by Linda Palmer
“Cooper!” Patrick Marsh’s cry from our left instantly defused the situation. The cowardly witches scattered, leaving just we two to face our principal’s wrath. And was he ever pissed. “My office. Now.”
Meekly, we trailed him all the way down two halls to the front of the school. He barged past the secretary into a room behind hers and waited for us to follow before shutting the door. “I knew this would happen.”
That got me. “You knew that three rude girls would accost me in the hall?”
“Don’t get smart with me, Miss Tagliaro.”
I clamped my lips together to keep from saying something that would probably piss him off even more and put me in D-hall for the rest of my life.
“I knew all this talk about supposed psychic abilities and communicating with the dead would cause nothing but trouble.” His gaze nailed Cooper to the wall. “Yet you’ve ignored my repeated warnings and a very reasonable request to step away from it. As a result, students are disturbed, scared even, and our counselors are now fielding questions on the paranormal when they should be focusing on benchmark exams.”
In disbelief, I sneaked a glance at Cooper, who stared back at his stepdad in stony silence.
Marsh shifted his attention to me. “As for you, Miss Tagliaro, I heard all about you giving a supposed message to Cyndi Caplan from her dead sister. You must realize I can’t condone that kind of behavior. I’ll have every parent in the city and surrounding parishes up here complaining.”
“Excuse me,” I said, determined to be respectful. “I really don’t understand why I can’t be who I am, but every other student, from Goth to geek, gets to be what they are. Or is diversity not encouraged at Martinsburg High.”
“Of course it is, but not when—”
Cooper cut him off. “May I say something?”
Mr. Marsh nodded.
“I don’t believe this is really about Mia, so can she please leave?”
“What?” I grabbed Cooper’s face by the cheeks, which puckered his mouth, and made him look at me. “I’m not going anywhere.” Whirling, I faced Marsh. “Just because you don’t understand something, doesn’t mean it’s not real. Cooper has amazing abilities, yet he’s been forced to keep them hidden, suppressed even, to keep the peace at home, which is nothing but mean.”
Marsh didn’t back down. “Everything was fine until you came along.”
“You just thought it was.”
Someone knocked lightly on the door and then peeked inside. “Your one o’clock is here, Mr. Marsh.” The secretary’s gaze bounced from us to him and back again.
Marsh sighed, thought for a second, and then waved us away without another word. I grabbed Cooper’s hand and got the heck out of there.
Since lunch break was long over, we got tardy passes from the secretary and went our separate ways. Cooper’s situation haunted me during my afternoon classes and long after I got home from school. I thought of all the things I wished I’d said, but quickly realized they’d have gotten me into big trouble.
What a fiasco—from the covenettes to Marsh. I felt as if I were starring in a sick movie about the high school from hell. Bad principal? Check. Nosy teachers? Check. Witless students? Check.
At eleven, my phone rang Cooper’s special song. By then I was in bed, up to my neck in quilts and counting my problems instead of sheep. “Hey.”
“Hey.”
“Did you win?”
“Yeah. Twenty-one to seven.”
“Did you get a touchdown?”
He laughed. “Tackles play defense, which means the other team has the ball unless they fumble. So no, I didn’t.”
“Oops.”
“We should go to an LSU game sometime. I’ll talk you through it.”
“Oh joy.”
That made him laugh that much harder. I smiled, glad he was in a good mood. I wasn’t sure I could be if I were in his shoes.
We talked about nothing for a good half hour, both of us carefully avoiding any mention of what had happened that day. I tried to imagine what it would feel like to have zero support for my gifts and honestly couldn’t. My parents had never once questioned my sanity or discouraged me in any way. Clearly I was one lucky girl.
After Cooper said goodbye, I lay in the dark for a while, staring out my window at the sky or what I could see of it. Wind whipped the branches of the tree near my room, occasionally blocking my celestial view. I did spot storm clouds rolling in and hoped we’d get a winter mix out of them even though it wasn’t really winter.
