It had been nearly three hours before Ellie and Jacey returned to the neighborhood, having succeeded in their mission to obtain incense, holy water, consecrated ground and two low-fat, non-dairy lattés to go.
Ellie was definitely looking forward to warming up inside. The heat from the latté wasn’t making it past her inner core. To add to her discomfort, the outer layer of skin beneath her jeans was beginning to tingle. The tingle before the numbness. Winter was a drag.
“I still disagree with you about the sermon,” Jacey commented as she munched on an apple she had purchased from the diner. It had quickly become apparent to her that Ellie’s view of religion was contradictory to her own. “If you want to be a doubting Thomas, go right ahead.”
Ellie had tried to turn their conversation to safer territories; movies, bands, and whether or not it was really necessary to pay hundreds of dollars for a purse. Again, a split decision. But Ellie was quickly learning that Jacey never really let any subject drop for long. “Says the girl eating the forbidden fruit,” Ellie pointed out.
Jacey held the core of the Royal Gala away from her body and examined it. “It’s not the same kind of apple. It’s all in the interpretation, remember?” She tossed it into an empty garbage can at the end of a nearby driveway.
“That’s my point exactly,” Ellie reminded her. “It’s all open to interpretation.”
“Father Franklin seems like an okay guy though, right? Do you think he plays poker at night with the nuns?” Jacey asked.
“Uh...I don’t know,” Ellie stammered. “I wasn’t listening to him. I was too busy freaking out about the dirt you put in the offering envelope, remember?”
“Consecrated ground. We needed it. Don’t worry, I put some money in the plate. By the way, you owe me five bucks.”
“That’s not the point. I think there were more than flowers planted in that little garden we raided. Unless the brass markers were really garden stakes, but the names didn’t look very biological to me.”
“There was an Ivy Rose,” Jacey pointed out.
“You know what I mean. People were buried there. There’s probably a whole group of church elders mad at us for disturbing their eternal resting place,” she sighed. “Maybe we should have brought a coffee back for Tom. We have been gone a while.”
“Look, if I got a little of Sister Michaelangeline’s ashes in with the soil, it can’t hurt. It’s like using a top-coat over your nail polish or summat. Think of it as extra protection. She scared the hell out of me before she died. She can scare the hell out of anything.”
Ellie raised her palm to her forehead. It had been a difficult afternoon so far. She watched as Jacey put the holy water in a little Buddha bottle she found in the dollar store. The same store that sold her a box of incense complete with Hare Krishna’s likeness on the box. Jacey was definitely pushing the limits of karma in her search for religious artifacts.
“Give me your phone,” Jacey said to Ellie. “I’m going to put my number in it for you. Do you tweet? I’ve got a great texting plan, so feel free to keep me totally updated on your status.”
“I’m not hooked up with Twitter. I already lose too much of my life to facebook.”
“You must tweet. We’ll set you up later when we get back to Ryan’s. Tara and I do it all the time.”
“I thought you hated Tara,” Ellie said, handing Jacey her phone.
“Why do you think that?” Jacey asked.
“Just something Ryan said.”
“Ryan probably said he doesn’t like her either, but we all know that’s not true,” she said as she typed her contact info into the memory of Ellie’s phone. “She’s not my favorite person in the world, but sometimes I have to hang around with her because Tom and Ryan are inseparable. Where Ryan goes, Tara tends to turn up.”
“You didn’t want to sit with her at the game,” Ellie reminded her.
“Tara’s easier to take when Ryan is with her. She’s on her best behavior around him.”
“Aren’t you guys kind of being two-faced about her? You like her, you don’t like her. Just so we’re clear, I have no problem disliking her after what she said to me at the football game. She was rude.”
“She is rude. She doesn’t really like me either, but we try to fake it,” Jacey shrugged. She handed the phone back to Ellie. “There. All done.”
“You put Tara’s number in there too?” Ellie said, glancing at the contact list, and then putting the phone back in the front pocket of her jeans. “Have you not been listening to a word I said?”
