by Amy Ravenel
“I have dark brown hair,” Tristan interrupted. “But I’m not dead.”
“No, but Mr. Martin is. He had dark brown hair.” McKenna paused. “Wait. He died differently. She threw him down the stairs, not out a window. Why did she change tactics?”
“He wasn’t near a window?” Tristan suggested.
McKenna got to her feet and started to pace. “Why go out of your way to kill someone not near a window?” It dawned on her. “Unless you were one of the men she was originally looking for.”
Tristan’s green eyes widened. “You think he was one of the killers?”
McKenna walked from one end of the room to the other. “He was mad about the whole investigation, even though he gave us permission, and he was nervous and scared the whole time. I knew he was hiding something, but I didn’t know what.” She stopped. “We have to talk to the people who knew him. We need to know more about him.” She started for the stairs.
“Wait. You can’t do that.”
McKenna stopped. “What?”
Tristan stood. “McKenna, Mr. Martin died last night. The police have probably told his family by now. What are you going to do? Barge into their house and demand to know who he killed ten or twenty years ago?”
She opened her mouth to argue with him. She wanted to tell him she wouldn’t barge in. She only wanted answers. Closing her mouth, she let his words sink in. He was right. Talking to a family who already believed in ghosts was one thing, but barging in to talk to a grieving family was something else. She scrunched up her face.
“You’re right. We need to find some other way to learn more about him.” She sat down on the bottom step.
Tristan sat next to her. “We need to know more about her. Last night’s hunt didn’t give you any clues, did it?”
“Not initially. We might have caught something on video or on a recording.”
“And all the newspaper clippings and missing persons reports?”
McKenna wanted to tear her hair out. “We have names of several women who could be her, but that’s a lot to narrow down.”
“Then let me try something.” Tristan grinned. “She might have been a student at Blackwood. I can ask around. See if anybody knows something. Maybe I can help you narrow down your list of suspects.”
McKenna studied him, noting the determination in his eyes. His hopefulness made her more at ease with the whole situation. “That is a good idea.”
“Then I’ll do it on Monday.” He gave that smile that made her heart melt. “But, first, the funeral and a visit to Boone.”
McKenna returned his smile. “It sounds like a plan. Can I come to Boone with you? I’d like to know more about the psychic energy myself.”
Tristan blinked. “Well, ah, you’d meet my parents.”
“I look forward to it.”
The knot in his stomach released as he approached the two-story yellow Victorian house at the end of the street. Tristan exhaled. Home. The perfect place to clear his head. The two-hour drive up Highway 221 was worth it.
It didn’t matter how much the past battered his mind or what kind of regular things he dealt with. His parents had a way of grounding him. After the past week, he was anxious to see them.
He glanced over at McKenna, who stared out her window. He was glad to have her with him. He hadn’t realized how much he depended on her until she wasn’t at the funeral with him. He missed her touch, her voice, her smile. Melancholy settled over him as his best friend’s casket was lowered into the ground. Maybe he could’ve stopped the ghost from taking his energy if he’d only known how, and Zack would still be alive.
The sadness didn’t go away until McKenna climbed into his truck an hour later.
He pointed the house out to her.
“That’s it?” she asked.
“That’s it.”
He parked in the driveway and climbed out. After helping McKenna out, they sauntered onto the wrap-around white porch. He smiled at the familiar creek under his weight. The brown wooden swing to his right swayed in the light breeze, creaking with each movement. He reached for the door, but it swung open before he could touch it.
His mother was a welcome sight. “Mijo!” She swept him into a hug. “I saw you pull into the driveway.” He closed his eyes. For a moment, he was her little boy again. Everything in his mind quieted when she was there. They stood like that for a long moment, neither one of them saying anything. Tristan broke away and introduced McKenna.
His mother’s eyes widened. “Call me Melissa.” She pulled McKenna into a tight embrace.
“Oh!” McKenna giggled, clearly surprised. “Nice to meet you, ma’am.”
“Melissa, please.” She let go and led them into the foyer. The strong, savory smell of arroz con pollo wafted through the house. Tristan’s mouth watered. No one made the chicken and rice dish like his mother. No one.
“Mom, you didn’t have to make dinner,” Tristan protested.
“Nonsense. You’ve had a bad week, and you brought a friend. Now, come inside and have something to eat.” She walked into the kitchen. Tristan grinned at McKenna as they followed her.
Melissa Gomez Johnson was a petite woman with deep golden-brown skin, long, curly hair the same color as her son’s, and mischievous light brown eyes. Her height never mattered, though, since she could make Tristan feel guilty with one look. And anytime she yelled at him in Spanish, he knew he was in trouble. He grew up hearing that his mother decided to marry his father after seeing him only once. His aunts all said that Matthew Johnson hadn’t stood a chance.
“Mom, you didn’t have to.” Tristan repeated as he claimed his usual seat at the table, gesturing for McKenna to take the one next to him. Despite his protests, his mouth already watered.
“I never do anything because I have to. You know that.” She filled two bowls. She placed one in front of McKenna and the other in front of Tristan. “Eat. Your father will be down in a minute.”
