The Space Between (The Book of Phoenix)

by Kristie Cook

  But he already did anyway. Saw me as a child who couldn’t do anything on her own. And that was one thing he’d nailed, right into my heart. I’d never realized it before, but he’d been absolutely right. Unlike him, or Jacey or Micah, I hadn’t had a horrible life with all of its lessons. The grown-ups who had raised me weren’t perfect, but they had taken care of me. Had always followed through for me. Even when I was caring for Uncle Theo, he was taking care of me, too. I could always rely on the adults in my life. On the authorities to do their jobs.

  Until now.

  And Jeric was right again. I hadn’t known what to do.

  But I did this morning. The draw I felt to go south had to mean something, and it was time to follow my own instincts. With another tug against his hold, Jeric finally flopped over onto his back, and his arm released me. I slid out of the bed, letting him sleep.

  The morning sun hung low in the sky. The clock read 7:06. A little early for me. But it wasn’t jetlag or Jeric or Mama still getting to me. I’d woken up two hours ago with a vague memory persistently nagging at the edge of my mind. The house. The one in Jacey’s journal. I’d seen it before and now I knew where.

  After a stop in the bathroom, I pulled my mass of curls into a ponytail, then began searching the camper’s storage spots. The Airstream wasn’t big by any means, but it contained all sorts of secret hiding places. I only wished I could remember which one I’d seen that postcard in. At least my banging around wouldn’t wake Jeric. That had to be a plus side of being deaf.

  As I reached up and dug around in a cabinet in the so-called living room, the cubbyhole above the futon Jeric had slept in the first night, my fingers finally closed on a stiff piece of paper. I pulled the postcard out, rocked back on my heels and stared at it for a long moment, then strode over to the kitchen counter. Jacey’s journal lay open at her drawing. Another journal—Jeric’s, I assumed—also lay open to a nearly identical drawing. I set the postcard down between them.

  They all depicted the same Victorian mansion.

  The nudge to go south grew stronger.

  A pair of hands clasped my waist and a shock jolted through my neck. Jeric’s lips pressed against my skin right below my ear, sending a shockwave through my body and making my heart burst into a gallop. He stepped back, a chuckling sound emanating in his throat. The little bit I’d heard of his voice made me ache to hear more. He must have been a fantastic singer. But I’d be happy just to hear my name again.

  He stepped to my side, an arm lingering around my waist, and gazed at the pictures on the counter.

  “You drew that one?” I asked him, pointing to the second journal. He nodded and picked up the postcard to study it closer. “The postcard’s been in here since Uncle Theo gave me the camper. I remembered seeing it a long time ago. I wasn’t sure if Uncle Theo wanted it, so I’d left it where I’d found it.”

  Jeric flipped the card over, and both of our bodies tensed at the words scrawled on the other side: You will find your answers here.

  That was all. No address for either a sender or a recipient. No postmark. No other message or even tiny print captioning the picture on the other side.

  Jeric set it down right where I’d placed it before, and we both stared at the three images. More memories danced at the edge of my consciousness, but I couldn’t grasp at them. I felt, however, as though I’d been to that house before. Or, at least, near it. As though I’d seen it in person. I shook my head. It had to be because I’d seen the postcard before. After all, I’d never been to Tampa . . . if that’s where it actually was.

  But I felt drawn there now.

  “Maybe we should pack up and head down there?” I suggested off-handedly. I wasn’t sure I believed the message on the back of the postcard—at least, I didn’t know if it was meant for us or if it had been for Uncle Theo—but as soon as I signed the words, I knew they were right. We needed to find this house.

  But Jeric stiffened next to me. His hand left my waist, and he signed, “I don’t know. It feels wrong to me.”

