Authors: Richie Tankersley Cusick

Rest In Peace (10 page)

BOOK: Rest In Peace

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“If
who's
out there watching us?” Matt demanded, easing himself from her grip. But as Lucy grew more agitated, he knelt down in front of her and took both her hands in his. “Yes, okay, I'll go out to the car. And if it's necessary, I promise I'll call the police. But first I'm going to fix you something hot to drink so we can get your blood flowing again.”

“You're wasting time!”

“Time? Well, speaking of time, just how long were you lying out there unconscious in the car?”

“I don't know. What time is it now?”

Matt glanced at the clock on the fireplace mantel, then double-checked his watch. “Your clock's wrong. Mine says about eight-thirty.”

“That can't be right.” Lucy stared at him in amazement. “I couldn't have been out there for nearly an hour.”

“An hour? People have frozen to death in
half
that time!”

“It wasn't
that
cold. In fact, the car was still warm inside.”

Now it was Matt's turn to look surprised. “That's impossible. I brought it over about five o'clock.”

“But I'm sure it was . . .” Her voice trailed off as something began to dawn on her. “Matt, the electricity's on.”

For the first time since they'd come in, she noticed the glare of the foyer light, the glow from surrounding lamps, the stuffy heat and muted hum of the furnace. Matt was staring at her as if she might clarify her remark with some earth-shattering revelation.

“It wasn't on before,” she murmured.

“So that explains why your clock's wrong.”

“Someone
shut
it off.”

His expression grew more puzzled. “Shut your
clock
off?”

Before he could question her further, Lucy threw the afghan aside and stood up, only to feel Matt's hands on her shoulders, pushing her down again.

“Where do you think you're going?”

“To the car. I'm telling you, someone shut off the electricity in this house tonight. And someone deliberately put stuff in the car. And if you're not going to help me, then I'll do it myself.”

“Okay, okay. Hold on.” Sighing in defeat, Matt turned toward the hall. “I'll go.”

“A blanket. And a jacket. They're both in the front seat.”

“Right. But in the meantime, I want you to stay here and cover up again.”

Lucy did as she was told. She sat huddled beneath the afghan, her mind spinning in a dozen different directions. Questions pounded at her brain. She could feel her body beginning to thaw, but fears and suspicions sent a different kind of chill to her heart.

She heard a door slam and looked up to see Matt poised in the threshold. He was holding the car key in his hand.

The car key and nothing else.

“Where are they?” Lucy's voice rose hopefully. “You found them, didn't you? In the front, like I said?”

But when Matt didn't answer, the chill deepened inside her.

“No,” Lucy whispered.

She saw him hesitate . . . saw the concern and sympathy in his eyes.

“Lucyâ” he began, but she cut him off with an angry shout.

“
No!
Those things were
there
! I didn't imagine themâI'm
not
crazy!”

“Of course you're not crazy.” Matt spread his hands in a conciliatory gesture. “I don't think that, Lucy. Nobody thinks thatâ”

“
Everybody
thinks that!”

“You're wrong. Please don't get upset. Just tell me what's goingâ”

“Maybe he did it at school! He could have broken in, right? In the student parking lot, when no one was looking? Can you tell if anybody broke in?”

“Who are you talking about? Nobody broke into your car at schoolâ”

“How can you be sure? Did you check?”

“Lucyâ”

“Then why did you just leave the car out there in the driveway where anyone could get in? Why didn't you come to the door and tell me you were here?”

“I
did
go to the door. I rang the bell over and over, but nobody answered. You said you might be with a friend tonight. I figured you'd gone out.”

Was he telling the truth? Maybe the power outage had affected the doorbell. Had she been asleep?

“And I tried to call, too,” Matt went on, “but nobody ever picked up. So I decided to drive by again, just to see if you'd gotten home.” When Lucy didn't comment, he took a step toward her. “What's going on, Lucy? What's this all about?”

Lucy kept silent. She
wasn't
delusional! She could still see the scorched remains of Byron's jacket; she could still see the blanket with its crumbled, dead leaves. She'd
used
that blanketâshe'd
touched
that jacket. No delusion could ever be that real!

“I'll get them myself,” she muttered.

Before he could answer, she marched determinedly toward the hall. But halfway across the room, as a thought suddenly hit her, Lucy stopped and turned back to face him.

“Where was the key?” she asked.

Matt's frown was puzzled. “On the floor of the driver's seat.”

“No,” Lucy corrected. “I mean, where did you leave it when you brought the car over?”

He didn't even hesitate. “On the front porch. Under the mat.”

It was strange, he thought, how a person's possessions could still retain such a part of them after death.

Like Angela's car, for instance.

It still smelled of her, even now. A smell so ripe and reckless, he could have found it anywhere in the world without any effort at all.

Expensive perfume . . . cigarette smoke . . . strawberry lip gloss and nail polish. Sex and desperation. Longing and sheer bad luck.

Smells that wafted so strong on the wind, even the snow couldn't dull them.

Sometimes he could still taste her eagerness.

But those memories were becoming more and more of an irritation to him. Taunting him when he yearned to be filled. Tormenting him when he ached to be satisfied.

Perhaps he shouldn't have been so hasty.

Perhaps he should have kept her longer . . . drawn out the deception more slowly . . . built the suspense to a more shocking and shattering climax.

At least . . . until Lucy was his.

His and his alone.

Ah, Lucy
. . .

She was rarely out of his sight anymore . . .
never
out of his thoughts.

And she so innocently, so sweetly, unaware.

Believing him to be merely an errant breeze, blowing cold across her cheek.

Or the subtle stirring of a shadow coupling with her own.