Tristan obeyed and dug into his meal. He closed his eyes, savoring the rich flavor. He moaned with pleasure when the touch of spiciness his mother always added kicked in. There wasn’t much his mother’s arroz con pollo couldn’t cure.
“Mrs. Johnson, this is amazing.” McKenna’s eyes teared as she reached for a glass of water. “A little hotter than I’m used to, though.”
“Eat only what you can handle.” Melissa slid into the chair next to McKenna. “Now, tell me everything about yourself because my selfish son has told me nothing.”
McKenna was the color of a tomato. “Well, there isn’t much to tell. I grew up in Asheville and work for a paranormal investigation agency.”
“Oh?”
“Mom, McKenna’s an empath,” Tristan said between bites.
“Is that so? So you know what it’s like to have so much going on in your head.” She patted McKenna’s hand.
“Yes, ma’am.”
Tristan’s mother pulled the skin off her chicken. “You know, I forever worry about Tristan and those visions he has to deal with. They nearly tore him apart.”
“She knows, Mom.”
“So, how long have you two been dating?” Melissa’s smile was back.
Tristan choked on the chicken. “Mom!”
“I thought that was you.” Tristan’s father entered the kitchen, a big white man with salt and pepper hair, a full beard and mustache, and green eyes that matched his son’s. He held a hand out to McKenna. “You must be McKenna. I’m Tristan’s father, Matthew.”
McKenna wiped her mouth and shook his hand. “Tristan told you about me?”
“Not a word, but I’ve seen you.”
Tristan’s mother swatted him on the arm. “What have I told you about spying on Tristan?”
“I wasn’t spying. Just keeping an eye out.” He sat down next to his son, reaching for a bowl. He heaped food into it.
Tristan scooted down in his chair, wishing the floor would open and swallow him. Maybe bringing McKenna along wasn’t such a great idea after all.
McKenna looked from Matthew to Tristan. “I’m confused.”
“Dad can see the present. He knows what’s going on in other places right now.”
“Oh. I thought he could see the past, like you.”
Matthew waved his fork in the air. “It alternates. Tristan’s grandfather can see the past.”
McKenna nodded. “Daniel Johnson. I remember.” Her eyes gleamed. “So, remote viewing? I’ve never met anyone who can actually do that.” She adopted what Tristan thought of as her interviewing face. Her eyebrows lifted and her lips parted in a small smile. “How does it work?”
Tristan groaned. “Can we talk about that later?”
“I guess,” McKenna rolled her eyes as she went back to her meal.
His father took the time to chew. He swallowed before speaking again. “Now, son, how are you?” Matthew studied Tristan with concern.
Tristan wiped his mouth. “I think I’ll be okay. A lot of things haven’t made sense this past week. Another person was killed and this time I saw the ghost do it.”
Matthew sat back in his chair. “Tell me what happened.” He was in cop mode.
Tristan told his father about Mr. Martin’s death, about the investigation. McKenna chimed in, adding details from her end. Then, he mentioned the theory about the ghost and the psychic energy. “We think the ghost used McKenna’s brother ten years ago, used me to kill Zack, and used McKenna to kill Mr. Martin.”
“What do you mean, used?” his mother set her fork down, concern in her eyes.
McKenna gulped down some of her drink. “She somehow took psychic energy from us.”
“Afterwards, neither one of us could sense anything.”
Matthew’s chewing slowed. “You couldn’t see anything?”
“Nothing. You know how shades sometimes push through my shields. They didn’t. It was…quiet.” Tristan shuddered. “It was weird.”
“Is that possible?” Melissa asked.
“I’ve never heard of it.” McKenna shook her head.
“I’m not sure. It might be.” Matthew considered the problem. “I’ve never personally heard of it happening, but there’s a lot about psychic powers I don’t know.” He stroked his brown and grey beard. “There might be something in your grandfather’s journals. He used to do a lot of research on psychic abilities. He wanted to know why he could do what he could do.”
Tristan took a thoughtful bite of his food. “I was hoping you’d say that.”
Matthew pushed back his chair. “I’ll go get them.”
“Your grandfather kept journals?” McKenna’s eyes lit up with interest.
“Yeah. I’ve never looked through them, though.”
Tristan’s mother rested her hand on her son’s. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
“I will be.”
“Ah, here we are.” Tristan’s father returned with six leather-bound journals. He set them in the middle of the table. “We’ll go through these together and see what we can find.”
After dinner, Tristan took two of the journals while his father and McKenna split the rest. His grandfather’s scratchy handwriting was hard to decipher at times, but it was a more interesting read than he expected. Detailed notes described his grandfather’s visions and how he struggled to separate himself from what he was seeing. Tristan related to that battle. Other paragraphs described how his grandfather thought the visions worked. He mentioned “energy” several times. The most fascinating paragraphs, however, detailed his days working for The Greene Institute.
Daniel Johnson had been the leader of a group of psychics who had apparently investigated ghosts and other mundane matters in the state. They didn’t seem to be widely known, but the local police often hired them to help solve strange cases. Tristan wondered why he hadn’t taken the time to find out more about his grandfather’s past.
