Deception So Dark Read online

  “Maybe they’re still there,” I said. “Jillian’s always liked the warmer states. At the very least we can pick up their trail.” I raced to the guest room to finish packing my getaway bag. When I returned a minute later—I had eight years of fast-packing experience—Tristan was still at his computer. “Tristan, come on. We have to go.”

  He turned to me, his face no longer bright with pride, but grim and gray.

  The hope that had blossomed in my chest withered. “What happened?”

  “Watch.” He rewound the video a minute back.

  The view on the screen changed to the waiting area. Jillian and Logan huddled on two of the seats. Jillian was shivering, and crying again. Logan had one arm around the back of her seat. His other clutched the duffle bag of money on his lap.

  My siblings talked to each other, heads close, without moving from their seats. I could see their lips moving, but their image was so small and grainy that I couldn’t figure out what they were saying.

  Occasionally they’d peer around the lobby, but stayed seated as if they were too scared to move. At one point Logan gazed directly at the security camera. He seemed to be looking right at me. I watched as his eyes widened, going from fear to outright terror.

  He flew from his seat, pulling Jillian up too, and pointing at the camera. They flung their getaway bags over their shoulders, grabbed the duffle bag of money and dashed away.

  The following images, spliced together by Craig, showed my siblings fleeing from the Amtrak lobby, back through the concourse and through the crowd in the Great Hall, then out of Union Station.

  They were gone. Again.

  “I wonder what spooked them?” Tristan murmured.

  “Our parents taught us to avoid places with security cameras,” I said. “They told us Dennis Connelly had the resources to track us that way.”

  Our parents had been correct.

  “They probably didn’t go to Louisiana,” I added. “Not after they realized they were caught on camera buying tickets for New Orleans.”

  Tristan pulled me into his lap. “I’ll ask Craig to check the Greyhound computers next.”

  “If there’s security cameras, they wouldn’t go to the bus station either,” I said, my muscles heavy with disappointment. “They must have gotten a car and driven out of the city.”

  “This was just the first try, Tessa,” he said, wrapping his arms around me. “I have lots of ideas. And there’s still a chance they’ll go to Nebraska to find Jillian’s boyfriend.”

  I sat frozen, unable to take my gaze from the computer screen.

  “Tessa.” Tristan caressed my cheek. “Clockwise. Did you hear me?”

  “Play the video again,” I said. “From the beginning. I want to see them again.”

  He dragged the cursor back to the beginning of the video, and played it again.

  And again.

  And again.

  Dinner that night was an extra-large half-pepperoni-half-veggie, delivered from Argento’s Pizzeria. Tristan and I set the table. It was one of the first times in my life I’d ever done it. When I was living with my real family, my mother would simply float the plates and utensils over and have them set themselves. The beverage would take itself out of the fridge and pour itself into our glasses.

  I missed that. I missed things flying around by themselves. Here at the Connelly’s, everything just stayed wherever we put it.

  Their yellow kitchen was clean but cluttered, like the rest of the house. Report cards, flyers for community events, holiday and birthday cards were stuck to the fridge with magnets. There was not a single cooking gadget in sight. They kept a stack of delivery and carryout menus on the counter, and the fridge and pantry were crammed with leftovers and snacks. A wooden plaque hanging on the wall declared, Please excuse the noise and mess, we are busy making happy memories.

  My mother would have been appalled at the clutter and the prepackaged food. I was too, but I kind of liked that plaque. Objects didn’t fly around by themselves here, but the Connelly family was just as chaotic as mine had been, only in a different way. Happier. No undercurrent of fear and despair and hopelessness.

  I picked the green peppers off my veggie pizza. “Any word about Jillian and Logan?” I asked Dennis.

  “If there was, Kellan would have called, honey.” He looked at Tristan and me over his glasses. “You two are still looking for them on your own, aren’t you?”

  “Yes.” I told him the truth. I hated lying, and besides, it was useless to lie to a telepath.

  Tristan chuckled and finished his pizza slice in one huge bite.

  “I figured you would,” Dennis said with a sigh. “Just be careful, and don’t interfere with Kellan’s search.”

