Donn's Legacy, page 6
I stared at her. “That’s what you thought they were? Imaginary friends?”
“Well… yes.” She narrowed her eyes and looked at me strangely. “Who else would they be? It’s not like your mom ever had anybody else watching you, and I didn’t see many friends come to call.”
The words they were ghosts perched on the edge of my lips, ready to leap out into the air and blow Darlene’s mind. But I hesitated, unsure if telling her was the right thing to do. On the one hand, she hadn’t even blinked when I told her I made my living looking for ghosts. But on the other hand, we had only just convinced her that her house wasn’t haunted. She’d been so terrified by the sounds of a few scratching mice that she blocked off half her house. If I told her literally hundreds of ghosts had passed through the house next door, would she ever be able to sleep again?
On top of that, as far as I knew, my mother had only told one other person what was really going on with me. She had chosen to limit that information to Gabrielle, a psychic with decades of experience with the paranormal. She hadn’t confided in Darlene about it, and I had to assume she had good reasons for playing her cards close to her chest.
I swallowed the words down and forced a smile onto my face. “It was pretty quiet over there, huh? I don’t remember any visitors besides you.”
“I guess your mother preferred pen pals. I don’t know any of these names either.” Darlene walked her fingers through a pile of unsoiled envelopes, then paused and plucked one out. “Oh, except Anson Monroe. I remember him.”
“Anson Monroe?” The name tickled a memory. I’d heard it before but couldn’t place it. “How do I know that name?”
“Brrrllll,” Striker chimed in, shifting on her brisket. She sniffed the letters beneath her, no doubt searching for any lingering traces of nag champa from Gabrielle’s house.
I slapped my forehead, realizing at once where I’d heard—or rather read—the name Anson Monroe before. It had been in a letter my mother had written to Gabrielle before I was born, one I’d found in the box in Gabrielle’s former attic just weeks before. I checked the return address on the letter in Darlene’s hand: Seattle, Washington.
“I met him at your mother’s funeral,” Darlene said, handing the envelope to me. “Such a nice man.”
“Wait, he was at the graveside service?” Graham asked.
She nodded. “He was one of the few. It was just me, Mac, her dad, and Anson there.”
“That’s what Mac told me this morning,” he said.
“He was just as distraught as I was, the poor guy.” She smiled at me sadly and squeezed my hand. “Your mother may not have left many friends behind, but the ones she did loved her dearly.”
I yanked my hand out of hers, suddenly desperate to read the contents of Anson’s letter. My fingers fumbled with the envelope, struggling to untuck the flap and finally ripping the back of it to get the letter free. I quickly scanned the cramped handwriting on the unlined sheet.
I need to get out of Seattle. I’ll tell you more when I see you, but for now, does your offer still stand? New Mexico has always intrigued me, and I believe the desert would provide a welcome change. I’d like to pick up our work where we left off—I think we can crack it. You always were my most promising student.
The letter was undated, but the postmark on the now-torn envelope was from six months before my mother died.
My mind raced. My mother had written to Gabrielle to tell her Anson Monroe was a powerful psychic. Before I was born, she traveled all over the country, searching for a place with enough spiritual power for her to tap into so she could go where few living people dared to tread: the astral plane.
Had Anson moved to New Mexico? Had my mother started studying with him again? If so, where and when had she possibly managed to do that? He had never come to our house, and she didn’t go anywhere except for work.
“Holy crap,” I murmured.
All those late nights. All those extra shifts. Had she really been at the call center?
There was only one person who would know if she had actually been spending those nights working with Anson Monroe. Was he still alive? He had seemed like an old man then, but to an eight-year-old, even twenty-eight was ancient. And unless he moved again after my mother died, he was still in New Mexico.
He could be here.
I could find him.
And maybe, just maybe, I could learn what really happened the night my mother died.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Graham and I stayed up deep into the night scouring the internet for any record of Anson Monroe. He wasn’t on any social media sites and didn’t come up in any of the online white pages. A few websites promised they could find information on anyone in exchange for my credit card number, but Graham was skeptical they could dig up anything if we couldn’t find so much as a whiff of him anywhere else.
“It’s way too late,” Graham announced after several hours of fruitless searching. “You need to get some sleep. Let’s keep looking tomorrow, okay?”
I hated to give up before finding any trace of Anson Monroe. All I needed was some indication—anything—that he still lived in New Mexico. Then I would know if it was worth delving deeper or if we were at a dead end. But the words on the screen were beginning to blur, and I found myself rechecking the same sites multiple times by mistake. Reluctantly, I agreed to put a pin in the search for the night and climbed into bed, and for once, I was able to fall asleep before Graham started snoring beside me.
I opened my eyes in the backyard at Primrose House.
The yellow siding gleamed in the sun, and a warm summer breeze tinkled the wind chimes hanging over the back porch. From my position in the middle of the blacktop parking lot, I marveled at the explosion of color in the planter boxes. They overflowed with strange species of flowers, ones I’d never seen before, certainly not in our yard. Nobody at Primrose House was particularly good at horticulture, and Graham was usually content to manage the wild growth with a Weedwacker.
