Broken Illusions: A Midnight Dragonfly Novel (10 page)

This time I didn’t wipe the trickle away. “Except you.”

“Trinity—”

“No, it’s okay.” I stepped back. “I understand.” And I did. “She feels safe with you. I get that.” Chase was that kind of person. “She knows you won’t hurt her.”

I hated the way the words scraped.

He twisted, back toward the worktable. “The Ouija board,” he murmured, and my heart sank. I
needed
to talk to Jessica. She was the only one who’d been on the other side of my dreams, and was still alive to talk about it.

“Did it say anything you
didn’t
already know?” he asked.

Biting down on my lip, I let it go—for now—and ran back through those freaky minutes. “Just a few names. When Victoria asked who we were talking to, it spelled out Marie—and Evie.”

“They don’t mean anything to you?”

I shook my head as the bell on the front door jingled. “Nothing,” I said, turning to head back into the shop.

Chase didn’t follow.

It took about five minutes, but finally the two businessmen chose blinged-out
FLEURISH!
t-shirts as souvenirs for their little girls, paid, and left.

Standing behind the counter as jazzy parade music drifted from the speakers, I stared through the front windows, to the glowing sign across the street.

HORIZONS.

All I had to do was walk inside, and step back into my dreams.

“What if she knew?” I murmured as Chase came up beside me. It was the only possibility that made sense. “What if Grace realized something bad was going to happen and left my name for the cops to find, like a safety net?” The implications rocked me. “What if before anything even happened, she planned to reach out to me for help?”

Chase pulled me back against him. “You’re cold.”

And he was so, so warm.

Twisting around, I grinned. “Think you can change that?”

His smile was slow, lazy. Pushing up on my toes, I angled my face to his, and then his arms were around me and mine were around him, and what started out soft and gentle quickly escalated.

I never heard the bell jingle—but I did hear someone clear their throat.

Jerking back, I twisted toward the front, where my aunt and Detective LaSalle stood looking discreetly at the T-shirts Chase had refolded.

“Aunt Sara,” I said, hurrying from behind the counter. “I’m sorry, I just—”

She looked up, and grinned. “Forgot to lock the door?”

I laughed. “Not exactly what I was going to say.”

“All my fault,” Chase said, coming up beside me.

“No apologies necessary.” She slid a glance at the antique clock on the counter. “Why don’t you get on home,
cher
? I’ll close up.”

“I can stay—”

“No need.”

All the while, Detective LaSalle stood quietly, watching.

After grabbing my purse and telling Aunt Sara I’d sold the last pair of size eight rain boots, Chase and I headed to the door. I had one foot outside when he swung back toward my aunt. “Hey, Sara?”

She’d just stepped out of the back room with a handful of beads. “Yeah?”

Against mine, his hand tightened—that should have warned me. “Is there anyone in Trinity’s family named Marie?”

Half in, half out, I froze.

“Are you kidding?” she said, draping the beads along a series of fleur-de-lis jewelry trees. “The better question is who’s
not
named Marie.” She looked up. “Why?”

He shot me a quick look before no-big-dealing her question with a shrug.

“Just one of those Internet things,” he said, “about common names. Trinity said there were no Maries in her family, and I bet that there were.”

Music drifted in from Bourbon, while from the river, a cool breeze blew. I was barely aware of either.

Nor could I believe how fast Chase had come up with that lame excuse.

Nor could I get past my aunt’s answer.

“So who’s named Marie?” he asked.

Aunt Sara let the last strands of beads pool against the counter. “It was her mother’s middle name,” she said, truly like it was no big deal. “And her mother’s, and her mother’s before her. I never understand how Trinity ended up with Rose.”

Chase practically dragged me outside, not stopping until we were two buildings down the street. Then he turned me toward him, and the light in his eyes almost blinded.

“Still think it was just your subconscious?”

*   *   *

1:57.

The green of the clock glowed against the darkness of my room. For over two hours I’d been watching the numbers creep deeper into the night. I tried to sleep. I wanted to sleep. That was my best chance of connecting with Grace.

