Betraying Innocence (32 page)

“We’re going to fight this,” Ana’s mom said. “I’m sure what they’re doing is illegal.”

“It won’t do any good.” Mrs. Ramirez looked from face to face. “The board runs nearly everything in this town. Their word is law.”

“This is still Canada,” her father barked. “And no one can just make up their own laws. I’ll write to the Prime Minister if I have to.”

“What good will it do?” Rafe turned to the adults, his shoulders hunched against the chilling winds. “I don’t think I want to go back to a school that doesn’t want me there.”

“Rafe—”

Ana interrupted whatever Mrs. Ramirez was about to say. “
Rafe’s right. They won’t welcome us back with open arms. Pushing it will only make things worse.”

“What then?” Her mother turned to her father. “We just give up?”

Her father shook his head. “I think we need to think about this some more, discuss it. I’m sure we can come up with a solution.”

They wound up at the diner, sitting in the same booth Ana and Rafe had
shared only days before. Ana tried not to think about how she’d seen Vinny just minutes before at the library, smiling and completely oblivious to the fact that his days were about to end. She should never have asked him to bring the blueprints. She should never have got him involved. His death was on her hands.

“Lakewood is only three miles from here,”
Rafe said was saying over a basket of chili fries. “I can drive us both there and back.”

Her parents both shook heads.

“We’re not discussing new schools right now,” her mother said. “Ana just started at Darcy. I want to examine all the possibilities before I give up.”

“Well, I’m in if you think of something,” Mrs. Ramirez said
. “Lord knows those old fogies deserve to be knocked down a peg or two.” She checked her watch. “But I have to get to the store before grabbing the twins from kindergarten.”

It wasn’t until that moment that Ana realized how late it had gotten.

They all shuffled out of the booth, tossing bills onto the table to pay for their breakfast/lunch. Her parents and Rafe’s mom made plans to get together later that week and discuss things further. Rafe pulled Ana aside. His fingers splayed across her waist and curled into the material of her top as drew her to him. He dropped his head and his voice when he spoke.

“You okay?” he asked.

She shrugged. “I have no idea.” She bit her lip, uncertainty scuttling through her. “I’m going to miss Jack and the others, but … is it wrong that I’m not sad about not having to face all those watching eyes?”

He shook his head. “
At least this gives us some free time to figure out what Baits wants from us.”

Ana

With their expulsion, things should have gotten easier. They stayed out of town and away from the scrutinizing eyes of the town folk, yet that didn’t stop them from waking up in the morning with the front of their homes decorated with rotten eggs, toilet paper streamers and dog crap burning in paper bags on the front porch. Dan found the latter while on his way to get the morning paper. It would have been hilarious had he not made Rafe clean it up afterwards. Ana was beginning to wonder which was worse, Johnny terrorizing them or the personal vendetta of an entire town campaigning to run them out. It amazed her how little they cared whether or not Ana and Rafe actually committed the crime. To everyone else, they were already guilty.

“They’re sheep,” Rafe said one afternoon as they
lay curled up on her sofa.

They were supposed to be watching TV, but neither
was in the mood so they sat with it on mute on some cartoon. Her parents and his mom were in the kitchen, discussing strategy, which gave Ana and Rafe room to talk without being overheard, not that they had much to talk about. They had no new leads on Johnny. Peter Carrick had vanished after they’d confronted him and they still had no leads on how to find the other guy. And after Vinny’s death, Johnny had all but disappeared. There were still nights they heard him rapping on the walls, opening doors and moving things in the kitchen but that was the extent of it.

“My dad
was so angry this morning when he saw the message on the front door,” she whispered, keeping her voice low.

“What did it say?”

“Murderer.” She rubbed a hand over her face. “I don’t know how much longer they’re going to put up with this.”

His fingers continued combing through her hair where it fanned across his chest.
“Yeah, mine too. I heard Mom and Dan talking about moving to Lakewood. Dan was doing most of the talking, but Mom sounded like she was beginning to agree with him.”

