by Sharon Sala
They were still laughing when they ran through the front door. Coach Jones was on hall duty. Tara liked Coach Jones. He was one of the really cool teachers here.
“Good morning, ladies,” he said, as they shifted from run to walk.
“Good morning, Coach,” they echoed, dripping water as they made a beeline to their lockers.
“So, see you at lunch?” Nikki said.
Tara nodded. They parted company, each heading to first hour with a load of books and an acceptance that they wouldn’t be free of this place for the next eight hours.
The hall was full of kids just as wet as she was, most of which were talking at a Wi-Fi pace. The hall sounded like it was full of clucking chickens. She kept looking for Flynn as she walked, but didn’t see him anywhere. Okay, so he would certainly have been frightened by what had happened, but his reaction to her concern made no sense. What kind of a girlfriend would she have been if she’d ignored the whole thing?
It’s about money and his father.
Tara jumped. For real?
For real. His father hid something . . . money I think, that also belongs to that man and his friends. They all found out he’s dying, which means he won’t be getting out to give up the location. The hunk is in big trouble. They’re going to try to get to the father through the son.
What do I do?
YOU do nothing. You tell Flynn to tell the coppers.
Tara rolled her eyes. It’s cops, not coppers.
She heard a pop, which meant Millicent was gone, but it was no big deal because she’d reached her classroom. Thanks to Millicent, at least now Tara knew what was wrong. She just didn’t yet know what to do about it.
As usual, there was a rush to get into the room before the last bell rang. The floors were slick from the water dripping off clothes and shoes and she was hurrying. One minute she was upright and the next thing she knew her feet were in the air. This was definitely going to hurt.
Only she never hit the floor. Just as she began to fall, she felt hands beneath her elbows and suddenly she was back on her feet.
“Oh my gosh,” Tara said as she turned to thank her rescuer, but all she saw was the back of a very tall guy in a long black poncho walking away. “Hey!” she yelled.
He paused and looked back.
Tara wasn’t one to ever judge someone’s appearance, but this guy left her speechless. He was dressed all in black, from his shirt to his shoes. His eyes were dark, his hair was black and wet, slicked back away from his face, which revealed a bad-ass widow’s peak. He had a long scar on his cheek that ran down the side of his neck, with a single silver skull earring dangling from one ear. He had such a defiant expression on his face, as if he was expecting rejection, and that she immediately empathized, remembering her first day here.
“Thank you,” she said, and ducked into her room just as Mrs. Farmer was closing the door.
“I saw you falling,” Mrs. Farmer said. “Are you alright?”
“Yes, ma’am. Some knight in shining armor dressed a little like Dracula caught me before I hit the deck. I’ve never seen him before, and he’s someone who’d be hard to miss.”
“Oh, I believe his name is French Langdon. I think he’s a transfer student. Now please take your seat. You can thank him later.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Tara said, and headed for her desk.
He has secrets.
Tara frowned. Millicent’s info was usually helpful, but this was way off course. What kind of secrets?
The kinds of secrets that are secret.
Seriously, Millicent? Is this the best you can do?
Your teacher has twelve siblings. All boys. Her mother went mad. I see her now and then, but since that incarnation she’s never been the same.
Tara blinked. She had not thought about spirits visiting each other or forming friendships, and she’d never thought about Mrs. Farmer as a kid, let alone having twelve brothers. It was an interesting concept, and she hoped when she got to the other side someday she’d get to see her mother and father. Even if she didn’t remember them, it would be cool to see them again.
She forgot about French Langdon when Mrs. Farmer pulled out her text book and told them to turn to page 107. After that, she was too busy taking notes to think about the neo-Dracula of Stillwater High.
It was noon before she saw Flynn again. He was on his way out of the cafeteria as she was going in. He gave her a fake smile that didn’t reach his eyes and pretended to tweak her nose, which he knew she hated.