“He knew my grandmother.” McKenna broke the silence, pulling Tristan back to the present.
“How do you know that?” he asked.
She showed him a paragraph in the journal she was reading. “Lauren McKenna. That’s my grandmother. He talks about working with her, saying she was one of the most controlled empaths he’d ever worked with.” She lifted her head. “Is he still alive?”
“Yeah. Grandpa lives in Gatlinburg, Tennessee, in a log cabin on top of a mountain.”
“Keeps to himself a lot since my mother passed away,” Tristan’s father chimed in.
McKenna ran a hand over the page. “I’ll have to ask my grandma about him.”
The afternoon turned into evening. Tristan yawned as he started into the last book. Maybe his dad only imagined seeing a mention of a ghost taking energy. He rubbed his eyes. He was getting nowhere.
He ran across a paragraph that started with the sentence, “A ghost grabbed her shoulder.” Tristan straightened. Up until that point, his grandfather had done nothing but wax on about his visions and working with a team of other psychics. This was one of the first mentions he had seen about a ghost touching someone. “I think I found something.”
McKenna set her book down and moved closer to him. His father peered at him from across the room.
Tristan began to read. “Lauren couldn’t move. She and the ghost faced off, and none of us could pry them apart. I was worried. The ghost grew brighter while she grew paler. She dropped to her knees, and the ghost let her go. He was more solid than any apparition I had ever seen. I caught Lauren before she fell to the ground.”
“Grandma never told me,” McKenna said.
He skimmed through the rest of the passage, searching for a reason or an explanation. He found it at the very end.
“Lauren said it felt like all the energy was drained out of her. I told her it made sense. Ghosts were pure energy. This one may have figured out how to grab more. It took Harvey, Sam, Betty, and me forever to track down the ghost while Sharon stayed with Lauren. It was able to throw objects and crash through walls. It could affect the physical world like nothing I had ever seen.
“A week later, Lauren worked on her shields, trying to make them stronger. She asked me to practice with her until she reached a point where I couldn’t read her. She told me she refused to be used like that again.”
Tristan flipped a page. “With nothing to go on, Lauren’s methods were effective. She explained it to me like this. Picture your shield the way you normally do – brick wall, tower wall, whatever. Now add another wall around it, and then another. It takes more concentration than a regular shield and isn’t second nature to her. We all tried and practiced and every one of us felt like we had climbed a mountain while carrying a house on our backs.”
McKenna brought her knees to her chest. “No wonder nothing ever seems to faze my grandma. I wonder why she didn’t teach Jason or me how to do that?”
“My father never mentioned any of this to me either.” Tristan’s father scratched his chin. “That’s why I never told you, son.”
“Well, no time like the present to try.” Tristan took her hand, but he didn’t feel as reassured as he sounded.
“Well, kids.” Tristan’s father climbed to his feet. “We’ve got some time.”
17
Coming back to his apartment left a cold numbness in Tristan’s gut. Two deaths already, and no one knew why. He entertained the idea of paying for a hotel room, but that was money he didn’t have and there was no telling how long he would have to stay. No. He wasn’t running this time. It was his apartment, and he wasn’t leaving. Nor was he going to let The White Lady make her third kill.
His head still had a dull ache from strengthening his shield with McKenna and his father. He would hide somewhere in the house or around it, and they had to find him using only their psychic powers. At first, McKenna and his father found him easily, but by Sunday night, it was getting more difficult. He couldn’t block them out completely, but he was making progress. Hopefully, it was enough to keep the ghost from using him.
He bit into an apple as he headed into the histo
ry building that morning. His first class wasn’t until eight a.m. so he had an hour to start asking around. He opened his email to find McKenna had sent him pictures and information on the young women who had gone missing from the area.
Tristan studied them, searching for familiar characteristics. The White Lady’s features weren’t defined enough for him to recognize her. When she glowed, they became more obscure. But he hoped he would see something familiar. It didn’t help that the pictures were black and white, but the descriptions listed eye color. At least four of the young women had green eyes. He moved slowly, studying each picture, each profile. When he finished with one, he clicked the mouse to move to the next one.
At the third one, he froze. A young woman with long, dark hair smiled at him. She leaned against the railing of a deck, the wind tossing her hair around her. A big hair bow held one side of her hair in place. There was something about her. Something familiar. His vision clouded over and the picture disappeared.
She stood at the window, her expression thoughtful. Her curtain of dark hair fell past her shoulders, a bright yellow bow clipped on the right side. She fiddled with a gold necklace. When she turned to face him, her eyes glistened with tears. His heart seized.
“But why can’t anyone know? You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”
He walked into the room and pulled her into his arms. It killed him to see the pain in her eyes. But this was for the best. He knew it was.
“Because you’re eighteen, and I’m thirty, and I’m your teacher. If anyone ever knew, I’d lose my job. You’d be kicked out. I can’t risk it.” He stepped back and held both of the girl’s hands in his.
The girl smiled a little. She wiped her eyes. “Tell me you love me.”
“I love you.”
The door banged open behind him.
The girl’s green eyes widened. “Oh, no!”