Cursed be the Wicked (2 page)

Chapter 2

Portals

Ghosts, spirits, apparitions. Call them what you will. They’re all words used to describe the dead that aren’t willing to cross over to “the other side” because they have “unfinished business” somewhere amongst us living folk, or so they say. In my opinion, it’s the
living
that have the problem moving on.

I guess I never really bought into any of the B.S. people try to pass off as supernatural. So it’s funny to me that I still find myself landing on some paranormal television programming to watch when insomnia kicks in. Which is most nights. I don’t sleep well. I think it started when I had nightmares as a kid. Later it became part of my norm even though I haven’t had nightmares in forever, or dreams even. Until last night.

“It’ll be okay, Coop.”

I hear the girl from my dream inside my head. I can still see her curious brown eyes as they peek out from behind her blonde hair that drapes around her face. Her head is tilted just so, and a small hand settles, gently, on my shoulder, as I pause at the bus stop on my way home from school.

I’d heard similar phrases to the one she says to me, many times after Dad was officially pronounced dead. I heard them from teachers and social workers, my aunt, even. It shouldn’t be such a disturbing vision except for the fact that in my dream, this girl who’d given me her assurances did it the day
before
my father went missing.

The television is still on the ghost hunting show I found when I woke up in the wee hours of the morning. I flip the channels . . . and flip, and flip to try and find something else, but eventually, no matter how much effort I put into avoiding it, here I am, back on the same, predictable show.

I don’t understand what draws me in. I hate these shows. For one thing, they remind me of Salem. They’re completely and utterly overly dramatic in their reenactments of “customer” experiences. There isn’t anything genuine about the hosts. And I’m certain the situations are set up and actors are paid to react to something touching them or calling their name.

It’s habit I guess, watching them, judging them. One I picked up a long time ago.

The alarm on my phone goes off and suddenly, it’s time to get ready and catch my plane. I get a quick shower, I dress, then I throw the itinerary that Bill’s assistant e-mailed me overnight into my duffel. I swing that and my laptop bag over my shoulder, grab a jacket, my keys, and wallet, and then I lock up and catch a cab to the airport.

Ready or not.

The upside to getting told you’re leaving ASAP for your next destination by V.P.s and C.E.O.s of the company you work for? First-class seating on the airplane.

The downside? Layovers.

I’m on my second to last leg of the trip and the entire time I’m in the air, my stomach won’t settle and my hands are sweaty. I wipe them on my jeans a hundred times but it doesn’t help. The only thing that does is the Jack and Cokes the stewardess brings me and that’s only temporary.

When I land in D.C., I’m tired and agitated, and as crappy as it might sound, I find myself wishing I could prolong this part of my trip a little while longer. I do, too, by catching a later flight and landing at Logan International around nine p.m. instead of seven.

As the plane begins its descent, the reality of this trip really starts to hit me. I can feel a thumping inside my chest and my mouth is suddenly dry. I don’t want to do this and I don’t want to be here. I want to take over the plane and turn us around pronto.

Instead of getting arrested for hijacking, I force myself to take a deep breath in and hold it in for a few seconds.

It’s just another city, Coop.

I let it out.
Just another job.

I tell myself I’m better but still find that when we land, I’m the last one to deplane, last to find my luggage, next to last to catch the shuttle that will take me to my very last place in line at the Avis car rental facility.

After I’m assigned a car, struggle with my suitcase to get the heavier jacket out that I brought with me, figure out how to get
into
the car, and make an attempt to understand where the ignition is on the damn thing, I admit to myself that I may have a
few
small issues with facing this particular part of my past.

And okay, maybe they aren’t so small.

It’s not like I haven’t spent the better part of the last decade avoiding the place. It’s also why I’m still having chest pains of some sort every time I think about how close I am to stepping foot across an imaginary line I’ve drawn inside my own mind.

That doesn’t mean I can’t do the job, though.

It doesn’t mean I can’t do a damn good one at that.

It just means I’m a wuss. That I need to get my mind focused and treat this like any other assignment I’ve been on over the past ten years.

“It’s your job, it’s easy, you can do this,” I repeat aloud, as I drive closer and closer to Salem.

I check the time and realize it’s a lot later than I had anticipated making it into the city. Of course, it’s my own fault for procrastinating all the way through the airport.

I’m exhausted, so I decide to pull off at the next place I see to get some sleep. Tomorrow I’ll come up with a game plan, maybe get some time back that I’ve lost today, and hopefully not anger Bill too much over wasting the money he’s shelled out on a hotel in Downtown Salem.

When I pull off the 107, I almost decide to scrap the idea I’ve had when I come to the small parking lot for a grand old home that’s been named “The Camilla Rose Inn.”

Bed and Breakfasts are typically not my first choice. Ever.

Most of the time I think they’re too over the top, with their doilies, afghans, and regularly scheduled guest-bonding activities. Unfortunately for me, though, according to Yahoo! Maps, there isn’t a hotel for another ten to fifteen miles and my eyes aren’t willing to stay open for that long. So I pull over and get out, hoisting my bag over a shoulder with one hand, carrying my laptop with the other.

I ready myself for the onslaught of warm and happy welcomes from people wanting to tell me what time breakfast is as I walk through the front door, but that’s not what I get by a long shot.

“Raymond, I’m tired. I don’t have time for this to—”

The woman standing behind the front desk spins to see, not Raymond, whoever the hell that is, but me. As she comes to the realization that I’m not who she thinks I am, I get the feeling she still thinks I’m someone else as she finishes her sentence.

“ . . . night.”

