Forty-Four Box Set, Books 1-10 (44) (62 page)

I stood up and stumbled in Ty’s direction, feeling sick. Everything was spinning, Spenser’s voice echoing in my head, the light leaving the world.

CHAPTER 27

Ty put his arm around me as we walked back over to his truck.

“You’re shaking, Abby,” he said. “Are you okay? What happened over there?”

“I’m fine,” I said, breathing in the cool air. “Really. Just give me one minute.”

We walked in silence as he took off his jacket and put it around me. He pulled me close.

“You sure you’re okay?”

I stopped and hugged him.

“I’m okay,” I said. “Do you have any water?”

He opened the door.

“Yeah, sit down. I’ll get it out of the back.”

“You weren’t really meditating back there, were you?” he said while I took a long drink.

“Ah, the hell with it,” I said after a long pause. “I suppose this is as good a time as any. You’re right, I wasn’t meditating. There’s something you don’t know about me.”

He smiled.

I tried to smile.

“Hit me,” he said.

“I see ghosts.”

I just put it out there. The smile left his lips.

“What?”

“You know. Ghosts. Dead people.”

His light eyes looked like balloons being filled with helium.

“No way,” he said. “You’re kidding, right?”

I shook my head.

“There’s a boy I keep seeing. He’s the brother of someone I work with. He was over in those trees and I had to go talk to him.”

I stared into his eyes, trying to read his mood. Ty was always the same. Not too much ever affected him. But this time he looked different, waves of dark energy dancing around him.

“I know it’s a lot to take on,” I said. “And I want to tell you more. But I can’t right now. I have to get home. There’s something I have to do.”

“All right,” was all he said, turning the key in the ignition.

We drove back to town in silence. The 20 minutes felt like 20 hours.

When he dropped me off and disappeared down the street, I stood there wondering if the truth was overrated, if I would see him again. If he would ever look at me the same. I wanted him to come back and hold me and tell me that it didn’t matter. That he loved me anyway. That it didn’t matter one bit to him that I walked in two worlds.

After I realized he wasn’t coming back, I unlocked the door and went inside.

I took a shower, letting the water carry away my tears, and then I called Mo.

CHAPTER 28

It was after three, but when she picked up it sounded like she was still in bed.

“Yeah,” she said, making it sound like a salutation.

“Mo, it’s Abby.”

“I know,” she said, followed by a long pause.

“Can you meet me?”

We agreed to meet at Thump. Mo said she needed caffeine but didn’t want to deal with “the people I spend my life with.” I headed downtown.

It was pretty quiet in the café. Only a few small groups of people were scattered at tables as soft jazz music played in the background. It felt a lot different than Back Street, but maybe that was just because I didn’t work there.

I found a table in the back. Kate and I used to come here a lot. They had good coffee and I always liked the employees and as I sat there waiting, I realized how much I missed it.

It didn’t take Mo long to show up. She flung the door open and got in line. I wasn’t sure if she saw me, but after she got her drink she came straight over.

“Hey,” she said.

She kept her sunglasses on. Her clothes were a little wrinkled. She sat down, gulping the coffee that must have been too hot to drink.

“Hey,” I said.

“So what did he say?” she asked, taking off her glasses and throwing them down on the table. Her eyes had dark circles under them.

“He told me about that night,” I said. “And some other things.”

“Tell me,” she said. “I’m ready.”

CHAPTER 29

After I told Mo everything Spenser had told me, she sat in a stupor, deep in thought or something more primal.

There wasn’t much to do but sit there with her.

“I’m going to kill him,” she said finally, controlled rage in her voice.

“No, Mo,” I said. “That’s not why I told you.”

“He’s dead already,” she said, standing up.

I followed her outside and stopped her on the sidewalk.

“Mo, listen. Please. It’s not like you can go over there and beat him up. He’s not normal.”

“This isn’t your concern anymore. Thanks for what you did, but this is about my family. My brother. Devin killed him and he’s going to pay.”

