Indelible (35 page)

“Cherie,” I cut her off. “You solved the curse. I think you did great. Better, actually. Amazing.”

Cherie bowed her head. “Well, I am amazing. Anyway, if Christopher was really against the Clutch doing whatever experiments they were conducting, it would make sense that his ghost hung around. Your grandma says if a soul is really concerned about something, then it can prevent them from passing on, right?”

I nodded. So Thomas was telling the truth about that. Who knew what else?

“The Clutch used to meet in the old sports house, before Thomas murdered his first two victims there and started the curse. But the school reported that the room was having technical difficulties before that; lights breaking, the pool floor moving, etc.”

“Those can be signs of a haunting.” I nodded. “And Thomas said something about Christopher trying to scare them off by playing with the wiring. You think it was Christopher who used to haunt the old pool room, to scare off the Clutch?”

“Yes. I had something I wanted your opinion on. I meant to talk to you about it awhile ago.” Cherie got up and went to her desk and started flipping through her papers. She pulled out the picture of the key she had and handed it to me. “I was doing some research on Howard Lovell.”

“Who?” Audrey asked.

“The guy who made the keys.” Cherie pointed at the picture. “Look at the head of the key. It almost looks like there’s an image engraved, right?”

I squinted, but the photograph was from an old, grainy newspaper. It did look like something, but I couldn’t tell what.

“I was thinking it might be this. What do you think?” Cherie held up another picture, this one of Howard Lovell’s tombstone. Beside his name was a carving of two birds floating on a wave. “Does that look like it might be it?”

I looked between the two pictures. “Yeah, I think they are the same thing.”

Cherie pursed her lips. “I thought so. The birds look familiar too. I’ve seen it somewhere.”

I had too. I looked at it again and it hit me. “Cherie! Those are swans! The same as in the mural in the old pool room, right behind the diving board. And in the changing rooms.”

Cherie plopped down, crinkling the blueprints. “The old pool room? The one Christopher was haunting?” Cherie jumped off the plans and dug through them until she had the detail drawings of both the old and new set showing the old sports house. She swiveled her head back and forth, keeping a finger on each set as she looked for anything missing.

“I found it!” Cherie’s left hand was pointing to a small room under the stairs that didn’t appear on the new set of prints. It was behind the diving board in the pool room. “Here.”

“The room wasn’t recorded on the newer plans?” Audrey asked.

“No. I bet Christopher changed the plans, so no one would know about it.”

“So when Christopher was haunting the pool he wasn’t just trying to scare the Clutch straight, he was trying to keep them from his secret place.”

Like a light being flipped on, I suddenly understood what she had discovered. “So when the students stole the key and tried every door they unintentionally missed one. Because no one knew it existed.”

“Exactly!” Cherie broke out her happy dance and pulled Audrey and me to our feet to join her.

“So what’s the plan?” Audrey asked swinging her hips to the non-existent music.

Cherie rolled the newer set of blue prints into a tight bunch. “Do we go for the door or wait until we have the key?”

“If we go after it without the key all we’ll accomplish is tipping our hand to the Clutch.”

“Don’t you know how to pick a lock?” Audrey asked Cherie.

Cherie put her hand over her heart. “I’m so flattered you asked me that. I can, but my gut tells me this one won’t be that easy.”

“DJ won’t give us his key. That means we have to find the other one.”

“But you said it would be with him forever.” Audrey gulped. “That sounds like it’s buried with him.”

“I hate graveyards.” Cherie twitched, like just thinking of them gave her the willies.

“How can someone so obsessed with ghosts be afraid of graveyards?” I asked her. Cherie lifted and dropped her shoulders in don’t-ask-me sort of way.

Audrey paled. “You don’t mean we’re going to dig up a body do you?”

“Of course not.” Cherie reached out and patted Audrey’s hand. “It’d be a waste of our time. That’s the first thing the Clutch would have done.”

Cherie shrugged at Audrey’s incredulous stare.

“Not to mention Sophia smirked when she said it,” I pointed out. “It was meant to be misleading.”

