by Clara Kensie
I stifled a gasp. The overhead light gave me enough illumination to see who he was.
Oh
my
God.
Why was I so surprised? He’d told me, more than once, to stop investigating Neal’s death. Now I knew why.
Officer Rick Paladino had played for the Ryland High baseball team when he was in high school. His team had won the state championship not just one year, but two. He had the hatchet tattoo to prove it.
He searched between the seats, under the seats, in the trunk. The only noise I heard was my heart pounding. I stayed still as a statue. Finally, he stood up. He pulled a cell phone from his pocket and dialed. After a few seconds, he said, “It’s fine. Your hat’s not here.”
My heart jumped into my throat. I had the hat clutched in my hands.
“Yes, I looked everywhere,” he continued. “Under and between the seats. Front and back. In the trunk. It’s nowhere outside either.”
After a moment, he said, “Hey, I saved your ass when I should’ve arrested you for vehicular manslaughter. You’d be sitting in jail right now instead of heading to the state championships if it weren’t for me. So don’t give me that shit.”
I clamped my hands over my mouth. Don’t move. Don’t move.
“Just relax. It’s not in the car. That’s the important thing. Now don’t contact me again.”
Paladino pressed a button on his phone, then thrust it back into his jacket. In the silence, he swept the beam of his flashlight around the car again. He bent at the waist and plucked something from the front seat. When he stood, he shone the light on something he held pressed in his fingertips. Another Hot Tamale, probably.
Oh crap, what if he found a strand of my hair?
I squelched a yelp, then flinched as he slammed the car doors. “Damn it!” he shouted, and the word echoed angrily throughout the barn. He stormed out, then pounded the boards back onto the door, hammering so hard the entire barn shook.
I couldn’t hear him retreat, so I stayed hidden in the haystack, breathing through my mouth. Then I slowly crawled out from my hiding place and tiptoed around the barn until I found some boards in the back wall that were rotted and loose enough that I could pull them off. I wiggled through the hole I’d created, a jagged edge scraping my side.
Then I dashed home and hid the Warriors baseball hat inside my globe.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Ever ~ Present Day
Pink tulips, unwatered for weeks now, sprawl limp, brittle, and dry in large terracotta pots on either side of Miss Buckley’s red front door. “I can’t believe we’re doing this,” I say to Ash, my heart thumping wildly. The sun is low on the horizon and the streetlights haven’t turned on yet. It’s the perfect time to commit a crime.
Courtney hasn’t sent me the contact information of the former players. She hasn’t even talked to me since she hung up on me last night. If she knew what I’m about to do with Ash right now, she’d never talk to me again.
“It’s not like we’re breaking in or anything.” Ash pulls a leather string from the pocket of his jacket. Dangling from the string is a silver key. “Miss Buckley always gave me odd jobs to do for her. Fixing her garbage disposal, changing her air filters, things like that. She wanted me to have the extra money.”
Suddenly, he pulls me off the porch and behind the bushes. I peek through the foliage. Chief Paladino rolls by in his cruiser, one elbow out his window, his head turning slowly side to side. “We’re not breaking in,” Ash reminds me in a whisper, “but if that asshole sees us here, he’ll find a reason to arrest me anyway.”
My heart stops beating completely as Paladino pauses for a moment too long in front of Miss Buckley’s house, and resumes beating only when he continues down the street. I raise a shaky hand to my daisy charm in relief.
Ash slides the key into the lock and pushes the door open. I rush inside, breathing only after he closes the door behind us.
Shadowed. Still. Quiet. A wistful longing fills the air, as if the house itself knows its owner is dead.
As I wait for my eyes to adjust to the dimness, I jump at a tiny click: her DVR has kicked on, recording a show she will never watch.
“What are we looking for?” Ash asks in a whisper.
“I don’t know,” I say truthfully. “Something that’ll prove who killed Lily Summerhays. Did Miss Buckley keep a journal or anything?”
Ash shrugs. “She never really talked about herself.”
I point to a laptop on the coffee table. “Try her computer.”
