Gray sat up. “In love? Like they might get married?”
“Don’t go jumping to conclusions! They’ve only been dating for six months. Anyway, they make each other happy. I wouldn’t mind if they got hitched.”
“Of course you wouldn’t. Then you’d get to have Mom around all the time.”
Lee stretched. “Yeah, so?”
The doorbell chimed. Gray jumped up. “I’ll get it!”
When Gray opened the door, Raj was running his fingers over his brow. The thump of Gray’s heart was beyond her control. She smiled. Best of all, Raj returned her smile.
“Hi, Gray.”
“Hey.” Gray ordered herself not to blush. “You could tell it was me and not Charlene?”
“Lee texted. That’s great.” Raj dimpled. “I’m glad you’re you.”
“Thanks.” Gray glanced at Raj’s sneakers peeking from his long, dark jeans. “So, how have you been?”
“Good. I live with my mom and sister now.”
“That’s good.”
“How are you holding up?”
Gray shrugged. “Fine, I guess. I just don’t know what the point is.”
Raj leaned toward her. “What do you mean?”
“Raj!” Lee called out. “Come in.”
Mr. Morehouse turned in his chair as Raj stepped inside. “Don’t tell me you skipped school as well, Raj.”
“I wanted to make sure my sister was going to be okay. Once we saw that she was over the worst it was too late to go to school.”
“I’m happy to hear your sister is feeling better,” Mom said.
“Thank you, Ms. Perez.”
Lee had leapt to her feet and joined them in the entryway. She grabbed Raj’s arm and dragged him toward the living room. “We’re having a homework party. Come join us.”
Gray followed behind, feeling very much like the third wheel. Fine, she’d get her pendant and then she was out of there. At least the Beetle hadn’t been sold off like her furniture. She wasn’t sure where she’d go for the afternoon, but anywhere was better than here where she had no place in the whole Perez/Morehouse/McKenna scheme of things.
Once more, everyone had moved on without her—including herself.
At least she’d had Raj’s loyalty when she was stuck sharing Charlene’s body. Now that there were two of her, everyone had already chosen a side: Lee’s.
Chapter Ten
Raj settled in beside Lee on the floor and kissed her cheek. Usually it was on the lips, but whatever. It was a little hard with Gray staring at them.
Gray cleared her throat. “Mind handing over your pendant?”
Raj looked at Lee. She nodded. “I gave her mine. Adrian’s pendant showed up this afternoon in a manila envelope at the door. It was here when I arrived.”
“Adrian.” Raj’s jaw tightened.
“Afraid so.”
Raj waited till after he’d handed Gray his pendant to say, “You might be better off without your powers for the time being.”
Lee rolled her eyes. “I tried to warn her.”
“Thanks, Raj,” Gray said, ignoring Lee. “Be right back.”
Once she was gone, Raj put his hand over Lee’s. “How are you doing?”
“I’m fine. The nazar works like a charm. How are your mother and Aahana?”
“Aahana’s awake… and bored.” Raj chuckled. “She’s annoyed that we didn’t think to bring her Kindle.”
Lee pulled the nazar out of her sweater. “I don’t blame her. Gathering is boring enough two hours a week. I feel guilty having this.”
Raj’s hand touched the nazar. His fingers strayed over the smooth glass to Lee’s chest, sending tingles down her spine. “I’m just grateful my mom had that on hand. She’s working on getting more.”
Lee leaned closer. “Think she can have them here by Tuesday?”
“What’s happening Tuesday?” Gray’s voice said from thin air.
Raj removed his hand abruptly from Lee. They both looked around, trying to locate Gray. She chuckled and appeared on the couch. “Back in business and good as new.”
“Wonderful,” Lee said under her breath.
Gray crossed her legs. “So, what happens Tuesday?”
Lee and Raj exchanged looks. Lee cleared her throat. “Tuesday is Valentine’s Day. We were supposed to go out.”
Lee had only been looking forward to Tuesday night for, like, ever. Mr. Morehouse was actually making an exception and letting Raj not only take her out to dinner, but pick her up in his car. Watching Gray try to hide her discontent was like looking into a mirror from the past.
