Oblivion

by Karolyn Cairns

  Chapter Sixteen

  Jace was proud of Lindsay as he listened to them speak. She grew up since his death. She thought of other’s feelings more than her own. He knew it took a lot for her to let him and Marnie off the hook.

  The shock to know Lance was his brother left him reeling. He noted the similarities as he watched his half-brother standing with Lindsay. They had the same coloring, dark hair and eyes. Lance was broader than him and looked like Everett now that he really looked. Sara and Dougie were probably freaking out to gain a brother so soon after he died.

  “I’ll talk to her and tell her I’m ok with all of this, but you two need to come to more of an understanding, Lance,” Lindsay said to her brother. “A baby is a big commitment, no matter who the dad is.”

  Lance got up and looked determined. “I’m going to talk to her. We fought earlier and we both said some things. We need to be united in this is gonna work.”

  “Just forgive her, Lance,” Lindsay told him. “She needs to hear it.”

  Lance left the room and Jace wanted to hug Lindsay for putting her personal feelings aside for Marnie and her baby. He knew she was wounded over it, but she impressed him now with her words.

  “I meant what I said, Jace,” she said to him, looking around the living room after Lance shut the bedroom door. “I forgive you. I know you didn’t do that to hurt me.”

  Jace wanted to take her in his arms and hold her close. He stepped in front of her, staring down into her face with love in his eyes. He reached out and touched her cheek, his hand going through her, feeling her warmth. He longed to be flesh, if only to touch her again. Sorrow filled his eyes to know it was too late for them.

  “I know it has to come as a shock to learn Lance is your brother. My mom and dad never told him. That was why he left last year. He told Sara and Dougie and I think it was just too much for them right now. Things are awkward enough. He wanted to do something for them, but they want to stay with my mom and Jack.”

  Jace felt relief to know they had a big brother if they wanted one. Lance had a hard road winning over Dougie, but Sara would adjust. The enormity of it made him tense, thinking of his father. Did Everett know?

  “Things will work out, Jace. You have to trust me,” his girlfriend whispered.

  A hand went to her pale blonde hair, wanting to ruffle it with his fingers as he had in the past. His fingers slid through her and he closed his eyes, enjoying her warmth if nothing else.

  She shivered as though she felt it. He could see goose bumps rise up on her arms. He wondered if he felt cold to her. Her hand slid into her pocket and withdrew the ring he intended to give her before he died.

  “Sheriff Wilson gave this back to me,” she was saying as she held it. “I just want you to know my answer would have been yes.”

  Jace watched as she slid the ring on her finger. He felt something then, a surge within him that made him gasp. She stepped back and her eyes widened in awe. A hand clamped over her mouth.

  “Jace, I can see you,” she said hoarsely as her hand slid away and she stared at his image. She reached out and tried to touch him but her hand slid through him. “Say something.”

  “This can’t be happening,” he replied and looked at her with a strange look. “Daphne said nobody could see her or hear her.”

  “I can see you, Jace,” Lindsay asserted and appeared in awe. “You are all dressed in black, like SWAT or something.”

  Tears filled her gaze. He reached out and his hand touched her face. “You don’t know how badly I wanted to smash that Ouija board. I wanted to say so much more to you than that.”

  “How is this possible?” she asked in delight.

  “It must be the ring,” he said and his handsome face filled with confusion. “I don’t know how this is even possible.”

  “Who is Daphne?” Lindsay asked.

  “She’s dead too. She went back to check on her son and told me what to expect. She certainly never told me this was possible.”

  “Do you think it’s the ring?”

  Jace watched her remove it. She frowned and put it back on. “You disappeared when I took it off. It is the ring.”

  “Only wear it when we’re alone, Lindsay. We don’t know if anybody else can see me too.”

  She gazed at him sorrowfully. “You can’t stay, can you?”

  “I have to go back, Lindsay.”

  “Where is this place?”

