2 Whispering (15 page)

The next day was Friday and – just as promised – Aric called. He told me he had to go to a fraternity party that night and asked me if I wanted to go with him.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” I said.

“Why?”

“Last time I went to a party hosted by your fraternity I was almost killed.”

“You’re going to have to let that go eventually,” Aric said.

“Not yet.”

“Fine,” Aric said with a sigh. “You’re probably right. I don’t want some scene with Will tonight. I want to get in and out as quick as possible.”

“Just a tip, that’s not what a girl wants to hear.”

Aric paused as he mulled what I had said and then he barked out a laugh. “I’ll call you tomorrow.”

“Okay,” I said simply.

Once I disconnected with Aric I turned to Paris. “What are you doing tonight?”

“Mark and I are just going to watch movies in his room.”

“Are all his roommates going to be out and you guys just want to spend some time alone?”

“Pretty much,” Paris admitted.

“And you’re hanging around with your sorority sisters?” I turned to Brittany.

Brittany looked surprised to be included in the conversation. “We’re having a party. You can come if you want to, though.”

That didn’t sound like any fun at all. I turned to Paris for help. “I need more friends.”

“Why don’t you go ask Laura what she is doing?”

That sounded like a good idea actually. When I got down to Laura’s room, I found her and Michelle getting ready to go out. “Where are you guys going?”

“Just over to my brother’s place. They’re getting a keg.. You want to come?”

I wasn’t a big fan of the parties at Mike’s apartment, but I also wasn’t a big fan of hanging out alone on a Friday night. “Yeah. Do you mind?”

“No,” Laura shook her head. “Go get dressed.”

So, a half an hour later, I found myself walking with Michelle and Laura in the direction of a party I didn’t really want to go to.

“I can’t believe the semester is almost over,” Michelle said. “I don’t want to go home for the summer.”

“Me either,” Laura agreed. “Going home is such a pain.”

“Why?”

“My mom is just always so worried about what I’m doing,” Laura explained.

“You mean who you’re hanging out with?” I asked pointedly.

“Something like that,” Laura agreed.

“What about you?” Michelle asked. “What are you going to do this summer?”

“Oh, I have a job at Cedar Creek.”

“The golf resort?”

“Yeah.”

“What do you do there?”

“I’m a waitress at the bar on the golf course.”

“That sounds like fun,” Michelle enthused.

“Then I’m telling it wrong.”

“It’s not fun?”

“It’s a job. I make good money. It’s not bad. It’s just not a constant party either.”

“Its sounds like a lot more fun than working at the Dairy Queen like I do,” Michelle said.

She had a point there.

When we got to the party, Laura introduced me to her brother Vance. I had met him before, but that was before I knew he was Laura’s brother. I glanced around the party and saw that Mike was holding court in the middle of a handful of girls in the kitchen. He looked like he had gotten over his failed relationship with Paris pretty quickly.

Laura and Michelle were happily sipping from their cups of beer when I broke away from them and headed towards the balcony. I had seen a shadow out there – and I had an idea who it belonged to.

“Why do you even come to parties when you don’t socialize with people?”

Rafael turned and smiled at me – well, as close as he came to a smile – and then gestured to the empty chairs on the balcony. “I’m socializing with you.”

“Only because I came out to you. What would you have done if I stayed inside all night?”

“I knew you wouldn’t.”

I sat in one of the chairs and waited for Rafael to get himself settled in another. I noticed he was nursing a cup of beer and looked at it curiously. “You drink beer?”

“That surprises you?”

“I thought you could only drink blood.”

“That’s a myth.”

“Can you eat chicken?”

“No.”

“So, just liquids?”

“Yes.” Rafael looked bored with the conversation already. “So, I heard you found a body on campus yesterday.”

“I didn’t. I just happened to be there when someone else found it.”

“And Aric Winters was with you?”

“What? Are you spying on me?”

“It was during the day. I wasn’t there.”

“You have someone else spying on me?”

“No. I just heard that police questioned the two of you.”

“Who told you that?”

“Does it matter?” Rafael fixed his gaze on me.

“I guess not.”

“Why didn’t you call and tell me?”

“Why didn’t you call me?”

“Maybe I was waiting for you.”

“Well, maybe I was waiting for you,” I shot back.

Rafael blew out a frustrated sigh and shook his head.

“What?”

“Sometimes I forget how young you are.”

“You mean immature.”

“That, too.”

“Sometimes I forget what a stick in the mud you are.”

“You mean boring.”

“No, I mean a stick in the mud. You’re generally not boring.”

“Well, that’s something I guess,” Rafael flashed me a tired smile and then got to his feet. “Come on.”

“Where are we going?”

“I have something I want to show you.”

“It’s not in your pants is it?”

