Following Christopher Creed

  She grinned, with as much victory as sympathy, I sensed. "But here you are."

  "Well. Yeah."

  I waited for her to say something like "So what can I help you with?," but she just seemed interested in talking about his mom, his sisters and brothers, the Burden family, and how everyone was feeling. In telling all that, little facts started spilling, starting with Danny's suicide letter.

  "Aw, the poor family," was her comment to that.

  About Bo's mother thinking the whole time that Darla was in Vegas..."Mothers are sometimes the last to figure out the truth," she verified.

  About what a nice guy Danny was and how he'd been sucked in: "Women are vipers," she said, shaking her head, and added, "I know my gender. What can I say?"

  None of it was very psychic. But Bo jumped naturally one step closer.

  "I believe Danny. I believe my sister, well, did herself in. I'd just love to know how she got in that grave. Because it looks like a murder now. It could become bad business for some innocent people out our way."

  "Could be," she agreed noncommittally.

  I glanced down until I found my watch. I had never dismissed Adams and Ali's psychic as a complete hoax, but she was going nowhere fast. I was worried that Justin might wake up, find me gone, and take off with my dog.

  "There's these two guys out in Conovertown, called the Brownie's Mafia. I'm thinking maybe they did it. Buried her, I mean." Bo had held up two fingers when he said "two guys."

  She suddenly held up three fingers. "Three people buried her."

  "Three ... what?" Bo babbled.

  "Three. I see three. Two male, one female."

  Bo scratched his head. "Um ... the body was a female."

  Miss Vera went on in a normal voice, "The female's voice is saying, 'Haul ass, you goddamn lazy morons.'"

  "Even sounds like my sister." Bo laughed unhappily, and I got an image in my head of two guys digging a grave and Darla's ghost standing at the top, mouthing off, while her body rested in a blanket beside them. It was surreal, but probably similar to what Bo was thinking, because he shuddered.

  Miss Vera's next statement didn't gel with that image, though. "The female said, 'Dig deeper. I don't want to see her toes poking through come April showers.'" She swallowed in revulsion, making me stare. Like Adams, I'd been taken aback by her ability to just talk normally while telling things that are so abnormal. You want to think it's a hoax.

  Bo put a hand over his mouth and laughed uncomfortably again. "That's disgusting."

  "Yeah, sure is," Miss Vera agreed, looking more pensive than apologetic. "Who talks that way?"

  "Darla," Bo confirmed. "Maybe some boon chicks who've been taking lessons from her. Well, let's say you're right. So, one of Darla's girl groupies got involved. Which one could keep her mouth shut this long? That's what I'd like to know. It would all come pouring out in the first snort of coke. Those girls never shut up. And it makes me doubt, suddenly, that Mack and Ozone are involved. There is nobody out there who would talk to them like that."

  I thought Miss Vera might add some more intriguing details, but she merely reached across me and Adams and patted Bo once, decidedly, on the knee. "Look. You know it was a double suicide—that is correct. You know there's no bringing either of those kids back. Why not just ... try to let it alone and move on?"

  "Because we're back to old tricks," Bo finally said, "of thinking somebody is going to swing for a crime when they're innocent."

  "Who's going to swing?" Miss Vera asked.

  Bo shook his head, looking confused and suddenly weary.

  "Because there is another key player involved," she said.

  Bo watched her, his mouth hidden behind his fingers, which he drummed a little. "You mean the girl."

  "No, besides the female. There's someone you haven't mentioned yet. Someone who wasn't at the grave. Someone who helped make some really important decisions just after Darla died."

  Bo shook his head slowly back and forth. "You sure about that?"

  She nodded, though it was maddening in its lack of detail. "Focus on the female and the male who wasn't at the grave. Find out who they are if you want all the answers. They're very close to one another."

  "You mean ... they're in love? Married?" Bo asked.

  It made me want to ask Bo, "What is Mrs. Burden like?" Because she had a saintlike son, I'd been picturing a saintlike mother and father, but having studied so much of family dynamics, I realized how untrue that might be. I suddenly pictured the father cleaning up the mess in the shed, the mother burying the body with God knows who, and I wondered how tough the courts would be on a couple who merely buried somebody already dead. And, being that the girl was engaged to their son and no adult in town had liked her, it could look like a murder.

