Desires of the Dead

by Kimberly Derting

  As usual, Jay understood Violet’s reluctance. “Maybe Violet’s right. She’s just getting better. She should probably take it easy this weekend.”

  “I’m still going,” Claire interjected, in case Chelsea was taking a head count.

  Chelsea glanced impatiently at Claire and then ignored her. “Oh, come on!” Chelsea complained to Violet. “Seriously? We had it all planned. You can’t bail on us now. You have to come. Please, Vi, I never ask for anything.”

  “Umm, yeah, you do,” Violet pointed out.

  Chelsea didn’t bother arguing. “Okay, yeah, but come on. This is important.” She was whining now, pleading with Violet. And then she turned on Jay. “You’re not thinking of crapping out too, are you?” She glared at him.

  “Dude, no!” Mike practically shouted, finally realizing the implication of Violet staying home. It meant losing Jay for the weekend too. “You guys gotta come. My dad’ll hardly be around, so we’ll pretty much have the place to ourselves.”

  Jay shook his head, and even though she knew he’d been looking forward to the trip, Violet heard him say, “Sorry, man, I don’t want her to get sick again.” He squeezed her hand beneath the table.

  Violet suddenly felt guilty. Obviously their plans were hinging on her. If she didn’t go, Mike would be stuck up there with a group of girls and his dad. Besides, Chelsea would never forgive her for such a flagrant friend foul.

  But an entire weekend with Megan.

  Who did nothing, Violet reminded herself again. And who knew nothing about what Violet had suspected.

  There really wasn’t a good reason not to go.

  She tilted her head up to Jay, ignoring the daggerlike glares being shot at her by Chelsea—and probably by Mike too.

  “You want to go, don’t you?” She lifted her eyebrows, knowing that the others could hear.

  Jay grinned back at her, leaning closer, but not bothering to keep his voice down either. “I don’t want to do anything you’re not ready for, Vi. I’ll do whatever you want. Don’t let Chels bully you.”

  “I can hear you,” Chelsea complained.

  Jay chuckled but never looked away from Violet. “Why don’t you think about it, and we’ll talk later?”

  She smiled back at him. How did she get so lucky?

  In the background, she heard Chelsea gloating. “They’re going. They’re totally going.”

  Envy

  She stood near the edge of the cafeteria, hiding. Watching.

  She hated the way Mike and his friends laughed, the way he seemed to fit seamlessly into their group.

  She wanted that too. To belong somewhere. Anywhere.

  She’d thought maybe it would be different here. That this town, this school, might be special. That this time she would have real friends.

  It was foolish, she knew that now, a child’s dream. And she wasn’t a child. She hadn’t been for a long time.

  She fingered the hall pass in her hand, rubbing the paper between her thumb and forefinger, willing it to give her the strength she didn’t seem to possess on her own. She wanted to reach out to someone, to ask for help, but apparently she just wasn’t brave enough.

  How many times would she request the office pass, only to change her mind before getting there? How many times could one person disappoint herself?

  She stared enviously at Mike, keeping close to the pillar that hid her from view.

  He didn’t belong either; he just didn’t realize it. He was no better than she was—worse, in fact. He was her brother; he was supposed to protect her, to look out for her. And yet he was oblivious to her suffering.

  He looked up then, and Megan drew back, slipping all the way around the column so he couldn’t see her hiding there. Her hand tightened into a ball around the scrap of paper.

  Her heart beat too fast as she waited. She didn’t want him to notice her; she didn’t want to face him while she was feeling like this.

  Despair infected her.

  She had friends too. Maybe not the kind of friends she’d dreamed of, but there were people she hung out with so that she didn’t stand out as some sort of freak.

  But it wasn’t supposed to be like that. It was going to be different here.

  On that first day, she’d had hope.

  She was going to try; she was going to reach out, to let someone in. And she had, more than ever before, when she’d met him. . . .

  Jay.

  He was everything she could have hoped for, going out of his way to make them—her—feel welcome. He’d smiled when he’d introduced himself, and she’d actually felt something. He was telling her with that smile that he would be her friend. And maybe, someday, something more.

  But she also recalled that other moment, could taste it like bitter bile. It was the moment she’d realized that he already had a friend. A girlfriend.

  It was the moment that Megan had stopped feeling special.

  Only that wasn’t entirely true, because Jay didn’t stop smiling at her. He didn’t stop inviting her to join him, and he even went so far as to use her brother to get closer to her. So, obviously, the girl—his girl—didn’t mean that much to him after all.

  She was just the girl standing in Megan’s way.

  Megan pounded her fist against the solid concrete of the column and peered around it once again. She pressed her cheek against the cool surface as she stared at her brother’s table.

  Jay was still there. And so was Violet.

  Why couldn’t Jay see Violet for the obstacle she really was? Why couldn’t he brush her aside so he could—finally—be with Megan?

  Tears blinded her and she blinked hard, wiping her nose with the back of her hand.

  Why couldn’t he love her?

  Well, it didn’t matter now. She was done trying to frighten Violet. It hadn’t worked anyway. Had she really expected that Violet would be so afraid that she’d . . . what, dump Jay? Stop coming to school? Or, better yet, leave town? All because of some stupid phone calls and a note?

