Desire in Frost (5 page)

I was grateful when I woke and hadn’t had another dream. Even so, I couldn’t fight the knot in my chest that was full of concern for Hope. I had to find her. I just had to. I lay in bed for what must have been 20 minutes trying to sort through everything. I replayed the dream of the funeral in my mind, and suddenly, something occurred to me. I was aware it was a vision the whole time. Why could I see the peripheral details in that vision but not in the one of Hope’s abduction?

I thought this through for several long minutes and realized that in Hope’s abduction scenario, I was always in her head. At the funeral, I was a disembodied person looking down on the scene as if it were playing on a television. I knew I couldn’t fall asleep and dream now because I wasn’t tired, but I did know that when the opportunity presented itself, I had to look deeper into Hope’s abduction and discover what I was missing.

After what felt like lying in bed forever, I decided there wasn’t anything more I could do by staying under the covers. I threw on a pair of shorts and a t-shirt and listened to the ocean waves out the window. I checked my phone. Emma had already sent several texts reminding me about our morning stress relief session.

Sorry
, I replied.
I just woke up.

It was Monday morning, which meant Emma was already at school and I couldn’t expect a text back for a few hours. I felt kind of bad for sleeping in through her texts. Emma was only trying to do me well.

I heard voices from the next room, but the ocean air called out to me. I decided to head down to the water instead of greeting my family immediately. I figured it would give me a chance to do some relaxation exercises like I’d promised Emma I would. Maybe it would even help me get in touch with Hope. I honestly didn’t have a better option.

I sat along the bank with my legs crossed and my eyes closed. I tried to clear my mind, but thoughts of Hope, my friends back home, and even Robin kept creeping into my consciousness. I shifted to get more comfortable and then focused on the sound of the water and my own slowing breath while I let my mind drift in a realm that wasn’t quite my own. It took several times of catching my mind wander before I finally let my body relax. I felt like I was floating, and my mind drifted on its own accord.

I miss my mommy
, I thought. I didn’t quite feel right. Nothing felt right, and I just wanted to go home.

“You hungry?” A voice whipped me out of my trance.

Hope
, I thought.
She wants to go home.

I looked up to find Robin standing above me. Even though it was morning, it was still hot out, much hotter than anything you’d feel in Minnesota at this time of year, so I was surprised to find him covered in long jeans. Didn’t he get hot? It might be nice if he showed a little more skin every now and then.

Wait. What am I thinking?

“Huh?” I asked.

“Breakfast is ready.” Instead of turning to head inside like I expected him to do, he lowered himself to sit next to me in the sand. “What were you doing?” His eyes locked on mine for a second.

I pushed a strand of dirty blonde hair behind my ear and stared at my feet in embarrassment. “I was, uh, meditating?” The statement came out sounding like a question.

“Mediating? You’re not, like, a crazy wellness nut or something, are you?”

I should have known he’d have something rude to say, even if he didn’t exactly hit it on the nose. “Uh, no. Not exactly. It just helps me relax.”

“So, about what happened yesterday. I still don’t really know why we were chasing that guy. I figure you know something about one of Teddy’s cases that I don’t, given that he was flashing his badge and all.”

Whoa. I didn’t realize he’d put the pieces together. I thought I had just come off looking insane.

“But,” he continued, “whatever it was, I really respect you for following your intuition. Not a lot of people would do that.”

My heart leapt in my chest. Did Robin just give me a compliment? That was a rare occurrence.

He ran his hands through the sand and looked down at the patterns he was making. “And I’m sorry for whatever I said to you about it before in the car. I don’t even remember what I said. I do that a lot. I guess it’s a defense mechanism or something.”

My jaw dropped. I was speechless. Robin not only gave me a compliment, but he was also apologizing to me.

“Wow,” I said with a hit of sarcasm and amazement. “Is Robin Simmons actually admitting that he’s sorry for something he said? Who are you and what have you done with Robin?” I gave a little giggle.

But Robin didn’t laugh back like I thought he would. Apparently we didn’t share the same type of humor. Instead, he fixed his eyes on me and held an unamused expression on his face. “Stop being immature.”

I immediately stopped laughing.

Okay, he was back to his old self. So much for thinking he might be a real human being.

He ran his fingers through his hair. “Did you not hear a thing I just said? Crystal, I’m insecure. I use my wit as a defense mechanism, but I don’t take it well. It’s hard enough sharing my feelings, especially around pretty girls, so just be glad that I apologized. Don’t make fun of me for it.”

