The Ghost Files (18 page)

“D..D..a…” Even though it’s a whisper, he hears me and is instantly there, helping me to sit up.

“Shh, don’t try to speak yet, Squirt.”  He glances at Mason.  “Go find her a bottle of water or something.”

Mason gives me a worried look and then heads towards the left hallway.

“Are you okay?” Dan sounds just like a worried mother. “You scared the hell out of me, Mattie.”

“Me…too,” I whisper. My hands go up to my throat. I can still feel those fingers gripping my neck, squeezing. I close my eyes and all I can see are those crazed eyes. Who was that boy and why was he so angry? No, Mattie. You will NOT start asking questions like that. It will lead you nowhere good. Just stop it.

“Here.” Mason shoves a water bottle at us. Dan takes it and removes the cap before handing it to me. My hands shake as I sip at the water. When did ghosts develop the ability to hurt a person? First Mirror Boy and now this guy. I so don’t wanna spend the rest of my life getting attacked by angry ghosts.

“Is someone gonna tell me what the hell is going on?” Mason demands.

“No,” Dan tells him. “Why don’t you go back inside? I’m taking Mattie home.”

“NO!” My shout is more a strangled whisper than anything else. But, at least my voice is coming back, but slowly.

“Mattie…”

I shake my head. I came all this way to talk to the spook specialist. One lousy ghost isn’t going to scare me away. “I… have… to… talk… to… him.”

Dan is frowning and I glare at him.

“Look, why don’t we all go over to the coffee shop across the way?” Mason suggests. “Mattie sounds like she needs some hot tea with honey.”

I nod vigorously while Dan shakes his head. “Don’t make me hurt you,” I whisper.

Mason laughs at this. I send
him
a glare.

“It’s no joke, Mase,” Dan tells him. “The girl’s got some skills.”

Mason scoffs. “She’s too tiny to do much.”

“Yeah? I just watched her bring a guy three times her size to his knees.”

Mason sizes me up and then grins. “I like a girl who can handle herself.”

This guy Mason amazes me. He is either insane or one of the coolest guys I’ve ever met.

“Give me your phone.” Mason holds out his hand.

“Why?”

“I’m putting my number in it so you can call me, duh!”

I hand him my phone with a hoarse laugh. I’m not sure what to think of Mason. Dan isn’t glowering at him, he just looks resigned. Not that it’d matter anyway. I’ll do what I want.

While Mason is busy, Dan helps me up. I’m limping, but at least I’m up and walking. Mason hands me my phone back and gives me his. “Your turn.”

“You
do
remember I’m only sixteen, right?”

“I’m only eighteen.”

I frown. Eighteen?

“How do you two know each other?” I ask, curious as I program Mason’s phone with my number. I like Mason. I feel a little guilty too, especially since I’m not sure what is going on with me and Jake, but there is just something about this guy standing here grinning at me like a goof that I can’t shake off. I like him. It’s an instantaneous feeling, like what happened with Dan, only different.

“I know him from around.” Dan is looking anywhere but at me when he says that. Mason laughs out loud and then says, “I’m his Chemistry tutor.”

I smile at them both. Dan is embarrassed and Mason is enjoying being the cause of that embarrassment.

“Mattie, are you ready to go?” Dan grouches.

“Coffee shop,” I remind him. I need to talk to Dr. Olivet.

He sighs and nods. “Can you walk or do you need help?”

“I can walk. Mason, I’ll call you later, okay?”

“Sure you will, Jailbait, but that’s why I have
your
number.” He pats his phone. “Promise to tell me what the hell happened out here when I call?”

Absolutely freaking no way. Mason will run faster than Forest Gump if I tell him I almost got strangled by a ghost. I’m still shaking, but Mason made it all a little less scary with his insane chatter. Dan makes me feel safe and Mason just makes everything seem less frightening. Odd.

“Maybe,” I lie.

“She has no intention of telling me, does she?” Mason asks Dan.

“I wouldn’t hold my breath,” Dan tells him. “Go back inside, Mason. I’ll take care of Mattie.”

Mason eyes narrow ever so slightly. He gives me a wink, though, and then saunters away into the hall. Dan looks like he is ready to start arguing again, so I turn and walk out of the theater, leaving him to follow and head to the café I can see from here.

