Marilyn Kaye - Gifted - Now You See Me

‘I’m not sitting on you, am I?’

‘Believe me, you’d know if you sat on me,’ Tracey said. ‘I still have feelings.’

‘OK, so what’s so important?’

‘Look at this.’ Tracey put her mobile phone down on the ground, where it magically appeared for Ken. ‘Click on photos and tell me what you see.’

‘Not a thing,’ Ken replied. ‘Your battery’s dead.’

Tracey groaned. Of course, she hadn’t been able to recharge it the night before. ‘Well, I’ll tell you. It’s a photo of Carter with Clare, Serena, that Stuart Kelley guy. . and Mr Jackson. Our Mr Jackson. And Carter’s talking to them.’

She’d made an impression — she could see it on his face. She told him the whole story — how she’d followed Carter to the house and watched the proceedings through a window.

‘He’s the spy, Ken, not Amanda. That whole zombie business, it’s a big act he’s putting on. He sits in our class and pretends he can’t communicate, then he goes and reports on us to these people. That’s how Jackson knows about us. He put the knife in Jenna’s locker because he was afraid she was reading his mind and he had to get her out of the picture.’

‘How do you know that?’ Ken asked.

She remembered her promise to Amanda. ‘Well. . it makes sense, doesn’t it?’ She hurried on. ‘Other things make sense too, Ken. Like when we were kidnapped, Carter was taken first, remember? They got information out of him about the rest of us. Then, after they took me and Emily and the others, they sent him back because they didn’t need him.’

Ken didn’t say anything.

‘Don’t you believe me?’ Tracey asked him.

‘Are you sure about Jackson? You said yourself, you were looking through a window. Maybe it was someone who just looks like Mr Jackson. I mean, I’m not crazy about the guy, but he’s the principal of a middle school, for crying out loud!’

‘He’s definitely involved with this conspiracy,’ Tracey insisted. ‘I’m not the only one who’s seen him with those other creeps. Amanda said —’ She caught herself just in time and stopped.

Ken rolled his eyes. ‘I should have known Amanda had something to do with all this. Did you two cook up this story together?’

‘Ken! Amanda is not the spy, I swear to you!’

‘How can you be so sure about that?’ he countered.

Frustrated, Tracey wanted to scream. This was exactly why a person shouldn’t promise to keep secrets.

‘You see?’ Ken said triumphantly. ‘You’re not really sure, are you? You don’t want to admit that Amanda can be this evil.’

‘And you don’t want to admit that you have a thing for her,’ Tracey shot back. ‘You’re still upset that she didn’t tell you about Serena in the seance. You’re letting your personal feelings get in the way of logic, Ken!’

‘That’s bull,’ Ken muttered.

‘Oh, come on, Ken, get real! You like Amanda, you’ve always been into her. You’re just trying to get back at her for not acting like she’s into you! Which, by the way, I think she is.’

Ken looked away, as if he didn’t want to confront something he knew was true.

‘Talk to her,’ Tracey pleaded. ‘Tell her. .’ She tried to think of a way to clue him in without breaking her promise. ‘Tell her to tell you what she told me.’

‘Forget it,’ Ken said. ‘I’m not talking to her.’ He stood up. ‘I have to go.’

Helpless, Tracey watched him walk away. Now what? She was on her own.

Yawning, she decided to go home and get some sleep. There, she could plug in her phone, recharge it, and be all set to go back to Clare’s house.

She didn’t know the conspirators’ schedule — if they met daily or if Carter met with them every night at midnight. But if Clare’s house was their headquarters, there had to be items lying around which could provide evidence. So even if there was no gathering of bad guys, she’d accomplish something.

On her own. Totally on her own, by herself. And she was scared. OK, she was invisible. Nobody could really hurt her if she couldn’t be seen, right? But even so, she was afraid.

She tried to shake off the fear and concentrate on her immediate task. First, she had to get into Clare’s house. If there was no meeting and people weren’t going in and out, how could she carry out any investigation? For that reason, she decided to go to Clare’s earlier, in the afternoon, when hopefully the woman might leave or come home and open a door for her.

Reasonably refreshed, with her fear on a back burner and with a fully charged mobile phone, she left her room. She felt pretty focused, but even so, she couldn’t help picking up on the family conversation going on in the living room.

For once, the Devon Seven were quiet. Her parents were talking to them.

‘Girls, we know you miss Tracey,’ her father was saying. ‘Your mother and I miss her too. But even if we can’t see her, we know that she’s here.’

Her mother spoke up. ‘George, you’re confusing them. They can’t understand Tracey’s gift.’

Tracey had to smile. Her mother was right — how could the five-year-olds understand her gift, when she couldn’t understand it herself? Impulsively, out of the septuplets’ eye range, she picked up her mother’s handbag. The sudden disappearance of her bag caught the woman’s attention. Tracey then placed it back down. Her mother smiled.

‘But you don’t have to worry, girls,’ she said. ‘Tracey’s all right.’

Was she? Tracey wondered. Was she really all right? She’d never been invisible for this long before, and although she hadn’t tried to reappear today, she had the feeling it wouldn’t work if she did. And here she was, all alone, ready to embark on what could possibly be a very dangerous mission. She didn’t know what she was.

All she knew for sure was that she’d made a promise to Jenna, to get her out of that awful place. She needed to be able to prove Jenna’s innocence, and from what Amanda had told her the evidence could only come from Mr Jackson.

It took her a while to find Clare’s house. And when she thought she’d found it she was actually at the house next door. She realized this when a car pulled into the other house’s drive and Clare got out.

Tracey tore across the lawn, determined not to get shut out this time. Clare was talking on her mobile phone, and when Tracey caught up to her she was able to hear her side of the conversation.

‘I’m telling you, she’s been released! No, I don’t know why, but we have to talk about this, today. And bring the kid.’

There was a pause.

‘Good grief, you’re the principal, you can come up with an excuse. Tell the parents it’s a special school activity or something. Or you’re taking him to see a specialist. Come up with something — just get over here.’

The kid — she had to be talking about Carter, Tracey thought. And the ‘she’ who was released — was that Jenna? Had she left Harmony House? Clare shut off her phone as she went into the house and Tracey slipped in alongside her.

Clare went through the living room, but Tracey paused and gazed around. It looked like such an ordinary living room — there was a modern sofa, a couple of chairs, a coffee table, but the only piece of furniture that grabbed her eye was a desk.

She went on through the dining room and spotted Clare in the kitchen. She was making coffee and Tracey hoped she wasn’t going to bring it into the living room. Clare might not be able to see her, but if Tracey wanted to open drawers, or move things about, she needed to do it when Clare wasn’t around.

She eased open the desk’s file drawer slowly, trying not to make any noise. A row of folders greeted her and she knelt down to read the tabs on them. Bills. . receipts. . banking. . They were the same labels she’d see if she opened her parents’ desk at home. Except for one.