Sapphire: A Paranormal Romance (23 page)

It
was probably the most awkward moment of Jimmy's life.  He sat on the edge of
the sofa in Warren and Tabitha's house and did his best not to squirm. 
However, he was pretty sure he was squirming.  Across from him, on the leather
loveseat, was his mother.  Her hands were folded in her lap.  Her face, as best
as Jimmy could describe it, was pinched.  Sitting next to Jimmy was Tabitha.  Hovering
behind Jimmy and Tabitha was Warren.  Warren and Tabitha had just relayed the
story, as much as they knew, to Jimmy's mother.  Jimmy chimed in from time to
time, but the icy stares he got in return from his mother ultimately silenced
him.

"This is the
most insane thing I have ever heard," his mother said at last.  "I
mean, really.  This is the most insane thing I have ever heard."

She focused on
Jimmy.

"You
vandalized a man's car!"

Jimmy opened his
mouth in surprise.  "But Mom!  He had a gun and was going to shoot
me."

His mother waved a
hand in the air.  "Oh, nonsense.  You were excited and hyper.  He was
driving fast, saw you panic and drive off the road, and came down to help.  You
imagined the gun."

"Did I
imagine the shot I heard, or the tree exploding in front of me?"  Jimmy
asked.  "Did I imagine what he said?"

His mother opened
her mouth to argue.  Then she closed her mouth.  She tried once more, but
nothing came out.  She closed her mouth and looked down at her hands.

"And you,
Tabitha," she said after a while, "you are feeding his delusions,
right?"

"I don't
think they're delusions, Mrs. Parker," Tabitha said quietly.  "I
think that Jimmy has stumbled onto something very real here."

"He's talking
to a ghost," Jimmy's mom said doubtfully.  "He has regular telepathic
conversations with a ghost?  You expect me to believe that that's real?  You
expect me to believe that my son has stumbled onto a vast conspiracy that may
involve most of the powerful men in town?"

Tabitha sighed. 
"Yes."

Jimmy's mother said, 
"This is insane."

"Did you grow
up here in Knorr?" Warren said.  He had been sipping more of his tea and
been very quiet for a time.

"Pardon?"

"Have you
lived here your entire life?" Warren repeated.

"Yes."

"And you
attended the local high school?  Was it in the sixties?"

"Yes."

Warren nodded. 
"Did you know a girl named Sapphire?"

Jimmy's mother
suddenly looked offended.  "What are you implying?  Are you implying I'm
somehow part of this insane conspiracy theory you've concocted?"

Warren shook his
head.  "Not at all.  We'd just like to find out someone who's known her. 
Did you know anyone by that name?"

Jimmy's mom
sighed.  "Yes.  Well, that is to say I knew
of
her."

Jimmy's mouth
opened to the point that he was certain his chin must be on his chest. 
"You never said a thing when I told you about her.  How many girls named
Sapphire could there be, Mom?"

His mother looked
offended again.  "How could you expect me to believe that the Sapphire you
were going on and on about would be the same one I knew in high school?  What
logical, sane person actually thinks, ‘Oh, yeah, my son must be dating the
ghost of a girl I knew fifty years ago!’"

"Do you know
what happened to her?" Warren said, cutting through the defensiveness and
indignation.

Jimmy's mother got
quiet for a bit.  Then she sighed.

"I didn't
know her well.  I knew about her.  She was fairly popular.  She was also a
troublemaker.  She was very strong-willed and always causing problems.  It was
like you saw later in the sixties and seventies when girls started burning
their bras and protesting.  She was just doing it years before it was
everywhere."

She paused.

"I just know
that she was there for about two years.  I know that several boys were
interested in her, but she never seemed interested in them."

"Did she date
Jesse?" Jimmy asked.

She shrugged. 
"They showed up at a dance together.  I was there, but I have no idea what
happened.  I just know she was there with Jesse and there was some kind of
altercation between Jesse and Sapphire and Devlin and some of the other
football players.  Then they were kicked out.  After that, I heard that
Sapphire and her family had moved away."

