by Dale Mayer
Oh my God. Was she in her grayscale for real now or was she still in the person’s whose grayscale she wandered in. Or was he showing her a picture of something special.
She squeezed the gas can.
And felt the pressure. Oh shit. Oh shit.
This was so damn confusing. She stared down at the hand. It was small. Feminine. It wore a ring on the one hand. She looked at her other hand and found a matching ring on that hand too. How could that be? She stared at her fingers. The rings. She felt her throat squeezing shut. Dear God. She knew these hands. They were hers.
She was holding the gas can. In her own grayscale world, she’d switched into her own memories.
Had she been here the night of the fire? Been involved? She searched the cavern of her mind. A block had started to crumble. As if its time had come. She was afraid of what she’d find. Please let her not have had a hand in setting this fire.
Please not. Surely not.
She’d never do anything like that.
That didn’t mean Sticks wouldn’t have tried to involve her. He’d been the one she’d met here that night. He’d called her out of the blue and said she’d left something behind, and he wanted to see her one more time. She’d come to the school against her best judgment and hoped to go home quickly. He hadn’t shown up.
Until he’d asked her to hold that can.
Now the memories flooded her psyche.
That dark, handsome face as he turned, gave her a sardonic grin, and threw a lit match. She cried out. “Now what are you doing…”
A loud whoosh whistled through the air as the gas caught fire and the trailer had gone up in flames. She screamed and threw up her arm to protect herself. And found the gas can in her hand.
“Oh my God, you set me up.” She threw the gas can at him.
He laughed. “What’s the matter, rich bitch? Can’t take the heat?”
She cried and backed away. “You said you wanted to meet me. You told me I’d left something behind,” she screamed at him, panic clawing at her throat.
“You did. You have now left your prints behind.”
There was a bright flash from the trees, and he howled with laugher as she’d turned and ran. As far away as she could go. She ran, stumbled and ran some more.
Hannah bounced from one wall to another as she tried to work her way safely back out from her memories. She hit an already damaged wall, the top half crumbled and fallen down. The force was hard enough she heard a crack as the rest gave away.
She spun around to see it slowly crumble before her.
It hadn’t been a wall. It had been the block. One of the last ones. And she realized that the half fallen down one she’d passed before had released this memory. Allowing her to see what had happened…her part in it. Or rather what had been made to appear what had been her part in this nightmare. She shook like a leaf as voices rolled over her and through her and around her.
With the block in place she’d never known she’d been at the school that night.
*
“Hannah? Are you okay?”
Trevor stared down at her in concern until she finally opened her eyes to stare up at him, features drawn, her gaze shadowed.
“Oh thank God,” he muttered and swung her up into a tight embrace.
She rested in his arms, her body exhausted, her mind strung out on betrayal and pain. “It was Sticks who lit the fire,” she whispered. “I don’t know if he knew the teacher was inside or not, but he had me hold the gas can so my prints would be on it.”
Trevor froze.
She shuddered. “Dear God. I never knew.”
He sagged in place. “I gather the block came down.”
“Yeah, it was well on its way to being a crumbled down barely held together wall as it was by the time I got there. It literally gave up the ghost when I accidentally slammed into it. I couldn’t…can’t believe what I saw, what I heard…”
“And it was Sticks’s grayscale you were in?” he asked cautiously. “Do you know that for sure?”
She shook her head. “No, I don’t. I don’t understand yet whose space I was in.”
“Did you grasp the can?”
“I did.” She shuddered. “And I felt pressure, so I think it was mine…”
“But did you feel the pressure or did you just see it in your hand and assume that you were grasping it.”
“I don’t know,” she whispered. “When I realized that I’d been there, that he’d set me up…”
“Rich bitch…”
“Yeah, that’s what he said.” Tears welled up in her eyes. “Now that I know I was there, what he did, it’s like finding I was a whole different person back then. And that he was so much worse,” she cried out. “Why did he do that?”
Trevor crushed her against his chest. “I’m so sorry. Sticks was like that. He didn’t want to have anything to do with rich white people. That’s one of the reasons we were so surprised when he showed up with you. You weren’t his type.”
“Did he set me up right from the start? Plan this from the beginning?” She stared up at him. “Did he pick me as the gullible one?”
He winced. “Honestly, I can’t say.” But he could guess and yeah that would be Sticks all the way. “I’m sorry. He was hurting like the rest of us hurt.”
She shook her head violently. “No. He wasn’t. He loved that fire. Thrived on it. I wouldn’t be surprised if when you do find him you find he’s done this many times since.” She reached up to grab his shirt. “Trevor, you have to understand. He was fascinated by that fire.”
“Then we’ll take a closer look at other cases too,” Trevor reassured her.
“But why the teacher?”
Trevor sat back and considered the issue. “I might know why, but I don’t want to say anything for sure.”
She waited, her gaze quiet.
