Beautifully Unnatural: A Young Adult Paranormal Boxed Set (63 page)

I took a step in that direction and saw Devin and Chuck at the back door.

“Leave her,” Devin commanded.

She waved at him to go. “Get the car.”

Devin and Chuck slipped out the back door.

My hand ached from her grasp. “Don’t do this, Aunt Colleen.”

She whirled around and stared at me, her eyes flashed. “How did you know?” She paused a moment and seemed to think. “Drew. She must’ve inherited from Beverly.”

I gasped. “The mind messaging?”

She pushed the gun harder into my back. “It doesn’t matter. Pretending to be perfect, prissy little Sandy was enough to make me sick anyway.”

My brain flashed back to my first mind read. “How does it get inherited?”

She dragged me several feet. “One of us dies and it gets passed down. How do you think we knew to look for a mind reader?”

My blood ran cold. That meant someone had . . .

I fought with renewed strength. “If you need a mind reader, I can help you. Just let me go.”

Bam!
Something pounded against the front door.

Colleen jumped then shoved me. “We can’t chance leaving you here. We need you to read a man. He saw everything but he won’t talk. He knows who killed Marissa. They murdered your aunt, Kylie. That’s the kind of people we’re dealing with.”

My aunt, Marissa? How big was my family?

The door banged again and this time the wood cracked.

“Go!” She drilled the gun into my back. “Hurry!”

My eyes darted to the coffee table where Lynn’s keys lay, waiting. It was now or never. I lunged away and my aunt tripped from the force of pushing forward with me no longer there. I swung around behind her, grabbed the key ring, snapped open the blade and sliced her hand that gripped the gun.

She screamed. The gun flew out of her hand and clanked to the floor.

“Kylie!” a man’s voice yelled from the other side of the front door. The voice was familiar. Panic stricken.

My stomach dropped as I glanced back at the door. “Dad?”

Colleen made a move for the gun and I kicked it aside, holding the knife out toward her as a warning not to try for it again. Her ivory face was terrified. “Be reasonable, darling.”

I stepped forward as she backed slowly down the hall. “Don’t call me that. You’re not my mother. She never would’ve held a gun to me.”

“I wouldn’t have used it.” She shook her head back and forth while inching backward down the hall. She gripped her wrist, blood dripping onto the dark floors. “There are things going on you don’t understand.”

No kidding. “Then tell me.”

She opened her mouth to speak when a loud crack ensued. The front door burst open.

I held my knife out, warning her not to move. I wanted to grab her hand, read her and finally have the answers I’d been searching for.

Our eyes locked, her eyes going wide and I wanted to freeze time. To hold her there. To keep her with me. No matter what she’d done, she was my mom’s sister. They were twins. Surely, they had some kind of bond that could make this woman see reason.

Her blood dripped to the floor and my stomach rolled. I couldn’t use the knife again and the look on her face told me she understood that. Her gaze locked on mine.

A moment later, she darted away, her ivory dress floating up behind her as she flew through the back doorway.

Shots fired outside as she fled and I dropped to my knees, the knife clanking to the floor. My hands flew to my mouth. They’d shot her. “Colleen!”

Footsteps pounded against the wood floor behind me and a uniformed cop pushed past me and out the back door. I sat on my knees, motionless, waiting to hear if my mom’s twin was dead or alive.

“Mama,” I said, memories of her flooding me. Pictures flashed in my head switching from my mom to Colleen, one after another.

“Kylie? Thank goodness . . . ” The familiar voice came from behind me and then two strong arms encircled me, crushing me sideways into his chest. “I was so scared, kiddo. I heard a scream and thought it was you.”

“She looked just like her, Dad.” My arm felt heavy as I pointed toward the back door where Colleen had been only seconds ago.

“Are you hurt?” He released me from his bear hug, cupped my face in his hands forcefully, and stared into my eyes—his own brimming with tears. His face was urgent, desperate—in a way I’d never seen before.

I felt a father’s love. No matter what happened in the past, this was my dad.

Colleen’s words rang in my head. I wanted to ask him if he’d stolen me from Devin like she had said. I was desperate to know the truth but noticed the terror in his face. What he must’ve gone through not knowing where I was, not knowing if they’d killed me. My eyes burned. “I’m sorry, Dad.”

