The Gathering Dark (2 page)

“Your check for this week is in the office.” Mr. Seever cleared his throat. “It’ll be your last one.” He turned to Susan. “Don’t you have displays to dust?”

Susan started to say something, then snapped her mouth shut.

“I’ll call you later,” Keira said to Susan, who scrambled back behind the perfume counter. When she looked back, Mr. Seever had already disappeared into the racks of belts and purses.

“Sorry, Keira,” Susan whispered.

Keira shrugged. “No, I’m sorry. You’re the one who’s stuck working for the asshole. And hey, there are other jobs, right?” She forced herself to smile. “In the meantime, I’ll have more time to practice. That’s always a good thing.”

Susan gave her a knowing look. As in—she knew how badly Keira needed the money.

Keira’s hands trembled as she waved good-bye and headed for the office. She pulled on her jacket and stuffed the check in her bag, with the twenty-three dollars in cash that represented her current life-savings.

With a last glance around the office, Keira headed for the parking lot, praying that her car would start.

Chapter Two

K
EIRA DROVE TOWARD HER
house, past the run-down strip malls and fast-food restaurants. She wanted to get back to her piano, but in the deepening gloom of the afternoon the lights of Take Note—the independent music store where she spent most of her money—glowed temptingly as she waited at the last stoplight on her drive.

It was like seeing a cup of hot chocolate on a snowy day. She couldn’t resist, especially not with her paycheck tucked into the front pocket of her book bag.

Thank God for my college fund,
she thought. Without the money her uncle Pike had left her when he died, she’d be worried
about paying for college and not thinking of buying new music.

Her car practically drove itself into the parking lot.

A fine mist sifted down from the sky as Keira hurried into the store. The droplets tangled in her eyelashes, giving the dusty store a diamond shimmer as she blinked the moisture away.

The musty warmth of the store pulled her in, as familiar as an old friend. The cash register sat untended, and the sound of boxes being shuffled around drifted from the store’s tiny back room.

Keira strode over to the bins of sheet music and began to flip through the scores. She wanted something that would suit her uneasy mood. She flicked past one book after another, but all the music she found was either too easy or she already owned it. Finally, she found a Beethoven piano sonata that she’d never played, “The Tempest.” Scanning the music, she could tell that it would be emotional and intense—and also hard as hell.

Which will totally take my mind off this screwed-up afternoon. Perfect.

Besides, she wasn’t really happy with the Brahms piece she’d been working on for her Juilliard audition, and a Beethoven sonata would fulfill the same requirement. She set the music off to one side, reaching for the reject pile of scores she’d left on the edge of the bin.

“Are you looking for something special?” The rich baritone voice made her jump, and she whirled around, knocking the stack of music to the floor. With a shushing sound, it fanned into a hopeless mess. She only had a moment to register the
long, lanky body and shock of dark hair before a streak of embarrassment burned through her.

Keira bent to grab the music. The guy at her side reached for the scores at the same time and their heads cracked together, Keira’s red hair tangling momentarily in his crow-black corkscrew curls.

“Ow!” She backed away as he straightened, rubbing his forehead, his eyes squeezed shut.

“Sorry,” he apologized. “I guess that’s what happens when I try to be polite.” He had an accent that Keira couldn’t quite place. One of those English-Australian-South African accents that guaranteed a wrong guess.

With a final wince, he let go of his head and looked at her. His iron-colored eyes widened. “Oh. Hi.”

All of Keira’s carefully hardened edges began to melt. Thick lashes fringed his eyes, and the cleft in his chin drew her attention straight to his full lips. He was gorgeous. And she was staring. It was like he’d sucked all the light out of the store and the only thing she could still see was him.

“Hi. I was just . . . ” The words faltered in her mouth.

He quirked an eyebrow at her, and Keira felt herself flush. Her coat was suddenly too warm, her leggings suddenly too revealing. “I was just browsing. But thanks.” She turned to stack the music back in the bin.

“Here.” He reached out. “I’ll do that. I might as well earn my money for once, right?”

Keira’s lips parted, surprised. “Wait—you
work
here?”

