The Mortician's Daughter: Three Heartbeats Away Read online

  I smile, then remember what else brought me here. “So you got another message from Weddings For Less? What did it say? Was it from an Eric?”

  “No. His name was Scott. But he claimed the dress was for his sister and he wanted to see it himself and wanted to take pictures. He also asked if it was me in the dress. It felt a little…creepy.”

  “Yeah. Creepy.”

  He exhales. “You did get the message that Barbara deleted her post and everything from the site. This has to mean she believes us. Don’t you think?”

  “It seems like it. I also saw Shane, and she told me she was pretty sure their meeting got cancelled. Said he was pissed.”

  “Good,” he says. “She wasn’t threatening you, was she?”

  “No.” I pull my phone from my pocket and find the image of the guy squeezing through the gate. “Look what I got this morning. It’s the guy I told you about who I think is Shane’s killer. He was coming out of the gate in front of the building I’m almost positive she was being held at.”

  He looks at the picture, and his shoulders stiffen again. “You went back there?”

  “I was at the donut shop across the street. I took this picture through the window.

  “If you can see him, he can see you.”

  “He didn’t. And I also learned that there’s a halfway house for ex-cons right down the street. This guy could have done this before and just gotten out of jail.”

  “How did you find that out?”

  “The manager. I asked him if he’d ever seen the guy. He said he hadn’t, but it could be someone from the halfway house. I know this isn’t proof he did anything, but it feels big.”

  “It does.” He glances down at the image again, and his frown deepens. “Can you please not go back alone? I’ll go with you.”

  “I’m not sure your mom will want you leaving that early in the morning.”

  “Actually, she’s afraid I’m getting depressed these last few days. She wanted to call you, and I told her I’d get pissed if she did. So I bet she’d say it’s okay.”

  “Then I’ll pick you up.”

  “Thank you.”

  I look back at my phone, at the guy’s face, and an eight-legged shiver climbs my spine. “Is there any way we could send it to the reporter without him knowing who sent it? I know we didn’t even mention Delicious Donuts in the letter we wrote. But I’m wondering if we should have.”

  He nods. “Send it to me, and I’ll try to figure something out. But you know if we mention Delicious Donuts, the reporter will probably go there. And if the manager remembers you asking him about this guy, he might tell him.”

  He’s right, and that scares me. But I remember the vision of being in the back of his car. Of being locked in a room. The fear of knowing what was to come. I can’t let him do that to someone else. Glancing back at my phone, I say, “It’s a risk I’ll take.”

  “Okay.”

  I check my time. I have two minutes. I shoot Kelsey a quick text to say I’m on my way. I set my phone down. “Did you go see the doctor last Friday?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What did he say?”

  “That I’m a miracle. He wants me to wait a couple more weeks before going back to school. He’s worried it’ll be too overwhelming, and I’ll push myself too hard.”

  “He knows you well,” I say.

  He grins. “But he says I’ll make a full recovery. And he says he’ll be talking about my case for years.”

  When I look at him, the memory of how good it felt to be held by him tiptoes through my mind. My gaze falls to his lips. I lean over and press my mouth to his. He kisses me back. And it is everything Hayden’s kiss was before, but better. Our lips slide across each other’s. His hands are around my waist. My hands are on his chest.

  My whole body is humming, and I can’t seem to get close enough. His tongue slips into my mouth, and I don’t know if I’m breathing anymore. Not that breathing is important at this moment. All that matters is Hayden. His kiss. Us. And the fact that there’s going to be an us.

  I finally pull away. “I’ve got to…”

  “Go.” He frowns. We stand up. He walks me to the door.

  I lift up on my toes and press my lips against his again.

  When I pull back, he runs his finger over my lips, which are still moist from his kiss. “If it took almost dying to find you, then it was worth it.”

  I’m feeling so good, I really want to ignore the temperature drop when I’m driving to Kelsey’s. But in my head I hear Cher telling me again to “snap out of it.”