“You might as well get used to her. That’s all I’m saying. I wish I hadn’t been with her last night, though.” Jacey shuddered at the memory of dropping Tara off at the murder scene.
“Where was Tom last night?”
“Tom and I had gone to the Topaz for a bite to eat when Tara came in all in a tizzy because she had a row with Ryan. Tom wasn’t in the mood to listen to her, and she wasn’t offering to leave us alone, so Tom bailed and I wound up with Tara. I thought he went home.”
“That must have been when he came over to my place.”
“Sod. He’s still so in trouble over that. Thank God they had an all-nighter of flicks at the theatre, or I wouldn’t have known what to do with Tara. We saw you at the nine o’clock show, you and your mom and grandmother. We stayed for the next one too. We finally left after that one and I drove her home. Talk about scary. What if we had arrived earlier, when the murderer was still there?”
Ellie had wanted to talk to her about the second murder, but didn’t know how to broach the subject. This seemed like the opportune moment.
“Did you see anyone hanging around Tara’s place?” Ellie asked hesitantly, not sure how much she wanted to divulge to Jacey about why she wanted to know. She had to make the question sound like a routine one. “I mean, were there any strange looking guys hanging around the street corner or anything?”
“Hardly,” Jacey replied. “Tara lives out the highway, on a farm near Stillman’s Creek. It’s not too far from the old abandoned Amish school. You don’t get many blokes hanging around way out there. There is no way Kevin Clark should have been out there. Not with Ralph and his stupid mutts roaming around. I dropped Tara off at the laneway because I didn’t want to deal with either of them.”
“When did you find out what happened?”
“Tara called me from the hospital. They took Ralph there.”
“How much do you know about the dream I had?” Ellie asked her. She wondered how far the gossip had spread.
“Tara told me you knew where they would find Brooke’s body. I know that much. But you didn’t know anything about the murder at her place before it happened, did you?”
“No.” Ellie thought for a moment and shook her head. “I only dreamt about the little girl.”
“Maybe you have a closer connection to her or summat,” Jacey shrugged.
“Why? I never met her before. I met Kevin on Halloween, when he was out with Ryan, Tom and Stan, but I swear, I didn’t lose any sleep over him. He was not in my dream that night or any night since.”
“Maybe the dream wasn’t really about Brooke. Maybe she just happened along into it, and it was really all about summat else.”
Ellie hadn’t considered this. It was possible that the dream, if it had any hidden meaning at all, was about something less obvious. But what?
“You said there was an abandoned school out by Tara’s?”
Jacey nodded. “It’s across the bridge from her place. If you hang a left at Emerson’s Feed Mill and go for about a mile, you can’t miss it.”
A bridge, a creek and an old school. Ellie tucked the information into the back of her brain. More pieces of the puzzle were slowly coming together. If the Shadowman hadn’t taken her from her room to save the little girl, what was he really trying to tell her? What was it he had said?
“Do something, Ellie. You’re the only one who can. It’s your problem.” The words began to echo in her head.
As they
reached the front of the Lachey house, Jacey stopped dead in her tracks. “Okay, that’s not right.”
“What?” Ellie asked, clearly missing something.
“Look at the side of the house. Stan’s window is open. Stan never opens his window. Ryan said he kept it closed even during the heat wave last August.” She took a few steps up the driveway to examine the second story window further.
“Why?” Ellie asked. “I get why he wouldn’t want it open while it’s freezing outside, but what’s wrong with having it open in the summer?”
Jacey took a sip of her now chilled drink. “Don’t take this the wrong way El, but Stan thinks the bogeyman lives in your grandmother’s backyard.”
“There’s no such thing as a bogeyman, Jacey.”
“Maybe not. But there is a darkness over his house,” Jacey said solemnly. “I’m sure of that.”
