By the Pale Moonlight (Book One of the Moonlight Series) (24 page)

I smiled one last time at my reflection and
picked up the edge of the dress so I wouldn't get it dirty as I
made my way back to my dressing room. I stopped when I heard a
familiar voice.

"I hate it."

"It's very flattering," said an older female
voice. "Though maybe if you lost a couple of pounds..." The woman
trailed off. "Or not."

"We just have to keep looking. I'll know the
dress when I see it. This isn't it."

I peeked my head around the corner slowly,
convinced I recognized that voice. Yep. Carrie. She was standing in
front of a three-way mirror, swishing around to view herself from
all angles in the hunter green dress she wore. In my opinion, she
looked phenomenal.

Carrie's mother stood off to the side with
what I expected were several discarded dresses draped over her
arms. The poor woman looked exhausted.

My dressing room was straight ahead, and I'd
have to pass within Carrie's line of sight to get to it. Perhaps if
I waited long enough, she would go back into one of the changing
rooms and I could slip in and out again without her noticing. I'd
never been that lucky, but the last thing I wanted was to confront
the girl in evening wear.

Pressed back to the wall, I waited them
out.

"What about this blue one?"

Carrie made a disgruntled noise in the back
of her throat. "Fine. Give it to me." There was the sound of
fabric—I can only assume Carrie ripped it from her mother's
hands—and their voices grew muffled. She was in a room. Thank
God.

I picked up my gown again and made tail for
my dressing room, quickly changing back into my street clothes. I
cracked the door open again and peeked down the hall. I didn't see
anyone, and quickly exited.

"Nice dress."

I jumped and whirled around. Carrie stood
against the wall behind me—the last place I expected her to be. She
was wearing jeans and a sweater, and when I turned to look for her
mother, the woman had disappeared. Great.

Carrie pushed off the wall, studying the
garment in my arms. Reaching out a hand, she slid the fabric
between her fingers. "Pretty."

I swallowed—hard. "Thanks."

Her blue eyes studied me for a long beat; I
fought to maintain eye contact. Was this Kim's killer? The fact she
could sneak up on me this way—was it just a coincidence or had she
heard me—smelled me—sensed me in some way I couldn't even
comprehend?

"What about you?" I said, trying to regain my
composure. "Any luck?"

She tilted her head to the side, a slow smile
curving her red lips. "No, but I haven't given up yet."

With that, she brushed past me to the store
floor.

o0o

With the addition of the pair of strappy
silver heels my mother found, my outfit was complete. Regardless,
my spirits had been irrevocably dampened by my encounter with
Carrie.

I forced myself to step out of my funk to
help Melanie shop for her own gown. With the aid of Ty and one of
his buddies, we managed to snare her a date. Matt Bauer was a
student coach for the football team and admitted to having a bit of
crush on Melanie for quite some time.

"But I don't even know him," Melanie
complained for the umpteenth time.

I poo-pooed her protests and forced her into
a dressing room with another gown. "He's great! He's funny, he's
nice, and most importantly, he likes you."

"Yeah, but what will we talk about?" Her
words came out muffled as she slipped a light green dress over her
head.

"Normal stuff. He's just like anyone else.
You talk about whatever comes to mind—school, the game, what you
like to do. It's simple."

"Easy for you to say." She stepped outside
and we both burst out laughing at the horrendous fit of the dress.
It hung off her awkwardly, the hemline pooling at her feet. She
looked like a young child playing dress-up with her mother's
clothes.

"I'd leave this part out," I said. We both
fell into another fit of the giggles.

My mother came to our rescue. After scouring
the petites section, she appeared with the perfect dress. The
burgundy gown set off Melanie's lovely skin and clung beautifully
to her small frame.

"See," I said, stepping back for a full view.
"It's perfect. Matt is going to fall over when he sees you."

My mom nodded her approval, squeezing
Melanie's shoulder.

"Thank you." Melanie dropped her eyes, a rosy
blush coloring her freckled cheeks. "There's just one more
thing...I don't know how to dance."

"Not a problem," I said.

