Connecting (26 page)

Maybe fathers and sons aren’t quite as demonstrative as fathers and daughters, but Blue and his dad sure didn’t have much of a reunion just now, after a week apart.

Suddenly, Calla spots the shadow again, out of the corner of her eye, and swivels her head to catch it. There it is, lurking in the far corner of the room.

“I guess he came in with you,” David Slayton says cryptically. “What are you talking about?” Blue asks.

Calla turns to see his father leveling a look at her. “You see him.”

“Excuse me?” she says.

He tilts his head in the direction of the phantom being in the corner.

Blue turns in that direction with a searching frown but says nothing.

He doesn’t see it, Calla realizes.

She asks David, “Who is he?”

He shrugs. “I have no idea. With shadow people . . . you never know.”

She digests that and nods.

“So you’re the real deal, then,” David Slayton says to Calla.

“No, she isn’t, Dad. Calla’s not into that. She’s just visiting her grandmother.” Blue is obviously thrilled to contradict his father, and something tells Calla it’s better for her not to contradict Blue.

“Who’s your grandmother?”

“Odelia Lauder. Do you know her?” Calla asks, though she knows the answer.

“Odelia Lauder.” David smiles faintly and rubs his chin. “I’ve known her for years.”

“How many years?” Calla wonders, suddenly, whether he knew her mother as well.

“Oh, fifteen . . . maybe twenty.”

“Did you know my mother? Stephanie?”

His answer is straightforward. “No.”

The microwave beeps and he turns to open it.

“She passed away over the summer,” Calla tells him, not sure why she’s offering the information. It’s not like she needs his sympathy—or Blue’s, for that matter.

His back to her as he stirs honey into his mug, David says only, “That’s hard. I’m sorry.”

She never knows what to say in response to that, other than, “Thanks.”

Blue’s father turns back to her, holding his mug.

“You’re an unusual girl.”

Disconcerted by his stare as much as the comment, she tries to make light of it, forcing a laugh. “Gee, thanks. I’ve been called worse.”

He doesn’t apologize.

“Dad, what the heck are you talking about?” Blue asks.

David doesn’t even bother to acknowledge his son’s question. “You’re gifted in a way that’s very unusual for someone your age—or any age,” he tells Calla.

“But . . . I feel like everyone around here is gifted. I mean, it’s Lily Dale.”

“Not this powerfully gifted. And not all of them.” At last, he flicks a glance in Blue’s direction, and it’s almost disdainful.

Calla expects David to say something else, but he doesn’t. He just looks at her again, so intently that she feels as though he can see right into her soul.

“Dad, can you . . . ?” Blue gestures impatiently toward the doorway.

“Get out of here and leave you two alone?” David Slayton’s smile doesn’t reach his eyes.

Carrying his mug, he crosses the threshold, then turns back. “Be careful, okay?”

“Careful with what?” Blue looks exasperated.

“Not you.” David Slayton looks directly into Calla’s eyes, and repeats, “Be careful.”

Her heart pounds. “Me?” she asks stupidly.

“Yes. Spirit is warning you.”

“But, why? What’s going to happen?”

He hesitates. “It’s not that something is ‘going to’ happen. Just know that you may find yourself in a dangerous situation.”

“Does it have anything to do with . . . that shadow ghost?” she asks nervously, noticing that it seems to have disappeared again.

“Oh, I don’t think so. Don’t let those bother you.” He waves it away like it’s a pesky mosquito. “Shadow ghosts buzz around the room being distracting, annoying, maybe . . . nothing more.”

“Are you sure?”

“Are we ever sure about anything, really?” he asks with an enigmatic half smile. “Just do keep your wits about you, my dear.”

With that, he leaves the room.

“Cripes.” Blue lays his own hand over Calla’s trembling one, brushing against the emerald bracelet. “Don’t let him bother you, okay?”

He’s making a big effort to blow off what just happened, but Calla can tell he’s rattled, too.

“It’s not that I’m letting him bother me, Blue, but he warned me.”

“Yeah, I know,” he says flatly. “He likes to be dramatic. It doesn’t mean anything.”

“But it might. He’s not the—”

She breaks off.

Blue’s father isn’t the only one who’s warned her, but she doesn’t want to bring up Jacy right now.

“Would you mind . . . can you just take me home?” she asks Blue instead.

“Leave it to my father to be a total buzz kill,” he says with a good-natured sigh, but reaches for his crutches. “Sure. Come on. I’ve got an early doctor’s appointment tomorrow, anyway, before school.”

They make the quick drive to the Dale in silence. Now isn’t the time for Calla to address the future of their relationship, or nonrelationship.

Calla is glad to see that her grandmother’s home; the flickering blue light from the television is spilling out into the night from the living-room window.

Blue leaves the motor running as he walks her up the steps. “Listen, I’ll be pretty busy this week tomorrow and Friday, so we might not have much of a chance to talk until you’re back from your trip, okay?”

“Yeah, sure, okay.” Is he blowing her off?

Maybe. Because when he kisses her good night, it’s just a quick peck on the cheek. Nothing like last time.

Problem solved. It seems like Blue, too, wants to be just friends. And she didn’t even have to address the subject. She can’t help but wonder whether he’s read her mind. Everyone says he’s a powerful psychic, just like his dad—not that Calla has seen any evidence of that until now.

Maybe he just took his cue from her. It’s not like she acted the least bit romantic toward him. Or maybe he heard about her and Jacy. Or maybe he really is a player like everyone says, and he’s simply moved on.

Whatever, she’s totally fine with his losing interest in her. Or so she tells herself, trying hard not to feel the tiniest hint of wistfulness. For some reason, it isn’t as easy as it should be.