  “Everything okay?” I ask and look at Shane in my rearview mirror.

  “When are you going to see your mom?”

  “I don’t know,” I say.

  She doesn’t say anything for a few seconds. “He’s trying to connect with other women.”

  I remember Hayden saying he got the message from Scott. “How?”

  “He’s on his laptop a lot. Last night he even drove around as if he was looking to find someone.”

  My heart skips a beat, then stops completely. “He didn’t grab anyone, did he?”

  “No. But I think if he’d seen someone he would have. It’s like I see it in him. The evilness. The need to hurt someone else. What makes people like that?”

  “I don’t know.” I stop at a red light. “Can you tell me anything else about him? Where does he live? Where does he work? What color is his car? Anything?”

  “No.” She gets quiet. “He goes back there. Where he kept me. And when I showed up and he was in his car, I was too scared to notice anything.”

  “When you say where he kept you, you mean where you showed me? In that room that was boarded up?”

  She nods.

  “What time does he show up? And when does he leave?”

  She blinks and sits sullen and silent before finally answering. “When…when I was there, he’d come early, real early, then leave and return in the afternoon, not too late. Like early afternoon.”

  I try to figure out what type of job would bring someone in early and let out early afternoon. Then I realize—it’s about the same as my schedule at high school. So maybe a high school teacher.

  That creeps me out.

  I grab my phone, find the best picture, and check to see if the light’s still red. When it is, I hold my phone back for her to see. “Is this him?”

  She appears almost afraid to look, but she leans forward and studies my screen. “I can’t tell. It’s not a good picture.” She glances up. “I’m sorry. I can’t remember enough. It’s like it’s there but I can’t see it. I see little things and then they’re gone. And then I can’t breathe.” She frowns. “You have to stop him.”

  “We’re trying,” I say.

  “Try harder.” She fades, and I fight the feelings of sadness and loss that invade my car, that invade me.

  “It’s okay,” I say hoping she can still hear me. “Most all the ghosts have a hard time remembering things.”

  I catch every light heading to Kelsey’s, but by the time I pull up in front of her house, she’s waiting outside on her porch. She hurries to the car and climbs into the passenger seat. “Did you and your father get into it again?”

  I know she thinks this because I’m late and I’m generally the early bird waiting on the worm.

  “No. I went to Delicious Donuts, then to see Hayden.”

  She lifts a brow. “Thank God,” she sighs. “And?”

  A smile I can’t stop pulls at my lips. “He broke up with Brandy. We—”

  She holds up a hand. “Which you would’ve known days ago if you hadn’t shut yourself off from the world.”

  “Sorry,” I say. “I didn’t—”

  “Wait. Stop.” Sitting completely still, she turns her eyes left, then right. “It’s cold in here. Is there…?”

  “She’s gone.”

  “My grandmother?”

  “No. Shane.”

  “But she’s…gone. You’re not just saying th
at?” Fear gives her tone spookiness.

  “Yes,” I assure her, and I start driving to school.

  “You haven’t seen my grandmother?”

  “No.”

  Disappointment flashes in her eyes. “You sure she’ll come say goodbye?”

  “I really think so,” I say.

  “Okay. Finish what you were saying about Hayden.”

  I sense something is off with her. “You okay?”

  “Yeah. I just want to revel in your boy issues, so I don’t have to think about…”

  “Dex?” I ask when she swallows the rest of her sentence.

  “Yeah.”

  “Did he get out of the hospital?” I pull out of her neighborhood.

  “They’re releasing him today.”

  “Did you go see him this weekend?”

  “Only after he called me yesterday. He wanted a chocolate shake and reminded me that he’d gotten shot because he was trying to save me.”

  “He just wanted to see you.”

  “Yeah. But it got worse from there. He asked me to go to prom with him.”

  I come to a stop sign and glance at her.

  She grips her hands into fists. “Why are you smiling? I don’t want to do this, Riley.”

