27

 

I did not tell my sister about the frosted mirror, or that I saw the ghost again. Not sure of what I’d seen or if I had let fear take me over the edge, I told her that I thought I’d been followed by someone. She didn’t appear to completely believe me, but when I refused to elaborate, she settled on leaving me be if I agreed to report it.

She drove me to the sheriff’s station.

The entire ride over I stared out the truck window and wondered if this was what if felt like to lose your mind. Now I sat on the battered couch in Thompson’s office, unable to keep from shivering despite the space heater at my feet and the blanket wrapped around my shoulders.

Sonja sat outside, biting her nails and peering in at me through the blinds.

“Your sister said you had a fright. You think someone came after you?”

“I…sort of.”

Frowning, Thompson picked up the phone on his desk. “Well, let me just—”

“Please don’t call him,” I pled. “I don’t want Siyah here.”

Thompson leaned a hip on the desk and regarded me with a worried expression. He toed the heater, making it face me more, and scratched at his sideburn with one hand.

“You two OK?”

“We aren’t…there is no ‘you two’ anymore,” I said, wiping my wet cheek. “Not for years.”

“Uh-huh,” Thomson murmured. “Clearly.”

“Look, I convinced Sonja not to get him at his club and I certainly don’t want you to call him now.”

“Raven,” Thompson said and hesitated. “I don’t know you. You could be a complete head case, but I do know Siyah and he doesn’t seem the type to be with a crazy woman.”

“I told you—”

“Yes, I know.” He put a palm up. “You’re not together. I got that. And yet he looked like he might take me down over a few questions last night.”

“He can be…protective,” I said. “But that is all. He has someone else.”

Thompson considered me, and then sighed. After a moment, he said, “You seem really shaken up, that’s all. You and your sister have been through so much that maybe you’re starting to feel it. When is the last time you slept?”

“I don’t know.” Rubbing my face with both hands, I tried to conjure up the strength to tell Thompson what I needed to say. “I asked to speak with you privately b–because I think that all of this has to do with something I did years ago.”

He sat up straighter, brows raised. “Come again?”

“The face you saw, the one on the napkin,” I said and took a breath. “I know who it is.”

“What?” Thompson shook his head as if to clear it. “You’re saying the face in the woods, the one you saw in the mirror…it’s a real person?”

I nodded, my lip trembling. “I think it might be Shane Crawley.”

“Why do I know that name?”

“He’s the teenager who fell from the Ferris wheel,” I explained. “His death is the reason the Romany lost the land, why things seem to be going sideways.”

“Crawley, huh…” He looked at me for a beat, blinked, and then blew his breath out in a slow whoosh.

I buried my face in my palms, not sure if I’d just lost the only real ally I had in all of this.

Thompson had seen the same apparition. “Hey,” he said, and I looked up. “If you think this kid is haunting you, then tell me why.”

That he didn’t kick me out or laugh gave me hope, and I nodded, gathering my thoughts. “That night, when Crawley fell, I was there. I saw what happened.”

“He unhooked the bar,” Thompson said. “I read the report.”

“No, he didn’t,” I said and my voice broke. “He and some Romany boys had been pushing at each other all that night. First at the funhouse, where Crawley and another boy beat up Luka, and then on the Ferris wheel. The two groups were throwing things at each other, popcorn, their soda cups…just being mean.” I took a breath, hand to my chest. “One of the times, Crawley must have wanted to really hit them hard because he lunged when he threw something and…and the bar flew open.”

“Wait, it broke?” Thompson raised a brow. “You’re sure?”

I nodded, the ache in my throat almost suffocating. “I know that we all said he unhooked the bar, that he meant to do something dangerous—”

“He was known to be a daredevil,” Thompson said. “Are you sure you saw what you thought you did?”

“Yes. I saw him fall and his face…” I shook my head, breath caught. “He was shocked. The cup was still in his hand, Thompson.”

The sheriff sat still for a moment, his gaze searching mine. “What else?”

“What do you mean?”

“So you saw him fall and didn’t say anything.”

“Yes.” I trembled in my seat. “I should have said something, but—”

“But the other witness statements backed up the evidence. The lock was not broken. It was clearly unhooked.”

“The witnesses were wrong,” I said. “I saw what really happened.”

“OK,” Thompson shrugged. “What changed your mind?”

“When the police were there interviewing the witnesses, I told them I’d seen what happened, but they wanted the adults to talk first so I waited.”

Thompson scratched at his sideburn. “And someone got to you.”

