Games of Zeus 02- Silent Echoes (16 page)

He stepped to her, bumped it and grabbed her, twirling her around in a fierce hug.

“I’m so excited you guys got to come by!” When he let go, the woman walked closer, her hand outstretched. “I’m Missy, Tripp’s sister.” The resemblance to her brother showed in her eyes.

Taylor extended her hand to meet Missy’s.

“It’s so good to finally meet you,” Missy said. “Working together by fax and email doesn’t give you nearly the same impression, and Ian there wouldn’t say boo about you.” She wagged a finger in Taylor’s direction. “I knew something was up months ago.” Missy slid her hand back but stopped. “Is it real? Did it hurt like hell to have one done like this all around your finger? I’ve got a tat on my lower back, but there’s enough flab there not to hit bone.” She turned Taylor’s hand sideways and flat again.

Thanks to the itching, Taylor hadn’t replaced her ring to cover the design.

Missy dropped her hand. “Oh, sorry. I’m the nosiest of everyone, aren’t I?” She stuffed her hands in her pockets. “I want to apologize first that I won’t be able to do dinner. The owners of this house—” She thumbed over her shoulder toward the gorgeously decrepit home. “—came to town today, too. So, I only get to hang right now. Then, we’re camping inside for the night.”

“Camping?”

“Oh, yeah. It’s how I learn about a house. Wanna check it out? Missy asked.

Getting to the core of a condemned house like the one before would bring normalcy to her life. If only she had one of her own to renovate, she’d have done it—in a heartbeat, as they said in the south. “Oh, yeah. Show me the bones.”

Taylor cringed as she said it. Ian chuckled, and Missy tilted her head as if to ask, “What’s the joke?”

16

“Was this condemned?” Taylor asked. The exterior retained only half of its cover, with siding planks hanging as if spider webs held them up.

Missy’s eyes sparkled. “Probably should have been.”

Ian took a step through the dirt-encrusted yard. “Looks like you have your work cut out for you, Miss.”

“You have no idea. The last tenants left half their furniture, plus it sat for a while, and pipes burst from a winter storm. It’s like a dream project because the new guys want to incorporate whatever went on when it was first built in 1803. I’ve done all this research on homes from this area and from that time period. Got my tent all set up.”

“Why are you … camping here?” Taylor had never heard of a designer going to such extremes. In most cases, they gave her plans, color palettes and instructions. Nothing more, nothing less.

“Like I said, I do things a little differently. Come on.” She waved them forward.

Ian hung back. Taylor stepped with Missy but glanced over her shoulder. “Coming?”

“Nah. You go ahead. Looks a little—”

“Oh, my God, Ian.” Missy stomped her miniature frame back to Ian, grabbed his arm and pulled. Despite her stature, he followed. She inclined her head, nudging Taylor forward through female-only communication methods. “Go up the front steps but stay to the right. The left planks are kinda shot,” Missy said, still dragging Ian along.

“Afraid of a little dirt, Ian?” Taylor smiled at him, remembering his horror at her self-imposed shed demolishing activity of the week before.

Once inside, Missy let go, and the three of them stood in a two-story foyer Taylor could envision Scarlett O’Hara walking through.

“I remember getting all your sketches and interiors for Lexi and Tripp’s house. They were amazing, Missy. You totally nailed the feel of the place.” Taylor walked through dust, dirt, grime and history. Plaster fell. Wallpaper peeled. Boards popped up through the floor, yet the house held an air about it—no one could deny it would have once been beautiful. Her hands itched to dig into the wood, to peel back the layers and help in the renovation process.

“I live and breathe my surroundings,” Missy said.

“I’m sorry?” Taylor ran a hand over the newel post, a solid mahogany, pockmarked and scratched.

“When I design a place, I stay in it. Let it speak to me. I wait to hear what the house wants instead of just what the owners want.”

“What the house wants?” Taylor tried to keep her voice normal, but suspicion and wariness had run rampant in the past few hours, and around Lexi and Tripp. Though, that would explain how Missy had given Tripp and Lexi’s house so much intrinsic character.

Missy giggled. “It’s okay if you don’t believe in my methods. I’m a little eccentric. I get that from my brother.” She nudged Ian with her elbow. “This house though … well, it doesn’t want to speak. It’s gone quiet, and I think a bit resentful.”

