Nightmare (20 page)

An hour later, we took a break and sat on the ground to
recharge with some snacks Jordin had brought along.

"Can I ask you something personal?" Jordin said.

I sighed. Oh, yay. Let's talk about me.

"Okay."

"Why are you helping me?" she asked.

"You hired me, remember?"

She smirked at me. "That's not a good enough reason. You
have such passion for this. A lot more than I'm paying you for.
So tell me the truth. Why are you really helping me?"

"Isn't it obvious?" I turned to her with great sincerity and
replied, "I'm a giver, Jordin."

That's the first and only time I can remember makingJordin
Cole laugh out loud.

Half an hour later, we jumped up from our seats on the
ground when I spotted the shadow person again. But I lost it
before we could even get to our feet, and wasn't sure which way
it had gone at the end of the row.

I instructed Jordin to go left while I went right.

I had just rounded the next corner when my heart pounded
like it was being hit by a sledgehammer. I put a hand to my chest
and almost fell to my knees, instead bracing myself by leaning
against the nearest stone crypt.

Something isn't right, I realized, finally seeing it. There had
been moments when my heart had beat irregularly hard on
almost every investigation Jordin and I had been on, but
only now did it enter my consciousness that a pattern was
emerging.

I didn't feel scared. I rarely allowed myself to be frightened
during investigations. But what I was feeling now left me gasping for breath like I was drowning. My chest was so tight it was
painful, and the intensity of the pain only made the panic more
intense.

This wasn't fear beneath my chest. It was something a lot
worse.

It was earlier than usual when we ended the investigation.
We'd teetered on feeling unsafe for most of the evening, but a
group of wildly partying frat guys that passed by on the sidewalk
outside pushed us over the edge. Jordin muttered something
about being spent for one night, so we returned to our hotel just
before two. After we'd been there over an hour and I was sure
Jordin would be fast asleep next door, I called a cab and had the
driver take me to the closest emergency room.

I knew there would be a long wait. I'd never been to an emergency room when there wasn't. This one was almost two hours,
so it was nearly dawn by the time a doctor saw me.

They ran about half a dozen tests on my heart, with all sorts
of contraptions, and roughly ninety minutes later, the verdict
was delivered.

A palpitation. I'd had a heart palpitation.

I couldn't believe it.

I couldn't fathom sleeping that morning after I returned
to the hotel, choosing instead to hit the shower while agonizing over this news. All I could think about was what this meant
to my career goals. How could I be an effective police detective
with a heart that could collapse into full-bore arrhythmia at any
time? It wasn't something I could hide; it was bound to betray
me in the field.

I'd be a joke, laughed out of every job interview I dared to
undertake.

Tears soaked my towel almost as much as the shower water
did. How could this be happening? It was a total emasculation
of everything I wanted to do with my life!

What was causing it? Was there an effective treatment? I
would have to wait until I got home to find out; the doctor in
New Orleans was reluctant to offer long-term options, suggesting that "any number of reasons" could be to blame. He
said it was a "somewhat mild case" and preferred to let my
primary care physician in New York handle the full diagnosis and treatment. So seeing him would be job one when we
returned home.

But that was still three days away. There was one more stop
on our little tour of the South, and it was a location less known
to be haunted than the last two. But I knew this place all too well,
and it was not a haunting to be undertaken lightly.

I worried that it might be too much for me to handle in this condition. Was it wise to investigate the paranormal with a weak
heart? I'd already had several flare-ups while in the field, which
could have been caused by being startled or alarmed. Did I really
want to tempt fate?

By morning, I'd decided that this little heart thing wouldn't
defeat me, wouldn't control me, and wouldn't define me. I was
still Maia Peters, and I was going to find a way to get past this.

After Jordin's phone call, I'm happy to say I managed to avoid
blacking out entirely. Making a fool of myself out in the middle
of the school grounds, with dozens of people passing by, was
never high on my priority list.

I vaguely recall Derek saying things like "Jordin?!" "Is she
okay, Maia?" "Is Jordin alive?!" in a frenzied voice. I don't think
less of him for it. I'm sure he was concerned that I was okay but
just couldn't help himself at hearing me talk to his fiancee on
the phone.

After a few minutes of deep breathing, I was more or less
steady again. I talked him out of taking me back to the hospital,
but I was going to die of embarrassment if we didn't get away from the crowd that was starting to form. I heard whispers begin
to imply that I was drunk. Or worse.

So Derek guided me to a quiet corner in the back of a fastfood place just one block away. He insisted on getting us both
sodas-I think he was concerned I might have low blood sugar
or something-but was unrelentingly cheerful as he set off to do
it. More than five times as he all but dragged me inside the tiny
restaurant, he'd said to himself, "She's still alive!" or "Thank
you, God."

