Let him get grounded for skipping school. Let him freeze to death in a snowbank. He didn’t care anymore.
“Rick Banfield.”
Classes were over for the day. It was time for what Rick loved best—smashing into other players as hard as he could, with the intent of doing as much damage as possible, even to his own teammates. He told them it was to toughen them up, but that was only part of it. He just enjoyed the look on a person’s face when he caused them pain.
He barreled out of the locker room, heading toward the glass doors and the walkway beyond that led to the football practice field. He had his full practice gear on and his helmet tucked under one arm. Completely psyched up and focused for his last practice before the big game, he found the interruption a little jarring. Still, he stopped, his cleats skidding to a halt on the smooth tile of the hallway floor. He looked over and saw a hot, dark-haired Latina girl leaning against the wall in a casually seductive pose. She smiled at him.
“Yeah,” he said. “Do I know you?”
“No, you just wish you did,” she replied with a teasing little smile.
Rick couldn’t help but laugh. This babe was bold. He liked her style. He walked to her and stood very close, looking down at her with interest. “Yeah,” he admitted. “I’ve seen you around. What’s your name?”
“Clarisse,” the girl said, her voice all soft and breathy, just the way Rick liked. This close to her, he could tell she was even hotter than he’d thought at first glance. She had delectable curves in all the right places, and from the sultry way she was looking at him with her big brown eyes, he could tell she knew how to use every single one of them. But she was a Flats rat—cousins or something with that little Mexican punk Ignacio.
“Well, it’s really nice to meet you, Clarisse,” he said. “But I don’t date girls from the Flats. Sorry.”
There was something dangerous in her laugh. “Who cares?” she said, grabbing the front of his jersey and pulling him, dragging him, partway into a little alcove, away from the prying eyes of his teammates. He was amazed at her strength. As soon as they were concealed in the shadows, her lips were on his, her hands groping him. He kissed her back hungrily, pushing her against the wall and pressing his body against hers. She responded with a soft moan before she pushed him away. There was a slightly sinister smile on her lips that appealed to him.
“Just a taste for now, football star,” she whispered.
“Oh, I see,” Rick said. “It’s like that. You’re a tease.”
“Not me, baby,” she replied, gazing seductively into his eyes. “But I have something you’re going to want even more than what you want right now.”
Rick grunted out a laugh. “Yeah?” he said. “What’s that?”
“Information,” she whispered. “You know all those holes your old man and his partner are digging under buildings all over town?”
Automatically, Rick went on guard—and his resentment toward his father flared briefly. He knew they were looking for something; he’d overheard enough of his dad’s phone calls to know that much. But the one time he’d asked about it, all he got was a terse, “Mind your own business.” It pissed him off that his own father didn’t trust him enough to tell him what was going on.
“Yeah—what about it?”
She moved a little further away from him and put her hands on her hips. “The Flatliners know what they’re looking for,” she said smugly. “And they’re going to find it first, unless you and your crew stop them.”
“Really?” Rick said. “And why would you tell me that?”
“Because I’m getting a little sick of sitting home alone while my boyfriend is out half the night with his little search party.” She tilted her head and smiled up at him again. “As you can tell, I’m a girl who doesn’t really enjoy spending time alone.”
“That’s too bad,” he said. “What do you expect me to do about it?”
“Why are you asking me? Man, if your so-called gang was back in South Central, you’d know what to do.” Rick was pretty sure she was insulting him, but he didn’t mind. Coming from her, even that was kind of hot. When Rick didn’t say anything, she finished, “Like I said, you’ve got to stop them. Unless your dad and his partner don’t care if someone steals the treasure right out from under their noses.”
“The treasure . . . do you know what it is?” Rick asked.
“Don’t you?” she countered.
“Of course I do,” he lied.
“So—you gonna to stop them?”
“You got that right,” he blurted, then paused. “Wait a second. “What do you get out of all this?”
“That depends on how valuable it is. But if you find it first, you cut me in. We got a deal?”
Rick shrugged. If his dad and Mr. Shao were putting this much effort into finding something, it had to be worth millions; it would be no big deal to throw her a few thousand bucks. Not that he’d actually pay her anyway.
“Sure,” he agreed.
“Okay,” she said, evidently satisfied. She held her phone out to him. “Put your number in. If you get a call from me, you better pick up because I’m only calling you once.”
It still seemed too good to be true, Rick thought as he entered his number. “Maybe you’re setting me and the Toppers up for an ambush,” he said. “How do I know this isn’t a trap?”
She moved close to him again. “You don’t,” she said. “There’s only one way to find out. But if I give you a tip and you act on it and put an end to the Flatliners’ little treasure hunt—” She paused then, and leaned closer so that her body was touching his, her head tilted up just beneath his chin. Before she spoke again, her lips traced a sensuous pattern on his neck. “Well, who knows how I’ll show my gratitude?” she finished.
The longer he stood there with her, the more aroused he got. She was good, he thought—damn good. If it was a trick, this girl was going the extra mile to pull it off. That was for sure. She stood on tiptoe and kissed him once more.
