Second Verse (20 page)

I pull out an iPod case, a pair of sunglasses. At the bottom of the bag is a large mailer envelope. I work the metal clasp quickly, dumping the contents in my lap. Blank envelopes.

My chest tightens as I look through them, looking for a small, ivory envelope, one with a linen finish. There are so many, I can’t be sure. Sizes, colors, finishes.

The knob turns.

Shit. I shove the envelopes to the bottom of the bag and toss the iPod on top.

I’m still cramming papers when the door opens. I turn, shoving it all behind my back, working fast to stuff the rest inside without looking, pulling the string and rearranging it behind me. In the doorway, Kelly’s talking to someone in the hall. By the
time she turns around, I’m all smiles and hopefully looking more normal than I feel.

I need to find Vaughn.

“Hey.” I jump up and nod to the sketches. “I was just looking at your designs. Hope you don’t mind.”

“No, not at all,” she says, moving toward the sewing machine.

“They’re awesome. Do you have any done yet?” I stretch, blocking the view of Stace’s bag. Like any guilty person, I’m convinced she’ll see right through me if she notices the evidence.

One more class. That’s all I have to get through. One more class.

V
AUGHN GOES HEAVY
on the gas.

I’m thrown back in my seat most of the way like I’m on a roller coaster. Even with our windows open, the air doesn’t cool me.

“Slow down! Sharon’s info is no use to us if we don’t make it there alive.”

When his eyes cut to me, I realize how inappropriate my word choice was.

“Sorry. Anyway. What about Stace?”

“I know, I know.” His jaw clenches.

“Circumstantial or not, it all points to her.”

“I already told you, I’ll call her tonight. I’m not sure if she’s even talking to me at this point, but I’ll try.” He frowns, igniting a fire in me.

“What’s with the face? And why do you keep defending her?”

“I’m not. It’s just that I’ve known her forever. She may be screwed up or jealous, but I’d like to think I could spot a psycho a little better than that.”

Air rushes in from my open window and I take deep breaths of it until I calm down. As he veers off the exit, I decide to change the subject.

“What do you think Sharon’s going to tell us?”

“We’ll know soon enough,” he says with a sad smile, making turns through the city streets. I watch people walking cluelessly, wishing I was anyone but me. Normal people don’t have these
kinds of problems. Normal people don’t know about their past lives. They aren’t being threatened by jilted ex-girlfriends or who knows who. Normal people aren’t weighing common sense against a serious threat.

“I was thinking,” I say, choosing my words carefully. “Regardless of the threat, I think we have to call the cops.”

Confusion clouds his eyes. And fear.

My words come out in a rush. “I know, I know. The threat was clear and we don’t know who we’re dealing with or what they’ll do if we tell. But, this is serious. And it’s lining up so close to the threats Ginny got. And, well, neither of us wants a repeat of that.” I rub my hands together, staring at my nail beds as if they have the answers.

He chews on his thumbnail for a while then finally turns to me. “Okay,” he says. “You’re right. Maybe it’s time. Things are getting too dangerous.”

As scary as the image of my mom in that photo and the warning scrawled on the back of it is, scarier still is what could happen if we don’t get some real protection. It feels like a huge weight has been lifted.

I squeeze his hand. “Later then? We’ll call tonight?”

Nodding, he pulls into a parking spot just down the block from Sharon’s. We lean forward to look up at her building. Soft lights blaze in her place on the top floor. After a moment in silence, we get out of the car and close our doors quietly.

“Here we go,” he mutters.

S
HARON PEEKS INTO
the hallway, looking quickly both ways. “Quick,” she says. “Come in.”

When we step inside, the apartment is warm, glowing with the light of a million candles. It smells like apples and cinnamon. It’s a much warmer environment than I remember from last
time. She’s wearing a sweater dress today, with seamed stockings and heels. It amazes me that she dresses like this in her apartment. She’s as flawless as last time, but there’s something reckless about her today, less in control. After kissing us each on the cheek, she ushers us into the living room.

