Forty-Four Box Set, Books 1-10 (44) (71 page)

“Well, if there’s a real ghost hanging around the club, I think I’ll be able to see him,” I said. “I can stop by in the next few days.”

“That would be awesome.”

“Has he done anything to you?” I said.

“No. I guess not. So far he just stares.”

My legs were tightening up.

“Do you mind if we walk a little?” I said.

“Let’s do it.”

We headed back to the track and started walking on the two outside lanes.

"So when did it all start?" I asked, putting on my sunglasses.

"I started seeing him about a month ago. Just once in a while at first. In the corner or on the other side of the dance floor. Or up against a wall in the back of the club. He would just stand there and look at me, and then he disappeared. Like I said, at first I thought he was a customer, although now that I think back on it he never did order anything.”

“Then what?”

“Then he started hanging around more. And he moved in closer. Last week, he was standing right at the bar, next to the last seat. Leering, full of… hate, I guess. I finally asked the bouncer to toss him, but of course he didn’t know what I was talking about.”

I felt a sudden cold creep down my back.

“One night last week, I couldn’t take it anymore. I decided to go up to him myself and tell him to leave. I wasn’t going to put up with it all night again, him staring at me like that. Like he wanted to do terrible things. I walked right up to him and told him.”

“What did he do?”

“He just grinned at me,” she said. “His eyes looked right into me for a moment and then he just disappeared there in front of me. Faded. It was like some magic trick. I’ve been drinking lately just to get through my shift, maybe drinking more than I should. During the day I think that maybe that accounts for it. But when I see him I feel shaky and sober at the same time. And I know he’s real.”

“What does he look like?" I asked.

"Well, he's kind of stocky. Not too tall. But he has this strong, big chest. I’d say he’s in his 40's and has dark features. Dirty black hair hanging down over his forehead. And a mustache.”

I suddenly had an uncontrollable urge to look around and make sure no one fitting that description was nearby.

“But the strangest thing about him are his eyes,” Paloma said. “They’re striking. The kind of eyes you never forget. They're light blue and super bright. That was the first thing that I noticed about him. And when I looked into his eyes the last time I saw him, it felt as if I got stuck in quicksand. Like I was caught. Trapped. It was really horrible.”

She started crying.

“When I finally broke free from him, from those eyes, I knew. I knew he was..."

She hesitated.

"What? What did you know?"

Her eyes went wide with terror.

“That he was really bad. No, not bad. Evil. That I was staring right into evil.”

She stopped in her tracks for a moment like she had lost all her strength from telling me the story.

“Sorry,” she said. “I’m just exhausted. I… haven’t… I barely sleep anymore. I just dread the entire day because I have to go back there.”

“You only see him when you’re at the club?”

“I look for him everywhere I go. I’m paranoid I might see him at the store or at the gym. I walk around with sharp rocks in my gut. I can’t even eat anymore. But so far, yeah, just at the club.”

I sighed.

“Can you take a little time off work?”

“Eddie isn’t too big on time off. I would quit if I could afford it. And I’m afraid that if I leave I might have trouble finding another job anytime soon.”

Maybe her paranoia was contagious, but I suddenly felt his dark energy all around. I shuddered.

“So you see a lot of ghosts?” she asked.

“A few. But the ghosts I’ve seen and interacted with haven’t been like what you’re describing. But I’ll come and take a look. Maybe there’s more to the story. Maybe I can help you figure out why he’s hanging around.”

“Thanks again, Abby,” she said. She hesitated before giving me a hug.

“See you at the club,” I said. “I’ll call you to confirm.”

She smiled and nodded and started walking away up the hill to the parking lot.

“Do you have a boyfriend?” she asked, turning back around.

“Yeah,” I said.

“Bring him.”

CHAPTER 8

Ty stood over me as I gasped, stunned by the cold water. I held tight to the paddleboard while I tried to catch my breath.

“Damn!” I said, bobbing in the river.