Stunned, I didn’t move for several long moments. I just stared after him while he retreated up the stairs slowly. My thoughts hung on the word “insecure.” How could a guy like
that
be insecure? He was clever, and, okay, he was hot. What did he have to be insecure about? Only when he disappeared into the house did I rise from the sand and join my family for breakfast.

After breakfast, Mom, Gail, and I talked wedding plans, and Mom showed some ideas for the cake on her phone. I almost started thinking about Hope, but then I remembered that things were easier for everyone and I had a better chance of finding her when she was not at the forefront of my mind. I again basked in the simplicity of the wedding planning and offered my opinions when necessary.

Later, Wayne suggested we all go down to the tennis courts nearby and play a game. I thought this was a great idea until I realized that if everyone else was gone, I would have time to try connecting with Hope. I knew I had said it was best to keep my mind off her, but I really wanted some privacy with my crystal ball since I hadn’t had a chance to use it yet after everything that happened. I kindly said I didn’t want to go and excused myself to my guest room.

Once I heard the front door shut and a car pull out of the driveway, I pulled my crystal ball from my bag and set it on the floor in front of me. I took several long deep breaths to calm myself, and I held the owl pendant around my neck close to my heart for good luck. I stared deep into the ball. I had been able to make it work in the past, but I still struggled with it. I had an especially hard time clearing my mind.

No expectations
, I reminded myself.

I used the sounds of the waves coming in my window as an anchor so I’d have something to focus on besides my racing thoughts. The minutes ticked by, and after a long time, colors began swirling in the ball. They became the center of my focus as I fell deeper into the unknown. A faint figure formed in the crystal ball. I almost thought I saw Hope’s face, but then the image washed away as a chill settled over the room.

“Help!” A voice startled me. My eyes jerked up to find a young girl standing in the room.

My head began spinning. I was glad I was sitting down so I didn’t have to find an extra support to keep myself upright. I was starting to understand this feeling all too well.

The girl had long dark hair and big beautiful eyes. For a second, I almost thought she was Hope. My heart sank at the thought that I’d failed her, but the girl standing in front of me was a lot older than Hope, just a few years younger than me.

I wanted to smile at her, to let her know that I wasn’t a threat, that I could help her even. I didn’t when I saw that the ghostly girl had an expression of urgency fixed to her face. My expression transformed to mirror hers when I realized that someone was likely in danger. I couldn’t think of any other excuse for why this ghostly girl would show herself to me.

“You have to help her,” she said. “She’s been scared for so long. I just want to see her happy.”

Now I knew for sure someone was in danger.
Calm down
, I told myself, but that was always difficult when a ghost was asking for help.

“Who?” I asked, a little bit louder than I intended. “Who do you need me to help?”

The girl looked around the room as if trying to take in her surroundings, and then her eyes fell back on me.

“My sister.”

A knock at my door startled me.

“Crystal, are you okay?” asked a deep voice.

Robin.

My eyes jerked toward the door in surprise then back at the girl, but she was already gone. The chill that filled my body each time I saw a ghost subsided. I quickly shoved my crystal ball back into my bag and covered it up with a shirt just as Robin opened the door a crack.

“Can I come in?” he asked without looking.

I plopped onto my mattress to make it look like I was just relaxing. If he could hear my racing heartbeat—and I was almost paranoid that he could—it would undoubtedly give me away. “Yeah,” I answered in a fairly normal tone. “I’m fine. I thought you went with everyone to play tennis.” I picked at my fingernails so I wouldn’t have to meet his gaze. I’d never been a good liar. At the same time, it would be far too difficult to explain to him what I had just been doing. No way would he believe I’d just encountered a ghost.

He scoffed, pushing his way farther onto the porch. “I’ve told you before, I don’t play sports.”

I looked him up and down. “Really? Because you’re really—“

Wait. What was I just about to say?

Robin took a seat next to me on the air mattress. My heart sped up, and I realized how uncomfortable I was being so close to a guy. I’d never really had a boyfriend before, and I only ever hung out with Derek when Emma was around, so being alone with a male of any sort was out of the ordinary for me.

Robin smiled and raised his eyebrows. “I’m really what?”

