“Alright,” she said, and Melanie looked pleased.
She came around the couch to sit in one of the armchairs. Once she was settled, she took some deep breaths, closing her eyes. She focused on Ariana; on thinking her name, on visualizing her face. She slipped her hand into her jacket pocket and grasped the barrette.
~~~
Ariana, Veronica thought, as she felt the vision forming around her. Show me the man who hurt you. Show me the one you were telling your mother about.
~~~
“Well, Ariana, what a pleasant surprise,” said a man’s voice from behind her. She turned around quickly, and saw Thad Bayer standing in the doorway between what looked like a living room and a dining room in a house Veronica was unfamiliar with. Even as the shock at seeing Bayer registered for Veronica, she noted that the walls were painted light brown and the floor was dark wood, with rugs here and there. She was in the living room, standing between a tan loveseat and a tan couch with a green leaf pattern on it. There were green floor-length curtains hanging at each of two long fixed windows with arched tops. Outside, it was dark but for some lawn lights here and there.
“Hello, Mr. Bayer,” Ariana said. She didn’t feel tense and her heart rate was normal. She was unafraid of Bayer. Maybe it’s not him, thought Veronica. Maybe I’m jumping the gun, thinking that Ariana’s accusing him.
“I didn’t realize you came along with your parents.”
“I was supposed to go to my friend’s, but she’s sick,” Ariana said. “I hope that’s okay.”
“Well, do you know how many people are here, Ariana?”
She shook her head.
“Probably close to two hundred. One more young lady isn’t going to make any difference,” he said with a warm smile. “Although I must say, seeing you here has made my night nicer. You are growing up to be such a pretty girl.”
Ariana smiled back at him. Veronica could feel her cheeks warm, but she felt the pleasure his comment gave Ariana. To Veronica, the comment seemed ominous. She wanted to warn Ariana. She wanted to tell her to run and find her parents.
“What are you doing, all alone in here?” Bayer asked.
“I told my mom I’d just find a TV,” Ariana said.
“Did you know this room used to only be for the male members of this club?” he asked. He took a step closer to her.
“No,” she answered. “Why?”
Bayer grinned, looking down his nose at her. “Well, young lady, there was a time when society had some order. Women had their place, and we men had ours. Things have gotten awfully confused over the years, I’m afraid.”
Ariana shrugged. “I don’t see what’s so special about this room. It doesn’t even have a TV.”
Bayer laughed. “You’re right, Ariana. It’s a boring room.” He took another step closer to her. “Such a pretty girl like you, you must be used to doing much more exciting things.” He caught her wrist. His grip was hard as iron.
Ariana made a surprised noise and jerked her arm, but Bayer didn’t release her.
“I can get you excited,” he said.
Ariana’s heart began thudding in her chest. She whimpered and struggled, but Bayer caught her other arm at the bicep.
“Don’t be a little bitch about it!” he breathed into her hair, his face pressing against the side of her head.
That’s enough, Veronica thought. That’s enough, Ariana. Please don’t show me the rest.
“Stop it!” Ariana screamed in her little girl’s voice. “Stop it!”
“Shut up,” he spat. “You shut up, or I’ll kill you.”
Please, Ariana! I believe you! I know it happened! Please don’t make me live it!
He was holding her tight against his body now, and Veronica realized with a sickening twist in her stomach that she could feel his excitement. He was breathing hard into her ear.
Ariana, please!
A white light glowed bright—sudden as the flash of a camera, and for a confused moment Veronica thought that’s what it was. But then she blinked and she wasn’t caught in Bayer’s grip anymore. She wasn’t as small as before either; she could tell, though she was crouched. Her body felt bigger. The smell of cut grass hung in the air. She was outside, she realized, and it was cold, and dark, though she was looking in through a window. It wasn’t the same as the windows with the green curtains from moments before. This was a double-hung window. It had no curtains around it that she could see. She was careful to remain below it. Then, all in one fluid gesture, she popped up, bringing her phone up in one hand. She snapped a picture.