Crawling back on top of the board was easy enough, but I had trouble standing up again. I was on my knees, the board wobbling under me as the current carried me downriver. I was about to tumble in one more time.

“You’re okay,” Ty said. “Just take a breath and balance yourself before you try and stand. Take your time. You’ll get it.”

I extended my legs, threw my butt high in the air and jerked up with absolutely no grace whatsoever.

“Sweet!” he yelled. “Good work.”

I was using his roommate’s paddleboard and we were on the Deschutes, in front of the Old Mill.

We headed back up river, side by side, to the park. It was a good arm workout going against the current, especially under the bridge where the water was strong. We carried our boards to his truck and slid them in.

“Do you have a few minutes to sit in the sun so I could dry off?” I asked.

We both had to get to work, but I was feeling happy and lazy and didn’t want to leave. We walked over to the grass and he pulled me down and then on top of him, laughing.

I laughed too.

“Well, not too bad for your first time,” he said.

I smiled, staring into his eyes, and sat up.

“Your technique got better and better as time went on,” he said. “You had more confidence on that last stretch. You did great.”

“Well, thanks. I did fall in, though.”

“That’s just part of learning. I’ve fallen in a thousand times.”

“Okay, if you say so,” I said. “It was pretty fun. Sign me up for another lesson.”

“You’re on. So you practicing after work today?” he said.

“Yep,” I said. “I have a game tomorrow night.”

“I want to come running with you sometime,” he said. “And as you know, I’m always available to be your goalie.”

I laughed. Ty was really bad, but I liked playing with him.

“Come on, I can’t get better if I don’t get out there, right? I’m not like you. I was on horses when I was a kid, not soccer fields.”

“I know,” I said, pretending to play a violin. “Poor deprived Ty guy.”

We both laughed before I took off running toward the parking lot, his footsteps right behind me.

CHAPTER 9

It had been a hard, hot, long day.

Hard because of the constant flow of tourists and locals streaming through the doors. Hot because we were in the third day of a sweltering heat wave with the temperatures over 100 degrees. And long because the air conditioner still wasn’t fixed, causing a slew of complaints from angry customers.

“It feels like hell in here,” said a plump, middle-aged regular. She wiped off her forehead with the back of her hand, her gold bracelets clanking together. “I mean, really. This is ridiculous. It’s been days. Has Mike hired someone or is he trying to just fix it himself?”

I nodded. Smiled. Waited.

“Tell him that I like it here, but Thump has good coffee, too. Not to mention Starbucks. And I’m sure that they have their air working.”

I replied with a technique I had found most successful when dealing with difficult customers.

“You’re right,” I said. “What can I get started for you?”

She gave me a sour look but went ahead and ordered her usual non-fat latte.

“Iced,” she added and rolled her eyes as she moved over to the machines.

“Bet you’re wishing you were on the river with Ty Terrifico instead of working here at Satan’s Left Armpit,” David said under his breath as he passed by.

I smiled. He was right. I would take a set of angry rapids any day over a set of angry customers.

I helped the next two women, who were actually happy and friendly and didn’t seem upset at all with the heat. They both ordered and left tips and walked down to the end of the bar.

After a little while, I took my break and wandered over to the back room, where it was cooler and darker, the air loaded with the rich smell of coffee beans. I could hear the workers pounding away. Maybe they would get it fixed sometime today.

I walked over to the sink and washed my face and then looked at myself in the mirror. I had a pretty good tan going, but a few freckles were now sprinkled across my cheeks.

“Abby Craig,” David said, singing my name as he walked up to me. He was carrying a tray of dirty mugs to the dishwasher. “So when do you get out of here?”

“I’m closing,” I said.

“Ugh,” David said. “That’s a bummer.”

“You?” I asked.

“One more hour. Mike asked if I could stay on, but I said no way. This heat is making me sick. Maybe Mike should just shut us down till it’s fixed. Aren’t there laws or something about making people work in these conditions?”

David was a big baby sometimes, but he wasn’t wrong. It was too hot and I was also wondering the same thing, although not about the laws, just about whether we would close or not.