“Thanks for tonight,” she tells him as he heads down the steps.

“No problem. See you.” Backing down the walk, he gives her a two-fingered salute. Then he climbs into his car and is gone.

Calla locks the door behind her, sliding the deadbolt—a new habit. Until last week, Odelia never even bothered to lock the door.

Her grandmother is in her usual chair in front of the television. Surprisingly, she’s actually awake for a change, and sets aside her knitting the moment Calla enters the room.

“
There
you are!” she exclaims as if Calla’s late.

Which she isn’t, since Odelia doesn’t give her a curfew.

“How was the movie?”

“It was okay.” She debates mentioning that she finally met the enigmatic David Slayton but decides against it. Not only because Odelia isn’t crazy about the man, but also because she doesn’t seem all that interested in the details of Calla’s evening.

“What?” she asks Odelia.

“What do you mean, what?”

“Something’s up, Gammy. I can tell by the look on your face.”

Odelia wags an index finger at her. “Good. Very good.

Something
is
up.”

“What happened?” Calla wonders if she should be worried despite her instincts telling her not to be.

“You remember Betty Owens and the stock certificates?”

Calla nods. Uh-oh after all.

“I didn’t want to say anything to you until I had something specific to report, but . . . I went to see her the other day.”

“Did you tell her about me?”

“No. I told her I was a medium and that I wanted to help her find her lousy crook of an estranged husband. I told her he had come to Lily Dale looking for a psychic who could help him track down those hidden certificates in her house.”

“What did she say?”

“Well, at first she assumed I was a crackpot—imagine that.”

Odelia offers a wry smile and eyeroll, and Calla can’t help but grin. “But then she must have figured she had nothing to lose. I asked her to let me hold a shirt he’d left behind when he took off, and I did some meditating, and long story short, I figured out where he was.”

“Where?”

“Mexico. I even got the right airport he’d flown into, and that he was staying in a pink stucco hotel near the beach. How do I know it was the right place, you’re wondering?”

Calla nods, holding her breath.

“Because they found him there this afternoon and arrested him. With the stock certificates.”

Calla throws her arms around her grandmother. “Oh, Gammy . . . you’re amazing.”

Odelia pats her wiry red hair and bats her eyes. “I am pretty amazing, aren’t I? The police agree. Of course, when I first called that viewer hotline to tell them where to look for Henry Owens in Mexico, they thought I was a crackpot, too.”

She laughs. “I can’t believe you got all of that by holding his shirt.”

“It’s called psychometry. Basically, you make physical contact with something that belonged to someone, and you get psychic impressions. Patsy will cover it in your class, I’m sure.”

“I’m sure.”

“Anyway, I first picked up on a Mexico connection when I tried to read Henry Owens that day he came here, although I didn’t realize it at the time. I wasn’t getting any dead wife—or even the sense that he was widowed—but I did keep seeing a margarita glass.”

“Margaritas . . . Mexico.” Calla grins. “Psychic shorthand, right?”

“Right. Only I didn’t get the connection. When my guides show me a martini glass it usually symbolizes a drinking problem, so when I saw the margarita glass I figured maybe Spirit was changing it up a little. I kept asking him if he had problems with alcohol, and he kept insisting he didn’t. I figured he was just in denial. I should have just told him I was seeing that glass. See? I’m still learning even at my age.”

“Yeah, but if you had told him you were seeing a margarita glass, he would have figured you knew he was planning to go to Mexico, and he probably would have changed his plans.”

“I like to think I’d have found him, anyway. I just wish I had listened to my instinct that there was something off about him. And usually, when someone has a physical ailment, I feel it. He was trying to pass himself off as a feeble old man, with that cane, and I should have realized it wasn’t ringing true.”

“Yeah, but he was pretty convincing.” Calla shakes her head, remembering how stunned she was when he shed the cane and ran out of the diner.

“It looks like he’s made a career out of fooling people. From what the police told me, Betty isn’t the first lonely widow he’s conned. But all’s well that ends well. That’s what matters. Betty’s going to be fine, and that con man is going to jail.”

“You’re like a superhero, Gammy.”

“Maybe I should start wearing a cape.”

“Um, no.”

Her grandmother laughs, then kisses her on the cheek.

“It’s late. Go get some sleep. Your worries are over.”

If only,
Calla thinks wistfully as she goes upstairs to her room and checks under the bed and in the closet.

NINETEEN

Thursday, October 4
11:34 a.m.

On her way to social studies after third period, Calla rounds a corner and finds herself face-to-face with Evangeline.

For the first time since their Sunday-morning falling out, it’s impossible for them not to acknowledge each other.

Or is it?

Evangeline quickly breaks eye contact and starts to move around her.

All right, this is ridiculous.

“Evangeline!” Calla grabs her arm. “Come on. Don’t be this way.”

She expects her friend’s hazel eyes to flash with anger but sees only unhappiness.

“I’m sorry I hurt you,” Calla blurts. “Really.”

Evangeline shrugs. “Okay.”

“
Okay?
What do you mean?”

“I mean okay.”

Just okay. Not
I forgive you.

Calla repeats, “I’m sorry. Really.”

“I’m sure I’ll get over Jacy,” Evangeline tells her stoically. But she doesn’t look sure. Not at all. In fact, she looks as though she’s about to cry.

“Why don’t we hang out later, after school?” Calla suggests, wanting to hug her, but sensing that Evangeline is determined to keep her at arm’s length.

“Can’t.” She adds, a little less tersely, “I have Crystal Healing class on Thursdays.”

“How about tomorrow?” Calla asks, then remembers. “Oh, wait. I’m going to Florida tomorrow. Next week, though, when I get back. Okay?”