Or the deep, impenetrable night gazing back at her beyond her sliding glass doors.

How could she know that
he
was the reason for her emptiness? The longing and restlessness she couldn't seem to absolve or understand?

So making use of Angela's car tonight had been gratifying to him in many ways.

Reminding Lucy of their special bond. Their past together that she so wished to forget . . . their inevitable future she could not yet begin to imagine.

And dispelling those last lingering scents of Angela, once and for all. The car belonged to Lucy now, and it should
smell
like Lucy.

And there was no smell stronger than fear.

He preferred to think of it as a sort of exorcism.

One more move in his Game.

The Game Lucy would never win, no matter how many clues she might unravel, no matter how far ahead she believed herself to be.

The Game with Lucy as his prize.

But that wouldn't happen for a while yet.

Not when the mere
playing
of the Game was so much fun.

Especially when one played without rules.

“How could that key have ended up in the car if I didn't even know where it was?” Lucy's eyes were wide and fearful. “Doesn't that prove
anything
to you?”

“Lucyâ”

“How did he find me, Matt? Why is he doing this?”

But before Matt could answer, Lucy pushed past him and ran outside.

“Lucy, wait!”

She was already halfway across the lawn. Even though she knew in her heart it was useless; even though she knew that when she looked inside the car, there would be no evidence whatsoever of her ordeal in the cave, not a single trace of Byron's untimely death.

Lucy yanked open the door. Her eyes made a desperate sweep of the empty front seat, the empty floor. With a choked cry, she fell inside and started rummaging beneath the seats. Then she popped the latch and stumbled around to the trunk, lifting the cover, staring stupidly into one more empty space.

She should have known. Of course she should have.

“It's a trick,” she mumbled. She wasn't even aware of Matt standing there now, reaching for her shoulder, trying to pull her away. “A trick,” she kept mumbling. “A trick . . . a trick . . . how could anyone be so mean . . .”

“Come back to the house,” Matt urged quietly. “Come back and get warm.”

“But it couldn't be a trick, could it? No one else would know these things . . . no one else would have these things . . . so it must be real . . . somehow . . . it must be realâ”

“Come on, Lucy. Please.”

Lucy stepped back from the car. Through misty eyes she watched Matt close the trunk and slip out of his jacket. He threw it around her shoulders and led her back inside.

“Is the kitchen this way?” he asked her.

She wasn't even sure if she nodded. Every inch of herâbody, mind, soulâhad gone numb. She tried to think of Byron. Tried to remember all the things he'd told her, all the things he'd warned her about. Things about Katherine . . . powers and visions . . . the green necklace. Things about death and evil, and being stalked. Things about her life never being the same . . .

“I'm not crazy,” Lucy whispered.

She realized they were in the kitchen now, that she was being pushed into a chair. Had the light been on in here before? She couldn't remember. Had the person who'd been in the car also been in the house tonight? Turning off the electricity, creeping through the halls? Leaving his mark on Angela's answering machine . . . watching Lucy while she slept?

“I'm . . . not . . . crazy.”

But she felt like she was drowning. In a bottomless sea of darkness. Beneath crushing waves of despair. As though the entire world had gone black and swallowed her alive.

“Lucy,” Matt said softly.

When had he crouched down beside her? When had he eased his coat from her shoulders and draped it over the back of her chair? And when had he taken both her hands between his, rubbing them gently, trying to warm them? She could see his lips moving ever so slightly. Speaking silent words, with his head bowed and his hair windblown in long thick strands across his forehead.

“What do you do,” Lucy murmured, “when nothing in your life makes sense anymore?”

Matt made a perfunctory sign of the cross. Then his eyes lifted calmly and settled on hers.

“Why don't you tell me what's wrong.”

“And I don't mean just
make sense
,” Lucy went on, as if he hadn't spoken. “It's more than that. Things that can't be explained. Things that are so bizarre and so unbelievable, they actually
defy
reality. Except they
are
real. They
are
happening. And there you are. You're . . . you're just
trapped
there, in the middle of it. With no one who can understand. With no one who could possibly help.”

Matt's gaze never wavered. “I'm not here to push you, Lucy. And the last thing I'd
ever
want to do is interfere where I'm not wanted. But I
would
like to help you. Whatever this is, you don't have to face it alone.”

“You can't,” Lucy whispered even lower than before.

“Why not?”

“You just can't help me.”

“Then if
I
can't, I'll find someone who
can
. But you've got to tell me what's wrong.”

I have powers
, she longed to tell him.
And my world isn't like everyone else's, and nothing will ever be the same again, and I'm not even sure what's real anymore, I'm afraid I'm losing my mind.

But instead she told him, “Even if I could . . . you wouldn't understand.”

“Try me. You might be surprised.”

“I don't want any more surprises tonight.”

Matt hesitated, seemed to consider a moment, then slowly released her hands. “Where's the tea?” he asked.

“The thing is,” Lucy went on, oblivious, “if I could only have taken those things to the police, maybe then they would have taken me seriously. But I can't tell them about it now. If I do, I'll look less credible than ever.”

“Am I close?” Matt was rummaging his way through every door and drawer in the kitchen. “Am I in the general vicinity? Can you at least give me a clue?”

“Sometimes, when things like this happen, then I start thinking maybe they're right. The police and the doctors and even my aunt . . . then I start thinking maybe I really
am
crazy.”

“You're not crazy.”

“How do you know?”

“Ah!” Matt sounded pleased with himself. “Orange spice tea. Smells good, too. Now, let's see ... cups.”

“But I know what I saw in the car. I didn't imagine what I saw.”

“I'll just zap these in the microwave.”

BOOK: Rest In Peace

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