My father nodded. “Your mother had a vision that the time would come when we would help you. I think we’re there now. We’ll do whatever you need. Even if it’s just watching your kids.”
“Thanks. I need the name of the town where we went to help the boy who they also couldn’t find.” Where I’d disappeared too. “I’ll start at the beginning, and I’ll go from there. Somewhere, somehow, I’m going to get answers and keep us all safe.”
He kissed my temple. “I know you will. I’ve always believed in you. When you were born, I just knew. You were really, really special. I’ve got to tell you, when you gave it all up, when you went straight and narrow, I was proud of you then too. All I wanted was for you to have whatever you wanted, whenever you wanted it.”
My eyes met Grayson’s through the window. I knew exactly what my father meant.
****
Victoria chomped on popcorn next to me while I drove us to Cosby, Texas, a place I’d never heard of before last night even though I’d apparently disappeared from it a long time ago. Twenty-three years was a long time to not know something about myself.
“I love road trips. I love new places. New people.” She leaned her head against the window. “I’m so happy you asked me to come. I love this bonding we’re doing.”
The highway was fairly empty for ten o’clock in the morning. A few cars passed us on the left. If my GPS was correct, we had five hours of driving ahead of us. I’d made us a reservation at a local motel to spend the night before we came back. Levi had been more than happy to take the kids back to his house, and my parents were going to cover daytime with them until I got back. For now, Gray and Molly would continue to go back to school. I could only hope nothing happened until I got back.
I looked at Victoria sideways, not taking my eyes off the road. “Are you drunk?”
“I wish.” She laughed. “Just happy to be on your adventure with you.” She blatantly stared at my two cell phones, one on and available for anyone to reach me with and one I’d brought but still hadn’t turned on since Malcolm had refused to help me. She picked it up. “I’m going to put this on.”
“Why? He was very clear. We work together. I can’t take a job right now. I have to take care of this shadow situation. I’ll turn the phone on when I’m available to work. Besides, I may not need the money anyway. Levi wants to move back in full time. He’ll go back to handling the finances, and I won’t have to worry anymore.”
She ate some more popcorn from the bag she’d brought. “I see. And that’s what you want? To stop? No more clearings, no more demons. No more Malcolm. You’re going to handle this and then go back to Levi and the life you led. That will make you happy?”
“Don’t I owe the kids their father?” Maybe she just didn’t understand because she’d never had any kids. It was terrible to even think that; Victoria was one of the most loving people I knew. Was it possible to really understand the love for a child if she didn’t have one?
She shrugged. “Is Levi leaving? If you’re not together, will he leave the kids?”
“No, of course not.” I drummed my fingers on the steering wheel. “Why do you hate him as much as you do? Is it all loyalty to me, or is there something else going on? Something specific about him you don’t like?”
“You need a warrior, not a guy who has to have his hand held through the hard stuff. You can be Alpha Woman without needing a beta man.”
I rolled my eyes to hide how much what she said affected me. “I think you’re reading too many romances.”
“I do love some good romance novels, but that’s neither here nor there. I know you’ve forgiven him—or you’re trying to. I just want you to consider that forgiving him doesn’t have to mean moving backward.” She chewed on her lower lip. “And I’m turning on your phone. You know you want to, or you wouldn’t have brought it.”
Victoria pressed the button to activate Malcolm’s cell phone, and a few seconds later the phone started dinging loudly, over and over again.
“What?”
She shifted in her seat. “You have text messages. A lot of them. And five missed calls.”
I tried to grab the phone, and she swatted at my hand. “You’re driving. I’ll check them out for you.”
“Don’t.” Now that the phone was on, I didn’t want her reading Malcolm’s texts. I didn’t know why. I’d shut off the phone in a passive- aggressive move because I’d been pissed at his answer to me when I’d been low. Now, however, I didn’t want Victoria in the middle of whatever he said. He’d sent them to me, and even if it was him telling me to fuck off and never speak to him again, I wanted to read and hear from him alone.
I expected her to answer, so when she quietly set the phone down in the center console without commenting or reading anything, I couldn’t help but grin. It was great to have a best friend who really got me. I didn’t know if I’d ever had one before. Not even Levi, and if our marriage had been truly healthy, he should have been that person to me.
Or at least I’d always read as much.
“Enough about me. It’s been all me, all the time lately. What’s new with you?”
She grinned, a big lopsided smile. “Well, I’m pregnant.”
I nearly drove off the road. “What?”
“Pregnant. Baby. Me. Yes. We changed our minds. Guess I’m lucky I didn’t get too old.”
“Oh, honey.” Tears spilled from my eyes. “Congratulations! You’re going to be the best mother, ever.”
She sat up straighter. “Twelve weeks today. I thought I’d be showing more.” She rubbed at her still flat belly.
“That’s so unfair, you know. By twelve weeks I looked huge already.”
“Yeah, well. I’m super cool.” She winked at me. “And I love road trips.”
I couldn’t have been more surprised if she’d sported a tutu and told me she was dying her hair blue. My friend who had never wanted children was having a baby. “You know what this means, right?”