Her long, brown hair looks as though it’s trying to escape the ponytail she’s pulled it into. Her eyes are dark, fierce even and it feels like she’s peering straight into my soul as they stare across the front entryway toward me.

Her mouth falls open slightly as her eyes narrow, and now I’m getting the impression she’s trying to place me or maybe she already
has
.

Not good.

She looks away when her eyes catch up with mine and I approach with caution. As she snaps out of her daze and begins to type away at the keyboard in front of her, I try to side step the awkwardness beginning to form by clearing my throat.

“I’m, um—”

“I know who you are,” she tells me sharply.

“You do?” I ask as blood begins to rush through me. I clench my jaw, waiting for the judgmental comments to arrive.

Her eyes soften then, and she simply nods with a thin line forming across her lips.

She studies me and twists her mouth up like she’s been let down, of all things.

I get it. Just about half the town thought I was the one that killed my father, even after my mother confessed.

“Seems like every
other
Tom, Dick, and Harry in the media’s shown up already. You may as well join ‘em,” she says, and I’m surprised yet relieved at her words. In a way.

“You think I’m—?”

“You’ve got paparazzi written all over you.”

She arches an eyebrow.

I don’t mean to but I laugh aloud from the sheer relief that she has no idea who I am. However, I also feel the need to defend myself because I’m not a fan of being lumped in with the paps.

“I’m not—”

“The funeral’s not for another week, you know,” she informs me as she turns her attention back to her computer.

“You’re mistaken,” I insist, even though she’s right. I
am
media. Technically.

“Really,” she replies, like she’s not quite buying it. So I push harder. I’m very convincing when I want to be. Plus, I hate giving her the satisfaction of guessing my occupation.

“Yes. Really” I tell her, and now she’s back to eyeing me and we’re staring each other down for a minute or two. I’m convinced she’s going to fight me on this but in the end, she bites her tongue and goes back to banging away on the keyboard.

“In town for the festival then?” she asks, changing the subject. Like whatever just happened didn’t happen at all, which both intrigues and irritates me at the same time.

I watch her a bit while she busies herself with the computer. The way she tucks some stray hairs behind her ear and then lets her fingers graze her neck before she goes back to typing. The easy way her fingers fly across the keyboard. And how she is most definitely avoiding eye contact with me for some reason.

I spot her nametag. She doesn’t look familiar to me but you never know.

Betsy.

Betsy, Betsy, Betsy.

I can’t think of a single Betsy I knew growing up.

She looks up and her eyes narrow again. It’s only now that I’m aware of the fact that I’ve been glaring at her for the past couple of minutes without saying a word. I clear my throat and forget to speak when she licks her lips and then takes the bottom one in between her teeth.

I am officially an ape.

She lets it go.

I stare some more.

“So . . . ?”

“What?” I snap, a tad more abrasive than I intended to.

“Do you have a reservation?” she asks, trying to be polite without letting on that she most likely thinks I’m the slowest dolt on the planet.

Jesus.

Maybe I am crazy.

Maybe it runs in the family.

I gather my senses and shake off the odd feeling of vertigo I’m having.

All I manage to give her is a resounding, “No.” Then I drop my bags and rest my elbows against the counter. My eyes close as I rub my temples, anxiously waiting to hear her tell me they’re all booked up, forcing me to drive those extra miles after all.

I mean, what would it take? Ten, twenty minutes tops to get there?

“Helloooo.”

My lids open to see her staring at me with curled eyebrows and a worried look in her eyes. They look so familiar to me.

I just can’t...

“Are you drunk?” She asks and it takes me aback.

“What?”

“Because I’m not in the mood for—”

“I’m not drunk,” I assure her and just like that, my train of thought is interrupted because I become more concerned with convincing this woman that I’m not intoxicated although to be honest, I wish I was.

She eyes me carefully and once again, I feel her staring straight through me.

“Name?” she asks, trying to keep thing copasetic.

“Um . . .”

I must be tired, because I almost blurt out my real name when she asks. Thank God, I catch myself.

“Cole Stone.”

I get nothing in response. No typing, no movement. Just a blank stare and a cocked eyebrow that might very well be asking, “Seriously dude?” if it could talk.

“
Cole
Stone?” she asks, and I’m thinking, okay, she’s heard of my articles. Big deal.

I wait for the change in demeanor that’s bound to happen because it always does once they know who you are.

“That’s right,” I tell her, trying to ignore the way she tilts her head. Not that it’s not charming, the way she does it. In a slightly annoying kind of way. But it also reminds me of something. The same way her eyes do.

That dream.

My brow pulls together, trying to remember the girl I dreamt about the night before, but she was just a kid. It couldn’t have been Betsy.

“You sure?” she asks, like she doesn’t believe me again and I’m wondering why she wouldn’t think I am who I say I am. I mean my picture isn’t exactly plastered all over the world or anything but damn, why would anyone pretend to be
me
?

Typically, I’d give her a run for her money here, and possibly a piece of my mind. As it is, I’m feeling off my game with the article cramming I did last night and the sleep deprivation and the whole reason I’m even here in the first place, so I give her the best I can under the current circumstances.

“Yes,” I insist with half a snort.

Her eyebrows dip, just slightly and only for a second or two before she swivels over to another terminal. She lets her stare hold mine a tad too long and now I’m the one who’s avoiding eye contact.

It’s very warm in here all of a sudden.

“So...
not
in town for the festival?” She tries to clarify and make small talk at the same time. And if I didn’t like the way her mouth twists up when she’s trying not to smirk so damn much, I’d have been long gone by now.

“I didn’t say that,” I tell her, defensively. My gut says that she’s digging for information. But why would she be digging? She doesn’t know me.