Mystically Bound (Frostbite, Book Three) (21 page)

I peeked around Kipp and anger blasted into
every molecule of my body at who stood by one of the thick pillars
in the barn. “Oh. My. God.” Would these damn ghosts never
learn?

Sammy smiled shyly. “Can we talk—”

Why wouldn’t he go away? How many times could
I possibly tell him that
right now
wasn’t a good time? I let
my aggravation show and said through clenched teeth, “If you want
me to help you, like I’ve told you before, you need to leave me
alone until this is finished.”

“But—”

I raised my hand, cutting him off. “No.” I
threw up my hands, more than aggravated. “Honestly, I have enough
going on with the
now
. I seriously cannot take on your
problems. Please. Please, you need to be patient. I promise I’ll do
what I can to help you…later
.
”

“That’s not—”

I plugged my ears. “This is me ignoring you.
Learn from it. The more you push. The more I’ll ignore. Go
away.”

I couldn’t hear his sigh because my ears were
presently stuffed, but I saw it. Frustration edged into his face
and with a firm shake of his head, he winked out of existence.

“Good.” Blowing out a loud breath, I dropped
my hands. “He’s gone.” I shook out my hands to shed the anger
raging through me. Good grief, couldn’t the ghost back off? While
normally, I probably would’ve felt bad for him, I was honestly at
my end. I could
not
handle anything more. As it was, with
the serious throb to my head, my limit had been reached on
crazy-ass adventures.

When I turned from the spot Sammy vanished
from, Kipp was giving me a curious look. “Who was that?”

“A damn ghost who will not leave me alone.” I
snorted. “Honest to god, as if I don’t have enough trouble as it
is.”

Kipp chuckled. “Follows you everywhere you
go, huh?”

Yeah, it did and it still annoyed me. Sure, I
didn’t mind helping ghosts, but on
my
terms, not theirs. I
had created rules they needed to follow for that very reason. The
top rule: don’t bug me, which they tended to never adhere to. “It
never stops,” I grumbled.

Kipp crossed his arms, giving me his focused
cop-look
.
“Do you think maybe you should listen to him?”

“No friggin’ way,” I snapped. “Every time I
listen to ghosts…” I gave him a pointed look to prove my point.
He’d done the same thing to me, not to say that I minded it with
him. “I get thrown into a new adventure that ends up being entirely
dangerous.”

At the pain in Kipp’s eyes, I realized the
harshness in my voice, and softened my tone. “Listen, I helped
Victoria—another ghost—and I will help him. But we need to finish
this first with you. I think for once I can be selfish, don’t
you?”

Kipp brushed his icy finger across my cheek
and smiled softly. “You’re right. You can.”

“Great. Then we agree.”

With that nonsense over, I turned back to the
book, eyeing the spider to ensure it stayed put, which it
thankfully did. I flipped the page open to Nettie’s picture and
used my flashlight to scan over her photo as Kipp stepped in next
to me.

His icy presence brought forth goose bumps on
my arms, making me shiver, even if I welcomed that sensation a
thousand times over. Him, close to me like this, was a good thing.
But noticing it made me even more aware of how connected I was to
the Netherworld and I wasn’t sure how I felt about that. Without my
ties to the Netherworld, I wouldn’t have met Kipp, but it freaked
me out to know I could cross into a mystical world.

To say I was conflicted was the
understatement of the century, but also something I had to get a
grip on at another time.

When I went to turn the page, Kipp reached
for my arm, which obviously only sent a freezing cold wisp up my
arm. “Hold up a sec. Let me see her.”

I laid the cover flat again, angling my light
down to the picture. Kipp leaned down and looked closely at the
photo before his eyes widened. “That’s the woman I met in the
Netherworld.”

“Pardon me?” I gasped.

“I’m sure of it.” He finally looked at me
with a measured expression. “Remember when I told you I talked to a
woman and she explained things to me, well…that…” he pointed at the
picture, “is her.”

I inhaled sharply in surprise, scenting the
dust and mold around me, and rubbed my nose. “Why would she stay in
the Netherworld, all this time?”

He lifted a lazy shoulder. “Didn’t think to
ask her, since I was a bit shell-shocked at being on Mars.”

