Whispers From the Grave (23 page)

Finally she spoke. “You must think I’m pretty gullible.”

“I wouldn’t lie to you about this! We’re
sisters
!”

She laughed bitterly. “You lied before, how do I know you’re not lying now? How do I know you’re
really
my sister?” With that, she whirled away in a huff.

Deflated, I watched her go.

“There you are,” Shane said and handed me a steaming cup of coffee. I followed him inside, where we sat gazing out at the wide expanse of rippling gray water. “Someday a man-made island will float here,” I said. “It will be populated with old people and full of pink buildings that glow in the sunlight.”

“You’re a trippy chick!”

“I’m serious.”

Sky had warned me about revealing the truth. But I had already broken my vow to keep my secret and my own sister had not believed me. Maybe it was selfish, but I needed someone I cared about to believe me.

When I told Shane my story, his response, like Rita’s, was disbelief.

I ticked off the names of the presidents in the years to come. “Twenty years from now, you’ll remember this conversation and know I told the truth!”

Then I realized my visit here might have set off a chain reaction that could affect who became president. So I said, “Mt. St. Helens will erupt in 1980. Think of me when that happens.”

“Maybe we’ll be together then,” he said, a twinkle in his eye. He still thought I was kidding.

“I may be leaving soon, Shane. You might never see me again. If there is a way to get back to my time, I’ll have to go.”

His face reflected pain. “If you’re really going away, please don’t play this game with me. You don’t have to make up some crazy fantasy. If you’re leaving, we could write to each other.”

“No we can’t.”

“Do you have another boyfriend?” he asked hoarsely. “Is that it?”

“No one I like as much as you,” I said softly. “I’ll never forget you.”

Lost in the moment and his eyes, I didn’t notice the ferry had stopped. The Seattle skyline was no longer a jagged line in the distance. The buildings loomed above us as people trickled off the boat.

“Where’s Rita?” I cried. “Did she get off?”

“I don’t know. I thought she wanted to ride back and forth for a while.”

I leapt up and bounded up the green metal stairs to the top deck where I’d last seen my sister. I looked toward shore where the faded gray dock was already growing smaller, and there, amidst the crowd, I recognized a pair of slumped shoulders and long brown hair.

“Rita!” I cried. “Rita, please wait for us to get back!”

But my voice was lost in the wind.

26

There was nothing to do but wait out the
hour and ten minutes it would take for the ferry to return to Seattle.

“Hey, don’t look so upset,” Shane said and hugged me as we watched the Seattle skyline shrink. “Rita needs time alone. She’ll be okay.”

I wished I could believe that. But I knew I had let my sister down. If Ben found her . . .

I could not finish the thought. Why hadn’t I watched her more carefully?

The trip passed with excruciating slowness, and when the ferry once again nudged the Seattle dock I hurried off.

I declined Shane’s invitation to see a matinee. When he dropped me off at Banbury House, I practically flew from the car.

“Rita!” I cried, charging up the stairs. “Rita, are you here?”

I threw open her bedroom door. Her daisy-patterned bedspread was pulled taut over her bed, and the heaps of clothes no longer littered the floor. Apparently, she’d come home, cleaned her room, and left. The house echoed emptily as I dashed back down the stairs.

Had she gone to the beach? That’s where I went when I needed to think.

I headed out the back door and down the path. A salty wind fiercely shook the Scotch broom bushes clinging to the hillside. Huddling into my jacket, I leaned into the wind.

“There’s the girl who thinks she’s so smart!” an irate voice slurred.

I spun around to see Ben, staggering along the path behind me, his eyes small and red. He drank from a bottle of whiskey and swore at me drunkenly.

“Where’s my sister?”

He laughed. “You tell me. Out with some other guy probably. I’d like to find her ...”

“No!” I shrieked, and leapt around him.

I lunged up the hill to Banbury House and burst through the back door. My hands were shaking so badly I could barely dial the phone.

“Sky!” I cried at the sound of his warm voice. “Ben’s drunk! I think this is the day he’ll hurt Rita! We’ve got to find her!”

“Take it easy,” he said firmly. “I’ll look for your sister. You keep an eye on Ben. But promise me you won’t let him see you. He could hurt you too, Jenna.”