A knock and sing-song, “Hello,” had them all turning toward the front door. “We’re early, Missy. Sorry!” A woman with a bright shock of red hair pulled in a tail at her nape and a man with the darkest black hair as anything Taylor had seen, joined them.

“No problem, Joyce. Randy.” Missy nodded to both of them and offered them each a handshake. “This is my cousin Ian—”

Cousin?
Taylor withheld the laugh. The fact they shared not a bit of family resemblance should have clued in the two new people.

“—and his girlfriend, Taylor.”

Girlfriend?
Taylor refrained from commenting and with a nod and shake, noted the Celtic pattern snaking up Randy’s arm and the full sleeve of tattoos on the other.

“It’s so nice to meet you all.” Joyce held her hands up and spun once. “What do you think of our place?”

“It’s a junk heap,” Ian said.

“It’s got so much potential,” Taylor said.

Joyce and Randy both burst into laughter, bumping into each other in the process. She advanced toward Taylor, her hand outstretched again.

Taylor’s immediate instinct told her to turn and run, but she firmed her feet against the floor.
When did you become a coward?

Joyce took Taylor’s hand, closed her eyes and hummed. Those eyes popped open again no more than a second later. “Has she spoken to you?”

Taylor pulled from her grasp. “Say what?” She stopped the jiggle in her arm by making a tight fist.

“People who are connected in past lives can often communicate with themselves. I was just wondering if she has?”

“How—Wha—” Taylor stared hard at Ian, though how he’d have said anything when they were together the whole time and they’d just met Joyce, she didn’t know. Had he shared with Missy before they arrived? Before they flew up? “She who? What are you talking about?” Ian gave only a blank stare. A switch to Missy offered a bright smile. Taylor swallowed hard. “How—”

“You see possibility in a building that is crumbling down upon itself. I see beyond our life today—into the shadows. Call me a psychic if you must, but I prefer Spiritual Naturalist. I am one with the earth.” Joyce’s smile never left her face.

Taylor’s breath backed up in her lungs.

“But, you know nothing about what I’m talking about, do you?” The grin stayed in place.

Missy stepped forward. “I was just giving them the grand tour. You want to come with me? See where I’m set -up for tonight?”

“Of course.”

Missy went with Joyce and Randy to the base of the stairs. Three steps up, Joyce stopped, turned and held out her right hand, palm up. “Knowledge is shared in order that we do not repeat our faults but persevere into the future.” She swirled with her left index finger overtop her outstretched appendage. “Just something to think about.”

Missy offered a slight shrug, and Taylor stared, more dumfounded than before their conversation.

Ian appeared at her shoulder, his lips at her ear—a welcome distraction. “She’s a bit of a freak, now isn’t she?”

“Given what we have going on, that’s not a moniker I’d stick on anyone but ourselves.”

Ian shifted against her, his breath tickling her neck. “Point taken.” He tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, sending a tingle through her body.

“You two look so sweet together,” Missy called from the balcony above.

Taylor lifted her chin. Joyce, Randy and Missy paused together, their arms resting on the wooden banister, a front row, center stage spot to the Ian-and-Taylor show.

Joyce smiled. Missy giggled. Randy grinned.

The barrier gave way.

• • •

Their screams filled the space as the railing fell toward Taylor. Her arms flew up and, with them, an unseen wind.

Bodies stopped falling.

They hovered, midair, hands clenching and releasing, flailing and moving as if there might be a bar, a plank, a rail to grab on to—some way to swim toward the floor.

Taylor lowered her arms a little at a time.

The three people floated their way down toward the first level, hands and feet reaching the beaten planks just before a screech of wood against wood somewhere in the rafters jostled in a way it shouldn’t, and a low rumble began somewhere beneath where Taylor and Ian stood.

“Get outta here!” Ian’s yell coincided with a shake of the whole structure.

Glass burst from an upper story window, cascaded down from the ceiling, and rained upon them as they jolted forward. Ian pushed Taylor toward the front door.

A long yawn sounded around them.

“The roof!” Missy yelled as she bolted through the opening.

Joyce followed.

Randy behind her.

Taylor stopped. As if entranced, she stood and stared at the crumbling wood all around her.

“Go! Go! Go!” Ian’s voice reached her, but Taylor envisioned herself covered by it all.

Buried in the rubble.

