The Family Revelation and Tony’s Temper
Startled, Emily knew her mouth was open, but she couldn’t seem to do anything but stare at her mother. She cleared her throat. “Why would you ask me that?”
Her mother’s face turned a bright pink. “I know this is going to sound like I’m losing my mind, but…well…I’ve been hearing a child’s laughter and a dog’s bark for the past couple of days and sometimes I don’t feel like I’m alone.”
Emily continued to stare. Last spring when she learned about her skills and told her parents, her mother confessed she’d known about her daughter’s gift, but that it had skipped two generations before appearing in Emily.
She tried to smile. “I thought you said you weren’t psychic.”
Her mother’s eyebrows rose and her eyes widened with innocence. “I’m not, but I’ve been having these crazy dreams, and I thought…” She stopped and shook her head. “I shouldn’t have said anything.” She began clearing the table, piling dirty dishes on the counter.
“You’re not crazy, Mom. For the last couple of days, there have been ghosts here.”
The dishes clattered in the sink and her mother spun around, her face pale. “Are they here now?”
“As a matter of fact, they aren’t. I thought they’d be here this morning.” Saying it out loud made Emily feel like crying. What if they didn’t come back?
Her mother perched on the chair beside her. “Who are they?”
“The barking dog is Max.” The look of shock on her mother’s face brought a grin to Emily, in spite of the turmoil she felt inside.
“What about the child?”
“The girl’s name is Dana Lynch.”
This time her mother frowned. “You don’t mean the little girl from Waterloo who went missing last spring?”
Emily nodded. “I didn’t want to believe it either, but there’s no doubt.”
Her mother stood abruptly and paced around the kitchen, stopping at the window to gaze out into the backyard. She noticed her mother’s baby bump was already beginning to show.
“What happened? Was it an accident?”
She wasn’t sure she should tell her pregnant mother that Dana had been murdered, but she couldn’t lie about it either. “It wasn’t an accident.”
“Have you told the police or her parents?”
She joined her mother at the window. “No, I haven’t told anyone but you and Kaylee, and even she doesn’t know everything. I can’t go to the police or her parents until I can locate her body.”
Nora suddenly turned from the window, clutched Emily by the shoulders, and shook her gently. “You can’t tell anyone else what you’ve seen! You hear me, not anyone!”
Emily pulled her mother’s hands away and held them in her own. “Mom, I have to. I can’t let them get away with this.”
Her mother examined her eyes for a moment. “I saw pictures of that little girl on the news. She looked a great deal like you when you were her age. Did Jack Nelson and his father do this?”
Emily gasped. “How did you know?”
Her mother pulled her hands free and rubbed her forehead. “You said them. The dreams I mentioned, I saw two men burying something inside an old barn. They were laughing and talking about coming here for you.”
Emily didn’t know what to say. Had her mother been fooling herself and everyone else all these years? She studied the woman’s face. She still looked like her mother. It had to be the pregnancy and the contact with the ghosts that had heightened her senses to a higher level.
“When you were pregnant with me, did this kind of thing happen?”
Her mother frowned. “You think it’s the pregnancy?” She placed her hand on her rounded belly and thought about it. Finally she shook her head. “Not like this. I had strange dreams during the last trimester that didn’t make any sense, but it says in all the baby books, that kind of thing is normal.”
Emily glanced out the window and a rush of relief washed over her. Playing in the backyard were her two runaway ghosts. “Mom, look out there,” she said, nodding toward the glass. “What do you see?”
Nora pursed her lips. “I see…the backyard. Why? What do you see?”
Emily grinned but didn’t answer the question. Instead, she opened the kitchen door and stepped outside. Her mother followed. “Now, what do you hear?”
“Giggling and barking,” she said. Her mother looked around, her eyes wide. “Where’s it coming from?”
“From the two ghosts playing in the back yard.”
Her mother was more of a psychic than she let on. The pregnancy may be reinforcing the gift and making it stronger, but there had always been times when her mother commented on things she had no way of knowing. Emily always thought it was a mother’s instincts at work.
As soon as Max saw her, he rushed to greet Emily. She patted his ghostly head. “I’m so glad you came home. I missed you both so much.”
She looked for Dana, but the girl had stayed where she and Max had been playing. At least, she hadn’t run away. “I’m sorry I upset you last night,” Emily said. “I wouldn’t try to force you to go back. I understand more than most what you’re going through.”
Dana looked skeptical, but she came closer. “You can’t understand. You weren’t there.”
“No, I wasn’t, but when I was a few years younger than you, a teenage boy tried to kidnap me. Max, my best friend, prevented him.”
The dog heard his name, whined, and looked at her expectantly. Emily sat on the ground and he put his head in her lap. Dana moved closer until Emily could have touched her, but she didn’t want to frighten the girl.