  I peered at him, and his gaze was on his journal. He reached out and flipped through the pages until he settled on one. I stared at a sketch that made my spine go ram-rod straight. That was me, no doubt. He’d sketched me before he ever met me, based on the date scribbled next to the drawing. Which meant . . . had he been to the club? I stepped away, shaking my head but staring at the floor, unsure what to feel or think. He slid his finger under my chin, lifting my face to look at him.

  “I dreamt about you before I ever knew you,” he said. “I had to sketch this when I woke up because I didn’t want to forget what you looked like.”

  Whoa. Okay. Not what I thought. Whew. For some reason, I didn’t want him knowing about my little stint at the club.

  “I told you how I’d been searching for my birth mother? I was wrong. I realize now I’d been searching for you all that time. Something in me was pulling me to you.” He flipped back to the page with the mansion. “I dreamt about this place, too, and had to sketch it.”

  I understood what he was saying.

  “You feel the pull to go there, too, don’t you?” I asked. He nodded. “Like Jacey and Micah did. And me. What does it mean?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t know. But I don’t think I want to find out. That place . . . ever since I drew it months ago . . . I don’t like it.”

  “What? Are you scared?” I teased.

  He rolled his eyes. “There’s something about it . . .. The house, the pictures of it anyway . . . they piss me off. Make me hate it with a vengeance.”

  “You hate this house? Have you ever been there?”

  He didn’t answer me at first, but eventually shook his head. “Not that I know of. But . . . I feel like I have, though.”

  I let out a sigh. “Me, too. Maybe that’s all that’s bothering you about it.”

  He shook his head again. “No. It’s something more. The house feels . . . sinister. Like bad things have happened there. Terrible things.”

  I studied the pictures. I thought they were beautiful. The house gave me a warm feeling. And the message on the postcard—maybe it really did have the answers we needed. Another jolt in my gut confirmed this idea.

  “I think we should go,” I signed again, and the feeling to move out instantly strengthened. “I don’t think we’re really safe here, anyway. The Shadowmen could come back any time. And if we’re both feeling the pull there . . . if the card says it has answers . . .”

  Jeric looked at me with his brows raised. “You’re going to listen to a card that’s how many years old? We don’t even know if the message is for us.”

  “I think it is. I feel like it is.” Again, the feeling I was right strengthened. Became more urgent. “I know it is. We have to go there, Jeric.”

  He peered at me, as if gauging if I was actually serious. But his face disappeared from my sight. Flashes of images took over my vision—dark eyes full of worry and fear; huge shadows flying through the air; blurred faces I somehow knew were Uncle Theo and Mira; then a huge body of water with lights on the far side, a chill rising from the surface and into my bones, and a bright light beyond the water, sending warmth, beckoning me, offering shelter, safety, love . . . then complete blackness.

  When my vision returned, I was staring up into Jeric’s face, the camper’s ceiling behind him. I lay on the floor, his arm underneath me. No, not on the floor. In his lap. Relief washed over his face.

  “What happened?” I asked.

  “You passed out. Are you okay?”

  I struggled to sit up, and he lifted my shoulders, but held me in his lap.

  “I think so. That was weird. Those visions—they almost felt like memories.”

  His brow wrinkled. “Visions?”

  “Just now. But they were more real than visions. As if I’d actually exp
erienced it all before.”

  He eyed me for a moment, skepticism filling his face. “Are you sure you’re okay? Did you hit your head?”

  I pushed my way out of his arms and off of his lap, up to my feet. He rose with me, his hands out in case I collapsed again.

  “I’m fine. No, I didn’t hit my head.” I rubbed it, in case I was wrong and had hit it on my way down, while the visions played in my mind. I didn’t find any bumps. Still, I leaned my hands on the counter, bracing myself just in case. The postcard lay backside up now. My heart rate spiked again, and I picked the card up, holding it close to my face. The more I squinted at the handwriting, the more it looked like Uncle Theo’s. “He left this as a message, maybe before he was taken.”

  “Who?” Jeric asked.