Through the glass, she saw an awful scene. Thad Bayer again, though his hair had thinned considerably and he was at least fifty pounds heavier. And he wasn’t alone. There was a poor little girl with him, and though Veronica had not had to experience what Ariana had first hand, now she had to see it.
~~~
She came back to herself in a rush and immediately bolted for the bathroom. She didn’t have time to shut the door behind her before she hurled herself to the toilet bowl and vomited.
Melanie called, “Veronica! Are you okay?”
Breathing hard, Veronica stayed over the bowl a few minutes longer without answering.
“V! Can I do anything?”
Fear that Melanie would get off the couch spurred Veronica to respond, “No, I’m alright. Give me a minute.”
Melanie said nothing more but Veronica could feel her anxiety all the way from the living room. It was going to be a long six weeks for both of them, she realized, if she was going to worry every time Melanie got worked up about something.
Veronica felt exhausted and ill. She sat down by the toilet, though she was fairly sure she was done being sick. Her hands shook as she pressed them to her cheeks. Finally, she gathered her strength and went to the sink, washing out her mouth. After a minute or two, she made her way back to the living room. She considered sitting in the same chair but it felt like it would be soiled somehow. She went to the other chair and dropped into it, then kicked off her shoes and gathered her legs up, wrapping her arms around them.
“Now that was a vision I could have done without.”
Melanie, to her credit, said nothing and waited for Veronica to elaborate.
“You were right, Mellie,” Veronica said after a long pause. “Oh god. That man is a monster.”
Melanie’s eyes widened. “You saw him…”
“Saw and got to experience firsthand, for some of it.”
Melanie winced.
Veronica squeezed her legs. She took a deep breath and told Melanie all of it, though she left out the worst details.
“That pig,” Melanie breathed.
“I think that’s an insult to pigs,” Veronica said in a weak attempt at humor. “I mean, they may not be clean animals, but…”
“Okay,” Melanie said, holding up a hand. “He’s not a pig. He’s a piece of shit.”
Veronica nodded. Her heart felt heavy, and she couldn’t seem to let go of the horror of the vision—in both its parts.
“I think she got a picture of him,” she said softly. “But there’s nothing in the news about him getting busted for assaulting a little girl, is there?”
Melanie shook her head.
Veronica sighed. “I think I know where Ariana got that wad of money,” she said, her throat feeling tight.
Melanie’s eyebrows drew together. “What does that have to do with this?”
Veronica’s stomach rolled as a flash of what she’d seen flickered in her mind. She closed her eyes and tried to breathe away the nausea. After a moment, the sick feeling subsided.
“Oh,” Melanie said, having put it together for herself. “Are you saying you think she was blackmailing him?”
Veronica nodded, feeling sad. “It fits, doesn’t it? Cash, in large bills. The kind of thing you’d withdraw from an ATM, maybe, so you could pay someone off without the evidence of a canceled check or something.”
“But—” Melanie started, then stopped
.
Veronica sighed. “Yeah. I think I know what you’re thinking.”
“If she had evidence of what he was doing—”
“To another little girl…”
“And she didn’t go to the police…” Melanie looked stricken. “He had other victims. She wasn’t the only one, and she knew it.”
“It looks to me like she stalked him, to get that photo,” Veronica agreed.
“But if she chose to blackmail him instead of bringing the photo to the police,” Melanie said, “then he could just keep on doing it!”
Veronica felt movement. It started behind her chair and then whooshed by her ear. Melanie showed no sign of noticing, so Veronica knew it had to be a spirit, most likely Ariana.
“I mean, can you imagine? She went through it herself!” Melanie continued. “How could she just—just profit from it like that—”
“Mellie,” Veronica said, as the feeling of wind whirling around her intensified. Despite the sensation, she was aware that her clothes and her hair were still.
“I mean, I guess I don’t know what it’s like, and she probably would have been afraid of having to talk about her own assault—”
“Mel,” Veronica said.