  Bo must have been on my page, because after a long groan he said, "I can't picture anything worse than losing a kid and then being charged with a murder that you didn't commit of another kid. Who'd take care of Wiley?"

  "You're thinking of the Burdens," Miss Vera confirmed. I figured she'd read the paper.

  "Yeah. Except I can't imagine Mrs. Burden talking like that. She never even says 'darn.' But who knows what a situation like that would do to a pretty mouth? You can't see if it was them?" he said, forgetting for a moment he didn't quite believe in her.

  "I see them in danger of being implicated," she said, and put a hand up in warning. "But where people's emotions run high, that creates cloud cover. I can't see if it's their fear, or just your fear, or if it's real. Sometimes I see things in my sleep. And I'll be able to see more clearly when your feelings aren't filling the room, creating cloud cover."

  In other words, was it time to go already? I sighed and covered it with a cough.

  "All I can do is ask around." Bo stood up. "Well, thanks, Miss um..."

  "Vera." She stood up, too.

  We all stood. The "session" had been short and brutal. I think Bo could have lived without that image of some mouthy female trying to get his sister buried deeper. It seemed he'd felt surer of things before he'd come here. He'd been confident then that Mack and Ozone had been involved, but these new images could make him doubt.

  "You haven't asked about Christopher Creed," Miss Vera said, looking at Adams.

  Tension rose off him. Ali finally said, "If Chris is dead, I think Torey would prefer not to know."

  "He wasn't dead last time you saw me, and he's not dead now," she announced with a smile. She reached out and touched his sleeve. "Last time I scared the hell out of you, so I'm glad to say this time that I have some good news. He saw you in concert"

  Adams's eyes finally rested on hers. It was a touching moment that made even me smile, in which all his doubt seemed cast aside for a moment of reward. His eyes lit with intrigue, as if he really wanted to believe her.

  "He likes your music," she went on. "A lot. Your career will be a tough road, but eventually a rewarding one. And when you release that album, he'll be first in line to grab it."

  Torey smiled hugely, and Ali fell into a sideways embrace with him. A part of me wanted to be doubtful of her, but I got a hot chill, the kind you get when you turn in a paper to class and the teacher writes "Brilliant!" across the top. The only doubtful energy was coming from Bo, who would now have to pay a session fee for a compulsive, beer-driven decision.

  "You, uh, know where Chris is now?" he asked skeptically. "Maybe you could share that."

  "That's not always as easy as it sounds," she said, defending herself. "As for my abilities, I see in frames. I see images. There's no sign behind a body saying, 'This is Farmer John's north pasture.' And sometimes I feel people's emotions—get half in their head and see what's there, though there aren't always words for what they're seeing. Somebody very close to Chris has been ... praying for him? Using some form of prayer or meditation? It is powerful. And it will bring him back."

  Whoa! Bo wasn't together enough to remember the quantum thought conversation from the car tonight. I was stunne
d, rooted, until I got a quick dose of common sense. Don't families always pray for missing family members? It could have been an educated guess.

  "When?" Bo asked, a little tersely.

  "Soon," she said. "Very soon. In fact, he might already be here. He can see the full moon in the pines from where he is standing. And he's not a woodsy type of guy."

  We left quickly, because I was afraid Bo would say, "That's crazy," or get on some inappropriate bender. His energy was sore. The whole time we were driving back to Brownie's, he shook his head over and over.

  "If it's not Mack and Ozone, then I have no idea," he said. "But I can pry information out of any of Darla's girl gang—if it was one of them. Ya know what? I was almost starting to believe that lady. It was working pretty good—until she got to the part about Chris being close by."

  "At least she didn't scare the hell out of Torey this time," Ali said.

  "Well, we know she's wrong about that much," Bo said. "I ain't a gambler. But you don't have to be to know the odds of something like that. You guys, me, and Creed all come rolling into Steepleton at the same time, when we've all been gone for years? The chances are a gadzillion to one."

