Ghost Trackers (6 page)

“It’s great to see you, Amber.” He sounded sincere, but there was a flicker of concern in his gaze, and she guessed that he’d noted her sallow complexion and too-thin body. She’d done her best to disguise her condition with a liberal application of makeup and an oversized black sweater to hide how skinny she was, but it wasn’t enough to fool Drew’s trained eye. She felt a wave of shame and once again regretted coming here. But then, as if sensing her emotion, he reached out to clasp her hand and said, “
Really
great.”

“Same here,” she said, and smiled. And then, without thinking, she added, “I was a little afraid
that when I saw you, I’d . . .” She’d been about to say,
Have a flashback to that night
, but she didn’t want to talk about that, not yet, maybe not ever. So instead, she said, “Make a fool of myself somehow. You know, accidentally spray spit on you when I talked or not realize I had a big piece of spinach stuck in my teeth.”

“What are you talking about? Making a fool of myself is
my
specialty!”

Amber and Drew turned as Trevor approached them, a wide grin on his face. He wore a gray suit jacket over a light blue shirt. The extra pounds he carried, along with his thinning hair, made him look as if he were in his early forties instead of his early thirties, but the premature-aging effect was ameliorated by the boyish enthusiasm in his smile and the delight that shone in his eyes upon seeing them. For an instant, she caught a glimpse of the teenager he used to be, and seeing him that way made her feel young again, too, if only for a moment. It was a good feeling.

He gave her a quick but warm hug and then took Drew’s hand in both of his and gave it an energetic double pump. When he finished, he stepped back and regarded Amber and Drew.

“Man, it’s good to see you two again!” he said.

Drew grinned. “Same here.”

Amber smiled and nodded. And then silence descended over the three of them, and they stood there, smiling at one another. She wasn’t sure what
to do next, and she experienced a small flutter of panic, accompanied by an urge to excuse herself and flee back to her room. Here they were, the three of them, together again for the first time in fifteen years, for the first time since
that night
. She’d been more than a little afraid of what might happen when she saw Drew and Trevor. What she might feel, what she might
remember
. But there had been no flashbacks, no nightmarish images, no disturbing memories of any kind. It was something of a letdown, and she thought she could see the same feeling mirrored in her friends’ faces.

It was Trevor who broke the silence. “Is this awkward or what?”

“What,” Drew said.

Trevor frowned. “I said, is this awkward or . . .” He trailed off and grinned. And then the three of them were laughing, and Amber could feel the years and the tension melt away.

“What happened to
Mrs. Peters?” Trevor asked. “I know she quit teaching art halfway through our senior year, but I can’t remember the whole story.”

Drew took a sip of his vodka sour—his third—and frowned as he tried to recall the details. “It was a sex scandal of some kind, wasn’t it?”

Amber laughed. “Hardly, though it might’ve seemed that way to people at the time. I was in her class when it happened. She wanted us to do life drawing, you know, like in college when they have
models pose nude? But this was high school, so she asked one of the cheerleaders to come in wearing a swimsuit. The girl—I can’t remember her name. Bethany? Barbara? Anyway, she wore a bikini that was more than a little on the skimpy side, and that got the kids in class talking, especially the boys. Their parents got wind of what happened, and the next thing you know, there’s a concerned group of citizens protesting at a school-board meeting. One thing led to another, and Mrs. Peters decided to take early retirement rather than put up with the bullshit anymore.” She took a sip of wine and shook her head. “Small towns, you know?”

“That’s right,” Trevor said. “I remember now.” He finished off his beer, caught their server’s eye, and signaled for a refill.

Drew wondered if Trevor really did remember or if he was just saying that. The three of them had spent the last two hours talking about the past, which was to be expected when three old friends got together after fifteen years. The hotel bar was filled with people, many of them fellow classmates back in town for tomorrow night’s reunion, and he imagined that a number of similarly nostalgic conversations were taking place at tables around them. The big difference in their case was that they weren’t taking a simple stroll down memory lane. They were trying to fill in gaps in their memories, for while none of them had broached the subject of
that night
yet, once they’d begun talking,
it had soon become clear that they’d forgotten more than what had happened at the Lowry House.