  “It’s called Oblivion, a halfway point, not Heaven or Hell, just a stopover. I think I’m there because I was murdered. It gives you time to get used to the idea you’re dead.”

  “Are you used to it, Jace?” she asked in a sad tone. “This must be so hard for you.”

  “Not knowing if you guys were all alright was the hardest. Waking up dead was a shock.”

  “Is there a God, Jace?” she asked urgently, her eyes holding his.

  “I’ve seen nothing yet, Lindsay. I can’t tell you that. I will tell you that you don’t have to be afraid. It’s not how you think it is.”

  “What’s it like to be dead?”

  “Human functions are no longer necessary. Other than that; I still feel the same. I still love you, Lindsay. I feel it more now.”

  “Do you think everything happens for a reason, Jace?”

  He frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “Maybe we weren’t meant to be together,” she said forlornly, tears brightening her gaze. “Why else would this have happened to us?”

  “Lindsay, don’t say that. Cameron just interrupted our lives. Fate has nothing to do with this. I can reassure you on that. I wasn’t meant to die. That’s why I’m still here.”

  Relief filled her gaze. “How do I live without you?”

  “How did I die without you, Lindsay?” he asked with a sad smile. “It’s just the way it is. I know you want me to say something to make you feel better, but here we are. I’m a ghost and you’re alive. For now; we make the best of it.”

  Lindsay wanted to bawl her eyes out as she faced him, seeing him and hearing him, but unable to touch him. It was a cruel reminder of all that they lost. Still, knowing he came back to her was some hope. Just hearing his voice once more made her happy. Getting used to him being dead was hard. His ghost could only comfort her now.

  “I want to be with you, Jace,” she said in a tight voice. “Nothing I wanted seems important anymore. I don’t want to live without you.”

  He looked angry. “Don’t you ever say that! You’re alive, Lindsay. It’s the way it is. Don’t you talk like that! You have a whole wonderful life ahead of you. Some day you’ll meet someone else. You’ll get over this.”

  She bit back a sob. “I’ll never feel for anyone the way I do for you, Jace. How can I ever settle for this? You can’t expect me to!”

  Jace knew she was close to falling apart. He wanted to reassure her that the future for them both was as cut and dry as he made it sound. He didn’t even know that for sure.

  “I expect you to live and do everything you planned to do, Lindsay,” he reminded her solemnly, heart in his eyes. “Don’t let Cameron steal that from you too. Live your life. It’s what I want for you.”

  She refused to answer him. The thought of ever getting beyond this moment was forgotten as Lance opened the bedroom door and she hastily slid off the ring.

  “Who were you talking to?” he asked as he looked around.

  She wiped at her eyes. “I was talking to someone from school. They called to give their condolences. I guess I got a little teary.”

  His expression softened and he came and hugged her. “You are gonna be ok, Lindsay. I know you don’t believe it, but it’s true. I’m here for you. If you ever want to talk about my little brother, we can do that. I loved him too.”

  “It’s funny how you always called him your little brother, and he was the whole time.”

  “I wish I would have known the truth,” he said in regret and shook his head. “It goes to show you how short life is and how so muc
h time is wasted.”

  “Mom wanted to tell you for years,” Lindsay said with a sniffle. “Dad was afraid it would mess everything up if you knew.”

  “Looks like everything is pretty messed up anyway,” he pointed out.

  “Dad will come around; you’ll see.”

  Lance looked unconcerned. “Lindsay, do you think he’s just going to forget about me and Margene? Do you think knowing that kid she’s having could be mine sits well with him?”

  She didn’t know what to say. He was her real father and she hadn’t seen or heard from him since she got the hundred dollars for her pictures and announcements. Her heart hurt for Lance. The only father he ever knew turned his back on him and the real one didn’t stay sober long enough to even acknowledge him.

  “It’s his loss, Lance.”

