44: Book Six by Jools Sinclair Page A

But I couldn’t understand why she was playing hide and seek all of a sudden. There had always been an urgency connected to her. She wanted me to save someone. We were running out of time. And now she was playing games. It didn’t make sense.
    I told myself driving home that maybe I had just imagined it. After all, it wouldn’t be the first time I had been wrong about something.
     

 
    CHAPTER 27
     
    I filled David in on everything as we drove up to the mountain. I started with that night when I saw the ghost out in the middle of the road.
    “Yuck!” he said when I told him about the blood. “Scary. I’m sure glad I’m not you, Abby Craig.”
    It was good to see David again and I was glad he was back in town. He was happy when I picked him up at his house. He still felt good about the audition and that would keep his spirits high until the waiting began to take its toll.
    He sat there, the tips of my skis between us, wearing his new North Face parka with what he told me were salmon-colored goggles around his neck.
    “You sure they’re not pink?” I said.
    “Well, maybe just a smidge.”
    I smiled.
    “So what are you going to do?” he said, a serious tone in his voice.
    “I’m not exactly sure,” I said.
    The Cascades Highway that led up to Mt. Bachelor was a sheet of ice, but the snow plow had been by, a fresh coating of large pebbles covering the road. I turned up the heat and turned down the music, dropping my speed. We drove in a slow line of cars up the mountain. It was cold and clear, but not too windy. A beautiful day for skiing. I had heard on the news that the mountain had picked up four inches overnight. Down in Bend, however, it had just come down as rain with some ice pellets mixed in.
    I described the woman in as much detail as I could, hoping that David, who seemed to know just about everybody under 25 in Bend, might know her.
    “No, sorry, Abby Craig,” he said. “She doesn’t ring a bell. That’s tough. It seems like you’re looking for a needle in a haystack. But you’ll make it work. You always do.”
    “I guess you’ve forgotten about Clyde. I didn’t exactly make that work, did I?”
    “Right,” he said slowly, cupping his chin between his thumb and fingers. “But it worked out. I mean, yeah, you and Paloma got possessed by him, but in the end it worked out. That’s what I mean.”
    I knew what he meant and I was grateful that it had worked out. But my confidence had suffered a serious hit. Clyde Tidwell’s ghost was more evil and much stronger than anything I could have imagined. I was no match.
    “Well, at least Jesse says he doesn’t feel a dark presence around me like he did right before Jack Martin kidnapped me or with Clyde,” I said. “So I have that going for me.”
    “So you’ve been with Jesse, huh?” he said, his eyebrows shooting up toward his hairline like Mr. Spock.
    “Take it easy,” I said. “I play basketball with him. Remember?”
    “Um-hum. I have a question. Is it possible for ghosts and humans—”
    “Don’t go there,” I said, interrupting him. “Or the lesson is over before it even begins.”
    He pouted for a minute.
    “Okay,” he said. “But what does Jesse say about Ty?”
    I lowered my speed a little more. I could feel the road slick under the Jeep, the rear tires losing contact with the pavement for a moment.
    “Not too much really.”
    “I would have thought he would have been happy you two are on the ou— Oops. Sorry again. Gosh, so many touchy subjects, Abby Craig!”
    I smiled.
    We were coming up to it. It looked the same, a little less snow, but essentially the same. I had been here a few times since and the feelings connected to the place were always the same too. A bottomless regret coupled with that heartbreaking sadness.
    The lake looked vast and white in the late morning sunlight. A sheet of ice was already covering the surface, catching the snow that fell at this elevation. It almost looked innocent.
    David must