S.P.I.R.I.T. (Fire Storm)

by Dawn Gray

  The pond itself couldn’t have been more than twenty-feet deep, but Harris slipped on SCUBA gear, with Rodriguez’s help, on the rocks below the landing. I stood and watched, my arms crossed tightly against me, and Zander squatted to look over the edge as Harris slowly slipped into the water. I couldn’t believe how clear he kept it, making only small waves with the motions of his body, and my heart leapt as he approached the shiny treasure.

  His body blocked the light from view for only a few moments and then he surfaced just as slowly as he had descended. He removed the mask, taking the breathing apparatus from his mouth, and he looked down at the hand that was still in the water.

  “Did you locate the item?” Zander questioned.

  “There wasn’t a skeleton down there, no sign of human remains of any kind, but it’s been three years and this is a public swimming hole, as remote as it is.” Harris sighed, his hand dipping back in the water to brush off the little trinket.

  “So what is it?” Everett asked and watched as Harris placed one hand over the other and raised it out of the water.

  My eyes widened as he removed the top of his cupped hands, and I could feel Zander’s hand gently settle on my shoulder as my own moved up to my mouth.

  16

  The little black box was intact, except for the few small pieces of felt that were missing, but the diamond ring inside was in perfect condition. Harris set it down in my palms, still damp from the time that it sat in the river, and then he gave me a half-smile, friendly and apologetic, as I ran my finger over the large stone.

  “It’s got to be at least two, maybe three carats,” Walters whispered and I could hear Daniels whistle in the background.

  “There is no way that this has been sitting here for three years!” Rodriguez mumbled. “Look at the size of that thing, why wouldn’t anyone have brought it up out of the water to cash it in?”

  “It wasn’t meant to be found,” I replied, and plucked the ring from the box.

  “Are you sure that’s a good idea?” Daniels whispered.

  “I’m not going to put it on, I’m looking for something,” I answered and turned the ring in my hand.

  “How do we even know it’s theirs?” Harris said as he shook his head.

  “Sammy, my beloved always,” I read aloud and handed the ring back to Zander, who closed his eyes and held the precious gift in his hand. I watched him blink quickly as his eyes grew red and he handed it back to me, turned and walked up the hill a bit. I looked down stream and shook my head. “He’s not here, but he was.”

  “So where do we look now?” Daniels questioned and I glanced up at him, tucking the ring into my coat pocket.

  “We have to walk along the riverbank,” I replied and glanced up at Zander, who stood behind the pack. He was still swallowing back his tears, but he smiled at me and winked, which gave me the courage to continue talking. “I think he’ll let me know when we’re getting close.”

  I sighed as I stood, the ring securely in my pocket. Then I turned to look fully at Zander, who walked over and started to help me down the steep embankment to the riverbed below. We walked in silence, one team of three on the far side and three of us on the other with Everett waiting back at the SUV.

  He is an old man, you know. Zander’s thoughts tickled my own as I tried not to focus on how he backed out of the manual labor part of this exercise. Besides, with all of his military training, I don’t really believe that he puts stock in all of this paranormal stuff.

  Yet he commands an elite group of SPIRIT men. I laughed. Doesn’t that strike you as a little odd?

  When you’ve been in the service as long as he has, I think it’s more of what you are ordered to do, not so much what you believe in. He sighed. I could feel his thoughts turning in a dismal direction and to counter it I tossed my own thoughts about the night before at him. You know, that really isn’t fair. I’m a very outdoorsy type of nature guy and having the others around kind of makes me antsy for some alone time. You and me up against a Maple tree.

  I nearly choked on the small drink of water than I held in my mouth, as I stopped abruptly and looked back at him. A wide smile cracked across his face and I shook my head, not sure that I even wanted to know just what he was thinking. His laugh broke the sad mood that surrounded us but it also brought with it the feeling of a pulse coming from in front of me.