As I moved toward the garden to get a better look, the edges of my vision fuzzed. The surrounding houses shimmered, and a single step propelled me all the way to the picnic table beside Graham’s garage. Without moving to do so, I sat on the metal bench, which had been baking in the summer sun but was somehow cool to the touch.
The venue was different, but I didn’t need to be standing on my mother’s old patio to know where I really was. This was a dream. And when my dreams took on this strange, surreal glow, it usually meant I wasn’t alone. Part of me worried he would appear—that if I peeked beneath the picnic table, I would see his glowing red eyes staring at me from the shadows. But the other part of me waited. It was worth the risk of getting ambushed by Horace if it meant I could see her again.
“Mac!” a woman’s voice called from the doorway.
My mother stood there, just inside the kitchen. She looked clearer than she had ever looked in one of my dreams before, as real as anyone I’d seen in my waking life. Her brown hair curled gently back from her face, and her blue eyes glimmered in the light from the unnaturally bright sky. But her lips were pulled into a frown, and deep creases lined her forehead.
“Hurry!” she shouted. “She needs your help!”
“Who does?” I stood and tried to move toward her, but the ground beneath me turned like an invisible treadmill. I couldn’t get any closer to her.
Frustration grew on her face. She tried to take a step off the porch, as though she wanted to come to me, but she was bounced backward by an unseen wall.
I tried again, putting all my energy into my legs. They propelled me forward, but just before I reached the steps, I tripped over my own feet and tumbled into the blooming flower beds. My face landed in a large orange rose. I inhaled deeply, recoiling immediately.
It stank like rotten fish.
The rose had no eyes, but I could feel it watching me angrily, as though it was offended I had trampled on its friends. It leaned forward and sniffed me, snuffling my face like an inquisitive animal.
“Brrrllll!” the rose said.
My eyelids fluttered open against the bright sunlight shining down through the round window at the yurt’s peak. Striker stood on my chest, eyes bright and intent. She needed something, and she communicated this in the subtle way only a cat can manage: by putting her entire weight onto my sternum and blowing cat breath up my nose.
“There’s food in your bowl,” I reminded her, shoving her away with one hand.
She returned immediately with another low “Brrrllll!” One of her paws touched my lips, claws extended.
“Ouch!” I sat up and shot a glare at her. She bounced away down the bed, quickly escaping my reach while avoiding stepping on Graham. Whatever she wanted, it clearly wasn’t important enough to require waking up her favorite person. The smaller of her two servants would do.
I rubbed my eyes and checked her bowl. “Told you, you’ve got plenty of food.”
But she wasn’t interested in breakfast. She plunked her bottom down in front of the yurt’s door and glared up at me.
“I can’t let you outside,” I told her.
She scratched at the door.
I knew this would happen. She had gotten used to having free rein of Primrose House, its yard, and anywhere else in Donn’s Hill her little legs could take her. We should have waited to install the cat door until after we got back; clearly, she had gotten used to it and was pissed the yurt didn’t have a similar way to let her come and go as she pleased.
There was no way to explain to her that we couldn’t risk that here. We were in a strange place with an abundance of new smells to lure her into the desert hunting grounds of too many predators.
However, Graham and I had packed a compromise. I pulled on jeans and a windbreaker, then retrieved her purple harness and its accompanying leash. Like the day before, she seemed disgusted by the entire notion of wearing it, biting my fingers as I fed her legs through the openings. As soon as the clasps latched into place, she collapsed onto her side and glowered up at me, eyes aglow with all the righteous indignation she could muster.
“It’s this or nothing,” I told her.
“MeeOOWWW!” she protested.
Her shriek woke Graham, who sat up blearily. “What’s going on?”
“Taking Striker for a walk.”
“Good luck with that.” He chuckled and lay back down, pulling the covers over his eyes as he went.
“Enough shouting,” I whispered to the cat. “Stop being difficult.”
In response, she squirmed on the ground, flopping like a fish in a vain attempt to shake the harness off. I tightened my grip on her leash and opened the door.
The early morning sunshine streaming through the skylight had been deceptive. A surprisingly cold breeze tickled my cheeks as I plopped Striker onto the sidewalk. She stood awkwardly for a moment, then raised her nose to sniff the surrounding air. Apparently, the lure of a million new scents was enough to overcome her hatred of the harness, and she took a few tentative steps forward.
“Good girl,” I urged. “You can roll around if you want, or we can— Hey!”
The leash slipped out of my hands as she equipped a pair of invisible feline rocket boosters and took off into the parking lot.
“Striker!” My heart leapt into my throat, muting my surprised shriek, and I raced after her. My eyes flicked to the highway; we were so close—dangerously close—to the speeding cars. If she darted out there…
I couldn’t think it.
My heart wouldn’t be able to handle it.
“Striker!” I shouted again.
Either she couldn’t hear the panic in my voice or she just didn’t care. She dragged her leash behind her, paws barely touching the ground as she tore across the asphalt with an elated energy. I couldn’t see her face, but I was sure she wore the same determined expression she always did when we raced each other up the stairs at Primrose House. I cursed myself for playing that game with her; I had accidentally trained her to think racing me was a game.