  “Lindsay, that’s not the point. He’s known for years I wasn’t his. Margene was just the excuse he needed to push me away once and for all. Don’t act like everything is going to ever go back the way it was.”

  “So you’re just going back to Georgia without trying to fix things?”

  “I’ve tried all my life to get it right with him, Lindsay. I always wondered why nothing I ever did seemed good enough for him and now I know. No, I won’t bother. It’s done. I’m Lance Turner, not Morgan, by the way. It’s even on my birth certificate.”

  “What?” she asked and looked confused.

  He smiled coldly. “He married Mom when Everett dumped her but he wanted to be sure he didn’t get stuck paying child support if it didn’t work out. Everett’s name is on my birth certificate. She told me he insisted on it from the beginning. What does that tell you about our good old dad?”

  Lindsay was too stunned to say anything. The father she thought she knew continued to disappoint her. He had to have heard about the station wagon exploding. Where was his call of concern?

  “Are you going to try to have a relationship with Everett?”

  He laughed and looked down at her with real amusement in his face. “After what Jace went through all these years; do you really think that’s going to happen, Lindsay? Why is it so hard for you to accept the finality of things? I don’t have a father anymore; period. I think you’re more upset about it than I am.”

  “I just can’t really believe it’s that easy to just forget you have a son, for either of them.”

  Lance rolled his eyes. “You’re just softhearted like Mom. She wanted to tell me for years and he refused to let her. He said he worried I wouldn’t accept him. He just didn’t want me to know why he treated me like crap all of my life. Now I know and it won’t ever go back to the way it was. I don’t want him in my life.”

  “Is Mom ok with all of this?”

  “She isn’t thrilled. She wants us to sit down and talk about it.”

  “Maybe you should listen to her.”

  “For the first time in a long time everything makes sense, Lindsay. I don’t have to live up to anything or live anything down. Leave it alone.”

  She nodded. “I just feel like you’re running away again, Lance.”

  “No if I was running I’d be gone right now and not waiting for Marnie’s test and your graduation, trust me,” he said and grinned. “Don’t push it. The thought crossed my mind.”

  “Did you and Marnie talk?”

  Lance shrugged. “She’s scared, Lindsay. She’s scared to have it and scared to give it up. I can’t help her make this decision. If it’s the wrong one, she’ll always think I influenced it because the kid’s not mine.”

  Lindsay felt bad for the position Marnie was in. Abandoned by her parents now, the girl couldn’t make these choices easily on her own. She worried Lance would walk out and leave her to raise a baby alone. Trust was the biggest issue between them.

  Lance’s return should have reassured her. It didn’t. Marnie expected him to run out on her at the first sign of trouble. Another girl talk was long overdue. Lindsay didn’t look forward to it, but Lance was her brother. She knew him best.

  “I’ll talk to her when things calm down,” she told him. “I’ll tell her you’re an idiot but you always do the right thing in the end.”

  “Thanks a lot.”

  “If she’s going to be my sister-in-law she needs to toughen up.”

  “Marnie is lying down. Why don’t we go get dinner?”

  “Sure, I’m just going to change,” Lindsay said and left the room, hoping Jace followed.

  She closed her bedroom door and put the ring back on. Jace leaned against the wall next to her closet. He was smiling in that way he always did. A pang of longing struck her once more.

  “He’s doing the right thing. This has to be Marnie’s choice whether she keeps it or not, Lindsay. You need to stay out of it. You aren’t the one who has to have the baby.”

  She scowled at him. “What if it’s yours?”

  He shrugged. “Since when does a guy ever get a choice in things like this? You girls never think of us at all.”

  “And if you had a choice?”

  Jace smiled sadly. “I’m dead, remember? Don’t ask me what I think about life now. I’d give anything to be alive right now.”

  “You haven’t answered me.”

