Lyn Benedict - Ghosts & Echoes

“Yeah,” Meredith said. She gnawed her lip, her brow furrowing. Really thinking for the first time; even upside down, Sylvie could see the gears clicking slowly away in the woman’s mind. “That was . . . before the trouble started.”

“Great,” Sylvie muttered. “Just great.” Zoe was mad at her already; wait until she questioned her friends. A disturbing idea took tentative root: If Bella was involved in these burglaries, did Zoe know? When Sylvie had mentioned the burglaries, Zoe had looked sick; Sylvie had chalked it up to worry and distaste, but it could have been more personal for Zoe.

Her fingers finally closed on the bright spark beneath the seat, and all the hairs on her body rose in defensive spikes. Cold washed over her in a painful wave. Sylvie’s mouth dried; nausea roiled; she jerked her hand back and dropped the item on the carpet before her face, setting off a broken duet between her own thoughts and the shrieking of the little dark voice, woken to full alert with a single touch.

A fingernail—

Bad—

Not a fake, a—

Bad magic—

—real human fingernail, ridged and furrowed keratin, an old woman’s fingernail, a shred of flesh still clinging to the base, as sere as a mummy’s. The nail was painted, a gloss of silver, a layer of rainbow sparkle, and a tiny ornament dangling from the curled tip—a diamante heart. Sylvie somehow doubted the—

Dead—

—woman had chosen the colors. Decorated after death was . . . worrying. Decorated after death was The Silence of the Lambs .

Belatedly, she heard Meredith holding forth, really getting into it, the indignation that had been stifled by fear erupting now that she had someone to blame.

“. . . Isabella and her delinquent friends. I don’t care that they’re in designer clothes. They’re more than spoiled; they’re . . .”

Sylvie dragged her head out of the SUV, delicately dropping the fingernail into her pocket with a shudder. She interrupted, “You ever find anything unusual in the SUV . . . ? Oh, you did.” Meredith’s face told her as much; her rant broke off, and her eyes angled away, over, anywhere she didn’t have to meet Sylvie head-on.

“No,” she said, and Sylvie sighed.

“C’mon, Meredith, I’m on your side, remember? I believe you. Just tell me what you found, and I’ll get out of your hair. As a bonus? Your car won’t take road trips without you anymore.”

Originally, she had planned to find the vehicle and follow it to see if she could catch the people behind the burglaries. But with that little bit of dead flesh in her pocket, her plan had changed. High-schoolers or not—and Sylvie was inclined to believe the connection, tenuous as it was—they needed to be stopped immediately if they were messing around with magic like this.

Meredith fidgeted, and Sylvie said, “What was it?”

“A piece of jewelry.”

“Show me,” Sylvie said.

Meredith shook her head. “I gave it away. It was just some ticky-tacky skinny dog pin. It wasn’t even gold.”

Sylvie sighed. The brooch was on the list that Conrad had given Alex: one antique art deco silver greyhound. Gone faster than a real one round a track. Still, confirmation was confirmation. “Let me out. I’ve got things to do.”

“You said you’d stop them from stealing my car,” Meredith said.

“Do you have to be anywhere today?” Sylvie said.

Meredith shook her head. Sylvie’s first instinct was to shoot out the tires, but Meredith seemed the kind of woman who might be . . . upset with such black-and-white practicality, might react by calling the police. Sylvie had had enough of them for one day.

Self-control, Sylvie remembered. Taking it easy. She’d forgotten how to interact with ordinary people, with people she wasn’t trying to intimidate or kill.

“My suggestion? Park it elsewhere—your husband’s workplace—or if you’re feeling hard-core? Let the air out of the tires and call AAA when you need to get going. They’ll move on to easier marks, ’cause these kids—it’s all about easy.”

“What good is it if it’s not ready the minute I need it?” Meredith scowled, unhappy with Sylvie’s solution, but she coded in the release for the garage door. It rose smoothly, letting in warm sunlight and the green scent of newly cut grass, all the more pleasant for having been in a space that smelled of oil, metal, and corruption.

Sylvie shrugged as she stepped out. “Your decision, either way.”

“I could get my husband to sit up, hire a security service. . . .”

“I wouldn’t,” Sylvie said. “Best not to corner people you know nothing about. If you can divert their attention, that’s good. Confronting them? You won’t like where that ends up.”

It might end with her husband or the security guard passed out on the garage floor. It might end with someone steering the SUV over their unconscious bodies. Sylvie didn’t know how deep the sleep was, whether its victim could wake, but given the way she and Wright had gone down, poleaxed into unconsciousness, she could easily imagine the worst, that this magical sleep was deep enough that there’d be no fighting back.

She waved Meredith off, said, “I’m going to go talk to Bella Martinez now. Move the car. If you don’t, you’ve no one to blame but yourself if it goes wandering again.”

Meredith turned with a huff. The garage door rolled down after her. Another person ignoring perfectly good advice.

Sylvie rolled her shoulders, flapped the edges of her jacket, dispersing the heat trapped against her skin. A man, scraping grass clippings into the mower, froze, and Sylvie dropped the back of her jacket down over the gun. She waved at him and kept moving. Nothing to see here. Just a girl with a gun, common enough. Though maybe not in the Grove.

Sylvie walked up the long drive to Bella’s house, scuffing her feet in the gravel, enjoying the shade, and dawdling. There wasn’t going to be any good news here. Even if she hadn’t been darkening the Martinezes’ door, hunting glory-seeking burglars, she’d still be bearing the bad news of Bella’s pharmaceutical forays.

She climbed the limestone stairs to a shallow, tiled porch, framed by wrought-iron pillars wound about with jasmine, and rang the doorbell. She didn’t have to wait long; the Martinezes’ housekeeper opened the door, an old frown on a young face. She had always looked worried on the occasions Sylvie had seen her, so she tried not to feel responsible.

“I’m Zoe’s sister,” Sylvie said. She tested names in her head. Surely she could remember one woman’s name—this was her job, to recall the details that others forgot. Something old-fashioned. Ethel, Edwina . . .

“She’s not here.” Her voice carried a tinge of an accent, vaguely French, and Sylvie smiled. She remembered now. Eleanor. Haitian, working her way through med school at UM after her scholarship ran out. Eleanor’s dark fingers curled around the door, her arm a polite bar.

“That’s all right,” Sylvie said. “I really just wanted to have a word or two with Bella.”

“She’s sick.”

“Hungover?”

“Sick,” Eleanor repeated.

Sylvie leaned against the doorjamb, wistfully thinking of the cooler air inside; if she could get past the door, Eleanor would have to offer her coffee, a seat, a chance to soak up the AC. “Eleanor, I really do need to talk to Bella.” She pulled the pill bottle out of her purse and shook it.

Eleanor swore, a long ripple of Creole, snatched the bottle from Sylvie’s hand, and headed back into the house, trailing a plaintive cry, “They’re going to get me expelled.”

Sylvie took inattention for invitation and followed, her sneakers soundless on the smooth Mexican tile. “Get you expelled?” she asked. Scuffling noises came from down the hall, so she headed that way, found Eleanor ransacking her own room, loosing her temper on the only things in the house that belonged to her. She finally threw a book across the room, sat down on the bed, and put her face in her hands.