Sidekicks (14 page)

I didn't break her reverie. I was still in shock that Cooper had gone from homeless to landowner.

"I'll see to transferring the deed next week. You should give me your address. Better yet, just write it down in this little notebook, and I'll give you the address of the old house. It has a Martinsburg zip code, though it's closer to Ville Cachée." She handed him a small spiral pad.

I noticed that his hand shook as he wrote down a PO Box number, plus the city, state and zip code. Ruby carefully printed the address we'd need and tore out that page, handing it over with a couple of keys she took off a ring.

"This one is to the house; that one opens the tool shed out back. The barn shouldn't be locked since I store the lawnmower in it. I'm hoping things are in good shape, but I haven't been there in years, so I honestly don't know. It could've been vandalized, I suppose. Empty houses are an open invitation to meanness."

Dazed, I nodded. Cooper didn't say anything, either, making me think he'd swallowed his tongue or something. I know I would've if I'd just been handed keys to a house on sixty acres. All I could think about was him moving there while he finished out his senior year. If the house was livable, of course, and I really hoped it was.

We didn't leave Ruby's until after five. By then we'd looked at a dozen photo albums filled with snapshots of Brett as a youngster, Mel Ray, and then Jim Comstock and his family. She gave Cooper a tub of his dad's old things that he retrieved from the attic for her. He didn't look into it. I figured he'd want to be alone when he did.

Ruby showered us with hugs and kisses and elicited promises that we'd be back soon to meet Jim. When we finally got into the truck, I set the keys Cooper handed me in one of the small bins built into the console. I noticed that he kept looking at them in disbelief. I couldn't blame him. I did, too.

"Put that address in the GPS, would you?" Since it had started to rain, Cooper didn't take his eyes off the road.

I played with the screen of the GPS until I figured out how to enter the information. In seconds, it plotted us a course that was actually the one we'd intended to take plus the extra turn that would put at the house.

Due to the ever-darkening skies, it felt like night when we crossed the Louisiana state line. Forty-five minutes after that, we found ourselves on familiar territory, driving down roads we were both knew well. Even in the dark with rain slashing against the swishing wipers, I knew the moment we began nearing the stretch of pavement on which I'd encountered last night's specter.

The bad thing? The GPS knew it, too. A woman's voice told us our left turn was fast approaching. Seconds later, Cooper followed her directions to exit the two-lane and start down a terribly familiar gravel drive that vanished into a woods.

With my heart hammering, I debated whether or not to tell Cooper this was where I'd seen the ghost. In the end, I said nothing. His mood had been so upbeat since we'd left Ruby's.

I would not spoil it.

Cooper turned off the GPS to silence the voice that kept announcing our imminent arrival at our destination. The truck lurched and lunged over encroaching tree roots. Low-lying limbs scraped the cab roof. My gaze darted all over the place even though I wanted to look straight ahead. Luckily, my nervous glances at the woods on either side of the truck didn't show me anything scary.

When Cooper reached a clearing, he braked the truck facing the house that seemed to rise up from the shadows. It appeared solid enough in that bad light, but I guessed that the wooden slats that covered the outside were completely bare of paint.

One glance his way told me he really, really wanted to explore. And though it was pouring out, I had no intentions of denying him that.

"Are you in?" he asked.

"You bet!" I slipped on my yellow rain jacket; he put on his sky blue one. Cooper dug around under the driver's seat and pulled out a flashlight that he had to slap against his hand to get going. The sudden beam startled us both.

Laughing, he got out of the truck. "Hand me dad's tub."

I dug it from the rear seat and did. He immediately nudged his door shut and started around the front of the vehicle to get to my side. I saw that he'd left the headlights on and was very glad of it.

"Please protect us, Nick." I opened the door got out, too, wondering if my spirit guide ever left my house. I honestly didn't know since I'd never sensed him anywhere else. But it was certainly worth a try.

A bolt of lightning forked across the sky. Thunder crashed, loud enough to make me squeal as we waded through ankle-high grass and mud to get to the front porch. If Cooper had any doubts about the place, I sure couldn't tell. Every time he glanced at me, I pasted a smile on my face that belied the thudding of my heart.

