The Killers
Tony half expected Emily to show up at his door after Stephanie appeared. But as the night wore on, he realized she wasn’t coming. Part of him was relieved, and the other part was disappointed. Emily was acting a little strange again, maybe not as weird as last spring, but strange nevertheless, and it worried him.
He suddenly realized Stephanie was talking and had moved her chair close enough that her leg was brushing against his own. He supposed it was so she could see all the pictures and diagrams they’d been discussing. He grinned. “Sorry, Steph, I guess I was daydreaming. What did you say?”
She smiled back in her usual sweet way. “I asked where Emily is tonight.”
“That’s funny, I was just thinking about her. I guess she’s at home. Why?”
Stephanie shrugged. “No reason. I was just curious.”
He looked back at the diagram he’d been studying before his mind wandered.
“Um, Tony?”
“Yeah?” He looked down into sad eyes.
“Why doesn’t Emily like me?”
The question surprised him. “What makes you think she doesn’t like you?” He couldn’t picture anyone not liking Stephanie, especially Emily, but then again, his girlfriend had changed over the last few months.
Stephanie chewed on her bottom lip. Her hands were clasped together on the table. “I don’t want to cause any problems, but…”
He leaned forward and placed his hands over hers. “Sometimes Emily can be a little gruff when she says things. She doesn’t mean it in a bad way.”
The girl’s face turned an adorable shade of pink. He hoped the poor kid wasn’t worried that what she had to tell him would make him angry. He smiled to ease her mind. “You know you can tell me anything.”
“I don’t understand it, but I think she’s jealous of our relationship. Whenever you aren’t around—like today when I left the garage—she followed me outside and said some really mean and hurtful things. When I got upset, she laughed and called me a baby.”
Completely shocked, all Tony could do was stare at her. He watched a tear slide down her flushed cheek. He felt his anger begin to grow. “Did she say anything else?” This didn’t sound like Emily, but if she had been bullying this defenseless kid, he would…well, he didn’t know what he’d do, but he wouldn’t allow something like that to continue.
Stephanie pulled her hands free and shook her head. “I can’t tell you. I’m afraid she might—” She stood abruptly. “I shouldn’t have said as much as I did. I better go now.”
He reached out and clasped her tiny wrist. “Steph, I have to know. I can’t help you if you won’t talk to me.”
She sat back on the chair. “Before I tell you, you have to give me your word you won’t let Emily know I said anything.”
Tony could see her tiny body trembling. He couldn’t make that kind of promise. Emily’s gift could show her their conversation anytime, but he couldn’t tell that to Stephanie. “I swear I won’t tell her, but she has this way of knowing things. You have to tell me regardless, if you want my help.”
She inhaled deeply. “She accused me of wanting you for myself, and that if I didn’t go back to Des Moines something bad was going to happen to me. She said she would make sure of it.”
He heard the words, but couldn’t believe they had come from his Emily. Yet why would Steph make something like that up? “What else did she say?”
Her eyes filled with tears. “Don’t make me repeat it. I didn’t believe her, so it doesn’t matter.”
Tony frowned. “Do you trust me?”
Tears rolled down her cheeks. When she nodded, he pulled her chair close again and put his arm around her shoulders. “Then you have to tell me. I need to know.”
She sucked in a shaky breath. “She said you told her that you wouldn’t let my brother use the Malibu for the race or work on his car, because he was a lousy driver and an even worse mechanic and you didn’t have time to work on his car for him.” Her small frame began to shake. She buried her face into his shoulder, but he heard her muffled words. “She said you knew he would use his car anyway, even though the motor was acting up, and that you said my brother deserved what he got if he was that stupid.”
Tony was flabbergasted. He wasn’t guilty of those words, but he did feel responsible for her brother’s death. If he had taken the time to work on Blaine’s car, the accident might not have happened. But not even in his wildest dream, would he have said his old friend deserved to die. So why would Emily tell Stephanie he had?
The girl was sobbing into his shoulder. He rubbed her back like you would a small child hoping to calm them down. He needed to confess his guilt and tell her the truth about what really happened. “Blaine did come to me a few days before the race and asked if he could use the Malibu.”
Stephanie lifted her head, looking at him through tear-filled eyes. He took a deep breath and told her exactly what happened. “I honestly thought, at the time, he’d cancel the race or postpone it, but I did know him better than anyone, and I should have made sure the event never happened, but I didn’t. So…in a way, his death was my fault, but at no time did I say he deserved to die.”
The girl made a sound like a small-frightened animal, and his arms involuntarily brought her onto his lap. “I’m sorry,” he whispered as he cradled her like a child. “If I had…”
She looked at him with tear-stained cheeks and touched his lips with her fingertips. “It wasn’t your fault.” She pressed her lips to his with a little butterfly kiss and gazed into his eyes. “I can’t blame you. Promise me you’ll never leave me like he did.”
