Mortal Kiss

by Alice Moss

  Chapter 15: Home Visit

  Nerves bubbled in Liz’s gut as she pulled up outside the Morrow mansion. Part of it was the idea of seeing Lucas at home, part of it was the idea of being in such an amazing house at all, and part of it was left over from the fight with Faye the night before. Sometime after their showdown, Liz had looked around the party and realized that Faye was no longer there. She must have left soon after Liz had told her she wasn’t going to get a ride home.

  Liz looked in the mirror, adjusting her eye makeup and reapplying her coral-pink lip gloss, trying to ignore the shadow of guilt that haunted her. It was her own fault, Liz told herself. You just don’t do that to a friend.…

  Friends don’t leave others to walk home alone in the dark, either, said another voice, one that Liz was determined to ignore. She climbed out of her old rust bucket of a car and slammed the door, looking up at Lucas’s home.

  It was huge and imposing, just as her dad had said. He’d come back from his meeting with Mercy a couple of hours earlier, and Liz had been eager to learn as much as she could. He’d been in a strange mood, though, unwilling to talk. The only thing he’d said before he shut himself in his study was that Mercy’s mansion was a lonely place. That was what had made up Liz’s mind about paying this surprise visit. She’d imagined Lucas holed up in this big house with no company and had told herself he’d welcome a visit; after Faye had left the party, they’d had quite a lot of fun, even if he had kept asking where Faye had gone.

  Liz ran up the steps and rang the doorbell. A few moments later she heard the sound of heavy footsteps, and the door opened to reveal the man who had driven Lucas to school on his first day. Liz tried not to shiver as she looked at him, but he really did look scary. He was big and broad-shouldered, with a shiny bald head—not even a hint of hair. It was his face, though, that was really alarming. His eyes were deep-set and very dark, and seemed to be permanently angry. His nose was flattened as if it had been broken at some point, and his lower lip bore a long scar that ran down and cut into his chin.

  The man looked her up and down. His expression was openly hostile. “Help you?”

  “It’s Mr. Ballard, isn’t it? I, uh, I’ve come to see Lucas. Is he in?”

  He stared at her for another moment before opening the door wider and gesturing for Liz to step inside.

  Ballard led her up the massive stone staircase swiftly, turning left at the top, then right into another corridor, and then right again into yet another. Liz looked around her, intimidated by the sheer size of the house—it was like a maze! There were doors everywhere, all shut. They kept walking, and Liz became aware of the sound of music up ahead. It came from behind a door at the end of the last corridor they had turned into. Ballard walked up to it and knocked twice, hard.

  There was a pause before the door was flung open and Lucas stood in the doorway, a scowl on his face. “What?”

  Ballard flicked his head toward Liz. “Friend of yours to see you.”

  Lucas looked past him and offered a faint smile. “Oh, hey, Liz. Come in.” He nodded curtly at Ballard, who stalked past her and away down the echoing corridor. “I wasn’t expecting any visitors.”

  “Um … I just thought I’d pay a friendly call,” Liz said as Lucas shut the door behind her. “That’s OK, isn’t it?”

  Lucas wandered farther into the room. “Well, I don’t mind—but Mom can be a bit weird about it. She doesn’t really like uninvited guests.”

  “Oh,” said Liz, beginning to feel uneasy. “Sorry.”

  Lucas shrugged dismissively. “Do you want a drink? I’ve got juice, or Coke.…”

  “Coke would be great, thanks.” Liz glanced around the room while music poured from an expensive-looking sound system in the corner. A large, slouchy sofa stood beside it—Lucas had obviously been lying on it, reading, because it was surrounded by music and car magazines. A big flat-screen TV hung on the wall opposite, but Liz was most impressed by the drum kit, keyboard, guitar and microphone, all set up as if a band had just left.

  Then she realized something else. “You don’t have a bed!” she blurted, surprised.

  Lucas walked to the sound system, glancing at her as he turned it down. “This is just my den. My bedroom’s next door.”

  “Oh. Right. Of course.… That makes sense …,” Liz said, kicking herself. Way to seem like a poor hick, Liz.