She shrugged.  Her
face was red when she realized that all eyes were staring at her, boring into
her.

"Is that
all?" Jimmy asked.

"Don't you
take that tone with me, young man," she said.  "People moved away a
lot.  They still do.  It was a different time, Jimmy.  Kids didn't vanish the
way they do now.  Kids didn't shoot up schools like they do now.  Yes, the
Boogeyman thing had happened, but we were all older by then and it didn't seem
like something that affected teenagers.  You know what it's like.  When you're
that age, you can't see past your own nose."

"Yes,"
Tabitha said.  "Yes, I understand.  I don't blame you.  You were just
there and people were telling you what they wanted everyone to believe."

Jimmy's mother
nodded.  She was still red, blushing, embarrassed.

"If I had
ever suspected that anything bad had happened to her," she said, "I
would have told someone."

She shrugged
again.  Jimmy was feeling even more uncomfortable.

"It's OK,
Mom," Jimmy said.  "But do you remember who was involved at the
dance?  Could you name names?"

She shook her head
and looked at Jimmy with a kind of pleading that broke his heart.  "Jimmy,
it was so long ago.  You know how I am.  And it was no big thing then. 
Everyone just thought she had moved away.  People got in fights sometimes.  I
remember Jesse and I remember Devlin, but I don't really remember who else was
there.  I don't even remember who took me to that dance.  It wasn't your
father."

She blushed even
deeper crimson.

"I remember
that there was a bit of a fight," she continued.  "I was on the other
side of the dance floor with my date.  I have no idea what it was about, Jimmy. 
You have to believe me.  I had no idea that anything bad had happened.  Kids
got into fights.  Kids got drunk and tried to bring booze into the dance.  I
was having a good time.  I didn't hang out with Sapphire or the those boys, and
I only had a couple of classes with Jesse."

Jimmy looked to
his right and Tabitha was nodding, as well.  What else was there to say? 
Jimmy's mother was sitting there looking at each of them, but lingering the
longest on Jimmy.  There was a sadness in her eyes, and a kind of pleading.

"It's OK,
Mom," Jimmy said. "I don't know what you could have done that would
have made a difference. We still don't even know what happened. It could have
been an accident, for all we know."

"But Devlin
Little is not someone to mess around with," Tabitha said.  "He's a
prominent businessman here in Knorr.  He runs the local Republican Party.  He's
respected by a lot of people, and there's been talk that he should run for a
local senate seat."

"And his kid
is the captain of the football team," Warren added.  "He couldn't be
more in a position of power in a town like Knorr if he were mayor.  Hell, given
the boundaries a mayor has to have, he's more powerful."

"Then why
would he risk it all by shooting Jimmy?" his mother asked.

"Why
not?" Warren replied.  "A guy with that kind of power, that kind of
respect, could get away with anything.  Not only would everyone just believe
him if he said he had no idea what happened, or that Jimmy had had an accident
or been shot in a hunting accident, but he'd have the lawyers and the pull to
make the whole incident go away."

"Just like he
tried to do with Sapphire, apparently," Jimmy added.

Warren sighed and
sipped his tea.  Tabitha shifted nervously in her seat.

"I think you
and Jimmy should stay here with us," she said.  "We have plenty of
room and we can make sure that you get to work and Jimmy gets to school and
back home safely.  Meanwhile, Warren, Jimmy, and I will continue digging. Jimmy
can help when he can, and we can spend more of our day researching."

There was silence
for a while.  Then Jimmy's mother shook her head.

"I don't like
it," she said.  "I don't want to be away from my home.  If Jimmy says
Devlin did this, then we should go to the sheriff."

Warren cleared his
throat and shook his head.  "Like we just said, if we don't have
rock-solid evidence, he just lawyers up and walks.  Then he's even more
dangerous."

"Hard to get
more dangerous than pursuing my son into the woods with a shotgun!  And what's
to stop him from coming here and shooting this place up?"