Feeling a presence hovering in the shadows of the room, I flipped over to face it. “You can come in.”
But it wasn’t Nick who made himself known. It was Brett Ray. And he wasn’t alone. I felt a male presence with him. Ray showed me Cooper, no surprise.
“You can talk to him, yourself, you know. He’s not blocking you anymore.”
I saw a closed door.
“For real?” Now why would Cooper still be blocking his dad? Could it be an unconscious thing? “Okay. I’ll talk to him tomorrow. And if you can’t get through after that, I’ll be the message carrier.” But that would be my last resort. I’d never wanted anything as badly as I wanted Cooper and his dad to be open to one another.
I waited unto mid-afternoon to drive to the Martinsburg Chick-fil-A, and then I made the trip in pouring rain. The lot was full, as was the drive-thru, but I finally found a place to park and ducked out of the wet. Shaking raindrops out of my hair, I spotted Cooper at once, working with a girl I assumed was training him. He hadn’t seen me, and I didn’t approach the order counter, instead taking off my rain jacket and watching him for a while.
Cooper’s shirt, standard issue just like everyone else’s, fit him nicely, and I could tell his black pants were new. Though he seemed a little nervous, he appeared to be getting the hang of things, and I’d actually started toward the counter when a presence distracted me.
Unable to resist, I glanced in that direction and saw a specter standing just outside the brick building and staring through rain-splattered glass windows at me. With my mind still on Cooper’s good looks, it took me a couple of seconds to register what I was seeing. I startled. My stomach lurched.
Oh no. Not here. There are children everywhere.
There was just something creepy about a probable homicide victim asking for my help with little kids around. No, they couldn’t see her, but still… I needed for her to leave.
Tuning out everyone around me, I stood very still and mentally tried to ask what she wanted. Did she hear? If so, she never acknowledged me, though her mouth might’ve moved. I couldn’t be sure. A mere wisp of an apparition, she would’ve been hard to see even without the bad weather. In it, she was little more than vapor, not even as thick as escaping steam from an iron or a teapot. I finally dragged my gaze away knowing only one thing for sure. She had Asian-ish eyes.
That told me I couldn’t help her here and maybe not anywhere.
With my attention back on the counter, I realized Cooper now watched me, his gaze warm. Glad I’d taken the trouble to straighten my black, now-damp hair and pick out the sexiest outfit I owned, I just let him look. One sidelong glance toward the window told me he’d seen the woman, too. He said something to his trainer.
A second later, he walked over. “I’ve got a whole fifteen minutes.”
“Then that’ll have to do.”
We slid into a booth in the corner. I got right down to business. “Why are you still blocking your dad?”
He tensed almost imperceptibly. “What are you talking about?”
“Don’t stall. We’re already down to fourteen minutes and change. I’m talking about you deliberately blocking your dad, who apparently has something he wants to say.”
Cooper heaved a sigh. “I know what he wants to say, okay? He’s disappointed that I’ve left Mom.”
That surprised me. “I didn’t get that at all.”
“Yeah? Well, I’m sure I’m right. I mean, what else could h
e possibly have to tell me after all this time?”
“Whatever it is, you won’t know until you open up. So do it, okay?”
Cooper didn’t answer.
I glanced at my watch and changed the subject. “How’s it going so far?”
“Fine. The register’s the trickiest part.” He smiled again, clearly relieved I’d moved on. “Did you bring that apparition with you?”
“God, I hope not.” I didn’t have to fake a full-body shiver. “Was that a different woman from the others we’ve seen?”
“She feels unique, but they all have a lot in common. Long dark hair, dark almond-shaped eyes, slender build.”
“Bruises, scratches, and a lingering aura of brutal death.” I groaned. “I feel like I’m being stalked.” I watched him play with a salt shaker. “Though Detective Simms doesn’t want to hear from us, we might have to contact him, anyway.”
