Connecting (Lily Dale #3)(67)

Calla’s mom was the kind of person who had a place for everything. Piles of stuff would have driven her nuts.

Is that why she left Lily Dale as soon as she was old enough to get out of town? Because she couldn’t handle the clutter?

Ha. More likely, she couldn’t handle the supernatural stuff, considering she never mentioned it at all. Not once.

I just wish I knew more about you, Mom. I thought I did, but you lived this whole life here with these people for eighteen years that I knew nothing about.

Calla kneels beside Willow on the rug and they start spreading out their textbooks, notebooks, calculators, and the latest batch of worksheets from Mr. Bombeck.

“Willow?” Althea calls from upstairs, sounding weak.

“Mom? Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I just . . . can you help me for a second?”

“Be right there,” Willow calls. To Calla, she says, “Wait here—I’ll be right back.”

“She doesn’t sound good.”

“She doesn’t feel good,” Willow says simply, and leaves the room.

Left alone in the den, Calla rubs her tired eyes, wondering if she should tell Willow she really can’t do this tonight. Math is the last thing on her mind, and she knows it will show in the work, so she might as well . . .

She frowns, realizing that there’s a sudden chill in the air and that the bracelet around her wrist seems to be unusually warm against her flesh.

She looks around.

She can’t see anybody.

But, feeling the whisper of movement beside her, she knows someone is here with her.

Again.

This is starting to get old.

Will she ever truly be alone in a room again?

Something brushes her shoulder.

Then rests there.

A gentle hand.

Calla goes absolutely still, not daring to turn her head, or even breathe, because she knows . . .

Mom.

It’s her. She’s certain.

I’m with you. I love you.

The words float into Calla’s head as clearly as if her mother had spoken them aloud.

A sob escapes her throat and she turns, needing to glimpse her.

But the room is empty, and the hand is gone, and for all she knows she imagined the whole damned thing.

No.

I didn’t see her, I didn’t even hear her—not really, not out loud.

But she touched me. It was real. She was here.

Calla’s gaze falls on the computer on the desk.

A few minutes ago when she looked at it, the screen was dark.

Now it’s glowing.

She goes over, sits in the chair, and pulls up the search engine.

She types in





Thomas Leolyn.





The screen goes blank.

Then it comes back with a long list of blue links.

Of course. There are probably dozens of Thomas Leolyns in the world. Hundreds, even.

Calla clicks on the first.

The site belongs to a newspaper in Portland.

Portland . . . Maine or Oregon?

Before she can figure that out, she finds herself staring at a black-and-white close-up photo of the man she saw in Gene-seo the other night . . . and in her room, and in the woods.

It’s him.

On the first hit.

With a trembling hand, Calla scrolls down.

And finds herself looking at an obituary.

Tom Leolyn—Darrin Yates—died last June in an unsolved murder.

Stunned, she reads, and rereads, the short article.

I’m not crazy. I really can see ghosts. I saw his—today and last night and at Mom’s funeral back in July.

And that’s when the shocking truth hits her, hard.

Tom couldn’t have killed Mom. He died before she did.

So it was someone else.

Someone wearing a gold signet ring.





TWENTY

Friday, October 5

8:03 a.m.

“Hey, Calla . . .”

On her solo walk to school after yet another restless night, she turns and is relieved to see Jacy behind her, hurrying along Dale Drive.

Waiting for him to catch up, Calla notes that for a change, the sun is shining against a dazzling blue sky, a breathtaking backdrop for the hodgepodge of red-and-gold foliage. It’s a perfect day—weatherwise, at least.

But Calla is sagging under the burden of her shocking discovery about Darrin Yates’s fate, and Jacy is the only one she dares confide in.

“I got your messages when I got home last night—all four of them,” he says as he reaches her, “but it was too late to call you back.”

“Where were you?” she asks, remembering that he wasn’t in school yesterday. His face looks drawn, and the circles under his eyes are possibly deeper and darker than the ones under her own.

“I was down in Jamestown. We had a court hearing yesterday. About the adoption.”

For the moment, Calla’s own troubles evaporate. She lays a hand on Jacy’s arm. “How did it go?”

“Great.” He shrugs and kicks a stone, hard. “My parents aren’t going to contest it, if that’s what you consider great. I’m not sure if I do or not.”

She doesn’t know what to say, so she just squeezes his arm as they start walking again.

“So what did you want?” Jacy asks. “When you called.”