  I turned to stare at the rapidly moving water as it flowed down stream, and cautiously made my way over to several rocks that formed a pyramid. At the base of the formation was a small entrance, and as I squatted down in the water, with it running just up passed my knees, I slowly reached in blindly.

  “You don’t know what’s in there, Ms. Ricketts, maybe you should let us do that,” Harris spoke up, a comment that I ignored when I heard Zander pat him on the stomach with the back of his hand and shake his head.

  The pulse was strong as I dug around in the moist dirt before my fingers brushed against something cold and metallic. It sent shocks through me, like Zander liked to do when he was playing with his powers, just little zaps to catch my attention. I glanced up at him as I reached my hand in deeper to untangle whatever it was from the rock it was caught under. Slowly I pulled it out.

  I washed off the dirt and muck from the shining gold piece and then from the chain necklace that held it. Slowly, I turned holding the crucifix up to show the men around me. Zander stepped forward, his hand stretched out, palm up and watched as I let it slowly lay within his grasp.

  He brushed it gently with his fingertips, turning the cross over in his hand to look at the inscription before he looked up at me shaking his head.

  “I lost this years ago, around Christmas time. It just fell off,” he whispered, smiling as he glanced down at it once more. “My father gave it to me after my communion in our church, even had it inscribed with the date. It was one of those things that you couldn’t do again, like my graduation from high school and boot camp.”

  “It means that he came by here,” I said, as I looked down river once again. “I don’t know how far he’s gone though. What can we do to help if he’s in the middle of the lake by now? Three years of storms and thaws could do anything.”

  “We found the ring he intended to give her, we found this,” Zander spoke up, a new resolve in his voice. “If he’s here, even if he’s not, I think he’ll lead us and show us the way to find him.”

  “Ah, sir, Captain just called,” Daniels yelled across the river. “The Sheriff just showed up, he needs us back at the truck ASAP.”

  “You heard him,” Zander ordered, looking only at me. “Move it out!”

  The trek up the hill and then halfway up the mountain was anything but easy and my legs felt as though they were going to give out before we even crossed over the guardrail. The incline on that part had been steeper and covered in damp, slippery leave, giving us little leeway with our equally wet boots.

  Tree branches and footholds were the only things keeping us from falling back down on our bottoms and breaking our necks at the bottom of the gorge. As we approached the SUV, as tired and strained as we were, the sight of Wilton’s very own Sheriff Dodd made my heart sink.

  “What the…?” he said, looking at me as he scratched the back of his head. Theodore Dodd was not the brightest bulb in the bunch, and to see the look of confusion on his face at the sight of a long dead town member was definitely a Kodak moment.

  “Sheriff, the rest of my team; Lieutenant Zander Smith, Mrs. Patricia Smith, his wife and our best forensic expert, Privates First Class Daniels and Harris and Privates Rodriguez and Walters,” Everett announced, staring straight at me as he introduced me with a false name. As the Sheriff shook hands I was quite prepared for the obvious response from him.

  “Wow, excuse me, Mrs. Smith. I don’t mean to stare, you just look like someone I once knew.” He giggled, and turned red in the face.

  “Quite all right, Sheriff, my husband and I get that all the time.” I smiled back and took Zander’s arm as we
walked by and slid into the SUV. Zander looked at me, a grin a mile long on his face and then he shook his head. “What?”

  “I didn’t know we got married that fast,” he whispered, and watched my eyes. “I was your fiancé at your parents’ house, now I’m your husband.” He tittered and I shook my head.

  “You know, it amazes me that the six of you get anything accomplished if you can’t even stay in character long enough to fool a small town Sheriff,” I said, rolling my eyes.

  “Hey, at least he didn’t call you ‘Lady’,” Harris remarked, as he moved into the seat beside me. “I would hate to see what happened if he did.”

  I had to laugh as I remembered that I snapped at him when we first arrived at the red trailer they were operating out of, and shook my head. Everett looked in and glanced over us all.