Cherie braided her long, blonde hair wearing her I’m-solving-a-mystery face. “I’ve got more research to do.”

v

During the next few weeks Cherie and I made a valiant attempt to search out every portrait and monument made in Christopher’s honor, although it became increasingly difficult to stay focused as prom season grew closer. Cherie and I wasted several hours of our research time looking through fashion magazines and websites, trying to find the perfect dress. The Waker guilt tugged at me, and I felt relieved when I finally ordered my dress and the task of searching resumed.

“I must be missing something,” Cherie said. She kicked the base of the Christopher statue and plopped down on the stairs.

“I really had hoped that maybe the statue was wearing the key,” Cherie said.

I tried not to laugh. Cherie seemed to believe that we could lift the chain from around his neck and walk off with it. She had pulled at it until she seemed satisfied it hadn’t been spray painted and hot glued on. She let out a frustrated grunt as she flipped through the print-outs of every portrait and monument of Christopher she had found.

But I noticed something. “He’s wearing both of the keys in some of them.”

Cherie brought once of the pictures closer to her face. “I know. Until he married Sophia, he wore both of them and after, unless he was at school, she wore the other.”

She tapped the corner of one of the pictures against the tip of her nose. “I had this crazy idea that maybe they’d been hidden on the statue or on one of the pictures of him, you know, so it would be with some memorial of him forever. But it’s turned into a dead end. I’m not sure where to search next.”

I leaned against the statue. “Well if you’re having this hard of a time, the Clutch probably is too.”

Cherie stuck her nose up in the air. “I don’t care about them. Oh, all right I do.” She pulled her hair out to the side and stuck her tongue out. “It’s driving me crazy not being able to figure this out.”

“I think you’re concentrating on it so hard you’re missing something. I bet if you put it on the back burner and work on something else, it’ll come to you.”

“Maybe you’re right.” She rested her chin in her hands. “It’s only that recently I keep hitting dead ends. I can’t find Lee. It’s like the kid vanished. I did find two cousins of Sophia named Doris. One had a daughter named Vicky. The other one I haven’t been able to find any other information on.” She let out a grunt of frustration as she looked at her watch and sighed. “I really need to study.”

I held out my hand to help her up. “Let’s go grab our books and I’ll quiz you.”

“I’m not giving up on this.”

“I know, you’re just bringing your sleuthing skills to a slow boil.”

“Exactly,” she said. She turned and kicked the statue once more for good measure before heading to our room.

v

By the time April rolled around, Cherie had brought her grades up and Brent seemed like he’d never been sick.

It was Prom night and it felt like everything was perfect.

I rolled down the windows in my car as soon as we turned onto the Pacific Coast Highway. Salt-infused air and the steady pounding of the waves hitting the shore slid inside the cocoon of the car. I breathed in deeply and tried to ignore the sudden knot inside my stomach. It was the ocean, not the pool. I was safe. I was with Brent. I had noticed in the last month or two that I had become less frightened of water. I let out the held breath and the tension sailed along with it.

“We won’t go near the water,” Brent assured me. I loved how he seemed to understand my unspoken words.

“Thank you. I’m sorry.” I rubbed my free hand across the shimmery red fabric of my dress, drying my palms. I could smell the corsage on my wrist. The red roses he had chosen were still in tight buds.

“Don’t apologize for something that’s not your fault,” he said. He reached over and threaded his fingers through mine.

Statements like that not only made my heart flip over in happiness but made me fall even more in love with him. Brent had packed the car with my favorite snacks. He made sure I had Skittles with the green ones already picked out. Those were his favorites so it worked out well. It was our thing and it made me smile.

I knew it bothered Brent that I had to drive, but the doctors still hadn’t cleared him to drive yet. To make it up for him, I let him pick the music in the car. I had expected his usual choices, but instead, he’d picked up some sultry jazz. Smart boy.

“Stay there,” Brent ordered when we pulled into the parking lot. I rolled up the windows and shut off the car.

He jumped out ran around to my side, opened the door for me, and extended his hand. I placed my palm in his and the feel of his, so warm against mine, made me blush. We had held hands thousands of times but his touch still made me heart race and my insides melt like wax.

