Gary looked up from his food. “You didn’t so much talk me into it as roped me into it.”
“So the question remains, what do we do about Eddie now?” Brenda asked everyone at the table.
Gary wiped his hands on some napkins, tossed the last piece of crust back into the pizza box, and glanced around the table. Sean was holding hands with Annabeth, who was giggling as usual, and neither of them were focused on Eddie at the moment. Eddie was slumped down in his chair as if he were trying to make himself invisible, and eyeing the door like he was going to make a run for it any minute. Caryn kept glancing between Brenda and Dr. Paxton, probably waiting for them to weigh in. Suddenly Gary felt that chill in the air and he noticed Caryn’s eyes widen, too, so she must have felt something. Eddie’s mom materialized behind her son.
Lucy put her hands on Eddie’s shoulders and the kid reacted by shivering and glancing nervously around him. “Gary, you have to convince your mother to look after my son for a few days,” Lucy said.
“What? Why?” Gary asked her.
“Why what?” Dr. Paxton asked.
Gary and Caryn exchanged glances. He knew she was also aware there was a ghost present, even though she couldn’t see or communicate with her. “Lucy suggested we let Eddie stay with Brenda for a few days. Just till we figure out what to do next.”
Brenda thought about that. “I still have to work, but I guess it’s better than leaving him in a college dorm with nothing to do.”
“I had plenty to do!” Eddie exclaimed. “I did Gary’s calculus homework.”
Gary rounded on the kid. “You did what?”
Eddie shrugged. “I told you I could help you out. I dug through your desk and found your work. It was all wrong, man. So I redid it. You’ll get an A+.”
Everyone at the table looked wide-eyed at Eddie. “Claims he’s a genius,” Gary told them. “But listen, kid, stay out of my stuff from now on.”
Brenda smiled. “You know, Gary, that’s exactly how I imagined you’d talk to a younger brother, if you’d had one.”
Caryn gasped, then clapped her hands over her mouth. When Annabeth mouthed What? she shook her head, grabbed her class of tea and took a big gulp.
“Mom, it’s more than just the kid being bored,” Gary said. “He’s not safe at his house.”
Brenda’s brow furrowed. “Oh.” She looked carefully from Gary to Eddie, and Annabeth and Caryn nodded in agreement. “Well, this is serious.” When no one said anything else, she put on her coat, reached for her handbag and stood up to leave. “So it’s settled then? I’ll take Eddie home with me. Gary, we’ll see you in a few days at opening night.” With that, she patted Eddie’s shoulder, indicating he should come along. Annabeth, Dr. Paxton, and Sean followed them out.
“Caryn, got a minute?” Gary asked.
“Well, Annabeth’s my ride,” she said, glancing at the door.
“Sorry I never got back to you today.”
Caryn had one eye on the door and the other on Gary. She stopped, listening to her muses, Gary figured, and then shook her head. “I was digging through the newspaper archives. Some stuff about Lucy. Nothing that couldn’t wait.” She reached for the door.
Gary held it open for her and they walked out together. “Before you go, can you at least tell me what happened to Lucy? She won’t talk about it.”
Caryn wrapped her scarf around her neck and threw her bag over her shoulder. “Car accident. She was on her way to file for a divorce. That sorry husband of hers wasn’t just abusive to Eddie but to her, too.”
Gary shuddered. Poor kid, he thought. Even though his own bio dad had all but disowned him, Gary was at least glad he hadn’t had to live with that kind of hell. And now he was beginning to understand Lucy Carson’s urgent need to make sure Eddie was safe before she crossed over.
“Will I see you this week?” Gary asked Caryn. Wait. Why did I ask her that? He swallowed hard and hurried to add, “I mean, opening night of Pride and Prejudice?”
Caryn actually smiled at him. “Wouldn’t miss it.”
She hopped into Annabeth’s car, leaving Gary to wonder what he’d just gotten himself into. Another bad review? He hoped not.
Chapter 13
I’d done the initial research on the article I wanted to write for the newspaper yesterday, but I went into the office this afternoon to polish it up and get it ready to go in the Monday morning edition.