He planted kisses on both my cheeks, all over my forehead and then squeezed me against him again. “What do you have to be sorry about?”

My throat tightened. “For sneaking out. For not writing you a note . . . ”

“You’re safe. That’s all that matters.” He squeezed me so hard, it pained my sore neck and I thought my head might explode. “Everything’s going to be all right now.”

I shook my head and pried myself free. “But they shot her—”

A cop came through the back doorway and walked toward us. “They got away.”

Relief washed over me, which made no sense. The woman had held a gun to me. I shouldn’t feel anything for her. But, I did.

The cop came closer. Blonde hair, pulled back into a tight knot. No make-up. Collins.

“They went after them in the woods.” Blondie gestured to me. “Is she okay?”

Dad encircled me with his arm and pulled me against him again. “She will be.”

This time, I hoped he wasn’t lying.

****

Collins drove my dad, Drew and me back to Sac and we arrived at Marmaduke Medical Center a little after six a.m. Lynn was waiting for us in the emergency room.

Drew smirked. “Ah, this brings back memories.”

“That’s not in the least bit funny.” Lynn pulled her into a hug and lay her cheek against Drew’s bright blonde, tangled hair. “You all right?”

“I could use a cheeseburger.” Drew acted tough but her eyes closed the instant Lynn’s arms came around her and her brows knit so hard I knew she was trying not to fall apart.

I stood next to my dad and Collins, fiddling with my hands. I mean, here we were in the same room with the family my dad had kept from me.

Finally, I couldn’t wait any longer. “How is he?”

Lynn gave me a small smile. “Not in the greatest of moods, but he’ll get through it.”

My stomach coiled as I imagined what it would be like to see Trip. I’d already gotten the details through Collins—concussion, lacerations, and bulging discs. Thankfully, after a few days in the hospital and many hours of physical therapy, he should recover completely.

Lynn looked like she wanted to hug me, but she hesitated and turned to my dad. “Hello, Stu.”

My dad gave her a small nod, his brows coming together. “Lynn.”

Nobody introduced Blondie and I couldn’t help wondering why she was still here. She’d done her civic duty by driving us back to town. Didn’t she have paperwork to fill out or something?

But I kept my mouth shut. The tension between Lynn and my dad was so thick you could chop it with an ax.

Lynn squeezed Drew against her. “I’m sorry for all the pain we’ve caused you, Stu. I can’t tell you that I regret Hernandez finding you, or what Kylie inherited, because it brought Amanda back to me.”

My dad stayed quiet but his face was growing redder by the second.

“I understand why you did it. Why you and Sandy left all those years ago.” Lynn’s voice was tight and her eyes hardened. “But, it was wrong to keep Kylie from us. I never even got to say good-bye to my baby sister.”

That did it. I hunched my shoulders, bracing myself for my dad’s explosion.

“You put my daughter in danger.” His voice was angry. He wasn’t even attempting the deep breathing. “How safe will she be now that Devin knows about Kylie? Because of you?”

“Stu—” Collins put her hand on my dad’s arm.

His fists balled. “How will she be able to go to school, walk across the street, live a normal life?”

Okay, now he was yelling. And did Blondie just call my dad “Stu”?

His face was beet red and he started gesturing wildly with his hands. “She won’t be able to brush her teeth without worrying about them finding her again.”

Well, not
now
I wouldn’t.

Blondie rubbed my dad’s shoulder. “Stu, your deep breathing.”

Talk about beyond her civic duty. How did she know about his deep breathing? “Are you two
seeing
each other?”

Everyone turned my way, looking surprised that I was still here when—hello?—the whole argument was about me.

My dad gave me a look. “Let’s just stay calm.”

Yeah, like I was the one who was losing it.

“Now is not the time or place—”

“It never is with you.” I marched away toward the hospital rooms.

“You haven’t changed in sixteen years, have you Stu?” Lynn’s voice echoed down the corridor behind me.

He was dating Blondie? Another secret, and also—gross. I knew there was a reason I couldn’t stand her.

I tried the door handle but it was locked. Duh. In all the commotion I’d forgotten the front window. I rapped on the glass.

