Sapphire: A Paranormal Romance (19 page)

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 girlfriend.”

“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.

Jimmy let out the
breath he had been holding.  Then he quickly clamped his hand over his mouth. 
Jesse was still there and now Jimmy knew that Jesse was involved in whatever
was going on with Sapphire.  Had Jesse been there when Devlin and whoever else
had done something horrible to her?  Or had he just come along later to cover
things up?

Jimmy stayed where
he was, peering around the corner and waiting.  It seemed to take a long time
before Jesse finally came out of the back room.  When he did appear, Jesse was
walking slowly, his head down.  He looked like a broken man.

Jesse had a shock
of thin white hair on top of his head.  He wore wire-rimmed glasses that were
continually perched on the end of his beak-like nose.  He had a soft chin and
an easy smile.  He wore sweater vests a lot and blue shirts beneath.  Beneath
that he wore blue jeans, which he always wore with blue sneakers.  He was
wearing the same thing as always, but something about him seemed sadder than
Jimmy had ever seen before.

Jimmy crouched
down near the floor and watched as Jesse paced back and forth in front of his
desk.  Then he sat down and put his head in his hands.  After a moment, Jimmy
realized Jesse was crying.  Then Jesse reached into his desk drawer and pulled
out what Jimmy guessed was a photo, or perhaps a newspaper clipping.  He
studied it for a while, tears streaming down his face.  The front door opened
and Jesse suddenly straightened, wiping his eyes and reaching for a tissue.  He
blew his nose and fixed a smile on his face.

A woman and a
little girl came in.  Jesse stood up and greeted the two of them.  The woman
immediately began asking questions about various children’s books.  Jesse stood
there with the smile affixed to his face and nodding.  Then he pointed to the
children’s section near the back and led the two of them away.

Jimmy sat there
for another moment and then got to his feet.  He stepped away slowly and crept
back down the aisle.  He peered around the corner of the end of the bookshelf
and saw that Jesse, the woman, and the little girl were still back in the
children’s section.  Jimmy crept slowly toward the door and opened it quietly. 

Outside, the sun
was bright and the sky was blue.  In his gut he felt like a storm was brewing. 
He was angry.  He was confused.  He felt as if his entire world had just come
apart.

This was not
turning out to be a good day.

Plus, he now had
to worry about what George was up to and if Devlin Little was about to kill
him.  Jimmy sighed and then made his way around the side of the building.  For
the first time, the library felt like a hostile place.  Jimmy felt betrayed.

He pedaled off
into the distance.  He had to visit Tabitha, and he needed to talk to her soon.

Jimmy
rode the rest of the way to Tabitha’s office in a kind of fog.  By the time he
reached the newspaper offices, his head felt like it was about to explode.  He could
not stop thinking about Jesse and Devlin.  What had the two of them done?  How
many others were involved?  What the hell had happened all those years ago? 
The thoughts tumbled and churned through his brain like stones through a rock
polisher.