I wanted to lie to him, but I couldn’t come up with an alternative excuse. His stare encouraged me to explain. I spoke slowly, but my voice wavered. At least he would attribute that to my embarrassment instead of my anxiety over the ghost girl. “Uh . . . I was going to say muscular, but now that doesn’t feel very appropriate.” I added a slight teasing tone to my words, but I could still feel a blush rise to the surface of my cheeks when I spoke. It surprised me that I was able to admit something like this to him.

“Oh, you think I’m muscular?” he said, flexing his bicep and looking down at it.

The gesture was in humor, but it only made me think,
Um, yes!

“So,” I said, hoping to change the subject. “If you don’t play sports, what
do
you do?”

“I do weight lift a little, but nothing where I have to run around a court. Mostly, though, I play music.”

“Oh, so you’re in band? I play the clarinet.”

Robin gave a sort of laugh that made me feel insecure about my choice of instrument. “I’m not in
the
band, Crystal. I am in
a
band.”

“I knew that, but you’re, like, not in band in school?”

He shook his head.

“So, are you in any extracurricular activities?”

“For me, it’s just basically school and my band.”

“And your girlfriend, right?” I said, only I regretted it immediately. Why did I have to say such stupid things sometimes? I ran my fingers through my hair and twisted it at the ends.

Robin simply laughed, but he didn’t say anything about his girlfriend.

“So, what? You’re just going to play music the rest of your life and hope you make it big?” I asked in an attempt to break the awkward silence stretching between us.

“Well, it’s holding me over for now. We’ve had a few well-paying gigs. It’s not much since we’ve bought some new equipment and I have to split the profit between four other guys, but it’s helping me save up for college. I want to go into occupational therapy and help people who have been in accidents and stuff.”

“Oh,” is all I said, even though I wanted to tell him how noble that sounded.

“And you?”

It took me a few moments to realize what he was talking about. I was only 15 for goodness sakes. I hadn’t really thought about what I wanted to do with my life. Maybe I could turn my psychic skills into some sort of practice, but I wasn’t sure how I would make a living that way. I couldn’t
charge
people to have me help them.

I played with the ends of my hair and said, “I want to help people. Kind of like a counselor or something.” I shrugged like it wasn’t a big deal, but I knew it kind of was. I hadn’t thought about how my abilities were going to affect the rest of my life. I was still trying to make it through my sophomore year alive. “Anything else I should know about you?” I asked, wondering if he was going to show more of his human side.

He didn’t. He just said nope and exited the room, leaving me to stare after him. I had a feeling he was hiding something from me. I wondered again if he inherited some of the intuition Teddy had and if that was what he was hiding from me.

Only when he was out of the room did I have a chance to think back to the girl who had come to me. Suddenly, it felt like all my responsibilities related to my gift were piling up again. I had to somehow find Hope, and God only knew I wasn’t making any progress on that end. I probably had to talk with Scott’s ghost again. After all, he had to be trying to contact me for a reason. And now I had a new ghost who wanted me to help someone else who I knew absolutely nothing about.

I fell back down on the air mattress and closed my eyes in an attempt to relieve my anxiety. I didn’t fall asleep. Instead, I figured I should stop worrying about everything like my mom had suggested.

I spent most of the rest of the day lying on the beach in the sundress Emma insisted I bring along while enjoying the weather and reading a book. Diving into a different world was the best way I could think of to take my mind off everything. I had already finished the first two books in the series in the car, and I was onto the third. It was about a psychic girl, much like myself, named Sabine. We could do different things with our abilities, but I had a lot to learn from her character. At the same time, I found it easier to focus on her problems instead of my own since I wasn’t getting anywhere by worrying.

At one point, I looked up toward the house to see if my mom and everyone else was home yet. I could have sworn I saw Robin looking out the window. I wasn’t sure if he was watching me or if he was just enjoying the scenery.

After I finished my book, I walked back up to the house. Robin was still the only one home. It felt awkward with only us two in the house, like I was obligated to do something with him. When I entered the kitchen, he was sitting at the table shuffling through a deck of cards. A part of me wanted to talk to him, but another part of me felt like he didn’t want me around. I was about to turn back toward the porch when he spoke.

“Want to play something?”

I almost looked around the room to make sure he was talking to me, but I already knew I was the only one there. I blinked a few times, shocked by his offer, before I found my voice. “I’m not very good at cards.”

“Do you know how to play rummy?” He finally tore his gaze from the deck and looked up at me.

“Yeah,” I said, slowly inching for the chair across from him.

“Play you to 500 points?”

I shrugged. “Why not?”

“We need something to keep score with,” he pointed out.