She raised her head off his shoulder
to peer into his eyes. “Mine want to go back to Ontario.”

He exhaled. “We need to end this.”

“How? We’ve tried everything.”

He shook his head. “I don’t
know.”

No sooner had he spoken when the TV began to flicker. It began rapidly switching through channels, faster and faster until it was a blur.

Ana quickly sat up, Rafe doing the same behind her.

“Johnny?” she whispered
, getting to her feet.

The flickering slowed.

Silence. It ticked by with crippling slowness. It filled every corner of the slumbering house so the only sound was the crack of her heart in her ears as she held her breath and waited. Her limbs trembled with the cold that had begun to conquer the room. It seemed to rise slowly up her body, seeping onto her skin. Their breaths plumed a foggy white before their eyes and she shivered. Her arms drew up to wrap around herself.

The cold continued to push against
them, trapping them in its icy tomb. Strands of her hair were lifted, twisted around invisible fingers. Her clothes were fisted and jerked. She was shoved from behind. Ana gasped as she staggered forward, catching herself on the coffee table.

Rafe was instantly on his feet, his hand an iron shackle around her wrist. “Look, you need to back off!” he hissed, dragging Ana to him.
“We have no idea what you want.”

The room temperature solidified, becoming warm once more. Had it not been for the
ache between her shoulder blades, she could have sworn she’d imagined it.

“Kill them!”

Ana jumped at the unexpected shout. Her gaze swung to the TV as it zipped through channels again, stopping only to spit out the same two words over and over again.

“Kill them! Kill them! Kill them! Kill them!”

Rafe lunged behind the TV and yanked out the cord. The screen flipped to black.

“We’re not murderers,” he snapped, pitching the wire aside and moving to stand next to Ana again.
“We don’t kill people.”

A sharp snap filled the room, the sound of glass crunching beneath a blow. They whirled around just as a family portrait shuddered on the wall
and slid off, breaking into a million pieces across the floor.

“You have a bruise.” Rafe replaced the soft brush of his finger
tips with his lips, planting warm kisses to the skin between her shoulder blades.

Lying face down on her bed, wide awake with her arms folded beneath her cheek, Ana shook her head. “I don’t feel it anymore.”

His slow exhale washed along her bare skin. “He’s lucky he’s already dead.”

“I understand why he’s angry and why he would want the people responsible to pay, but…” She rolled over onto her back, dragging the sheets up around with her until she was facing him. “Doesn’t he realize we can’t do it?”

“I don’t think he does,” he murmured. “I think he’s completely consumed by his need for vengeance. I’ve read about spirits who die angry and anger is all they know.”

She looked at him. “I don’t think he’s angry, Rafe. I think he’s sad.”

“He’s crazy, is what he is. You can’t just kill people and get away with it.”

“His killers did.”

“Yeah well, we’re not killers.”

She dropped her gaze to the sheets she’d twisted around her fingers. “I killed Vinny.”

“Johnny killed Vinny,” Rafe corrected her sharply. “You had nothing to do—”

“I told him to come over, Rafe. I’m the reason he was here. Then I completely forgot ab
out asking him to find the blueprints so I wasn’t even here to protect him when he came.”

“Do
you really think you could protect him if Johnny wanted him?”

Ana shook her head. “I’
ll never know.”

“You know what I don’t understand?” He shifted his weight higher on the bed, rising up on his elbows to peer down at her. “
You’ve seen Johnny at school and we’ve both seen him in the backyard, so why can’t he just poof himself into his killer’s homes and kill them himself?”

She shrugged. “Maybe he doesn’t know where they are? Or maybe he can’t.”

“Maybe. It certainly would have made our lives easier.”

