Beyond the Divide (Fractured Legacy Book 2) Page 7

  “I call that the ‘douchery pick-up tactic.’ Not interested.” She picked up the pace, absorbing the sound of a fast-paced Disturbed song as she sped through the motions.

  The man stopped and leaned over the side of his machine.

  Oh, fuckery. She glared back.

  “I was kidding,” he said.

  Kaylyn shook her head, she didn’t really care one way or another, she wished he’d shut up and leave her to her workout. Hell, he could have stayed quiet in the first place and she might even have enjoyed the sight of him working out. Another toned and sexy body ruined by small talk.

  Sliding into her zone, she enjoyed ten minutes of peace as she powered through the motions, the strange cold feeling she’d experienced earlier nearly forgotten, and her body falling into a fluid rhythm that channeled her stress and set her brain free. That is until she looked down to see Chad sitting on a thigh press and staring up right to where she sat. She ripped her gaze away from him and toward the man next to her.

  “No strings attached?” she said.

  His motions slowed as he turned to look at her—his face twisted into a questioning expression until he too glanced down to see Chad. “What do you have in mind?” he asked. He still looked skeptical, as if he didn’t expect to like whatever she was about to suggest.

  “No clue,” she grumbled, “but if he’s going to be staring up here....” She sighed. Don’t do it. She’d played that game with Chad before, and it never ended well.

  “I have a feeling I landed myself in the middle of drama by coming up here.”

  “Old drama.” Kaylyn’s phone buzzed in the cradle of the machine before she could say anything else. Leon’s name flashed on the screen and she took a breath of relief. “Saved by work.”

  The man nodded in her direction, then went back to exercising—probably, she hoped, never to think of her again.

  Kaylyn wiped down the machine as she pressed the answer key. “Hey, temporary boss. I thought we were off limits—”

  “Meet me at the farmhouse,” Leon said. “You and Cole both.” His voice was clipped and his tone dry. Even though his tone didn’t seem alarming, it set Kaylyn’s brain spinning into overdrive.

  “I’m with Cole, we’ll be there shortly.” Looking down to disconnect her phone, Kaylyn wasn’t watching where she was going and somehow ended up inches away from the chest of the very man she was trying to avoid.

  With a groan, she tried to sidestep him, but he moved to stay in her way.

  “I got called into work.” She slid her phone into her pocket and attempted another side step. “Move.”

  Instead, he grabbed her shoulders. “Having a nice conversation up here? Or enjoying the view?”

  Her gut rolled, and her hands tightened at her sides. “We were friends once, Chad. Once a long time ago, and maybe then you might have had some sway in who I talked to or what I did, but you don’t anymore.”

  “We were in high school. I screwed up and I’m sorry.” His expression didn’t change. It never did. He could always smooth talk the words, give people what they wanted to hear, and his eyes looked even more dead every time Kaylyn watched him do it.

  “Screwed up?” She hissed, leaning into his face. “You knew exactly what you were doing. You took advantage of my feelings and you used me.”

  He snorted. “And how many men have you used in the same way? Did you stop in high school?”

  Kaylyn tried to get a breath of air, but her airways clenched and she went light headed.

  He leaned forward, his mouth nearing her ear. She could smell his cologne, mixed with sweat and pheromones. “We’re alike. So, who do you hate more? Or do you have another reason for hating me?”

  Kaylyn swallowed and shoved him back. “I wouldn’t have—”

  “What? I’m the only reason you use men to get what you want?”

  “Let me be clear,” Kaylyn said, jabbing her finger into his chest. “You intentionally betrayed my trust to get what you wanted and then tossed me to the side when your girlfriend got back from her summer in Germany. I thought I could trust you and I have never made that mistake again.”

  Instead of stepping back or even pretending her words affected him, his lips quirked up in a twisted smile that proved that he felt anything but remorse for what happened. “We were having fun. Or do you mean to tell me that you told every guy in high school that you were sleeping with them in a feeble attempt to make me jealous—” he narrowed his eyes, “—since you’re apparently all about complete honesty.”