“It was Stones who had the affair with the one teacher. She lost the baby soon after. He leaned his head back, wondering at the dysfunctional people he’d met in that lifetime so long ago. “I think she may have gone after Mr. Niggard as well. Maybe he rebuffed her. Or maybe he suggested they get together and she rebuffed him. Either way something went wrong. Sticks would have done anything she asked.” He shook his head. “If he killed him. I have no doubt he set the fire. But that’s not the same thing as murder.”
“No, but we need to get to the bottom of it.”
She snuggled up against his chest, and it was as if he could hear her mind spin. “Now what are you worried about?”
“Do you think he’s the one that planted the blocks there?”
“I don’t know,” he said slowly. “I never felt any of that kind of power off of him. Was it possible? Sure. But why would he?”
“Maybe to stop me from remembering who was involved in setting the fire.”
“That’s about the only thing that does make sense,” he admitted. “But there has to be so much more.”
“Does there? I’ve always found things to be at the very core – simple.”
He shifted his position and let the pieces float around in his head. “Simple is right. It’s always about sex, money and power.”
“And one more,” she whispered. “A huge one.”
He opened his eyes to turn and look at her. “What’s that?”
“Love.”
*
He’d had enough. When he thought he’d seen Boots’s face in his memories he’d known he’d crossed some kind of bullshit line. Was it his mental state or had these two gotten together and pulled off some kind of stupid magic he didn’t know about?
That possibility pissed him off.
No one beat him. He might not be the best, but he was the meanest and most underhanded in the game. What really got him was he didn’t know what game he was playing. He didn’t play games like this. At least not with opponents that fought back. He wasn’t about the game. He was about playing. Moving the world to do his bidding. Not about getting beaten. Or even challenged. There was
a huge difference between a challenge to surmount and being challenged. One was fun. The other something to be avoided at all costs.
He loved his life.
He had no plans to change it. There was no fucking way he was going to let that little bitch do it for him.
She was done. Tonight.
He’d make sure of it. That she was married to the weak do-gooder wasn’t something she should be proud of. Losers, both of them.
He didn’t know what the fuck was going on, but he was putting a stop to it now. Like right now.
Who the hell did she thinks she was?
Walk into his memories, would they? Not twice.
Only he could do that kind of walking.
Chapter 38
Love was everything. Now that they had an idea of what had happened back then they just needed to figure out what was going on today. The past had jumped into the present. If they didn’t solve this – stop this – there wasn’t going to be a future. “We need to find out if my prints are on record. If anyone did anything to hide my involvement.”
“You weren’t involved,” he stressed. “You were set up.”
“I know that. What if my fingerprints from Stefan’s house match up to that crime?” She couldn’t bear to have to deal with this all over again down the road. “The comparison is bound to come up.”
“Even then you’d be questioned but not charged. Besides…” he grinned. “The fingerprints at Stefan’s are energy prints.”
“So bizarre.” Unbelievably so. It showed how much she still needed to learn. “I hate to think so, but I feel like my father might have stepped in and stopped the police from looking at me back then.”
“The only way they would have is if they knew you were there,” he said slowly.
“And why wouldn’t Sticks tell them if he’d gotten away with leaving no evidence of his own.”
“He might have chosen to have done so in another way. And waited to see if the cops ferreted out the truth. When it was deemed an accident…” he stopped and frowned. “Wait…”
“Yeah, I’m on the same train of thought. How could this be an accident if I saw him pour gasoline and light it with a match?” She snorted. “The cops would have figured that out fast enough.” She slumped back. “My father made this all go away. He’s the only one powerful enough in this group of us to have done that. And added to his belief that I was unstable and had to be watched all the time.”
“Why?” Trevor stared at her. “Your prints were never corroborated.”
She closed her eyes and groaned as her intuition flashed to the surface. “I know. Oh dear God, I know.”
He waited. She opened her eyes. “I saw a flash in my mind. I didn’t get it at the time. I didn’t even think about it but what if someone – Stones – or someone else – took pictures of me standing there holding the can in front of the fire. And used it to blackmail my father?”
“His ticket to a better life.” Trevor threw his head back and groaned in dismay. “And I thought he figured he was moving up into a rich girl’s family, but instead he was looking to score off the rich bitch. Jesus.”
*
He was sorry for using that insult again. But it was how Sticks had referred to Hannah – no, Candy – when he was with the gang. Trevor hadn’t thought anything of it. They’d all talked up around the gang. It was what they did. Big egos on braggarts.
The information rumbled through his head. “I wonder if your father is planning on dropping any of these bombshells on us at the meeting tomorrow.”
“I wouldn’t be surprised,” she whispered. “God I feel like such a fool. I thought I’d pulled one over on my father, and instead I’d been a gullible naïve fool once again in trouble that he had to fix.”
“Shh, take it easy,” he whispered against her hair. “Nothing is easy growing up and neither of us are proud of who we were back then, but it’s what we do with our lives now that matters. We have to do the best we can going forward.”
He believed that and worked every day to make it happen.
But did she?
Her body trembled in his arms, reminding him how much she’d had to adjust to in the last few days.