“Deakon,” I said, my stomach turning. “Deakon spoke to me. I’d seen him change the numbers on the Ferris wheel seats as the commotion around the boy was going on. He switched Crawley’s seat for one with a hinge that was intact. With all the yelling and panic, no one noticed, but me. He told me that the boys fighting with Crawley might be blamed, that the man who ran the maintenance, a Romany man, would be tried for murder.”

“Aw, Raven,” Thompson sighed. “Deakon covered up negligence.”

“He told me that if he was caught, Siyah would be taken. With his mother ill, and Deakon in jail, the social workers would take Siyah and we might never see him again. He’d be lost in the system or shipped off to another state.” Lip quivering, I wiped at my cheeks. “I was so afraid, Thompson. Why should Siyah suffer for something he didn’t have anything to do with?”

“That’s not what would have happened,” he said.

“I know that now, but at fifteen…I believed anything Deakon said to me. And Sheriff Palmer was not a friend to us.” I shook, my chest tight with the anger and worry I’d fought to quell. “It is why I wanted so badly to leave Noble. I thought if we left, if we could escape all the pressure and expectation—that Siyah would not become—”

“Like his father,” Thompson finished for me.

I nodded, sniffling.

“So you think that your complacency in covering up the death is the reason why you’re being…haunted?”

“I know you think that a small fright in an old abandoned room is easy to explain away, but that is not the first time I have had an encounter.”

“Yes, you told me about the carousel,” Thompson said. “And I believe you saw someone, but—”

“No,” I interrupted, my voice louder than I meant. “No, that is not the only time.”

“Siyah told me you thought you saw something in the woods the other day, too, but he didn’t see what you saw. He said you took a bump to the head in the middle of a terrible wind storm. It could have been anything.”

“It called me by name.”

“What?”

“I was in the tunnels under the boardwalk and something called me by name and chased me down. It tried to crush me with mirrors.”

Thompson sat back, his face registering shock. “Go on.”

I took a breath and told him.

“And then just now…” My voice quaked. “It called my name and it was cold…so cold I could see my breath.”

Leaning back to look at the ceiling, Thompson sighed, and then stood so abruptly his chair scraped back. He looked at me with tired eyes. “I need to show you something.”

He pushed past me to his side door and out into the hall. I followed him, glancing back at Sonja, who stood near the front reception counter speaking to a deputy. She had her back to me.

“Where are we going?” I ran to catch up with his long strides.

“You…just wait.” Thompson pushed through the back hallway, one used for freight delivery and arrest intakes. I smelled the strange pungency of the fingerprint ink and pine cleaner. “In here.”

We walked through a swinging back door and into the small medical suite in the rear of the station. A metal table stood in the center of the room surrounded by counters filled with various types of medical supplies. Up against one wall, three square doors with labels glimmered in the fluorescent lights.

“Are those…”

“Yes, they’re refrigeration for bodies.” Thompson walked over, pulled open the middle door, and slid a drawer out. The black plastic body bag rustled as he unzipped it.

“What are you doing?” I gasped, horrified.

Peeling the sides away, he exposed the pasty white face and torso of Elgin Matthews.

I swayed with nausea.

“Hit the lights,” Thompson said, looking up at me.

“Are you crazy?” I stared at him, dumbfounded.

“Raven, turn the lights off.”

Hand shaking, I pulled the door closed behind me and flicked off the switch. I gasped, not believing.

Elgin’s face glowed a phosphorescent blue.

“What…why is he glowing?” I stepped closer, my curiosity overriding my fear. Uneven, the glow seemed to spray across Elgin’s face.

“I have no idea.” Thompson’s silhouette moved as he shook his head. “But check this out.” The body bag crinkled in the darkness and then five glowing points emerged; Elgin’s fingers.

“I don’t understand,” I breathed.

Thompson move past me.

The lights flickered on, and I squinted.

“What does this mean and what does it have to do with me?”

“All this has to be related, don’t you think?” Thompson said, re-zipping the bag and pushing Elgin’s drawer back into the wall.

“It does?” I stood, cold and queasy in the dank room. Outside, the wind raged, sending bits of tree against the high windows of the room. “Why would he glow like that?”

“Hopefully, I’ll find out soon. I’m shipping him to Seattle as soon as I can, but this storm is causing problems. I just heard a bigger squall is on its way behind this one. Only essential deliveries are allowed until it clears. They’re canceling the ferry trips soon, too.”

“Just like the reports from the drunk divers who said they’d seen glowing,” I murmured.

Thompson nodded. “This has something to do with more than you, I think. This stuff, it rubs off. It’s real and something that we can look at under a microscope.”