Eddie’s story was crazy important, not only for him but for other children who were in similar home situations. After reading about Lucy Carson Seville’s car accident and tuning in to my radar, I couldn’t just sit on the information I got from the Universe. I desperately wanted to do something to help Eddie, without helping him into a foster home, of course. I may have gotten most of Lucy’s story from paranormal sources, but I also had to incorporate real-life research.
I texted Del to get his okay to do the story, and once that was cleared, I went to work. Anybody can write a story from online research, so I decided I needed some quotes from experts. I got on the phone and tried to contact the head of HLAC’s Sociology Department for statistics about domestic violence. Since it was Sunday I got voice mail, but her assistant called me back within the hour and agreed to give me a quote. Next I spoke to a graduate student from the School of Educational Psychology that staff reporter Sydney Marshall had used on a previous story about school behavior issues. The graduate student said a child’s poor academic performance can sometimes be a direct result of living in an abusive environment. I didn’t know how Eddie had been doing at school, but it made sense he was miserable because of his mom’s death.
The next part was a little trickier. I mean, let’s face it, Eddie was listed as a missing child, and my friends and I not only knew where he was, we were actively hiding him. After thinking about it a long time, and even picking up the phone and then hanging up a couple of times, I finally put in a call to Detective Albers at the Belford Police Department, the same detective who detained all of us the night of the campus snowball fight. I’d have to be careful what I asked, though, because I didn’t want to let on that I knew Eddie’s whereabouts.
“Detective,” I said when he answered his office phone, “this is Caryn Alderson from the Hamilton Campus Herald. We met in the police station the night of—”
“Yes, I remember,” he replied. “What can I do for you?”
Well, he’s rude. I could even see in my mind how he was about to snap a pencil in half while talking to me. “I’m working on a story for the paper. I was wondering if you might share any experiences you may have had with domestic violence cases, and especially child abuse as a result.”
There was a long silence on his end. “What for?”
“I’ve been thinking about Eddie Carson, that boy who, uh, went missing from Belford Middle School last month.” It was all I could do to keep from choking on the “missing” part.
“What makes you think he was a victim of abuse?” The detective sounded suspicious.
Even before we found him, it seemed obvious to me that the kid hadn’t been abducted but was more likely a runaway. And kids don’t run away from happy homes. Frankly I couldn’t believe the detective hadn’t already figured it out. “I don’t think, Detective, I know. I’m psychic, remember?”
I heard him snort on the other end. “Oh yeah, right. Psychic.”
“So perhaps you’d be willing to share your general impressions of how domestic violence affects the kids in the family.”
I was relieved when he agreed to briefly discuss some hypothetical situations. I jotted down quotes, thanked him for his time, and finished work on the article.
****
Despite the chaotic weekend, Gary and Sean followed their usual routine on Monday morning, which was fine with Gary, because he wanted some normalcy to put the events of the past few days behind him. They went to the dorm cafeteria where Sean piled his plate high with eggs and sausage while Gary chose black coffee and a sweet roll.
“Don’t loo
k at me like that,” Gary said. “Who knows when or if I’ll get lunch?”
“All the more reason to eat real food.” Sean tilted his head in the direction of an empty booth on the wall farthest from the drafty entryway, and plopped his tray down. Gary picked up a copy of the campus newspaper on his way to join Sean.
“Busy week?” Sean asked him.
Gary’s shoulders slumped. “Exams in English and calculus, dress rehearsal, then opening night next Saturday. Plus work every afternoon. I won’t resurface till Thanksgiving.”
“Yeah, I’ve got an Econ paper due this week.” Sean took the newspaper from Gary to peruse the front page. They ate in silence as he flipped through it before stopping on the Features page. “Hey, dude, look at this. Your girlfriend’s got a half-page story here, byline and all.” Sean folded the paper and pointed out the section to Gary.
“Girlfriend?” Gary felt his face burn. What was Sean thinking? Yeah, he and Caryn had come to a truce, but she wasn’t his girlfriend. He took the paper from Sean and looked at the title: Domestic Violence is Child Abuse, by Caryn Alderson. He read the story with growing appreciation for the hard work she’d done in such a short amount of time, even quoting that cranky police detective from Belford and some professors in the field. She finished with statistics on abuse and telltale signs to look for.