“That’s nice.” Gray floated off the couch and thrust her feet under her to land on the floor. A smile played over the edges of her lips. “In the meantime, I’m checking out this emergency meeting at Gathering tonight.”
“You can’t go,” Lee said. “That’ll raise too many questions about what Charlene’s doing in town and alarm certain individuals.”
Gray’s eyes narrowed to slits. “Like Ryan Phillips?”
“For starters.”
“So I’ll go invisible.”
Raj shrugged. “Fine by me. I’ll give you a ride.”
So now Lee’s boyfriend was teaming up with duplicate Gray? Not a chance. Lee straightened her spine. “If you’re going, I’m going.”
“What about your dad?” Gray asked.
Lee glared. “Mr. Morehouse is not my father.”
“What time are you picking me up?” Gray asked Raj.
“The meeting starts at seven, so I’ll come by around six forty.”
“Perfect. See you then.”
Since Gray didn’t stick around long enough to see Lee glower, Lee glared at Raj instead. Raj’s cheeks heated. “Sorry, Lee. It’s just sorta hard for you to come along with the parental unit always on guard.”
Lee shoved her math book aside and stood up. “Well, he’s gonna have to let me live my life.” And speaking of the parental unit… Lee walked over to Mr. Morehouse’s side in the dining room. He looked up from his laptop and smiled.
“I’m going home.”
The smile faded. Mr. Morehouse looked over her shoulder at Raj.
“Don’t worry, I’ll walk.” Lee didn’t mean to sound so put out. Mr. Morehouse further exacerbated her irritation by closing his laptop and standing.
“We’ll both head home.”
“But I want to walk.”
“It looks like it’s going to rain.”
It so did not look like it was going to rain. Lee gnashed her teeth. It was bad enough having to be chauffeured everywhere. Now she couldn’t hoof it alone? “I’m sure Ms. Perez has an umbrella she could lend me.” Not that Lee needed it even if it did rain… which it wouldn’t.
Mom joined everyone in the living room and gave Lee a look. Lee shot one back. What?
“How about you two head home, and I’ll come by later with pizza.”
Pizza. How sneaky was Mom using Lee’s magic word? Lee scooped her math book off the floor and cradled it under her arm. “Fine, but can we move pizza night to tomorrow so Raj can come? He has that thing tonight, remember?”
Mom and Mr. Morehouse exchanged a look. “Sure,” Mr. Morehouse said. He grinned. “I swear she listens to you more than me.”
Mom’s face lit up in a way Lee hadn’t seen in years. And they weren’t even under a love spell. Did Lee glow when Raj looked at her?
“Great, I’ll see you all tomorrow then.” Raj gave Lee a quick peck on the cheek.
Lee didn’t kiss Raj back. Right, catch you later. She turned to Mr. Morehouse. “Shall we?”
Mr. Morehouse was unable to answer, what with his lips being pressed against Mom’s. Real kisses made noise. So did grumbling.
“Right,” Mr. Morehouse said once he had pulled away. He ran his hand through his hair. “Uh, see you tomorrow night, then.”
Mom grinned. “Have a good evening.”
Sometimes, it was amusing how unhinged Mr. Morehouse acted around Mom. He
might sputter and behave uncomfortably during the hour following an encounter with her. Other times, he leaped directly from love puppy to overly protective father. Lee was banking on love puppy, until they’d slammed their car doors shut.
The line of Mr. Morehouse’s jaw was tight. He didn’t turn the key in the ignition. Lee had always been better at detecting people’s moods or past emotions when holding an object with some significance to the owner, but at the moment, Mr. Morehouse’s discontent was as strong as the auras Raj was so good at reading.
“Want to tell me why you didn’t go to school today?”
Lee blinked several times. “I didn’t feel like it.”
“Stace,” Mr. Morehouse said. “What’s going on?”
Lee turned suddenly. “You’re suffocating me, that’s what’s going on! I feel like a caged bird watching the world pass me by through metal bars.”
Mr. Morehouse stiffened. “When have I ever denied you anything, Stacey? I wanted you tutored from home, but I allowed you to return to McKinley. I wanted to drive you to school and pick you up, but I let you take the bus. I’ve even let you date.”
