Cemetery Tours (29 page)

“Is it bad?”
  When he fell silent again, she realized she wasn’t going to get anything more out of him.  “You know what, never mind.  Maybe I don’t want to know.”  That was about as far from true as she could possibly get.  But as long as Gavin was still with the doctors, she didn’t need anything else to worry about.  She already felt guilty for the way she’d behaved earlier that afternoon.  Maybe if she hadn’t gotten so upset with Gavin, if she hadn’t forced him to say those things about Trevor, then none of this would have happened.  

“Are you alright?”
  This time, Michael asked her.  

No
, Kate wanted to say. 
No, I’m not alright.  There’s a psychotic ghost haunting my apartment, he put my brother in the hospital because of the way I egged him on, and neither one of you will tell me what’s actually happening.

Instead, she just muttered, “Yeah, I’m fine.
  I’m just...”

“What?”
  Michael asked.

“I’m just worried that this was all my fault.
  You know, if I hadn’t been antagonizing Gavin, then maybe Trevor wouldn’t have attacked him.”  Michael didn’t respond immediately.  The longer it took him to contradict her, the more convinced she became that she was correct.    

“It wasn’t your fault,” he told her.
  “It was only a matter of time.”  

Oh great
.  That made her feel a
lot
better.  

Time wasn’t moving fast enough.
  Why hadn’t she heard anything yet?  And
why
wouldn’t Michael tell her what Trevor had said?  She was so sick of not knowing, of being left in the dark.  To make matters worse, whatever Trevor had told Michael had left him detached and distant, right at the moment she needed him most.  

“I’m not sure I should be the one to tell you.”
 

Thinking back on Michael’s ominous words reminded Kate of what Gavin had said to her just moments before the attack.

“I don’t want to hurt you anymore
.”

Kate wracked her brain, trying to figure out what could have happened that would make both Gavin and Michael so determined to protect her.
  Maybe Gavin really had done something horrible, something that he knew would devastate her, so he kept it a secret.  If that was the case, then what?  Would he live the rest of his life in Trevor’s shadow?  Turn himself in?  Would she have to -  

No.
  That wasn’t it.  There was no way.  She knew Gavin better than anyone else on the planet.  He wouldn’t hurt a soul.    

But then what else could it be?
 

Before she could dwell on it any further, the door opened and a doctor appeared.
  He was tall with thinning hair and a thick mustache.  He smiled and held out a hand as he approached them.   

“I’m Dr. Morchower.
  Are you with Gavin Avery?” he asked.

“Yes.
” Kate and Michael both stood to greet the doctor.  “Is he okay?”  

“Oh yes, he’s going to be fine.
  We’re releasing him now.  He had some pretty nasty cuts and some glass embedded in his right arm, but we cleaned him out and stitched him up.  We’ll need him back in about two weeks to take the stitches out.  He has a mild concussion and he did chip a bone in his left elbow, so I’m sending him home with a prescription for painkillers and he’ll have to ice the bone every three or four hours for the next few days.  Make sure he rests that arm for at least a few weeks, and if it’s not better in month, he’ll need to see a specialist.”

“Thank you so much, Doctor,” Kate said, nearly trembling with relief.
 

Gavin appeared moments later, sporting a row of dark, thin stitches on one arm and a sling the color of a sapphire to support the other.

“Have that prescription, son?” Dr. Morchower asked.  Gavin held up a slip of paper in his right arm.

“Hey,” Kate smiled.
  “How are you feeling?”

“Kind of
achy,” Gavin admitted.

“Well, let’s get you home and then I’ll run and pick up your prescription.”
     

“Why don’t I take him home?” Michael asked.
  Both Gavin and Kate looked at him.  “That way, you can just go straight to the pharmacy.”  

Kate realized that Michael intended to talk to Gavin alone, so she didn’t argue.
  “Gav, are you okay with that?” 

“Fine,” he grimaced.
  Kate knew he was hurting, and as much as she wanted to know exactly what Gavin and Michael were now both hiding from her, she hoped that whatever Michael had to say wouldn’t put too much pressure on him.  After all he’d been through, what he really needed was to rest.  But, she realized with a sinking feeling, that wasn’t going to happen as long as Trevor was around.  Gavin needed to be free of whatever bound the ghost to him.  If anyone could help him now, it was Michael.  

“Okay,” Kate agreed.
  “I’ll see you boys at home.”

~*~

“Thanks for all this,” Gavin muttered roughly as Michael drove him home.

“Don’t mention it,” Michael replied.
  Gavin exhaled slowly and rested his head back against the seat.  “You okay?”

“Yeah,” he muttered.
  “It’s funny, I didn’t even realize my elbow was hurting until they told me it was chipped.  Now it hurts like hell.”     

“Yeah, I broke my arm falling out of a tree
when I was seven.  It’s not fun.” Michael made his best attempt at casual conversation while simultaneously trying to figure out how to steer it back to Trevor.  “So what did you tell them?  When they asked what happened to you?  I mean, I’m guessing you didn’t tell them the truth.”

“What, you don’t think they’d believe that a freakin’ ghost threw me into a wall?” Gavin asked wryly and sniggered at his own joke.
  “I told them that I was helping my sister bring in a box of old picture frames and fell down the stairs.”    

