Game's End

by Natasha Deen

  “Maggie?” Dad knocked at the bedroom door.

  “Did she want me or not?” I swung it open.

  “Her family wasn’t going to be happy about it,” he said. “But she wanted you. If she didn’t care, why would she keep an eye on you all these years?”

  “The other side has a way of clearing the brain.”

  “I don’t know what to do,” said Dad as he came into my room. “Your mom had her reasons for making me promise what I promised.”

  “Like she had her reasons for not wanting me?”

  He sighed as he sat on the bed. “That’s not the full truth.”

  I waited.

  “Your mom was the one with the power. She struggled with it all of her life.”

  “Her parents couldn’t help?”

  “They didn’t have the abilities she did, and their religious beliefs told them to fear her and her gifts. She learned, young, to hide them.” His smile was brief.

  This was the most he’d ever talked about her. I kept quiet, unwilling to break the fragile space between us.

  “You are so much like her. Every time you speak, every time I see you.” He took my hand. “You are everything that was beautiful and good about your mom.”

  Tears blurred my vision.

  “Your mom became powerful, but it came at a cost. It wasn’t just about the souls. It was about the living. She was able to see people in all the ways they were, all the ways they could be. It began to destroy her.” He squeezed my fingers. “Then you came along. She sensed you would be even more powerful than she was.”

  “And she left?”

  “Her abilities were tearing her apart. She tried medication, meditation—nothing was working. She could no longer tell what was true reality and what was possible.” He went silent and for a while, I thought he wouldn’t say anymore.

  “She asked me to care for you, asked that I wouldn’t tell you anything about her—”

  “Why?”

  “She didn’t want you to look for her, and she didn’t want her family making you feel as though there was anything wrong with you.” Dad let go of my hand.

  “I’d rather she had stayed, even if she was troubled.”

  “She left to keep you safe, and I made a million promises to her to protect you. This is as much as I can tell you without feeling like I’ve violated everything she and I were to each other.”

  “But bad things are coming and she’s trapped. Maybe her family changed how it felt about psychics once she left. There’s no way Mom was the only one with abilities. There might be a sister or someone who can help me.”

  “Let me think on it,” he said.

  “That usually means no.”

  “Not this time. I have to be careful,” he said. “She’s gone from this world. I have no way to talk to her and make her understand any of the decisions I’ve made.”

  “But, Dad—”

  “I know.” He raised his hand as he stood. “But this is more than you and me. This is her and me, and a lifetime of love and trust that was between us. Give me some time.”

  I wanted to point out he’d had seventeen years, but that seemed snarky. So, I nodded.

  He kissed my forehead and left.

  I grabbed my stuff and headed downstairs.

  “You have everything you need?” Nancy asked. “Clothes, toothbrush, emergency credit card, phone?”

  I nodded.

  She handed me a cell, then another. “To hold you until we get there.”

  “It should be tomorrow or the day after,” said Dad. “Gregory will meet you at the airport.”

  “Don’t talk to any strangers, ghosts, or—”

  “Dad.” I took his hand. “I’ve got this. We’ve got this.”

  Tears misted his eyes. “I don’t think we’ve ever been apart.”

  “And we never will be,” I said. “It’s you and me, against the world.”

  He hugged me tight. “Stay safe, my girl.”

  Serge came in through the front door. “I really like messing with electronics. I warmed up your car.”

  I grabbed my stuff. “Thanks.”

  “Not that you need it,” he said.

  “Why? It’s freezing.” I opened the door and came face to face with Nell.

  “I’ve got all the gear stowed in my trunk,” she said. “We can swing by Tims on the way out of town.” She grabbed my bag and headed to her vehicle.

  I spun to face Nancy and Dad. “You told her?”

  “I didn’t say a word,” said Dad.

  “Me either.” Nancy raised her hands.

  “Hey!” I called after Nell. “What makes you think I’m letting you come?”

  She smiled. “First, you’re not letting me do anything. And second, I do what I want. You know why?”

  “I’m terrified to ask.”

  “Because I’m plucky. Let’s go.”

  “Is there any use in arguing with you?”

  “It’s a chance to exercise your lungs.”

  “What about your dad and mom?”

  “They’re fine,” she said.

  “You don’t even know where we’re going.”

  She pulled out a credit card. “I’m sure they’ll take plastic.”

  “This is dangerous,” I said.

  “And Rori said not to be afraid and that everything would work out. Have faith.”

  “Nell, no.” I glanced back at Dad and Nancy, who watched, waiting to step in. Dad pulled out his phone, pointed at it—code that he was phoning her folks—then turned away.

  “This is dangerous,” I repeated.

  “You can join me,” said Nell. “Or I can track you. Either way, you need a team, and I’m part of it.”

  “Her dad says it’s fine.” Dad came to the head of the stairs.

  “So? Tell her she can’t go,” I said.

  “You tell her.”

  Nell smiled.

  He shrugged. “I can’t stop her if her dad won’t. Besides, it might not be a bad idea to have—”

  “Some muscle on board?” asked Nell.