Everything was blurring. It was like she could see a whirlwind around her, like the force of it was distorting everything. The nausea, which never had completely abated, was rising within her again.
“V, are you okay?”
“Ariana’s here,” she managed.
“What?”
“I don’t think she likes the way you’re talking.”
Veronica couldn’t really see Melanie’s face, but she could make out that Melanie had sat up on the couch.
“Well maybe she’d like to explain why she took a photograph of Bayer raping some poor girl and didn’t give it to the cops?”
The movement expanded and a loud wail built, filling Veronica’s ears until she grabbed them in pain. Then, with a dry crack, Ariana was gone.
Veronica blinked and tears spilled from her eyes. She looked around. Melanie’s living room was normal again. There was no wailing. There was no movement.
“What a day,” she breathed.
~~~
When she got home Blossom and Binky met her at the door, and Veronica scooped Blossom into her arms, relishing the soft, fluffy fur of the older cat. She buried her face in it, and inhaled its clean, wooly smell. Blossom didn’t squirm; she knew that Veronica would set her down in a moment. Unwilling to betray the cat’s trust, Veronica did let her back on the floor after a few more seconds, though she wanted to keep holding her tight. She stooped and stroked Binky, who let out a half-yawn, half-yowl.
“Well, looks like your day was not nearly as exciting as mine,” she said to the Birman.
She made her way through the house to the back door and let Harry in. He jumped up and tried to lick her nose, managing to do so without putting his paws on her, which he figured was all that was wrong with jumping on people. Veronica grabbed the thick fur by his head and scratched him behind his ears, and Harry’s tailless bottom wiggled so hard he lost his balance and plopped to a sitting position.
“How about a walk?” she offered him. Harry was not about to refuse such a suggestion.
By the time they returned it was dark and Daniel had come home. The walk had made Veronica feel better than anything else since Ariana’s visions and manifestation. She smiled at Daniel as she hung up Harry’s leash, but Daniel didn’t see as he was too busy rubbing Harry’s belly by way of greeting the dog.
“How was your day?” Veronica asked, hoping she could put off talking about her own.
“Routine, up until you came over and gave me all of that info. Detective Pushkin really wants to know how I came across that tip about the murder from last year.”
“What did you tell him?”
“Well, I couldn’t say it was a call, cause if he checked up on that he’d see I didn’t get one. However, I think you’ll be impressed.”
“Oh?”
“I took a break before going to see him and went to the library. Composed an email minus capitalizations and full of bad grammar—to myself.”
“Ah! Your anonymous source emailed the info to you!”
“Yep. I made a fake email username for myself and everything. If he decides to really get nosy he might get an IP address that’ll take him to the public library on I street.”
Veronica grinned at him. “I am impressed.”
He grinned back. “So you didn’t tell me how you got the vision with that info.”
“Oh god,” Veronica said, rolling her eyes. “I’ve had one massively psychic day of it, and I am so done. Do you mind if we eat before I tell you?”
“No problem,” Daniel agreed.
Veronica decided making dinner would be a nice, mundane thing to do. It would be good for her, despite how tired she felt. She went to the kitchen and got out everything she needed for veggie spaghetti and went to work.
They sat side by side on the couch and watched half a romantic comedy while they ate. By the time they finished, she was feeling a lot better. She breathed in deep, leaned against him, and began relaying the whole story of her day to Daniel. He only interrupted her once, to express outrage at Miguel’s behavior.
“He just couldn’t handle what you told him, that’s all!” Daniel exclaimed.
“That’s pretty much what Melanie said, too,” Veronica said. “Although, he seemed to accept it, at first.”
“No. I think he was trying to process it, but I’m betting the guilt got to be too much. He shouldn’t have lashed out at you like that, though,” Daniel said with a scowl.
“Well, the story doesn’t end there,” Veronica said, and told him about the cemetery. His face grew concerned as she described how overwhelming it became there, but he didn’t say what she knew he was thinking: that she shouldn’t have attempted such a move without him or someone else with her. As she described the intervention of her mother, his eyebrows went high.