  “Or your studies,” Deirdre added. “School starts tomorrow for both of you.”

  I couldn’t believe the Connellys were making us go to school when my brother and sister were missing. But like my own parents, Dennis and Deirdre wanted me to live as normal a life as possible. And Tristan had already postponed college for a semester in order to investigate my family’s case. I couldn’t ask him to make any more sacrifices for me.

  After dinner, Dennis and Deirdre went to the family room to watch TV, while I found a broom and dustpan in the closet and swept the floor.

  Tristan took the broom from my hand and led me to the living room. “Tessa, before you start school, there are a few things you should know.”

  Before he could tell me, though, his eyes grew wide and guilt crossed his face, seconds before the doorbell rang. “Too late,” he muttered.

  “Who’s here?” I asked.

  Ember, her purple hair sporting new blue streaks, dashed through the living room carrying a pink electric guitar. “My band’s coming over,” she said. “We have an extra practice tonight. We need to write an original song for Battle of the Bands.”

  That’s right; Ember was in a band. Lyre. One of my very first visions, just a couple days ago, was of Ember playing that electric guitar. Maybe Logan, after we found him, could join her band. Even if they didn’t need a sax player, Logan could learn to play any instrument with a wave of his hand, courtesy of his hypercognition.

  Ember answered the door, revealing a petite girl in a heavy winter coat and a black knit beret, her black hair tumbling from under it. I’d seen that girl in a vision this morning. She was the girl who was crying in the guest room. Melanie Brunswick.

  Tessa, I wasn’t expecting her to come tonight, Tristan flashed to me. As she entered the house, he stood and tucked in his shirt. “Hey, Mel.”

  “Hi,” she said. Timid, sweet. Hesitant. Just an inch or two taller than me, she kept her eyes on her Doc Martens as she took off her coat. “I, um, just came over for band practice.”

  “You doing okay?” he asked.

  She gave a little shrug. “Yeah.”

  “Do you need anything? Your car’s working now? I texted Nathan a few weeks ago and asked him to fix it.”

  “He did. Thanks.”

  Chewing her lip, Ember surveyed the three of us. “Come on, Melanie. Let’s go to the basement.”

  As if it were painful to do so, Melanie dragged her gaze to me, her violet eyes wide and wounded. “You’re Tessa?”

  I’d been using my real name for three weeks now, but it still felt dangerous to hear it cross other people’s lips. “Yeah. Hi.”

  “I thought you’d be…different. Taller, maybe.”

  “Oh! Hey!” Ember clapped her hands. “Tessa, Melanie’s a seeker. Maybe she can help find your brother and sister.”

  Tristan pushed his hands into his pockets. “I already thought of that,” he mumbled. “But Melanie finds lost things, not lost people.”

  “I heard that your brother and sister are missing,” Melanie said. “I’m so sorry.”

  Shocked at how much it hurt to hear those words said aloud—your brother and sister are missing—by someone I didn’t even know, I nodded and took Tristan’s arm. At that, a vision blasted into my mind
, one that explained all the awkwardness in a single moment.

  Or rather, in a single kiss.

  Tristan kissing Melanie. Right here, in this room. Bending down and kissing her, putting his lips on hers. Melanie kissing him back.

  I pulled my hand from Tristan’s arm like it burned. She’s your girlfriend?

  That’s one of the things I was about to tell you. She was my girlfriend. Now you are.

  Of course Tristan had a girlfriend before me. He was kind, and respectful, and supportive, and dependable. He had strong shoulders and deep blue eyes and sandy brown hair that turned gold in the sun. Tristan probably had dozens of girlfriends before I came along.

  Melanie said, “I wish I could help find your brother and sister, but all I can do is find things like lost jewelry or keys. My uncle’s in charge of their case. He’ll find them.”

  Tristan stiffened, and I blinked. “Your uncle is John Kellan?”

  She nodded. “Uncle Johnny.”

  Did she know that Uncle Johnny had kidnapped me? That he had punched me in the face? Did she know that he held a gun to my head and made me witness my parents being shot? That he held a personal vendetta against my family because my parents had murdered his brother-in-law?

