Connecting (31 page)

Huddled in the closet, enveloped in terror and the scent of her mother’s perfume, Calla wants to sob. Her heart aches in her clenched chest, racing so frantically that she’s certain it must be audible.

Just don’t panic. Stay absolutely still.

She can hear movement now through the thin panels of wood separating her and the intruder: footsteps in the hall, the creak of the den door being pushed open.

Don’t move. Don’t you dare.

She sucks in oxygen, eyes squeezed tightly closed, paralyzed with fear.

Someone is moving around in the den.

The closet door opens.

There’s a pause.

Then it closes again.

Only when Calla hears the footsteps moving away, down the hall, does she dare to release her breath in a silent sigh of relief. But she stays right where she is, stays absolutely still.

Then a shrill sound pierces the air.

It’s her cell phone, ringing in her pocket.

Panicked, she snatches it and flips it open to silence it.

“Hello?” she hears on the other end of the line.

Dear God. “Jacy, shh—”

“Calla, you’ll never believe this.”

She can hear the intruder coming for her now, no longer moving stealthily, but with deliberate footsteps headed right for the closet.

Oh, no . . . oh, please . . .

In her ear, Jacy says in a rush, “I found the coat of arms with the heart and daggers. I couldn’t believe it, but I checked it a couple of times, and—”

The door jerks open, and the closet is flooded with light.

A bony hand reaches out and roughly jerks the hanging garments aside.

Calla gasps in recognition at the woman standing there, and she knows before she hears the name spilling from Jacy’s mouth what he’s going to say.

“Logan. The name is Logan, Calla!”

The woman who lives in the purple house in Geneseo— the woman who greeted them so hostilely the night they showed her the photo of Darrin—reaches for Calla with a menacing snarl.

She squirms out of reach, screaming into the phone, “Call the police! Jacy! She’s here! Help me!”

She blurts her address so hysterically that she’s certain there’s no way he understood it. Then Sharon Logan is upon her, snatching the phone away with a hand bearing a gold signet ring.

She hurtles the phone and it hits the wall and falls to the rug in pieces, silenced.

Fury boils through Calla. “You killed my mother!”

The woman’s thin lips curve a little, baring uneven teeth.

“What makes you think that? Wait—don’t tell me—you’re a psychic. Like she was.”

“My mother wasn’t a psychic.”

“Really.” The smirk deepens. “Are you sure you knew everything about her?”

Calla falters. No. She didn’t know everything about her.

Not by a long shot.

But she knows one thing.

“You killed her,” she repeats, straightening her shoulders, defiant—perhaps foolishly so, but she can’t help herself. “I know you killed her. And you killed Darrin, too.”

A shadow crosses those beady black eyes, and Calla knows she’s made a terrible mistake. She should have played dumb.

Should have tried to escape immediately. Should have— The hands reach out for her.

“No!” Still clutching the laptop, she writhes out of reach.

The hands claw at her.

She kicks upward, hard, hearing a gratifying grunt when her leg makes contact. Sharon Logan doubles over, clutching her stomach.

Calla darts for the door, taking an extra split second to slam it closed behind her.

Then she hurls herself for the stairs.

Please don’t let me fall . . .

She can hear Sharon Logan coming out of the room, coming after her.

Mom, please don’t let me fall . . .

She reaches the first floor and goes not for the front door, which would take too long to unlock with the chain and deadbolts, but toward the back of the house.

In the kitchen, she flounders momentarily, nearly overcome by panic.

Footsteps are racing toward her.

Calla runs into the changing room and locks the door behind her.

She leans against it, panting.

Is it safer to escape to the pool area, which is fenced in, or hide in here until the police arrive?

If they’re even coming.

Could Jacy possibly have understood the address she blurted out?

Shouldn’t she hear sirens by now?

No, it’s probably only been a few minutes since she was on the phone with him. It feels like a lifetime.

Oh, Jacy . . . Oh, Mom . . . I’m so scared
.

She listens for movement on the other side of the door but hears nothing.

She’s not naive enough to think Sharon Logan abandoned the chase . . . but she could very well have moved on to the other end of the first floor, searching. It’s a big house, and she might not have seen which direction Calla took at the bottom of the stairs.

She glances longingly at the door leading outside.

If she can make it across the pool area undetected, she can probably scale the fence. And scream for help.

Only, this is Florida.

It’s not like Lily Dale, where people practically live outside when the weather is nice.

Here, they’re all insulated in their climate-controlled homes. Calla hasn’t seen a soul in the neighborhood other than the ghost of Mrs. Evans next door.

If she screams for help, there’s a solid chance no one will hear.

And there’s a chance she won’t be able to make it over the tall fence. It’s not like it’s a chain link, easy to climb.

Then again, if she stays here, sooner or later Sharon Logan will find her.

She might break down the door, like something out of a horror film.

And then she’ll kill me, like she killed Mom.

Calla has no choice.

She has to make a run for it.

But first, she opens the cupboard where they keep the bright-colored beach towels. She slips the laptop in among the stack, making sure it’s not visible. There. At least it will be safe there until she comes back.

If I come back.

No. She can’t think that way.

She peers through the blinds. The coast is clear. No sign of anyone lurking in the backyard.

It’s now or never. Go.

