Dead of Night (Hunters of the Dark #4)

by Dave Ferraro

Chapter Eleven

  One year ago…

  “I mean, I’m not sure what you can do,” Mrs. Redford licked her lips nervously and set a tea cup down in front of Krystal, who stared at the brown liquid as the ripples slowly vanished. Then she looked up into the woman’s hopeful eyes, and quickly looked away again.

  “I don’t know what you expect from me,” Krystal murmured.

  Mrs. Redford reached out and touched her hand, then thought better of it and returned it to her own steaming cup of tea, nervously swirling her tea around in the cup. She hadn’t offered Krystal sugar or milk, so she left it untouched. She hated the bitter taste otherwise. Glancing over at the counter, she hoped to hint to her host that she desired something, but the woman seemed oblivious.

  “Please, call me Donna,” she smiled. “I am your aunty, after all.”

  Krystal nodded, pushing the tea cup away from her. “Yes, Aunt Donna. But what do you want from me…exactly?”

  Mrs. Redford leaned forward conspiratorially and glanced at the kitchen doorway, as if she expected someone to be listening in. “Now, your momma told me about what you can do. She said you walk right off of the trails when you’re out for your walks, and go right up to the bodies of birds and squirrels. Like you can sense ‘em.”

  Krystal swallowed hard. “Mom said that?”

  “She did,” Mrs. Redford confirmed, looking at her with a little more confidence now. “And she said you could maybe help your aunty. We are blood after all, ain’t we?”

  Krystal nodded.

  “That’s right,” Mrs. Redford said, pleased. “This past year’s been so…hard on us. With Tommy missing…” She paused and took a sip of her tea, but Krystal noted the tremor in her hand as she lifted it to her lips, and looked away politely.

  “Not knowing if he’s dead or alive is killing us,” Mrs. Redford resumed a moment later. “It’s…god.” She swiped at the tears that had gathered in her eyes, and Krystal felt her heart go out to the woman. She recalled the missing posters that had been plastered around town the previous year, how tirelessly the Redfords had worked to find a lead. “And it’s even worse with Donald around,” she whispered.

  Krystal nodded sympathetically. Donald was Tommy’s twin. When Tommy had gone missing, Donald didn’t seem to understand what was going on, and during Christmas, he’d asked when Tommy was coming home. He was five now, and probably understood death better than children his age should.

  “When I look at Donald,” Mrs. Redford continued, closing her eyes as she made her confession, “All I see is Tommy. He’s a constant reminder of the boy we lost. It’s not fair to him, but I can’t help it. It’s there. I resent it, and I feel so…guilty.” She took a deep, shuddering breath. “I just…I think if I knew for sure if he was alive or dead, it would make all the difference. Just not knowing is…it’s tearing us apart, Krystal. We need help.”

  Krystal could hardly refuse after an entreaty like that. She smiled thinly. “I’ll do what I can, but I can’t promise you anything.”

  A flood of relief coursed through Mrs. Redford. “Oh, thank you, Krystal. Even if you try. That’s all I ask. I’m desperate here.”

  “Mommy?”

  Krystal turned to see Donald in the doorway, shyly clinging to the door frame. She grinned. “Well, hello there, Donald. It’s your cousin Krystal. Remember me? I just saw you on July 4th. We saw fireworks together.”

  Donald nodded and walked hesitantly into the room, then rushed over to his mother, who patted his head.

  “I suppose you need something of his,” Mrs. Redford said distractedly as Donald climbed onto a chair. “I’ll find something. He left his blankie behind.”

  Krystal was about to protest that she wouldn’t need anything, but Mrs. Redford was already leaving the room. She watched her disappear, then turned to Donald, forcing a smile into place. “Hey buddy.”

  Donald stared at her for a moment. “You have purty hair.”

  “Thank you. That’s very nice of you to say.”

  Donald brightened for a moment, then looked back the way his mother had gone. “Tommy’s gone.”

  Krystal kept her face immobile. “Yes, he is.”

  “Gramma says that when you die, your soul goes to Heaven.”

  “Well, I suppose it does.”

  Donald considered. “What do you think a soul looks like?”

  Krystal let out a breath. “Well, I can’t rightly say. I haven’t seen one myself.”

  “Gramma says it’s like a light that leaves you, like a ball of light.”

  “That could be.”

  Donald leaned forward so that his chin rested on the table. “I miss Tommy.”

  Krystal nodded. “We all do, Honey.”

  And despite her best efforts that evening, there were just too many bones and dead animals in the forest and swamps behind the Redfords’ home. She wasn’t able to find their boy’s body that day.

  Now…

  Krystal tapped her pen against her bottom lip, staring at the empty desk where Steven usually sat in Geography class. She wondered if he’d ditched out on school to avoid her, maybe thinking that an encounter would be too awkward the day after their disastrous date. It was too bad, because she would have really liked being friends with him, even if that was all they were going to be.

  The girl in front of her nonchalantly twisted in her chair as Miss Lane turned to write something on the blackboard. She slipped a piece of bright green paper onto Krystal’s desktop and sent her a small smile before turning her attention back to the front of the room.

  Krystal frowned, trying to place the girl. She was one of the popular girls, but Krystal didn’t think she’d ever talked to her before. She didn’t think she even knew her name. What would she be giving her? A message from Steven perhaps? She sat up and unfolded the paper, blinking at the drawing of a keg of beer and a map that wound through nearby streets to a house on Oak Drive. A party invitation. Probably one that everyone in school was getting. She sighed and refolded the paper, then perked up, realizing that this would be a good step in the right direction for discovering what had happened to those missing kids. Whatever had happened hadn’t occurred at school, and Krystal would have the opportunity to see the other students in whatever environments they usually congregated in outside of class. And to top it off, they would be consuming alcohol, loosening their tongues. Maybe she would be able to get to the bottom of this mystery after all. Then her presence here wouldn’t have been an utter failure.

  “You got one too,” Quinn observed, flashing her a pink copy of the invitation to the same party as she stepped out of her classroom.

  “I think everyone got one.”

  “Oh,” he frowned, falling into step alongside her. “But it will still be a good opportunity for us.”

  “Yeah, it will.”

  Quinn glanced down at his pocket and slipped his cell phone out of it. They each had been given one specifically for this mission, complete with fake contacts and a generic history of messages. They were supposed to memorize one another’s numbers in case of an emergency, but Krystal was terrible at memorizing, so she’d just added them to her contacts instead. No one had called her out on it yet.

  “Natalia’s going out with some friends to get ready for the party,” Quinn stared down at his phone. “She’ll see us there tonight.” He sighed and snapped it shut, looking up at Krystal with an amused smile on his face. “I think we just got ditched by big sister.”

  “We’re such losers,” Krystal murmured.

  “Speak for yourself.”