  Or a dead cat in a box?

  It seemed to work for a while—Violet’s absence from school, her separation from Jay—but now they were closer than ever.

  It turned out to be more childish fantasies on her part. More foolish daydreams.

  She’d had to stop anyway. Violet suspected her. Violet had said her name, that night on the phone.

  Of course, there was no way Violet could really know it was Megan. She’d only been guessing. But it wasn’t worth the risk.

  Megan wouldn’t call her again. There would be no more “messages.”

  Megan smoothed out the crumpled hall pass and read it one last time before dropping it into the garbage on her way back to her class.

  Who was she kidding anyway?

  She was never going to the guidance counselor’s office. She was never going to admit that her father was a drunk. That she was lonely and frightened and angry.

  She was just going to shrivel up . . . and fade away.

  Chapter 25

  After school, Violet thumbed through the files that Rafe had given her when she’d gone to the FBI offices. Well, just the one actually . . . Serena Russo’s file.

  Violet had made a decision after seeing Mike at lunch that afternoon. She needed to do something for him—and for his sister—to try to make up for everything she’d thought and for the horrible things she’d accused Megan of doing.

  She had this ability. This gift. Why not use it, as Sara pointed out? Why not try to help someone?

  And in this case, someone Violet felt she had wronged.

  She dialed the phone quickly, before she lost her nerve.

  After a moment, she spoke. “If I give you an address, can you meet me?”

  Violet smiled as she listened to the response on the other end and then repeated the address of Serena Russo’s ex-husband, who lived less than an hour from her.

  Tonight she was going to try to make a difference.

  She’d hoped to get there before dark, but b
y the time Violet made her way down I-5 through rush-hour traffic, the one-hour drive had stretched to nearly two. Dusk was already blanketing the sky.

  Her stomach felt dangerously unsettled, and she tried to tell herself that she didn’t have to do this, that she could still turn back.

  But she was determined—she was definitely going. She owed it to Mike’s family, and she owed it to herself to see if she could make her ability useful once more. Besides, it wasn’t like she was going alone, she reminded herself.

  She turned off the main roads as she followed the directions she’d printed from her computer. She hadn’t expected them to take her so far outside the city, for the location to be so . . . isolated. Why couldn’t someone, just once, live in a nice little subdivision? A peaceful—yet populated—neighborhood?

  She slowed her car, watching the mailboxes along the side of the road, trying to spot the address she was searching for. When she finally saw it, her pulse kicked up a notch. She took a deep breath as she pulled off to the side of the road, her car bouncing over the uneven surface. She exhaled noisily.

  There were no other cars in sight, which probably meant she’d arrived ahead of the person she was meeting. She thought about waiting but decided against it; she had no idea how much longer that might be.

  “This is it,” she told herself, her version of a pep talk. “It’s now or never.”

  No one answered, and the corner of her mouth quirked up as she bit her lip and got out. She’d decided to park on the street, hoping that—just maybe—she’d be able to glimpse an imprint from a distance, without Roger Hartman ever knowing that she’d been there at all.

  Parking her car in his driveway would’ve been a dead giveaway.

  She hoped that his imprint—if he carried one—would be something she could sense from a distance and not something that required her to be in close proximity, like Jay’s mom’s imprint was. Violet could only sense the campfire smoke if she was standing right beside, or touching, Ann Heaton.

  She did not want to touch Roger Hartman to find out if he’d murdered Serena Russo.

  Violet pocketed her keys as she made her way down the wooded driveway.

  She kept close to the tree line, hoping to remain hidden by the cover of foliage as the evening dusk worked its way toward night. The light from the moon couldn’t penetrate the branches overhead, and there weren’t any street lamps to illuminate her path.

  She navigated cautiously through the oppressive darkness, stumbling several times over rocks and dips in the ground. She moved slowly, carefully, listening for anything that would indicate she wasn’t alone. But all she could hear were the sounds of her own footsteps and the forest around her.

  Ahead, a dim glow signaled the end of her journey, a small trailer set haphazardly amid the jumble of trees and overgrown blackberry bushes. The pale light coming from inside told her that someone definitely lived there.

  Violet stopped, her mind racing, trying to decide what she should do next. It wasn’t the ideal plan, she supposed, only now considering the realities of being here . . . on his property, all alone as night fell.

  At best, he didn’t carry an imprint at all, and he wasn’t a killer.

  At worst, he was. And Violet had very possibly made a fatal error in coming here.

  Her pulse thrummed nervously within her throat, and she tried to swallow around it. She waited for something to happen.

  There was no movement from inside the trailer. No sounds. No nothing. Just the light, lone and unwavering. There was no car in the driveway, and Violet began to wonder if Roger Hartman was even home, or if she’d come while he was away.

  Suddenly she hoped that was the case.

  She listened to the night, paying extra attention to sounds that might come from the direction of the trailer.

  And then she heard it. Softly at first. A delicate rhythmic pattering.

  Raindrops.

  She glanced up, holding out her palm, waiting for the first wet drops to find her. But she knew they weren’t coming.