  “My uncle. Maybe Mira, too. Oh, my God! That’s it. They’re at the house.” The warm feeling of the visions overcame me again. This was right. I knew it. “We need to go there. Right now.”

  I turned away to glance around the Airstream, making a mental inventory of what to take. Maybe we should pull the whole camper? It sure beat staying in motels on our way down. On the other hand, we should probably drive straight through. If my truck would make it.

  Jeric grasped my shoulders, grabbing my attention. When he knew he had it, he let go and signed, “We’re not going.”

  His expression was firm, and his hand motions deliberate.

  “I felt it, though,” I insisted. “In the vision, or memory, or whatever it was.”

  “That’s exactly why we’re not. I don’t trust it.”

  “You don’t trust what? Me?”

  “No. The house. What just happened to you. It will only get worse.”

  I didn’t understand him, but it didn’t matter. “We need to go. Mira is there. Maybe you feel bad about the place because you know they’re keeping her there.” My breath caught. “What if the Shadowmen are holding them hostage? What if they plan to do what they did to Bex?”

  Jeric gave me a look as if I should know what he was thinking. When I didn’t, he said, “Then they’re probably already dead.”

  My breath caught, and I shook my head in denial. “They would have told us. Left an article taped to my truck. They could be torturing them instead. Jeric, please. We have to go. It’s where our answers are!”

  His hand shot out, waving at Jacey’s journal on the counter. “What about that? Our answers are in there!”

  “We can read it on the way.”

  “Not together. We can’t even read aloud to each other.” His eyes flashed anger at this.

  Being able to read aloud while the other drove would have certainly been more convenient. I, too, wanted to know more about Jacey and Micah. But I needed to solve my own mystery, find Uncle Theo and personally take him to Alaska, if I had to, to bring my parents back to reality. Or at least to get the truth out of them. Sure, Jacey’s journal might have had answers, but so did this old house in Florida. The pull to go was too strong to ignore.

  “I’m going,” I said. “If you don’t want to go, fine, but I am. You were right—I was pretty clueless before. But not anymore. I won’t take the risk that my uncle and your grandma are locked up somewhere, and we’re the only ones who know where.”

  I crossed my arms over my chest and waited for Jeric’s answer.

  Chapter 21

  Leni had no clue what she was doing to me, making me choose like this. She may as well have asked me to choose between watching her murder or her rape. Either one would kill me, and something about the mansion made me feel like either one could likely happen if we went. I had mixed feelings about Mira—wasn’t sure if I cared where she was—but Leni loved her uncle and I wanted her to find him. But why did it have to be there? Bad vibes. The place gave me bad fucking vibes.

  Everything inside me screamed not to go, but I couldn’t let her go alone, and I had to help her. I had to protect her. Maybe her truck would break down right outside of town when she tried to leave me, like my rental car had, but I had a feeling that wouldn’t stop her. My Beautiful Girl was stubborn as a damn mule. Even more stubborn than me. Which only confirmed the real Leni wasn’t as carefree and laid back as she put off.

  I slid both hands over my head, then tossed them in the air with frustrated resignation. “Fine. Let’s go find your uncle.”

  Her face broke into a grin, and she threw her arms around my neck and planted a kiss on my lips. Oh, hell yeah, this was worth putting up her with stubbornness. I leaned in for more, needing to taste her sweet mouth. She parted her lips and gave me a teasing swipe of her tongue before pressing her hands against my chest and pushing me off. Her face flushed as she looked at me with those silver-green eyes.

  “That will lead to things we don’t have time for right now,” she signed.

  “Just a kiss . . .”

  Her mesmerizing lips turned up in a smile. “More than a kiss, and you know it.”

  She glanced down at the bulge in my pants. Damn, she’d turned me into a freakin’ middle-schooler who got hard as a rock from a simple lip-smack. But maybe if I could distract her, she’d change her mind about going.

  “We could make time now and leave tomorrow,” I suggested with my best smile. Her reaction was palpable—my scheme almost worked—but she shook her head, her curls flopping in their ponytail.

