Eighteen Kisses (2 page)

‘Who
are
you meeting then?’ asked Hannah, reaching for her own phone.

‘A … um … singer, from a band. I might be playing support for them.’

‘Oh, yeah, which band?’

‘Um … 
Almost Famous
,’ I said, reading the movie poster above her head. I didn’t like lying to Hannah. Not just because I felt bad, but also because she’s a really good actress and can spot a liar a mile away. Thankfully she was too busy checking her messages to notice.

‘Never heard of them,’ she said. ‘Cool name though.’

I wasn’t sure what Hannah would think if she knew who I was actually going to meet. She didn’t know that I’d helped solve a murder that had happened in Avarna. Or that Sergeant Lawlor had heard about this and asked for my help on more unsolved cases. She wasn’t even aware of my unusual abilities – I didn’t know how to tell her that I was able to communicate with murdered women. I was pretty sure she didn’t believe in ghosts, and I didn’t want her to think I was weird. On the other hand, we’d been friends for so long that she probably wouldn’t care. But Sergeant Lawlor had asked me not to tell anyone about Operation Trail, and I respected that. Colin, my best friend in Avarna, knew, of course, because I didn’t keep anything from him. And Mum. But nobody else, not even Nick.

I had a quick shower and dried my hair, which was so much easier to manage now that I’d cut it above my shoulders and got a fringe. I’d also let Hannah bleach it even blonder last night, which I was kind of regretting now. It looked cool, but there was the possibility that Mum would
throw a fit. She was four months’ pregnant and tended to have extreme emotional reactions to things. At least I hadn’t got a tattoo, so she hopefully wouldn’t be too upset. I was delighted she was expecting a baby; I really wanted a little brother or sister. But she seemed more annoyed at me than usual these days, which was kind of hard to deal with. Des, her new partner, was freakishly patient, which made my impatience even more noticeable. When Des had first moved into our house in Avarna, the dynamic had been strange. Mum and I fought in whispers and I spent way too much time over in Nick’s or Colin’s house. My dad had died of a brain tumour when I was nine, and ever since then it had just been Mum and me. So I found it difficult to get used to the idea of Des living with us. But that had only lasted a couple of weeks. Eventually we started to feel like a family and Mum started to shout at me at full volume again.

‘You were talking in your sleep last night,’ said Hannah as I rummaged in my satchel.

‘Was I?’ I tried to sound casual. I didn’t want to tell her I’d had a nightmare.

‘Yeah; couldn’t figure out what you were saying though. I’d never heard you talk in your sleep before.’

‘It’s probably cos we watched that movie,’ I said. ‘Pretty scary stuff.’ I avoided looking at Hannah after yet another lie. I busied myself by putting on my floral dress, purple leather jacket and quickly applying my make-up.

‘You know what’s scary,’ said Hannah. ‘School.’ I nodded as I swept on some lip gloss, relieved she’d changed the subject. ‘I don’t want to go tomorrow,’ she added.

‘Only three weeks left till the summer holidays,’ I said excitedly. ‘Then you can come visit me!’

‘Or you can visit me,’ said Hannah. She hadn’t really taken to Avarna – even the beautiful scenery hadn’t swayed her. She much preferred the city. ‘Oh, I forgot to say, I’m in a play next week, if you wanna come see it.’

‘What play?’ I asked.

She hesitated, and so I immediately knew what the answer was going to be. One of the downsides of having an actress for a best friend is that you are pretty much guaranteed to see at least six productions of
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
in your lifetime.
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
set in New York.
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
with an all-female cast.
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
with robots.

‘This is actually a really good version,’ said Hannah, trying to sound as enthusiastic as possible.

‘I’ll be there,’ I said with a sigh.

‘You won’t regret it! Well, you might … but I’ll thank you in my Oscar speech.’

‘Get some beauty sleep,’ I said, throwing the covers over her head.

‘See you later,’ she said with a giggle.

I texted Sergeant Lawlor to ask where exactly we were going to meet.

Ming’s, he texted back.

That’s weird
, I thought. Wasn’t it a little early for Chinese fast food? But I trusted that the strange venue was for a reason. I stepped off the tram and walked down Grafton Street.