As Ash busies himself on the laptop, I investigate the room. Outdated wallpaper that was faded in some places. A chipped wooden coffee table. A couch and love seat that didn’t quite match. Miss Buckley’s love of fashion did not carry over into home decor. Either that, or she spent her salary as Principal Duston’s administrative assistant on clothes rather than nice things for her house.
I pick up knickknacks and put them down, running my fingers over the things on her shelves. Mostly vases and books, but no yearbooks. No photographs either, which means no photos of Lily.
I follow the hallway down to her bedroom. More books, more knickknacks. My eyes land on something on her nightstand that makes my head pound, and Lily’s death appears in a rush.
What is that doing here? I sink to the floor, holding my head to keep it from splitting open. “You left me no choice.”
One…
Two…
Three.
“Ash?” I call when I recover, hoping my voice didn’t sound too weak or shaky. “The murder weapon—do you know what it was?”
“Something solid and heavy. Like a rock or brick.”
“Right. But did they identify it in the police report? Do they have it in evidence?”
“Nope. They never found it.”
That’s right. They couldn’t have found the murder weapon.
Because I just found it.
A huge sparkly, pink, diamond-shaped paperweight.
Carefully, slowly, not knowing what to expect, I touch my finger to the paperweight, and when nothing happens, I pick it up. I now hold in my hands the thing that killed Lily—killed me. It’s heavy. It makes my head hurt. It makes my heart hurt.
On the top is something new, something I can’t see in my death-memory because it’s covered by the killer’s hand. An engraved inscription: Gems are precious, friends are priceless.
This is the murder weapon. Why does Miss Buckley have it on her nightstand? Did she know it’s the murder weapon? If she did, it must have been agonizing, seeing it first thing every morning and last thing every night.
Will holding it make me remember more of my murder?
I close my eyes, hold my breath, and tighten my grip on the paperweight. Open myself up to the death-memory.
No. Only pain, and the hatchet tattoo, and the flash of the paperweight as it comes crashing down on me. Just as being in Lily’s living room and standing in the very spot she was murdered didn’t help me remember more of her death, neither does holding the murder weapon.
I stuff the paperweight into my bag to try again later at home. It probably weighs a couple of pounds, but it feels like twenty. I return to the tiny living room, where Ash is still plucking away at the laptop. “She’s got a huge file in here about Lily’s murder,” he says. “The investigation, my dad’s arrest and trial, things like that. I’m going through her browser history now. The last time she was on the computer, she was looking up defense lawyers.”
“For your dad?”
“Maybe. But he fired his lawyers long ago and refused to get a new one.” Then he exhales. “Here we go. A chat. From the night before she died.”
I sit next to him to read the conversation.
dbuckley: I can’t take it anymore. Vinnie Morrison is about to be executed. I can’t let that happen. I’m going to a defense lawyer to tell him who really killed Lily. You should get one too.
warrior74: Diana. Don’t be ridiculous. Meet me tomorrow.
We need to talk about this.
dbuckley: There’s nothing to discuss.
warrior74: You didn’t kill Lily, but you’re just as guilty as I am. You’ll go to prison too.
dbuckley: I don’t care. I can’t live like this anymore.
warrior74: We can work something out.
warrior74: Please just meet me tomorrow.
warrior74: Diana, please. We need to talk.
“Ash, this is proof that your father didn’t kill Lily!” I want to wrap my arms around the computer, bring it to my chest, and hug it tight.
“Technically it’s hearsay, but yeah, this could be huge.” He rakes his hands through his hair, letting out a shaky breath. “Okay. Now we just have to see who warrior74 is.” He hovers the cursor over the name.
One click, and we’ll have warrior74’s profile page, and the killer’s identity. Who is it, I wonder. Principal Duston, or one of the other hundred men with the hatchet tattoo?
Ash exhales. I hold my breath. He clicks.
Error code 0034P2. Account warrior74 has been deleted.
Ash sits back, crestfallen.
