“Yup.”
She nodded. “Okay. Be careful.” She turned her gaze in my direction. “Call me if you’re not going to be home by ten, or I’ll start to worry.”
I kissed her cheek. “It’s nothing big, I promise.”
She looked around. “Where’s your sister?”
“With a friend.” I did not want to get Nan’s hopes up about that relationship.
“Hmm.” She shook her head. “It seems so strange for her not to be with you. But I suppose you’re getting older. It makes sense that she’d want a life of her own—no pun intended.”
It did make sense. Perfect sense, but I didn’t like it. Noah was using her; I knew it even without having talked to Emily. I’d known it from the night she met him, and not because he was a ghost, but because every instinct I had screamed that he wasn’t to be trusted. I’d tried to like him, I really had. There’d even been a few moments when I thought I’d been wrong and that he really was a good guy. Not anymore.
Kevin pulled into the drive a little while later, and I dashed out to meet him with my “ghost-fightin’” backpack slung over my shoulder.
“Hey,” I said as I climbed in.
“You’re sure this guy is bad news?”
I buckled my seat belt as he backed out onto the street. “He’s got one of my ancestors locked up, her sister in the void, and I’m told he wants to destroy me and Wren. Is that bad enough for you?”
His mouth tightened. “Yeah.”
He drove quickly but not recklessly. The gates to the graveyard were closed, but no one ever locked them. I had to jump out and open them so he could drive through. Then I closed the gate, so no one passing by would be curious, and jumped back into the car.
Of course we weren’t the only car there. It didn’t matter what day of the week it was; you were going to find people making out at the cemetery. I never got the appeal, and it seemed a little disrespectful to me. Normally ghosts avoided cemeteries, and they were considered “neutral” ground, but that wouldn’t stop some pervy dead guy from peeking in your windows as you and your partner fogged them up.
Kevin parked the car and we got out. I slung my bag over my shoulder and followed after him down the gravel path. We had to walk by Wren’s grave, and I blew it a kiss as we passed.
A few moments later we came up on a large stone crypt. The name McCrae was embossed into the heavy iron door. Kevin took a key from his coat and slipped it into the lock. The door creaked open.
He’d brought a flashlight, which produced just enough light to make the crypt super creepy. I followed him inside. There were probably thirty graves in here that contained actual bodies, and another dozen that were mere urns upon a shelf.
The beam of Kevin’s flashlight moved across the rows of dead McCraes.
“There!” I pointed at one on the far wall. “That’s him.”
Kevin shoved the flashlight under his arm and helped me pull off the front plate. Inside was an old, dusty coffin that we grabbed by the rails and slowly pulled from the cabinet. We didn’t take it out all the way, but just enough to open the top portion of the lid.
Kevin pried open the casket as I got out my salt, lighter fluid and matches. I was really going to do this.
Forgive me, Wren.
“Um, Lark?”
“What?” I glanced up at him as I organized my supplies.
He pointed at the coffin. “Look.”
Bracing myself for the sight of Noah’s dried-up corpse, I moved closer and peered inside.
“Are you freaking serious?” I cried.
The coffin was empty.
LARK
“I don’t believe it.”
Kevin stood beside me, both of us staring into the empty casket. Well, it wasn’t entirely empty—there were some scraps of fabric, dust and some other stuff I didn’t care to try to identify.
But the majority of Noah’s remains were gone. I could burn what was in front of me, but it wouldn’t be enough to get rid of him.
“Now what do I do?” I demanded of the corpse-leavings. I wouldn’t have to deal with Wren discovering I’d torched her boyfriend, which was good, but the realization that Noah had prepared for this weighed heavy on my shoulders. My sister was falling for a douche-bag ghost who knew I wanted to kill him. And who now had just sent me a big “F-You.”
“How could this happen?” Kevin asked, his voice hoarse. “You have to have a key to get in here. Only my father and my uncle have a key.”
“Someone could have picked the lock,” I offered. I didn’t know why I made the suggestion until I saw the look on his face. He looked panicked.
“Kevin,” I began cautiously. “Why do you look like you’re going to puke?”
He turned his head to meet my gaze. He was so freaking pale that his eyes were unnaturally bright against the white of his skin. “I’ve been losing time lately.”