“Something real,” I said, hoping he was right. I motioned towards the wall. “What do you think it is?”

“I would guess the liquid in glow sticks, but that stuff wears out after a few hours. Elgin has been glowing for longer than that.”

“But something like it. Something…real.”

“Yes. Something real,” Thompson assured me, his face earnest. “I just don’t know what, yet.”

“There are other things,” I said, digging into my purse and handing him the articles I’d copied. “Lots of them recent.”

He looked them over and pursed his lips. “Some of this I know about, but not everything. I’ll have to see what I can dig up.”

“There’s something more,” I said and had to force myself to continue. “I think that Niklos was involved in something bad. I mean with some bad people.”

“Bad how?’

“I’m not sure. Sonja wouldn’t say, but he was afraid enough to buy a gun.”

Thompson lifted a brow. “And how do you know this? Nothing like that was recovered at his place or on him. Nothing is registered to him.”

“She said she found a receipt for one.” I did not mention the boat, not before talking to Siyah about it first.

“I wish you’d shared that with me sooner.”

“I just found out,” I said, though unsure whether it would have made a difference had I known sooner. “But there was a receipt, so maybe the gun registration is under a fake name or not filed yet?”

“It’s something to look into.”

“I don’t know what to believe, Thompson,” I tried, but my voice broke. “It all feels so real. The faces, the voices, if I didn’t know you’d seen something, too, I might start to believe I was going insane.”

“Or someone wants you to,” Thompson said.

Cold fear pricked at my mind. What I’d seen and heard in the fortune teller’s room seemed anything but earthly. Again, I wondered if Thompson believed what I’d told him. “What are you going to do?” I chewed my inner cheek.

“I’ll have to check out the boardwalk.” Thompson sighed. “That means halting Siyah’s construction plans.”

“But he’s already behind because of Niklos’s death,” I said. “I don’t know if he can afford—”

“That’s not the worst of it,” Thompson said. “We emailed our report on Niklos to the coroner in Seattle. I just got an answer back. He asked me to get a sampling of knives to compare to Niklos’s injury once they come to get him.”

“Because he was stabbed.” I flashed on Siyah’s image on the cliff. “Did he say what kind, exactly?”

“Daggers,” Thompson said and ground his jaw. “There must be hundreds all over Noble, but with the body on his property, Siyah’s dagger is at the top of the list.”

“He barely knew Niklos.” Chills raced down my spine at the memory of the anger in Siyah’s eyes that night on the beach. “Why would he hurt him? No, he wouldn’t, he just”—I wondered if I even believed my defensive words—“wouldn’t,” I finished in a murmur.

“It’s just procedural, but now that you’ve said there was an assault on you down in tunnels that were supposed to be sealed off, that puts Siyah in a whole other light where the Seattle District Attorney is concerned. What if Niklos discovered that Siyah was doing something illegal?”

“Do you really believe that?” My voice spiked with worry. What had I done in telling what I knew to Thompson?

“No.” Thompson shook his head. “But something is going on and we need to find out before these storms clear and we get Seattle authorities over here.”

“Will you speak to Siyah tonight?”

“He’s at his club, right?”

I nodded. “Rain does not stop most of the young people when they want to enjoy themselves.”

“Then I’ll hold off until tomorrow. I want to check some things out, first. He’ll be around lots of people who could give him an alibi if he needs one for tonight.”

“Alibi?” My heartbeat sped. “Wait…”

Thompson was already striding back to his office. He spotted my sister, turned and leaned in close, whispering. “You need to keep this between us for now.”

“Where are you going?” I hissed, pulling on his sleeve. “What do you need to check out?”

“It’s better if you stay close to your sister tonight. Don’t leave Siyah’s loft,” Thompson said, ignoring my question.

I moved to push for an answer, but he turned and slipped through a door to my right. Sonja, spotting me, came over.

“What happened?” she asked, her face concerned.

“He said he’ll check it out.”

“That’s it?” She shook her head. “He doesn’t believe you.”

“I think he does, but he wants to see things for himself.”

“But you said someone was after you,” Sonja said. “Why wouldn’t he take that seriously?”

“He did, it’s just, I didn’t really see a person,” I explained. “I told you, it was dark.”

“Still…” she sniffed her frustration, but hooked my arm with hers. “We should get back. The radio said that the storm is building, moving over Noble as we speak. The roads will flood.”

Nodding, I let her lead me out, my mind still reeling from all that had happened in so short a time.

Niklos, Elgin, daggers, and glowing corpses. What was happening?

And more importantly, how was Siyah involved?