“Just started.” His smile was like a bolt of lightning—sudden and glowing. “I’m Walker, by the way. It doesn’t seem fair for me to give you a concussion without at least introducing myself.” He paused, his gaze flicking up to the ceiling. “There are lots of good ways I can think of to meet a beautiful girl, but knocking her nearly unconscious is not on the list.” He brought his gaze back down to Keira. His eyes were mesmerizing—like watching the gray sheets of rain working their way in from the Atlantic.

God, he was cute.

Guys are nothing but a distraction,
she reminded herself sternly.
There will be hot guys at Juilliard who love music.

“Um, this would be the part where you tell me your name,” he prompted, giving Keira an amused grin.

“I’m Keira,” she said, turning back to the music in her hands. No amount of cute was worth blowing her chances at a scholarship and getting stuck in Sherwin forever. “You don’t go to Lawrence High,” she said. “And you sound like you’re from away.”

“Nope, not a native Mainer,” he agreed. She waited for him to say where he’d come from, exactly, but he didn’t elaborate. “I got my GED last fall,” he offered. “I’m—I wasn’t really cut out for school.”

Keira thought of her unfinished history project, all the classes she’d spent tapping her fingers against the edge of her desk, practicing on an invisible piano instead of taking notes.
Her own grades hovered barely above the cutoff for the good conservatory college programs. “I’m not exactly going out for the Academic Decathlon,” she admitted.

Working carefully, Walker piled the scores back into the bins. He handled them like they were some sort of rare, valuable books, and Keira’s opinion of him rose a few inches. He glanced around and reached for the Beethoven sonata. Keira’s hand shot out, her fingers curling protectively around the spine. “That one’s mine.”

Walker started to pull his hand away, then hesitated. He gave her an appraising look.

“Can I see?” he asked. The curiosity that flared on his face warmed her. No one ever cared about what she played—well, that, or they
only
cared about what she played. If she showed Walker her music, it would tell him something about her, and from the look on his face, he knew it would too. She was surprised to realize that part of her wanted to show him what she’d picked. Still, it felt private. Letting him see the music—it was like letting him read her diary.

Not that she kept one.

But still.

Holding on to her thin veneer of aloof-and-sarcastic, she shrugged. “I guess—I mean, it’s not like it belongs to me. Yet.”

He reached again for the score. His hands were broad and sure, with battered leather cuffs circling his wrists. A black mark snaked from underneath one of them like a whip of licorice.

Intrigued, she wondered what the rest of his tattoo looked
like. As she stared, the edges of the mark went blurry, fading from sight. Just before it disappeared, it gave a last twitch, like the flick of a serpentine tongue. Then there was nothing left but smooth olive skin. No mark. Not even a shadow.

I—did I really
imagine
that?

Keira stared at his arm. Walker cleared his throat, jolting her out of her confusion.

“Everything okay?” There was a thread of suspicion in his voice—like he wasn’t sure she was totally with it. Like maybe the piano she played was in a padded room in a locked ward somewhere.

“F-fine,” she stammered. She hated being rattled and it had been a bone-shaking afternoon. “I was—I like your wrist cuffs.”

Something dark and hot shone in his eyes. It made her
want
, and she immediately regretted the compliment.

“Thanks. Most people don’t even notice them.” He shook his head, flipping through the sonata. “This looks really hard.” His accent pulled and stretched the words like saltwater taffy.

Keira slid back into her familiar defensiveness. “I
like
hard pieces,” she said confidently. “They’re more interesting.”

Walker looked down at her. He was considerably taller than she was. “More interesting how?”

“It’s complicated.” She fiddled with a collection of Burt Bacharach songs, scraping absentmindedly at the price tag with her short fingernail. “It takes more to play them. More focus. More time. More talent. All of that goes into the music.
And when I hear those pieces, I hear all of that stuff too. It makes me want someone else to hear all of those things when I play.” She cleared her throat, shoving the book of pathetic ballads back into the correct spot.

“I know exactly what you mean,” Walker said quietly.

“You play?” she asked.

“No,” he said simply, his gaze skittering over her hair, her eyes, her fingers. “I can’t read music.” Something hard and magnetic crossed his face, sending her pulse scrambling. “I just understand.”