  "Maybe ... he came back because he heard about Darla's death," Ali said hopefully. "I do think he's read Torey's website and would feel bad for Bo right now. Can you imagine if we actually got to see him?"

  Bo shook his head. "It had something to do with meditating ... somebody praying. Obviously not his dad—he's an atheist—and his mom's too drunk. What was that? What was that lady talking about?"

  I let it go, didn't want to remind him of Justin's spiel on quantum thought at this time of the night. I was exhausted after the adventures of being molested by the Mother Creed, losing RayAnn, and going to visit a psychic with three legends. I'd have to be a lot more alert than I was to make the concept sound credible.

  Torey yawned. "Even if he is here—my guess? It's not likely we'll get to see him."

  "Why not?" Ali asked, turning to watch him in the seat beside me.

  Adams looked pensively out the window. Over his shoulder I could see the moon out there, a full moon behind pines, and figured Adams was looking at it too and understanding something. He'd had deeper insight into Chris than anybody.

  "He might want to see us," Adams said, "...see Steepleton, see his family, make sure that he did the right thing. I just don't get the feeling he's ready to be seen."

  Ali reached back and patted his arm sweetly while yawning herself. She said, "Chris wasn't a woodsy guy, and I can't picture him sleeping on rocks near where a dead body was just found and peering out between the trees. He'd have to have changed a lot to do that."

  I half smiled, thinking of Justin's visions of a swinging lantern and Kobe Lydee's visions of a spook. Behind all the twists of legend, an actual reality existed. Adams was most likely to understand Chris, though Ali looked disgruntled.

  She said, "Torey, you've got jet lag, darling. I'd still say you need sleep."

  TWENTY-SIX

  THEY ALL LOOKED BEAT, but since they hadn't been together in so long, they wanted to do one for the road at Brownie's. I felt so comfortable that I almost said yes to their invitation to stay with them. My ease with three myths from my reading life amazed me and made me wonder if all my attempts to lose my bad frequency and loser behaviors weren't paying off in a big way. I wondered if I wasn't like a plant. You can never see a plant grow, but they do.

  Then I did what I usually do when I start feeling too comfortable. I started to feel uncomfortable. It's just not normal for me to feel comfortable. An alarm goes off inside, telling me all sorts of silly thoughts, like I am still a loser and will do something awkward in a moment if I don't leave—and I'm haunted until that comfort is blown. It's a demon I've yet to face down.

  And it reminded me of how I'm always the first to leave. That's a trick I learned that keeps people coming back to me. Always keep them wanting more.

  I told them I needed to find Justin but that it had been great meeting them—something I would never forget. I think Torey looked pleased by that. He waved as they went back inside. I forced myself slowly to Justin's car. Lanz was in the back seat, pacing around, and the doors were unlocked. Justin was no longer inside.

  I walked Lanz in a woodsy area on the far side of the parking lot, hot under the collar that Justin had left my dog in an unlocked car in a parking lot that was now very crowded. Beyond that, I had no idea where he was, and I didn't feel like reappearing to Bo, Ali, and Torey with yet another problem. It would breach my comfort zone of remaining slightly aloof, and I wasn't in the mood.

  Lanz and I walked toward the back of Brownie's. Although the music was loud up front, it was very muffled back here. I heard voices and thought one of them was Justin's. Lanz moved silently beside me, sensing my vibe, and we sidled up to the building, where I could hear pretty well.

  Justin was arguing with someone. "...just know dead bodies don't get up and walk. They don't bury themselves in the woods."

  "Around here, they do, kid. Did I ever tell you about the time when I was ten and I saw the Jersey Devil right outside the bedroom window?"

  "Not funny," Justin said.

  "I am not trying for a laugh. And that was before I started drinking—"

  Another guy laughed, and the first one went on.

  "Honest to God, kid. I heard something out my window that sounded like chewing. Like ... giant bear teeth grinding up bones. I pulled back the curtain. And there was this horse face staring right at me."

  "Maybe it was a horse," Justin said impatiently.

