Shimmer: A Novel (7 page)

“Then move along,” Barrett said. “Both of you. I’ll keep watch.”

“Alone?”

“I’d rather be here waiting for something to happen than at the house wondering if something is about to happen. Don’t worry. Tell Ambrose I’ll check in at regular intervals.”

“But—”

“Now! Before she sees you talking to me and assumes we’re tag team stalkers.”

Logan hesitated.
This isn’t how it’s supposed to happen.

Barrett glanced at Fallon. “Go on, take him home. If you’re one of us, Ambrose will want a word with you.”

Fallon’s cocky smile fell apart. She looked at Barrett for a moment, then grabbed Logan’s upper arm and tugged him away from the Jeep. “C’mon. Let’s go!”

“Wait a sec,” Logan said, retrieving their backpacks. “I’ll be back later,” Logan promised Barrett.

“Bring a thermos of coffee—decaff,” Barrett said, grinning. “And a turkey club on seedless rye. Hold the mayo.”

“Would you like fries with that?” Logan asked sarcastically.

“No, but a dill pickle wedge would be swell.”

“Har, har,” Logan said. “C’mon, Fallon.”

For two blocks, Logan walked in self-imposed silence, contemplating the sun-dappled street as if it contained the wisdom of the ages. He refused to glance back at the Jeep and give Barrett the slightest satisfaction over trumping Logan’s position. Logically, he had to leave. Chelsea would have seen to that one way or the other. But Logan couldn’t shake the feeling he’d been relegated to the kid’s table at Thanksgiving.
Totally irrational,
he thought, shaking his head. An impending rift was not a holiday or cause for celebration; it was a source of imminent danger. Worse, he’d been sitting there unarmed, waiting for a rift with Fallon, who had no idea what was about to happen. She might have paranormal abilities, but she wasn’t even a Walker neophyte yet. She was a potential recruit and he… Logan sighed. He’d been showing off for her. Trying to impress the new girl.
Oh, brother,
Logan thought, rapping his forehead with the side of his fist.

“Do that a lot?”

“What—oh, no,” Logan said. “Not enough, apparently.”

“Want to talk about it?”

“No, it’s stupid,” Logan said. “
I’m
stupid.”

“You’re jealous of him, aren’t you?”

“Jealous? Of Barrett?”

“Tall, dark and dashing, with an intriguing dollop of brooding, and great muscle tone,” Fallon summed up. “Yeah, him.”

“So you noticed.”

“Hard to miss,” she said, grinning. “Don’t worry, though, you seem like a champion brooder yourself.”

“And, of course, that’s the one quality I’d want to share with Barrett.”

“I noticed something else about him.”

“His penetrating, sky-blue eyes? His bulging biceps? His—?”

“He was blurry.”

“What? Blurry?”

“Well, that was my first impression,” Fallon said. “But when I looked closer, it seemed as if his skin was… vibrating.”

“You must be sensitive.”

“I’ve always thought so,” Fallon said, clutching her hands comically against her chest. “Care to read some of my poetry? My personal favorite is ‘Ode to an Abandoned Gym Locker Sock.’”

“Psychically sensitive,” Logan explained. “Barrett has hyperaesthesia and hyperacuity. Senses and reflexes off the charts. That muscle tone comes in handy, but I think there’s also sensory prescience involved in his abilities.”

“Meaning?”

“He reacts a split-second
before
something happens.”

“Handy guy to have in an emergency.”

“In theory.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing,” Logan said. “Sour grapes.”

Fallon chuckled. “Does he do that swoon-tingle kiss?”

“No!” Logan said too quickly. “I mean, I wouldn’t know, but I doubt it. Not part of the package.”

“Probably too old for me anyway,” Fallon mused, watching for Logan’s reaction out of the corner of her eye.

“Way too old,” Logan said. “Already touching up the gray.”

“You’re lying.”

“Am not.”

“Relax, I’m kidding.”

“I know.”

Fallon pursed her lips. “Back there at the Jeep, you said ‘she’s… like one of us.’ What’s that mean, exactly?”

“A Walker.”

“Guess you weren’t listening? My last name’s Maguire.”

“A rose by any other name.”

“We’re studying Milton, not Shakespeare.”

“I know.”

“So you think I’m a rose?” Fallon said, grinning ear to ear. “That’s sweet.”

With a sidelong glance, he muttered, “Because of all the thorns.”