  “So …,” Lucas said, handing her a Coke and waving for her to sit down. “Was there a specific reason for your coming over?”

  “No, not really. I just thought … you left the party pretty suddenly last night. I just thought I’d see if you were OK.”

  Lucas raised an eyebrow, an impish sparkle in his eye. “Really? Just that? You didn’t think it might be a good excuse to have a look inside the Mysterious Morrow Mansion? Seriously. I think I spent most of my night last night ignoring hints. Everyone wants to come over to hang out.”

  “No!” Liz protested, feeling herself flush—because if she was really honest with herself, that was exactly one of the reasons she’d come. “I just … I just thought you might like some company, that’s all. Stuck here in this big house with nothing to do.”

  “Take a look around,” Lucas teased. “I think I’ve got plenty to do, don’t you?”

  Liz swallowed, trying to stop herself from blushing. She was desperate to act cool around him, but that plan seemed to be failing. “So, which do you play, then?” she asked. “Or do you sing?”

  “I play guitar mostly. I had lessons when I was younger. I write songs, too—or at least, I used to. Haven’t for a while now.”

  “Did you hear what Jimmy said last night about the Battle of the Bands?”

  “Jimmy. That’s the little geeky one, right? With the crazy glasses.”

  “Yes,” Liz laughed. “He’s a geek, all right. Really smart, though. He was telling me about this competition that tours around high schools, looking for the best new talent. It’s run by all these big music executives. Anyone can enter—you can sing or play, either solo or in a band. And the best one gets a record contract. And it’s coming here, in a few weeks. How cool is that?”

  Lucas grinned. “That depends.”

  Liz frowned. “Depends on what?”

  “On whether there’s any talent around here! Won’t be much of a show if these guys turn up and there’s nothing good going on.”

  “Oh, a few of my friends are going to enter,” Liz said. “Rachel Hogan’s got an amazing voice. And Trey Finkler plays electric guitar really well. And then there’s Matt—”

  “Don’t tell me,” Lucas interrupted, “he’s a drummer, right? He must be. All drummers are called Matt.”

  Liz laughed. “Actually, he plays keyboards. But Winter Mill High has a couple of good drummers, too.”

  Lucas sighed theatrically. “Sounds like I’m going to have competition.”

  “Really? So you’re going to enter?”

  He shrugged. “Sure, why not? All I need is the perfect song. And I kind of got inspired by someone last night.”

  Liz’s heart beat a little faster, and she suddenly found herself playing nervously with her Coke can. “Oh?”

  Lucas nodded. “Yeah. Cheesy, I know, but meeting a girl you like is always good inspiration. Especially when she’s so … different.”

  She risked a look at his face. Was he talking about her? Oh, please, she begged silently, please let him mean me. We danced, after all. We had fun. He must mean—

  “Does she always carry that camera around with her?” Lucas asked suddenly. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen her without it.”

  Liz’s vision blurred slightly, and she swallowed hard. Faye. He was talking about Faye.

  “Uh … Faye, you mean? Yeah, she’s always got it with her. She wants to be a photographer. She’s really good.”

  Lucas nodded. “So … is she seeing anyone? You know—has she got a boyfriend? Someone she’s going steady with?”

  Liz stood up, placing her half-empty drink
can on the floor and keeping her back to Lucas so he couldn’t see her face. “No … no, she doesn’t. I mean, she did, for a while, last year. There was this guy called Ryan, but they were never serious. He moved away, and they haven’t kept in touch.”

  “That’s really great!” Lucas said, standing up. “So … do you think you could put in a good word for me? I know you and she are really close.”

  “Me?” Liz asked faintly.

  “Yeah.” Lucas barreled on, apparently oblivious to her discomfort. “I’m not sure she likes me. I thought I’d made up for that stupid gag I made when we first met, but then last night she just left, without saying goodbye. I couldn’t find her anywhere.”

  “Um …” Liz didn’t know what to say. She just wanted to get out of there.

  “She was right about you, you know,” he said.

  “Right about me?”