Sharp fingers of ice shackled around the bare flesh of her ankle and she was
dragged down the mattress, ripping Ana cruelly from the warm arms of sleep. She bolted upright, her heart a trapped animal in her throat. She stared into the darkness, her hands trembling as she pulled the sheets to her chest. Her free hand went to the warm, slumbering body next to hers and he became instantly awake.

“Ana?”

“Something’s wrong,” she whispered.

Rafe leapt over her and reached for his
jeans. He yanked them on as she threw on her own things. He padded quickly to the switch and flipped it on. Ana flinched at the sudden explosion of light.

“What is it?” he asked.

She shook her head, absently rubbing at a tender spot on her ankle where a bright, red welt had manifested. “I don’t know. I was—”

The light flipped off, pitching them back into darkness. She was only vaguely aware of Rafe moving across the room to stand next to her.
A chill swept through the room, so thick and tangible, she felt ice crystals form along her skin. Her hair crackled as though she’d gone out in the middle of winter with a wet head.

“W
… what’s going on?”

Rafe never got the chance to answer when a low, creaking whine filled the room.
They spun around as ice spider webbed across her window, weaving an intricate design of swirls. Ana hurried forward, ignoring Rafe’s protest as she climbed up on her window seat and pressed her face against the glass. The ice bit into her palms, but she ignored it as she squinted into the darkness.

For a moment, she saw nothing but the yard, the broken fence and the dark, quiet house across from hers.
Then she saw the flicker of light. It was quick, like it was moving, but there was no mistaking the orange glow.

“Oh my God!”
Bolting off the window seat, she dashed for the door. “Dad! Dad, wake up!”

There was a scuffle in her parent’s bedroom second
s before the door was thrown open and her father stood in the hallway in his flannel bottoms.

“
Ana?” His gaze shot past her to where Rafe stood in her doorway in nothing but unfastened jeans, then back to her. “What—?”

“Someone’s outside,” she panted. “They’re setting the house on fire.”

He never stopped to question her. He blew past her and thundered down the steps. Her mother was a step behind him, calling over her shoulder for Ana to call the police.

“I’m going with your dad,” Rafe said, already givin
g chase, leaving Ana alone on the second floor landing.

Heart hammering, she ran into her parent’s room. She grabbed the phon
e off the nightstand and dialed.

A woman picked up on the other end, their voice crackling with static. Ana pressed a hand over her ear, the one not cradling the receiver
, like that would somehow make the static less.

“Hello? Hello? My name is… Hello?
There’s a fire, I need…”

She smacked the plastic on her palm.

“Hello?” she shouted louder.

“Sheriff’s … emergency…”

“Yes, this is an emergency!” she snapped. “Someone’s setting a fire to my house!”

“Location…?”

Ana gave the woman her address, speaking slowly, but loudly. Then she repeated it two more times before tossing the receiver down on the bed and running downstairs.

Both her parents and Rafe stood in the foyer with the door open to the night.
They turned when Ana reached them.

“I called,” she said, breathing hard although she hadn’t really done anything. “I don’t know if they heard me. The reception was horrible.”
She peered past them to the darkness. “What happened? Was someone there?”

“Someone was there
all right,” her father said tightly, the tendons along the back of his fists going white. He snapped on his heels and marched down the hall to the kitchen.

Her mom shut the door and hurried after him. Rafe and Ana exchanged glances before following.

“Took off when we came out,” her father growled, planting his hands on the island. “The bushes along the side of the house are gone, but the house seems to be all right.”

“Did you see who it was?” she asked, lowering herself down on the stool.

Dad shook his head. “Probably some little punk.” He slammed a fist down on the tiled countertop. “Unbelievable the length some people will go. Petty vandalism is one thing, but to set a person’s house on fire? Don’t they realize we could have died?” He scrubbed at his face with both hands. “That was the last straw. We need to leave. I can’t keep staying here, worrying that my family might die in their sleep. First thing tomorrow, I’m calling in a transfer at work. I don’t care where. We’re leaving as soon as the paperwork goes through.”