We settle onto the plush white couch, with Sharon across from us on the loveseat. On her lap is a large envelope which I assume contains the pictures. She places a palm on it, her face stretched with an excited grin.

“As I told Vaughn on the phone, I have never seen anything like this. I ran the developments three times to make sure I had it right. And each time, I got the same result.” She closes her eyes and takes a deep breath. “If only my father was here to see this.”

I lick my lips. Beside me, Vaughn holds his breath. Our hands are in a death grip while she unwinds the envelope’s string for what seems the slowest, most painful stretch of time.

She pulls a stack of eight by ten photos from the envelope and rests them on her lap face down. “I read through Dad’s notes all night, over and over. I found the pictures that supported his theory of reborn love, but … ” She shakes her head, her eyes glistening. “I don’t think even an old romantic like him could have dreamed up something like you two.”

My heart jumps, expanding against the walls of my chest. I glance sideways at Vaughn, his lips drawn tight beneath a thin sheen of sweat.

She turns the first photo over and lays it on the table. She goes through them, one by one, setting them side by side for us to see.

“I believe I told you about Dad’s theory after seeing the Travis photos with the couple’s auras holding hands as a sign of reunited souls. Well, as you can see, that’s quite simply, nothing. Comparatively speaking.”

Sitting on the edge of the couch, Vaughn and I lean over the table. At first, I’m not sure where to focus. The photos she took of us are all messy, as if they’ve been double, triple or quadruple exposed. It’s like someone has scribbled all over us. But then, shapes start to come into focus. Blurs at first, something that I might dismiss as nothing, but …

I pick up one of the pictures. It’s one of the poses where Vaughn and I stood a few feet apart against the wall. Except we’re holding hands. But not. I hold it close to my face.

“My God.” I gasp.

Behind us are shadows that appear to be holding hands. There are at least three of them between us, all clasping fingers. On either side, other pairs of auras flit around us. Two sets press together on the left, and yet another pair hovers near the right edge of the print.

“I see them,” I whisper, running my fingertips over the picture’s surface.

Vaughn rests his chin on my shoulder, his eyes darting among the couples in the photo. “Wait, so you’re saying these things in the picture are … ”

It can’t be.

“Is that Ginny? And Beau?”

But Sharon grins and points one of her perfectly manicured nails our way. “It’s you all right. And whoever you were before. Ginny and Beau, and whoever else. Those, my dears, each and every one of them, are you. In your past lives. Apparently, the two of you have found each other many, many times before.”

Thank God Vaughn’s holding onto me, because Sharon swims like I’m looking through a fish-eye lens. The photo slips from my hand.

“I can’t even begin to explain it,” she says. “I’m not a romantic, but you may have changed my mind.”

The crook of Vaughn’s arm has never felt safer. I bury myself in him and wonder in how many lifetimes we’ve done this very thing.

“But I want to be upfront with you,” she says, shifting in her seat.

“What?” It comes out sharper than I mean because I’m racing inside, everything knocking together as I try to convince myself that look on her face cannot mean something as bad as it seems.

Vaughn tightens his arm on my shoulder.

“Well,” she says, frowning. “There’s no proof of anything, of course. And my father, well, he had ideas that I honestly have always thought were a bit overboard. But, after you guys proved him right on at least one issue, I feel I really should tell you how my dad always said that love could come back and find each other again.”

We nod. Obviously, we know that. When I open my mouth, she holds up a hand.

“But as I told you last time, he believed evil was just as strong as love. He believed it could come back again and again and while love can deepen over time, so can evil become stronger. He believed the two were closely attracted to each other, magnetic, if you will. Like opposite poles, say. In his opinion, the strongest love would attract the worst kind of evil.”

We’re silent.

Why does the good have to have the bad? Hadn’t we suffered enough in our last life?

I look at the couples in the photo and wonder what we endured in each life.

“I’m only mentioning it because of how obviously resilient your love is.” She gestures to the pictures. “I’ve been thinking about it a lot. And I know you said Ginny encountered a violent death in her last life. What happened to Beau, do you know?”

