Chasing Shadows (10 page)

"Yeah, but I figured that out on my own pretty early on. And it was pretty obvious when his number wasn't programmed into your cell phone. I just wanted to make sure I was right and she confirmed it."

I bit my lip, embarrassed that I had lied about being in love with an imaginary man in order to discourage Simon from pursuing me. "I'm sorry about that. Things were just so complicated and I thought it would make everything easier if I lied about being interested in someone else."

Simon shrugged, looking back at the road. "I can't say it made me happy, but I understand. I can't imagine what you were going through." He reached down to grasp my hand and I squeezed back, grateful to have him next to me.

I directed him to my house when we pulled into my neighborhood and he parked the car on the street in front of it.

"Are you ready for this?" Simon asked, watching me carefully.

"As ready as I'll ever be."

My father's car was in the driveway, which wasn't surprising since he often worked from home. Most of his day was spent showing properties to prospective clients, only stopping into his workplace for meetings or paperwork.

I unlocked the front door and stepped inside, Simon following closely behind me.

"Hello?" I called out. "Dad?"

I heard rustling in the kitchen and I walked towards the sound. My father was at the kitchen table, reading a newspaper with a cup of coffee. He looked surprised to see me, but the surprise soon turned into irritation as he glanced behind me, obviously seeing Simon.

"What are you doing here?"

My father wasn't going to make this easy so I braced myself for whatever was going to happen. I ignored his question as Simon stepped next to me.

"Dad, this is Simon."

Simon stuck out his hand and my father shook it warily, studying him. "What's this all about? Did you skip school so that I could meet your latest boyfriend?"

"No, Dad."

"It's nice to meet you, Mr. Kile," Simon said politely, although his expression said otherwise. His lips were pressed together and he looked none too pleased. I sat down at the table and Simon dragged a chair close to me and sat down so that he was practically on top of me.

"Dad, I don't want to upset you, but I need to ask you about Mom."

My father slammed his newspaper shut, his eyes blazing. "What did I tell you about that? Don't you dare ask me any rude or disrespectful questions."

"I'm not trying to be rude or disrespectful. I'm trying to save lives! I know you know about the visions I've been having. The visions that the women in our family have. Do you know about the vardogers? They've done something to Aunt Brenda! They're coming after me and my friends! I need your help!" I had planned on being calm, but I felt my control slipping, anger and fear making my voice sharp.

"Shut up!" he hissed. "I don't want to hear any of this trash! You're crazy, just like my damn sister!"

"It's true." Simon looked pissed but he was trying to keep his voice calm. "I've seen them myself. Your daughter needs your help."

My father glared at Simon and then turned back to me, his voice dripping with scorn. "I see you've got him under your thumb. Are you spreading your legs for him? Is that why he's putting up with your nonsense?"

I gasped, pain lancing through me at my father's words. I was shocked by his vulgar insult, which exceeded even his worst cruelty from the past. Simon shot up so abruptly that his chair fell back to the floor. He lunged at my father, grabbing him by the front of his shirt and pulling him up so he was standing.

"Don't you ever talk to her like that!" he snarled, his face barely an inch away from my father's. "I don't care if you're her fucking father. I will
destroy
you."

My father was red-faced and sputtering, looking furious but scared at the same time. I jumped up, putting my hand on Simon's arm that was still holding my dad up.

"Simon, stop!" Simon looked at me, his eyes full of rage. I was a little unnerved by his extreme reaction. "Simon," I said more softly. "Please. This isn't going to accomplish anything."

Simon took a deep breath, seemingly trying to calm himself down. He let go of my father's shirt and stepped back. My father scrambled further away from him, brave now that he had put some distance between them.

"Just who do you think you are, you son of a bitch! How dare you put your hands on me?"

Simon crossed his arms, looking at him blandly. "My mother would take great offense to that statement. She can vouch for my legitimacy."