“Hey, Tara, sorry I missed you for lunch, but I have an appointment with the counselor to make sure I’ll have enough credits to graduate. The last thing I want is you leaving me behind. “
“We need to talk,” Tara whispered.
Flynn frowned. “Yeah, sure, catch you later, okay?”
“Uh, yeah sure . . . later,” she said, and headed for the line.
That was weird.
Tara shared Millicent’s opinion. Seriously weird.
You know he’s just sleeting you.
What? What on earth are you talking about?
You know . . . when someone is trying to put something over on another person. I believe you people call it sleeting.
Tara laughed out loud, which drew a few stares considering she was standing by herself at the back of the lunch line.
It’s not sleeting, it’s snowing. The phrase you’re referring to is ‘you’re being snowed’ which kind of means they’re feeding you a line to cover up the truth. And just for the record, that phrase is almost as old as Uncle Pat.
Ah. I knew it had something to do with the weather. What’s for lunch? Oooh, oooh, strawberries! I love strawberries. There was this Duke I knew. Once after a masked ball he ate strawberries off my bare—
Stop! Stop! Telling me that is wrong on so many levels!
Whatever. About those strawberries, are you—
I’m getting strawberries, okay, and every time I take a big, juicy bite I’ll think of you, how’s that?
It will suffice.
A serving of salad, a plate of macaroni and cheese and a bowl of berries later, Tara was carrying her tray toward the table where Nikki and her BFFs, Mac and Penny, were sitting.
They saw her coming and waved.
She couldn’t help thinking what a change this was from her first week at school. Being the new girl during the senior year of high school had been the worst, but it was getting better. Lots of people still thought she was weird, but the only student here at school who continued to give her a hard time was Prissy Marshall. Like it was Tara’s fault Prissy cheated on a test and got kicked off the cheerleading squad. All Tara had done was give her a heads up that she’d been found out. The rest of that karma was all on Prissy.
“Flynn just left,” Nikki said, as Tara slid into a seat beside her.
“We talked. He’s on his way to the counselor’s office to check on some of his credits.”
Nikki dunked a French fry in ketchup then popped it in her mouth. “So he’s okay, then?”
Tara shrugged. “No, he’s not okay, but he wants me to think so. I think it’s complicated, so unless he offers to share his misery, I’ll pretend I don’t know a thing about it.”
Nikki laughed. “Is he dense or what? Like . . . did he suddenly forget that you ‘know’ stuff?”
Tara grinned. “He’s a guy. We have to cut them some slack, right?”
Mac and Penny thought that was hilarious and added their laughter to the table.
“And speaking of guys, did you all see the new one? He has a scar on his face that looks like a snake. He is seriously bad-ass,” Penny said.
Nikki gasped. “For real? Ooh, imagine waking up every day with a guy like that beside you.”
The four of them looked at each other and then giggled in unison. From all appearances, four carefree teens were just having lunch in the high school cafeteria.
The lunch hour had passed, and then so did the rest of the day. Tara was pretty ticked. Flynn
managed to dodge her all day, and by the time school was out, he had already made his getaway. The only good thing about the entire day was that it had finally stopped raining.
After Nikki dropped Tara off at home, it was business as usual. She started homework along with supper, and by the time Uncle Pat got off work, she had beans and wieners coming out of the oven and a skillet of fried potatoes ready and waiting.
“Something smells good,” Pat said, as he set his lunch box on the cabinet. “Ooh, beans and wieners. We haven’t had that in ages. Give me a couple of minutes to get out of these wet clothes and I’ll help you set the table.”
“I’ll do it, Uncle Pat. You need to take a hot shower before supper. You don’t want to get sick.”
“Good idea,” he said. “I’ll hurry.”
Tara sat back down at the kitchen table to her homework, popped the ear buds back into her ears and conjugated Spanish verbs to Adele’s ‘Rollin’ in the Deep’. The song fit her mood. She felt sad and off-center. Being on the outs with your boyfriend made days like that happen.