Dan is not going to let me get away from explaining things and I need something to fortify myself. Tea would be great right about now. I start hobbling towards the street.

Chapter Twenty-One

Thirty minutes later, Dan is sipping his double something or other frappe latte. His order nearly made me cross my eyes trying to keep up with all the extra stuff he added. I still don’t get what everyone sees in all those overpriced flavored coffees. Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE my caramel macchiato from Starbucks, but even I can’t see paying five dollars every couple of hours for coffee. You’d spend an entire paycheck in less than a few days on the stuff.

The place is nice, though. There are over-stuffed chairs and couches scattered around small, cozy tables. Several students are sipping coffee and studying while others are just hanging out and having fun. It’s very relaxing, especially after the whole strangulation thing a few minutes ago.  I’d texted Dr. Olivet to let him know where we were and what table to find.  I hope he gets here.

“Explain.”

I wince at Dan’s clipped words. I can see the worry on his face, so I can ignore the steel in his voice. He’s upset, but then again, so am I. He wasn’t the one who nearly had the life literally choked from him. Why should I try to explain? He pretty much just admitted on the way over he didn’t believe me. Oh, wait, he believed I believed it. Did that mean I had some kind of mental break and choked myself? Mattie the orphan who thinks she sees dead people. Nutcase he just feels sorry for.

“Why should I?” I snarl back. “It’s not like you’re going to believe me anyway.”

He sighs.  “Mattie…”

“No,” I whisper. “I trusted you, thought you believed me, but you don’t. So don’t sit there and pretend you do now.”

He rubs his forehead tiredly. “I’m trying, okay? It’s hard to believe, but I’m trying to keep an open mind here. So please, tell me what happened in there.”

It’s my turn to sigh. I sip my tea and debate on if I should tell him a ghost tried to strangle me or not. It’ll only make the crazy girl look even crazier. Do I really want to open myself up to that kind of ridicule? Though to be fair, Dan has never once made me feel like a freak when I told him about my ghost girl abilities. He just blinks and nods. Usually.

“There was a ghost on the stage. He wasn’t there in the beginning. He sorta just appeared.”

“Was that when all the equipment on stage started to go crazy?”

I nod cautiously. At least the ghost gear gave me a little credibility here. “He was angry and no, I don’t know why. He jumped off the stage and headed right for
me
. I knew something bad was gonna happen and I had to get out of there. He didn’t say a word, just started to strangle me even before we got out. I couldn’t breathe. The more I fought, the more he squeezed.”

My hands creep back up to my neck. I had zipped my jacket all the way up earlier to hide the marks, but I can still feel them there. “I got mad. No way was I gonna let another freaking ghost hurt me. I remember thinking really hard that I wanted his hands to move and…”

“There was a light,” Dan whispers. “I saw it. If I’d blinked, I wouldn’t have seen it, but it sorta flared up around you and then you were breathing again. Mason came out and distracted me about the same time.”

“So maybe I’m not so crazy then, Officer Dan?”

His eyes are wide, but he’s not shaking his head in denial at least. That’s something. I know I have marks on my throat. Mason had been yelling about them. Even Dan can‘t explain those away. Maybe my getting hurt today actually helped my case with him. He’s a cop. He believes in what he sees with his own two eyes and the strangulation marks on my neck are real.

Time to switch topics. His not believing me feels too much like a betrayal. “I figured out why Mirror Boys was so familiar to me.”

He blinks.  “Mirror Boy?”

“Bloody face in the mirror? Remember him?”

He nods. “Yeah?”

“He was in foster care.”

“How do you know that?”

“I recognized his name,” I tell him. “There was a boy who taught me how to protect myself and he told me that Eric Cameron had taught him to take care of himself. Dude was in the system.”

“You can’t be sure it’s the same person,” Dan argues, already going through a whole list of possibilities in his head.

“Even
you
have to admit it’s a pretty big coincidence.” I take another sip of my tea. It is doing a fabulous job of soothing my throat. I’m not usually a tea drinker, but I’ve never tried it with honey either.

“It’s an angle we can look at,” he says at last. “I checked out that list of neighbors you gave me too. Everyone on your street is your average middle class family-types, well most are borderline poor, but you get my point.”