We were standing in front of the Oxford Hotel and I was trying to keep my voice down, hoping she would do the same. There were a lot of people around.

“You’re wrong, Mo. It is my concern. Spenser came to me. You can’t just go over there and pummel Devin into the ground. We need to be smart about this.”

“I can do what I want. And I’m not afraid of that little psycho. I told Spenser way back he was bad news. I saw it a million miles away, but he still was friends with him. Now, get out of my way.”

“You’ve got to listen to what I’m saying. Devin isn’t like us. I know what I’m talking about. I’ve dealt with this kind of thing before.”

She pulled out a cigarette.

“Let’s walk over to the park and talk for a few minutes,” I said. “Please. Just give me five minutes.”

She didn’t say anything but took off toward the river and I followed, breathing the white stream of smoke that flowed behind her. We walked quickly, taking shortcuts across alleys and parking lots.

There was an empty bench not too far from the water. We sat down at opposite ends and stared at a large swan floating in the distance.

“Don’t tell me I don’t understand,” she said. “I’ve dealt with plenty of freaks in my life. And I know how to put them in their place. I’ve never had a problem with that.”

“I’m sure that’s true. But I’m willing to bet you’ve never dealt with any murderers, have you? Real ones? Well, I have.”

I hadn’t planned on telling her about Nathaniel, but I did. I told her about what had happened to me on that island near the Canadian border, about the scientists who did experiments on me, and about Nathaniel trying to kill me so he could bring me back to life.

Mo’s eyes grew wide when I told her the part about being strapped to a gurney and lowered down into a pool of water to drown.

“You can’t go straight at him. As long as he doesn’t know we know what really happened that night, we have the upper hand. But we lose that if he finds out. The brief satisfaction you’d get from hurting him won’t be worth it. He’s evil. Probably smart. We’ve got to be smart too. We need to think about this.”

She sighed, a trace of reason returning to her eyes.

“Okay. So what do you suggest then?”

I sat back. I tried to think of a solution, something that would sound like justice being served. But I drew a blank. I had nothing.

“I don’t know yet. I need some time to figure this out. All I know is that if you go over there now, you’ll just tip him off that we know something. We don’t want that.”

She blew out a cloud in front of her.

“I can see that,” she said, sucking down more smoke.

We watched as a group of goths went by. I saw her nod to one of them and he nodded back.

I didn’t know what else to say to Mo. I was out of words. I wasn’t even sure how we could convince the authorities that Devin was the one who was at least partially responsible for Spenser’s death.

“I’ll give you some time to think on it,” she said. “I’ll do the same.”

She stood up and walked away, catching up with the group that had passed by. I sat there looking at the dark water.

CHAPTER 30

We were on the sofa watching a show when I told Kate about Spenser. She muted the TV at first and then turned it off. By the time I had finished, she had a blanket wrapped around her shoulders.

“I don’t even know what to say,” she said. “It’s too awful for words.”

I just nodded.

Each of us alone with our thoughts, we sat quietly for a few minutes as the light left the sky outside. Then she got up and headed to the kitchen. I followed her.

“The granite is going to be nice,” I said, running my fingers across the old, white tiles on the counter. We had lived in this house since we were kids and I remembered sliding little plastic race cars across them.

“Yeah, they’re coming out next month,” she said, opening up a cupboard. “You were the one who inspired me to order them, Abby. I thought that you might like to work in a really kicked-up kitchen.”

“I didn’t know that you were doing it for me,” I said. “That was nice.”

The kettle started whistling and she poured the boiling water over tea bags into two large mugs and handed me one.

“You know, back when you were up there on that island, I kept thinking that if I could just get you home everything would be okay.”

I held the cup, letting the heat warm my hands.

“And then, when we were on the plane and I was looking out at the clouds at the pinks and blues of the sunset as we were landing, I thought about how there was nothing more important in the world than you making it back here. Nothing. And how lucky it was that I was sitting next to you, heading back to our little house.”