"We have
security," Warren replied.  "We have the motion detector lights and a
state-of-the-art alarm system.  No one can get in here without us knowing about
it.  It even runs on a back-up circuit that has a generator, so if someone
wants to try and cut the power, it still works.  Plus, I have a gun and I know
how to use it.  So does Tabitha."

Jimmy and his
mother both looked at Tabitha at the same time, surprised.  Tabitha had always
seemed like such a pacifist.  Tabitha's eyes glittered over the top of her
glasses.

"A girl has
to be able to protect herself," she said.  "Look, it's safer here
than at your house."

"My son is
not a detective," Jimmy's mother said.  "And what about our
house?"

"Well, come
on, now," Warren said.  "You grounded the boy and he still managed to
get out, and it's obvious he's in too deep now.  I don't think that just saying
no is going to solve anything.  We can pretend otherwise, or we can deal with
the fact that we're involved in this thing now, whatever it is.  And I can drive
by your house on a daily basis if you want.  Hell, I'll even mow the lawn and
stuff.  Heck, maybe a scandal where people think I'm cheating on Tabitha is
just the distraction we need to dig further into this weird mystery."

Tabitha turned and
punched Warren in the stomach.  Warren pretended to double over in pain.  Then
they both laughed.  Jimmy smiled.  It was hard not to like them, even if they
were a little weird.

Jimmy's mother
sighed and shook her head.  "I just don't know."

"Come on,
Mom," Jimmy said, getting irritated now.  "Just for a week.  Let's
give it a week.  Let's see what we can find and maybe, just maybe, we can do
something to help someone."

His mother cocked
her head to the side.  "Who?  Who are we going to help, Jimmy?  If people
are getting shot at, or this whole thing gets exposed, who are we
helping?"

"We’re
helping Sapphire," Jimmy said.  "Somewhere out there is her family.
And something is causing her to remain here and become an urban legend, coming
up to the road every so often as a way to reach out for help. Can you imagine
what that must be like? She’s lost and alone in some dark place, and she can't
move on until someone figures out what happened to her.  Her parents must have
moved on, unable to take it after a while.  They have probably spent all of
these years hoping that she was at peace.  Wouldn't you want that if it were
me? What if you found out that I wasn't at peace?  Wouldn't you want someone to
help?  Wouldn't you want me to move on?  Sapphire can't.  She told me.  And
somehow, for some reason, she can connect with me.  It's out of our hands,
Mom.  It's like I've been chosen.  I'm the one who can help her.  I'm the one
who can expose this, and she's been waiting and searching for me for fifty
years."

Jimmy had often heard
the expression about silence being deafening, but he had never really
understood it until that moment.  His mother, Tabitha, and Warren were all
silent, and his mother had her mouth open.  They sat that way for a moment, and
then his mother closed her mouth with a
click
.

"If you put
it that way," she said, "it's hard to say no, Jimmy."

She shifted in her
seat again and looked at Warren and Tabitha.  She stared hard at Warren, and
then shifted her gaze to Tabitha.

"One
week," she said.  "One week, and then we either go to the sheriff or
we go home, or both. And if anything else happens to Jimmy, God help either of
you."

Jimmy smiled. 

After
they made the trip back to the house Jimmy and Tabitha sat on the sofa.  His
mother had fretted and yelled and scowled the entire time that they packed up
their clothes and grabbed other personal items.  Jimmy made sure to grab his
laptop.  It was old and second-hand, but it worked well enough, and you just
never know when you might need to get on the Internet.  After the turmoil at
the house, they had piled into the car and headed back to Tabitha and
Warren's.  For a while they had sat around watching television.  The atmosphere
was, at best, icy.  When Jimmy's mother had decided to head up to her bedroom,
Tabitha had bid her goodnight and then asked Jimmy to stay behind and chat with
her.  It was now late evening, heading on nine o'clock.  Jimmy was tired, but
his body was also vibrating with excitement.