Sean lowered his voice and leaned in close so as not to be overheard. “Does she mention Eddie?”
“Sort of,” Gary said as he pointed to a paragraph. “She mentions him as a local high-profile missing child case, and then speculates on why he went missing.”
They finished reading the story in silence. “Is this gonna sic the cops on Eddie? ’Cause she makes it sound like she knows for a fact he’s been victimized,” Sean said.
“We both know she does.” Gary looked around the cafeteria to see who might be reading the story, since it was buried in the middle of the second section. He couldn’t tell, because although several students were reading the paper, they could just as easily have been looking at the sports page. “But she sticks to her facts pretty well, leaving the conclusions up to her readers.” He folded up the newspaper and shoved the last of the sweet roll in his mouth while reaching for his coffee.
“Where ya headed?” Sean asked.
Gary pushed his backpack over one shoulder and said, “Oral Interp class, but I’m gonna take a detour to the newspaper office on the way.”
“Say hi to Not-Your-Girlfriend,” Sean said as Gary turned to walk away.
Gary decided to ignore his roommate’s snide remark. He glanced at the time and realized his class started in ten minutes, but decided to risk being late. He could probably just text Caryn, but he told himself Eddie’s safety was at stake.
As he walked across campus, he pulled his jacket hoodie over his head and kept his head low so as not to encounter anybody he didn’t want to talk to—living or dead. He hadn’t seen Lucy for a couple of days, which was a relief, but Gary knew she wasn’t the only ghost hanging around campus. He hoped Lucy had taken his advice and crossed over, especially since Eddie was safe at Brenda’s house for the time being.
“Nice story in the paper,” a voice in front of him said.
Gary stopped walking and, against his better judgment, looked up. “Lucy,” he groaned.
“Tell your psychic friend that I appreciate her calling attention to Eddie’s situation.”
“I’ll send her your regards,” Gary said as he plowed right by—or through—her.
The campus carillon was striking nine a.m. when he arrived in front of the building that housed the newspaper office, and Gary silently berated himself for coming here instead of going to Oral Interp. Besides, someone might overhear his and Caryn’s conversation in that office, and then Eddie would be outed for sure. He turned to leave, reminding himself there were only a few weeks left before final exams in December, and his scholarship still hung in the balance. He couldn’t afford to miss class.
“Gary?”
Gary turned back around to see Annabeth coming out of the building, her bag over her shoulder and camera slung around her neck.
“Oh, hi. I was going to talk to Caryn, but…” He glanced nervously at the clock on the tower.
“She’s gone to class, but I’ll walk with you.”
It was a frosty November morning and Annabeth pulled her scarf a little tighter around her neck. “I guess you read Caryn’s story.”
“Yeah, and it’s got me worried. At this rate, Eddie’s not gonna stay hidden much longer.”
“But did you really read it, Gary?” Annabeth asked him as they hurried across campus. “It barely mentioned Eddie, but it did call attention to a serious problem that lots of families keep quiet about.”
Gary thought about that. “Yeah, I guess so. By the way, the kid’s mom—you know, ghost Lucy—said to tell Caryn she approved.”
Annabeth’s eyes widened. “I’ll be sure to give her the message.” They stopped in front of a classroom building. “This is me. And don’t worry, ’cause I think Caryn’s story’s gonna make an impact.” She waved goodbye.
Gary watched Annabeth go. As long as he was already late and with Eddie on his mind, he pulled out his phone and sent Brenda a text, but kept it generic.
—How’s the kid?—
Brenda replied a minute later, just as Gary was entering his classroom and enduring Dr. Danson’s look of disapproval for being late. He glanced down at the text anyway.
—He’s okay. I’m at work and our guest is on my home computer doing math. Way over my head kind of stuff. Talk later.—
****
“You know what they say,” Foster Benning told his actors as he motioned them to gather around on the stage. “Bad dress rehearsal, great opening night.”
“Then we should be freakin’ awesome,” Gary said with a groan.