“All right,” Rick said, stepping back. One more minute that close to her and he was going to lose control. “You got a deal. Where are they going next?”
“The train graveyard, tomorrow night. I’ll call you with a time. And I’m riding with you—that’s part of the deal.”
“I’m playing in the championship game. There’s no way we’ll be back in town before eleven p.m.”
“That’s about the time they’re gonna roll,” Clarisse said. “I’ll send you the exact location as soon as I know.”
“If the Flatliners see you with me they’ll run you out of town.”
“I know—so you’re going to drop me off near the action, where they won’t see me.”
Rick couldn’t believe his good fortune. With Bran backing him, his move to get himself elected temporary leader of the Toppers, at least until Zhai turned up again, had worked. And if this little Flats bitch was telling the truth, he would have an opportunity to put an end to the Flatliners for good. If the Toppers could get the upper hand in a surprise ambush, they could hurt those punks so bad they would flatline for real. It was going to be awesome. He would win a state championship and demolish his enemies all in the same night.
“Well, I guess this is my lucky day,” he said, already smiling at the thought of all the Flats rats he was going to crush.
“Later, football star,” she said with a wink, and she took off down the hall.
Rick stepped out of the alcove and watched appreciatively as she hurried away. She looked as good going as she did coming, he thought. He and the Toppers would check out her little piece of intel, he decided—and even if she was lying (especially if she was lying) he would get lucky with her. One way or the other that little bit of fine, hot stuff was going to give him the reward she’d promised.
He heard someone approaching behind him.
“Rick!” Bran called. “I been looking everywhere for you, man. Coach is freaking out.” Rick was still staring down the hall, watching as Clarisse disappeared around the corner. “Who was that?”
“An angel,” Rick said, unable to repress a grin. “A sexy little angel of death. Come on.” He clapped Bran on the shoulder pad. “Let’s go out there and bust some heads.”
“You did what?” Dalton looked stricken and Aimee rushed to explain.
“It wasn’t like a real date,” she said. “It was my dad’s idea. They’re putting some kind of deal together.”
“Well,” Dalton said. “To be honest, I don’t understand why your father would want to go into business with the son of the guy who kidnapped you. But I get it—it was just one of those social things you Hilltop Haven types have to do once in a while. So what’s the big deal?”
“He’s . . . he’s interested in me,” she said. “You know—like, interested.”
The last class had just finished and they were in Miss Pembrook’s room, waiting for her to bring some research materials in from her car. Aimee didn’t know exactly why she had decided to tell Dalton about her evening with Orias—maybe for some kind of absolution, she thought glumly. Confession was supposed to be good for the soul. But it wasn’t working—she still felt guilty.
“So you told him about Raphael, right?” Dalton asked.
“He already knew about Raphael.”
“So like I said—what’s the big deal?”
“He kissed me, Dalton. And . . . I kissed him back.”
Dalton’s mouth dropped open in shock. For a moment she was speechless, and then, “Girl—what is wrong with you?”
Aimee put her head down on the desk and closed her eyes. “I know,” she said miserably. “But I felt—I almost felt sorry for him. He’s nothing like his father—he hates Oberon as much as I do.”
Dalton responded with her trademark, squinty-eyed, you-gotta-be-kidding-me stare, and Aimee wanted to tell her all of it—how she’d teleported up Orias’s staircase and then out onto his front lawn—but she knew it would sound crazy. She’d never told Dalton everything about the day Oberon abducted her—she and Raphael had decided after her rescue that they’d keep the supernatural elements of the story to themselves.
Raphael.
Thinking of him now made her so sad. As if reading her mind, Dalton asked, “What about Raphael?”
“I love him,” Aimee said quickly, and in her mind she knew that was true. But even as she said it, a deeper, darker part of her was crying out for Orias.
“If you love him, then what are you doing kissing someone else?” Dalton asked, as Aimee had already asked herself a dozen times.
She sat up and looked at Dalton. “I don’t know. When I’m around him, I just feel so . . .” Aimee struggled to continue, but there were no words for how she felt around Orias. Intoxicated, alive, terrified, free, trapped: all accurate descriptions, but somehow insufficient. “But it won’t happen again—that I do know.” She finished.
But when she tried to remember Raphael’s face, all she could see was Orias bending to her, his lips parted, getting closer and closer . . .
Miss Pembrook came in then, pulling a suitcase on wheels. Dalton whispered to Aimee, “You know this conversation is not over.”
The teacher hoisted her suitcase up onto one of the desks, opened it, and started unpacking books, periodicals, and folders, which she placed on the table in front of them.
“How’s it going, girls?” she asked, looking from one to the other when they both remained silent. “Aimee—everything okay?”
Absently, Aimee looked up and forced a smile. “Oh, yeah—sorry. Everything’s fine.”
“Okay, good. Then let’s get to work.”
Aimee knew Dalton was still looking at her as if she’d lost her mind, but Miss Pembrook didn’t seem to notice. As she put another stack of books and a cardboard box in the center of the table, she said, “All right, girls—dig in.”