  “I can’t decide whether to take the camper or not,” she signed. “It hasn’t been farther than the dump station in years, and I don’t know how my truck will do pulling it.”

  I sighed. So stubborn. “The Shadowmen also know it.”

  “Right.”

  “But motels require IDs.”

  “Except if we drove straight through . . .”

  I lifted an eyebrow. “I’m pretty sure your truck can’t handle that.”

  She grimaced. “Probably not. But it’ll go farther than with a camper on it.” Her chest heaved and her brow puckered as she glanced around again, then her face became resolute. “We’re taking it. Besides my truck, it’s the only thing I own and who knows if it’ll be here when we get back.”

  “If we get back,” I corrected.

  She ignored this statement.

  Prepping the camper to be hauled on the road for the first time in years ate up the rest of the morning. I tried once more to convince her to wait—if I could delay her one day at a time, maybe she’d drop the idea of going altogether. But she wouldn’t give in.

  By noon, we were on the road headed south. By four o’clock, we were stranded on the side of the road.

  Well, not exactly. We’d crossed the state line into Florida and pulled off the highway for gas when the truck decided not to start. Leni popped the hood, and we both peered at the engine compartment, but I saw nothing obviously wrong. Nothing that would be a quick fix, or even a temporary one to at least move the truck away from the island of gas pumps.

  “It’s a sign we should go no farther,” I suggested. Leni flashed me a dirty look.

  “This isn’t funny! Now what?” She kicked the truck’s tire in an uncharacteristic show of anger, then strode off for the truck stop’s entrance. I kept my eye on her through the glass wall as she spoke to the attendant inside and then to another guy, and she stomped back to the truck several minutes later, her angry strides betraying her stoic expression.

  “They can’t look at it until tomorrow, and there’s no rental car place for seventy miles, so we’re stranded,” she signed. At least, I thought that’s what she said. Her hands jerked with anger, skewing her signs. They moved slower and more fluidly with her next sentence as she once again gained control. “But there’s an RV park across the street. A truck driver inside said he’d pull the camper over there for me.”

  Yeah, I’m sure he did.

  The truck driver looked none too happy to see me climb into
the cab with Leni after her truck had been pushed over to the mechanic’s bay and he’d hooked her camper to his rig. His expectations for a special thank you must have been ruined when he realized she wasn’t alone. I returned the driver’s scowl with a toothy grin as I swung my arm over her shoulders and pulled her close to me.

  A small building with only a tiny window and a wooden door housed the RV park’s office. I couldn’t see inside from the truck cab, so I followed Leni into the building, too paranoid to let her out of my sight. A chick about our age with cherry-red hair looked up from a magazine spread open on the counter. Something about her felt vaguely familiar, but I was pretty sure I’d never met her. If so, I would have definitely banged her, and I’d never forget that red hair. She was the right type for the pre-Leni me, but now she was just another girl, making it easy for me to pretty much ignore her so I could focus on our surroundings and remain alert for any problems.

  Every time I looked at Leni, however, her brows were pushed together as she stared at the redhead, who was filling out a registration card. Leni looked to be in deep concentration.

  “Bex?” Leni finally mouthed. At least, that’s what her lips seemed to say. Her face flushed, and I figured she must have blurted it out. Red’s head snapped up, and her eyes squinted.

  “Uh, no. Bethany,” her lips said. “But close. How did ya know?”

  My eyes returned to Leni. She seemed to be stammering, and her face reddened even more.

  “A, uh, a wild guess,” her lips said before she offered her signature smile. “Actually, you remind me of someone named Rebecca, but she went by Bex.”

  “Went?” Bethany asked, catching the past tense.

  Leni became obviously flustered, and I felt bad for her, but there was little I could do. The fact that she spoke about Bex—who I could only take to mean Jacey’s Bex—freaked me out, too.