The dress rehearsal the previous evening had been a near fiasco. Tricia aka Elizabeth Bennet still didn’t know all her lines and she kept tugging at the ill-fitting corset she was forced to wear as part of her Regency-era costume. Kevin Michaels arrived late, breathless from a soccer tournament on the south side of Indianapolis, didn’t even bother with makeup, and proceeded to get sweat and grime all over his vest and cravat. In the third act, when Darcy’s proposal to Elizabeth should have been sincere, Kevin accidentally repeated his Act One arrogant proposal, causing Foster to call a halt to the scene and start over. Delia Ferguson as Jane Bennet was at least on time and prepared, but when they started the Country Line Dance, she tripped over the edge of her skirt and twisted her ankle. Now she was hobbling around, and underneath her skirt and stockings was an ace bandage. Gary kept tugging at his waistcoat, since it was cut too short for someone his height. Luckily his also too-short pants could be tucked into his riding boots. Even the lighting and sound went haywire, with blackouts mid-scene, the curtain closing before the end of Act One, and on and on.
“Since Jane Austen has such a huge following, we’ve got a packed house tonight,” Foster told his cast members. “Let’s not disappoint them. Places everybody. Break a leg! And Delia, I don’t mean that literally.”
Gary pulled back the curtain a couple of inches and sneaked a peek. Foster was right, almost every seat was taken. He did a quick glance around the audience and saw Brenda front row center, like she always was at every one of his plays. And next to her was a kid wearing sunglasses and a baseball cap pulled low over his brow. Eddie. Hopefully no one would recognize him and he would keep a low profile till the lights went down. In the middle of the auditorium and a little to his left he spotted Sean, Annabeth, and—was that Caryn? He blinked. Yes, it was her, note pad at the ready. Gary felt a surge of nerves when he thought of what she might write about his performance, or was that just opening night butterflies? No, it couldn’t be. After all these weeks of rehearsal, Gary felt confident about his own part. Unfortunately he couldn’t say the same for his cast mates.
And then just before the house lights dimmed, he caug
ht sight of someone walking in and taking a seat in the back row. A tall, slender blond guy who looked like an older version of himself. Ned Harrington? What the…?
No time to think about that now. As Mr. Bingley, Gary wasn’t in the first scene, but he needed to get into character beforehand, so he forced all thoughts of Ned to the back of his mind. He went to the wings and paced back and forth, repeating lines and blocking, while he awaited the opening of the scene at the Meryton Assembly where Mr. Bingley singles out Jane Bennet.
The play came off a lot better than Gary had expected. Kevin as Darcy only went up on one line, albeit an important one in his first proposal to Elizabeth Bennet. However, he recovered well and Gary hoped the audience didn’t notice. Or more importantly, he hoped Caryn didn’t notice. Delia managed to cover her bandaged ankle with her skirt, and she powered through the dancing scenes with barely a visible limp. At the end of the play when Gary’s character was happily reunited with Delia aka Jane, and Darcy and Elizabeth proclaimed their love for one another, Gary could feel the audience’s approval as they gave the cast a standing ovation. Hey, it wasn’t Shakespeare, but Gary hadn’t felt this good about a performance since last summer’s Shakespeare in the Park.
As the curtain closed and the house lights came up, Gary hopped off the edge of the stage and looked around for his mom. Before he could locate her, though, he felt a tap on his shoulder. It was Caryn standing behind him. Annabeth and Sean were next to her, Sean’s arms around Annabeth, her head resting on Sean’s shoulder.
“Not bad,” Caryn said.
“High praise coming from you,” Gary replied.
Annabeth elbowed Caryn in the ribs. “Come on, girlfriend, admit it. The play was good.”
Caryn smiled as her cheeks reddened. “Yeah, okay.”
“More than okay,” Brenda said, stepping up to her son and wrapping an arm around his waist. “I thoroughly enjoyed it.”
Gary gave his mom a hug, but quickly let go when she recoiled. He knew he was sweaty from being under the stage lights, and his face makeup was starting to run down his neck. He loosened the tight cravat, unbuttoned the linen shirt, and slipped out of his waistcoat, which he carefully placed on a nearby front-row seat. “Thanks, Mom. It’s good to see you here.” Gary looked over her shoulder and craned his neck around her. “Um, where’s…?” He didn’t dare say Eddie’s name out loud, but he didn’t see the kid anywhere.
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