She shuddered in Jimmy’s arms.
“There’s another light,” she continued. “I’ve seen it. I saw it when I first found myself in that dark, formless place. But when I tried to go into it, I couldn’t get to it. I’ve tried since then, but I can’t get into that light.”
She looked up into Jimmy’s eyes again.
“Do you suppose that’s heaven?” she asked.
Jimmy shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t know if heaven or hell are real.”
Sapphire’s eyes cast downward. “They’re real.”
There was silence between them for a long time as each of them tried to come up with something to say after that. After a time, Sapphire looked back up at Jimmy. He leaned down and kissed her. Her lips felt soft and warm. He could smell shampoo in her hair and faint traces of perfume against her neck. He could even smell what he thought was laundry detergent in her clothing. Jimmy smiled.
This was no ghost.
This was something else. Somehow, something between them had created a kind of bridge between the other side and this side. Maybe, just maybe, something between Jimmy and Sapphire had been so strong that it had punched through one of those thin spots that Knorr seemed infested with. And something had been so strong that it held the door open between this side and the other side. What’s more, that bridge was changing.
It was getting stronger.
At first it had been tentative and unsure. She was shy and scared; perhaps Jimmy was just like the other guys she had tried to reach. She was cold when he touched her, but each time they connected, a bit more of whatever it was that had connected them flowed from Jimmy into her. Each time they got together, she was more here, more real. Now they could hear each other’s thoughts, thoughts that extended beyond the veil. Whether the something special was in Sapphire or Jimmy or just some kind of amazing thing that happened only when they were together, he had no idea.
“What are we going to do, Sapphire?” Jimmy asked.
She looked up at him again. “I don’t know, Jimmy.”
Sapphire reached out and touched Jimmy’s head. Her fingers touched the bandage and she looked sad.
“Does it hurt?” she asked.
Jimmy shook his head. “Nothing hurts when I’m with you. I’m in big trouble with my mom, though.”
“I’m sorry,” Sapphire said. “What else happened today?”
Jimmy told her. He told her about the investigations that he and George had done. He told her about talking to Tabitha and Warren. He told her about the missing files.
“Oh no,” Sapphire whispered after a long silence. “Oh no, Jimmy, what have I done? I’ve gotten you into something big, haven’t I?”
Jimmy shrugged. They moved to sit on the small concrete wall that served as a barrier for cars and indicated the edge of the bridge.
“You and I connected for a reason,” Jimmy said. “I love you. I’ve never felt this way before, but it’s more than that. It goes beyond what other people say about love, Sapphire.”
Jimmy paused and looked at her. He had his arms around her shoulder, but her head was up and she studied his face.
“What does that mean?” she asked.
“It means that I’ll do whatever is necessary to help you,” he said. “The worst that happens is I end up in the same place you are, but at least we’d be together.”
“Don’t say that,” Sapphire said. “Don’t ever think that, Jimmy. Please.”
She shuddered beneath his arm. They were silent for a while. Jimmy and Sapphire stared up at the sky. Above them, the stars stood as silent witness to the impossibility that was the two of them in the same place, at the same time, in that exact spot. If there were answers to how any of it was possible, they were not to be found in the whispering trees as the breeze blew or the stars and planets shining above them.
“Let’s not talk about the sad stuff anymore,” Sapphire said. A smile crept across her face. “Just kiss me.”
So he did.
They held each other for a long time. Jimmy finally looked at his watch and realized it was almost two in the morning. Despite his desire to stay with her until the sun came up, he said goodbye to Sapphire. She held him tight and parting was agony, but she eventually did her walk around the end of the bridge and then vanished. Jimmy got on his bicycle and headed home.
During the rest of the ride he tried not to think. He tried not to worry about the mess he was in and who he was likely to find at the end of this dark road he had decided to walk upon. He had no answers for how anything that had happened between him and Sapphire was possible. He could drive himself crazy trying to work it out, or he could accept it and just go on. He had things to do now.