There were only a few people around that morning, mostly tourists pulling suitcases or staff going into shops. There was a busker playing old Irish songs near Bewley’s, and others were tuning their instruments. I love walking through Dublin early on a Sunday morning – it was one of the things I missed most about it. It’s quiet, so you kind of feel like it’s your own city – your own kingdom. I thought I’d never forgive Mum for making me move all the way to Avarna last summer, but I’d actually grown to love my new home. Yet Dublin was still my sanctuary, a place I’d always come back to.

I passed my favourite store, Tower Records (which wasn’t open yet, so I managed to retain my streak of never passing it without going in), and crossed the road. I could see Ming’s neon sign up ahead, and for a split second I thought,
Go back.
Pretend this never happened. Go home, turn off your phone, go back to normality.
I’d had eight months of normality, and it hadn’t been so bad. But even though it was tempting, I knew for certain that I wasn’t going to do that. It had already started; she was already here. I even had a familiar dull pain in my head – no doubt just a preview of what was to come. I knew that the torturous headaches and visions and panic attacks I’d endured last year were likely to revisit me. And last night’s dream was so clear in my mind – her whisper, soft and haunting, playing on a loop in the back of my brain.
Careful. You’re standing on my grave.

When I stepped inside the diner, it suddenly became clear why Sergeant Lawlor had picked it. The place was deserted, apart from the people working behind the counter. The decor in Ming’s was pretty minimal – the walls hadn’t been painted
in years and the plastic was peeling away from the tables. I’d never been in there during the day and it was odd seeing it so quiet. Sergeant Lawlor was sitting in a booth at the back and he nodded as I closed the door behind me. He was wearing a black suit and tie and looked very official.

‘Hi,’ I said as I sat down across from him, dropping my satchel to the floor.

‘Hello, Jacki,’ he said. ‘Thanks for meeting me.’

‘No problem.’ I wondered if he guessed that I’d thought twice about coming. I suppose it didn’t matter; I was here now.

‘I ordered you a hot chocolate,’ he said. ‘Hope that’s OK?’

‘Yeah … sure,’ I said, a little taken aback. How did he know about my current hot-chocolate addiction? Did he know everything about me? I decided it was probably just a lucky guess.

‘The team and I are delighted you’ve agreed to come on board,’ he said, shaking a packet of sugar into his paper cup. I looked at the stuff laid out in front of him on the table – a laptop, a sheet of paper and a blue folder, so full it looked like it was going to burst open.

‘I’m happy to help,’ I said. Although, come to think of it, I wasn’t sure what he was expecting of me. ‘Um, Sergeant Lawlor … what exactly will I be doing?’ I asked.

‘Call me Matt,’ he said kind of awkwardly. ‘Well, like I said on the phone, we’ll take it one case at a time. I really want to get working on this one. Let’s see what happens after that.’

I shifted in my seat. I was feeling a little unsure of myself – I hadn’t done this professionally before.

He hadn’t seemed to notice my discomfort, and continued. ‘The first one I’d like you to work on is the Kayla Edwards case. You know the photographs I gave you? She’s the girl with the –’

‘Red hair?’

‘… Yes.’

‘I dreamed about her last night,’ I explained.

He nodded, acting casual, but I could see the mix of astonishment and fear on his face – the mixture I seemed to evoke in people whenever I talked about this kind of stuff. He hid it especially well though.

‘We should get started on this case straight away,’ he said. ‘If that’s OK with you?’

‘Yeah, sure. Deadly.’

Deadly? That probably wasn’t the kind of word I should use when discussing a murder case. Well, technically it was a missing-person case, although I was pretty sure Kayla was dead. My dream certainly suggested that she was. I took a deep breath and tried not to feel anxious talking to Matt Lawlor.
You’re helping him, remember?
He had this authoritative air about him – it made me trust him, but also made me a little nervous at the same time. It was going to feel strange calling him by his first name.

He handed me the blue folder.

‘This is her file,’ he said. ‘If anybody asks, I never gave you this, you don’t have it.’