Rafael looked confused for a second and then he laughed out loud. It was a nice sound. It was the first time I could remember him openly laughing. “No, it’s not in my pants.”

I left my cup of beer on the front porch and followed Rafael. I realized he was leaving the party. “I came with people.”

“I will bring you back.”

“Let me just tell Laura I’m leaving.” I turned and scanned the room. What I found horrified me. Laura was in the kitchen with Mike and she was making out with him. How the hell did that happen? “Never mind,” I turned back to Rafael. “Let’s just go.” Maybe if we left really quickly we could go back in time and I could forget that Laura had her tongue down Mike’s throat.

Rafael looked over my shoulder and took in Mike and Laura’s antics. “I take it he and Paris are no longer together.”

“Nope.”

“And you know her?”

“She lives on my floor.”

“I’m guessing it’s a no-no to make out with your friend’s ex?”

“Pretty much.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Pretend I didn’t see it.”

“That sounds like a good idea,” Rafael agreed.

Rafael led me out to the parking lot, stopping at the driver’s side of a glossy black sports car. “This is your car?”

“No, vampires just take any car they want,” Rafael deadpanned.

“Really?”

“Get in the car,” he ordered irritably.

Once inside, Rafael turned up the heat and pointed the vents at me so I wouldn’t be cold. He navigated the vehicle through several busy streets and then directed the car towards a heavily wooded area at the back of campus.

“Where are you taking me?” I asked nervously.

“I told you, there’s something I want you to see.”

“Out in the woods?”

“Yes.”

I was quiet during the rest of the ride. Suddenly I was wishing I had interrupted Laura and Mike long enough to tell her I was leaving. As it stood now, no one knew where I was. Rafael must have sensed my unease.

“Do you think I’m going to hurt you or something?”

“No,” I lied. Actually, I was mostly sure he wasn’t going to hurt me. There was a small sliver of doubt, though.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” Rafael assured me. He seemed upset that I would doubt him.

“I know.”

Rafael drove for a few more miles and then pulled his car to the side of the road and exited the vehicle. I was still debating the intelligence of my decision when the passenger door opened and Rafael extended his hand for me to grab.

I took a deep breath and climbed out of the car. When I grabbed his hand for leverage, I marveled at how cold it was. I had touched him before, but it always seemed to come as a surprise when I felt his cold skin.

“So, what are we looking at?”

“This way.”

Rafael led me through the woods, never letting go of my hand. He seemed to navigate the dense underbrush fairly easily. In the dark, it was a lot harder for me. “If you’re taking me out to kill me I’m going to be really pissed off if I trip beforehand.”

Rafael chuckled. “Noted.”

We walked for another five minutes in silence. Rafael seemed to be looking for something. A couple of times he stopped long enough to get his bearings and then adjusted our trajectory accordingly. When we finally stopped, I realized he had led me into a clearing in the woods.

It wasn’t a clearing really. The ground wasn’t encumbered with twigs and branches, but there were several mounds of stones arranged in an interesting tableau around what looked to be a clearly defined circle.

“What is this?” I exhaled sharply.

“I’m not sure,” Rafael admitted.

“How did you find it?”

“I didn’t,” he said. “One of my kind did. He came in from the other direction, though. You can’t tell from here, but the football field is less than a mile away in that direction.” Rafael pointed to the east.

I swallowed hard. “What are the mounds?”

Rafael turned to me seriously. “What do you think they are?”

I counted in my head. There were seven of them. “Are they graves?”

“I think so,” Rafael nodded.

“Are the missing girls here?”

“I don’t know.”

I let go of Rafael’s hand and made my way slowly around the clearing, stopping next to each mound long enough to crouch down and investigate it more thoroughly. Finally, I stood up and faced Rafael. For his part, he had remained standing exactly where I had left him and had instead just watched me walk around the clearing.

“Two of them are fresher than the other five.”

“I noticed that, too.”

“It looks like there’s a spot over there for another fresh one – but it’s still empty.”

Rafael cocked his head and looked in the direction I pointed. He stalked over to the area and looked around. “This wasn’t here the other day. It’s obviously not filled.”

“No,” I agreed. “The body that was supposed to go in it was found on campus yesterday.”

Rafael raised his dark eyes and locked them with mine. “We should go,” he whispered, glancing around the clearing nervously.

I had a hundred questions I wanted to ask. None of them took precedence over the sudden feeling of dread I was feeling, though.

“Let’s go,” I agreed.

Once we were back in Rafael’s car I felt like I could breathe again – barely.

“What the hell?” I turned to Rafael angrily. “You couldn’t just tell me about that place?”

“I thought it would be better if you saw it,” Rafael said grimly.

“Well, I’m certainly glad you took me,” I said sarcastically. “Now I’ll have nightmares for weeks.”