“I’m sorry,” I say, putting my hand on his arm. He’s warm.
“It was a long shot anyway.”
We’re only inches apart. It’s getting dark in here, and we’re alone. He smells like leather and spice and strength. My hand is still on his arm. He could lean in a tiny bit, and we’d be close enough to kiss.
He leans in.
I lean in even closer.
But then he licks his lips and draws away. “It’s, um, it’s getting late. We should get out of here.”
“Yeah.” I sigh. He did the right thing, pulling away like that. I can’t kiss him. I’m with Keith. I love Keith. Keith is building me a house and giving me the peaceful, safe life I’ve always wanted.
“I’ll bring the laptop with me so I can look through it some more,” Ash says, tucking it into his jacket. The lights are off already, so all we have to do is shut the front door behind us and step out into the night. But before we can, Ash grabs me and pulls me behind the bushes again, pulling me down to a crouch. The streetlights show a red sedan in the driveway now, and someone is getting out of it.
Miss Buckley’s door is still open an inch. I stare at Ash in horror, covering my own mouth to keep from crying out. The tall, thin man walks up to the front door, reaches his hand to the doorknob, then freezes. He glances around—I swear he looks right at the bush we’re hiding behind, thank God the porch lights are off—then over his shoulder at the street, then finally steps inside.
Ash and I slink away as quickly and quietly as we can, keeping to the shadows, the laptop under Ash’s arm, the paperweight bouncing heavily in my purse.
I recognize that man. I’ve only met him a couple of times, but I recognize the dimple on his chin. Seth Siegel, my dad’s boss.
What is he doing at Miss Buckley’s? Is he warrior74?
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Lily ~ Eighteen Years Ago
I sat with Will under his giant oak tree, which had just begun to sprout its spring leaves. Old Sutton Farm and its dilapidated barn, hiding the car that killed Neal, was out of sight. In front of us was the creek. Sitting on the ground, our backs against the thick trunk, surrounded by high grass, we were hidden. A long freight train rumbled slowly down the tracks, over Railroad Bridge, and into the trees. Soon, except for the occasional bird chirping and the rush of the warm wind through the grass, the world around us was silent.
Silent, but changed. One of my friends was a killer. Another friend had betrayed his duty as a police officer to help him cover it up.
With legs out straight, one cowboy-booted heel crossed over the other, his face tilted to the sun, Will lounged close to me. So close that the edge of his little finger was almost touching the edge of my little finger. Did he realize how close our hands were? Did he feel the heat that radiated between our fingers too?
I did not move my hand. I didn’t want to ruin the peaceful ease between us. But I needed to tell him what happened in the barn last night.
“I’m pretty close to figuring out who killed Neal,” I said.
He stiffened the tiniest bit. “Who?”
I took a breath. “Someone on the baseball team.”
He stiffened even more, his body going tight with alarm. “My baseball team?”
I told him about the car in the barn, the hat, and Rick Paladino’s cell phone call.
“But our friends would never do something like that,” Will said, almost angrily. “And Rick is a cop. A police officer.”
“I know,” I said. “I can’t believe it either.”
“You must have misunderstood him.”
“I understood him perfectly,” I said. “I just don’t know whom he was talking to. Which one of the players has a Viper? Or, more likely, their parents have one. Maybe they took their dad’s Viper out that night.”
“You know the guys as well as I do, Red. None of them has a Viper.”
That was true. Seth’s family was the only one in this town that could even afford a Viper. Well, mine too, probably. “So, no one on the team has a Viper,” I said. “Maybe it was stolen?”
Will shook his head. “I can’t think of anyone on the team who would steal a car.”
“If someone is ruthless enough to kill Neal and dump his body in the creek, they’re ruthless enough to steal a car. I don’t want to believe it either, but someone on the baseball team did it.”
He huffed angrily. “Where around here would someone even steal a Viper from, anyway?”
“You’re right,” I said gently. I didn’t want to fight with him. He was hurting, he was feeling betrayed, and I didn’t want to make things worse. “Forget about the Viper. It’s a dead end. We need to find out which player is missing their hat. Did anyone come to practice without theirs?”