“I know,” she said. “I haven’t seen her since that night at the river, when I broke my arm and—and Grant almost killed Angie.” She had almost said “and you killed Grant Slecterson,” but she knew he still felt torn up about it, and she managed to change the sentence to remind him of why he’d had to do what he did. Still, she saw his face darken. She hurried on to talk about going to Melanie’s and Thad Bayer, and what she saw when she held the barrette again.
When she was done, she felt a bit sick, but it was a relief to talk about it as well. She finished with the way Ariana manifested while Melanie was talking about what she’d done.
“Do you think Melanie’s wrong, and Ariana was angry she’d say those things about her?” Veronica asked.
Daniel let out a sigh. “I don’t know. I’ve seen rape survivors do some strange things. I think Melanie may have been right that Ariana was afraid that coming forward would mean she’d have to talk about her own assault. But from there to blackmailing Bayer…”
Veronica nodded. And yet, she thought maybe she could understand. If Ariana couldn’t face reporting the crime, maybe she thought that blackmail was some sort of punishment. Still, Veronica really wished she’d given the police the photo, and she said so.
“To be honest, without Ariana’s testimony about her own rape, it’s not a sure thing that Bayer would get prosecuted, much less convicted,” Daniel said with a shake of his head. “He’s a public figure. People doctor photographs all the time. Sometimes, they do a really good job, and it’s hard to figure out if the photo’s been tampered with or is the genuine deal.”
Veronica frowned. “Maybe I’m wrong about the blackmail. Maybe she got that money some other way. I mean, if you’re right about that, why would Bayer care about a photo?”
“Well, it would make a splash in the media. And then someone else might come forward as one of his victims. The real question is, did Ariana really commit suicide? Because Bayer’d have a great motive to have her murde
red.”
Veronica tried to digest that, but it felt like one more drop in an overflowing bucket of visions and realizations from the day. “I can’t think about this anymore tonight,” she said after a pause. “You want to watch the rest of the movie?”
Daniel smiled and leaned over, giving her a kiss on the forehead. “I’d like nothing better,” he said.
Veronica chuckled a little. She knew he wasn’t a big fan of romantic comedies, and she appreciated his willingness to watch this one. As they watched she snuggled close to him, and he ran a hand up and down her arm, his touch light and undemanding. As the movie drew to a close, she felt she could let the awful visions of the day go, and she invited him to join her in the bedroom.
~~~
It was daytime. She was walking down a sidewalk. For a moment, Veronica thought she was herself, and that this was the old sidewalk leading to her duplex. After a few steps, however, she realized her stride was shorter. Her legs were thinner. Her body was different.
She came to a stop at the end of a driveway in need of renovation. Cracks ran across it, bisecting each other, with raised edges like fault lines. The street was familiar, she thought, as she glanced down it. Then a dog began barking and she placed it: Simeon’s neighborhood. Simeon’s house.
She tried to gauge how old he was now, and she took in every detail she could. His stance: he was slumped in the shoulders, thumbs hooked into his jeans. His height: he wasn’t very much shorter than she was, she decided. Older than the last vision, certainly. Maybe early teens.
Veronica realized he had been standing at the end of his driveway for longer than normal. He was staring at the car that was parked in it. It was a brown Tercel, small and beat up.
Finally, he began to walk again, though Veronica could feel his palms moisten, and the hair stirring on the back of his neck. His heart rate accelerated as he approached the garage. The large, off-white garage door was closed, and Simeon made his way around to the side, to a smaller door that led inside.
He took a deep breath and rested his hand on the knob, then turned it. His chest felt tight and as he released the knob, his hand shook. He flexed his fingers, then made a fist that caused two knuckles to pop. The inside of the garage was illuminated by one fluorescent light above. Every few seconds, it flickered.
The Gamble and the Grave (Veronica Barry Book 4) Page 14