“At least he’s opened his mind to the idea of psychics. That’s a plus.”
“Maybe I’ll talk to Mom and Dad about it tonight.”
Cooper nodded. “Good idea.”
I glanced at my watch again. “You have one minute left.”
“Then let’s not waste it on homicides. Do you have any idea how hot you look in a wet T-shirt?”
I glanced down automatically before I remembered I’d had on a shiny rain jacket that had kept my clothes dry. “You wish.”
“I do, actually.”
I stole a glance at a guy who had a manager look about him. Seeing that he was occupied with a customer, I rose slightly, leaned across our table, and gave Cooper a quick kiss on the mouth that I was sure wasn’t allowed. He grinned and slid out of the booth, leaving me with a wave.
All the way home, I worried and wondered about the spirits we’d seen. Even if the same ones were showing up again and again—and based on looks and injuries, I couldn’t swear they weren’t—there were at least two. Why had they come to me? Surely there were older, more capable psychics around—psychics that would not get resistance from the cops because of their ages. Psychics that would know where to go and what to do.
I thought of my spirit guide Nick, who’d helped me so many times in the past. No one knew if guides had ever lived on earth. One theory was that they never had, but were more like angels who saw and knew all. Either way, Nick surely knew the spirits were around, and if he did, he was letting them through.
Did that mean he thought I could help?
If so, he sure hadn’t mentioned it.
*
Chapter Eight
Though I’d intended to talk to my parents about the murdered ghosts at breakfast on Sunday, I didn’t. They were both in great moods because of a last-minute, but huge catering booking. I knew my worries would become theirs, not only distracting them, but spoiling a beautiful day.
With Cooper not working on Sundays, he was able to spend most of this one with me. We did homework, watched TV, ate lunch, and made out—all the things that teen couples did. I couldn’t think of a time when I’d been happier. It was like a hole in my life had been filled up with love. Around three, we made an ice cream run to Dairy Queen. We ate our cones in his truck, parked in the lot.
“Have you talked with your mom?” I asked, lapping up creamy vanilla drips.
“No.”
That was hard to believe. Surely she missed her only child. “She doesn’t call or text?”
“No.”
I took a bite of crispy cone. “How about your dad? Now that you’ve dropped your barriers, has he come to you?”
“No, and could we please not talk about either of them?”
“Okay. Sure. Um, sorry.” Hm.
“Have those murdered women shown themselves to you again?”
“No, thank goodness. Not that I don’t want to help. I always want to help. I’m feeling very reluctant to get involved for some reason, which isn’t like me at all. Or maybe it is. I’ve never actually dealt with a troubled spirit before. Usually it’s the living who are messed up. Or maybe it’s Detective Simms’s reluctance to involve us. What if these murders are even worse than I’m imagining?”
“Did you talk to your parents about them?”
“Not yet.” I explained the delay and my reluctance to worry them right then. He didn’t say anything else about it. Before he left that evening, Mom asked if he’d like to earn a few bucks by helping them with the party they were catering in Ville Cachée on Wednesday. She needed someone to keep glasses filled with soda, water, or tea. Pleased that she’d included him and wishing I’d thought of it myself, I told him I’d be there, too. He said he’d do it.
The three days leading up to the Wednesday night party passed in a flash, with no new insults or visits to the principal’s office. That was a relief. The night of the event, all twenty extras Mom had hired—Brynn and Tyler included since they’d helped out before—met at the church hosting the event.
The autumn-themed decorations drew me in the moment we entered the banquet room, which was huge. Lattice wall dividers hid the bare walls, giving the area the look of an outside garden. Pumpkins, potted chrysanthemums, and a happy scarecrow added splashes of color and gave everything a warm feeling.
Though I’d been told this was a church-wide celebration of some type, I didn’t really know much more than the menu—pasta, of course—and the number of people expected—a couple of hundred.