“Right, guess you would be.” I glanced back
at the picture, mulling it over. “I suppose you wouldn’t have known
who she was anyway.” I glanced sideways at him. “It doesn’t make
sense that she wouldn’t cross over.” Then a slow horror crept over
me as I realized another alternative. “Do you think she’s trapped
there?”

“I have no idea.” Kipp sighed, long and deep.
“She never said she was and she also didn’t seem frightened.”

Part of me seriously worried she could be
trapped. That because she had traveled there when she shouldn’t
have, when she died she got stuck, or something. What else could be
the reason for staying there and for as long as she had? “Well,
what did she say to you?”

Kipp’s gaze swept back over her picture again
before it returned to mine. “She told me where I was and what was
going on.”

“Like a guide?” Alexander asked.

Kipp nodded. “That’s what I took her to be,
yes.”

I remembered what I’d read in her diary about
how she felt as if she belonged there and I could only assume maybe
she’d chosen to stay, but why on earth would anyone want to stay
there?

Meaning, her being stuck in the Netherworld
seemed more accurate. Both were entirely plausible, but something
about all this seemed amiss. To Kipp, I asked, “How do you
recognize her?”

He stared at me as if I had three eyeballs.
“Because she looks exactly as she does in her picture.”

“She does?” That didn’t correlate with what I
knew of ghosts. They didn’t die old and come back looking young
again when they became spirits. They looked the same age as they
did when they died. “But Wayde said she died in her eighties, so
how does she look so young in the Netherworld?”

“She didn’t die in old age,” Alexander cut
in. “Tess, I think you need to read that book.”

With my heart hammering in my ears, I turned
to the book and flipped through the pages. I passed by the diary
entry Wayde had showed me. “No, this can’t be.” I flipped through
the pages in a rapid speed, but what I saw remained, which was
absolutely nothing. “What the hell?”

Kipp’s icy finger once again slid up my arm.
“Problem?”

My breath caught in my throat, not only from
his touch, but from sheer shock before I forced my voice out.
“There’s nothing else in here.” I continued like a mad woman to
find anything written, something at all showing what happened to
Nettie after she entered the Netherworld. Now I realized Dane had
been right—Wayde didn’t lock the diary away, because it held no
information at all.

Once I reached the last page and turned it, I
notice a newspaper clipping. I grabbed the old piece of paper,
opened it over top of the book, and angled my flashlight down. I
only had to read for one second before the floor dropped out from
under me. “Oh, shit.”

“What?”

Kipp’s full hand rested on my arm, causing me
to grit my teeth from the frostbite rushing through my veins. I
slowly glanced up at him and raised the newspaper in my shaky hand.
“Nettie died the night after she made the journal entry I
read.”

Wayde had lied—she didn’t die of old age. And
stupid me, I hadn’t pressed Alexander when he told me she had
passed away, since I hadn’t even considered that Wayde hadn’t told
the truth.

Kipp cocked his head, his eyes searching
mine. “Meaning, she remained in the Netherworld after her second
trip there?”

Dropping the newspaper clipping onto the
workbench, I raised my hands to my face in absolute horror.

If things could get any worse, they just
did.

I didn’t know for sure if it had any
connection at all, but it wasn’t a coincidence that could be
overlooked. Had Nettie died because she traveled to the
Netherworld?

What frightened me most, as it seemed, that
first trip I took to find Kipp had been my second time in the
Netherworld. “Oh my God, I’ve been there two times—the same amount
of times Nettie went before she died.” I looked at Alexander, who
stood off to the side of the workbench. “Do you think these
headaches mean I’m going to die?”

His eyes went huge and he shook his head. “I
don’t think so.”

“Nah, it doesn’t make sense,” Kipp agreed,
cool and collected. “If Nettie died after, you shouldn’t have been
able to ever come back. You’ve been there two times, so that
doesn’t add up.”

While his theory did seem accurate, the
awareness I might have become stuck in the Netherworld was so scary
my heart skipped a beat.

“But a thought…” Tension radiated off Kipp,
his eyes blazing. “If Wayde knew that Nettie never returned after
she went into the Netherworld, do you think…”

A sudden loud creak echoed throughout the
barn and I jerked toward the entrance.