He arrived back at his house about fifteen minutes later. Jimmy parked his bike in the back of the house and crept around to the front and the window to his room. He lifted the window gently and then hoisted himself up. He stepped on the surface of the desk silently and was soon in his room. The house was quiet.
Jimmy got down from the desk and crept to the door. He could hear his mother snoring behind the door of her room. He nodded in approval; his ruse appeared to have worked. He quickly used the restroom and then crept back into his room and undressed. He stripped down to his boxers and then collapsed into bed. It was only then that he realized how mentally and physically exhausted he was.
Before he fell asleep, he let his mind reach out in that way he had done before, earlier that day.
Goodnight, Sapphire, he thought.
After a moment, that strange static sound filled his head.
Goodnight, Jimmy, was her reply.
Jimmy fell asleep with a smile on his face. In his dreams he held Sapphire’s hand tight. They were older. They were married. When Jimmy turned to look into Sapphire’s face, he saw that she had wrinkles around her eyes and the edges of her mouth. Jimmy studied his own hand and saw that the skin was older, slightly more wrinkled.
With those thoughts in his head, Jimmy fell in to a deep sleep and dreamed the night away.
9
Jimmy was awakened by his mother the next morning before she set off for work. Before she stepped out onto the front porch and got into her car she poked her head into his room.
“Don’t sleep all day,” she said. “Get up and put the dishes in the dishwasher away, at a bare minimum. Also, don’t forget to contact George about your homework. I don’t want you to fall behind.”
“OK, Mom,” Jimmy replied. He barely raised his head off of his pillow.
When he heard the front door slam, Jimmy put his face back down into the pillow and managed to sleep for another hour. When he awoke again, the sunlight was reflecting off of something metal outside and directly into Jimmy’s eyes. He decided it was time to get up and do some research today.
His head did not feel too bad. In fact, he felt pretty good and he was excited now that the sun was out. Yes, he was still in a heap of trouble. He also wondered if George was going to catch any grief from the people at school who were fans of the football team just because he was known to be Jimmy’s friend.
Jimmy ate breakfast before putting the dishes away so that his mother would not have anything to complain about. Then he sat down in the living room with a small notebook that he got out of his backpack. With the television on he sat there, chewing on the end of a pen and tried to come up with some notes, writing each note in big block letters.
TALK TO JESSE
He paused and looked at that. Jesse would be back at the library today. Jimmy wanted to make sure that Jesse knew that someone had been tampering with the periodical archives.
MEET WITH TABITHA AND WARREN
That was obvious. He needed to head into town and stop by the newspaper’s new offices. He wondered if Tabitha was already looking and if she had found anything.
DOES SAPPHIRE HAVE FAMILY?
This thought had occurred to him on his ride home the prior night. Sapphire had to have been some one's daughter, and possibly someone's s
ister. Surely there would be someone who would have known her still alive somewhere. Were they still somewhere in the area? Had they moved away? What did they know?
WHO WOULD BE POWERFUL ENOUGH TO DO THIS?
That was a major question and concern. Jimmy had no idea who could have the wealth and resources to destroy the archives. Not that the local newspaper was The New York Times, but if people were hacking into the digital archives, that meant someone with a few resources and some know-how. Who could that be? When Jimmy tried to run down the candidates, he got chills. He started with the mayor, and by the time he got to Stan Little’s father, he was scared enough that he wasn’t sure he wanted to get on his bike and head out into the world after all.
Jimmy stared at his list. He had to admit that it was rather pathetic. In the movies, the detectives always had some kind of chalkboard or corkboard covered with names and ideas and suggestions and questions with red lines going from one photo or idea to the next. Then, at some key point, the hero would stand back, study it all at once, and the entire puzzle would suddenly fall into place. Jimmy looked at his pitiful notes and general lack of ideas and answers and felt disheartened.
WAS IT AN ACCIDENT OR MURDER?