And how well she’d done.
“Do you think you can go back to sleep again?” he asked, hugging her close, his hands easing up and down her spine. He wasn’t tired but they had a big day tomorrow and they both needed to be rested up.
She shook her head violently. “No, I don’t think so.”
“That nightmare really unnerved you, didn’t it?”
“Yes. More than that, it’s Sticks’s betrayal. He wanted me to take the fall. To ruin my life.”
“Yeah, that was Sticks.”
“Then why were you there?” she cried. “He was a horrible person.”
Trevor was lost for words. How to explain back then that he’d have done anything to fit in. To not be a loser. To have someone like him. His self-esteem had been non-existent. He’d been suicidal at one point.
“Sorry,” she whispered, her hand stroking his chest. “I’m just in shock. It was a horrible awareness, of seeing Sticks’ true character.”
“Likely why the block.”
Her head burrowed deeper against his chest but he heard her low, “Yes, but did he do it?” She frowned. “Or did I,” she said slowly. “So as to avoid facing my – his – actions.”
“Sorry, sweetheart. There is a lot hitting you at once.”
She didn’t answer. Then what could she say? He groaned and tucked her up close. All he could do now was ease her stress and hold her close.
He let his eyes drift closed and relaxed. Surely this would come to a head soon. The meeting at the offices could bring more out in the open tomorrow.
As he lay there, he heard something that chilled him to his soul.
The crackle of flames.
Outside. Jesus.
“Move!” Trevor bolted out of bed and shook her awake. “Now.” When she rolled over to look at him, he pulled her up from the bed. “The house is on fire.”
She bolted up, comprehension lighting the depths of her eyes. Smoke billowed into the room. She coughed and scrambled to her feet.
Stefan, he screamed. We need the fire department here now. And the cops. Someone has lit the house on fire.
There wasn’t any discussion. Stefan appeared and disappeared from his mind as Trevor bolted into his clothes and dragged Hannah behind him. He raced out of the room, Hannah’s arm in a tight grip as he pulled her with him. They raced down the stairs and bolted out the kitchen door. In the distance the welcome sounds of sirens were already on their way. He loved this telepathic highway. It was beyond fast.
The neighbors called out to him, “Anyone still inside?”
“No, we’re the only ones,” he called over as the fire engines raced toward them. The trucks arrived at the house at the same time as the neighbors reached them.
Immediately they were all pushed back out of the danger zone as the firemen went to work. From where he stood, he saw the smoke coming from the garage area.
Not the front. Thank God. He’d hate for Kali to lose the house because she’d helped him and Hannah. But he couldn’t see any flames.
Although the amount of smoke made up for it.
The police arrived. They were immediately pushed further back out of the way.
Trevor knew it was a good thing they’d gotten what sleep they could.
There’d be no more shut eye for them tonight.
Still they were safe. That was the only thing that mattered – and now putting a stop to this shit.
Enough was enough.
Chapter 39
Hannah stood under the hot water and let it roll down on her face and head. Tired and worn out after the questioning, still she had a hard day ahead. She had to face her father. After a shitty early morning, that’s the last thing she wanted.
And on her birthday. Crap.
She needed this to be over with. She had a li
fe she was looking forward to living. Now that most of the blocks were gone, her mind still reeled at what floated freely in her brain.
It would take time to heal her mind. Even more time was required to make her comfortable with the memories. They were familiar in that they were hers, but at the same time they were foreign as if someone else had lived them. Just as she found a level of comfort with some of it, more flared up. And she was assailed by the pain and fear all over again.
She didn’t want this. She needed to get through it so that the memories slid into the recesses of her mind by her choice, not by someone else’s hand.
“Hannah?”
She turned off the water. “I’m here.”
“Are you okay?”
Silly question. She understood why he was asking, but it seemed foolish. Of course she wasn’t okay. She’d been to hell and back, and still it wasn’t over. Now someone was trying to kill her.
Enough! There had to be a way to end this. Bolstered by the thought, and loving the future that waited on the other side of this nightmare and the other side of the shower, she opened the door to give him a game smile. “I’m okay.”
He cuddled her close for long moment and dropped a kiss on her nose. “We’ll get through this. Then life starts for us for real.”
Now that was something she could get behind. He left her to go downstairs.
After her shower, she dressed quickly and headed to the kitchen to find Trevor deep in conversation with a big blond stranger. Imposing and capable looking, when he looked up at her, she found his smile friendly, gentle even. She immediately grinned back. “Hi,” she said.
“Hannah, this is Detective McNeil, Dr. Maddy’s partner. The man who’s been helping me.”
“Call me Drew. Nice to meet you.” Drew held out a hand to shake. She shook it and stepped closer to Trevor’s side.
“I guess the police have to be involved now, don’t they?” She leaned against Trevor, not sure if she was that tired or just wanting the security of knowing he was there.
“Arson does that,” Drew said with a grim smile. “We don’t like people wandering around trying to burn houses down – especially not with people in them.”