“I’ll crawl along the bank and watch him. If I stay in the bushes, he won’t see me.”

“On second thought, this is too dangerous,” Sky said. “Stay in the house and lock the doors. I’ll find Rita and bring her straight home.”

“But she could be wandering along the beach. Ben could find her first. I’ll be careful.”

“I don’t know—”

“We’re wasting time, Sky!”

“Okay. I’ll see if she’s at the burger place by the school. If you see Ben approach Rita, start screaming and don’t stop until you’ve got the attention of the whole neighborhood.”

My heart thudding, I scrambled down the path until I spotted Ben on the beach. I was prepared to follow him, but he wasn’t going anywhere. He’d settled down on a log, swigging from the bottle.

I sat shivering on the wooden stairs which led to the beach. Perched there, I could watch Ben and a wide expanse of shore. If Rita approached him, I’d see her before she got close.

It’s strange how ridiculous details can float up into your consciousness in the middle of a crisis. I found myself thinking about the stairs I sat on, and how well built they were. They were the same steps that existed in my century—although in my time they were worn to a winter gray by the endless salt breeze and the thousands of beachcombers who had tromped over them.

I relaxed a little, sagging against the hard wood of the steps as Ben stretched out on the sand, apparently napping. His body was so still it seemed almost lifeless. I shuddered, remembering another still body on the beach. Mr. Edwards must have lain there just like that. My eyes shifted, involuntarily seeking the deadly ledge of Windy Cliff. Startled, I realized I could not see Windy Cliff from the steps.

That can’t be!
I thought, leaping to my feet.

Kyle had said he was on the steps when Mr. Edward fell. He claimed he
saw
him fall.

It made no sense. The stairs were in the same place and the landscape had not changed. Kyle could not possibly have seen Mr. Edwards fall from here.

With creeping dread, I realized Kyle had lied.

27

Why would kyle lie?
He was an honest person.

I must have misunderstood. Yet a horrible possibility snaked through my mind. What if
Kyle
pushed Mr. Edwards off the cliff?

But that was
crazy.
Why would he kill a helpless old man? I no sooner asked myself the question and the answer was there—in the form of more questions.

Suppose Mr. Edwards was a threat. He was always talking about Rita’s murder. Did he know something Kyle did not want publicized?

In a cold rush, my brother’s words on Deep Brine Island came back to me: “Those idiot defense attorneys tried every trick in the book to get that killer off the hook. First they dragged in an unreliable witness and put him on the stand—a neighbor boy who was a known liar and couldn’t possibly have seen the killing.”

Couldn’t possibly have seen
. . .

“Couldn’t have seen because he was blind!” I whispered.

With an icy certainty, I realized Chuck Edwards was the witness for the defense in Ben’s murder trial—a little blind boy who liked to spy on people. Chuck must have
heard
the murder.

A young Charles Edwards witnessed the murder and a hundred years later was still talking about it. But why would that bother Kyle, unless he had something to hide?

Like a sudden flash of lightning, Kyle’s words slashed through my mind. “On his deathbed, my grandfather told me how he made our family what it is,” he’d said. “Things were much more complicated than I’d thought.”

“Oh my God!” I cried. Numb with shock, I stumbled down the steps. “Wake up, Ben!”

“What do
you
want?” he slurred.

“Where did you get that bottle?” I demanded.

“Why do you want to know?”

“Ben, if you really care about Rita, then
tell
me. She’s in danger!”

“Yeah, she told me. You think I’m going to kill her.”

“I was wrong. Please tell me who gave you the bottle.”

“Sky.”

The answer confirmed my worst fear.

Sky wanted Ben drunk!

“Sky confessed everything to his grandson on his deathbed,” I said. “He killed Rita and blamed it on you! We’ve got to stop him before he does it again. He’s looking for her now. He might have already found her!”

“You’re not making sense.”

“He’s going to hurt her!”

“What?” Ben stared at me through watery, bloodshot eyes. “Why would he do that?”

“Because of the visor!” I cried.