  While I was in the Underground, a vengeful Kellan told me that his sister was struggling to raise her daughter all alone. Melanie must be that daughter.

  Which meant…

  Oh no. Oh God, no. Horror crept up my throat on tentacles, and I stared at Tristan. My parents killed Melanie’s father?

  Grimly, he confirmed it with a nod. That’s another thing I was going to tell you.

  That’s why her last name was familiar. Timothy Brunswick was one of the recruiting agents who’d come to my house in Virginia eight years ago. His name was printed under his photograph in the evidence binder, along with all the other victims. His eyes appeared in the fog while I was passed out at Union Station, and in my nightmare last night, hurt and glowering and dark and accusatory.

  The fog whooshed in and I stumbled into an armchair, heart beating double-time, pumping blood, my parents’ killer blood, through my veins. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

  Tristan shouted for me to breathe. I pushed the fog away, but kept it close. “I’m so sorry,” I said again. I would never stop saying it. I should never stop saying it.

  The doorbell rang again, and more of Ember’s bandmates piled into the house. Ember pulled Melanie, her face deathly white, into the basement after them.

  “Does she know?” I asked Tristan, my voice trembling. “Does she know it was my parents who…”

  Tristan kicked at the coffee table. “Kellan told her.”

  Another vision of Tristan kissing Melanie started to form, so I pushed myself up from the chair and stumbled into the kitchen. Melanie Brunswick. Tristan’s ex. Beautiful: much prettier than me. Kind and sympathetic: she wished that she could help find my siblings. And forgiving: she wished she could help, even though she knew my parents had murdered her father.

  “How long were you with her?” I asked Tristan, who had followed me into the kitchen.

  …A long time, he admitted silently.

  How long?

  “We were kids at first,” he said. “She’s a couple years younger than me. Your age. After our fathers were attacked…” He sighed. “My dad survived and hers didn’t. She was so sad. I kind of… I don’t know. She needed me, so I took care of her. As friends.”

  “Then as you got older,” I finished for him, “it turned into more than friends.”

  “Yeah.”

  “So you’ve basically been with her since you were ten. Eight years.”

  He took my hand. “Tessa, there’s something else—”

  I shook my head. No more confessions. Not yet. I slid my hands into the sleeves of the red hoodie I’d borrowed from him. “Did Melanie ever wear this hoodie?”

  He chuckled. “No.”

  Can you do this with her? I asked. Talk to her like this?

  No. He took my left hand from my sleeve and wiggled the thin band of pearls around my fourth finger. “I never gave her a promise ring, and I never had warning premonitions about her, either.”

  What I really wanted to know, I couldn’t find the strength to say out loud. Were you in love with her?

  “I thought it was love. But now I know what love really is.” He nuzzled my neck with his lips. It’s us. You and me. “She knew it was happening before I did. She said she could hear it in my voice when I called her from Twelve Lakes. I felt awful about it. I didn’t want to hurt her. But it would’ve hurt her more if we stayed together when I was in love with someone else. So we broke up. I love you, Tessa. Only you. Always you.”

  I let Tristan kiss me. I believed him. He loved me. I could feel his love for me in every touch. See it in every glance. Hear it in every word.

  I slid my arms around his neck and pressed close against him. So bold and strong, so daring and caring and brave. A true hero. He rescued me. Melanie had needed him, so he’d taken care of her. He rescued her, too.

  He rescued Melanie, and then he fell in love with her.

  Then he rescued me. Now he loved me.

  On the counter, its handle half covered by a magazine, a steak knife glittered and glimmered, sparkled and glowed.

  Was Tristan in love with me only because he rescued me?

  I tried to extinguish the thought with fog, but it kept reigniting.

  I had the nightmare again last night. With another victim added to the mix.

  The silver knife had glittered and glimmered, sparkled and glowed, as usual. But Melanie Brunswick’s father had been killed by that knife, and last night she joined him in the group of my parents’ victims. Her wide, wounded violet eyes blended with the others to become a single pair of vast, vengeful, venomous eyes, dark as a starless night and black as a cavern of coal. Demanding revenge. Demanding blood.