  “—A friend,” finished Dad.

  “How is that possible?” I asked her. “How can he just let you do this?”

  “How does your dad let you do what you do?”

  “I have powers.”

  “And I’m plucky.”

  “Nell—”

  “You’re my best friend, Maggie. Where you go, I go.”

  “Nell—” The look on her face stopped my lecture. “Come on, let’s go.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Nell stopped at Tims and got us a box of Timbits and coffee to go. I tried to pay, but she shut me down with a look scalding enough to leave third-degree burns.

  “You need to conserve your energy,” she said.

  “Money’s not energy.”

  “You never know when you might have to get a disguise.” She handed me a cup of coffee. “Something that’s a little less hobo chic.”

  We drove to the Edmonton airport. A twenty-minute line-up to get through customs and security, a thirty-minute delay because my passport wouldn’t register properly on their computers, a fifteen-minute talk with a customs guy who was big and stern enough to make me feel like a toddler, another ten-minute conversation with another giant customs guy to get clearance, a three-hour wait for the plane to arrive, then we were in flight. I tried to concentrate on the movies and, when that failed, tried to lose myself in a book, but the questions kept rising. By the time we landed, I was mentally exhausted.

  “Ladies and gentlemen.” The captain’s voice came over the intercom. “We’re just having a brief discussion with the tower. We apologize for the delay, and promise to have you on the skyway, shortly.”

  Shortly turned out to be a ten-minute wait.r />
  “I wonder what’s going on,” said Nell, craning her head to see above the headrest.

  “Probably just problems with the hydraulics of the skyway,” said the guy next to us. “It happens a lot.”

  “Too bad they don’t let us use the slide,” said Nell.

  “Mags.” Serge knelt beside me.

  “Nell, turn on your phone, and see if we missed any messages,” I said.

  “Okay, but we’ll probably get better reception in the airport.”

  “Turn it on.” I jerked my head to the side. “I feel like there might be something coming through.”

  “Oh?” Her gaze flicked to the empty aisle. “Oh.”

  Once she’d turned it on, I opened the mental bridge between Serge and me. What’s going on? I bent forward and played around with the items in my bag.

  “I don’t know, exactly, but something bad,” he said. “The cops showed up at the house. And by showed up, I mean they broke into the house.”

  Nell’s cell binged and she read the text.

  What cops?

  “Frank and the other one, Maureen. They came in, and I heard them talking, saying they had to find you.” The freckles stood out on his skin. “I don’t know why they’d just barge in like that, but they grabbed Nancy’s go bag and were talking about her going to Edmonton—”

  The whirr of the airplane door halted his conversation.

  There was a problem with my passport.

  “You don’t think you have the same name as someone wanted by the FBI or anything?” asked Nell.

  “No. I mean—no, if there had been a real problem, they would have stopped me before the flight.” I glanced at the guy on the other side of the aisle, who was watching and listening. “I’m fine.” I smiled.

  He didn’t smile back.

  A minute later, two cops stepped through the plane’s door. One of them whispered to the flight attendant, who picked up the intercom phone and said, “Magdeline Johnson, could you come to the front, please?”

  I stood, pretending not to see the gawking faces of the other passengers.

  Nell stood and followed me down the aisle.

  “Magdeline?” He studied my face for any deception. “We need to see ID, please.”

  I dug into my bag, painfully aware of my shaking hands, and showed him my driver’s licence.

  His gaze flicked to Nell, who showed him her identification. Her hands were steady.

  “We only want Miss Johnson,” said the bigger cop, looking from me to her.

  “That’s her.” Nell pointed. “And I go where she goes.”

  He opened his mouth to argue, took a longer look at her, then decided against fighting.

  “What’s going on?” I asked. “I haven’t done anything wrong—”

  “We just need to talk to you for a moment,” said the smaller cop. “Somewhere private.”

  “No way.” Nell held up her hand. “She stays in public view.”

  “Listen, young lady—”

  “No,” she insisted. “You listen to me. My mom and dad have all kinds of political connections. Whatever’s going on, you do it in a public place, or you let us call a lawyer, or the Canadian consulate.”

  While the two of them engaged in a stare-down, I went back to Serge.

  What exactly did Frank and Maureen say?

  “It’s terrible for Nancy,” said Serge. “I wonder who’ll take over now. Dead Falls won’t be the same.”

  Oh, god, what happened? Man, alive. Did you see Dad?

  Serge shook his head.

  “Come on,” said the big cop, eyeing the passengers recording our exchange. “Let’s get out of here, and let these people disembark.”

  Judging by the looks on their faces, my fellow passengers were happy to stay seated and be part of the drama. The small cop stepped out of the plane, while the big one waited until Nell and I filed out and took up the back.

  Once we were off the skyway, the little one picked up speed.

  “There.” Nell pointed at the glass enclosure that held the smokers. “It’s public and everyone can see us.”

  “Miss—”

  Nell ignored him and, grabbing my arm, strode to the smokers.

  The small officer sped ahead of us, stepped inside, flashed his badge, and cleared them out within a minute.