  “I think we both know I want her to keep it.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it’s hers and mine maybe; that’s why. Life isn’t for anyone to take away because it isn’t convenient, Lindsay,” he stated coolly and avoided her eyes. “Let’s just say I’m selfish now that I’m dead. A part of me might live on in that kid. Why wouldn’t I feel this way? When I was alive I intended to pay for an abortion. I know it sounds messed up, but I see it all so different now. Life is the greatest gift you can give or get. We don’t even see it as a miracle until it’s gone.”

  “Did it bother you when she came to you for help?”

  “It bothered me that she had to come to me at all,” he explained and looked disgusted. “Cam put her off for months. By then, she had a short time until it was too late to get it done. That’s what bothered me. Cam refused to own up to it. I was seeing him in a whole different light and didn’t like it.”

  “Why did he do it, Jace?”

  He frowned. “I wracked my brain trying to figure out why he killed me. He knew he had the scholarship in the bag when I told him I wasn’t leaving. The thing with Marnie didn’t bother him. I don’t know. I didn’t do anything to deserve this if that’s what you’re asking?”

  He sounded defensive to her. She rushed to reassure him. “Of course you didn’t. That’s not what I meant. I just don’t get it.”

  “Join the club. Maybe he’s sick and doesn’t need a reason.”

  Lindsay saw the way his eyes slid away from hers and knew he was hiding something from her, even now. She realized right there and then she didn’t know everything about Jace as she thought. Everyone had secrets.

  “Did you know he was dealing drugs?”

  Jace looked at her in surprise and she knew he hadn’t known.

  “No, I didn’t mess with drugs and didn’t know he did. A little pot once in awhile and that’s it. I swear this is news to me. Where was I all this time? Under a rock?”

  She laughed brightly, for she felt the same. Being under a rock with Jace right about now was preferable to a future without him.

  “Trust me; I felt the same way when I heard it. Even Sara knew. When the police searched his room they found enough drugs to charge him. That’s why he’s after me now.”

  “There is something I considered as soon as I realized he did this; just a gut reaction,” he said quietly and his eyes met hers. “He had a thing about you for years. I knew it, but I figured it was just a crush.”

  “He hates me. I can assure you,” she replied dismissively and avoided mentioning the night Cameron drugged her. Jace didn’t need to hear about how his murderer nearly raped her.

  “No, it all makes sense. I showed him the ring in town and told him I was going to propose to you. He asked m
e to take him to Marnie’s house after that. He acted real funny that morning on the way out there.”

  “I refuse to think he killed you to get a shot with me, Jace.”

  “Why? You’re beautiful, Lindsay. You’re smart and have a lot going for you. Why is it so hard for you to think that he killed me because he’s obsessed with you?”

  Lindsay thought of all the times Cameron went out of his way to be around her over the years, using his friendship with Jace as an excuse. She had never given it much thought before.

  Jace was barely cold in his grave when he drugged her and intended to rape her. But he hadn’t. For some reason he left her alone, unlike all the other girls he had done it to before, like Marnie. Was it true? Was Cameron obsessed with her? Is that the only reason he killed Jace?

  “I don’t want to think it was because of me. That’s too much for me right now. I’ll just torture myself thinking about it.”

  “He’s sick, that much is clear,” Jace offered and heard noise from the living room. “Go eat with your brother, or our brother, rather. God, this is odd. We aren’t related now are we?”

  She laughed. “No, we aren’t related at all.”

  Jace grinned and winked at her. “Good because I don’t think of you as a sister.”

  Lindsay watched as Jace turned and walked through her bedroom wall into the kitchen beyond and shook her head. She would never get used to his being a ghost now. As incredible as it was; he was back. She was determined not to dwell upon the fact it was temporary. Lance was wrong. She did accept the finality in some things. Jace was lost to her forever.

  Lindsay was miles away as she and Lance sat in the diner. She was distracted by her thoughts of Jace and the wonder that he was back. Her brother threw a fry at her to get her attention and she plucked it from her hair and regarded him sourly.