CONFIDENTIAL
was stamped across the front. I opened it up. Inside was the photograph he’d given me, lots of photocopied sheets of paper filled with handwriting, and other assorted cuttings. A Polaroid photo fell out of the pile
and I picked it up. It was a picture of Kayla and another girl with short blonde hair. Kayla was blowing up a big pink balloon and the other girl was holding it and laughing. I could see something written on the back. I turned it round, and printed in black lettering was the following:

Kayla Edwards invites you to her 18
^th
Birthday Party

This Thursday.

 

Location: Her House! 25 Sycamore Rd, Dublin 6.

Time: 8 p.m. till late.

 

‘She went missing two years ago,’ said Matt. ‘On the night of her eighteenth birthday party. She left the house at twelve thirty a.m. and went to the shop with two of her friends. On their way back to the party her friends decided to go home, and they parted company with Kayla at the top of her road at approximately twelve fifty a.m. There’s been no trace of her since.’

I vaguely remembered hearing about it on the news. She didn’t live too far from our old house. I remembered thinking it was terrible, but then the media coverage died down and I’d forgotten about it just as quickly.

‘Did they find anything?’ I asked. ‘Like her clothes, her bag?’

‘No. Nothing.’

Great. I had a feeling this wasn’t going to be easy.

Matt opened up the laptop and a little
ping
sounded as he switched it on. I looked at the invitation again.

A few minutes later he turned the laptop round so that it faced me. There were people on the screen – a video was playing. I soon realized I was watching footage from Kayla’s
party. Laughter and applause and giggles and screams blasted from the tiny speakers. I could see Kayla sitting on a stool. She pushed her red hair behind her ear and fixed a strap of her polka-dot dress. It looked like they were in a marquee; ‘I Kissed a Girl’ was playing in the background. Kayla laughed as a guy kissed her on the cheek, then another guy, then a kiss on the lips from a girl, then one from a guy, a kiss on the cheek from another girl. A line formed in front of her and others gathered round in a semicircle, laughing and clapping and cheering until the eighteenth birthday kiss was planted on her cheek. I felt kind of nauseous watching it. The happy smiles, the carefree chatter, the ignorance of what lay ahead was almost unbearable. A few hours after this film was taken she was probably dead. I had to force myself to keep watching.

As each second passed, I realized how much this group of friends looked like my own. Just a regular group of teenagers, celebrating one of their friends’ birthdays, with no clue as to the tragedy that was about to happen. This was all too real. In the picture she looked real, sure, but that was just a snapshot, a snippet of a person. And in the dream she was something else – unearthly and untouchable. But here she was just like me, laughing and shouting and dancing. I watched the seconds ticking down, my stomach churning as I saw her get off the chair and dance across the floor. I let out a sigh of relief when the video stopped. I stared at the final frame, her face frozen in a huge smile.

‘Did I have to watch that?’ I said, handing the laptop back.

‘Yes,’ said Matt. ‘And you might want to watch it again.’

‘Why?’ I asked.

‘Because I strongly suspect that her killer is in this video.’

I stared at him in disbelief, but I knew from the look on his face that he was completely serious.

He handed me a list with eighteen names on it. Several of the names had been crossed out.

‘These are all the people that appear in the video,’ he said. ‘Twelve guys, six girls. Some left the party before she went missing, ten have solid alibis. But you should talk to the other eight, see what you can get.’

I was finding this difficult to process. He thought she’d been murdered by somebody she knew? Somebody she trusted?

‘You really think one of her friends could be involved?’ I said. I couldn’t believe it.

‘In this case I don’t think we’re dealing with an outsider,’ said Matt. ‘Right from the beginning I suspected we weren’t being told the full story. I’ve talked to all eighteen of them myself, and things just don’t add up. That’s why I tracked you down, Jacki. I’d come across people with psychic powers before – they’d approached our team and offered to help, though most of their theories were ridiculous and we’d never seen any real results. But when I heard about the Beth Cullen case, how you’d helped solve a twenty-five-year-old murder, I knew I had to find you. Nobody ever thought that case would be solved, just like nobody thinks we’ll ever solve this one.’

He rubbed his forehead, all of a sudden seeming quite tired. ‘Plus, Jacki, I think an independent voice on this case is what we need. Someone otherwise unconnected. I need someone I can trust.’