“So what exactly did happen?
  I didn’t really get a lot out of Kate.  She was kind of freaking out while she was trying to explain it.”

“Yeah, she does that,” Gavin remarked.
  “We were just bickering.  I was pissed because she’d run off
again
without telling me where she was going and she’s still mad about everything that happened yesterday.  Then she asked me about Trevor and
BAM.
”  Gavin clapped his hands for emphasis.  “You know, we used to argue when we were younger, but we never had full blown fights until we moved here.”

“Really?”
  Michael was surprised.  He thought all siblings fought.  He and Jonathan certainly had.  

“Yeah.
  And it’s my fault.  I never listened to her when she said that there was something in the apartment.  I just thought she was being paranoid, like always.  I mean, I like to think I’m pretty open minded, but ghosts?”  Michael glanced at him.  “Well, I guess you’d believe it.  But think for a moment if you didn’t have your spectral vision or whatever.  You’d think it was just her imagination.”  

“I don’t know what I’d think,” Michael admitted.
  “I guess it all depends on whether or not a ghost would have a reason to be there.”  

Gavin sighed.
  “I didn’t even consider it until she said his name.  God, that scared the living hell out of me.  After that, I just didn’t know what to believe.  Until today, anyway.”

“And now?”
 

Gavin was silent for a few brief moments.
  “I think he really wants to kick my ass.  And I guess he has a pretty good reason to,” he acknowledged.  Michael didn’t dispute him.   

“You know, he was the one who ransacked your old apartment.”

“Are you serious?” Gavin asked.  Michael nodded.  “What else did he tell you?”

Michael hesitated.
  “He told me everything.”  Gavin closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead with his unslung hand.  “It’s none of my business.  This is between you and Kate.  But Gavin, I think you know now that he’s never going to leave you alone until she hears the truth.”

Gavin stared pensively out the window.
  “I was trying to do what was best for her.”

“I know.”
 

They didn’t speak for the rest of the car ride home.
  Gavin remained transfixed inside his own mind.  Michael honestly didn’t know what he would decide.  He wasn’t even sure what to hope for.  A huge part of him didn’t want Kate to find out.  But the small, rational voice in the back of his mind reminded him that she had a right to know.  She needed to know.  

Trevor was waiting for them inside Kate and Gavin’s apartment.
  Gavin breezed past him and disappeared into his bedroom.  Trevor looked up at Michael.    

“Well?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” was all Michael had to say.  

“Ow!
  Dammit!”  Gavin suddenly cried.  Michael sprinted down the hall and into his room.  Gavin was kneeling next to his bed, wincing in pain.   

“You okay?”
 

“Yeah, just forgot these were here,” he indicated the stitches that ran down the outer side of his right arm.
  The area around his wound was red, and Michael realized he must have put pressure on them.  “Hey, do you think you could give me a hand?” 

“Sure.”
 

“There’s an old suitcase under here.
  It’s about as far back as it can possibly be.  Do you think you can reach it?”  

Michael obliged, but he wasn’t happy about it.
  Crawling around the tight, dusty space beneath Gavin’s bed reminded him of the summer his uncle had managed to talk him and all of his cousins into retracing a path that had led to the discovery of some underground caverns in San Antonio.  That path included tunnels, sometimes barely a foot high, that required them to slither along their bellies like snakes.  Michael had become so claustrophobic that he’d almost blacked out.  He’d avoided cramped, suffocating spaces ever since.  

Finally, after reaching and shoving several boxes aside, he found a tattered, brown suitcase and dragged it out from beneath the bed.
       

“Thanks, man,” Gavin said.

“Don’t mention it,” Michael replied as Gavin unlocked the case and pulled out a large black photo album. 

“Look, I know this probably won’t be a lot of fun for you, but would you mind staying?
  I think it will be better if you’re here.”

Honestly, Michael thought his presence would make it a lot worse, but he agreed just the same.
     

Kate arrived home about thirty minutes later, clutching a small white pharmacy bag and sack full of groceries.
  She didn’t seem at all surprised to see Michael still there.    

“I had twenty minutes to kill, so I did a little shopping,” she explained.
  “How are you doing?”

“I’m okay,” Gavin assured her.
 

“Good.
  The pharmacist said you’d need to get something in your stomach before you take this, so what would you like?”  She asked all of this as she was putting the groceries away.  Michael realized just how hard she was trying to act nonchalant.  She knew that they were going to talk to her, but Michael couldn’t tell if she was hoping to initiate it or trying to deter away from it.  

“In a minute, Kate.
  There’s something that we need to talk about,” Gavin said.  

“Okay,” she complied and joined her brother and Michael in the living room.
  She took a seat on the couch next to Gavin.  Her eyes fell almost immediately onto the photo album in his lap.  “What’s that?”   

“I’ll show you in a minute.
  First, I want you to see this.”  He handed her a single photograph of a tall man with dark buzzed hair, warm eyes, and a winning smile.  Kate stared down at the handsome face and frowned.  “Do you remember him?”   

“No, but... I think I had a dream about him.”

“His name is Trevor Hanson,” Gavin told her.  “And he was your fiancé.”