“We’re still trying to find out. We’ve hit some dead ends.” Vaughn sighs.

“But we’re having other trouble now, too.”

Her eyebrows arch high on her forehead. “Oh?”

I look at Vaughn and he motions for me to go on.

“Someone has been threatening us.” My voice shakes as I explain the last few days with the rabbits and the notes, and the photos.

Sharon’s face is tight with worry while she listens. When I’m done, she nods, scooting to the edge of her seat. “Okay. I didn’t want to get into all this with you earlier, but it looks like you’re both in a bit of trouble as it is.”

What now? My stomach clenches.

“You have to promise you won’t tell a soul. I promised my father I’d never reveal the secrets he left with me when he died. These are very dangerous people.”

Her pause seems to go on forever.

“There’s a group. Completely underground.”

“The Society you mentioned last time?” My voice shakes.

She nods. “They call themselves Obitus. They know who we are. All of us. Who each and every person is and was in every life. They keep tabs, so to speak, on all the souls in the world.”

What?

Finally Vaughn clears his throat. “Care to explain
how
this secret society does this?”

Secret Society. The words trip in my brain. My life has somehow become a series of unbelievable twists, like I’m living in a video game.

“Here’s the thing. With the birth or death of any person, the soul emits what Obitus refers to as an echo. From what I understand, it’s an imprint that is specific to our souls. This echo, or imprint, travels with the soul throughout its lifetimes even though it comes back in different people.”

Even though my mouth hangs open, I can’t speak.

“Like soul DNA?” Vaughn says in an incredulous tone.

“Exactly.” She points at him. “Very good. Now, once the echo is released, Obitus captures the data in the atmosphere. They use a Vitagraph, an ancient device they invented centuries ago, which is set at the level the echo travels.”

“Huh?” Vaughn scratches his head.

“Yeah. What he said.”

She sighs. “Sorry. I know, it’s complicated. Think of it like sonar, sending and capturing signals we can’t hear. Only it’s looking for soul echoes, not regular sound waves.”

Vaughn nods slowly. “Okay. Then what?”

“Once the device captures a soul echo’s information, which is pretty much always, considering how often people are born and die, it’s cataloged in the Obitus system where it’s cross referenced with matching echoes already in the system. Thus, they know who shares the echo over lifetimes.”

I rub my temples and stare at the thick white carpet.

“From what I’ve heard, the ancient records are just names and soul echo information, just old-fashioned paper lists with minimal information. But as computerized data started gaining momentum, Obitus employed means of accessing all kinds of information like actual birth and death records, fingerprints and true DNA. You’d be surprised how infiltrated they are in our society.”

“How big is the organization?” He asks, chewing his lip again.

“I’m not sure. They’re a relatively large group, but what’s more important, even, is that they have many
regular
people on staff. Mostly in jobs that could help their objectives. Like places where records are kept. Municipal jobs, town records type stuff, police departments, even detective agencies. Many are also staffed in laboratories and hospitals since scientific research is a top priority to them. Many of these people don’t even know exactly
who they’re providing information to, and certainly not what it’s being used for.”

“So what you’re saying is, if someone wanted to find someone based on who they were in their last life … ”

She nods. “Obitus could definitely do it. Like that.” She snaps her fingers.

Well.

“But, they wouldn’t just do it for anyone. First of all, not many people know they even exist. So if someone is trying to find you based on who you were then, they’d have to have an in with someone pretty high up in Obitus who’d be willing to track you down.”

I pace, finally stopping at the window. I exhale, my breath fogging the glass and then dissipating slowly.

“And how do you know so much about them, again?” Vaughn asks behind me.

Sharon’s voice is sad when she answers. “My father,” she says. “He worked for them for years. The organization is incredibly smart. They know what they’re doing, and they keep a low profile. They’ve been around since at least the early1800s, and that’s only the records my father saw. For all we know, they have information even older than that. When he started researching his photo development ideas, they shunned him and eventually got rid of him. They thought he was too soft, wasting too much of their scientist resources on emotional research. But he never believed that was the real reason he was let go.”