All of a sudden, Henry popped up in front of her, looking anxious and waving his hands. At that moment, there was a knock at the door, but Tara didn’t hear it because of the music. Henry knocked over the salt shaker to increase his insistence.
She looked up and frowned. “What?”
Henry pointed. Tara took the ear buds out of her ears just as another knock sounded.
“Oh. Someone’s at the door. Thank you, Henry. You are such a doll,” Tara said, and blew him a kiss.
It discombobulated Henry to the point that he dissipated in pieces. First his feet—then his arms—then the rest of his body. His head was the last to disappear, but he was smiling as he went.
Tara was still grinning when she got to the door, and then was surprised to see two detectives from the Stillwater police department. She’d helped Detectives Allen and Rutherford solve two crimes already and thought of them as friends, only neither one was smiling.
“Hi guys,” Tara said.
“Miss Luna. We need to ask you some questions. Is your uncle here?”
Tara frowned. “Miss Luna? What happened to Tara? Did I jaywalk somewhere?”
Detective Rutherford shrugged. “This is serious business, Tara. Can we come in?”
She grinned. “That’s way better, and sure, you can come in. Uncle Pat is taking a shower. It was a nasty day for reading meters. I’ll tell him you’re here. In the meantime, have a seat.”
Detective Allen frowned as Tara walked away. “Dang it, Rutherford. Police business is no joke.”
Rutherford frowned. “Do you see me laughing?”
“No, but you’re being too friendly with a person of interest.”
“She’s not a person of interest. Freak of nature, maybe. Interesting doesn’t even being to describe it.”
Allen frowned back. Before they could get into an argument of their own, Tara was back with her uncle at her heels. He was pulling a t-shirt over his head and his feet were bare as he entered the living room.
“What’s going on?” Pat asked.
“We just need to ask Tara some questions,” Detective Allen said. “If you both wouldn’t mind having a seat, we’ll get out of your way as soon as possible.”
Pat sat, then looked at Tara. “What did you do?”
Before Tara could answer, the magazine on the table beside Pat’s elbow flew up into the air and landed with a splat in his lap.
Both detectives were on their feet.
“What the hell?” Pat yelped.
Tara eyes narrowed. “Obviously, your assumption that I would automatically be at fault ticked Millicent off, and it set my teeth a bit on edge, as well. Why would you instantly think I’d done something wrong?”
Rutherford was standing by the door. Allen was up against the wall. They’d already had more than one run-in with her ghosts and didn’t want a repeat performance.
“We can talk from here,” Rutherford said.
“Talk about what?” Tara asked.
“We’re investigating a homicide,” Allen said.
Tara leaned forward with her elbows on her knees. “So, do you need my help or something? I don’t mind—”
“I do,” Pat said.
“No, it’s not that, exactly,” Rutherford said. “We have a body. We have identified the man. We also have surveillance tape of that man inside a convenience store earlier this morning, then the clerk’s account that he accosted someone outside a few minutes after his arrival.”
Tara’s stomach turned. She knew before he opened his mouth again what he was going to say.
“And,” Rutherford continued. “In the background of that tape, you are sitting in a gray SUV, watching it happen. We would like your version of this account, and for you to confirm the identity of the person who the clerk identified, also running toward your car and getting inside.”
Pat gasped.
Tara sighed.
If you need to make a getaway, I can distract them.
“No, Millicent, I am not making a getaway. Chill, okay?”
The lights went on and off a couple of times, which was enough to set the detectives teeth on edge. Tara was afraid that one more stunt from Millicent and they would finish this interview at police headquarters, which was the last place she wanted to be.
“Of course I know who it was,” Tara said. “My friend was giving me a ride to school so I wouldn’t have to walk in the rain. We were passing this convenience store when I saw my boyfriend, Flynn, talking to some man outside. You remember Flynn O’Mara. He helped rescue Bethany Fanning, the cheerleader who was kidnapped. We pulled in to give him a ride, too, and when we honked, the man he was talking to saw us and ran off down an alley. Flynn got in and we went to school.”