Simon's flippant remark seemed to enrage my father more, and he whipped his head to glare at me. "I'm going to work. I don't want to see you here when I get back."

I slumped back into the chair as my father stormed out, slamming the door behind him. I heard his car start, driving away so quickly that the tires squealed. Simon crouched in front of me so that we were eye-level, taking my hand.

"I'm sorry, but your father is a royal ass. I don't know how you've put up with him for all these years."

"It's okay. I don't blame you for reacting the way you did. Hell, I can't count how many times I've wanted to punch him myself."

Simon sighed heavily. "I guess coming here wasn't a good idea."

"If my father won't tell me what happened to my mother, I'll find out myself. He always keeps his office upstairs locked. There's got to be something in there that he doesn't want me to see."

Simon followed me upstairs to my father's bedroom. I had found the key to his office once in his closet, but I had never thought much of it because I didn't think he was hiding anything from me. I just thought he didn't want me messing up his papers.

The key was in the shoebox where I had found it before, and I quickly unlocked the office. Nothing looked out of the ordinary, bookshelves lining the walls and a desktop piled high with papers, covering everything on top of it except the computer.

Simon and I went to work searching for anything that could be important, but I started to become doubtful when we still hadn't found anything after an hour.

"This is hopeless!" I sighed, exasperation getting the best of me. "He just has mountains of paperwork. There's nothing important here." I turned to Simon when he didn't answer me.

"Simon?"

He was bent over a filing cabinet with what looked like a newspaper clipping in his hand. He glanced up when I said his name. The look on his face told me he had found something.

I quickly walked over and took the newspaper clipping from him, my pulse quickening when I saw that it was an article about my mother's death. I read it silently, absorbing every single detail.

"My father was telling the truth," I said, looking up when I was finished reading the article. "My mother was killed by a drunk driver. But they never found her body. The accident happened on a bridge. When the other driver crashed into my mother's car, her car broke through the railing and fell into the Delaware River. They found my mother's car but her body was never found."

I clutched the newspaper article, hope blooming inside of me. "Do you know what this means? My mother could be alive!"

Chapter Nine

Simon was watching me with concern and worded his response carefully. "Caitlin, I know how much you want your mother to be alive. I don't blame you. But don't you think she would have come home if she was alive? That she would have contacted you? Where has she been all this time?"

I shook my head, refusing to listen to his logic. "She could have amnesia from the accident. Maybe she doesn't remember who she is and that's why she's never contacted me."

"That's a big leap to make."

I was getting annoyed by Simon's reasoning, even though I knew he had a point. "I didn't dream that my mother was alive for nothing. She
saved
me. If she hadn't woken me up, Sarah's vardoger could have very well overtaken my body."

Simon sighed, running his hand through his hair, realizing he couldn't win this argument. "What do we do now?"

"This bridge isn't very far from here. Do you know how many times I've crossed that bridge, not realizing that's where my mother's accident happened?"

Simon reluctantly followed me down the stairs and out to his car. I was brimming with impatience as he slowly slid into the driver's seat. He didn't say a word as he followed my directions, but I knew he was afraid that I was going to be disappointed. I called Sarah during the drive over, remembering my promise to check in regularly. I filled her in about what I had found out about my mother's accident, and I was gratified that she was much more excited about the information than Simon.

"Turn left here," I instructed. Simon followed my direction and we came upon the bridge. The bridge was on a road that had very little traffic so Simon easily parked his car on the wide shoulder and we got out. I leaned over the bridge, morbid thoughts flooding through my mind as I tried to imagine what had happened the night my mother's car had been pushed into the rushing waters below. I shuddered from more than the cold air numbing my cheeks.

I felt an arm slip around me and I leaned against Simon's warmth gratefully. "How are you feeling?"

"I don't know. I'm not even sure what I thought I'd find here. I thought maybe I would feel an energy,
something
to help me understand what to do next. But there's nothing. I feel nothing."