I felt like a fool rummaging around the kitchen looking for a notepad and a pencil, but I eventually found both and took a seat across from him, sliding the pad and pencil his way. At the top, I watched him write Crystal Frost on one side and Robin on the other. Then he separated the sides into two columns.

“Why’d you write out my full name and only your first name?” I asked, pointing to the paper.

He shrugged. “I think your full name is really cool. It’s like your first name is an adjective and your last name is a noun.”

I had never thought of it that way before.

“I might just call you by your full name from now on,” he said.

“Please don’t,” I begged. When I noticed he was smiling, I realized he was kidding. He stared across the table at me, and my cheeks flamed in response. Was he
flirting
with me? No. Not Robin. He wouldn’t.

“Just deal the cards,” I insisted.

We played for a long time, although it wasn’t as great of a game with just two people, until eventually Robin won. Only after the game ended did I realize that I was smiling and laughing with him. I could hardly believe it.

Robin gathered the cards into a pile and started shuffling. “Rematch?”

“But you already won. Why would you need a rematch?”

His eyes bore into mine. “Maybe I don’t want the game to end.” Something about it sounded like a challenge, so I accepted.

Robin handed me the note pad and told me to keep score this time. I started by ripping the top sheet off and crumpling it into a ball. I scrawled my name first on a clean sheet, making a point to write just my first name, and then I added Robin’s alongside mine. I could see him peeking at my writing from out of the corner of my eye.

“What is that?” he asked.

“Huh?” I looked up to meet his gaze.

“My name has an ‘i’ in it.”

I glanced back down at my handwriting. I knew my handwriting had always been poor, and now Robin knew it, too. That meant he had something to make fun of me for. But I wouldn’t let him use it against me.

I scowled at him. “I did put an ‘i’ in it!” I dug the pencil into the paper to accent the dot over the ‘i.’ “Yes, I have chicken scratch handwriting. Now, can we start the game?”

Robin called rummy on a card I placed in the discard pile on accident, but then I caught him doing the same thing later. We both grabbed a can of pop from the fridge and sipped on them and laughed at ourselves as the game continued. When I had a moment to really evaluate the situation, I was shocked at how much I was enjoying myself. I knew there was nothing particularly fantastic about the game, but something about playing with Robin made me loosen up a bit.

Robin won a second round just as everyone else arrived home. They were carrying in shopping bags, and I noticed Teddy had a box of leftover food from a restaurant. Clearly they’d spent the day doing more than playing tennis. A part of me didn’t care that I wasn’t included when I looked across the table at Robin and realized I’d actually had fun with him.

That night, I called Emma via video chat. I was a little surprised to see Derek in her room with her. Of course, her door was open and her little sister Kate was in there with them. I could see Kate in the background coloring on something on the floor. Still, it was either always just Emma and me or all three of us together. It made me feel kind of left out.

“How are you liking Florida?” Emma asked.

“The weather here is so nice,” I raved.

“And the boys, too?” Emma asked.

“Emma!” I scolded at the same time Derek did. We all giggled.

“Crystal,” Derek said. “You’ll never believe what happened.”

“Yeah,” Emma agreed. “It’s really pretty sad.”

“What?” I asked, alarmed.

Emma looked at Derek. “You tell her.”

Derek’s eyes drooped in sadness. “My dog, Milo, ran away.”

“Oh, no, Derek. That is really sad. I wish I could help.”

“No, it’s okay,” he told me. “We’ve got it covered. Kate is drawing fliers for us to put around town so we can find out if anyone has seen him. The thing is, he slipped out of his collar, which is how he got away, so anyone who finds him won’t know he belongs to us.” I thought I could hear a sob cut at his tone.

I felt bad for Derek, and I told him so. He eventually turned away and crouched next to Kate on the floor to help her with the fliers.

“Is he going to be okay?” I asked Emma.

She looked back at him. “Yeah, I’m sure he will be. If you were here, maybe you could work some of your magic.”

I laughed a little because of the way she said it, but she was probably right. I had become quite good at finding things, but I had to have something to touch, like the dog’s collar, to tell where he was.

“I’ll work on it, but I probably won’t find anything,” I told her.

“Well, I’ve been trying my best, too,” Emma said, “but I’ve never had experience with finding things. The best thing I can come up with is that I have a good feeling about a penny. Like, a lucky penny or something.” She shrugged. “Except I don’t think that it’s about Derek’s dog. I think it has to do with you.”