They both reached for the box at the same time, but Dalton pushed it toward Aimee and grabbed a big, cloth-bound book instead. Aimee opened the box and looked inside, relieved to see it was full of pictures instead of old, musty manuscripts. Today of all days, looking at pictures was probably all her brain could handle. She pulled out a big stack and started to sift through them.
“I borrowed those photos from an archive at the Middleburg Library,” Miss Pembrook said. “See if there’s anything interesting in there. Especially pictures of the church or the tunnels.”
Aimee nodded and turned her attention to the photographs. The first was a portrait of a family that looked like it was taken a really long time ago—like right after photography was invented. The next image was an old farmhouse. The next was a big, old city hall building with a clock tower that, according to the caption, had burned down sometime in the late 1800s. The next one was an old, faded sepia picture, printed on thick cardstock. In it were seven women. The one in the middle was taller than the rest, and she was beautiful, with shoulder-length blonde hair styled in a more modern fashion than the others. Aimee leaned closer and blinked, unable to trust her own eyes. The photo was grainy and faded, even a little water-stained along one edge, but there was no mistaking it.
The woman was her mother.
But it couldn’t be. She flipped it over. On the back, she found an inscription, written in a graceful hand:
Middleburg United Church Women’s Club, March 9th, 1877. Gertrude Hennig, Rebecca Brown, Constance Buchwald, Emily Banfield, Peggy Emerson, Bernice Beuller and Lilly Thorpe.
Aimee flipped the picture back over and stared at it for so long her eyes began to water. When Dalton left to use the restroom and Miss Pembrook was busy at her desk, Aimee slipped the old photograph into her pocket. It couldn’t be an ancestor, a coincidence, or a simple resemblance. It was impossible, unthinkable, ludicrous, but there was no doubt about it: somehow, her mom was in the year 1877.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Raphael was sprawled on the couch in his living room, the curtains drawn, his face buried in pillows, an old quilt pulled up over his head, when the knocking woke him. He prayed that whoever it was would go away, but they didn’t. They knocked again, and then he heard the doorknob twist and the door swing open. Tentative footsteps crossed to his bedroom and then came back to the living room. Any other day he would have been up in a heartbeat, ready to beat the intruder down—but not today.
Just go ahead and kill me, he thought. Just put me out of my misery.
“Hey—I thought kung fu masters were supposed to be vigilant.”
At the sound of the familiar voice, Raphael sat up and pulled the quilt off his head with a soft groan.
Nass sat on the arm of the couch, watching him. He was holding a black briefcase. “I didn’t see you after lunch. What’s up?”
Raphael shook his head. “I had to get out of there. I’ve got a lot on my mind.”
He wondered if Maggie was keeping her promise not to tell anyone about Aimee and Orias, and if anyone else in Middleburg had seen them kissing. Middleburg, he thought with contempt. Where gossip travels at the speed of light.
He wondered how long it would be before word got back to him that Aimee had dumped him. That would give the Toppers something new to laugh about over their filet mignons.
“Want to talk about it?” Nass asked.
Raph considered. After he’d seen Aimee and decided not to go back to class, he’d left school and wandered around in the cold until time lost its meaning, until every part of him—his toes, his cheeks, his fingers, and finally his heart—was numb. He walked around downtown, up River Road, across the Flats, until he felt at one with the snow: blank, white, empty. It wasn’t coming down hard anymore, just slow and steady and several times in the swirling flakes, he heard (or imagined) the Magician’s shrill
laugh, and his mocking questions:
Did you think she would love you forever?
Did you think you deserved her love?
Did you think you could really keep her happy?
Foolish boy, all things corrupt.
When at last Raphael could no longer bear the cold, he had made his way back to his apartment, climbed the stairs, and passed out on the couch, hoping never to wake up. His mom was out, probably lined up to fill out an application to work for Orias Morrow, like everybody else in town.
“What time is it?” he asked Ignacio, rubbing his eyes.
“Almost four. So what do you want to do? You got any more of those kung fu flicks?”
Raphael smiled. He felt miserable, but maybe it was better to be miserable with a friend than miserable alone. At least it was a distraction, until he could figure out what to do about Aimee. Besides, sitting around his apartment waiting for a phone call that wasn’t going to come would only drive him crazy.
“Actually, I think we should do some treasure hunting,” he said. “You and me.” The thought occurred to him just that moment, but it felt right. It was better to be out there, doing something. If he could find the treasure, get lots of cash, and solve the eviction problems for everyone in the Flats, that was way better than moping around on the couch.
“What about the Obies?” Nass asked.
Raphael shrugged. “Whatever. I’m not worried if you’re not.”
Nass grinned. “I thought you might say that.” He moved the black briefcase to his lap and clicked the latches. It popped open to reveal the silver divining rod inside.
“Wow,” Raphael said. “You came prepared.”
“Yeah,” Nass agreed. “I had a feeling we’d need it tonight. Let’s do this.”
Chin walked slowly down the hallway, gazing at each tapestry as he passed, with Violet Anderson trailing in his wake. He thought she seemed a little calmer these days but there was still a strange, heartbreaking gleam in her eyes that was far too close to madness. She kept glancing at the basement door.
GHOST CROWN: THE TRACKS TRILOGY - Book Two Page 36