She raised her eyebrows. “That a year from now I’m going to be really, really tired?”
“Well that, yeah. But even before that: baby shower.”
Victoria squealed. “Oh yay! Can we play games?”
“We sure can, my friend. I’ll see to it.” It was so nice to have non-paranormal things to talk about. Babies and showers were things I knew how to do. “Why didn’t you say something sooner?”
“We decided to be superstitious.”
The rest of the drive passed quickly thanks to baby talk. I’d always thought that Levi and I would have four children, until I’d had three. It had been clear to me after Molly’s fifth week on the planet that my helpful husband had come to an end of his interest in assisting in night feedings. If we’d had a fourth, I’d have been pretty much on my own. I couldn’t imagine trying to manage one more person.
* * *
Cosby was a small town in the middle of nowhere. We were still in Texas, but we were pretty close to New Mexico. I’d driven all over the country as a child, only I’d made a point to not travel much since I’d been a grown up. I liked staying put.
The motel we pulled up to seemed pretty innocuous. I’d seen hundreds of them the same. Red brick with small rooms facing the exterior entrance. If we were lucky, the rooms would smell like Clorox. If we weren’t, cigarette smoke.
We got checked in, and Victoria wanted to nap, so I left her alone in her room to go to my own. For five minutes, I pretended to watch television. All I wanted was to look at Malcolm’s messages. I shut off the TV as though the sound would prevent me from reading. I’d save the voicemails for after.
Ten minutes after I turned off the phone, he’d started texting.
What did the shadow say to you?
Not answering?
His texts had become increasingly irritated at my lack of answering before they changed to what seemed to be much more concerned.
Are you okay?
Would love a response.
The voicemails were simil
ar in nature. They started out slightly annoyed, and by the end he rambled in such a way that I wondered if he was drunk. His words slurred together slightly. I closed my eyes to hear his voice. I had to admit, at least to myself, that I had a major crush on the man.
“Kendall, he can’t touch you. Your jackass ex-husband is another matter. But he can’t put his hands on you, at least not yet.” He said something I couldn’t understand. “You’re not supposed to do this alone.”
Well, what the hell did that mean? I rose to my knees and dialed him with shaking hands. He picked up on the first ring. “Where are you?”
“Hello to you, too.” He wasn’t slurring like he’d done in the last voice message, so if he’d been drunk, then he wasn’t any longer. “What did you mean in that last message? He can’t touch me, and I’m not supposed to do this alone?”
Silence met my query. “I got pretty loaded last night. I apologize for drunk-calling. In my defense, I thought you were dead.”
“You thought I was dead, so you drunk dialed me and didn’t, you know, come over?”
“I can’t do that. The time I came when Chase was there pushed a line. I have lines I can’t cross.”
“Malcolm,” I tried not to yell. “I called you for help, and you dismissed me. You say the most screwed up things I can’t make heads nor tails about. My life is in tremendous upheaval. I know we’re keeping it professional or whatever, but I just found out that my parents have been lying to me for years and between the ages of nine to twelve I actually vanished and no one knows where I went. I can’t remember it. I’m trying to get answers, and I’ve got this shadow person trying to kill my ex-husband and saying as screwed-up things as you are. So unless you have some way to be helpful, I’d really appreciate it if you wouldn’t make things weirder.”
He cleared his throat. “How are you trying to get answers?”
“That’s your question? Out of everything I said to you, what you want to know is how I’m getting answers? How about you do me a favor and answer one? What did you mean by the shadow guy can’t touch me?”
He was silent for a second. “Answer me first.”
“God, you’re so pushy.” I hung up. I didn’t want more confusion, and as much as Malcolm melted my insides, he only made things more difficult. I only had room in my life for people who at least didn’t make things harder.
The phone rang, Malcolm’s number displaying on the screen. I contemplated not picking up except that felt ridiculous. He knew I was in the vicinity of the phone. I clicked the button to answer and sat in silence to see what he’d do.
“The shadow people have always been among us. Like ghosts and demons. They’re very powerful, dangerous people. Most practitioners will go their whole lives without seeing them. Those of us who have are a very special, elite bunch. It means we’ve been through something the others haven’t. We’ve been opened up. I’m not going to get more specific, not yet at least. They can’t touch you yet. They’d have to cross over, and if that happened I’d know. Fuck.” It sounded like he threw something in the background. “Answer me. What kind of clues or whatever are you looking for about your past?”
He had answered me even if I wasn’t sure what the hell he was talking about. Fair was fair. “I’m in a place called Cosby, Texas. This is where I went missing. My parents had been helping a little boy. We both disappeared. I reappeared. It’s complicated.”
“Let me know if I can help you. You’re a powerful clearer. I’d hate to lose you.”
I could have grinned at my own ridiculousness. He’d given me a compliment. It wasn’t the one I wanted. What had I expected him to say? That the other night, when we’d worked together and he’d kissed me, had meant something to him and he didn’t want to lose me? Men like Malcolm probably kissed a million girls a week. “Thanks. Um, what must I have gone through to see a shadow guy?”
“Nothing we’re going to discuss right now. Good luck.”