I caught David in the mirror staring at me, a strange expression on his face.

“Sorry again about the Paloma thing,” he said.

“It would be nice to be able to talk to you about this sort of stuff. I wish I had a friend I could trust that way. I don’t really even talk to Ty about it.”

“I promise to do better,” he said, sounding sincere. “I will. I want you to tell me everything about the ghosts you see. I think it’s fascinating. That’s why I blab. But no more. I will zip it.”

When I looked at him, I was surprised to see that he wasn’t smiling. It was one of the few times I had ever seen him so serious.

“Well, good,” I said.

He came a little closer.

“Okay, I’m just going to come clean,” he said. “I told my mom about you, this was a long time ago, promise. Like back when you were dealing with that Kaboom High School thing. Anyway, she wanted me to ask. We were wondering if you see any of my dead relatives around me. You know, like their ghosts.”

I paused for a moment, looking at him.

“You told your mom about me?”

“Well, it just sort of came out,” he said, smiling. “She read about you in her newspaper and I was all like, I work with that girl. I was proud, Abby Craig. That’s all.”

I scrunched the paper towel into a ball and threw it at his head, but it bounced off his shoulder when he ducked.

“What?” he said, laughing. “She watches a lot of those ghost shows and she was so excited when I told her. She’s hoping you can see my Aunt Jenny or my grandma or somebody else. So, do you see anyone?”

He closed his eyes as if summoning spirits.

“All right,” I said. “Let’s see.”

I had never seen any ghosts around David, but I looked at him quietly now anyway. His white and gray energy moved in faster waves around him, telling me that he was both excited and nervous about what I might find. Just to make sure he thought I was being thorough, I took my time.

“No,” I said. “Sorry, but nobody’s there.”

He looked a little disappointed when he opened his eyes.

“Really, David,” I said. “It’s a good thing. Some of the ghosts I see are pretty scary.”

He smiled.

“Oh, okay. If you say so. I guess I was just hoping. I mean, I really miss my grandma. So just let me know if you see something.”

“I will,” I said. “Promise. But only if you can keep it a secret. Things have finally gotten back to normal and I like it that way.”

“Deal,” he said. “Sorry again. And I’m glad those brutal newspaper people are leaving you alone.”

“Me too,” I said, sighing. “I better enjoy it while it lasts.”

David gave me a quick look, trying to figure out what I meant. I was thinking about the trial scheduled for December and all the publicity that would be involved. David still didn’t know anything about Nathaniel Mortimer or the other scientists who had tried to kill me.

“You cooking up some other ghost story for the press or something?” he asked.

“No, nothing like that,” I said. “But Kate always says once in the public eye, always in the public eye.”

“Hmmm,” he said. “Okay then. Well, I guess we better get back out there before Mike throws a fit.”

We walked up to the front and he groaned as we stared at the line wrapped around the tables and over to the bathrooms in the back of the store.

CHAPTER 10

It was just after the first small set of rapids when they started in.

“Don’t worry, sweetheart,” the gray-haired man sitting closest to me said. “If we capsize I’ll save you.”

“Don’t trust him, hon,” another one said. “Alone with him in the water? It would be a disaster!”

They all broke out in laughter.

There were seven of them in my raft, middle-aged, all wearing the same hats and shirts, some with the price tag still hanging off the back.

“Hey, sugar, let’s pick it up a little and make this a
real
ride,” yelled the guy up front, turning completely around so that I could hear him.

I put my personal feelings and wishes aside. After two seasons of guiding, I hadn’t had one customer fall into the water. I didn’t want to start with these idiots.

I was ready for a little break and happy to make it on shore to scout the upcoming rapids. I smiled when I saw Ty waiting. He helped steady the raft while everybody got out and started walking down the short trail.

“Hey, sweetheart, wanna switch groups?” Ty said in a low voice after the men were out of earshot.

We rarely switched, but we all had an understanding that sometimes certain people were better with certain guides and that it really was in everybody’s best interest to feel comfortable going down the rapids.