Lee snorted. “Hanging out at home with my dad around all the time is not dating. I feel like I’m in fifth grade. I’m seventeen. I’m an adult and I don’t plan on sticking around Kent after graduation. What are you going to do—follow me to college?”
Mr. Morehouse wrapped his fingers around the steering wheel. “No, but until you do, you’ll obey my rules, young lady.”
Lee had to bite her tongue not to laugh. In the ten months she’d lived under Mr. Morehouse’s roof, he’d never called her a young lady until now. Not that it was funny. Lee was furious. She folded her arms and threw herself against the back.
“Stace…” Mr. Morehouse’s voice softened.
Lee jutted her chin forward. “What are you waiting for? Let’s get me home so you can put me under lock and key.”
“Honey…” Mr. Morehouse sighed, then started the car. He glanced over several times on the drive home. The moment they pulled into the driveway, Lee unbuckled her seatbelt and jumped out of the car. She was so angry, she forgot to make a pretense of unlocking the front door with her key. The bolt clicked back and she yanked the knob, pushing into the entryway.
“Did I not lock the door?” asked a perplexed Mr. Morehouse from behind her. “I swear I locked it.”
Lee shrugged and headed to her room.
“Stace…” Mr. Morehouse called after her. “Stace!”
Lee whipped around. “What?”
“Don’t be mad, honey. You gave me a scare today.”
Lee dropped her arms and sighed. “I should have called and let you know where I was.”
“Or told me where you were going in the first place?”
“Right, or that.” Mr. Morehouse stepped forward and gave her a hug. “I didn’t realize you felt so smothered. I’m sorry. I’ll try to give you more room.”
When Mr. Morehouse leaned in for a hug, Lee patted him once on the back. “Next time I’ll tell you where I’m going before I leave.”
What a liar she was.
An hour later, Lee stalked into the living room. She had waited till Mr. Morehouse was seated on the sofa, working on a crossword he’d saved from last Sunday’s paper. There was less chance of him getting hurt on a cushy surface.
Lee paused briefly to watch Mr. Morehouse staring at the newsprint. Her fingers curled around the glass vial inside her palm. Hopefully, the salts hadn’t expired since she last used them to knock out Ryan’s father, Marc Phillips, a year ago.
Lee lifted her shoulders and then advanced. Mr. Morehouse lowered the paper to smile when she took the spot beside him. The lead tip of his pencil pointed at the crossword. “Good timing, you might know this one. Popular fragrance?”
Lee squeezed the vial. “How many letters?”
“Five.”
The only five-letter word she had in her mind at the moment was SLEEP. Lee shrugged.
“Come on, Stace, you love perfume. Help me out.”
“Okay, Guess.”
Mr. Morehouse chuckled. “That’s what I’ve been trying to do.”
“No, Guess, the perfume.”
“Ah.” He held the paper close to his face. “The “u” doesn’t work in thirty-five down.”
Lee shrugged once more. “Got me.”
Mr. Morehouse looked at the vial in Lee’s open palm. “What’s that?”
“Smelling salts. They’re supposed to clear your head. Think they’ll help me get my homework done?”
Mr. Morehouse chuckled. “I think sitting at the table and working on your homework will get it done.”
“Still, can’t hurt.” Lee took in a silent breath and held it as she unscrewed the cap. “Maybe it will help with your crossword. Give it a sniff.” She held the vial directly under Mr. Morehouse’s nose.
He opened his mouth to say something, then crumpled forward, smashing the newspaper as he did so. Lee threw her hands forward and pushed Mr. Morehouse back into the couch. She positioned his neck so his head rested against the back cushion. His eyes were closed.
The immediate effect of the salts unnerved her as much the second time as it had the first. She had to resist the urge to try to shake Mr. Morehouse awake. He might not be Lee’s real dad, but he was the only one she had.
“Sorry, Mr. Morehouse,” Lee whispered. She pushed off the couch, snapped into a dress, and grabbed his set of car keys.
It was four twenty-five, too early to head to Gathering. Lee could have waited till later to put Mr. Morehouse to sleep, but the caged bird speech earlier had come from the heart. Lee was aching to spread her wings.