  I give her my don’t-bullshit-me look. “I think you do. You’ve been crushing on him since you moved here.” I wait a second and then ask, “What did you say to him about prom?”

  “I agreed, because how can I say no when he nearly died?”

  I manage to keep from squealing and maintain my line of vision with the road. “I think there’s more to it than that.”

  She slams back against her seat. “Okay, maybe there is, but it’s happening too fast.”

  “Prom’s not for a couple of months.” I pull into the school parking lot. It’s so late there are only a few people outside.

  “Yeah, but he asked me out for next weekend. If he’s feeling up to it. If not, he wants me to come to his house. He’ll probably kiss me or something.”

  I chuckle and park the Mustang. “Can’t you just be happy about it?”

  “He’s probably a terrible kisser. You know, a dry kisser, whose lips feel like sandpaper. Or a sloppy one, the kind who leaves drool all over your face. Or the kind who sticks his tongue all the way down your throat and plays ping-pong with your tonsils. Ugh.”

  A laugh falls out of me, and I realize how much I needed it. “Or maybe he’s an awesome kisser. The kind who makes you feel as if you’ve left your body. You are just floating in that warm, beautiful place. And you feel all tingly. The kind whose lips are just moist enough, and there’s not an awkward second to it. It feels as if kissing him is what you were born to do.”

  “Oh, hell. That would be even worse!”

  We both laugh again. Before we sober, the late bell rings. I start to get out.

  “Wait,” Kelsey says. “Did you get anything at Delicious Donuts? Did Shane give you anything else to go on when she was here?”

  I open the car door. “Let’s talk as we walk.” I tell her about the picture and the message Hayden got from a Scott.

  As we hurry through the parking lot, I spot Coach Ericson’s Chevy Impala. Before I get past the passenger door, I’m stopped in my tracks with a piece of info I should’ve pieced together a long time ago. An Impala has about the same trunk size as a Malibu and a BMW. And I saw the coach at Delicious Donuts. Multiple times.

  “Shit!” I stare at the car.

  “What?” Kelsey asks.

  “Coach Ericson’s car.” Another realization hits. Eric…son. “Crap. And he has brown hair.”

  “Shit, crap what? And…who has brown hair?”

  Chills run down my spine. “I saw Coach Ericson at the donut place.”

  “Yeah.”

  “A Chevy Impala has a similar trunk space as a Malibu and a BMW. I don’t know why I ruled the Impala out. Except. I don’t think they came in a V8 engine then, but it was a V6, and I’m not sure I could tell the difference… And the guy who killed Shane called himself Eric.”

  “Mother cracker! You don’t think…?”

  “I don’t want to think it, but… He always gives me the creepy vibe.”

  “Duh. Last year’s gossip was he bumped into Marissa Canton and copped a feel. She said she didn’t report it because she knew he would say it was an accident, but she didn’t think it was.”

  “Oh, hell!”

  I walk into auto tech, so wrapped up in Coach Ericson possibly being a murderer that I completely forget about having to face Jacob. And after him getting bent out of shape when I said no to going to prom, it’s bound to be unpleasant. Add that I know he slept with Brandy and I don’t know if he knows that I know, and, well, this feels like it could be a shit storm.

  The moment I walk into the room, I see him and he sees me. I think he’s going to cold-shoulder me, but nope. Not that he appears happy to be in my presence. I get a flinch, a frown, then a forward step right toward me.

  I do a sharp turn to the clothes rack, hoping to avoid a head-on collision. While pulling a pair of coveralls off the hanger, I feel someone step beside me.

  “Can we talk for a few minutes?” A touch of frustration rings in his tone.

  “Not if you want to cause another scene,” I say without looking at him.

  “I’m not. Look, I know I’ve been an asswipe.”

  He sounds sincere, well, like a sincere asswipe, but I still glance up. “Yeah, you kind of were.”

  “I know. I think with Hayden and Dex and some other stuff I took my bad mood out on you.”