But sleep would not come.

Delphi sat beside me, her green eyes narrow, staring without blinking. Back when she’d first come to live with me, I’d tried to ease her onto her side in that classic, C-curl cat shape. But Delphi was not a lay-on-her-side kind of cat. She was a croucher. She always had all four paws on the ground, ready to take off.

Gradually, as weeks turned into months, I’d quit trying to turn her into the lazy cat Victoria had, and accepted her for who she was. I had no idea of what she’d been through. Or, for that matter, how she’d come to be on my doorstep.

Now, if I concentrated, I would have sworn I could hear the soft, faint rumble of a purr.

I loved it when she purred.

2:01.

Aunt Sara and Detective LaSalle had come in after ten. From my room, I’d heard them talking about their upcoming trip to Mexico. With the Grace case active and me involved, he was no longer sure he should leave. Aunt Sara didn’t have a choice. She was in the wedding.

2:03.

Frowning, I checked Facebook, but nothing had changed in the fifteen minutes since I’d last looked. Chase must have fallen asleep. His last text had been around midnight. Victoria had dropped out an hour before that. Her parents had a strict no-phone-after-eleven rule.

2:06.

The heater blew. I could hear it rattling. But the wind blew against my window, and my room wouldn’t warm.

2:07.

My mother’s middle name was Marie. So was her mother’s, and her mother’s …

2:08.

Grace had a picture of my mother …

2:09.

Closing my eyes, I ran through all the pieces—they were starting to fit.

I turned over and dragged the covers with me. With the soft cotton blanket in my hands, I concentrated on breath. In, out. Slow. Steady. I refused to look at the clock.

“Trinity.”

My heart slammed.

“Omigod! You’re here!”

The voice was quiet—desperate. I spun toward it, but found a long, empty street. Buildings lined each side, old and faded, out of time and place.

“You shouldn’t have come,” she whispered. “He’s too dangerous.”

I’d only talked with her once before. Months had passed. But I recognized the voice, and the fear trembling through it. I tried to run toward her, but my body wouldn’t move. “Grace?”

“You have to go—there’s not much time!”

“Where are you?” I scanned the street. A big, pale green urn lay on its side, broken, with dirt spilling against cracked concrete. Weeds had replaced whatever had once grown within. “Tell me where you are!”

Wind swept down the street. Dust swirled.

“Grace?” I called. “Please!”

I fought to move, twisted free on a violent rush and started to run. “Where?” I shouted. “Where are you?”

“Sh-h-h! He’ll hear you.”

My feet splashed down in a puddle. Mud and water streaked up against the bare skin of my legs. “Who? Who’ll hear me?”

“He hears everything…”

The voice echoed around me, no point of origin or end. I stopped and twisted, looked from building to building.

Once they’d been beautiful. Once they’d … invited. Now they stood forgotten, faded, with broken windows and darkness gaping from within. Paint peeled, and doors hung open.

“Be careful!” The voice was little more than a terrified whisper. “He’s coming!” she cried, and this time I lunged toward the closest structure, one of weathered green with a series of missing French doors and empty balconies and window boxes above.

I darted inside—and stopped cold.

NINE

Through the darkness a brilliant green dragonfly glowed.

“Grace?”

With silence from all directions, I made myself cross toward the sun-catcher. “Grace, please,” I whispered. “Talk to me.”

Something warm whispered against me. I turned toward it, saw the crate several feet away. Green.

Glowing.

I started toward it.

Sudden footsteps stopped me. They were strong, purposeful.

I ran, feeling my way through the darkness and darting behind the first obstruction I found.

The room breathed. Or maybe that was me. Or maybe—

The dragonfly glowed brighter, fracturing invisible sunlight—and the boots came into view.

Black.

Just like—

I jerked awake, surging up in bed with the embers of a silent scream searing my throat. Blinking, I lifted a hand to my neck and felt my pulse racing, my skin like ice.

The clock read 5:21.

“Omigod,” I whispered as Delphi nudged against me. She was so very, very warm. “Grace.”