She poked him with her elbow. “I heard that!”

“I know.”

Chapter 12

Soon after Logan and Fallon left him alone to watch Chelsea Conrad’s house from the relative comfort of his Jeep Liberty, Barrett opened a map of southern New Jersey and draped it across the dashboard. Casual passersby would assume he was lost and checking his route. While he waited and occasionally glanced at the unfolded map, he worked his way through a bag of pistachios, tossing the half-shells in the Jeep’s ashtray.

Ten uneventful minutes passed.

Maybe Logan’s wrong this time,
he thought.
Ambrose once said the kid’s premonitions worked on a sliding temporal scale.
In other words, Barrett might have to wait five hours or five days. But Logan hadn’t kept them waiting long the night before. Unbidden, the gruesome image from the interior of the white Mustang flashed in Barrett’s mind. Despite his resolve, Barrett shuddered at the thought of what could have done so much damage to two human bodies in such a brief amount of time.
This one’s bad, Gideon,
he thought, as if he could send the message telepathically to his absent brother.
Maybe worse than what you faced.

Movement in the periphery of his vision grabbed his attention. Side view mirror. Black and white Crown Vic. No roof lights. Slow approach.
Terrific
, he thought,
fifteen minutes into the stakeout and I’m about to be rousted by the local constabulary.

On the chance that Logan’s grim prediction might transpire at any minute, Barrett had to stall for time. He scooped the cell phone off the passenger seat, flipped it open and held it to his right ear.

The police cruiser slowed to a stop beside Barrett’s Jeep. A quick glance at the white door panel revealed the words “Police Chief” painted in black letters. “Keeps getting better,” Barrett muttered to himself, as if talking into the cell phone.

The police chief had stepped out of the cruiser and was motioning to Barrett across the hood. Tall and lean, the Hadenford chief of police sported a severe buzz cut that revealed pale scalp underneath and wore a crisp black uniform with the radio microphone clipped to his left epaulet. Barrett glimpsed the name engraved in the brass name badge over his left shirt pocket: Grainger.

He flashed the cell phone. “Pulled over to make a call, Chief Grainger.”

“Lost?”

“Not anymore,” Barrett said. “Calling to tell them I’ll be a bit late.”

“Long drive.”

“How’s that?” Barrett asked, confused.

Chief Grainger nodded toward the rear bumper. “California plates.”

“Oh, right,” Barrett said, wondering if Grainger had already run the plates. “I’ve recently relocated to Hadenford.”

“What line of work?”

“I’m involved in security,” Barrett said. Vague but true.

“Private?”

“Looking for work, actually,” Barrett said to ward off questions about his employer. “Staying with relatives.”

“Best of luck, then,” Chief Grainger said. “Have a good day.”

Reading between the pleasantries, Barrett heard,
“Move along now.”

“Thank you,” Barrett said. While Chief Grainger climbed back into his police cruiser, Barrett made a show of talking into the cell phone cradled against his ear, while simultaneously refolding the map on the dashboard with his free hand. He fumbled with the map long enough for the Crown Vic to turn a corner, out of sight.

Barrett wondered how convincing his patter had been and how much time he’d have before Chief Grainger decided to make another sweep along Maple Lane.

He glanced at the Conrad homestead and hoped it would be long enough.

Chapter 13

Chelsea had tossed her tiger-striped bicycle helmet on the living room sofa, an act of random sloppiness sure to annoy her mother when she came home in a few hours. At the moment, Chelsea had more pressing concerns than her mother’s eventual displeasure. With a half-dozen textbooks spread in a semicircle around her three-ring binder on the dining room table, Chelsea attempted to wade through her considerable homework, but found her attention wondering from AP calculus to the front windows.

Normally she would be studying in her bedroom, sitting at the scuffed student desk crammed between her dresser and the window, within headphone distance of her stereo. Today, unfortunately, had taken a turn from normal, courtesy of Fallon Maguire and the new kid who had at first seemed cute in a distracted way but who now seemed weird in a neurotic way. Yelling and cursing at her for no reason. After she’d offered to help, to call a doctor. She’d thought,
Whoa, some major issues here… or drugs. Maybe drugs.
Same thing, when you came right down to it. Now he seemed fixated on Chelsea for some reason. She hadn’t been bluffing when she threatened to call the cops.
Too many nut-jobs running around loose,
she thought. Fallon was Chelsea’s friend, but maybe her judgment had lapsed. How long had Fallon known this guy? A few hours.
More trusting than I am,
Chelsea thought as she tapped her pencil eraser against the blank page.