But Ben had passed out. I knelt beside him, frantically shaking his arm. “Ben, listen to me! Sky is taking credit for the visor and other inventions. The whole Mettley family got rich off those inventions. But Rita could blow everything for them. She’s the only one who knows he didn’t really invent the visor.”

“Not the
only
one!” a sharp voice interrupted.

I whirled around, my breath snagging in my throat at the sight of the gun in Sky’s hand. “You could blow things for me too, dear,” he said evenly.

“Where’s my sister?”

“Don’t worry. You girls will get to say good-bye to each other. Turn around and start walking.”

I glanced at Ben.

“He can’t help you now,” Sky said. “He’s out cold.”

I winced with fear as the gun poked sharply into my back. Sky instructed me to head toward the base of the bank where we were concealed from the view of the houses on the hill. I stumbled ahead of him as we continued south along the shore.

Sharp claws of terror gripped my stomach. Should I run? Would he shoot me right then and there if I did?

As we neared Crab Cave, he hesitated. “Sit down on that log,” he ordered.

“You can’t get away with this, Sky!”

“Apparently, I already did. According to you, Ben got blamed for Rita’s murder last time around.”

“What about
my
murder? Who will you blame
that
on?”

“As far as the authorities are concerned, you don’t exist. Your parents aren’t going to report you missing. You’re still in the freezer at Twin-Star and won’t be born in their lifetime. In fact, you might not be born at all. Wouldn’t it be a shame if the power went out and the frozen embryo melted?”

“You can’t do that!” I said. “I’ll never be born!”

“Come to think of it, that building did look awfully dark when I drove by. I wonder what could have caused the power failure.”

He was going to kill me twice!

“Lie down with your face to the ground,” he said coldly.

“Think about what you’re doing,” I pleaded. “Things could be different this time. You said so yourself! My trip to the past may have already changed your fate. Remember, you wrote to Dr. Crowell and told him about me. He might come back now. You won’t be able to steal his inventions and you will have killed two people for nothing!”

An amused smile twitched on his lips. “Nice try. But Dr. Crowell will
not
be back.”

“You sent him the letter!”

“He’ll never read it.” His eyes glazed over and I followed his stare to Crab Cave. “You didn’t know about his murder?” he asked. “I must have hid him well.”

I gasped. “His body is in
there
?
Is that why you asked the boys to move away from the cave that night at the party, because you had a body hidden in there— because you
killed
Dr. Crowell?”

“Three weeks ago. You mean to tell me the authorities never found him?”

“They found him—right where you buried him in Crab Cave after you put a bullet in his head,” I said flatly. “But they never figured out who he was. You must have been about a hundred years old by the time they pulled the skeleton out of the cave.”

Sky’s eyes lit up and he whistled softly. “A
hundred
?
So I can look forward to a long and prosperous life?”

I was sorry I’d told him. It was not the way to talk him out of murder.

He smiled, gloating over the dazzling future that stretched before him. With a smug confidence, he looked away. I seized the opportunity and grabbed a sea whip. I swung it at him and it connected with the gun, knocking it from his grasp.

As he bent to pick up the gun, I rolled over the log and tore into the underbrush along the bank. Sharp stickers scraped my face and snagged my clothes as I raced up the hill, hidden by the dense growth.

“You little witch!” Sky yelled.

Afraid to stop, afraid to look back, I propelled myself forward, squeezing between shrubs, scrambling over fallen logs, and racing around trees.

“I’ll get you!” he shouted. The threat crackled with hate, but the volume had faded.

Had I lost him? It sounded as if he was heading in the other direction. Fueled by hope, I plowed forward. Somewhere nearby was the shortcut Shane had shown me. If I could find it, I’d run to Main Street, wave down a car, and go to the police.

But a wild thrashing in the bushes warned me Sky was back on my trail.
Dangerously close!

My skin prickled at the sound of his enraged roar and I stumbled forward. Suddenly, I was faced with a wall of blackberry bushes, with thorns so sharp they would shred me to ribbons if I tried to go through them.

I backtracked, glancing around wildly, searching for a hiding place. And then I saw it.

Chuck’s tree house.

Frantically, I climbed up the rope ladder and pulled it up after me.

“What are
you
doing here?”