Free Elly's Ghost by John R. Kess Page B

talk about it, but when I pressed the issue, he blew up.
    “It was awful.
He just kept shouting louder and louder, until the whole room was staring at
us. He’s an auto mechanic, and sometimes his customers ask him about me. He
said his friends want him to pay for everything and that he’s even considered
changing his last name. He brought up the fact that every one of his friends
and coworkers had seen the pictures of me on the Internet, the ones I told you
about. He told me I ruined his life.” Elly tossed the twig to her right.
    Jay put his hand
on Elly’s shoulder. “Your brother sounds like someone who is very prideful, and
he’s going to have to grow up and accept you for who you are.”
    Elly covered her
eyes. In the past few years everything had moved so fast. She thought of her
brother’s anger, her pills, the deterioration of her voice, how stressed out
Laura was making everyone, and the men who’d just tried to kidnap her. Ever
since her career as a singer had taken off, Elly had wondered many times: Who
am I? The empty feeling had grown, and now she was forced to admit she
didn’t know anymore. And now Kevin was dead, and she partially blamed herself
for it. It was like she was in a huge endless forest without a guide.
    “Hey, look at
me,” he said.
    Elly’s eyes met
his, and she realized she was in a huge endless forest, except she had a
guide.
    “Sometimes,” Jay
said, “people don’t realize what they have until it’s taken away.”
     
    * * *
     
     
    One of Dexter
Quast’s men raised his arm as he knelt in the clearing by the stream. The men
had been following what footprints they could find, at Michael Belgrade’s
orders, and this seemed like a logical spot for the girl and her companion to
have spent the night. One of them had found half of a peanut. And a nearby
patch of grass seemed matted down compared to the grass around it.
    Dexter pulled out
his radio. “This is posse one. Come in, base.”
    After a moment,
he repeated himself.
    “This is base.”
    “We have the
location of stop number two.” Dexter read the coordinates.
    “Excellent. Keep
moving. This is base out.”
    “Roger that.
Posse one out.”
    Dexter put the
radio away.
    “If this is
where they were this morning,” one of the other men said, as he checked his
watch, “and say they left at sunrise, we’re about three hours behind.”
    Dexter nodded. “Let’s
move out.”
     
    * * *
     
     
    The morning dew
on the tall grasses had soaked Elly’s jeans all the way up to her thighs. Jay
heard her shoes squish like wet sponges with every step.
    “You okay?” he
asked her.
    “Yeah. I hate having
wet shoes,” Elly said.
    Jay’s hiking
boots did their job and kept his feet dry. Elly’s short-sleeve shirt had once
been white, but now it was gray and showed how much she was sweating. By midday
it was hot, the dew was gone, and Elly’s pants dried out quickly.
    Elly slipped on
a wet rock and grabbed a pine branch to try to catch herself. Her knee landed
on a rock. “Ow!”
    “Are you all
right?” Jay asked.
    “I’m fine.” Elly
picked the pine needles out of her hand. “Can we take a break? My feet are
killing me.” She swatted at several insects buzzing around her.
    “All right, but
it has to be short.” Jay set his backpack down, and they both drank some water.
    Jay noticed Elly
had gotten somewhat skilled at working around her handcuffs to open her bottle
of pills. Jay had re-taped her wrists before they broke camp and noticed they
were slightly bruised.
    Jay watched Elly
down two pills, and then he bent down, pretending to tie his boot as he scooped
a small rock into his hand. “So, what are the pills for?”
    “They’re for my
headaches.”
    “I didn’t know
you needed a prescription for headache medicine.”
    “Mine are really
bad sometimes.”
    “May I see
them?” Jay held out his empty hand. He noted her reluctance to give them to
him. “I don’t want any. I just want to see