  “You—” a hand jerked Kaylyn back.

  “Come on, Kay,” Cole growled. “He’s not worth it.” Cole pulled her sister toward the stairs, increasing the distance between them and Chad, but Chad didn’t look away, he crossed his arms and leaned casually against the corner.

  “Leon called you?” Kaylyn asked finally regaining her ability to speak when they reached the hallway near the locker rooms.

  “No,” Cole scrunched her face. “Why?”

  “Well, then, why did you—” She flapped her hand toward the stairs, too flustered to find words.

  “Because you two looked like you were going to rip each other’s heads off in the middle of the gym. Not that he doesn’t deserve it; I had half a mind to do it in high school.”

  Kaylyn stopped dead in her tracks. “How much do you know?”

  “What don’t I know, Kay?” She shook her head. “His girlfriend—at the time—told me all about what happened after you two got into a fist fight in the high school changing rooms.”

  The room swayed again and Kaylyn caught herself against the wall.

  “Even if she hadn’t,” Cole continued, “we went to the same high school; I was only a year behind. You think people can’t keep their mouths shut now, but this is nothing compared to high school. I know about the two rugby players—”

  “Only two?”

  “The two,” Cole emphasized with a flat look.

  Kaylyn chomped down on the inside of her cheek to keep from yelling a curse. “Why didn’t you ever say anything?”

  “Because I know you. Anytime someone tells you not to do something or remotely questions you on it, you do it more or do it ten times bigger. I knew if I said anything, the next rumor would be about a foursome.”

  “Holy fuck!” This time there was no holding back. “Can you keep your voice down?” Breathing became more difficult again as tears burned at her eyes, and her nails dug into her palms. One shaky breath after another, she managed to keep the tears from falling. She wasn’t proud of her past—the stupid things she’d done while acting out. It all followed her, threatened to suffocate her at any moment when she finally found comfort. “I screwed up.”

  Cole’s lip twitched. “That’s one way of putting it. Can I ask why you did it?”

  “Chad or the others?”

  Cole snorted. “Well, I think I know the answer to both—I always knew you were into Chad.”

  “I thought he cared. That he might fight for me if he thought he couldn’t have me,” she huffed out a faint laugh, looking up to the ceiling as she fought through emotion to find words. “Or that it’d be my revenge to show him that he didn’t mean anything to me either. But he never cared, and after a while, neither did I. I kept going because I wanted to feel something.”

  “You could have talked to me—you still can.”

  Kaylyn closed her eyes, her body relaxing as she gave into futility. “I didn’t want you to think all the things I was thinking about myself.”

  “You’re my sister, Kay. Remember that time I got suspended in tenth grade?”

  She and her sister were no strangers to trouble at school, but they’d each only been suspended once. Kaylyn for the fight with Chad’s girlfriend, which was totally worth it since she’d clearly had the best uppercut, and Cole for a fight with some cheerleader. The muscles in her chest became a vice around her lungs and heart. “Please don’t tell me—”

  Cole shrugged one shoulder and smirked�
�the same mischievous smirk she wore when they were about to cause trouble as youngsters. “Trash talk my sister and get punched in the face.”

  Kaylyn remembered the cheerleader—who was also suspended for three days—and the thick layer of concealer she coated on her face when she finally returned. Kaylyn snorted and pushed off the wall. Little sisters could be a force to be reckoned with.

  “She’s not the only one I punched either,” Cole said, lifting her eyebrows. “Just the only one that I got caught for at school, and it was worth it.”

  Kaylyn smiled and exhaled wrapping her arm around her sister in a quick embrace. She wasn’t prone to emotional outbursts, but there was only one thing she could think of to say. “I love you.”

  “I love you, too. And although I’d like to stay here and reminisce, why’d you ask me if Leon called?”

  “Ah, fuck.” Kaylyn checked her phone again—fearing he’d call or text to find out what the holdup was. “He wants us at the farmhouse.”