Tony loved the feel of her tiny arms around his neck. He realized that with each beat of his heart, he was growing to love this child even more. She was the most innocent and pure thing in his life, and he couldn’t understand why Emily would threaten and lie to her, but he intended to find out.
* * * *
Emily rested on the window seat, grateful her parents were across town playing cards with some friends. She watched the two ghosts through the living room picture window as they chased one another in the front yard. Emily almost yelled at them to get out of the road before they were killed, the first time they ran across the street.
Gee, will I ever get used to seeing ghosts?
Dana looked like any carefree twelve-year-old playing with the family dog. Only Emily knew better. After the child remembered a little more about her past, she had become distant and didn’t want to talk anymore, so Emily sent them outside to play.
She understood how the kid felt. Her plight reminded her a great deal of herself, and how she had buried memories of the night Max was murdered. She kept them contained deep within her subconscious, until Tony’s father’s ghost showed up thirteen years later and forced her to remember. She shuddered at the memories, but at least she had survived. Dana hadn’t been as lucky, and forcing her to recall what must have been some kind of nightmare before she was ready might damage the ghost-child more.
She wished Aiden would appear to help her deal with not only Dana, but Stephanie and the “Shadow” as well. But for some reason, Tony’s ghostly father seemed to be avoiding her. She leaned her head against the window frame and closed her eyes. Something to help solve at least one of these problems would be really appreciated.
The vision started out as if she were watching a film in slow motion. Tony and his brother were arguing about Stephanie, and Devon was declaring his love for the girl. His big brother didn’t like it very much and said so. The two were getting ready to punch one another when Stephanie came to the door, ending their argument. It turned Emily’s stomach to see how easily the brothers were manipulated in her hands.
The girl seemed to rebel against the “Shadow” when it tried to pressure her into doing certain things. Some of her tears were honest emotions, especially where Devon was concerned. Emily was surprised to discover that Stephanie had real feelings for Tony’s brother and hated doing the things she was being forced into.
The two boys were clueless when it came to her; but that was because they weren’t looking close enough. They were only seeing the girl’s outer appearance and not the unwelcome evil that surrounded her and in fact, was encircling them all.
The scene changed and Stephanie was clinging to Tony with her face buried in his shirt. She was sobbing, but her words were loud and clear to Emily. “She accused me of wanting you for myself, and that if I didn’t go back to Des Moines something bad was going to happen to me. She said she would make sure of it.”
Emily gasped. That little liar!
The “Shadow’s” power and control over the teenager was growing steadily and it was using the girl to get to Emily through Tony. Did it fear her? Did she know this entity? Was that why it hid itself in a form of darkness rather than as a ghost?
By now, Emily was also beginning to believe there might be two spirits. The smaller one appeared to be as reluctant as Stephanie, yet it was the one manipulating the girl, part of the time. She was almost a hundred percent certain the lesser ghost was the girl’s deceased brother, and because he held a special place in Steph’s heart, it was easy for him to make her do and say things she didn’t want to.
But that didn’t make sense. If Blaine didn’t want to follow the “Shadow’s” orders, why was he? Emily had learned enough about the spirit world to know the only way one ghost could control another one to this extent, was by using a threat of some kind. The brother should be able to help the sister free herself, if they both rejected the “Shadow” outright, so why hadn’t they?
The vision suddenly went dark, as if someone had flipped off a light-switch. As Emily’s eyes adjusted, she saw trees and the outlines of some old abandoned buildings. It appeared to be early spring. The branches had buds opening and new leaves just beginning to unfurl.
A fire blazed in an open pit and it cast eerie shadows around a small clearing. Someone was crying. The sound was almost imperceptible and seemed to be coming from inside one of the ramshackle buildings. A chill crept up Emily’s spine, when she saw the two men sitting on the ground near the fire. It was dark and they each had their backs to her, so she couldn’t recognize them. Nevertheless, her pulse increased and she had to force herself to allow the vision to continue.
One of the men abruptly stood.
“What are you gonna do?” the one left sitting on the ground asked.
“What do you think? It’s about time I shut that kid up.”
“Hold on,” the other man said, rising from the ground. “I don’t want to miss this.”
The men’s voices were familiar, and for a moment, Emily was a small child again, hiding under a porch, while she watched a killer’s legs walk past her. He called her name and told her in a singsong voice that she couldn’t hide forever.
Emily sucked in a sharp breath and the vision vanished. When she opened her eyes, she was lying on the floor in her parent’s house, curled into the fetal position. It was as though she had just relived the terror of all those years before. But this time, it wasn’t just her own plight she was witnessing, it was Dana’s too. Hearing her crying and seeing the young girl’s situation had revived her own nightmares. Why?
Emily’s eyes suddenly opened wide as a sick feeling began to spread from the pit of her stomach and recognition dawned within her.
I know who murdered Dana.