This night, though, it felt more intimate, like it meant more than usual. Maybe it was because he had insisted on driving separately from Cherie and Steve, maybe it because we were all dressed up, or maybe it simply boiled down to years of little girls’ dreams about Senior Prom.

Whatever the reason, as he brushed his warm lips against my knuckles, my knees turned to pudding and I leaned against him so I didn’t fall. He closed the door behind me before sliding his arm around my waist. He held me like that for a minute and I listened to the steady thumping of his heart, and just like the day I had met him, our hearts beat in unison.

Finally he turned me toward the beach and sand. Safe and secure in Brent’s arms I admired the beauty of it; the sun had just begun to set, painting the sky the color of pink cotton candy with splatters of purple and deep red swirled in. I rested against Brent, taking comfort in his strength.

“Are you okay?” His breath stirred the curls framing my face.

“Yeah.”

He took my hand and led me toward the giant white tents that were decorating the sand. Pendrell never did anything halfway, and the Prom setting looked like it could have been in a fashion magazine for a wedding. There were white lights and flameless candles set up on the tables, jewels and candelabras hanging from the ceiling, and fresh flowers set on round tables, all in different shades of blue.

We stood in the long line and got our portrait taken, deciding to get it over with early, and finally entered the tent. It was more than half full. Coach Tait was the acting maitre d’ and took us to our table. Three seats at our table were empty. Brent, Cherie, and Vinaya, who I knew from Calculus last year, were already there.

Brent held out my chair for me and pushed it in before sitting. We all said hello to each other. Vinaya’s brown eyes were usually warm and happy but tonight they lacked their usual joy. I wondered if it had anything to do with the empty chair beside her.

Tuxedo-clad waiters poured fresh sparkling cider in our crystal glasses. Linen napkins were placed in our laps, and fine china and silver utensils were set in front of us. Cherie and Steve sat across from us, whispering a private conversation. Audrey and Travis flashed us grins from the next table over.

Brent titled his head toward the silent Vinaya and lifted his eyebrows. Sad females were out of his depth.

“Where’s Josh?” I asked her.

“He got food poisoning.” She poured herself a glass of sparkling apple cider. “Is it awful that I came without him?”

“No,” Cherie said. “You can’t let things like that ruin your Senior Prom.”

Vinaya lifted her glass by the stem. “That’s what I thought, but now I’m alone. Everyone has a date so I won’t be dancing, and who wants to take a picture alone?”

“We could take a girls’ group picture,” I offered.

“That’d be good.”

Her mood seemed better and we all started talking as dinner was served.

At one point in the meal, Vinaya whispered in my ear. “There’s some girl I don’t know staring at you. She’s been watching you for most of dinner.”

“Where?” I followed the way she tipped her head but didn’t see anyone.

“She just moved.” She shrugged. “She was wearing a silver dress. I’m sure it was just someone’s date or something. Still it creeped me out a little.”

The five course meal tasted divine. I was stuffed when they served the chocolate soufflés. The music started before we’d finished our desserts. Cherie nudged Steve who asked Vinaya to dance. She agreed and Steve whisked her onto the dance floor.

“It wasn’t me being nice.” Cherie grinned at us. “While he’s gone, I’m eating his soufflé.”

She had already taken two bites when Brent and I headed toward the huge wooden dance floor set up over the sand. The white tent flaps were pulled open and even though it was dark, there was enough moonlight that I could see the water. I rested my head against Brent’s chest as a slow song came on, never wanting the moment to end.

After a few songs we got a glass of punch. Brent started shuffling his feet and looked just past me as he asked, “Do you want to get some fresh air?”

“Sure.”

Brent rocked back on his heels. He tapped the front of his tux coat. “Great.”

“I better use the restroom first.”

“I’ll wait here.”

I handed him my drink and walked the lit path toward the bathrooms. Before leaving the restroom I brought my face close to mirror to check my make-up when a hand touched the back of my neck. I jumped a little in surprise.

Behind me in the mirror a girl with strawberry blonde hair and gray eyes gave me a sheepish grin. I didn’t recognize her, but she wore a beautiful silver, strapless gown.

“Sorry you have something in your hair.”