  Tristan had stumbled in to the guest room to wake me, but now, hours later, the Nightmare Eyes still lingered, glowering at me from above.

  I tried to shake them off. Today was my first day at Lilybrook High, and Tristan’s first day at Heron University. Jillian and Logan still hadn’t shown up at her boyfriend’s house in Nebraska, and until we had a new lead, there was nothing we could do but go to school anyway. Besides, Tristan’s career aspirations were to be an investigator at the APR, and then executive director, like his dad. He needed a college degree for that.

  Car keys in hand, backpack slung over one shoulder, Tristan lingered in my doorway as I made my bed. “My buddy Nathan texted this morning,” he said. “He’s going to look out for you. He’s a senior, so you probably won’t have any classes with him, but he’ll try to find you in the hallways between classes. Look for him. Tall guy. Dreadlocks. He’s really excited to meet you. Remember that, okay?”

  “Okay. Thanks.” I was excited to meet Tristan’s best friend, too.

  “You sure you can keep the fog balanced?” he asked. “Lilybrook High is a small school, but it’s almost a hundred years old. Lots of history. Which means lots of visions.”

  “I’ll be fine. Please don’t worry about me,” I said, knowing he would anyway.

  “You have your phone?”

  “Yep. Fully charged.” White, sleek, and shiny, my new phone looked almost exactly like the one Tristan had given me in Twelve Lakes, the one that was now locked away in the APR’s evidence room. And this one didn’t have a secret tracking app installed.

  Deirdre rushed up behind him in a flowered robe and with her hair still wrapped in a towel. She ran a preschool at the APR for the little psionic kids who hadn’t learned to control their abilities in public yet, and she was running very late. “Tristan, you should’ve left already. I don’t want you speeding or getting in an accident.”

  “Mom, you know you don’t have to worry about that.” He tapped his temple. “Warning premonitions, remember? And I have plenty of time.”

  Heron University was a little les
s than an hour away. Tristan had originally planned to live in the dorms on campus, but now that I was here, he would drive back and forth each day. Thank goodness. I did not want to live here without him. When I agreed to live at the Connellys’ house, it was to be with Tristan, not his parents. Dennis and Deirdre were kind and generous—much too kind and generous to a girl whose parents had tried to kill both Dennis and Tristan—but they were still relative strangers.

  Deirdre turned to me. “Give me fifteen minutes, Tessa. I’ll drive you to school.”

  “But you’re running late,” I said. “Ember told me that she walks. I’ll go with her.”

  Her hands flittered to her throat. “Are—are you sure?”

  “Yes.” She looked hurt, so to soften the blow, I added, “You bought me a whole bunch of school supplies and a brand new book bag. Everything I need. I’m all set. Thank you, Deirdre.”

  Brows knit, she nodded, then whisked back to her bedroom.

  “I know she’s trying too hard,” Tristan said, “but she wants you to feel welcome here.”

  “I do,” I said. But the Nightmare Eyes glowered down on me, reminding me that one day, Deirdre was going to wake up to the fact that my parents had tried to kill her husband and her son. And then she would regret taking me into her home and her heart.

  ❀

  Lips still tingling from Tristan’s record-setting goodbye kiss, and stomach filled with orange juice and a slightly burned strawberry Pop-Tart prepared by Deirdre, I set off with Ember for Lilybrook High. I wore my new white coat and new mittens, a new pair of jeans, a new pair of sneakers, and Tristan’s old tennis hoodie. Tucked at the bottom of my new book bag were Jillian’s ballet shoe, protected in a baggie, and Logan’s sheet music, folded carefully in an envelope. I couldn’t seem to leave them behind.

  Ember had gathered her purple-and-blue hair in a spiky ponytail high on her head and wore a raspberry-colored down jacket. This was the first time we’d been alone since our exchange in the bathroom the other day, and neither of us knew what to say. Piles of snow and massive, bare trees lined the streets as we walked the half-mile route to the high school. The Nightmare Eyes followed, tethered to me like a shadow. I looked behind me, certain I would see them hovering in the sky like a gray cloud.