  There was no rain.

  It was an echo. And it was calling for her.

  She looked around at the daunting blackness, wondering what she should do as she gathered the neck of her jacket closed in both hands, clutching it as if it could shield her from the sound, from the darkness, from the danger.

  But it wasn’t the echo she feared, not this echo. She knew it was a body by the draw that beckoned her, reaching into her and gently tugging. Yet it was different somehow.

  And then she realized why.

  This body had been buried. This body was settled, already at peace. Like the ones in Violet’s graveyard, or those at the cemetery she’d visited while looking for clues to catch a serial killer. Violet could sense the echo, but it didn’t demand to be found.

  She stepped forward again, away from the trees and the cover they provided as she followed the noise.

  The sputtering of the raindrops—the echo—came not from above, as rain would have done, but from ahead of Violet. It was the sound of so many fat drops plunking against broad autumn leaves. Violet had to keep reminding herself that it was illusory, an imaginary downpour that only she could sense, as she ducked her head, instinctively drawing away from the shower.

  She glanced cautiously in the direction of the trailer as she passed it, worried that at any moment Roger Hartman would come crashing through the door.

  But the entrance remained still, the home silent.

  She knew when she was close, because the sound swelled, becoming increasingly steady, even if only in her own ears. A damp chill settled over her, creeping beneath her skin and into her bones, making her joints ache.

  It was more difficult with these types of echoes, the ones that weren’t distinctly visual, to pinpoint an exact location. So as Violet approached, she had to gauge the intensity of the acoustics, had to judge the drop in temperature that caused her to shiver.

  She circled a spot out back, behind the trailer, near the base of a knotty-looking pine tree. In the shadows of the night, the old pine stood guard over the grave that Violet believed lay beneath its spiny branches.

  She glanced again toward the light filtering from the ramshackle structure before she fell to her knees. The sound of rain was all around her, and the cool chill of the downpour was inside her.

  It was here.

  The ground was black, and Violet brushed her hand over its surface, trying to decide where she should dig. There was a part of her that wanted to stop, that told her this was enough, that she should call Sara Priest and let her handle it from here. But she knew she wouldn’t. She wasn’t even sure what she’d tracked to this location. It could simply be a squirrel or a field mouse left for dead.

  She wanted to investigate further, to be certain before calling for help.

  The moment her fingers sank into the loose layer of soil, so different from the compacted dirt that surrounded it, Violet knew that she’d found the burial site she’d been searching for.

  She scooped a handful of the soft ground, still shivering against the echo that showered around her. She used her fingers to locate an edge and followed it with her hands, crawling through the gloom on all fours. When she realized how large the grave was, she trembled.

  A body could fit in there. A human body.

  She wasn’t sure why she reached in again, why she kept working to shovel the earth with her fingers, clawing at it. She should stop, she told herself more than once, and yet she didn’t. And all the while, the haunting rain continued to fill the night’s air with its poignant storm. The chill it carried was more than real to Violet.

  When her hand brushed against something smooth, something that crackled beneath her fingertips, Violet stilled. Whatever she’d just felt was unnatural, man-made.

  She prodded it again, listening to the synthetic sound as her finger glanced over something firmer beneath, something grotesquely familiar in feel.

  It was a body.

  Wrapped in pl
astic tarpaulin.

  Violet clumsily shot to her feet, inhaling sharply as she clasped her fingers to her chest.

  When she felt someone grab her from behind, strong fingers gripping her shoulders, she gasped, choking on her own breath. Her heart pounded viciously, violently. How could she have been so foolish? Why hadn’t she waited?

  And then a soft voice silenced her, causing her to whimper. “Shhh . . .” Breath warmed her cheek. “It’s okay, it’s just me.”

  Rafe!

  She turned quickly, wrapping her arms around him as relief and gratitude intertwined in a twist of emotions. “Thank God it’s you! I’m so glad you came.” She clung to him. She was no longer alone; she was safe.

  Her fingertips brushed the exposed skin at the nape of his neck, just below his hair, and that static spark, the one she’d felt before, when they’d touched at the café, jolted through her. Jolted them both. Rafe stiffened, and Violet was suddenly all too aware of his nearness, of the warmth of him beneath her, of his sinewy strength, and his scent.

  She dropped her arms away. “Sorry,” she insisted, her eyes too wide. She was desperate to have this moment forgotten. The pattering of rain continued to beat down around her, and she glanced toward the grave. “I found something . . . someone, right there.” She pointed. “I don’t know who it is, but it’s definitely a body.”

  “We need to get out of here.” Rafe grabbed the sleeve of her jacket and pulled her away. “We need to call Sara and tell her what you found.”

  Violet let him drag her past the trailer and down the driveway. And even as she moved away from the sensory rainstorm, the icy dread remained, refusing to release her. She was terrified that whoever had left the light on inside would come back, would find them there, with her covered in the dirt from a shallow grave. She was afraid that they would end up buried too . . . wrapped in tarps of their own.

  When they reached the end of the driveway, Violet wiped her hands on her jeans and felt inside her pocket for her keys. Her hands were shaking.