  “Earth to Lindsay?” he asked teasingly. “Where are you at, little sister?”

  “I’m sorry,” she apologized. “I have a lot on my mind.”

  Lance raised his hand to Melva, the old waitress, wanting the check. “You want to run anything by me?”

  “Do you believe it ghosts, Lance?”

  Her brother frowned. “Ghosts? No, I don’t. Why?”

  She shrugged and avoided his gaze. “I just wondered about it that’s all.”

  “Is this about Jace?”

  “What if there was life after death?”

  He looked frustrated. “I suppose anything is possible. I wouldn’t want to find out.”

  Lindsay knew Lance worried she was losing it so she monitored her words carefully.

  “I guess I just question everything now with what happened to Jace. Being murdered changes things. It cuts a destiny short. It makes me wonder if anything is really meant to be.”

  “Lindsay, he had no control over what happened to him. He could have walked out in front of a truck too. What’s your point?”

  “Just that maybe there is no ultimate plan for us. It’s out of our hands and things just happen. We have no predestined time to go like everyone thinks.”

  He sat back in the booth. “Why are you dwelling on this? Let it go. It’s just going to torture you.”

  “I had to think everything happened for a reason before and now I’m not so sure.”

  “Death is the end, Lindsay. If there was more we would have heard about it, right?”

  Lindsay believed the people who saw that light didn’t know the half of it. From what Jace told her, there was a whole other dimension out there. The wonder of it held her fast. Her beliefs were all challenged now. Jace hadn’t seen anything to indicate God even existed where he was. Even if it bothered her to think there was no higher power, she felt relief to know some of life’s questions were answered.

  “I wanted to believe in Heaven and all that. I’m starting to think Heaven is on earth, Lance. What happens after depends on how you lived, good or bad.”

  He appeared uncomfortable. They both had pretty loose religious training. They went to church sporadically over the years. Deborah wasn’t a consistent Catholic and their father worked most Sundays at the hardware store.

  “Let’s hope you’re wrong. I want to think of my brother as an angel. He was too good of a guy to hang out in some dark, scary place.”

  Lindsay wanted to tell Lance everything but held back. If she started spouting off about what she knew he would put her on a plane to Aunt Billie. They finished up and he paid the check. While they waited for a take-out box for Marnie, they saw Cam’s car zoom by.

  Lance glared after the Mustang. She knew the fact Jace’s murderer walked freely among them bothered him as much as her. They were in agreement on that. The gun in her purse felt leaden as she rose and followed her brother out of Reddy’s diner. The desire to pull it out and go after Cameron made her hand itch.

  She sat in the car and held the purse comfortingly. The gun was a security. Just knowing she had it gave her some measure of reassurance. Now all she had to do was learn to use it. She was reminded of Jace’s truck. Lance could help her with that. He made it a point of keeping up with Everett every day now. He could get his father to sign off on the truck so she could get it from the impound lot.

  “I need a favor of you,” she began.

  “Sure, what do you need?”

  “I want Jace’s truck. Everett has to sign off in order to have it taken out of impound. Jace would have wanted me to have it and you know I need wheels now. Can you do that for me?”

  “Sure, I’ll see him first thing tomorrow before he’s too far gone. Are you sure you can handle it, Lindsay?”

  She nodded. “I want his truck. It’s just sitting there and I could use it while I’m here.”

  “I’m surprised that old rust-bucket still runs.”

  “Jace kept it going.”

  “He was a great guy, Lindsay. I know there’s nothing anyone can say to make you feel better, but someday you’ll see him again.”

  Lindsay smiled, knowing someday was in minutes. Jace was at her apartment, waiting on her. Whatever she could learn from his ghost made her anxious to get back. He was here for a reason.

  Unfinished business was just too easy for her to believe. She wanted to think her love for him brought him back, if nothing else. He would help her trap Cameron. He claimed it was his sole purpose for being here now. They would get Cameron. She had to believe it.