Not wood. Soil. Filling a grave.

The roof shuddered. A beam landed just in front of her, rocking the floor and throwing her backward. She landed on her butt, braced with her arm behind her and jarring her rib.

Yet, still, she stared.

It’s going to bury me.

Alive.

Again.

Her body flung rearward, pressure at her gut dragging her through debris until she landed on her back, staring up at sunlight all around her.

As if torn from a vision, the house came back into view.

Two feet away, the porch bowed inward; slats popped up with deadly sharpness.

Hands slid under her armpits and pulled. The force yanked at her shoulders, sending stabbing pain through her arm and her chest, taking her farther away, into the grass.

The house’s front facade began a slow slide until it fell inward, a cloud of dust shooting up into the air, and the remainder of the four sides collapsed in upon themselves.

Beside her, Ian knelt, his chest heaving. “Son of a bitch.” He turned to Taylor, ran his hands down her cheeks. “You’re okay. We’re all okay. What was—”

“I made it fall.” She braced a hand on her knee and managed to get to her feet, wobbling and trembling. “I made it fall! How could I do that?” Bile rose up her throat.
This is all my fault. I made that fall. I broke an entire house!

Yellow-geared men jogged up to her. “Ma’am, are you okay?”

I made it fall. I made it fall. I made it fall.

If she hadn’t used the air to save them, the house wouldn’t have crumbled. If she hadn’t saved them, she’d have been responsible for their deaths—or at least their injuries.

Both churned her stomach.

Her body swayed. The ground rushed up to her, or she to it, and she hit the grass again.

“Taylor!” Ian broke through the jumble. “Get an EMT over here!”

The voice mixed in her mind but didn’t stop the onslaught of emotion or the fazed view of life around her.

“We need to get this woman to a hospital.”

Her head lolled to the side, though she knew Ian cradled her.

“You’re bleeding.” He gripped her arm, sliding it back.

Panic kicked in.
My hands!
Her breath hitched.
Please let me go. I can’t breathe
.

“I’m right here. You’re okay.” As soothing as he might have thought his voice, her constrained arm did her in.

It always did.

“Can’t—” Her head shook as consciousness reclaimed her. “Can—”

Ian let go. “Taylor.” He said her name right at her ear. “You’ve been hurt.” His fingertip stroked her shoulder.

“It’s not you.” She turned her face away from Ian’s gaze.

“I know, but you’ve got a gash running from your shoulder to your elbow.”

A quick check to her right showed blood pooling through her shirt and down her arm. “No hospitals. I can’t—no, I just won’t.”

“May I?” Joyce knelt at Ian’s side.

Remorse and guilt flooded Taylor. She pushed up to sit, the effects of manipulating the air wearing off. “I’m so sorry, Joyce. I—”

“You’re sorry for what? Saving our lives?” Confusion coated her question.

“But … your …
house
.” A pulsing throb marched up and down Taylor’s arm.

“My life.” Joyce took Taylor’s hands. “Tell me. Please. Confirm that I didn’t fall from a second story balcony and not land flat on my face. Tell me you can manipulate the elements.”

Taylor faced Ian, back to Joyce and to Ian again. She dropped her chin but bounced her head up and down.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” Joyce said as Ian said, “Son of a bitch.”

“But your hou—”

Black-soled work boots hit Taylor’s line of vision. “Ma’am, I’m Dave—one of the EMTs. I really need to transport you to the hospital—”

“No!”

“Can you do anything here?” Joyce asked.

Dave dropped a bag at Taylor’s side. “Let me see it.” He ripped her shirt the rest of the way up her arm. “It doesn’t look deep, probably won’t even need stitches.” He pulled out cleaner pads. “But … it’s our recommendation—”

“No. I’ll find a doctor.” The first touch of antiseptic shot arrows through Taylor’s body.
Should have asked for some Vicadin.
Dave scrubbed so hard on the gash that Taylor cried out.

Joyce gripped Taylor’s hands between her own. “Truly, my friend. What happened here was not your fault.”

Dave let go, moving back to his pack. “Last tetanus shot?” He sat at Taylor’s side, soaking a cotton ball in a clear liquid.

“Three years ago.”

“That’s good, but what with the age of that building, you should ask a Doc if you need an update. Let me get some heavier gauze to wrap this. And, you’re absolutely positive I can’t take—”