After trying to wrap her brain around a particularly vexing calculus problem, she glanced toward the window and saw a police car stopped in the middle of her street. She pushed back her chair and walked over to the window, peering through the white lace curtains as the chief of police stood outside his cruiser talking to a tanned, buff guy in a dark gray Jeep. Guy had a map open over his dashboard, looking confident but lost.

Chelsea looked up and down the street, but saw no sign of Fallon or Weird Boy.
Probably ran when they saw the cop car,
she thought with a smile. Regardless, she wasn’t as nervous with Chief Grainger nearby. She hadn’t called the police yet, but was glad Grainger had chosen this particular moment to make a pass along her street. It would certainly look as if she’d carried out her threat, and should convince Fallon and—
what was his name?
—Logan, to take a hint and get lost.

Maybe now she could lug her books upstairs and finish her school work with the accompaniment of some choice tunes. Something to help pass the time. If she was being honest with herself, she had to admit that staying in the house alone had added to her anxiety. Her older brother, Chad wouldn’t be home from work for another hour or so, long enough to change his clothes, eat dinner with Chelsea and their mother, then rush off to his evening college courses. For now, she was alone. And sometimes the house seemed too big a place for one teenaged girl.

The thought sent a chill down her spine.

Chief Grainger, however, seemed satisfied with the situation outside. He climbed back into his cruiser and pulled away. The guy in the Jeep examined his map again, trying to regain his bearings. Chelsea noticed the out of state license plate on the back of the Jeep and it all made sense. With a sigh, she felt the tension easing out of her neck and shoulders.

She stepped away from the window, trusting in the competence of Hadenford’s finest, and decided to head upstairs. She stacked the books, capped the uneven pile with an unopened can of diet soda, and mounted the stairs to her bedroom. She hoped a return to routine would instill the sense of normalcy she’d lost.

Out of the corner of her eye, she thought she saw a flicker of shadow slide down the wall of the stairwell. She turned her head, like a startled bird, but saw nothing to account for the shadow.
My imagination’s running wild,
she thought.
I’m a little spooked. That’s all.

* * *

Moments after she closed her bedroom door, an ill-defined shadow rippled across the dining room floor, slipping over the furniture like an oil slick, oozing across the living room sofa, passing over the tiger-striped helmet—and settling there for a moment. Then the shadow shimmered out of existence, and the helmet was gone.

Chapter 14

“This is where we live now,” Logan said, pointing to a large, sprawling gray stone house set back from a wide lawn and obscured by a haphazard assortment of deciduous and coniferous trees.

“I know this place,” Fallon said. “Old lady Kemper used to live here.”

Logan nodded. “Wilhelmina Kemper. Died last August. Her granddaughter, Margaret, handled the estate. Seemed this house was a bit much for the average family. But my, uh, great grandfather thought it was a real bargain.”

Fallon spoke absently as they followed the path of circular walking stones that wound a leisurely path to the double front doors. “Heard she had a big family long ago. Outlived most of them, and the rest moved away.”

“West coast and Florida,” Logan said, distracted. He paused at the two steps leading up to the landing in front of the double doors, and turned to face her. He seemed unusually nervous. “Look, you don’t have to come inside.”

“Why? Do I embarrass you?” Fallon asked mischievously.

“Only when you try,” Logan said. “But it’s not you I’m worried about, it’s my family. They can be a bit…”

“Unusual?”

“Yes, but…”

“Bizarre?”

“Yes, definitely,” Logan said. “But also a bit intense.”

“Barrett seemed cool.”

“Yeah, well he was showing off,” Logan said. “And he’s got that California casual vibe. But he can be as intense as the rest of them.”

Fallon shrugged. “Forewarned, right?”

“As long as you remember that ‘normal’ to the Walkers isn’t normal to the rest of the world. Because, honestly, sometimes they forget.”

“My friend Sadie Bennett says, ‘normal is a code word for boring.’”

The right side door behind Logan swung open to reveal an attractive young woman in a flowing white dress cinched at the waist with a golden cloth belt. Fallon guessed that she was in her mid-twenties. She had blond hair and compelling, dark brown eyes. Fallon caught a glimpse at what looked like golden tattoos on the woman’s forearms. “Logan, where have you—? Oh, who’s your friend?”