Ashes to Ashes (Experiment in Terror #8) (35 page)

“
I think we
should stay here for the rest of the week.”

He jerked his chin back. “Uh,
what? How about no?”

“
Come on, I
think you’ll make good progress with my parents.”

“
Baby, no.
Maybe they’ll come around, but as much as I’ll keep trying to win
them over, after some time you have to know it’s out of our
hands.”

“
Please,
Dex.”

“
What about
Fat Rabbit?”

“
Call Ana Rita
and tell her we’ll be back later. Or see if Rebecca can take care
of him. She might want the company while she deals with the Dean
situation.”

“
How is she
going to get back home if we have the car?”

I thought about that for a
moment before I exclaimed, “She can take Putt-Putt! I need to get
that bike to Seattle anyway.”

“
I’m not sure
if Rebecca knows how to ride a bike,” he said.

“
She told me
she used to have a Vespa in England. Same thing.”

He laughed. “Yeah, I’m sure
tooling up I-5 on Putt-Putt is the same as popping over to some
English pub on a Vespa.”

“
She’ll do
it,” I told him. “She’s always wanted to ride it, she told me that
herself.”

He pursed his lips as he
watched me closely for a few beats. “Okay. We’ll stay. Because if
it’s important to you, it’s important to me.”

“
I knew there
was a reason I said yes to you,” I told him, kissing him quickly on
the cheek.

He grinned, running his hands
through my hair and leaning in closer. “Do you want me to show you
all those other reasons?”

I closed my eyes into his kiss
and buried the thought of what I was going to do in the back of my
head. I would watch my mother for a few days and see what happened.
If it seemed like a big mistake, I’d put the pills back. But if it
seemed like she was like me, was like Pippa, was like Dex and Ada,
then I was going to get to the bottom of it. I was going to let
everyone know and I was going to confront her.

She didn’t have to be alone in
this. Not like I had to be.

I took the book off of Dex’s
chest and tossed it to the floor. He brought his head down between
my legs and I let all the other reasons wash over me.

***

The next morning Rebecca agreed
to take my bike back up to Seattle. Actually, she seemed kind of
excited about it, although it led to her fretting over what to wear
since she didn’t really pack for that kind of excursion. Luckily,
Ada came to the rescue and let her borrow her McQueen leather
jacket and designer jeans for the ride. Turns out both of them
could wear each other’s clothes with ease. I pretended I didn’t
hate them for that.

After we said goodbye to
Rebecca, who also assured us she would love to take care of Fat
Rabbit, Dex and I went back to work on the footage for the show
while Ada popped in and out, enjoying her weekend. My parents kept
themselves scarce and decided to head into the city to do some
shopping. I think I even heard the phrase, “I’ll keep an eye on the
bridal boutiques” come out of my mother’s mouth, which both
thrilled and horrified me. Thrilled me because it meant she was
accepting I was getting married—not to mention it reminded me that,
holy crap, I had a wedding to plan—and horrified me because clothes
shopping with my mom was always a nightmare. I could only imagine
how wedding dress shopping was going to go, let alone anything else
that had to do with the wedding.

But we would cross that bridge
when we came to it. For now, I was just going to enjoy being
engaged, and when it came time to pick a date and plan a wedding,
well then I’d jump right in with both feet.

We’d been inside my bedroom for
hours, just editing and adding music and talking about how we were
going to tell Jimmy that it was all over, when I’d had enough.

I got up off the bed,
stretching as I went. “I’m going for a walk, you want to come
with?” I asked Dex.

He shook his head. “You go
ahead, kiddo. I’m so close to being done here.”

“
All right, be
right back.”

I was halfway out the door when
he said, “I love you, baby.”

“
Love you
too,” I told him. I skipped down the stairs and called out for Ada.
She came out of the TV room looking sweaty. “What are you
doing?”

“
Exercising,”
she said, wiping her sweat off her face. “Remember, I told you
about it and stuff?”

“
Right,” I
said, only then hearing the Jillian Michael’s DVD that was playing
on the TV. “Well, I’m going for a walk to the river if you want to
come do exercise the healthy and natural way.”

She put her hand on her hip and
said, “Boring,” in an exaggerated Valley Girl impression and
bounded back into the room before Jillian could yell at her.

I left her to her sweat session
and stepped outside. It was back to being cloudy again, although
the air was warm and there was a nice breeze coming out of the
north that smelled like sweet wildflowers. I breathed in deeply and
walked off down our quiet street like I used to do all the
time.

I made my way down to the
river, following the winding path, and found a bench where I could
stare at the far bank, the Washington side. I plopped myself down,
bringing my knees up to my chest and breathed in deeply. It was
crazy to sit here and think about how far I’d come, even from the
last time I was here at this very same spot. My life had changed so
quickly, and in the end, so brilliantly.

With the wind whipping up my
hair and a bunch of ducks waddling ashore that made me giggle about
“duck spunk,” I sat there and let myself feel really, truly happy.
I had no idea what the future held for us, but knowing Dex loved
me, that I was going to marry him, that I’d be with him every step
of the way—nothing seemed scary anymore.

I sighed and closed my eyes,
leaning my head back on the bench.

“
Hello
there.”

I abruptly sat up and looked
behind me.

There was a man standing a few
yards away, in the middle of the path and smiling at me. Though he
was handsome with his sharp features, sandy brown hair, and blue
suit, there was something both unsettling and familiar about
him.