  Cole’s lip twisted up in a snarl. “That can either be good news or really bad news.”

  “Not sure I can handle more bad today.” Kaylyn scoffed and jerked the locker room door open and allowed her sister to pass by first.

  “We’ve made a habit of shutting each other out lately, but if you do want to talk—”

  “You want to hear all about how I feel like I’m never going to fall in love.” Kaylyn shook her head and twisted the combination lock. “I know I put up the brick wall between myself and other people, but it’s not that.”

  “What about Ian? That all seemed different.”

  “It was stable. Safe. I’m not saying I didn’t have feelings for him—I did, but in so many ways, being with him was no different.” Taking a swig from her bottle of water, Kaylyn tried to get rid of the lump in her throat. She’d always felt disconnected, never knowing if it was a feeling she brought on herself. She tried to remember a time when she didn’t feel like an outsider, and on some level, she wondered if she’d find an answer in her past—in the envelope Jonah’s father had given her.

  “You’ll figure it out, Kay. You’ll find a guy who makes you feel all of that and more.” Cole slammed her locker closed, “but in order to do that, you have to open up. You have to let yourself feel something, trust someone. Chad’s an ass for what he did to you, but if you keep going after shallow men—”

  “If I go for shallow, I get exactly what I expect.”

  Cole leaned against the locker, closed her eyes, and sighed. “You have to want more than that.”

  Kaylyn felt a wave of nausea as the harsh truth followed those words. She did want more, but she wished she didn’t. It seemed like life could be so much easier if she could bury herself in her work—unfortunately, even work had become a constant reminder of the very things she wanted to avoid.

  Chapter 9

  “The owner and his brother went back, and apparently there was an incident,” Cole said, reading the text from her phone.

  “Incident?” Kaylyn scoffed. They’d dropped off Cole’s car along the way, opting to take Kaylyn’s car out to the farmhouse. Leon promised that he would be bringing the equipment, so there was no point in returning to the office. “Fuckers said they were staying away from the house.”

  “Don’t call them that to their faces.”

  “If we didn’t coddle people we might get more straight answers.”

  When Kaylyn climbed out of her car, she saw the three men standing off to the side of the porch.

  “What’s—” Kaylyn hedged at the sight of a bloody bandage around Archie’s arm. “What happened?”

  “We came back to tend to some yard work. We thought we’d be fine outside of the house,” Archie said. “I don’t think it has any bearing on the case though—I’m not sure why my brother called you.”

  “Because, if they’re investigating everything, I thought they should know to be careful,” Raymond said. “He saw a dog on the property. We’re not familiar with it.”

  Kaylyn suddenly wished she was carrying something bigger than a flashlight while wandering around the property. “Was he bitten?”

  “No, but he’s scratched up. We’re going to get it checked out, now.”

  “It’s fine,” Archie insisted, walking away from the group to sit on the steps to the porch.

  “So, you haven’t experienced anything paranormal today?” Kaylyn asked.

  “Nothing we haven’t already discussed,” Raymond said.

  Cole glanced up toward the attic window that was still covered by the plastic bag they’d taped up. “Did you go up to the attic?”

  “No, we’re steering clear until it’s safe.”

  Yet, you are perfectly keen on walking around without knowing what’s going on, Kaylyn thought. She turned away, glancing toward the fields, where she thought she saw something moving in the tall grass—although it could have easily been the wind. “How much work have y’all done on the property?”

  Raymond sighed. “Not nearly enough. The main house has been keeping us busy—there’s always something to fix. Had to do the siding because we couldn’t keep the place warm. Then, there was some plumbing work, and we thought there might be an electrical problem,” he trailed off. “Do you think all the stuff going wrong has to do with this thing?”

  “It’s an old house,” Kaylyn answered simply, although she didn’t discredit the possibility. Whatever was in the house enjoyed the attention. A lot of entities were upset by new construction—they didn’t like things changing—but what if this one enjoyed it? What if it wanted the house rebuilt and restored—exacerbating situations to force the new owners to keep working? Then it didn’t make sense that it would attack Archie in the attic.