  “Did you get anything?” he questioned, looking directly at me.

  “A necklace belonging to him,” I replied and shrugged. “I marked the spot where we came out with a rock on the guardrail, the location should be easy to locate the next time we come up.”

  “Good, because we have run into a little bit of a snag,” he hymned.

  “What’s that?” Daniels questioned.

  “Someone burned down the house.” The group of us stared at him, as if in disbelief. Harris sat forward, and opened his mouth to speak, but Everett raised a hand, silencing him. “The Sheriff says there is no way to tell who did it, no tracks from vehicles leading to or from the house, no foot prints at all but ours. It was started from the inside.” He looked back and forth between Zander and I. “In your room.”

  “So what do we do now?” Walters asked.

  “We’re moving back to headquarters.” Everett sighed, but I shook my head as I rubbed my eyes. “Mrs. Smith, you got a problem with that?”

  “I can’t go.” I sighed.

  “Why not?”

  “The fire, it’s the same way that Samantha died,” I whispered, looking down at the bulge in my coat pocket. “Whatever it is, whoever has Zander’s soul isn’t going to let me live. He believes that I’m supposed to be with him. Until we can get the two of them together, I don’t think it’s going to be safe.”

  “I’m not leaving you, Sam, so don’t even suggest it,” Zander spoke up. I smiled at him, knowing full well that he wouldn’t allow it even if I did.

  “We’ll stay at the hotel,” I answered and looked up at Everett, who thought for a moment then nodded. “It’s the only way to keep the whole team safe.”

  “Then why don’t the two of you take the car, the rest of us will head up the mountain and see if we can get something established with command. This thing is turning into something bigger than we’ve dealt with before.” He sighed, opened the back door and let Zander and I out, but before he got into the truck, he looked at the two of us. “Listen you two, keep your noses clean. If there’s any trouble, call, we’ll be right there.”

  “Yes, sir!” Zander replied. I nodded as we moved away towards the car.

  My first thought of the evening was the house on Miller’s Point, and how everything tied into that one location. Samantha and Zander were heading there on that fateful night to inform the parents of their big news, and that alone would make it a target for the supernatural. Mostly because of it being their destination, not to mention the past that was linked to it and my father’s experiments.

  I held the drying box in my hand, staring at the engagement ring that sat inside, and never heard the door behind me open as Zander walked in with dinner in his hand. Gently, he set the plastic bag down on the table and looked over my face as I stared at the jewel.

  “It’s beautiful,” I whispered, a tear streaming down my cheek, and quickly I wiped it away, not knowing that my emotions were quite so evident. “Sam would have loved it.”

  “I know she would have,” he replied and brushed the backside of my hand with his own. “Maybe we should give it to her.”

  “No, that’s for her Zander to do.” I smiled, looking up at him. “They’ll be together again. He can finish what he needs to, what they both need to, before going on to be happy.”

  “You believe that, do you?”

  I grinned, closed the box, and flattened my hands on the table. “I have too, because that’s what I would want to do. It would be the reason I was still around, because I would have never had the chance to tell the man who stole my heart just how I felt. That I loved him and wanted to spend the rest of my life with him.”

  Zander watched the flames in my eyes and the smile flashed across his face. With that silly grin continuing to grow, he took out the two boxes of Chinese food that he had ordered and set them on the table.

  “Bon appetite.” He grinned like a Cheshire cat and I laughed as his accent.

  “What did you do with the cross?” I questioned shortly into eating our meal. Zander finished what was in his mouth, and shrugged.

  “I gave it to Daniels to put in a safe place,” he answered, grabbing his fork to scoop up another mouthful of rice.

  “Why?” I asked softly.

  “It belongs to him, as much as I would love to claim it as my own. There’s a reason I lost mine, just as there was a reason why he lost his.” He shrugged and looked up at me, then pointed to the small box on the counter. “Just like there was a reason for us finding them both.”