Malcolm hung up, and I rolled my eyes. We were both grown people, and we were hanging up on each other all the time. He did make me feel like the teenager I’d never gotten to be. I closed my eyes. A nap seemed like a great idea. Victoria would be up soon, and then we’d go figure out if this place held any clues for my missing years.
I woke up more tired than when I’d fallen asleep. Rubbing my eyes, I stared at the room and froze. It had gotten dark, and as I clicked on the light next to the bed, I was immediately aware that four ghosts stared at me.
I gasped, covering my mouth. They had not been there when I’d fallen asleep. They should not have been able to sneak up on me, even while I was asleep. Why hadn’t I woken up?
Annoyance made me sloppy, and it took two flips of my hand to clear the room. I rubbed my eyes. At least I knew why I was exhausted. The ghosts had been sucking my energy while I slept, like dead leaches eating my life force.
I rolled over and grabbed my vitamins from my bag. Vitamin D helped with supernatural drainage. A good walk in the sun would help too, but seeing as it was nighttime the supplements would have to work.
I knocked on Victoria’s door, and after a minute she opened it. My best friend looked like hell. The joyful, glowing countenance of this morning was gone, and in its place she appeared downright ill. I grabbed the side of her face like I would one of my kids. She was warm.
“What’s wrong?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know. Something …”
I pushed the door open and entered the room. My body turned on high alert. Goosebumps popped up all over my arms, and two ghosts floated by the entrance to the bathroom, their arms outstretched.
“Oh. No. No. No.” I pointed my finger right back at them. “You don’t do this to my friend.”
They couldn’t understand me. I could tell by the blank expressions on their faces. They weren’t the kinds of ghosts who could communicate. I flung them away with a surge of energy.
“This hotel is all kinds of screwed up.” I threw my arms in the air. “They’re gone.”
Victoria rubbed her throat up and down as her eyes widened. “Were there ghosts in here?”
“They seem to be everywhere. I woke up to them, too. They’re really particularly bad. Before we come back later, I will sage the room. It should keep them out for a while, at least long enough for us to go home tomorrow.”
She rubbed her eyes. “And they were feeding off me? Is the baby okay?”
I placed my hand on her belly. “I’m sure he or she is. My mom is better at explaining this stuff. The gist of it is that your body protected it. That’s probably why it hit you so hard.” I hugged her. “You’re going to be okay, and so will the little peapod in your belly.”
Victoria laughed, which is what I wanted. “Peapod?”
“Bean? Olive? It’s really tiny right now.” I took her hand. “Do you want pizza? I think I saw a place on the way into town.
The thing about dealing with the paranormal was that it was always fine in concept, but for most people—even my pregnant witch friend—handling it head on constituted something else entirely.
I didn’t blame her. I wished I could be afraid, too.
****
Cosby proved to be a very dull town where most shops closed by nine o’clock, even the pizza place. Everything had been modernized in the last five years when an oil company started fracking fifteen miles away. The local population was all employed, and the town had showed its comfortable economic status by revitalizing the downtown area.
Great for them. Bad for me.
I sat on the park bench and chewed on my lower lip while Victoria tried to find anyone who had lived there between twenty-six and twenty-three years ago. So far, we’d had no luck. Everyone seemed young, and when I’d questioned a thirty-year-old, new-to-town banker about where the old folks hung out, he’d given me such a strange look that Victoria had banished me to the bench.
A bird chirped in the distance, singing to the night. A shudder ran through me, and I rubbed my arms. Looking ar
ound, I didn’t see any ghosts or a demon to account for my bad feelings. Maybe I’d simply had a long day.
I pulled out my phone to see the directions my father had given me. Downtown didn’t look at all like he’d described, but if he was to be believed, half a mile away was a field where an ice cream truck used to hang out. The driver had been investigated and cleared in my disappearance. I don’t know what I expected to see there, only it seemed preferable to go see anything, even an empty field, than to sit on the bench not letting myself think about how strange and unrecognizable my life had become.
Victoria had gone into a drug store and hadn’t come back out yet. I sent her a quick text, letting her know I was going to start walking toward the field. With my luck, it would now be condos and a swimming pool.
Why had I thought I would get anywhere in this place? With nothing to do, I called Levi to check on the kids. He hadn’t texted or contacted me since I’d gotten here, which either meant nothing was happening at home or too much was going on for him to tell me about any of it. I hoped it was the first one.
He answered on the second ring. “Hey, babe.”
I used to love it when he called me babe. “How is it all going at home?”
I could hear the television on in the background. Molly’s laughter followed. I found myself grinning despite my dire circumstances. My kids, even when they drove me crazy, could always make me grin.
“All is okay here. Dex had an episode. It apparently involved ghosts and flying. He wasn’t more specific than that and bounced back pretty quickly after. He’s coloring. Your mom worked with him on some breathing techniques. Gray is in a pretty good mood for Gray. He’s only been slightly obnoxious. Molly is delightful. We’re all good. How is it going there?”
I could picture all of them as he spoke, doing just as he said they were. “Nothing much going on here. I don’t have any answers. I’ll be back tomorrow.”