Connecting (Lily Dale #3)(23)

“I don’t like clubs,” Jacy tells him with a shrug. “But I’ll play you sometime, if you want.”

“Okay.” Donald’s obvious disappointment isn’t lost on Jacy.

“Tomorrow,” Jacy tells him. “At lunch. We’ll play. Okay?”

“I don’t go to lunch on Tuesdays. I have French Horn then.”

“Then Wednesday. You bring the set.”

Donald brightens immediately. “Sure.”

“Good. See you then.”

Donald lumbers away with the oversized male teacher protectively trailing along behind him, clearly intending to see him safely to chess club.

Calla, still momentarily distracted from her own problems, stands with Jacy, watching them go.

“I wonder why he didn’t give that kid detention,” she murmurs. “Who?”

“The teacher.”

“What teacher?”

She points, then realizes that the man walking with Donald is no teacher. There’s something about the way he drifts along, almost weightless despite his obese build . . .

“You don’t see him, do you.” It’s not a question, and as Jacy shakes his head, she acknowledges the truth.

The man is yet another spirit.

“I’m never going to get used to this,” she mutters with a sigh.

“What does he look like?” Jacy asks, and she briefly describes him. “That’s Donald’s father, I bet. I heard he died a few years ago. Heart attack, I think.”

Calla’s heart sinks.

So Donald is part of the sad little club, too; he knows what it’s like to suddenly lose a parent.

She swallows hard, picturing Donald’s father lovingly carving a chess set for his son, and knowing Donald lost one of the few people in this world who had been kind to him.

She’s been here long enough to know that the Reamers don’t live in the Dale but somewhere on the rural outskirts. It doesn’t necessarily mean Donald isn’t psychically aware, but she figures the odds are against it.

He probably doesn’t realize his father watches over him from the Other Side. He’s not aware that his father sees how the other kids torture his son, how he tries to protect him. All he knows is that he’s been robbed of the parent who loved him.

She realizes she’s about to cry.

It’s just too much. She can’t handle this. Any of it.

“I’ve got to go,” she tells Jacy abruptly. “I’m babysitting for Paula Drumm’s kids today, and I can’t be late.”

Jacy says nothing, just keeps up with her as she resumes her sprint down the hall.

Arriving at her locker, she reaches for the combination lock, but Jacy puts his hand on her arm. “Wait. There’s something I need to tell you.”

“What?” Something tells her it’s not going to be a heartfelt declaration of true love.

“It’s been bugging me all week, ever since I found out about that guy attacking you.”

“Wait . . . how did you find out about that?”

“I asked one of the cops.”

“But they said they weren’t going to let it get out!”

“Not to the public. But I know this guy, Figeroa, he’s sort of a friend of mine.”

“You have a friend on the police force?” she asks dubiously, then sees his expression and remembers that he’s been through a lot more than most people his age.

“Figeroa knows I’m not going to say anything to anyone, and he knew I was worried, so . . .” He shrugs.

He was worried about me.

But that doesn’t mean he has feelings for me.

“Whatever, Jacy.” She pulls her arm from his grasp, then forces herself to look at her watch, as though he’s keeping her from an engagement far more pressing than babysitting.

Yeah, like hurling herself off the nearest tall building—not that there are any for miles around.

Looks like you’ll just have to carry on indefinitely in sheer humiliation. Nice going.

Jacy touches her arm again, more gently this time.

“Calla . . . I’m sorry I haven’t talked to you all week. Bad way to handle things—maybe I suck at communication. What can I say? But I’m trying to talk to you now.”

Okay, that’s encouraging . . . not that it takes away a shred of her embarrassment.

“Can you please just . . . what is it you need to tell me?

Because I really have to get to Paula’s.”

He clears his throat. “Last week I told you I was worried about you because I’d had a vision of you in some kind of trouble.”

“No, you didn’t.”

“Yeah, I did. I told you that night after we went to see the Yateses, remember?”

Remember? It was when he was holding her hand, right after he almost kissed her . . . how could she forget?

Except he didn’t say anything about a vision.

“You just said you were worried,” she reminds him, “and that I should be careful.”

“Oh. I guess I didn’t mention the vision. I didn’t want to scare you with the specifics.”

“So you saw a man coming after me?”

“I saw . . . listen, the details aren’t important. When I heard what happened to you Saturday night, I figured that must have been what I was seeing. But . . . it wasn’t.”