“That same boy later killed Max. I tried to stop him after I realized what he was going to do, but I was too late. So I ran and he chased me. I hid in the dark under a porch. Even though I was too young to understand why he was hunting me, I knew if he found my hideout, he would have done even worse things to me than he had to Max.”
Dana made a little choking sound and moved toward her until she was close enough to put her head in her lap next to Max’s. “You see, I do understand. I survived and I still blocked it out just like you, and it took Aiden Shaw a long time, but he finally helped me remember. Because he did that for me, I was able to stop the killer from killing again.” Emily took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “That’s why I’m here to help you find peace, no matter what you decide, but remember your sister, mother, father, and stepfather are all suffering, and they need to know what happened to you so they can go on with the rest of their lives.”
Dana looked up. “I’m sorry I ran away.”
Emily breathed a sigh of relief. “I know you are, and I’m here to help you in whatever way I can, whether you regain your memory or not.” Emily extricated herself from the child and dog, then stood and looked at the pair still on the ground. “Now, I have a couple of classes I must attend, if I plan on graduating from college.”
Emily startled when her mother touched her shoulder. “I’m sorry about what I said earlier. I didn’t know why you couldn’t just keep this to yourself.” Her mother’s green eyes overflowed with tears. She brushed them off her cheeks. “I understand now why my grandmother hadn’t kept her gift a secret either, even though it would have been easier for my mom and I.”
She smiled. “It’s okay, Mom.” Emily looked down at the two ghosts. “You guys stay here with my mother. Her name is Mrs. Preston. She can’t see you, but she can hear everything you say, so you can talk to her if you like.” Emily looked at her watch. She was going to be late if she didn’t leave right then. “Don’t forget, Dana, the three of us are going out to the farm to play when I get back.”
Dana grinned like a happy twelve-year-old. “I’ll remember.”
Max barked.
Emily gave her mother a hug goodbye and hurried to the Grand Am. She might even have a couple of minutes to spare.
* * * *
Tony leaned against Brice’s Ford, thrumming his fingers on the red hood. Where were those guys? He couldn’t decide if carpooling was worth it. Sure it saved a little money on gas, but this waiting around for his friends was killing him. He should be on his way to work. Shawn would get there first and wonder why Tony wasn’t.
On top of the work situation, he hadn’t spoken to Emily or Stephanie since seeing them together the night before and he planned to rectify that situation before heading out to the shop. His idea was to make sure they reached some kind of friendly agreement and to make Emily apologize to Stephanie. But now that wasn’t going to happen, all because of these idiots.
He checked the time on his cell phone: 3:30. He’d been waiting for fifteen minutes and they had nearly an hour’s drive to return to Charles City. If he had used his own car today, he would have left their sorry asses here to find another way home.
Brice, Terry, and Adam came out of the building immersed in conversation with a couple of girls. He should have known it would be females holding those bums up and not anything to do with school. They had no sense of responsibility, and the only thing on their minds was girls and hooking up.
Ten minutes later the three boys finally wandered over to where Tony waited next to Brice’s car. By then, his fists were clenched and he was ready to punch one of them, and he wasn’t picky which one.
“It’s about time,” he snarled as he got in the car. “Get in so we can get out of here.”
Brice frowned as he got behind the wheel. “What crawled up your butt?”
Tony shook his head, disgusted with all three of them. “I’ve been waiting for thirty minutes. I have responsibilities. Now I’m going to be late and for what, so you guys can maybe get lucky?” He flopped back against the seat.
“Geez, Tony,” Adam, the smallest of the three, said, “is the Ice Princess still not putting out? I would have thought by now…”
Who did he think he was? Talking about Emily like that? He hadn’t finished the sentence before Tony grabbed him by the throat. “Keep your filthy mouth shut,” he said between clenched teeth, “unless you’d like me to shut it permanently.” He knew many of the boys still called Emily the Ice Princess, but today it really rubbed him wrong. It was time they learned a lesson in manners, and he was just the guy to teach it.
“Hey, Tony,” Terry said. “He was only…”
Tony cut him off. “You stay out of this.” He tightened his grip on the other boy’s throat.
Terry’s eyes widened and he brought his hands up in a gesture of surrender.
Adam’s face was turning a bright red and he started making gurgling noises. Brice hit Tony’s arm, effectively removing his hand from the smaller boy’s throat.
“What’s the matter with you, man? Have you lost your friggin’ mind?” He looked in the back seat at Adam. “You alright?”
Adam put his hand to his neck and looked a little confused. “Yeah, I think so,” he replied.
Tony rubbed his arm and leaned back. He was as surprised at his actions as the three guys, but decided Adam deserved it. He hadn’t really hurt him, and besides, he didn’t have any business talking about Emily like that.
No one spoke on the ride back to Charles City and Brice kept checking every couple of minutes like he thought Tony might do something crazy.
Tony wanted to laugh. Maybe tomorrow they would be in the car by the time he was ready to leave.