  I nodded, slid the chair out, and walked over to the dresser with the ring box. I glanced at him as I took a deep breath and put the small container in the drawer, shutting it tightly behind me before I moved back to sit across from him. He winked at me and continued eating.

  Things were quiet for the rest of the evening, though I couldn’t help but shake the feeling that there was something else connecting everything that was going on with that house. But I couldn’t prove anything, and probably wouldn’t be able to until we found out just where Zander had disappeared too. It was well after dark before I could make myself shut off the thoughts that were flowing through my head. I reluctantly curled up under the covers beside the warm body of the man who shared the room with me.

  His pulse coursed through me as he pulled me closer. Even as I began to feel the pull of the need I had for him, the exhaustion of the day’s activities won over and slowly I let the darkness take over. Only to find myself standing in front of the old house once again.

  17

  I couldn’t help the yawns that escaped me as I sat, half-asleep at the small table the next morning, rubbing my tired eyes. The hot cup of coffee that steamed before me was tempting but I felt completely drained and barely had enough energy to pick it up. I felt a hand gently playing with my hair as I slowly closed my eyes and yawned once again.

  “It must have been a rough night,” Zander whispered, resting his chin on my shoulder.

  “I had nightmares of the most awkward things.” I sighed and shook my head. “They had nothing to do with what’s going on, so I couldn’t say that they were about what I had experienced, but I just couldn’t sleep.”

  “Maybe it was the Chinese.” He shrugged and I smiled.

  “Maybe. So, what’s on the agenda for today?” I inquired and glanced over at him as he stood and made his way to the seat across from me. He sat back against the backrest, cup of coffee tightly in both hands, and he gave me a look of indecision.

  “What are you up for?”

  I was up for going back to bed, but the faster we got to the bottom of where Zander might have disappeared to, the better. “It’s a big mountain. If we’re lucky and the weather holds out today, than we may be able to get half of it done.”

  “Then up to the lake road it is,” he stated and sipped his coffee, cringing as it went down. “Ooh! Hot!”

  I couldn’t hold back the laugh and covered my mouth. The phone beside the bed rang and both of us turned quickly in its direction, our hearts beating fast as Zander stood and walked over to it.

  “Smith,” he announced as he answered. I watched as his eyes darted back and forth, taking in the
information that he was getting over the line. “Right. Well, we were thinking of going back up and searching the river bank some more. With the artifacts we picked up yesterday, there has to be some other evidence as to where he disappeared too.”

  He looked at me as he crossed his free arm over his chest and listened intently to the voice on the other end of the phone. His lips went to a thin line, something that only happened when he was deep in thought, and then he nodded to himself as he listened.

  “No, no, we’ll be ready.” He sighed and looked up at me. “Yes, sir.”

  Slowly, he hung up the phone and walked over to me, sitting down with his coffee one more time. I watched him as he relaxed, as if the whole phone conversation never happened, and his eyes snapped up as I cleared my throat.

  “What happened?” I questioned.

  “Oh, nothing, they’ll be here in an hour to get us and head up to the river.” Zander sighed.

  “That’s not all, is it?” I watched as he sat his cup on the table and then placed his hands beside it, taking in a deep breath. “What?”

  “Someone dug up a grave in the cemetery on Derby Street last night,” he said quietly and watched the expression on my face. I could feel the fire in my chest as the thumping against my ribs began to grow painful. “Listen, Sam, nothing was taken. The site was opened, the coffin too, but she was still there and intact this morning when the Sheriff and his men arrived there.”

  “Who would dig her up?” I whispered, talking more to myself than to him, but I shook my head as my gaze traveled up to his. “Mom and Dad?”

  “That’s what they’re thinking. Apparently, the two of them weren’t all that distraught when the issue was brought up to them.” Zander shrugged. “You have to imagine the shock to see you and I standing at the door if they buried her three years ago. I would have done the same thing, and it takes too long to get approval for excavation.”