I looked up at her, words stuck in my throat.

“I’m just so grateful that you are still here,” she said, pulling out the barstool and sitting down next to me. “And every time I hear terrible stories like that, it chills me to the bone. But it reminds me again how lucky we are.”

She tapped my arm with her hand and I patted her shoulder.

“Poor Spenser,” she said, after a minute.

“So what can we do about it, I mean Mo and me?” I said after a while. “He can’t just get away with it, Kate. But I’ve been racking my brain and I can’t think of anything.”

“You’re right. It’s tough. But it’s not like you can drop by the police department and tell them that you know the real story about what happened to Spenser because you talked to his ghost.”

“We need evidence,” I said. “Evidence that proves that it wasn’t just an accident.”

Kate put her cup down.

“I think there’s a good chance that Devin still has those photos he took of Spenser,” she said. “Seems like he would want to hang on to something like that. I think he would consider it important, maybe a sort of trophy. But I don’t know how you could get your hands on them. And even if you did, the pictures of Spenser dying won’t prove anything other than that he’s a sicko.”

I nodded.

“Well, maybe the photos would be a good place to start,” I said. “You really think he still has them?”

“The more I think about it, the surer I feel. Yeah, he still has them. I’m no expert but he really seems like a textbook case, don’t you think?”

“What do you mean?”

“That he’s a killer,” she said, and I could almost hear the gears in her brain going around, faster and faster. “From what I know, these people don’t have a normal childhood and then just freak out when they grow up. Most of the time there’s a pattern that can be seen early on if people know what to look for. A lot of infamous serial killers started out torturing animals as children. Something draws them to that sort of thing. And then they get a taste for it. That’s how it begins.”

I shuddered.

“Begins?” I said.

“Begins,” she repeated.

“Kate, we have to do something. We have to figure out a way so that people know that Devin murdered Spenser.”

“Take it easy, Abby. First off, even if you were able to convince somebody that Devin chased Spenser out onto the road, that wouldn’t qualify as murder. From what I’ve heard, you would probably have to show intent and that would be hard to prove. And also, remember that it was ruled an accident. And that woman did hit him while she was talking on the phone. In the eyes of the law, she was responsible for Spenser’s death. So I don’t know if you could really say that Devin
murdered
him.”

“I suppose, but there’s got to be something,” I said. “You know, that woman might not have been able to stop in time even if she wasn’t on the phone.”

“I guess we’ll never know. And I don’t know if there is anything else you can do. Maybe Spenser just wanted to tell you his story so that his family could know. Maybe knowing what really happened that night will help them in a way, like with Annabelle Harrison’s family.”

“I already told Mo. But I don’t think it helped. It only made her mad. She freaked out and was all ready to go over there and go off on him.”

“She’s not serious, is she?” Kate said.

“No, I talked her down. For now. But who knows how long it’ll stick. She doesn’t seem the type to ponder things to death. Sooner or later, she’s going to take some sort of action.”

Kate stood up and stretched and put our cups in the sink.

“I know you want to be able to help everybody solve everything, but I think your job is just to pass along the information. You did what Spenser wanted. You heard his story and told his sister. Try to move on.”

I nodded.

“Come on,” she said. “Let’s watch Chef Ron to change the mood before we head to bed.”

I did my best
Sweet Genius
impression and she laughed.

***

It was late when I turned on the computer and wrote to Claire.

I knew what Kate was saying was true, but it was hard to just let it go. I thought Claire might be able to shed some light.

Claire was a psychic who lived in London. I found her on the internet a while back when I was desperate and looking for Jesse. I wrote to her often and considered her a good friend, even though we lived so far apart and only communicated online.

I typed out some quick lines, updating her on the latest visit with Spenser along with a short summary of what had really happened to him. I was hoping she had an idea. I understood what Kate was saying about passing on information, but it just didn’t feel like enough. Not in this case. There had to something more I could do.