  Kaylyn turned to Archie. “You said that you were working on something the day you were attacked in the attic?”

  “Always working on something around here,” he grimaced, pulling his arm against his chest. Although, they insisted it was a few scratches, the blood and his grey face suggested otherwise. “Mostly the attic though. Nothing out of the ordinary.”

  “Was there anything different about that day—anything at all?” she asked.

  The brothers looked at each other before Raymond spoke. “Earlier in the day... we had discussed calling someone in to deal with all the strange crap. Archie might have mentioned getting rid of it.”

  “So,” Cole said, “it’s not fond of threats to get rid of it.”

  “Who would be?” Kaylyn said under her breath.

  Leon held out a key and nodded toward his truck. “Your equipment’s in the cab. I’ll be along in a minute.”

  “Sure,” Kaylyn said, grabbing the keys. As they headed toward the truck, she whispered to her sister, “Don’t know whether we should think it’s a good or bad thing that we didn’t leave any equipment here when we left—we might have caught something, but I guess you never can trust a family not to stay out.”

  “If you take our last few cases as an example, you can’t really trust anyone to do that.”

  Cole stifled a yawn as Kaylyn handed her one of the equipment bags. The homeowner and his brother climbed into the Subaru, and soon disappeared down the driveway while the girls lugged the equipment up to the porch.

  “Gina and Cassidy have some new information for you; they’ll probably be sending it over before the end of office hours. I’m not entirely certain that this wasn’t related to the case, but Raymond has already called animal control. I’d prefer if you two get the equipment setup and let it run for the evening. Go home, get some rest, and wait for the all clear from animal control before hanging around too much.”

  The girls nodded in agreement, and Leon left them to their work.

  While Cole tended to the second floor, Kaylyn headed up to the attic. It had taken nearly ten minutes to convince her younger sister that she could manage hooking up a camera in the attic perfectly fine on her own, but Kaylyn had her own experiment to try, and she needed away from her sister’s eyes and
ears if she was going to get anything out of it.

  Especially if Ida decided to show up again.

  Like the previous night, the attic door freely opened. As far as she could tell there were no physical problems with the structure that would have caused it to stick so badly the first time she attempted to open it. Likewise, she couldn’t explain away the erratic behavior of the window.

  The room was still blustery cold without the insulation of the window. Thin plastic bags simply weren’t meant to stand up to Ohio winters.

  As soon as she closed the door, the room came alive with faint shadows. She pressed her back to the door for extra support as her heart rocketed within her chest. Fiddling with the camera in her hand, she managed to turn it on without taking her gaze off the flickers of imagery. The scenes were disjointed, like pieces from different times pasted haphazardly together with no concern for chronology.

  She lifted the camera so that the viewer was within her field of vision, but judging from the small screen, the device wasn’t picking up what she was seeing.

  “Trust in yourself,” a female, Irish voice whispered. “This is what happens.”

  Kaylyn glanced over at Ida, who was standing next to her and seemingly watching the replay as well.

  Biting her lip, she guarded against the questions she wanted to ask.

  Why she could see it.

  If she could control it.

  Why Ida seemed to be following her around.

  If she opened her mouth, she’d either have to throw out the tape and any chance that she was able to catch any of the images or explain the questions.

  She wasn’t ready to do that, so she concentrated on the figures moving before her.

  One scene included an old man who simply stood and stared out the window. His grey hair revealed a large balding spot on top of his head, and he wore brown trousers, stained with dirt and grass and held up by a pair of matching suspenders.

  Then the room flickered to another scene—an empty bed sat in the middle of the room while a young woman stood at the footboard, fiddling with something on the covers. She wore a high-waisted dress, covered in pale flowers and polka dots. When she turned, she appeared to be crying, but the scene jerked out of focus before Kaylyn could make out any more details.