  “Yeah. She said you were brilliant fun and a really good friend. Thanks for making me feel welcome, Liz—at school, and at the party last night. I thought being here in Winter Mill was going to be a drag, but maybe I was wrong.”

  “So … so you really like Faye, huh?” Liz asked, forcing herself to look him in the eye and smile.

  Lucas nodded, looking slightly embarrassed. “Yeah. That first time that I met you both? When she was mad at me for calling her Flash? I kept thinking about her all day.” He shrugged. “Girls don’t usually get me that way. It just felt … as if I’d seen her before somewhere, but I can’t have, can I?”

  Liz managed to get through the rest of the conversation without showing how she really felt, but only barely.

  Chapter 16: Belongings

  Lucas watched from his window as Liz’s little car pulled away from the front door and rattled off down the driveway. She’d gotten a bit quiet after he’d asked her about Faye. Maybe he’d sounded like an idiot, with all that stuff about being inspired, but he just couldn’t get Faye out of his head. Talking to her at the party had filled him with a kind of hope. Maybe he and his mom should stay in Winter Mill for a while—a long while. Lucas could have proper friends. And a girlfriend. It’d be like having a normal life, where he was just one of the crowd, with a home that he lived in for more than just a few weeks, and with no photographers nosing around to see what his mom was up to. That would be great.

  The car disappeared around a snowy bend, and Lucas let the blind fall back into place. He was excited by what Liz had told him about the Battle of the Bands competition, too. All he needed to do was come up with a killer song. Who knew, maybe this was his chance? His chance to prove that he was more than just a shadow in his mother’s footsteps. And if he did win—well, it would mean he wouldn’t need her anymore. He could get away, build his own life, his own home.

  Determined to start right away, Lucas went to his guitar. It had been so long since he’d even played that he realized he didn’t know where his guitar picks were. He searched his desk and drawers but couldn’t find them. With a sigh, he figured they were probably still packed in a box somewhere with the rest of the stuff that his mother and Ballard hadn’t unpacked yet. Lucas was usually careful to make sure he had all his own stuff, but he must have missed a box. He’d just have to go looking for it.

  Leaving the den and heading along the corridor, Lucas pushed his way into one of the disused bedrooms. There were stacks of boxes all over the floor, and even on the old four-poster bed. The house was so big that he wasn’t even sure he’d been in this room before. He’d left the heavy lifting to Ballard—if his mother was going to insist on having him around, Lucas wasn’t going to make life easy for him. The guy creeped him out.

  Lucas noticed that his mother had put another of her mirrors on the old, dusty mantelpiece. Really, Mother, what is the point? he asked her silently. Do you actually need to have a mirror in every room? No one’s ever even going to stay in this one!

  He turned away and surveyed the mess of boxes. Not sure where to start his search, he went to the nearest one and opened it. Inside were an assortment of glass ornaments, but no sign of anything belonging to him. He moved on, opening box after box but failing to find what he was looking for.

  “Come on,” he muttered to himself. “They’ve got to be here somewhere.…”

  He knelt and pulled open yet another box, sighing when he saw that it was stuffed with what looked like a leather jacket. He was about to shut the box again and move on, but something made him pause. He ran his fingers over the soft black leather and then took the jacket from the box. Holding it up, he saw that the back was emblazoned with a large embroidered silhouette of a wolf set against a bloodred moon. Beneath were the words BLACK DOGS. It looked like a biker jacket, but he had no idea what it would be doing in their house. Mercy had never owned a bike, and in any case, this was a man’s jacket. It was old, too—the elbows were scuffed from one too many brushes with the asphalt, and the collar had curled with age.

  Without thinking, Lucas pulled on the jacket. It fit perfectly. It was comfortable, too, as if it had been someone’s favorite piece of clothing, and worn often. He wondered who the owner was and where he was now. Was he still riding the motorbike he rode when he wore this? It—and the rider—must be pretty ancient by now if he was!

  Standing, Lucas walked to the mirror and looked at himself in it. The jacket made him look older somehow. He ran one hand through his unruly hair, sticking the other in one of the deep pockets. His fingers brushed against something—a piece of stiff paper, crushed at the very bottom. Pulling it out, Lucas saw that it was a photograph, badly crumpled.

