Believing (Lily Dale #2)(25)

I wish I could call Lisa right this second, she finds herself thinking. Kevin’s sister might be able to shed some light on what’s up with him, and whether he’s trying to open the door to a renewed—what, friendship? relationship?—with Calla.

She’ll try Lisa later, if she has a chance.

Meanwhile, she skims the e-mail again, warning herself not to read too much into it and not to get too worked up over it, either. Still . . .

I know you’ve been through a lot . . .

Yeah, no kidding. She knows he’s talking about losing Mom, but he dished her a good helping of trauma when he dumped her in April, too. She grabs the mouse again and scrolls the cursor over the delete button.

But for some reason, she can’t make herself press it.

“Okay, here you go.” Willow is back with two glasses. “It’s Diet Pepsi. Is that okay?”

“Sure, thanks.” Calla hurriedly moves the cursor over to the Keep As New button and clicks it there, preserving Kevin’s e-mail in her box until she can figure out what to do about it.

She’s got enough to worry about right now.

Including Erin Shannahan.

There isn’t a doubt in her mind that the girl who disappeared from Erie on Monday is the same girl whose bloodied body Kaitlyn Riggs showed to Calla.

She wants me to know there’s a connection.

She said, “Help her.”

And she said . . .

Stop him.

She was talking about whoever murdered her and Erin.

“Are you finished?”

Willow’s voice startles Calla, and she looks up to see her gesturing at the computer screen.

“What? Oh . . . yeah. Thanks for letting me check my e-mail. I can’t get online at my grandmother’s, and . . . well, that’s really hard to get used to.”

“I bet. I should check mine for a second, too, if you don’t mind. Sarita is working on some graphics for the homecoming dance flyer—we have to hand it in to the committee tomorrow—and she said she’d send it to me tonight.”

“Sure, no problem.” Glad for another minute or two of distraction, Calla sits back and sips her pop as Willow leans over her to take the mouse.

Maybe I should go to the police, Calla thinks, rolling the cold glass back and forth between her clammy palms. Or at least tell Gammy what’s going on. She’ll know what to do.

Then again . . .

Dad is coming here tomorrow.

Odelia might decide to send Calla back to California with him if she thinks she’s getting involved in the Riggs case.

And if she does that, Calla’s connection to her mother’s past—and to the mystery surrounding her death—will be lost.

I have to stay here, she tells herself fiercely. At any cost.

She thinks again of Kaitlyn Riggs and Erin Shannahan and pushes aside a fierce stab of guilt.

I don’t know how to help you, she tells them silently, and shifts her gaze absently back to the computer screen.

It takes her a moment to realize she’s looking at Willow’s open in-box.

The subject line HOMECOMING DANCE jumps out at her.

“Sarita hasn’t sent me anything yet,” Willow announces, moving the mouse toward the red X that will close out the box.

Calla glances at the address on the HOMECOMING DANCE e-mail, wondering if Willow somehow missed seeing it.

But it doesn’t appear to have come from Sarita after all.

The return address is [email protected].

It doesn’t take a genius—or a psychic, for that matter—to figure out it belongs to Blue Slayton.

Willow clicks on the X and the screen vanishes.

Calla notices a faint smile on her lips, though, and her mind seems to be lingering someplace else as she says, “Okay, so let’s get back to work on the math or we’ll be here all night. I’m sure you’ve got other things to do.”

I’m sure you do, too, Calla thinks as she turns back to her textbook. Like e-mailing Blue back about the homecoming dance.





Another sleepless night.

He paces across the attic floor to the small diamond-shaped window that faces the east and stares out absently at the sky, beginning to show pinkish orange sunrise streaks.

For three days now, he’s been trying to forget about that newspaper article.

The one about the Riggs girl’s funeral earlier this week— and the incredible means by which her body was located in Hocking Hills State Park.

But he can’t seem to forget.

If anything, he’s growing angrier and more frustrated with every hour that passes. He can’t sleep, can’t eat, can’t think of anything but that girl.

He’s spent too much time covering his tracks to have it all come undone because of a seventeen-year-old stranger who claims to have some kind of magical powers.

Claims? How else could she have directed the police to Kaitlyn Riggs’s body?

He prowls back and forth across his attic room, not caring that the floorboards creak beneath his feet. Sometimes the second-floor tenants pound on their ceiling with the end of a broom if he paces too much, but this morning all is quiet.

Glimpsing himself in the mirror on the far wall, he feels fury stirring in his gut. A vivid purple bruise rims his right eye.

Erin Shannahan put up one hell of a fight.

In the end, she lost. They always do. He dumped her limp body in the middle of nowhere and fled, left with a shiner he’s had to mask from prying eyes all week.