“Dane?”

At Amelia’s soft voice, I exhaled a long
breath, relieved it was her at the door and not some crazy-ass
killer coming to remove my head with the gardening tools. Sure,
maybe I was in full-out panic mode and not thinking entirely
straight, but this barn, the dark night, the eerie silence—it all
freaked me out.

At the same time, I wondered how Amelia had
known we came into the barn. Either Kipp’s idea
was
stupid
and she noticed my dull flashlight from outside, or she’d been
watching us to see where we went, which I doubted, since…why would
she be watching us?

Opening the door farther, she stepped into
the barn and shut it behind her with a loud bang, sending dust to
fly through the beam of my flashlight. “Why are you in here?” she
asked.

“Tess is getting Nettie’s diary,” Dane
replied.

“It’s hidden in here?” She eyed him
suspiciously before she approached, the floorboards creaking loudly
under her footsteps. “How did you find it?”

Dane didn’t hesitate. “Gretchen did a
locating spell on the book and discovered Wayde had hid it in the
barn.”

Two things with his statement worried me.
First, Gretchen wasn’t here to confirm that lie, since she was
packing our things in the house and I made a mental note to ensure
I told her later. Second, Dane had lied so easily. Why should I
trust a man who could think up a lie that quickly? I always
stumbled over my thoughts when confronted and needed to bullshit my
way through it. It definitely rubbed me wrong he could do it
without a hitch to his breath.

Especially considering that trusting Dane was
a new development I still wasn’t entirely comfortable with. I
regarded him closely and the love for his wife was clear-cut in his
warm eyes. He lied to protect her. Just like he had lied to protect
Kipp and I. Truth was, without the angry looks and without the evil
I swore I spotted in Dane’s gaze, he started to make a lot more
sense to me. If it meant protecting Kipp or saving him, I would
have no remorse telling a lie.

Amelia continued her approach through the
squeaky old barn, sending horrible noises to echo around me while
she frowned at him. “Okay, but why are
you
in here?”

“Tess knows,” was all he said.

Amelia skipped a step, stopping dead in her
tracks, and blinked in surprise. “You told her the truth?”

“I did.”

“Well…” She glanced over at me with an
extremely hard look. “So, now you know that this might relate to
your gifts, but I don’t know why you’re looking for Nettie’s diary.
How will this help in finding my father’s killer?”

“She doesn’t appear to blame you for his
death,” Kipp whispered.

His whispering was beyond amusing, since no
one could hear him except Alexander and I, but I stayed focused on
Amelia. It did make me happy she didn’t blame me, considering it
wasn’t at all my fault. I hadn’t asked for my gifts and I certainly
hadn’t meant to cause her father’s death, even if that was still
unbelievable.

Sadly, though, I doubted my answer would make
her as happy as me, since locating the diary had nothing to do with
finding Alexander’s murderer and was more for personal reasons. But
I liked that she said the truth, because it only confirmed what
Dane had told me in the bedroom wasn’t another lie.

“We need her diary because I’ve been getting
these headaches…” Headaches that now I
really
hoped didn’t
mean my demise,“ so we needed to find out the repercussions of
going into the Netherworld.”

She finally settled in next to Dane and
regarded me. “Why are you so concerned of that? You came back, so
clearly, there’s nothing to worry about.”

I paused at her questions. Why was she
drilling me? And I didn’t like how she looked at me. Creepy
crawlers ran across my skin as if that spider scurried up my arm,
making me shift uneasily on my feet.

Sure, she didn’t seem angry that apparently,
my gifts caused her father’s death, but she definitely seemed
annoyed. “Because it could be a danger to me.” Did I even need to
explain that?

She studied me a moment longer and then her
features softened under the beam of my flashlight. “Have you found
anything else about my father?”

I forced myself not to look at Alexander, and
instead focused on Dane. Odd, that he never told his wife that
Alexander possessed Caley, but I figured his reasoning was as it
had been so far, emotionally related.

His worried gaze and the slight shake of his
head begged me not to tell her. I suspected that might be because
we had no answers for her yet. Her knowing her deceased father was
with us would only cause her more despair, because we had no way to
help him. “We have no further developments.”