Proposal (The Mediator, #6.5)(18)

Only instead of sending these photos out with her graduation announcements, her grieving family had apparently sent them to her friends and family with an announcement of her death.

Zack had artfully arranged these particular photos in a large heart shape around a single photo of the two of them arm--in--arm from what appeared to have been a Halloween party, since he was dressed as a tiger and she a bunny rabbit (I estimated it was a party circa fourth grade, possibly the last time Jasmin had willingly allowed herself to be photographed beside him, at least on nondigital film).

Beneath this display Zack had lit a number of votive candles on a small table, and also laid out a copy of what appeared to be their school yearbook, open to a page showing Jasmin’s prowess on the track team.

Oh, yeah. This guy wasn’t a creeper at all.

“If that’s not a shrine,” I said, “I don’t know what is.”

“So?” Zack looked sullen. “What’s so weird about that? She was my cousin, and she died. That’s what -people do when someone they love dies.”

“Oh, yeah? How much did you love her, Zack? Enough to fly into a jealous rage when she started seeing someone else?”

That got to him. His gaze darkened, and his lower jaw began to jut out a little. I think he was trying to look manly, but that was a little difficult for a kid wearing so many gold necklaces . . . especially one playing video games. He’d reached for the remote again.

“Get out of my room,” he said, his gaze fastened to the screen. “I don’t even know who you are. And I sure as hell don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I think I do know what I’m talking about, Zack. You followed them the night of the accident. You followed them to the restaurant, saw Mark propose, and saw her say yes.”

He shrugged, still staring at the screen. The sounds of the tortured deaths he was causing were loud enough nearly to drown out the rain outside.

“Nice try, lady,” he said. “Everyone in the restaurant saw that. It was on the news.”

“What wasn’t on the news was what happened after Mark and Jasmin left the restaurant,” I said. “How you followed them out of the parking lot in your—-what did Mark call it? Oh yes. Your souped--up monster truck—-then turned your brights on, riding their tail until you forced them into that cliff off Rocky Creek Bridge, because the other lane was closed.”

That got his attention. His fingers stilled on the game console. His gaze flicked uneasily toward me.

“That . . . that isn’t true.” But the unsteadiness of his voice—-and what he said next—-proved otherwise. “And even if it was—-which it isn’t—-there weren’t any witnesses. Mark’s dead. So is Jasmin. Mark can’t do anything to me because he’s dead.”

It was at that moment that the French doors to the balcony burst open with an explosive crash.





Diez


BLOWN WIDE BY a sudden gust of gale--force wind, the open balcony doors allowed rain and leaves to fly across the room.

The gale detached most of Jasmin’s photos from the wall of the shrine on the opposite wall, and doused the flames in the votive candles, plunging the room into darkness, except for the glow of the plasma screen. The gauzy white curtains that hung from a rod above the doors streamed like the yearning arms of a mother reaching for her long--lost child.

Zack let out an expletive, threw down the game console, and leaped from his bed, looking terrified.

I didn’t blame him. I wasn’t feeling particularly calm myself . . . and it was my job to expect this kind of thing.

“See, Zack?” I said, shouting to be heard over the roar of the storm outside and the banging of the French doors as the wind continued to suck them open and then closed again. “I told you. Mark is pissed.”

As if to stress my point, a flash of lightning filled the sky outside, striking so close that it turned the room from midnight dark to bright as day and then back again, all in the blink of an eye . . . then caused the television to short out, showering the area where Zack had been sitting on the bed seconds before in an explosion of colorful sparks. The thunderous boom that followed was strong enough to shake the entire house.

“Holy shit,” Zack cried, sinking into a ball on the floor and cradling his head against his knees. “I didn’t mean it. Oh, my God, I didn’t mean to do it. I didn’t mean for it to happen that way!”

The second he admitted it, the storm stopped. As if someone had pulled a switch, the French doors stopped banging, and the wind and rain and debris that had been streaming through them died away, leaving behind only the smell of ocean brine and the earthy odor of petrichor, the fragrance released from soil after it’s gone too long without rain. The gauzy white curtains on either side of the balcony doors hung limp, like abandoned rag dolls.

“Oh, my God,” Zack sobbed softly into his knees. “Oh, my God. Thank God.”

The thing was, he thought he was safe now. And why wouldn’t he? The storm was over.

I knew, however, that it had only just begun.

Because I could see what Zack couldn’t. And that was that he and I weren’t alone in that dark bedroom. Standing next to one of those gauzy white curtains was a figure, a dark figure dressed all in black, even down to the frames of his eyeglasses. He was staring at Zack’s crumpled, sobbing form.