At the door, Cooper handed me the tub he held and fumbled with the lock before he got the key into it. One twist later, that weathered wooden barrier swung inward with a creak right out of a horror movie. I shuddered and refused when he took the tub and motioned with his head for me to go inside first.

With a laugh, he took the lead. I made myself follow, deliberately keeping the door open in case we needed a quick exit. That let the headlights illuminate the place a little. As we dripped rain onto sagging wood floors, Cooper swept the beam of the flashlight around what appeared to be a living room. Rain pounded the tin roof, a sound I should've liked, but all I heard was the scurry of little feet. Rats? Ew.

I gulped.

Cooper suddenly turned. "Can you believe this is mine?" Setting down the box, he whooped and caught me in a hug that pinned my arms to my sides. Cooper whirled us around. Clearly the boy saw things way differently than I currently did, and rightly so.

When he set me on my feet, I tried on his point of view for size, figuring I owed him that. "So it's safe to say you like it here?"

"Baby, you have no idea." He walked through a door with me just steps behind, taking us into the kitchen. All the cabinet doors stood open. I saw a white stove and sink and an empty area where the refrigerator should've been. A dampish smell permeated the stale air.

Cooper next headed down the hall to the bedrooms. There were three, all empty except one, which actually had a mattress on the floor. I eyed the thing with disgust. Who knew where it had been, right? Trash was strewn all around it, and I couldn't help but think that some homeless person might've crashed there at some point.

I nudged Cooper to get him moving again. He came to with a start, making me wonder if his sidekick was telling him more that I was getting. If so, we were probably dealing with the living and that made a transient scenario even more likely. The adjoining bathroom had a tub with claw feet that I definitely liked. I noticed that my mood got better as we left the area. A peek out revealed the rain falling harder, if anything, something the noisy tin roof confirmed.

Cooper pointed to the tub. "Let's check this out before we leave."

"Good idea." I walked just behind him to the living room, where I glanced out the windows. "Will your truck battery run down?"

"We won't be here that long."

We sat in the light spilling through the front door. Cooper placed the tub between us, lifting the lid to delve inside while I held the flashlight so he could see what he was doing. I let him run the show, watching as he pulled out baseball cards, paperback books, and music cassette tapes. I took them from him so he could dig deeper. He next withdrew a couple of football trophies and three yearbooks. I took those, too.

Photos followed, most of them in envelopes with a Photo Spot logo on the front. Cooper began to flip through them. Not wanting to intrude, I leaned slightly closer and saw snapshots of a younger Natalie with Brett. Prom poses, picnics, high school events. They looked happy and so in love.

I made myself check out Cooper's expression, expecting the worst, and saw that his eyes were definitely brimming. Without thought, I put an arm around him and touched my lips to his cheek.

He began putting everything back in the box though I didn't think he'd gotten to the bottom. Once he snapped the lid down, he said, "Let's check out the barn."

I nodded agreement.

Though the rain continued, it had slacked up a little. A lightning hit way too close for comfort lit up the yard as we stepped off the porch. I covered my ears when the thunder cracked seconds after. Motioning for me to follow, Cooper struck out for the barn, about thirty yards away, shining the flashlight all around. I hoped we wouldn't die by electrocution before we got there.

More lightning, the continuous flash-bulb type, revealed aged wood that had been bleached by the sun. A shift of the flashlight beam revealed red frames around the window, which made me think the barn had once been that color, too. A brave crow perched on the eave cawed at us, bringing to mind Edgar Allen Poe's classic poem about another black bird, the raven.

Nevermore? Yeah, that pretty much described how often I wanted to visit this creepy place, at least in the dark. For Cooper's sake, I hoped it would look a lot better in sunlight. The barn emitted an unearthly spookiness that killed the smidgen of good mood I'd been clinging to. Cooper glanced over his shoulder at me. I noticed his smile had slipped a notch. Was he getting bad vibes, too?

My heart rate, which had almost slowed to normal, picked up again as he lifted the handle of the double barn doors and swung one open. We both recoiled, Cooper so fast that his foot landed on my toe.

