Ink and Bone(55)

They talked briefly about the missing developer and Jackson Gleason’s premonition based on the news story he’d overheard.

“Are there other psychics in the Gleason family?” asked Finley.

“An aunt,” said Jones. “Deceased.”

“Do they have any connection to The Hollows, other than the fact that they were vacationing here?” Finley asked. A picture was forming for her, something nebulous, unclear. The Hollows had tendrils; it reached out for its children in strange ways.

“I don’t know,” he said, scribbling in his notebook.

“Why did they pick this place?” asked Finley. “To vacation, I mean. What drew them here? It’s not exactly a tourist hot spot.”

Jones shrugged, wrote a little more. “I’ll ask.”

He looked up at her, tucking his notebook away into his pocket. There was something like approval on his face. “Those are good questions.”

She didn’t want to be pleased with his praise, but she was. He rose and pulled on his jacket.

“Where are you going?” asked Finley, feeling a flutter of urgency.

“Betty Fitzpatrick—the woman with the missing children Eliza and Joshua,” he said. Finley remembered their image in the newspaper articles Jones brought with him that first morning. “She agreed to see me.”

It was late, after eight thirty. “It’s a weird time to interview someone.”

“She says she doesn’t sleep anymore,” he said. “Nighttime is the hardest time to be alone with your thoughts.”

“I want to come,” said Finley, not even meaning to. It wasn’t even true, was it, that she wanted to go? She rose feeling her grandmother’s eyes on her, curious. “I think I’m supposed to go. The sound is gone.”

“That’s not a good idea,” said Jones. He looked to Eloise for help.

“You came to us,” said Eloise. “Finley has to do things her way.”

“Still,” said Jones. “We talked about this.”

“What if we learn something because I’m there that we wouldn’t if not?” asked Finley. She had a low-grade buzz of unease, a sense of urgency. If he didn’t let her go, she was going to follow him.

Jones pressed his mouth into a tight line but raised his eyebrows in reluctant agreement.

“Get some rest,” he said to Eloise as he pushed through the kitchen door and headed down the hallway. Eloise gave him a quick, dismissive nod, and Finley saw how pale she was, that there was a dullness around her eyes. Some worry butterflies fluttered from her belly into her chest.

“Grandma,” she said. “Did you go to the doctor today?”

A look of surprise flashed across Eloise’s face but quickly passed.

“Just routine,” said Eloise briskly. “Off you go.”

“Don’t make me late, kid,” called Jones from the hallway.

“Kid?” whispered Finley. “Really?”

She and Eloise laughed a little. With a last look at her grandmother, Finley followed Jones out of the kitchen.


*

“Not too late to wait in the car,” said Jones now at the porch steps. He had this energy about him that he knew best and was waiting for her to come to her senses. It was pretty annoying.

“I won’t embarrass you, if that’s what you’re worried about,” she said.

“And if you pass out like you did earlier?”

But he was already ringing the bell, so she didn’t have a chance to answer. Anyway, she didn’t have an answer. Finley experienced a raw moment of self-doubt. What was she doing exactly? Why was she acting like a private detective, as if she wanted to be doing this?

She lingered, allowed herself to be aware that there was none of the usual restlessness she felt—in class, when she was studying, when she was trying to quiet the voices, keep her visitors at bay. Jones inspected a loose dowel on the porch railing as they waited. She half expected him to pull out some kind of tool and try to fix it. That’s what he wanted, to fix every broken thing. He caught her staring at him, and she looked away, sat on a porch swing that hung to the right of the door. It squeaked as she swung it gently.

“Got an oil can in your pocket?” she asked Jones when he glanced over at her.

He gave her a flat expression. “I have one in my car.”

“Of course you do.”

All the running away and acting out she did when she was trying to deny what she was, maybe all of it was just a reaction to that feeling, the one that was suddenly gone because she was here with Jones. Eloise was so big on advising her to follow her instincts. But Finley had never been quite sure what that meant. How did you know when you were following your instincts, versus your fears or your desires? Were they ever the same? Was the choice that scared you silly sometimes the right one? Did the thing you wanted more than anything sometimes lead you down the wrong path? Her grandmother always seemed to think that Finley would know when she was doing “what was right.” Finley understood, maybe for the first time, what that felt like tonight.

Jones rang the bell a second time. She rose and came to stand beside him again. Jones looked at his watch and seemed about to ring again when the door opened and a small woman stood behind the screen. She was younger than Finley expected. The pictures she’d seen of Betty Fitzpatrick had been grainy and taken on the worst days of her life. Finley just hadn’t expected someone so dewy and fresh, looking like she’d just finished a workout.