The girl from the other night opened the window, her hair up in that same twist and she looked like I’d just woken her up.

“Me again.” I figured we could skip the formalities. “Open up.”

She looked confused. “Who this time?”

“My brother,” I said, not in the mood to go through the Upland, Indiana charade. “Trip Williams.”

She looked unsure for a moment, then she pressed a buzzer. “Room 235.”

“Thanks.” Now, why couldn’t it have been that easy last time?

I reached for the door when someone grabbed my arm. “Aagh!”

Hysterical giggling followed. “You are a walking stress case, aren’t you?”

Keeping the door propped open with my foot, I turned to face my cousin. “And you live to scare me half to death.”

She shrugged. “Got to get my kicks where I can. Here.” She held out my favorite bracelet. “I told you I’d give it back.”

“Keep it.” The words came out of my mouth before I could stop them. “You never know when you might want to send me a message.”

She gave me a confused look. “For real?”

“Yes.” I managed that word, but not the two others I should have said. Thank you. But, the words didn’t give justice to what she’d done for me. “Drew, I—”

“Forget it.” We exchanged a meaningful look. Five seconds later her face drained of serious emotion and she smirked. “It’ll look better on me anyway.”

She snapped the bracelet to her wrist, winked at me, then headed back to the waiting room where there was some serious yelling going on and I’m guessing not a whole lot of deep breathing.

Pushing the door open, I slipped inside and watched the door click shut behind me. My family’s loud voices disappeared. Yes, I still wanted answers. About my new family. About mind reading. Even about Collins—well, maybe eventually.

But, something more urgent needed my attention. The person in Room 235. The person who was there because of me.

****

Upstairs, I passed the same desk on my way to Trip’s room. A different nurse worked at a computer and nodded as I went by. Room 235, the girl downstairs had said. I paused outside the door and did a double take on the placard with his name. The name read “Nathaniel Williams.”

Same last name. Trip must be his nickname. Duh. Still not great at detecting.

I took a deep breath, braced knuckles in front of the door and then heard voices coming from inside. I glanced at the nurse’s station but her eyes were steady on her screen. I leaned closer to the door.

Male voices clipped back and forth. Sounded like some kind of argument and it was getting louder. I debated leaving when the door opened.

A man stood there with his back to me and barked through the open door. “Don’t test me, Trip. Your stubborn attitude is getting to be more than I can take.”

The guy turned and spotted me standing beside him. His green eyes flickered.

I gave a small wave. “Hi, Sam. Er, Detective Williams.”

“Kylie.” He stared at me like he’d seen a ghost. “I didn’t expect you here.”

“Officer Collins brought me.” AKA my dad’s bimbo girlfriend, but I didn’t think it’d be appropriate to call her that since they worked together and all.

He slipped his hands into his front pockets. “You’ve had quite the night.”

The understatement of the year. “You could say that.”

“I’d heard you were all right but it’s good to see for myself.” He reached a hand out and muffled my hair. “You’re one tough kid.”

I crossed my arms. “I’m not a kid.”

He smirked. “Okay, so what do I call you then?”

“Oh, I don’t know.” I tapped my temple, pretending to think. “How about Kylie?”

He smiled and nodded. By the look on his face, we were finally making progress on the kid thing. “I know what went down, Kylie. You can take a lot. You’re a tough cookie.”

I smiled at the compliment. “Thank you, detective.”

“Call me, Sam. It’s not like we’re on a case together.” He gave me a stern look, raised his brow, then turned over his shoulder to glare in the hospital room. “Not like either of you are on a case with me. Got that, Trip?”

No answer.

“If you’re expecting to have a civilized discussion with him, you’re going to be very disappointed.” He moved past me into the hallway. “Best of luck, Kylie.”

Guess that was my cue to go in.

I shut the door behind me and moved toward the hospital bed but it was . . . empty. The room was dimly lit and all was dead quiet except for a shuffled movement and my head snapped toward the left corner of the room.

His chair was in shadows but I could tell by the outline of his body it was Trip. He was sitting in a chair, leaning forward, with his elbows on his knees. He wore jeans, a t-shirt, and shoes. Not what I’d expected.