I yelped. He cursed. We shared a shaky laugh that should've lightened the moment, but didn't.

He ruffled his short wet hair. "Maybe we should come back when the sun's out."

"Yeah. Maybe we should."

Just as he turned to leave, I saw her--a gray mist barely visible in the lashing rain and dark. I gasped. Cooper looked where I looked. Knowing I couldn't avoid reporting this to Detective Simms, I memorized features that were a hazy blur one moment and, the next, almost as clear as she looked in life. Was this the woman I'd run through with my car? She looked new enough...well...every now and then, anyway.

Though I couldn't make out skin tone, I believed that the apparition's straight dark hair and eyes confirmed her ethnicity as Asian. Since I could make out her clothing, I was able to see blood on it. Lots of blood. And her arms had bruises, especially in the wrist area. Had she been bound? A chill ran down my spine.

Without saying a word to Cooper, I walked all the way to the back porch and dug my cell phone out of my pocket. I went through my contacts and found the newest entry: Detective Simms's number. By then, Cooper stood beside me. I touched the iPhone screen and listened to the ring. Once. Twice.

"Detective Simms."

"Hey. It's Mia Tagliaro. I've seen another spirit. I think she's connected to your case, and if she is, maybe she'll talk to us. Can you come out here?"

"Where's here?"

My mind went blank. I handed Cooper the phone. "He wants the address."

Cooper rattled it off and waited. "Okay. We'll wait." He ended the call and handed me my cell. "Want to sit in the truck until he get here?"

"Uh-huh." It would definitely be warmer there.

We cut through the house to get to it, gathering up the tub as we did. By then, our soaked clothes couldn't get any wetter, so when Cooper finally started the engine and flipped on the heater, that first chilly blast of air was torture. But the heat kicked in as the motor warmed, and by the time Detective Simms joined us in an unmarked car about thirty minutes later, I felt a lot better.

He'd dressed for the weather in a black rain poncho. I saw he wore jeans and rubber boots and considered him pretty dang smart to be ready for anything, even mud.

We piled out of the truck. I pointed toward the barn, visible from the front of the house because it lay to the right of it. The three of us walked to the double doors, which Cooper had left open.

I blinked against the rain running in rivulets down my face. "Saw her right there."

Detective Simms shifted his gaze to Cooper. "Did you see her, too?"

Cooper nodded.

Detective Simms frowned. "So is she dead or alive?"

Realizing I'd never fully explained Cooper's life-or-death abilities, I did it then, adding that his psychic gifts had been suppressed for a while, but were gaining strength. With a nod, Detective Simms turned on the flashlight he held and went into the barn. I didn't want to follow, but I did. My gut knotted with the certainty that something evil had gone down inside that old building. I truly expected to see spirits everywhere, all of them Asian, female, and murdered.

But I saw nothing except a beam of light skimming over a couple of stalls, rotting hay, and a riding mower. Glancing back, I gauged Cooper's reaction to the barn. He just shook his head.

"Getting anything?" asked Detective Simms, looking over his shoulder at us.

"No."

He directed the beam toward the loft and then into the corners. We saw nothing out of the ordinary, at least as far as we knew. We were all new to that barn and had no past impressions for comparison.

"I swear I saw her," I said, feeling foolish.

"Oh, I believe you." He walked back to Cooper and me. "What were you two doing here?"

Something in his tone made me wonder if he thought we'd been up to no good. Cooper explained that he was the new owner and even showed him the keys.

Detective Simms nodded, his expression unreadable. Or was that a hint of wry smile? "That's great, son. What are you going to do with it?"

The enthusiasm of his words didn't quite match his demeanor. I guessed because he was wondering what a kid would do with that much real estate.

"Not much for now," Cooper said, "though I'm thinking I'll live here someday. Obviously I'll have to have money to renovate."

Detective Simms nodded. "With your permission, I'll come out tomorrow if the weather is better and have a good look around."

"Yeah, sure. Whatever you need to do."

The detective focused his attention on me. "Was this the same spirit you saw before?"