An empty ache made me feel hollow. I had been so sure that I would instantly know what to do once I arrived at the scene of my mother's accident, but no big revelation had been dropped upon me.

I look down at the river and the embankment, not willing to give up entirely on finding a clue here. "Let's go down by the water. Maybe I'll feel something there since that's where my mother's car ended up."

Simon's eyes darkened, his expression turning grim. "Caitlin, I don't think that's a good idea. It's dangerous down there."

"Simon," I said, frustrated that he didn't seem to understand the significance of this place. "I can't just leave here without turning over every stone. Besides, the embankment isn't that steep and it looks like there's a pathway over there." I pointed to a strip of land where the grass had been flattened into a trail towards the water.

I didn't wait for Simon's answer and walked around the bridge, slowly making my way down to the river. I heard Simon's sigh but his footsteps followed me.

"Grab my hand, I'll go first. I don't want you breaking your neck."

I was grateful for Simon's guidance and gripped his hand as he maneuvered his way down to the water. Despite my earlier bravado, the embankment felt a lot steeper than it looked and I slipped a few times, colliding into Simon.

"Steady. Take small steps. The last thing we want to do is tumble head first into the water."

I nodded and continued following Simon until we were a few feet from the water's edge. Simon turned to me with a raised eyebrow.

"I hope you're not planning on actually going into the river. It looks deep and the current's pretty fast. Never mind that it looks about as clean as a sewage plant."

"No, but maybe we can find something near the edge." I carefully shimmied closer to the river, leaning down to examine the muddy ground next to it.

"Christ, careful Caitlin," Simon said crossly, grabbing my hand. "Just keep a grip on me while you do your detective work."

I glared at Simon, trying to tell myself that I should excuse his derisive tone since he had been through a lot. I shifted my attention back to the riverbed, but Simon was right. What the hell was I looking for?

We walked up the side of the river while I continued to inspect the ground but found nothing. Simon growled when I suggested crossing to the other side, which meant climbing back up the embankment, over the bridge, and down the other side, but he obliged.

I was about to give up, the cold biting air making my teeth chatter and my toes numb, when something caught my eye. I don't know how I saw it amidst all the mud, but when I leaned down and picked it up, my pulse started racing.

"Simon, look!" I rubbed the mud off the small metal coin and held it up for Simon's inspection. Simon leaned close to examine it and then straightened, giving me an odd look.

"It's just a coin, Caitlin."

"No, really look at it!" I waved it in the sunlight, trying to demonstrate to Simon what was so strange about the coin. "Don't you see it? It reflects shadows instead of light! Normally, when sunlight hits metal, you see a reflection of light. But this reflects shadows. It's made of palladium! But it's not normal palladium. I looked up online its properties, and for all intents and purposes it's just a normal metal. Rare, but normal. But the palladium I saw while I was under hypnosis, the same palladium that was around Claudia's neck when she attacked me, looked exactly like this! It must be a special kind of palladium."

Simon raised an eyebrow, looking skeptical. "I'll admit that the coin is a little strange. But even if it's this special type of metal, don't you think it's a little suspect that you've found it here, the site of your mother's accident, sixteen years later?"

I shrugged, not wanting to dismiss the possibility that this was the clue I had been looking for. "I doubt many people come here. It could have been undisturbed for years. What if my mother somehow knew about the vardogers trying to use palladium to counter the effects of iridium?" I gasped, a sudden thought blossoming. "What if the vardogers killed my mother because she found out about the palladium and was trying to stop them from using it!?"

"Caitlin, you're making a lot of leaps here." Simon looked grim and I couldn't understand why he was being so stubborn about my discovery. "I know how much you want this to mean something, but I think we need to think this through more thoroughly before we jump to any conclusions."

I crossed my arms against my chest, trying to control my growing anger. Simon had been such a help to me, but now I found myself wishing Sarah were here instead of him. Simon's lips pressed together when I just stared at him, not saying a word.