Ty didn't know what hit him when I forced him
to give Melanie a mini-lesson on the finer points of dancing. I
cleared everything out of the center of my room and turned on some
soft music. When they hesitated, staring at each other from
opposite sides of the room, I pushed them together. "Can't dance
that way, now can we?"

He shot me an annoyed look before pulling her
into his arms. His large stature next to Melanie's short one was
adorably cute. He showed her the greatest patience as she kept
stumbling over his feet, once even managing to elbow him in the
eye—a miracle given their height difference. I took mental notes
for my diary.

After many hits and misses, they finally
started moving in sync.

"See, not so bad." I smiled.

o0o

"You're a really good friend to her," Ty
said.

In the process of stacking CDs we had used
during the dance lesson, I was unprepared for the compliment. I
smiled to myself, realizing I had enjoyed the day—despite my
encounter with Carrie. Being with Melanie and my mother that day
had felt good. Easy.

"I like her," I said, shrugging. It was true.
Being around her was different than hanging out with Jenna and my
other friends. With them, I always felt the need to compete—or at
least try to hold my head above what felt like shark-infested
waters. For the first time in a long time, I didn't have to pretend
to be something I wasn't.

Ty was lying on my bed, bouncing a tennis
ball against the wall behind it. I studied his dark head for a
moment, wondering if I should tell him about Carrie. It didn't seem
right to withhold the information, but I didn't know if he would be
receptive. Soft thumps of the ball on plaster filled the quiet in
the room. He paused, catching the ball in his right hand, and
looked over at me.

"Is something wrong?"

I should've told him then, but I couldn't. It
had been a perfect day and I didn't want it to end in an argument.
Any mention of Carrie's name always led to that, it seemed, and I
just couldn't take the idea of him taking her side again.

"Nothing," I said.

He rolled off the bed in one fluid motion and
put the ball down on my desk. "Good. Because we have work to
do."

I raised an eyebrow. "We?"

He nodded, the ghost of a smile playing on
his lips.

"My my...first your car, now this? Whatever
will you trust me with next?"

Our eyes met for the briefest moment and my
heart moved into a gallop.

He laughed, nervously, and motioned toward
the door. "Let's get to work."

Helping Ty with his restraints wasn't nearly
as glamorous as he made it look. Whereas he wore grime well, the
dirt and dust making him even sexier, I simply turned into a big
hot mess. After wielding the hammer just once, I was ready to quit.
Rather than embarrass myself further with my complete ineptitude, I
sat back and watched him work.

Talking was impossible with all of the noise
he was making, so I soon grew bored and tired. When I nodded off
for the third time, I jerked my chin up and stretched. Enough
already. I hugged him from behind.

"I'm going to bed," I said. Standing on
tiptoe, I placed a light kiss on his neck. He reached to give me a
hug, but I backed away from him. "Don't even try it."

He laughed, waggling his greasy fingers at
me. "I'll be there soon."

"Shower first," I said, grinning.

I pulled the shed door closed behind me,
taking a deep gulp of the night air. After the noise inside, the
quiet outdoors was a welcome relief.

After a moment to let my senses adjust, I
pushed off the shed and started toward my house. A light shone on
Ty's back porch, but once I started into the trees, it faded into
the background. Soon I was in darkness, the trees and bushes mere
shadows that seemed to blend in to the next.

Just as the dim light from my own porch
filtered through the thinning leaves, a sharp smell struck me full
force. I clapped a hand over my nose and mouth, tried not to gag on
the stench. It was all around me, the very air heavy with it. I
stumbled backwards, anything to get away. It had the sting of
ammonia, only foul.

Something on the ground slid against my
ankle. I shrieked. It was cool to my skin, but in the darkness I
couldn't make out what it was.

"Mac!" Ty appeared so quickly that I
involuntarily yelped and stumbled away from him. Whatever was on
the ground seemed to have a hold on me, and I kicked out at it.

"Get it off of me!" I yelled.