I’d been there. Wherever Grace was, I’d been there. I’d heard her. She’d been begging me to leave …

I’d been close. I’d been so, so close.

And there in the cold, predawn darkness, I knew what I had to do.

*   *   *

“T, when are you going to tell me where we are?”

“Sh-h-h.” With a tight smile I glanced from Chase to the driver’s license in my hand, lifted it to the thin space between the door and the frame, and slid.

“What are you doing?” he whisper-asked. I don’t know what it is about silence that makes you lower your voice, but I was grateful that he did. “You can’t just break in—”

But I could. After a quick jiggle the flimsy lock gave way, and when I put my gloved hand to the knob and twisted, the door fell open.

“Come on,” I mouthed, slipping into darkness so pure that, for a chilling heartbeat, I was back in the basement of the condemned hospital.

Chase pushed in behind me and quickly but quietly closed the cheap wooden door—his hands were gloved, too. I’d insisted on that. But I’d told him little else.

If I had, he might have said no.

And if he’d said no, I didn’t like plan B.

More than twelve hours had passed since I’d texted him, asking if he could meet me after dinner. The clock had read 5:47. I’d still been in bed—he’d been asleep. Before homeroom, he’d pulled me aside, wanting answers.

Blind trust wasn’t his thing, but that’s what I needed him to give me.

“Trinity—” he said now. “Where are we?”

I slid my hand into my messenger bag, retrieved a small flashlight, and clicked it on. “Grace’s apartment.”

He moved fast, taking me by the shoulders and twisting me toward him. “Are you crazy?”

Something inside me tensed. “I’d rather think of it as
inspired,
” I said, going up on my toes and pressing my mouth to his.

He didn’t kiss me back.

“Crazy isn’t my favorite word,” I added, brushing the bangs from his eyes.

The lines of his face stayed tight, reminding me of the way he’d looked when I first told him about my dreams: part intrigue, part disbelief, but mostly concern. “You know what I mean.”

“I do.” Slipping from him, I eased deeper into the coldness of Grace’s small apartment. Either there was no heat, or it had been turned off. “But I had to come back,” I said. “I dreamed something last night.”

“About her?”

I ran my flashlight along a series of crates, most full of magazines and books.
“I found her.”

“Then what are we doing here?”

The second my light hit the green, I stepped toward the crate and went down on my knees. “This,” I said, dragging it toward me. “I … saw this in my dreams.”

There had to be a reason.

Chase crowded in behind me, pressing against my back. “What is it?”

I shivered. That made no sense. “Looks like pictures.” Tilting the crate, I let everything spill around my knees. “And letters.” I shifted through the assortment of envelopes, all from some town called Belle Terre, all addressed to Grace Fontenot.

Until that moment, I’d never known her last name.

Chase reached around me, his gloved hand picking up a torn scrap of newspaper.

I felt him still.

“What is it?” I asked, shifting my light to the paper.

The sight of my parents’ names was like a quick punch to the gut.

“Omigod,”
I whispered, taking in words that threw me back to the night I’d finally learned how they died. Words like
fire
and
arson
and …
too late.
But this was worse. This was more.

This was their obituary.

In Grace’s apartment.

The shaking started, deep, deep inside. Chase pulled me closer, holding me as I slid my arms inside his jacket and held on.

“She must have known her,” I murmured. “Grace must have known my mom, or at least heard of her.”

Chase held me tighter.

“She must have realized—”

The knock killed my words. We jumped, Chase shooting to his feet and positioning himself between me and the door.

“No,” I whispered, disentangling myself. “It’s okay.” He tried to stop me, but I twisted, hurrying to open the door before she could knock again. “Victoria.”

Long, silky blond hair fell against her face, making her eyes seem bigger—darker. “What is this place?” she whispered, as if she, too, knew better than breaking the silence. The whole building was like a mausoleum. If I hadn’t known better, I would have sworn it was abandoned.

But someone lived below, and someone lived above. Detective LaSalle had told me that.