Well, there went
that
angle.

“So I did an expanded search,” he continues. “There are eleven sex offenders within ten miles of your house, two just a couple blocks over from you.”

“Really?” Now
that
is just creepy.

“Yeah,” he nods. “I am checking into it. I’ll find out where they work tomorrow and before you ask, I just got this information today.”

“Did you check out the Olsons?” I hate to think they had anything to do with it, though. Mrs. O is probably the best foster mother I’ve ever had.

“I did. Clean as a whistle except for a couple traffic tickets over the years.” He frowns. “They are the most likely candidates, but there’s no evidence to suggest they are anything but what they appear to be. Decent folks trying to help people.”

“We have to figure this out, Dan. Mary didn’t look good the last time I saw her. I don’t think she has much time left.”

“Have you seen her since the other night?” he asks hesitantly. I can see how hard it is for him to even ask that question, but he did. Brownie points to Officer Dan.

“No,” I tell him. “I don’t know how much longer she can last. If she’s even still alive. I see dead people, not ones that are still breathing, but I don’t know, she didn’t feel dead to me.”

“I’m doing the best I can, Mattie.”

“I know.”

And I did know. Whether he bought the whole ghost business or not, he’s put a lot of time and effort into everything I gave him. He’d found names for the drawings of the dead kids, found out information about them, mapped out where they were taken, and above all else, he treated this like it was real, like they were important and they had been killed in the way I’d described. He’s a good guy and I need to remember that instead of getting all hurt and huffy over him not believing I can see ghosts.

It just feels like we aren’t getting anywhere and that frustrates me. I’m the kind of person who goes out and gets things done, but instead I’m trusting Dan to use his connections to find out stuff it’d take me a long time or possibly never to find. It’s funny really. Me, trusting a cop.

“I promise you, Squirt, we
will
figure this out.”

“I can’t believe I trust you,” I growl at him. It rankles that I trust him and he doesn’t trust me back. If he did, he’d believe I could see ghosts, no questions asked.

“You sound furious that you do,” he laughs.

“I am,” I tell him in all seriousness. “I’ve never, ever trusted anyone since my mom, not even Nancy, not really. I’m mad because I trust you and you don’t trust me. Do you know how hard it is for me to trust a cop?”

“I trust
you
, Squirt.”

I laugh bitterly. “No, Dan, you don’t. If you trusted me, you’d believe me no matter how insane it sounds and you don’t.”

He stares at me, his warm brown eyes all full of gooey liquid gold. I hate it when he uses that look on me. It makes me want to tell him things I normally wouldn’t. I have to keep a lid on my runaway lips from now on. I need to distance myself from Officer Dan.

“Mattie, it’s not that I don’t want to believe you, it’s just hard to believe that ghosts are real.”

“And that is the crux of the whole thing, isn’t it? No one wants to believe ghosts exist because then they’d have to re-examine everything they believed to be true.”

We both turn to see Dr. Olivet standing a few feet from us. Neither of us saw him come in or even walk to our table. I’m not one to let people sneak up on me. Maybe I need to just leave this freaking town altogether, get away from Dan, Meg, Jake, Mason, Mrs. O. The whole lot of them. They‘re getting way too close.

“Ready to talk about ghosts, Mattie?” Dr. Olivet asks, distracting me from my internal tirade.

I smile at him. I’m more than ready to talk about ghosts. The faster I can learn to protect myself from them, the faster I can get out of this place and get my life back.

Part III: Truths

Chapter Twenty-Two

Dr. Olivet takes his time getting a coffee that has more bells and whistles than Dan’s did. I’d rolled my eyes when Dan had given the barista his order. Why people doctor the flavor of their coffee so heavily or drown it in whip cream. It ends up tasting nothing like what it should.

Once he’s settled and sipping his coffee, he smiles. “So, ghosts?”

Now, there’s a loaded question if there ever was one. There’s so much I want to ask him, but at the same time, I don’t want to tell him the truth either and have him laugh at me. Where to start?  How do I ask the questions I need to ask without sounding like I’m nuts? Dan kicks me under the table and I turn and glare at him. I know I’m gawking, but it’s not every day I meet someone who has potential answers about my curse.