Ty reached my side in an instant, wrapping
his arms around me. He made soft shushing noises in my ear. "I'm
here," he repeated until my heart slowed and my breathing returned
to normal. When at last I was calm, he bent to the ground and came
back with what appeared to be liquid darkness.

"What the..." he said, turning the thing over
in his hands. "I think it's...clothes."

Despite my terror from a moment before, I
reached out to touch the silky material in his hands. My heart
sank. I recognized it in an instant.

"It's my Homecoming dress."

I watched Ty pace my bedroom, his shoulders
rippling with tension. Seated on my bed, I clutched a throw pillow
to my chest and regarded the dress that now lay on the floor at the
foot of my bed. I hadn't wanted to bring it inside—the thing stank
worse than a portable latrine—but Ty had insisted.

When I explained the smell in the woods, Ty
went to investigate, finding nothing. Even worse, despite my
insistence that the garment at his feet reeked, he couldn't smell
it. It was just another piece of this weird puzzle that we couldn't
put in place.

My mind didn't want to go there, but even I
realized it was a warning. And not a pretty one.

The thought that someone would sneak into my
room to steal my dress—it sent a chill through me. Add to that the
image of someone—this thing—dropping trou and essentially marking
me, and I was afraid I might trip over the line into hysteria.

Frustrated, Ty dropped down to his haunches
and gathered the satin gown in his hands, once again shoving his
face into the soft material. As before, I nearly gagged. The fact
he could get that close to the stinking garment and not smell it
was beyond me. It would probably take weeks to air out my
bedroom.

"I hope you know you're showering for two
hours if you think you're ever getting in this bed again," I said,
my tone flat. It was meant as a joke, but it fell far short.

He balled the dress in his fist and dropped
it on the trash bag I had insisted he lay on the ground beneath it.
Armed with a bottle of Febreze, I shot a spray of the freshener in
his general direction.

"Guess we figured out one thing," Ty said,
rubbing a hand across his neck. "There's a reason I can't sense
this thing. My sense of smell is the same as it's always been—at
least as far as this thing is concerned."

"Wrong," I said. "It's non-existent."

His green eyes met mine, and he reluctantly
nodded.

"Can you get rid of it now?"

He quietly gathered the dress and tied it
inside the garbage bag. He dropped it on the ledge outside my
window, closing it behind him. Thankfully he stayed there, leaning
against the window jam to study me.

"Who would do this?" I asked, a note of
desperation in my tone.

I wanted him to be the one to say her name,
but he only shook his head. "I don't know."

Letting out a slow breath, I rubbed my eyes,
suddenly exhausted. "I saw her—at the department store. We ran into
each other when we were trying on dresses. She even commented on my
dress."

I snorted at his non reaction.

"Not in a 'gee, that's really pretty' kind of
way, Ty. It was in a 'I could cut you right now, bitch' way."

Ty's frown only deepened. "It isn't her. You
don't know her."

It was true. We had known each other for
years, of course, but once she and Ty started dating a barrier had
gone up between me and the couple. Whereas Ty and I had gone around
that barrier to remain friends, nothing was ever really the same
between Carrie and me. I couldn't claim to know her, but I had seen
her actions over the past couple of weeks. And rather than the good
light Ty saw her in—despite everything that had gone on between
them—my only impression of her was of being the queen of all
bitches. In some ways, she put Jenna to shame.

"Then who?" I said, exasperated. Try as he
may, he couldn't come up with an alternative name.

After a few long beats of silence, I stood.
"I'm going to take a shower. I suggest you do the same."

When I emerged from the bathroom a while
later, Ty was nowhere in sight. A slight shift in the wood outside
my window made me jump, but I soon recognized the shape of Ty's
shoulders. He was seated on the overhang. I left him there and
crawled into bed alone. I expected him to join me at some point,
but he never did. Eventually I drifted to sleep, safe in the
knowledge that he would stand sentry.

On the day of Homecoming, I spent the entire
afternoon preparing with my mother hovering over me. We styled my
hair together, decided what make-up would be best, and then
accessorized the look with a pair of her diamond earrings and a
thin gold chain with a princess cut diamond.