I think it was his eyes. They
were set deep and very dark, framed by long lashes.

I didn’t say hello back, just
stared at him while all my warning bells were going off inside.
It’s not like Portland was the rapist capital of the world, and it
was the early afternoon, but still. There was something about this
man who made my heart race and my legs want to run.

Finally, after he didn’t say
anything else, just stared and smiled, I said, “Sorry, were you
talking to me?”

He took two fluid steps forward
and I noticed how shiny his wingtip shoes were. “Yes,” he said
simply. “Sorry if I startled you.”

I forced a stiff smile. “That’s
okay.” I immediately started thinking of plotting my way out of the
situation. I could excuse myself and say I needed to get back
somewhere. I could try walking past him, or I could try going
further down the path. I looked over at the opposite riverbank,
thinking maybe someone over there could help, but it was too far
away.

“
Don’t be
alarmed,” he said, putting his hands behind his back and rocking on
his feet. “I don’t mean any harm. I’m new in town and wanted to see
the Columbia River.” He grinned at me and stroked his clean-shaven
face, and again I was hit with a weird sense of déjà vu.

“
Where did you
move from?” I asked, trying out my parents’ art of small talk. I
knew I was probably overreacting in every single way, but the more
I knew about this man, the more I could use against him
later.

You are being
so paranoid
, I chided myself. Still, I
brought my phone out by my side, my fingers twitching to hit the
emergency call button.

“
I’m here from
New York City,” he said with a touch of arrogance. “Manhattan. And
I haven’t moved here, I’m just visiting. I heard my brother was in
town.”

I nodded, trying to ignore the
tightening in my chest. “Cool.”

“
Yes,” he said
slowly. “Very cool. What’s your name?”

I didn’t say anything. I
couldn’t. My tongue felt especially thick.

He chuckled coldly. “Oh, don’t
worry. I’m sure I could guess your name if I tried.”

I didn’t smile. “I doubt
it.”

If that fucker made any kind of
move, he was going to know just how hard I could fight back. My
karate skills were rusty and my hamstrings were tight, but instinct
always brought them out.

“
Pam,” he
said. “No wait, Priscilla.” He took another step forward, only ten
feet away now. I flinched, my body ready to run. “Nah, Priscilla is
too fancy for some like you. It starts with a P though, I can
tell.” He said the rest of that in a rich, velvety
voice.

I found myself getting up, my
thumb hovering above my phone. “Nice talking with you,” I told him.
“I have to go back home.”

I started walking toward him,
my body tensing as I went past, our shoulders almost touching
because of the narrowness of the path.

“
See you in
New York then,” he called after me. “Perry.”

I stopped dead, my blood
thumping through my head. I blinked stupidly and turned around to
look at him.

He stood there looking like a
cocky asshole. The stance was familiar; his eyes were familiar.

I felt like I couldn’t breathe.
“How did you know my name?”

He smiled and shook his head,
strolling toward me. I tried to run, tried to move, but I couldn’t
do anything. I was stuck in place, paralyzed somehow. This wasn’t
just fear, this wasn’t something on my end.

I couldn’t fucking move.

And he was doing it.

He frowned at me as he came
close. “You really are pretty, you know that. And young. So young.
Young blood is the best. My brother has excellent taste.”

No.

No.

Pippa’s message from my dream
came flying back into my head.

I think the problem is
something you won’t see coming. I think the problem will come in
the form of someone who is trustworthy. And when I think he comes,
he will bring you here. Where everything will end.

He tilted his head and watched
me with a discerning eye, watching my face contort in horror. “He
doesn’t know I’m here, and I wanted to keep it that way. I already
tried to call the other week, but you answered and well, that was
probably a blessing. I could never convince him to talk to me over
the phone. You see, I was rather a jerk to him after our mother
died. And yet, now I need him. And I’m sure I’ll need you.
Perry.”

He reached out and put his
fingers into my hair, cupping the back of my head. I could only
stand there and watch as he brought his face in closer. Though the
deep, almost exotic shape of his brown eyes were so much like
Dex’s, this man lacked something that made him human, that made him
real. As I stared into the black pupils, I could see a swirling
vortex, a hole with nothing underneath.

No soul.

“
I’ll give
Declan your regards,” Dex’s brother, Michael O’ Shea, whispered
before kissing me on the lips. I felt like a hand was reaching into
my skull, into my brain and twisting it around until my world
started turning black. “See you soon, princess.”

I slumped to the ground.

And that was that.

THE END

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I’m keeping it simple this
time.

Thank you to my readers,
my wonderfully loyal Experiment in Terror fans who love all things
Team Derry. Your passion and devotion does not go unnoticed. Yes, I
write for myself but I also write for
you
.

Simply put, you guys fucking
rock.

Read more for an excerpt
of
Donners of the Dead

A Standalone Paranormal Romance coming
February 2014

Jake McGraw was unlike anyone
I’d ever known. He was brash, rude, unapologetic and arrogant;
chauvinistic, close-minded, and terribly stubborn. He was built
like a tree, tall with a hard chest and wide shoulders and hands
that looked like they could wrestle a bear. He was a
cigar-chomping, scruffy-faced, beast of a man. I was pretty sure I
hated him. And I know he hated me. But among the flesh-eating
monsters in these snow-capped mountains, he was the only thing
keeping me alive.