“Not that I know of.”
Will wasn’t going to help. He didn’t want to help because he didn’t want to believe one of his teammates—one of his friends—was a killer.
But then Will closed his eyes and sighed, like he’d been fighting an internal battle and had lost. “But it’s our only lead,” he said, defeated. “I’ll keep my eyes peeled. Ask around. See what I can find.”
He was going to help after all. My heart swelled so big, it was threatening to burst. “Thank you, Will. I know it’s hard. Thank you.”
“Just, from now on, be careful, okay? If what you say is true, we can’t trust Rick Paladino anymore. You need to stay away from him.”
“It is true,” I said. “But Rick Paladino wouldn’t hurt me.” At Will’s demanding look, I added, “But fine, I’ll stay away from him.”
We sat together for a few minutes more. The side of my pinky finger grew warm, and when I looked down, I saw that Will’s pinky was now touching mine.
When you think about it, a pinky is so small, comparatively, to the rest of a body. Just a tiny part of it. A person doesn't even need it most of the time. A person could certainly get along without it. But Will’s pinky touching mine—well, that was the biggest thing in the world.
I realized that I had moved, just the slightest bit, and our arms, all the way to our shoulders, were touching each other’s.
“Near Constantinople in the 1500s,” I said, “I was stoned to death for touching a boy I wasn’t married to, just like this. My name was Fatima and I was fifteen.”
Crap.
What
did
I
just
do?
I hadn’t meant to tell Will about my past lives. The words had just tumbled out of my mouth. It was too late to take them back now. The words were out there.
I held my breath and watched Will. Emotions crossed his face too quickly to interpret. Did he think I was lying? Making up stories? If he didn’t believe me about my death-memories, he wouldn’t believe me about Neal Mallick or the hat or Rick Paladino, either.
He said nothing for a long time. The
n: “Stoned to death. In the year 1500.”
Encouraged, I continued. “Sometime in the 1500s. I don’t know the exact year, probably because Fatima didn’t know. But I do know the boy’s name was Yusuf or Yunus.”
“What are you talking about, Red?” He sounded suspicious, almost angry. But there was no turning back now.
“My father had arranged for me to marry a different boy,” I said, “but I ran away because I was in love with Yusuf. They found me and stoned me to death.”
My breath turned shallow and my lungs grew heavy as they bore the weight of the heavy stones. I sucked in a raspy breath and it sounded wheezy, like I was breathing through a straw.
“Jesus, you okay?” Will asked.
I nodded and breathed out slowly, willing the deathpain away. “I’m fine,” I said. “The memories, sometimes they feel like they’re happening now.” One …two …three. I took a clear, full deep breath and let it out again. “But I’m fine now. I know how to breathe through them.”
“You remember living in the 1500s.”
“No. I remember dying in 1500s. And in the 1400s, and the 1600s, and every time before and since then. I remember the last few seconds of all of my past lives. Who I was. Where I was. How I died. When a memory hits, I feel like I’m dying again.”
“You used to tell people that when we were kids,” he said. “I thought you were making it up to cause drama and get attention.”
“I wasn’t making it up. I stopped because everyone made fun of me. Neal Mallick was the only one who didn’t.”
Will watched me closely, but he didn’t move his pinky. “That’s why you want to help him now.”
If I had told Will a year ago, a week ago even, that I was still having death-memories, he would have taunted me with a cruel sneer. But not anymore. Now he just looked at me, almost the same way Neal had looked at me: with curiosity and fascination. So I told him everything I knew. How I was always reborn to the nearest empty body. How I always died doing adventurous or heroic things.
He asked questions: Does it happen to everyone or just to you? How does it work with twins and triplets—same soul divided or multiple souls? What about animals? Plants? Does this mean there is no heaven and hell? What about population growth—how do new souls get created? Or what if a shipwrecked couple is living on a deserted island and they have a baby, how does that baby get a soul if there’s no one else around?