“What do you mean? What darkness?” Ellie asked. The wind had really picked up, but it wasn’t as if the area was experiencing any power failures. She could see the Lachey’s kitchen light shining through the window.
Jacey slowly moved her head from side to side. “Can’t put my finger on it,” she sighed. I get these crazy ideas in my head and then they disappear.”
“Then it’s probably nothing,” Ellie reasoned.
“Erm… maybe we should go get your mom and your grandmother, just to be safe,” Jacey hesitated. “To be honest, I’m a little afraid of the non-existent bogeyman myself.”
“Are you crazy? Why would we want to involve the Helens?”
“Re-enforcements?”
“Let’s not,” Jacey insisted. “You weren’t there this morning when they freaked over the mere mention of a vampire. Bogeyman is not going to go over any better, trust me. Do you know what we’re supposed to do with all these things we collected?”
“No.” Jacey shrugged. “My clock radio went off and I woke up.”
Ellie wanted to slap Jacey.
“Great,” Ellie sighed. “Maybe we’ll be really lucky and we’ll get in the house and find Stan and Tom are playing Texas hold ‘em with your priest and the nuns. Sister Michaelangeline included. Maybe they’re our re-enforcements and maybe they’ll know what to do with all this crap.”
Jacey opened the side door to the Lachey house. “Tom? Stan?” she called, and waited for an answer.
“That’s weird,” Ellie said, when no one replied.
“Oh, I so have the creeps,” Jacey remarked, as they kicked their boots off and went up the landing into the kitchen. “It is way too quiet in this house.”
Jacey motioned for Ellie to follow her through the empty living room and up the stairs to the bedroom areas. “Maybe Betty got home early and they’ve gone for all-you can-eat pancakes.”
“It’s a little late in the day for that,” Ellie reminded her, as they briefly peeked inside Betty and Ryan’s rooms.
“Geez, he’s got a lot of trophies,” Ellie noted.
“Half of them are for piano,” Jacey smiled. “Betcha wouldn’t have guessed that in a million years.”
“He told me he played guitar,” Ellie said softly.
“He plays both,” Jacey sighed, wondering if he’d ever get to play either again.
The girls turned into Stan’s room next and found Tom lying unconscious on the floor.
“Oh my God,” Jacey gasped, running over to him. She wanted to pick his limp body up and hold him in her arms, but she was afraid to move him.
“Did he faint again?” Ellie asked. “He passed out the other night on my Nan’s porch.”
“No. He’s been totally rag-dolled,” Jacey said in disbelief. “Look at the welt on the side of his face.” She brushed the blond hair from the side of his face to see if he was bleeding. She couldn’t see any open wounds. “My poor, perfect, Tommy.”
“Is he breathing?” Ellie asked.
Jacey nodded. “He’s just out cold.”
“He’s probably got a concussion. Stay here with him,” Ellie said. “Call 911. Don’t move him, just in case.”
“Where are you going?” Jacey yelled.
“I have to find Stan.”
Jacey pulled her phone from her pocket and began to dial. “Directory assistance, please.”
“Jacey,” Ellie said in frustration. “You don’t need them to dial 9-1-1.”
Jacey ignored her.
“Fine,” Ellie said, “I don’t have time to argue with you.” She began to frantically move through the unfamiliar territory of the Lachey home, searching the rest of the rooms upstairs then running down to the basement to check it out as well. There was no one down there.
“Stan!” she yelled. “Where the hell are you?”
She ran back upstairs, pulled on her boots and ran outside to the garage.
“Kid,” she pleaded, “I’ve counted to one hundred. It’s time to come out now, I give up.”
Off in the distance, she could hear the church bells of St. Mary’s begin to chime. Mass was over, and while she supposed they could have been tolling for an afternoon funeral, in her heart she knew they weren’t. The notes were unmistakably for her, F-G-A-F, F-G-A-F, A-B-C, A-B-C.
“Frère Jacques,” Ellie gasped. “The bastard’s got him.”