Free Spooked by Tracy Sharp Page A

soothing me.
    “She’s all I have, Mick. If she’s gone, I have nobody.” My last word was choked off by another sob. Grief rocked through me and I couldn’t get enough air into me. I took a long, shuddering breath.
    “Hey,” he said. “Look at me.”
    I slid my hands down my face and looked at him through tear-blurred eyes.
    His hazel eyes gazed into mine. “You’ve got me.”
     
    ***
     
    Neither of us wanted to stay holed up in Mick’s house, nice as it was. We felt like sitting ducks. If anyone else was set on coming for me, they’d figure out where I was before long. Everyone in town knew by now that Mick and I were friends. We’d been seen around town together a lot. So we figured a moving target is harder to get.
    However, there was a greater risk of being seen by someone who wanted to get at me. Or something that wanted to get at me. Six of one, half a dozen of the other. The situation was just plain bad, any way you looked at it.
    My cell went off, the eighties slasher film music making the situation even more unnerving.
    Mick and I looked at each other. I looked at the caller ID number: Delia.
    “Not good,” I said, looking down at my phone.
    “Don’t answer it,” Mick said, glancing at me, and then back at the road.
    “She won’t know where I am. I just want to see what she says. If she sounds the same. Maybe…she’s back to normal.”
    He paused as the cell played its high pitched, eerie song.
    I pressed the green button. “Delia?”
    There was a pause. Nothing.
    “Delia?” I said again, hearing the panic rising in my voice.
    “Lorelei?” Delia’s voice came through. A little far away and faded, as if she were outside and her cell connection wasn’t good, but she sounded normal. She had to raise her voice.
    “Yes!” I almost cried with relief. “Delia, did you come to the house about an hour ago, looking for me?”
    “What? No. I’ve been at a vigil for Eliza and Kerry. Where are you? I thought you’d be here.”
    The vigil. I forgot. Someone had mentioned it to me but I couldn’t remember who it was. “Shoot. I forgot all about it. Is it still going on?”
    “Yes. It’s at the school, at the edge of the woods. We’re holding a prayer service. Are you coming? I was getting worried about you.”
    I didn’t tell her that Mick and I saw her drive up in her car.
    “Do you have your car, Delia?” I asked her, my nerves jumping.
    “No. It was stolen. Can you believe it? Of all things. Some people are just plain evil. Taking advantage of such a horrible situation to steal a car!”
    I let out a long breath. “Okay, we’ll be there in a few minutes.”
    “Okay. Oh, Sheriff Will is just walking up. I think he has news about my car. I’ll talk to you when you get here.”
    “Okay Delia.” I ended the call. “That was strange.”
    “What?” Mick asked me.
    “Delia said that she never went to the house looking for me. She said that her car was stolen.”
    “What?” His brows furrowed. “You’re kidding.”
    “You have to admit, that was not Delia.”
    “Then who the hell was it?” he said.

 
     
    Chapter Nine
     
     
    As we drove into the parking lot of the school, I was amazed at the crowd. I could hear low singing, and there was a steady stream of people dropping flowers in front of blown-up school photographs of Eliza and Kerry.
    A chill ran down my spine, as for a moment, I imagined my picture there, too.
    I didn’t know who was next on the abductor’s list, but as we walked solemnly to the vigil, my gaze hesitated as it passed over each young girl that went to the school.
    Any one of us could be next. Eliza and Kerry were as different from each other as different could be. There didn’t seem to be any pattern except that they both were about the same age.
    An enormous plastic bowl was filled with carnations of all colors. The carnations came from both the flower shops in our town. The owners and workers of both shops were there, refilling the bowl with