The Ghost Files

Chapter Twenty One

"Bloody face in the mirror? Remember him?"

He nods. "Yeah?"

"He was in foster care."

"How do you know that?"

"I recognized his name," I tell him. "There was a boy who taught me how to protect myself and he told me that Eric Cameron had taught him to take care of himself. Dude was in the system."

"You can't be sure it's the same person," Dan argues, already going through a whole list of possibilities in his head.

"Even you have to admit it's a pretty big coincidence." I take another sip of my tea. It is doing a fabulous job of soothing my throat. I'm not usually a tea drinker, but I've never tried it with honey either.

"It's an angle we can look at," he says at last. "I checked out that list of neighbors you gave me too. Everyone on your street is your average middle class family-types, well most are borderline poor, but you get my point."

Well, there went that angle.

"So I did an expanded search," he continues. "There are eleven sex offenders within ten miles of your house, two just a couple blocks over from you."

"Really?" Now that is just creepy.

"Yeah," he nods. "I am checking into it. I'll find out where they work tomorrow and before you ask, I just got this information today."

"Did you check out the Olsons?" I hate to think they had anything to do with it, though. Mrs. O is probably the best foster mother I've ever had.

"I did. Clean as a whistle except for a couple traffic tickets over the years." He frowns. "They are the most likely candidates, but there's no evidence to suggest they are anything but what they appear to be. Decent folks trying to help people."

"We have to figure this out, Dan. Mary didn't look good the last time I saw her. I don't think she has much time left."

"Have you seen her since the other night?" he asks hesitantly. I can see how hard it is for him to even ask that question, but he did. Brownie points to Officer Dan.

"No," I tell him. "I don't know how much longer she can last. If she's even still alive. I see dead people, not ones that are still breathing, but I don't know, she didn't feel dead to me."

"I'm doing the best I can, Mattie."

"I know."

And I did know. Whether he bought the whole ghost business or not, he's put a lot of time and effort into everything I gave him. He'd found names for the drawings of the dead kids, found out information about them, mapped out where they were taken, and above all else, he treated this like it was real, like they were important and they had been killed in the way I'd described. He's a good guy and I need to remember that instead of getting all hurt and huffy over him not believing I can see ghosts.

It just feels like we aren't getting anywhere and that frustrates me. I'm the kind of person who goes out and gets things done, but instead I'm trusting Dan to use his connections to find out stuff it'd take me a long time or possibly never to find. It's funny really. Me, trusting a cop.

"I promise you, Squirt, we will figure this out."

"I can't believe I trust you," I growl at him. It rankles that I trust him and he doesn't trust me back. If he did, he'd believe I could see ghosts, no questions asked.

"You sound furious that you do," he laughs.

"I am," I tell him in all seriousness. "I've never, ever trusted anyone since my mom, not even Nancy, not really. I'm mad because I trust you and you don't trust me. Do you know how hard it is for me to trust a cop?"

"I trust you, Squirt."

I laugh bitterly. "No, Dan, you don't. If you trusted me, you'd believe me no matter how insane it sounds and you don't."

He stares at me, his warm brown eyes all full of gooey liquid gold. I hate it when he uses that look on me. It makes me want to tell him things I normally wouldn't. I have to keep a lid on my runaway lips from now on. I need to distance myself from Officer Dan.

"Mattie, it's not that I don't want to believe you, it's just hard to believe that ghosts are real."

"And that is the crux of the whole thing, isn't it? No one wants to believe ghosts exist because then they'd have to re-examine everything they believed to be true."

We both turn to see Dr. Olivet standing a few feet from us. Neither of us saw him come in or even walk to our table. I'm not one to let people sneak up on me. Maybe I need to just leave this freaking town altogether, get away from Dan, Meg, Jake, Mason, Mrs. O. The whole lot of them. They're getting way too close.

"Ready to talk about ghosts, Mattie?" Dr. Olivet asks, distracting me from my internal tirade.

I smile at him. I'm more than ready to talk about ghosts. The faster I can learn to protect myself from them, the faster I can get out of this place and get my life back.