The place began to fill up around seven. After a prayer and a short intro by the pastor, we started serving everyone the meal, with salads being first. Dinners of this type were labor intensive if they weren’t presented buffet-style, so we definitely had our work cut out for us picking up empty dishes after each course and replacing them with food that came next on the menu. By the time we got to dessert, tiramisu, my feet were killing me.
I’d kept to my assigned section while I worked and hadn’t really paid much attention to the rest of the room. So when one of the servers dropped a plate and I darted over to help him, getting the evil eye from one of the diners caught me off guard. I realized it was that girl, Felisa someone, who’d given me grief at school.
Worried she might say something ugly, I deliberately looked away and then ignored her for the rest of the meal. Or tried to. I kept shooting glances in her direction in spite of myself and caught her whispering to those around her. Since they all began staring, I could only assume she’d told them about me. Did I care? Not really. But I was nervous that my parents might be impacted in some way.
All I needed was for the churches in the area to boycott Tagliaro’s because of the owners’ weirdo daughter. We did a lot of caterings for those groups and for several good reasons, I thought: delicious, portable food, reasonable prices, and flexibility. Want a carefree family dinner on the church grounds under a striped canopy? Call us. Ready for an elegant five-course Christmas banquet? We’re your guys.
I was nothing but relieved when the gathering broke up around nine. Everyone attached to Tagliaro’s that night helped with cleanup, which is why I found myself outside the church in the dark, pitching huge trash bags into a stinky dumpster. Just as I lobbed one into the bin, I felt a spiritual presence behind me and whirled to find myself face-to-face with the ghost of a woman who’d clearly been through hell before she died.
I screamed and fell back against the building.
No less than five people came spilling out the back door, one of them Cooper. He took one look at the specter and slipped between us as if he could actually protect me from dead woman without form or substance. Cooper didn’t ask what was wrong. He knew. But no one else did.
“What on earth happened?”
“Are you okay?”
“Did you hurt yourself?”
“I’m fine,” I said, thinking fast. “A rat came out of nowhere and ran over my foot.”
“Ew,” said a female server with a grimace. “Let the guys do the trash thing. There’s plenty of other stuff to keep us girls busy.”
“You got that right.” Fakin
g a laugh, I deliberately walked past them and back inside, where I finished helping my parents. I noticed that Cooper stayed close by until we had the place spic and span. That touched me even though he’d be as defenseless against a bad ghost as I was.
Not that I thought the spirit was there to hurt me. I didn’t, but her clarity and the obvious violence she’d endured made me uneasy. Why was I being visited by all these women? And was it my imagination that they looked so similar?
Cooper drove me home even though I could’ve ridden with my parents. On the way there, we talked about what we’d seen.
“I can’t believe she keeps coming to me, of all people,” I told him with a moan. “Assuming that’s one of the same two women. If I could see what any of them were wearing, I’d know for sure, of course. But besides the ghost in the hospital, who had on a gown, all I’m getting is a face. An Asian face. But not that Asian. I mean, I don’t think she’s Japanese or even Chinese. Hawaiian or Filipino maybe? Whatever… Don’t they know I’m all about happy endings?”
“It has to be your connection to Detective Simms.”
“You don’t really know that.”
“Come on, Mia. It’s a very safe assumption.”
I shrugged reluctant agreement.
“He’s not psychic. You are. What if these women, who he might not know are dead, have talked on an astral plane and decided to approach him through you?”
The image of spirits in a huddle would’ve been funny if it hadn’t been so grim. “I should definitely talk to him tomorrow. Will you come, too?”
“Try and stop me.”
Mom called the detective for me, arranging for us to talk Thursday afternoon. I wasn’t completely honest about why, saying only that I’d gotten a zing from a photo on his bulletin board and needed to share what I knew. Used to my flashes of insight, she didn’t even question me, something she’d definitely have done if she’d known any kind of violence was involved. She assumed I wanted to talk about another missing person. I didn’t set her straight.