While he stood occupied in line at the front counter, I took
the opportunity to pop a pill. I also grabbed a few napkins so I
could write down some thoughts. My head was swimming with
possibilities, and I needed to connect some of these dots. Derek
returned while I was still lost in thought and placed my drink
in front of me.

"You're sure it was her?" he asked, for the third time.

"I'm sure, Derek."

"Can I see your phone?" he asked.

I saw little point in arguing and handed it over, though I
knew he would find nothing useful. I'd told him while I was
taking deep breaths on the ground that I had pressed the Talk
button on the phone without looking at the caller ID. And once
the call was over and I was back on my feet, I looked back at the
"recent calls" list and saw that no call had been logged. In fact,
it didn't even look like my phone had been activated in the last
hour. So no phone number had been recorded for the call, and
there was no evidence that my phone had even been in use. Jordin
may have been speaking to me through my phone, but it wasn't
with the help of Verizon.

Derek mashed buttons on my phone like a mad man, as if trying to will it to reveal its secrets to him. "How can someone
call you and not actually activate your phone?" he asked.

I took a deep breath. I couldn't put it off anymore. It was obvious that, whether Derek would like it or not, something very not
normal was responsible for what was happening all around us.

I gently took the phone out of his hand and pocketed it. "I
need to tell you something," I announced, not quite meeting his
gaze as he looked at me with anticipation.

Here goes, I thought.

"I sawJordin the night before you came to my dorm looking
for her."

Derek nearly stood up out of his seat. "What?!"

"Breathe, Derek," I said. "It's not what you think."

"Why didn't you tell me!"

"You wouldn't have believed me-"

"What does that mean?"

I began to see that this wasn't going to go well. "I sawJordin
at that new Ghost Town amusement park. But she wasn't there.
Not physically. She appeared to me-and only me-in the form
of an apparition. A ghost."

Derek's posture froze. He didn't register disbelief, amusement, or anything else as he continued to stare at me. It was like
someone had taken a photo of him, freezing him in place.

Finally he leaned back in his seat and contemplated my words
deeply, looking me in the eye. I knew he had to be wondering if I
was serious or ifI was crazy in the head. Was I enjoying a sick joke?
Had I really uttered aloud the words he thought he'd heard?

"A ghost," he repeated softly, as if afraid someone else in the
restaurant might overhear him saying such a ridiculous word. Or
maybe he'd lowered his voice because of the anger I saw bubbling beneath his surface and he'd trained himself to keep such things
suppressed.

I nodded, bracing myself for the onslaught. I was mad, or I
was cruel, or I had been dreaming. Any or all of these accusations
were about to be shoved down my throat.

He cleared his throat and looked at me as if he was about to
counsel me with his best pastorly advice. "Tell me exactly what
happened."

"It was the end of the Haunted House. Except what happened wasn't part of the tour. I was surrounded by this white
mist that I can only describe as possessing intelligence, because
it moved around me in ways that no naturally occurring airflow
could. And for just a second, I saw a face in the mist, and it was
Jordin. She called me by name, and she said to me the very same
phrase that Carrie Morris heard in her dreams. The same phrase
that was used as a threat right after my room was turned upside
down. The same phrase that Jordin whispered to me ten minutes
ago on the phone before asking me to help her. The nightmare is
coming. Then she and the mist vanished."

Derek stared at me for a very long time. He neither frowned
nor smiled, though he did run his fingers through his hair at
one point. But he never took his eyes off of me, as if waiting for
me to crack and reveal that it was all a joke.

"Why didn't you tell me?" he repeated, and I could barely
hear his voice.

"You wouldn't have believed me," I said again. "You still don't,
do you?"

He frowned. "I don't know you to be a liar. If you say you
experienced something, I have no reason to presume you didn't.
We just have different frames of reference for what an experience like the one you described really is. If you say it happened, I
believe you. But that doesn't mean what you saw is really what
you think it was."

I tried to swallow his words. "So ... you believe I saw her, you
just don't believe it was really her?"

He hesitated. "I don't know. I don't believe in ghosts, so if
it really was her you saw, there has to be another explanation.
But at least now I know why you're so obsessed with helping
me find her. And don't misinterpret that as ingratitude. You're
doing a lot more than helping-you seem to be the epicenter of
all the action."

I couldn't argue with that. Though I had no idea why everything was happening to me.

"Aren't you ever going to ask me why I don't believe in ghosts?"
asked Derek, leaning back in his seat.

"No," I replied. There was no need.

"It's more than just my religious beliefs," he barreled on,
ignoring my response. "It's illogical. There are so many things
about haunting reports that make no sense. The clothes thing
or why ghosts are always stuck in one place and not able to move
on?"