Breath held, she quietly unbolts the back door . . .

Painstakingly turns the knob . . .

Opens the door . . .

Takes a step through . . .

Closes it behind her.

Immediately, she realizes that she forgot to turn the button in the knob, locking herself out.

There’s no going back.

Swift-footed, she makes her way across the flagstones, toward the pool and the fence beyond. She glances over her shoulder at the house to make sure she’s not being followed. Too late, she realizes that the danger isn’t behind her, it’s leaped out in front of her.

The signet ring glints ominously in the sun as a hand closes around Calla’s upper arm. “Where are you going?”

“Get away from me! Help! Someone, help!”

Fighting like a panther, Calla fends off her captor, breaks away. But only for a moment, then she’s tumbled to the hard ground, rolling, scratching, wrestling.

Again, she manages to scramble out of reach, and for a moment, she believes she’s free.

Then she realizes that the hard ground is no longer beneath her, and she’s falling . . .

Landing on something pliant.

The covered pool.

The tarp holds her weight for a few moments.

Long enough for her to remember Jacy’s vision of her struggling in the water.

Then the tarp sinks, and she’s floundering in warm, rank water.

Is this how it’s going to end?

Is she going to drown?

No! You’ll be okay . . . you can swim . . .

Except the tarp is there, tangling around her like an octopus, and her attacker is there, too. In the water with her, on top of her, holding her under.

Calla struggles to break the surface, her lungs bursting hot with the need for air.

Viselike hands hold her under, suffocating her, and it’s just like Jacy said, and she’s going to die here, at this house, like her mother did.

And what about Dad? What’s he going to do now?

With a mighty burst of adrenaline, she fights. Hard. Fights for her life. She breaks the surface, manages to gulp air before the hands push her under again.

No!

This can’t happen.

She won’t let this happen.

But she’s weakening, and water is filling her mouth, and she’s no match for Sharon Logan’s shocking brute strength, and . . .

And suddenly, the hands are gone.

Gone, and she’s floating.

Am I dead?

No.

She’s alive.

Alive, freed, sputtering, lifting her head from the water, trying to force air past the water that’s clogging her throat.

“Help her! Help the girl!” a male voice shouts, and Calla sees a police officer, sees several of them, sees a dripping-wet Sharon Logan in their clutches, just before she blacks out.

Tampa Police Headquarters
9:52 p.m.

“What I don’t get,” Calla says to her father later—much later, that night, after he’s arrived in Tampa, where she was waiting for him at the police station with the Wilsons—“is
why
she did it.”

“Why she came after you?”

“No . . . Mom.”

“Maybe we’ll never know.” Her father squeezes her shoulders. He hasn’t let go of her since he got here.

“Ah think she’s just a crazy person,” Lisa drawls. “You know, one of those nuts who goes off the deep end.”

Beside her, Kevin, who has been a quiet presence at Calla’s side, shakes his head. “People don’t just kill for no reason.”

“Unfortunately, son, sometimes, they do,” Mr. Wilson says somberly, and Calla is reminded of something Odelia told her.

“
Evil reigns in some souls. We can’t explain it. We can only
beware.
”

“We’re just lucky Calla managed to get away,” Mrs. Wilson says, giving her another hug.

“Yeah, thanks to your friend back in Lily Dale.” Dad looks at Calla. “Jacy, was it?”

“Yeah. Jacy.” Thank God for Jacy.

“You should thank him.”

“I . . . I have.” She spoke to him only briefly, though. Just to tell him she was okay.

“Are you sure?” Jacy had asked.

“I’m sure.”

“What happened?”

“I’ll explain it when I get home, but . . . what you said about the water . . . me, almost drowning . . . that’s what happened, Jacy. In the pool.”

“I told you to be careful.”

“I was careful.”

“No, you weren’t.”

“No. I wasn’t. I was just so scared and I just had to get out of the house,” she agreed. “And I just had to know what happened to my mom.”

“And now you do. So come home.”

She promised him that she would. And then she made him promise not to say anything to Odelia just yet about what had happened.

“I won’t. I won’t tell anyone.”

As it turned out, Dad, whom the police called immediately after rescuing her, did get in touch with Odelia on his way to the airport. Gammy was reportedly horrified, of course, and wanted to jump right on a plane and come down here, but Dad convinced her to stay home.

“I told Odelia we’ll both be back in Lily Dale in a couple of days,” Dad tells Calla now.

“Both of you?” Mrs. Wilson asks, raising a professionally waxed, finely penciled eyebrow.

Dad nods. “Both of us. To stay. For now, anyway.”

“You’re not going back to California, then, Jeff?”

“Nope. I’m never letting Calla out of my sight ever again.”

“You can’t do
that
to her!” Lisa blurts out.

Calla has to laugh at her tone and expression; even Dad flashes a smile.

But he meant what he said. Calla can tell he’s shaken up by what happened.

He’s not the only one.

And he still doesn’t know about Darrin. Or that Calla first saw Sharon Logan back up north, in Geneseo. For all he knows, the woman was just lying in wait for her at the house.

“How did she get here?” she asked Jacy on the phone earlier. “How did she even know I was here?”

“You said something about it when we were on her porch last weekend. She must have heard you. And she was obviously trying to keep you from finding something incriminating there.”