He jotted that down last. He paused and frowned. Jimmy had just been assuming that Sapphire was murdered. At the same time, it could have been an accident. Maybe she had been in a car that had gone off the road right at the bridge. Or maybe she had been walking down the side of the road and got hit by a car. Then why cover it up? To Jimmy, the answer to that was obvious. Someone important had been driving either the car that Sapphire had been in or the car that had hit her, and someone else had stepped in to erase all traces of the accident.
How far did the erasing go? That thought entered Jimmy’s brain and stuck around a bit. George and Jimmy had not had a chance to look at old Knorr High yearbooks. Had Sapphire’s name been removed from those, as well? Jimmy had never heard of anyone, at any time, not teacher or students, talk about a girl named Sapphire. He had also never heard the urban legend of the hitchhiking girl in the blue dress on the side of the road before. And normally you would think that those kinds of stories would go roaring around a high school. It seemed like the story teenagers would find fascinating and would dare each other to drive up and down around the bridge in hopes of seeing the vanishing hitchhiker.
It was very much as if there had been a concerted effort to erase Sapphire from existence. Only people dedicated to knowing every single story and aspect about this town, like Tabitha, would know it. Someone had gone to great lengths to make the people of Knorr forget that a girl named Sapphire had ever existed.
Jimmy frowned. That seemed to point to one thing: murder.
Jimmy looked up at the clock. It was just after eight. His mother would be at work until five and would get home just after six. He had to time this right or he might never get out of his room, and then all of the goodwill he had attempted to raise between himself and his mother as of late would be undone. He didn’t want either of those things to happen.
Jimmy stepped out into the brilliant sunlight. He looked up into the sky and it was a bright blue sky. There were white fluffy clouds here and there and a steady and stiff breeze blowing out of the northwest. The trees shook and waved at him with each gust. It felt good. It had been a very hot summer, and Jimmy was glad fall was on the way.
Jimmy got his bike out of the backyard and jumped on. He pedaled away, trying to calculate in his mind what he had to do and how much he would be able to get done. The first thing he needed to do was visit Jesse. He wanted to know what the librarian knew and if he had any ideas on who might have been able to do what had obviously been done. Right now it would be early enough that Jesse would have the library pretty much to himself. Jimmy and Jesse would be able to talk almost uninterrupted.
Jimmy rode the highways and byways. The library was farther away than the school and Tabitha’s place, and involved a lot more riding up and down hills. By the time he reached the little touristy area of town, he was out of breath and his legs felt like rubber. He found a spot for his bike near the back door and leaned it up against the building. After that he made his way around to the front.
The parking lot outside the library was nearly empty. He saw the small Toyota that Jesse drove parked in an out of the way place. Right near the entrance to the library was a large black pickup truck. There was something familiar about the truck, but Jimmy couldn't put his finger on it.
Jimmy mounted the stairs and pushed his way through the front door. He peered through the inner doors into the front part of the library. The librarian’s desk was empty. Jimmy pushed open the door and stepped in.
Jimmy walked over to the desk. The computer was on and Jesse’s bag, the black one that looked made of some strange fabric, was there. He always kept it behind the desk, leaning against one edge. Blackie, his dog, was not there at the desk. Neither was Jesse, but at least Jimmy knew that he was in the building.
Jimmy turned around and was about to call out when he heard a voice. Jimmy halted, his mouth open and one hand up, the sound caught in his throat. He could not understand the words, but it was a deep voice, filled with anger, and just like with the truck outside, there was something very familiar about it.
Near the area that opened into the children’s portion of the library was a small hallway. The hallway was, at most, five feet long. Old pictures of Knorr hung on the walls, and the hall ended in a small room lined with more photos. There was an old card catalog in the room and dozens of books and maps that gave a detailed history of Knorr. It was actually called the Knorr Historical Museum. It was a bit of a joke, considering how small the room was, but it was also lovingly taken care of. The voices were coming from that direction.
