, making sure Delia didn’t come back while I sat, stunned, on a chair away from the view from the window. “She’s definitely coming back when she finds out you aren’t at the police station.”
“She walks into that station, the cops are going to know something is up,” I said, looking up at him. I was still trembling. “That thing is not Delia.”
He looked back at me. “She didn’t look right, Lore. Her eyes…they looked…black.” Mick wrapped his arms around himself. “I could swear I saw something dark swimming behind them.” He stared at me with haunted eyes. “It was the spookiest thing I’ve ever seen.”
Fear sat heavy in my belly, making it cramp. I moved a hand over my abdomen and leaned over slightly, waiting for the cramp to subside. I chewed my bottom lip.
“Are you okay?” Mick moved forward, crouching in front of me, his hand on my knee.
“I will be. I’m just really freaked,” I said, my words made breathless from the pain. “Something got her. Changed her.”
“I’ve never seen anything like it. I hope I never do again. Some strange shit is going on in this town,” Mick said. “Do you have any family you can stay with until things…go back to normal? Assuming they go back to normal.”
I shook my head. “I haven’t seen my parents in over a decade
. I don’t really know them.”
“Okay,” he said, kneeling in front of me. “Pack a bag. You’re coming to my house.”
“What will your dad think of that?”
“He’s gone out of town on business again. For a week.” He gave a humorless chuckle. “I don’t even know where. He goes so often the house is practically mine.”
“Will anyone at the home worry about you? You haven’t been there in a while.”
“I’ll check in with them. Make sure everything is normal.”
We stared at each other for a long moment, the same eerie thought hitting us both at the same time.
If Delia had changed, others might’ve changed, too.
***
“Why is she looking for me?” I asked, more of myself than of Mick.
We had pulled up to his house, a huge monstrosity of pale brick and several turrets. The beautiful home made it difficult to believe that anyone living in this place could be unhappy. I guess money can buy you happiness, but it depends on how you define happiness.
“Good thing it’s dark out,” I said. “Can’t be seen going into a place the likes of this. No self-respecting creepy girl should be seen walking into this place. I have a reputation to uphold. What would people say?”
“It’s the company you keep that’s questionable,” Mick said, grinning at me.
I smiled. “Right.”
“Why do you think she’d be looking for you? Or should we say it? That wasn’t your Aunt Delia in her body. Something took her over. Do you think it’s just because you’d be in her memory banks somewhere?”
As I considered this, I got a serious case of the willies. I had to come clean with Mick, if I were going to trust him with my life. Which it looked as if I was going to have to do.
After we entered his house, which was huge and airy and impossibly clean, I said to him, “There is something about me you don’t know.”
He tossed his keys on a table in the entryway. “Spit it out.”
I took a deep breath. The lemony smell of furniture polish filled my nose. “I can read secrets…from people’s minds.”
His brow furrowed as he looked at me. “You can read minds?”
I shrugged. “I guess. Kind of. I can read secrets. If someone has a secret, I can fish around for it. I can take secrets from people, too, to ease their burden. But that has some unpleasant side effects. One of which is that bad…creatures, or entities, would be able to find me and take me away, and do God knows what to me. The idea is that I’d never be seen or heard from again. I don’t know whether it’s the same they, but this talent is the reason my parents sent me to live with Delia. They said I’d be safe with her. That they wouldn’t find me if I never used my…ability.”
“Okay…but why would it or they be after you now? Have you used that talent recently?”
I nodded. “After Eliza vanished, I probed around a little. I thought that whoever took her had to be someone she knew. Someone we all know. Otherwise, why would she go with them?”
“Makes sense.”
“I didn’t find anything out, though. And…” I looked at the floor.
“What?”
“I used it on you…at the diner. It’s why you got that headache.”
He frowned. “Why did you use it on me? You thought I might be the one who took her?”
I shook my head. “No. I was just experimenting a little before I used it on anyone else.”
“Did you find a secret?” he asked me.
“I know you want your father dead. I just don’t know why,” I said. “I backed out before I learned anything else.” I winced. “I’m sorry.”
He stood watching me for a long moment. “The reason I want him dead is because he murdered my mother.”
I blinked. The air went out of me.
“Not in the way you’d think,” he said. “She killed herself.”
“Oh, Mick. I’m so sorry.”
“So am I.” He headed through a large living room area and I followed him into a bright, pale yellow kitchen that was probably as large as the bottom floor of Delia’s entire house.
Mick went to a cupboard and took out cocoa and coffee.
“He had an affair. The other woman called my mother. Sent her pictures. I guess she wanted my dad all to herself.”
“That is horrible.”
“Yeah,” Mick said, his back to me as he began making the mochacinos. “The most ironic part of it all is that once my mother died, the woman didn’t want my dad anymore. She broke it off.”