  "With wings? It was flapping, my man. Had a wing span as wide as our double-wide—"

  "Here's what I think," Justin cut in. "I think you guys know more than what you're saying. And I think you know ... I was with Danny when—"

  "With who? Where?" one man broke in loudly. I supposed these were his two cousins. With Danny... when Darla shot herself? I smacked my forehead to keep my chest from hurting. This was the last news I wanted to hear.

  "Listen to me, Justin," the other said. "Don't tell us nothin' we don't need to be hearing. Just let it go. Let the wind carry it off to wherever the wind takes a problem. I don't know nothing about Darla and Danny, and neither does Ozone, okay? I'm sorry for whatever you went through. We all got our crosses to carry."

  "But—"

  "But just take it for what it is," Ozone kicked in. "Strange things have been happening in these woods since the Indians had them, since before the settlers took them. The dead move. The dead don't like to be buried."

  "Ozone, don't fool with me now," Justin said.

  Mack cut in. "Just leave it alone, give it some time. In another few years it'll be just another eerie tale of Steepleton. And that's all I know to tell."

  "You guys, you swear you don't know anything?"

  "On my life."

  "On our mom's life."

  "Okay, then. I believe you guys."

  For all his drug taking and acting like the hottest dish in school, Justin was still burdened with his problem of poor observation. They sounded like they were lying, or at least weren't telling the whole thing. If they buried Darla, who was the female? Were the Burdens out of trouble?

  I was afraid Lanz might whine, so I turned him slowly and we moved silently back between the rows of cars while I thought. Justin was with Danny at some crucial point. I knew my instincts had been dead-on, that he knew more than what he was saying and he'd been paying the hefty price of silence ever since.

  Justin had gone around the other way and was standing at the car when I got back. It made me reconsider one thought, which had been to go back inside and let Bo know this.

  He sighed in relief, seeing Lanz and me. "Thought for a minute somebody stole your dog. Whew. I just had to go off in the woods and take a leak." His voice was tight like an overstuffed box with the lid ready to blow off, and yet I had to marvel at how he was able to meet one challenge after another, all while his medication was
being withheld from him.

  "You see Adams?"

  "Yeah, he's in there. Ali McDermott's in there, too." It occurred to me he might want to rush in and say hi, and they could question him themselves. He wasn't as symptomatic as I'd imagined he would be. His conversation with his cousins hadn't been at rapid speed.

  His eyes, studying the car keys, looked exhausted, and he only said, "Where to?"

  I could see the lights of the Wawa way down the road, little more than a sparkle at the end of a tunnel, and I sighed, thinking of RayAnn lecturing me about Justin not being Charlie and all of that.

  "Let's get you something to eat. I got a motel room for tonight, paid for, if you want to take a steamy shower and crash."

  He moved mechanically to the car, said he wasn't hungry on the drive, but I got him a breaded chicken sandwich, chips, an apple, and a Pepsi in the Wawa, which he devoured in the parking lot. He looked fortified and alert.

  "Thanks, man. I gotta get my mom's car home. She knows I've used it ... I think. But I haven't been caught in the act yet. I'll drop it off and walk back to you. It's only about a mile, and God knows, I don't think I need to be there when she wakes up tomorrow, not after ... I just need one more night of peace, and I'm cake."

  Juggling problems with more problems. The guy ought to be a circus juggler. He drove me to the motel.

  "So, you'll be back?" I asked, to make certain.

  "Yeah. Gimme forty-five."

  I found my watch face. "That would be two o'clock."

  "I'll be back at two."

  I stayed awake until three thirty, but he never showed up.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  SOME PEOPLE SAY BAD THINGS arrive in threes. Others say we have bad days—when we wake up on the wrong side of the bed and everything spirals until we hit the sack and try it again. I can attest to that "bad day" thing, except for me it's a twenty-four-hour period that has nothing to do with the sun coming up or going down. It seems to end around the same time my bad luck started, only a day later. This time, my luck had turned sour after sundown Saturday, when the Mother Creed was either trying to speak to me or kiss me or both and ended up spitting in my mouth. I should have known I was in for it until sundown on Sunday.