  Walking to the bed, he sat and tried to flatten out the photograph. It was obviously very old—it had that strange pale brown color to it, and it had faded at the edges. He stroked his fingers over its damaged surface, seeing that it was a picture of a young woman. Her hair was dark, pulled back from her face with a simple band. She was dressed in old-fashioned clothes, like someone out of a period movie about the pioneer days. Her eyes were dark, too, and sad, but her face was beautiful. In fact, her face—

  A cold tingle ran down Lucas’s spine. Her face looked exactly like Faye’s. He blinked, wondering if he was imagining the likeness, but no—this photograph was so like Flash it was uncanny. This girl had the same high cheekbones, the same cute lips. Her hair was neater, but Lucas could see that it had the same tendency to look wild and untamed. He stared at the picture as if it could give up its secrets, and the more he stared at it, the more confused he became.

  The door opened sharply, hard enough to bang against the wall and make him jump up from the bed. Ballard stood in the doorway, scowling, his face black with anger.

  “What are you doing in here?” Ballard took in what Lucas was wearing and made a curt gesture with his hand. “Take that off.”

  Lucas bristled. “Why should I?”

  Ballard stepped toward him menacingly. “Because I told you to. Don’t stick your nose in where it doesn’t belong, you little brat.”

  “Tell me what to do again, talk to me like that again,” said Lucas, seething, “and I swear I’ll have my mother fire you.”

  Ballard threw back his head and laughed, a cruel, dry sound. “I’d like to see you try, Master Lucas, I really would. Now, get out of here before I lose my temper.”

  Lucas stood his ground. “Who does this jacket belong to? And who is this girl?”

  Ballard strode even closer, grabbing the picture from Lucas’s hand before he had a chance to step backward. Glancing at it once, Ballard crushed it in his fist and shoved it into his pocket. “What do you want me to tell you? It’s an old photograph. It was probably left here by the previous owners.”

  “Yeah, right,” Lucas said, “because of course they would have left it inside a jacket pocket in a sealed box that we brought with us.”

  Ballard growled in anger. “Out, now. Or shall I tell your mother how you’ve been rooting through her private things? I’m sure she’ll love that, won’t she?”

  Lucas shrugged, still holding the ja
cket as he walked to the door. “I was looking for a box of mine. If you’d done your job and unpacked everything already, I wouldn’t have had to, would I?”

  Ballard ignored him, shutting the door behind both of them. “The next time you want something, ask me for it,” he told Lucas before striding away.

  Lucas stared after him. Before Ballard had thrust the photo into his pocket, there had been a flash of recognition on the man’s face.

  Lucas was sure of it.

  Chapter 17: Making Up Is Hard to Do

  Liz drove straight to the mall after she’d seen Lucas, planning to go to Griffin’s, the diner that was the regular hangout for Winter Mill High teens. She thought Candi would probably be there, as well as Rachel and a few others. But as Liz walked through the mall, trying to cheer herself up with some window shopping, she just kept thinking about Faye. She’d said some horrible things the previous night, and now she wished she could take them all back. It looked like it had been love at first sight for Lucas; he hadn’t looked at Liz that way, not even once. So what was the point of losing her best friend over him?

  Nothing is the same without Faye, Liz thought to herself as she stared at a jeweler’s window display. And what did Aunt Pam say? Never let a boy come between you.

  Liz racked her brain, trying to think of a good way to apologize properly to her friend. And as she looked at a really cute range of silver “Best Friend Forever” charms, she formulated a plan.

  Pulling out her cell phone, she sent Faye a text asking her to come to the mall because she had a present for her. Liz waited nervously for a reply—maybe Faye was so mad that she’d just ignore the text, or, even worse, text back and say she never wanted to see Liz again.

  Liz paced up and down. She couldn’t lose Faye’s friendship over a stupid boy, she couldn’t.…

  “Liz? Are you OK?” She turned to see Jimmy Paulson standing a few paces away. He looked concerned. “You seem worried,” he added.