Keira searched his expression. “Really?”

“You’re not the only one who likes a challenge.” An I-dare-you-to-contradict-me smile spread across his face.

I am not going to flirt with him. I haven’t gone this long without a boyfriend just to blow it when I’m so close to getting out of here for good.
Juilliard slid through her mind—the pictures she’d seen online of the practice rooms looked like her own personal heaven. She wasn’t going to miss out on that for some guy she wouldn’t even remember in five years.

“Good to know.” Keira glanced at the price tag on the Beethoven score that was still in his hands. The music was nearly fifteen dollars—almost all the cash she had, and there wouldn’t be any more paychecks coming. The music sang to her, sweet and low. Begging her to give in.

She could scrape by. “How about you face the challenge of ringing this up for me?” She hadn’t meant to be quite so snarky,
but he didn’t seem to mind. In fact, Walker looked pleased.

“Sure.”

He strolled around the counter to the old-fashioned register. “Right. Um, it’s sixteen fifty-seven, including tax.” He slid the thin book into a brown paper bag and Keira dug her crumpled twenty out of her backpack.

“Thanks,” she said.

He handed her the bag and her change. “So, do you think you’ll see me again?” he said casually.

“Um, you mean, like in the store?” she drawled.

“That’s one possibility,” he said finally, like he’d thought the words would mean something different to her. He rested his arms on the counter between them.

The sight of his leather wrist cuffs reminded her of the inky tentacle she’d seen disappear from Walker’s arm. Maybe he’d been right to sound suspicious. Maybe she was losing it. “Yeah, well, I’m sure I’ll need more music sometime,” she said. “But thanks. It’s been . . . interesting.” More shaken and uncertain than she was after the incident with Jeremy and the cigarette, Keira headed for her car.

It doesn’t matter
what
he thinks,
she reminded herself.
He’s only a guy.
She was the one who’d made the no-dating rule, getting rid of all the distractions. She had to focus on what was really important—her piano. Which she was going home to play before the memory of Walker’s tempting smile really did make her lose her mind.

Chapter Three

W
HEN
K
EIRA GOT HOME
,
her house was empty and dark. The smell of chicken simmering in cream-of-mushroom soup drifted out of the Crock-Pot on the kitchen counter. A note was propped against it:

Have a late meeting. Please turn this down to warm when you get home. Help yourself whenever you’re hungry. Salad in the fridge.

Love,

Mom

Keira flipped the switch on the slow-cooker and tossed the note in the trash. Having dinner waiting wasn’t the same thing as having her parents home to eat with her. The answering
machine flashed at her. As her dad’s voice, tinny and distorted, slipped out of the speaker, she wished—again—that he would call her cell like a normal person. It was one of the few luxuries her parents paid for. It would be nice if they’d use it.

“Hey.” Her dad cleared his throat, sending a static-y burst through the kitchen. “Um, something came up and I’m going to be kind of late tonight. You two go ahead and eat without me.”

Keira hit the delete button with more force than was necessary. If her parents would admit they didn’t want to see each other, then they wouldn’t both avoid the house and at least one of them could be home once in a while. Both of them assuming the other would be around just left Keira alone.

Again.

She walked into the dark living room, where her piano crouched like a tiger in a too-small cage. The baby grand had been the other big gift from her uncle Pike. Pike hadn’t been her mom’s actual brother, but they’d been close enough that Keira still thought of him as part of the family.

Some of Keira’s earliest memories were of Pike. Like him pushing her on the swings at the playground. She could see the shoes on her feet. They were purple, with sparkles on the sides. Had he bought them for her? She couldn’t remember.

What she remembered was the
way
he’d pushed her. Pike was the only one she wanted to do it. Her father never came to the park, and her mother would only give her tentative nudges,
not even enough to make the chains creak in her hands.

But when Pike pushed her, she sailed so high that the rest of the world fell away, until all she could hear was Pike’s delighted laughter. Then her mother’s worrying voice would interrupt, begging them to be careful, and the swing would slow so abruptly that it brought her stomach crashing down with it.