  I can’t help but wonder if Brandy told him about our talk. Is that why he’s playing nice? Then I feel bad for thinking it. Jacob really isn’t a bad guy. Yeah, he screwed up sleeping with Brandy, but I believe his friendship with Hayden is stronger than that. Or I hope so. “Apology accepted.”

  He cuts me a smile, but not his flirty one. “I’d like to be friends. And I mean just friends.”

  “I’d like that.”

  “Have you spoken with Hayden lately?” he asks.

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know. He’s been acting weird.”

  While knocking around what to say to that, I unzip the coveralls and step into them. I’m still knocking when I hear a voice from the front of the room.

  “Everyone take a seat. Mr. Ash is out today, and I’m taking his place.”

  The voice is familiar, and I swing around, praying I’m wrong. I’m not wrong.

  Coach Ericson is standing at the front of the room.

  After third period, phone to my ear, I dart into the bathroom to finish my conversation with Hayden.

  “Why didn’t you just leave?” he asks.

  “For what reason?” I look under the stalls to make sure no one is in the restroom with me. They aren’t. “Because I suspect he’s a murderer? I don’t think that would get me a hall pass.”

  “I never liked the guy,” Hayden says. “But I wouldn’t have thought… You really think it’s him?”

  “Yes. No. I don’t know,” I admit and slump against the wall. “This morning I was sure it was the guy squeezing through that fence. But Shane popped up in my car when I left your house. She said she thinks he’s getting ready to grab someone. I showed her the picture. She said she couldn’t tell. Now I don’t think we should send the picture to the reporter. But maybe we still should say something about Delicious Donuts. I’m starting to get worried.”

  “Wow. Shit!” Hayden blurts out.

  “What?” I ask, even though it sounded like a wow-good shit, not a wow-bad shit.

  “He did it. The reporter. I’m at my computer, and I just checked. He wrote an article about Shane.” He pauses as if reading. “He even wrote about the website. The police are going to have to start looking into this.”

  “Send me a link,” I say. The bathroom door swings open. It’s Jamie and one of her cronies. They both look at me as if I’m something nasty stuck on the bottom of their shoes.


  “I will,” Hayden says.

  “Gotta go,” I say to Hayden. Then, just to piss Jamie off, I smile extra big and give her a little wave.

  As I leave, I hear the words “crazy bitch” and “another black eye” tossed out. But my phone dings with the link from Hayden, and I forget all about Jamie.

  I go to my locker and spend the next few minutes glued to my phone, reading. Hayden was right. The article sounds convincing. The reporter even spoke to Shane’s sister, who confirmed that the wedding dress is also missing. The police are going to have to look into the website.

  I try to tell myself it’s almost over, that this is going to work out, but I can’t help hearing Shane’s words from this morning. It’s like I see it in him. The evilness. The need to hurt someone else.

  And if he’s Coach Ericson, that someone could be from the school.

  Kelsey and I are walking out of school, almost to my Mustang, talking about the article, when I see someone, their back to me, standing by my car. I reach over and grab Kelsey’s arm.

  “What?” Then she follows my gaze. “Oh, damn. Is that your mom?”

  The woman turns around, and the breath I almost choked on rebounds in a sigh of relief. “No,” I manage to say, “it’s my aunt.”

  “You want me to give you a few minutes, or do you need me here?”

  “Just stay,” I say and walk toward her.

  She sees me and starts toward me. I stop, and Kelsey stands beside me, kind of close, as if I might need her protection. I don’t think I will, but if I did, I know she’d step up to the plate.

  “Yes?” I say when the woman stops a few feet in front of me.

  “Can you give us a minute?” she asks Kelsey.

  “No, she can stay,” I say. “She knows everything.”

  My aunt nods. “Your mom called me. She said she called you and now she’s worried because you haven’t responded.”

  “I’m not ready yet,” I say.

  She nods. “She’s really eager to—”

  “She waited thirteen years before she took the initiative to call me.” I can’t keep the pain from my voice. “I think she can wait.”