Huge chunks of their high-school years were missing, the memories not simply dimmed with the passage of time but gone entirely, especially events from their senior year. So, while it had been great seeing Trevor and Amber again, the three of them were doing more than reminiscing; they were playing a very important game of mental fill-in-the-blanks. But just because some missing data were supplied, that didn’t automatically translate into an actual memory. Numerous times during their conversation, they had pieced together stories, like the one about Mrs. Peters. And while the facts became clear, Drew at least experienced no real recollection of the events in question.

He
knew
the stories when they were done, but he didn’t
remember
them. He felt like someone who was learning phrases in a foreign language by memorizing them phonetically, without any real understanding of the words. It was a strange, frustrating experience, in some ways even worse than not remembering, because it pointed out how much they’d all lost and underscored the reason why.

That night
.

Their server brought Trevor his beer, and the three friends fell into a period of silence. It didn’t take long to start a new thread of conversation, and
Drew couldn’t help smiling as Trevor began talking. He’d never been very comfortable with silence.

“The town’s sure changed a lot,” he said. “There’s a new outlet store off the highway, and did you ever think they’d put a Starbucks in little old Ash Creek, let alone
two
? And then there’s the new rec center they’re building where the . . .” He paused, and for a moment, Drew thought he wasn’t going to continue, but then he went on, his voice subdued. “Where the Lowry House was.”

And there it was. It had taken them two hours and more than a few drinks to get around to it, but one of them had finally spoken the words.

“Did you check it out?” Drew asked.

“Eventually.” Trevor took a sip of his beer. “I drove around town three times before getting up the courage to go by. You?”

He shook his head. “I thought about it, but I didn’t do it. I told myself that I was tired after driving all the way from Chicago and just wanted to check into the hotel, but the truth is that I was too uncomfortable to go there.”

Drew and Trevor looked at Amber.

She drained the last of her wine in a single swallow. “Are you kidding me? As often as I visit the damn place in my dreams, I’m in no hurry to see it again for real.”

“There’s nothing to see,” Trevor said. “The only indication that a house was ever there is the sign: ‘Lowry Recreation Center.’ The place is about finished,
and it looks like any other modern building, the kind of anonymous place that might house a dentist’s or doctor’s office.” He looked at Drew and smiled. “Probably like the kind of place where you work.” He reached into his jacket pocket and removed a digital camera. “I took some pictures while I was there. If you guys want to see . . .”

“Sure,” Drew said, although inside he recoiled at the thought. He glanced at Amber, and she looked even paler than before, and from the panicked look in her eyes, he thought she might bolt from the table any second. But she stood her ground as Trevor turned on his camera, pulled up an image of the Lowry Recreation Center, and held it out for Drew and Amber to see. It was, as he had already told them, almost disappointingly normal, and although Drew felt a slight chill upon reading the word
Lowry
, all in all, the picture did little for him. He looked at Amber and saw the same lack of reaction on her face. He remembered something Rick had said during their last session.

You miss both of them but especially
her.

And this was followed by a memory of hearing her speak, the memory so vivid it was almost as if he were hearing her now.

Drew? Trevor? Why is it so cold?

It was so real that he was only able to convince himself that she hadn’t spoken because he hadn’t seen her mouth move.

When they finished looking at the pictures,
Trevor turned off his camera and put it away. Drew thought then that they might begin talking about that night, now that they’d broken the ice, but they fell into an uneasy silence. Their server came by and asked Amber if she’d like another glass of wine, but she declined. Although he knew it was none of his business, Drew was glad.

He didn’t know how many prescriptions Amber was on, but the last thing she needed was to add too much alcohol to her system. Drew understood the urge to self-medicate. It was one reason so many people with psychological problems also had issues with substance abuse. But self-medicating only made things worse.