Even in her former life, Lee hadn’t done much driving, but forgoing an entire year behind the wheel made the experience nerve-wracking and something else… exhilarating. Green. Green. Green, Lee chanted in her head. She laughed as the lights turned green on her command. “Green! Green! Green!” she called out. Lee floored the gas pedal. Her heart lurched with the forward momentum of the car. The real Stacey would not have been amused.
On the way to St. Ann’s Cemetery, Lee swung by the florist’s. Bad idea. The rose bouquets merely reminded her she wouldn’t be one of the girls getting dolled up and going out on Valentine’s Day. With their magic backfiring, the risk of going out to dinner was too high. Some senior year this was turning out to be.
Stop whining! You’re alive, aren’t you?
She was more than alive. This time, she even had a backup.
Lee snatched a bundle of pink tulips from a bucket. Water slid from the stems and sprinkled across the floor as she made her way to the cashier. “I don’t need them wrapped,” Lee said when the woman pulled out white tissue paper and a spool of pink ribbon.
Lee gave the flowers a shake before setting them on the passenger’s seat. She hadn’t been to her grave since assuming Stacey’s body. It wasn’t like she headed straight for the cemetery during the few chances she got out of the house. Nevertheless, Lee could have found her headstone blindfolded.
Lee approached her gravesite. The last time she’d come, Raj had been standing beside it as though he were her personally appointed guardian angel waiting all along for her to reemerge so he could guide her through the battle of existence.
Today the cemetery was deserted. Lee’s heart tightened.
Graylee Perez
Forever In Our Hearts
November 7, 1994—February 9, 2011
Lee traced the etched letters with her eyes. She might be alive, but her former body was beneath the ground—gone forever.
The wet tulip stems were making Lee’s hands cold. She tossed them onto the grassy plot the way people tossed flowers inside open graves before the casket was covered in earth. As the flowers left her hand, she made a decision: to stop mourning the loss of her former body and accept that she was now and forever Stacey Lee Morehouse—if not in spirit, then in appearance and name.
Lee heard a tsk behind her. “Such a
tragedy.”
She spun around. “Excuse me?”
Adrian Hedrick Montez stood five feet away. He was thinner, as though he’d lost muscle mass. But the same spark lit his eyes as he took in the full view of Stacey Lee Morehouse. Before leaving home, Lee had snapped into a silver knit dress that clung to every curve on her body. She’d dressed with Raj and Gathering in mind, not the graveyard.
Gray might be able to pull off the cute girl in shorts and tights, but Lee had her own secret weapon: a body so long and lean she could eat whatever she desired and the pounds fused themselves sparingly over her great towering height.
Adrian whistled a catcall. “Hello, Angel of Death. If I’d known there was a hottie stalking the cemetery, I would have arrived sooner.”
Lee rolled her eyes. “Oh, get over yourself.”
Adrian stopped chuckling and looked her over from top to bottom. “I beg your pardon. Allow me to introduce myself. I am Adrian Montez.”
“Stacey,” Lee said quickly.
Adrian took a step toward her. “Were you a friend of Gray’s?”
“Not really. We went to school together.”
“You must have cared enough to visit her grave… and bring those pretty tulips.”
Lee followed Adrian’s gaze to the bouquet she’d chucked carelessly onto her plot. “It’s not like I had anything better to do.”
Adrian chuckled. Lee inadvertently found herself staring into his eyes. She was skating on thin ice—acting like her snarky self rather than Stacey Morehouse. Who knows? Maybe Stacey would act the same way if confronted by the unwanted attentions of Adrian Montez.
He swooped down and snatched the tulips.
“What are you doing?” Lee demanded. She stepped toward him, right fist tightening.
Adrian held the flowers out. “You keep them.” He shook the tulips in front of her. “Come on, they won’t last long without water. Besides, I have a secret.” Adrian grinned. “Graylee Perez is not really dead.”
Lee gasped. She was shocked he’d say such a thing in the presence of a normal—so shocked, she sounded convincing when she cried out, “you’re crazy!”
She caught Adrian’s shrug right before he tossed the flowers over his shoulder. They scattered across the plot after landing smack dab in the center of her gravesite.
Duplicity (Spellbound #2) Page 5