“I didn’t mean for that to happen.”

I realized, after a few minutes, that Rafael was taking me back to the dorms and not back to Mike’s party. I figured Laura and Michelle would get home fine on their own – and the last thing that I wanted was to be around Laura and Mike and their wandering tongues.

When we got to the dorms, Rafael parked and walked me to the door. I was still so shaken by what we had found in the woods I was having trouble finding the words to express my feelings. That was something that didn’t happen to me very often.

“You have to tell the cops,” I said finally.

“Tell them what? That there’s a clearing in the woods with seven mounds in it and we think seven girls are buried there? They’ll think we did it.”

“They’ll think we killed people in 1975?”

“I was here in 1975,” he reminded me.

“Call in a tip anonymously,” I continued stubbornly.

“That’s not exactly my style,” Rafael frowned.

“Who cares if it’s your style,” I practically exploded. “The police need to know.”

Rafael gripped my arm harshly to quiet me. “And what happens when it’s someone – something – that the cops can’t handle?”

I tried to pull away from Rafael but his grip was like iron. “Let me go,” I sputtered.

“You heard her!” Aric charged in between us, wrenching my arm away from Rafael. Where had he come from? “What’s going on here?”

Rafael regarded Aric coolly. “I was just spending some time with our friend here.”

“Really?” Aric turned his dark gaze on me. “I thought you were going out with your roommates?”

“I went out with Laura and Michelle,” I said as I rubbed my sore arm. Rafael saw the motion and looked instantly apologetic. “Rafael was at the party and said he had something he wanted to show me.”

“So you just went with him? Alone?”

“I didn’t think it would hurt anything,” I argued.

“That’s your problem,” Aric grumbled. “You never think.”

“You don’t need to insult me,” I grumbled. “What are you doing here anyway? I thought you were going to a fraternity party?”

Aric’s eyes softened and he reached out to check my arm over carefully. “I’m sorry. I didn’t stay at the party very long. I wanted to come and see you.”

Well, that was kind of sweet.

“What did he want to show you?” Aric asked pointedly, pulling my arm in closer to him and casting a hateful glare in Rafael’s direction.

“Don’t worry, it wasn’t in my pants,” Rafael said cheerfully.

Aric looked like he was going to throw Rafael into the building. Given their strength – and the crowd that was giving us curious glances from inside the building – I didn’t think that was a good idea.

“Everyone needs to calm down,” I hissed, stepping between them and reluctantly pulling my arm from Aric’s tender grip as I did. “We’re drawing attention.”

Rafael and Aric instantly took a step back from each other. Aric took a deep and calming breath and then fixed his gaze back on me. “What did he show you?”

I told Aric about my excursion with Rafael. Aric took it all in and then turned on Rafael again. “Why would you take her out there?”

“I thought she should see it,” Rafael said blithely.

“What if something had happened?”

“I was there to protect her.”

“What if there had been more than one person there?”

Rafael considered the question. “If it’s any consolation, I regretted taking her out there the minute I did.”

“That’s not much of a consolation,” Aric said bitterly.

“From your point of view? Probably not.” Rafael was matter-of-fact.

“I told him that we need to call the police,” I interjected quickly. I didn’t want them to start fighting again.

“And I told her that was a bad idea,” Rafael said.

“I agree,” Aric said.

I turned to Rafael smugly.

“With Rafael,” Aric finished.

“What?”

“Think about it, Zoe,” Aric said calmly. “What can the cops do?”

“What can we do?”

“We can watch the situation,” Aric said.

“Watch the situation? And what happens when another girl goes missing? Do you want that on your conscience?”

“Maybe that won’t happen,” Rafael suggested.

“And maybe I won’t wake up with bed head tomorrow morning,” I choked out. “I don’t think either of those scenarios is likely to happen.”

“Give us a few days,” Aric pleaded. “Let us try and figure this out. If the cops get involved, things could get a whole lot worse.”

Rafael nodded in silent agreement.

I looked between both of their set faces and blew out a frustrated sigh. “It doesn’t matter what I want, does it? You two are going to do whatever it is you want to do and just leave me to either accept it or grind my teeth and pretend I do.”

Aric tried a different tactic. “Zoe, you don’t understand . . .”

“Oh, just stuff it,” I muttered and turned on my heel.

Rafael’s arm shot out to hold the glass door in place – barring me from entering the dorms. “Just give us a few days,” he pleaded.

“Fine,” I said.

Rafael dropped his arm and I threw open the door and stepped inside haughtily. “You have three days.”

“She’s a trip,” Rafael said.

“She’s a pain,” Aric agreed.

“I heard that,” I shot back as I continued into the building. I didn’t look back. That would have ruined my dramatic moment.