Suddenly Psychic (Glimmer Lake #1)(67)

Val nodded and pulled off her gloves. “Let’s do this.”

The interior of the cabin was dark, so all four of them turned on the flashlights on their phones. Robin started at the floor, but there was very little left inside. There was a cot in one corner. Some ancient provisions. An old woodstove opposite the bed.

“Looks like a hunting cabin,” Mark said. “Definitely not a romantic bungalow.”

“It might have been cleared out,” Robin said.

“Or they might have been fine with snagging a hunting cabin for the afternoon.” Val shrugged. “You said they’d planned to run away. This wasn’t a house, it was just where they met.” She took a deep breath, put her bare hand on the top of the stove, and closed her eyes.

Mark watched with a furrowed brow. “What do you see?”

“Nothing much,” she said quietly. “Hunters wearing old clothes. Maybe sixties? Seventies?”

“So it hasn’t been abandoned for seventy years,” Monica said. “We might not get anything from this.”

Val moved to the cot and touched it. “It’s new too.”

Robin felt her heart sink. She’d been sure something in the cabin would lead them to Billy’s murderer. “Let’s look under the bed. There are some drawers over there. Who wants to look in there?” She turned around, only to scream when she came face-to-face with Billy’s ghost.

“Robin?” Mark rushed to her, walking straight through Billy in the process. He stopped and a shiver shook his shoulders. “What the—”

“You just walked through Billy.” Robin pointed at his chest. “Just straight through him.”

Mark looked around. “Uh… sorry?” He frowned. “I don’t really know the proper—”

“It’s fine,” Robin said. “He’s probably used to it.”

Billy wasn’t speaking. He walked around the cabin, running a ghostly hand over the stove and the dresser. He knelt down and peered in the old woodstove.

“Robin?” Val put a hand on her shoulder. “What’s he doing?”

“He’s just walking around.”

Billy stood and walked to the boarded-up window. He stared out it a moment before he turned. “He saw us through the window. I never told her.”

“Who saw you?” Robin asked.

“Should I have told her? I think I didn’t do right.”

Billy was frowning as Val walked out of the cabin. Monica followed a few moments later.

Mark stood at Robin’s back. “Is he talking?”

“Kind of.” Robin watched Billy’s ghost. It wasn’t a strong image. He was fractured and wavering. She considered grabbing the small sketchbook she’d been keeping in her purse and drawing him, but she didn’t want to interrupt his energy.

“Maybe if she’d known, she wouldn’t have, you know? But then I suppose he took care of her. In a way,” Billy mumbled as he paced around the cabin. “I suppose he did. And I couldn’t. I don’t know if I was right.”

“Robin!” Monica’s voice rose from outside. “Robin, Val found something.”

Billy was pacing in the cabin, walking from the stove to the cot and back again. He was in his own world, barely acknowledging Robin or Mark.

“What’s he doing?”

“I don’t know.” Robin grabbed Mark’s hand and walked out of the cabin.

Val was sitting on a fallen log, puking her guts out while Monica rubbed her back.

Monica pointed to something beside her on the log. “It’s a watch.”

Robin walked over and picked up what remained of a man’s wristwatch. “What did you see?”

The strap had mostly rotted away, but the steel case was intact even though the glass was cracked. It wasn’t a fancy watch. It was the watch of a workman. A businessman’s watch. Robin remembered as a child seeing a similar watch on her grandfather’s desk in the library. He’d always worn a watch, and it was eerily similar…

Robin turned to Val, her unspoken suspicion blooming into certainty when she saw her friend’s face.

“He watched them,” Val said quietly. She swallowed hard. “Robin, I’m sorry.”

“I don’t care,” she said. “I’m done with secrets in my family. Tell me what you saw.”

“He was standing outside the window, and it wasn’t the first time. He was… excited. Angry, but excited too. He liked to watch them, but he hated…” She covered her mouth and closed her eyes. “He hated Billy so much. And Billy had no idea. Which made him hate Billy even more.”

Mark reached for the watch in Robin’s hand and looked at it. He flipped it over and wiped away the grime to reveal the words engraved on the back.

“G.R.,” Mark said. “Nitor donec supero. Anyone speak Latin?”

“It means ‘Strive until you overcome,’” Robin said. “It’s the Russell family motto.”

Mark’s eyes went wide. “So the man who hated Billy—”

“Was my grandfather.” Robin closed her eyes. “Gordon Russell didn’t just find Helen here by accident like she thought.”

Val said, “He’d been watching her—watching them—for a long time. I can’t tell you how long, but when I touched the watch, I saw him, and I knew it wasn’t the first time he’d seen them. The feelings I got were so strong. So… alive. Even now. What he was feeling when he wore that watch was so intense. And so wrong.”