Jimmy crept slowly between the racks of books and made his way towards the historical center. He knew just about every board and creak in this place, and he stepped cautiously and carefully, trying to dodge around the places he knew might give him away. The voices got louder, but he still could not make out any words.
One voice was definitely Jesse’s.
The other, well, he still wasn’t sure, but there was that nagging feeling that he had heard it before.
Jimmy inched closer. He walked in a ridiculous exaggerated way, taking wide steps, setting his feet down carefully and quietly. Sweat ran down his face, edging down his chin and dripping to the floor. He hadn’t thought it was very hot in here, but now he felt like he was roasting. His heart thudded like a bass drum in his chest.
“It’s nothing,” he heard a voice say. That had to be Jesse.
“Nothing!” the louder voice roared. “How can you say that? My son tells me that he saw her there with that little punk. Do you have any idea of how crazy that is? He says that idiot friend of his, Clint, tried to dance with her.”
Jimmy froze. He suddenly realized that they were talking about the dance. More to the point, they were talking about him and Sapphire. Then, like a slap across his face, he suddenly realized to whom that louder voice belonged.
Devlin Little.
Jimmy felt as if he had swallowed cotton. His throat was as dry as sandpaper. He crept forward more, easing down with each step. He reached the end of that short hallway and slid all the way down to the floor. He sat there, crouched, leaning in toward the hallway, straininghis ears to listen.
“This is crazy,” he heard Jesse say. “There’s nothing to this, Dev. I mean, what are you saying? Are you saying that she’s still alive? Are you saying that all of those legends of a hitchhiking girl in blue are true? You sound insane.”
“Don’t tell me I sound crazy,” Devlin said. “Of course none of this makes sense, but I don’t like that kid. I think he’s trouble. Can you believe what he did to my son and those other football players? That kind of thing has to be drugs or something. I don’t know, but I get the feeling he’s going to start snooping around. His friend George is walking around telling everyone his friend Jimmy has a girlfr
iend.”
“What?” Jesse asked.
“You heard me,” Devlin replied.
Jesse sighed so loudly that Jimmy heard it in the hallway.
“I didn’t know George had gotten involved,” Jesse said.
“Well, he is,” Devlin said, sounding rather stupid.
“So what do you want me to do?” Jesse asked.
“You’re close to that creepy kid,” Devlin replied. “Just discourage him. Get him off the topic and onto something else.”
There was a long pause. Jimmy felt sweat dripping down his back and his chest. He blinked back drips of sweat that had oozed into his eyes. He realized he had not been breathing and he let himself catch a breath.
“I’ll do my best,” Jesse said at last. “What if he won’t give up?”
Jimmy heard Devlin walking across the hardwood floor. Jimmy could picture that Devlin had walked toward the far end of the room and then came charging back to get right into Jesse’s face.
“Then we find ways to take care of him,” Devlin hissed.
Jimmy felt chills run up and down his spine.
There was another long pause.
“I don’t even want to think about what you’re implying,” Jesse said quietly.
“You won’t have to,” Devlin said. “I’ll take care of things. Now, I gotta get out of here. This place gives me the creeps and my son’s at home with a fractured face. If I see that meddling kid, I might just strangle him regardless.”
Jimmy jumped as if he had been shocked. He stood up quickly, his knees protesting. Pins and needles shot down his legs, but he forced his feet to move and move fast. He broke into a strange kind of loping run as he leaped from place to place, trying to simultaneously land lightly and quietly and avoid the creaking spots. He finally reached a row of books and ducked down, scrambling all the way to the end. He then shot around the end and stood there, breathing hard, sweating as if he had just run a marathon in the desert, and peeked around the corner.
Devlin Little stormed past. He was wearing huge, thick work boots that clomped loudly, and his face was set in something approaching a sneer. He stomped past, and soon Jimmy heard the front door open and then close. A few moments after that, he heard the truck outside start up and then peel out of the parking lot.
Sapphire: A Paranormal Romance Page 13