It was a simpler reason than they’d expected and certainly took some of the wind from their sails. Rutherford was writing as he talked. “So, did Flynn say who the man was or what they were talking about?”
“No sir.”
“He didn’t say a word?”
Tara sighed. “No. I could tell he was bothered about it, but he tried to pretend he wasn’t. I’m not hiding anything, but I know more about this than Flynn thinks I do.”
Allen took a step forward. “Exactly how do you know—”
Rutherford elbowed him. “Remember who you’re talking to.”
“Oh. Yeah. So, what do you know?” Allen asked.
“I know what Millicent told me.”
Rutherford ran a finger around his shirt collar, as if it had suddenly gotten too tight. This was where writing up a report on their interview with Tara Luna was going to make them look like a pair of dumb asses.
“You are referring to your ghost and not a living breathing person who you know?” Rutherford asked, then looked nervous and added. “Uh . . . meaning no disrespect or anything, but exactly what do you call someone like her?”
Tara was getting angry, and a little bit hurt. She thought they’d already cleared the air between them with this stuff.
“I call her Millicent. Now, do you care what I know, or are we going around the mulberry bush again and pretend you’re surprised by all this? You both know I see ghosts. We dug up a decades old murder victim out of our backyard so you both know I’m psychic. How many times do I have to prove it before you all get over it?”
“Well, damn it . . . excuse my language,” Rutherford said. “We didn’t mean to hurt your feelings, but it was a surprise to see you in that tape.”
“It is a bigger surprise to me that the man I saw this morning is now dead. You both need to sit down so you can write your notes.”
They went back to their chairs.
Pat slid a hand across her shoulder. “Are you in any danger, honey?”
“No, of course not, Uncle Pat. We just picked up Flynn and took him to school.” Then she turned her attention to the cops. “Are you ready?”
They nodded.
“So, here’s the scoop, and F
YI, Flynn does not know I know this, because we haven’t talked about it, and he doesn’t want to be around me, so I’m guessing he thinks if he keeps his distance, I won’t know. But I digress. According to Millicent, the man who pushed Flynn up against the wall isn’t actually interested in Flynn, other than his connection to someone else. It’s about his father, Michael O’Mara.”
Detective Allen frowned. “But he’s in prison.”
Tara nodded. “And that’s the problem. It has to do with money. Before Michael O Mara went to prison, he was with a gang of bad guys. He hid a bunch of their money and then got sent to prison. The men were waiting for him to get out so they could split it up, I guess. At any rate, they don’t know where it is and now they are running out of time.”
Rutherford had quit writing and was just staring at Tara in disbelief.
She paused. “What?”
He shook his head. “I’m hearing this come out of your mouth, and I still can’t believe it. You just ‘know’ stuff that would take us weeks, maybe months to find out, if even then. I’m sorry, I interrupted. So they don’t know where the money is? What’s the big hurry all of a sudden to find out? I mean, O’Mara’s been in the pen for almost three years now.”
“Because Michael O’Mara is dying of cancer and they probably found out. Now the men are going to try to get to the father through the son before it’s too late.”
“Did you see Flynn at school during the day?”
Tara frowned. “We all went inside at the same time this morning. I saw him at noon on his way to the counselor’s office to discuss some school credit issue, and I did not see him after school, which isn’t unusual on nights he buses tables at Eskimo Joe’s. Why don’t you talk to him?”
“Because he’s gone missing. His mother is in a panic. Claims she has no idea where he’s at, and we have a dead man on our hands with a connection to Flynn.”
Tara jumped to her feet. She was starting to panic, too. He shouldn’t be missing. This wasn’t good. “What time of day was the man murdered?”
“The M.E. says before noon.”