There are lots of ways to self-medicate
, he thought. Some people drank or took drugs. Some people smoked. He glanced at Trevor, who’d told them earlier that he was trying yet again to break his nicotine habit. And some people threw themselves into their work to the exclusion of everything else. He had no illusions; he knew he was guilty of the latter. But at least his self-medicating helped others, right? So it wasn’t entirely selfish.

Way to justify an unhealthy lifestyle
, he thought, and took a sip of his own drink. He knew he was only exchanging one compensatory habit for another, but right then, he didn’t care.

“I think I’m going to call it a night,” Amber said. Trevor started to protest, but she held up a hand to cut him off. “I know it’s still early, but I think
I’ve had enough for one evening. It’s been great to see you both. It really has. I was worried that being in your presence would make me remember things I didn’t want to remember, but it’s been nice. I just don’t think I can take much more right now. I don’t want to talk about the Lowry House, I don’t want to look at pictures of it, and I sure don’t want to begin comparing scraps of memory with you two in an attempt to piece together what happened that night. I don’t
care
what happened. I just want to forget about it and get on with my life, you know?”

“Amber, it’s important that we remember,” Trevor said. “We experienced something paranormal that night. I’m not talking about a mysterious thump coming from another room or a shadowy figure glimpsed out of the corner of your eye. I’m talking the real shit, and it’s important that we try to understand it.”

She scowled at him. “Why? So you can write a fucking book about it and get famous?”

At first, he looked hurt by her accusation, but then he got angry. “Back in high school, you were interested in the paranormal as much as Drew and I. It’s what brought the three of us together. Or have you forgotten that along with everything else?”

Drew remembered. It was one memory that remained intact. They’d been juniors in high school, enrolled in the same science class. They
hadn’t known one another at the time, but their teacher assigned them to work together on a group presentation. The topic was up to them, and they’d discovered after a bit of conversation that all three of them were interested in paranormal phenomena, specifically in scientific evidence of life after death. They did their report on that topic, researched it scrupulously, even performed an investigation at Trevor’s grandmother’s house, which she swore was haunted by the spirit of one of the previous owners.

They’d gotten an A for their presentation, and after that, they’d continued investigating paranormal phenomena, most often reading books and magazines on the subject or watching documentaries on TV, but from time to time, they performed field research, investigating reports of ghostly apparitions that fellow classmates and even teachers would pass along to them. They got a reputation for being a bit weird because of their hobby, but they also gained a certain coolness factor from it, so it all balanced out.

But no matter how many dusty attics, moldy basements, or cold, dark cemeteries they visited, one place stood above them all as the most haunted in town: the Lowry House. Drew, Trevor, and Amber researched everything they could about the house’s history, even interviewed some local residents about it, but it took them some time to work up to physically investigating the house.
None of them had ever discussed their reluctance to go there, but it was as if they realized, on an instinctive level if nothing else, that the Lowry House was the real thing, and they wanted to be as prepared as possible before going in.

Whatever had happened the night they’d finally worked up the courage to go in, they hadn’t been prepared enough, Drew thought. Not by a long shot.

“I’ve told you before, and I’ll tell you again. I’m not going to help you write about the Lowry House,” Amber said to Trevor.

He turned to Drew, a pleading look on his face. “Help me out here.”

Drew had to suppress a smile. Even before he’d become a psychologist, his friends had turned to him to mediate any conflict between them. “It’s important that we respect Amber’s feelings,” he began. “If she doesn’t want to talk about the Lowry House, that’s her choice. But,” he hurried to add before Trevor could say anything, “I think you should reconsider, Amber. There’s a reason you’ve come here this weekend, and as much as Trevor and I might like to believe that it was so you could reconnect with a pair of old friends, I suspect it was something more. Have you noticed the people around us? All of them talking and laughing, sharing photos of spouses and children. Catching up on the different paths their lives have taken over the last fifteen years. How much progress have
we made in that time? How much have our lives changed since we graduated? Since that night?”