“The competition was gone. It wasn’t fun for her anymore.”
“Right.”
“Mick, I’m so sorry,” I said again.
“My mother lived for her family. We were everything to her. When she found all that stuff out, she figured it was all a lie.” Mick stopped moving for a moment, swept a forearm over his eyes. “Maybe it was.”
I didn’t know what to say. Telling him that he hadn’t all been a lie was pointless. Telling him that she took her life and left him without her because the pain was too much to bear wouldn’t make him feel better. Sometimes people can’t see beyond the darkness, and they can’t find the strength to even do everyday things anymore. If she’d taken her life, it was likely she thought that the affair was her fault. In her mind, if she’d failed as a wife, her ability to mother was questionable as well.
None of this would ease his pain. So I settled for a truth that I was certain of. “I know one thing.”
“What’s that?” He turned his head slightly, listening.
“No matter what happened, you are a friggin’ awesome person.”
His mouth turned into a small smile. “Thanks.”
He placed a mug under the single-serve coffee maker.
“Oh, my God. You have one of those? Those are fantastic.”
He shrugged. “Yeah. Convenient.”
I thought it was strange that Mick really thought nothing of the luxuries he was privileged enough to have. His indifference to them was likely because he’d always had them, so they were nothing to him. Also, none of that stuff made him happy. I was certain that he’d give it all up to have his mother back.
“Awesome,” I said as he placed a big, chunky mug in front of me. “Nice.”
“Yeah. Most everything in here is.” His tone had a sarcastic edge to it as he sat at the table. “Only the best for my dad.”
“Our nerves are going to be jumping if we keep drinking all this caffeine, though.”
“After meeting your aunt, I’m not exactly in the mood for sleeping, and I really don’t want to let my guard down to catch a few winks.” He looked at the table, shaking his head. “Probably have nightmares, anyway.”
“This is a nightmare,” I said. “This whole thing is just too weird.”
He watched me thoughtfully. “So you have this ability. Let’s use it.”
“The problem with using it is that I put myself and others around me at risk. I guess that’s already happened,” I murmured. “I don’t know how they found out.”
“Is it possible that when you read someone’s mind—their secrets—it somehow opens some kind of window to your mind that allows them to see into you?”
“That’s possible, I guess. I think that’s what Delia was trying to explain to me Halloween night. These things found me somehow.”
“Whatever the deal is, we have to formulate a plan. What do we do from here? Your aunt is no longer your aunt, and looking at her, I don’t think the real Delia is coming back.”
Suddenly, a wave of sadness washed over me and my throat tightened. My bottom lip quivered and tears spilled from my eyes. I covered my face with both hands and sobbed, unable to stop myself.
“Oh, hey.”
I heard Mick’s chair slide back and in moments his arms were around me as he knelt next to my chair.
“I’m sorry, Lore. I’m a jerk. I shouldn’t have said that.”
“It’s probably true,” I said, my voice thick with
tears.
“Even if it is, it was pretty cold of me to say.” He moved a hand up and down my back, soothing me.
“She’s all I have, Mick. If she’s gone, I have nobody.” My last word was choked off by another sob. Grief rocked through me and I couldn’t get enough air into me. I took a long, shuddering breath.
“Hey,” he said. “Look at me.”
I slid my hands down my face and looked at him through tear-blurred eyes.
His hazel eyes gazed into mine. “You’ve got me.”
***
Neither of us wanted to stay holed up in Mick’s house, nice as it was. We felt like sitting ducks. If anyone else was set on coming for me, they’d figure out where I was before long. Everyone in town knew by now that Mick and I were friends. We’d been seen around town together a lot. So we figured a moving target is harder to get.
However, there was a greater risk of being seen by someone who wanted to get at me. Or something that wanted to get at me. Six of one, half a dozen of the other. The situation was just plain bad, any way you looked at it.
My cell went off, the eighties slasher film music making the situation even more unnerving.
Mick and I looked at each other. I looked at the caller ID number: Delia.
“Not good,” I said, looking down at my phone.
“Don’t answer it,” Mick said, glancing at me, and then back at the road.
“She won’t know where I am. I just want to see what she says. If she sounds the same. Maybe…she’s back to normal.”
He paused as the cell played its high pitched, eerie song.
I pressed the green button. “Delia?”
There was a pause. Nothing.
“Delia?” I said again, hearing the panic rising in my voice.
“Lorelei?” Delia’s voice came through. A little far away and faded, as if she were outside and her cell connection wasn’t good, but she sounded normal. She had to raise her voice.
“Yes!” I almost cried with relief. “Delia, did you come to the house about an hour ago, looking for me?”
“What? No. I’ve been at a vigil for Eliza and Kerry. Where are you? I thought you’d be here.”