She always beat me to the top of the stairs, but I couldn’t afford to let her win this time. Not when the stakes were this high. Losing this race could mean losing her in the desert or watching her disappear beneath the wheels of a semi.
A cramp zapped up my side, but I pushed through it.
The gap between us closed.
I was gaining on her.
Then, suddenly, the race was over. Striker reached the sidewalk on the other side of the parking lot and came to an abrupt halt in front of the last yurt. My feet put on the brakes, but the top half of my body sailed forward, arms windmilling at my sides. I stumbled over my shoes, lost my footing, and somersaulted over the sidewalk.
For an instant, I was airborne. No part of my body touched the ground… until I landed in an awkward heap in the dirt.
“Owww,” I groaned.
Striker tilted her head to look at me, her lamplike eyes filled with concern. Sympathy, but no guilt. I could practically hear her thoughts in my mind: Silly Mac, why didn’t you stop more gracefully?
While she enjoyed her victory, I snatched up her leash and wound it around my elbow. I would happily let her win this round as long as there was no second one. She didn’t seem to mind being tethered to me, and she turned her focus to inspecting the small patch of grass beside the yurt’s door.
I pulled myself to my feet and checked for any sore spots. The only damage seemed to be a few minor scrapes on my arms and a tear in my jeans at the knee. A small trickle of blood dripped onto the ripped denim. I glared at my cat. Now that I knew she wasn’t about to be snatched by a hawk or run down in the street, I had enough emotional energy to be furious with her.
“Was that fun, you little hellion?”
She squinted happily at me as she munched on the grass. After a few bites, she raised her head and rubbed her jaw on the yurt’s doorframe. The small placard beside the door read Shamrock.
“Oh, I suppose you think this is your property now, huh?”
“Brrrllll,” she replied, rubbing the other side of her face along the wood.
“This one isn’t ours. We’re over there.” I pointed across the parking lot toward our unit, where Graham was still asleep and blissfully unaware of Striker’s misbehavior.
My hand froze in midair as I realized where I was standing. We were exactly opposite our yurt. That meant this was the same unit Fred Hawkes had visited immediately after checking us into ours.
This was where he had stashed the dead woman’s luggage.
As I stared at the door handle, little tendrils of thoughts—my mother, exposure, the desert, death—weaved together to form an idea. If we weren’t able to find Anson Monroe, we might never know where my mother had really gone the night she died. But he wasn’t my only lead. If I could ask Camila Aster what she had been doing alone in the desert, I might be able to find out if my mother had been doing something similar.
It was a long shot, but one I immediately decided was worth taking. After all, I knew it was possible to channel the dead and ask them questions. I had seen it.
All it took was a connection to that person. Some psychic mediums used living connections, like the people the dead left behind. But I also knew that through the course of our lives, we leave our mark on so much more than just the people around us. We imprint onto the places we spend our time and the things we carry with us.
Things like luggage.
Or the clothing packed inside the luggage.
Before I could stop myself, I reached for the door’s handle and tried to turn it. It was locked, and I thought about walking away. But instead of turning and carrying me back to my yurt, one of my feet jerked out and gave the door the same swift, low kick I’d seen Fred use on our unit.
It popped open.
I hesitated on the threshold. If someone walked by right now, I could plausibly claim the door had opened on its own. Clearly, the latches weren’t super reliable. But how could I explain walking into another room? What would I say if someone found me inside?
As I debated with myself, Striker sauntered around me and into the yurt, leaping with casual grace onto the bed and settling down to clean her paws. She paused midlick to look questioningly at me, as if to ask, Aren’t you coming?
With a last glance at the parking lot to be sure nobody was watching, I stepped inside and closed the door.
CHAPTER EIGHT
The blinds were drawn, protecting me from being noticed by any other guests. Nevertheless, the knowledge that I was somewhere I wasn’t allowed to be compelled me to hunch down and creep across the floor on my tiptoes. Even in the dim light, I could tell this yurt was identical to ours. The only difference was the portrait above the bed. Where ours had a tortoiseshell cat, this one depicted a vivid green field of shamrocks.
Striker spread the toes on her white hind foot, eyes crossed as she chewed her toenails.
“Try not to get too much fur on the bed, okay?” I told her. “This is supposed to be a pet-free room, you know.”
She glanced up at me, then whipped her head toward the bathroom.
Through the open door, something moved.
I froze. Was Fred in here cleaning? Had he heard me?
My heart pounded as I debated whether to stand here until I was discovered or shuffle backward toward the door as silently as possible. I couldn’t envision grabbing Striker and getting out without being seen or heard, so I stayed where I was. With my eyes locked on the bathroom doorway and my breath locked inside immobile lungs, I waited.
A light sound—like fabric brushing across fabric—made me jump. My eyes were drying out, but I didn’t dare blink them. Then, just as my lungs clamored for fresh air, I saw it.
The shower curtain fluttered. A moment later, it quivered again.
My breath rushed out in the form of a muttered curse. I stalked angrily into the bathroom, ready to slam shut the window Fred must have left open and block the breeze from scaring me again. But the window above the toilet was closed. The air in the bathroom was still and smelled faintly of peppermint soap.