  The big cop looked at Nell. “Good enough?”

  She nodded. “I don’t like this,” she whispered to me. “They’re being way too nice.”

  I followed the cops into the room.

  “There’s been an incident back home,” said the big cop.

  Nell’s eyes clouded with confusion.

  “Incident?” I repeated.

  The cop and his partner exchanged a glance.

  “It’s about your father,” he said, his voice soft.

  “My dad?” I asked as my stomach dropped out from under me. “What happened?” I was having a hard time breathing. The cigarette smoke filled my lungs and clogged my throat. “Was there an accident?”

  Another shared glance.

  “What happened to my dad?”

  Nell clutched my hand.

  “His vehicle was found on the side of the highway.” The cop’s eyes filled with sympathy, and I knew his next words before he spoke them. “I’m sorry, Maggie, your dad’s dead.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  I barely tracked the next—minutes, hours, days, eternity—that followed his announcement and the bits of information the cops knew. Serge cried. Nell cried. I retreated into a cold, quiet place where there was no sound, save the dull throb of my heart.

  Dad couldn’t be dead. Impossible that someone had shot him. It was a mistake. It had to be. I was a psychic, I was his partner against the world. If anything had happened to him, I would’ve felt it. If anything had happened to him, he would’ve come to me.

  I stayed in denial, dumbly following Nell and the cops. They made flight arrangements and I nodded at the right times, showed my ID at the right times, said my name at the right times. Serge stayed by my side, talking, though I didn’t hear a word. Nell brought coffee but I couldn’t get my fingers to work, to curl around the cup.

  The flight came and I was fine. Fine through the pre-check, through the flight, through the touchdown and unloading. But when we came through the doors into the main area of Edmonton International Airport, when I saw Nancy, her pale face among the crowd, then I knew. Dad was gone. I was alone without him in this world and, worst of all, he had gone into the next one without ever saying goodbye.

  ✦ ✦ ✦

  He lay on the metal slab, grey skin, the thin morgue sheet pulled to his neck. The clock on the wall said it was a minute past midnight. My first official day without my dad.

  “I’m so sorry, Maggie,” said Hinton, the new coroner.

  I ignored his sympathy. “Dad really liked you. He thought you gave the job dignity.” I tried to put feeling in my words, but emotion seemed incapable of breaching the cold dead inside me.

  “The medical examiner will come up from Edmonton and do the full autopsy.”

  “Autopsy.” I repeated the word.

  Nancy, standing beside me, put her arm around my shoulder. Compared to the chill of the room, her touch felt as hot as hellfire. “I have connections with the office.” Her fingers dug into my skin, and I was grateful for the physical pain. “They’ll be here in a couple of days.”

  “It’s nice of them, but not necessary,” I said. “We know someone shot him.” Put a gun to his chest and pulled the trigger.

  “No one in town could’ve done this,” Hinton said. “Everyone loved your dad.”

  Not everyone. Not Mrs. Pierson, who blamed him for allowing me to investigate the death of Kent Meagher and—in her mind—destroying her family. Not Mrs. Sinclair or her daughter, Amber,
who held him responsible for their loss of income and status in the town. Not Principal Larry because Dad stood up for me when the administrator wanted to run me out of school for being the freakish daughter of the town’s undertaker.

  “I bet it was one of those big city folks driving through to get to the Northwest Territories for some kind of communing with nature,” said Hinton. “All that crowding and skyscrapers. Road rage is just part of their everyday commute.” He maneuvered his bulk around the table to stand in front of Nancy. “The guys will find out who did this.” His tone was overly optimistic.

  She nodded.

  “Tragedy can make men rise to the occasion. I’m sure Frank will find skills and abilities…” He trailed into silence.

  “I’m sure Frank will do his best,” Nancy said.

  Her voice was faint lightning in the storm raging inside me. Frank could do whatever he wanted, but I was going to find out who did this to my dad, and I was going to make them pay. Then I was going to find my dad’s spirit and demand an explanation for how he could leave this plane of existence without coming to me.

  Hinton cleared his throat. “In the meantime, we should start planning his funeral.” He stepped back, putting his hand on Dad’s shoulder. “Did he want a military funeral? They might pay for a portion of it, too.” His cheeks reddened. “I’m not the funeral director—”

  In unison, we turned and looked at Dad. Ironic. The guy who could answer the question was on the slab.

  I tuned back into Hinton’s question. “Why would he want a military funeral? He wasn’t military.”

  Nancy’s head went back. “Kid, what are you talking about?” Her eyes narrowed, as if gauging me for shock.

  “Dad wasn’t in the service.”

  “He was part of the CSOR, the Canadian Special Operations Regiment.” She glanced at Hinton, then stepped close and whispered, “It was one of the reasons he was okay with your extracurricular activities.”

  My dad, part of an elite fighting unit. “The guy who burned water?”

  “Hardly anyone knew,” she said. “He didn’t like to talk about it, but yeah, he was part of the military.”

  “He had a tattoo,” Hinton added, as if that explained everything. As if it made it all right that an entire part of my dad’s life had been kept from me.