Coldhearted (9781311888433) (23 page)

Suddenly, Madelyn came squealing into her
room and looked embarrassed, blushing.

“
What’s wrong?” Edie
asked.

Madelyn bit her lip, and then replied, “I ran
into your uncle. I mean, I literally ran into him. He was just
wearing a pair of boxers, and well...” She gestured at her
nightshirt, falling just mid-thigh. “We both just stared at each
other, wide-eyed, until he mumbled something, then I mumbled
something, and then we took off in opposite directions.” She blew
out a breath of relief and collapsed on the bed. “Coffee’s ready,
by the way,” she informed as an afterthought.

When Diana got out of the bathroom, Edie told
Madelyn to go next, while she went to go grab a cup of coffee. On
the way to the kitchen, she met her uncle, hiding behind his
half-open bedroom door.

“
Is your friend freaked
out?” he asked.

Edie stifled a giggle. “Yeah. Are you
okay?”

He opened the door all the way. He was
wearing a T-shirt and jogging pants. “I forgot your friends were
here. I smelled the coffee and didn’t even think about how I
looked…or how she’d look.”

“
It’s okay,” Edie told him,
and then added, “my friends think you’re hot, so they’re not
grossed out or anything. At least Madelyn isn’t.”

Uncle Landon furrowed his brow. “They think
I’m hot?” He looked uncomfortable.

“
Don’t worry,” Edie said,
suppressing another giggle. “I don’t think they’ll try to make a
move. They were just checking you out.”

“
Oh, well, okay.” He still
looked uncomfortable. “Um…I’ll stay in my room and you tell me when
you’re leaving, yeah?”

Edie gave him a salute. “Aye, aye,
captain!”

He laughed, now a bit more relaxed, and then
shooed her away, shutting his door. And locking it, she heard. She
shook her head and went to the kitchen. The coffee warmed her up
and the buttered toast filled her stomach.

She was happy, forgetful even, until it was
her turn to jump into the shower. She’d stripped down to nothing,
but now her smile faded to a frown, as she realized Tristan could
see her. She covered herself as best as she could.

“
Can you at least give me
some privacy?” she pleaded, looking at the mirror, but only finding
her reflection. She looked awful, haggard. Damn ghost!

“
Contrary to popular belief,
I am a gentleman,” Tristan said, but only in her ear.

She waited for him to appear in the mirror,
but he was a no show.

“
You weren’t one in my dream
last night,” she hissed at the pocket of cold air next to her,
assuming that he was standing (or hovering) there. “You broke my
necklace, didn’t you?”

“
Dreams aren’t real, Edie.
You damaged your necklace, not me.”

Edie shook her head, disagreeing. “It seemed
real. I…felt you…with me.”

“
Your innocence is still
intact. The only damage done was your necklace, which you, my
sweet, tore from your neck during sleep.”

Edie shook her head again. “I’d never do that
and you know it!”

“
I know a lot of things,
Edie. It’s you who are badly misinformed.”

“
About what?” she asked,
shivering from nakedness and fear. “About the Grimsby Sanatorium?”
she then threw out, hoping to make a hit.

“
You’d better hurry,” he
said, deflecting her. “The water’s getting cold.”

And then he was gone. She no longer felt
chilled to the bone. He’d actually disappeared, at least from the
bathroom.

She’d sensed his fear when she’d mentioned
Grimsby Sanatorium. “It’s you who are badly misinformed,” he’d
said. There was something inside that place, something that he was
afraid of, yet he didn’t have the power to keep her away.

There was a weak chink in Tristan Lockhart’s
armor. And I’m going to exploit it.

****

After her cold shower—thanks, Tristan—she
entered her bedroom and discovered it to be empty. Diana and
Madelyn were in the kitchen, chatting. Knowing she was never really
alone, she quickly got dressed, bundling up, as if she were about
to take a trek with the penguins of Antarctica, and then dried her
hair. She applied medicinal lip balm to ward off dryness, but she
was denied the last part of her usual routine: putting on her
necklace. She’d always taken it off when she’d showered and put it
back on before she’d left the house. Now she was to go without it.
She felt naked, not having it around her neck, and secured a scarf
around her to the point where it looked like a noose, instead of a
garment.

“
Sorry Mom and Dad,” she
said aloud, fighting back tears. “I’ll fix it as soon as I
can.”

When they were ready to leave and Mason had
been let through the gates, she rapped on her uncle’s door. “We’re
leaving,” she announced loudly.

“
Okay,” he yelled back,
sounding relieved to have the house—and no half-naked, underage
girls—to himself.

Outside, Mason was waiting, as he leaned
against the driver’s side door of his truck. When Edie
approached—resisting the urge to leap into his arms—he detached
himself and gave her a heartwarming smile.

“
Hey, Edie, I—”

She didn’t let him finish, unable to hold
herself back, and caught his lips in a smothering kiss. When she
pulled away, she said, “What did you want to say?”

It took Mason a few minutes to recalibrate
his brain, and then he replied, “I was going to say: things must
have gone okay last night. I didn’t get a call.”

Edie bit her lip, outing herself.

“
Edie,” Mason admonished
her. “What happened?” When she stayed silent, he turned toward
Diana and Madelyn, sitting in Madelyn’s car, while it was warming
up. He tapped on Diana’s window. When she rolled it down, he asked,
“What happened last night?”

Diana glanced at Edie, and then replied, “I
thought I saw something, but it was just my imagination.” She
shrugged. “No big deal.” She nudged Madelyn. “It’s warm enough.
Let’s roll.”

Edie knew what Diana was
doing: she was trying to escape from Mason’s interrogation. Mason
couldn’t ask any more questions as Madelyn put her car—a
sputtering, yellow Volkswagen Beetle that needed a paint job—in
drive and was soon gone, making
put-put
noises and blowing exhaust out
the back, as she sped down the road.

“
That car’s not safe,” Edie
observed. “We should leave now and follow behind her just in case,”
she told Mason.

“
Yeah, you’re right,” he
agreed.

He helped Edie up into the cab of his truck,
making sure that she was secure, then he assumed his position on
the driver’s side, and they finally left Edie’s house. Not too long
after, the gates shut, and Edie knew that her uncle was relieved to
be alone in the sanctuary of his study, where he conjured up
horrific tales for profit, and possibly for some sort of peace that
he didn’t get in the real world.

After a long silence, Mason asked, “So…that
was it? Diana’s mind playing tricks on her?”

Edie hated lying to him, but she wasn’t going
to tell him everything. He was definitely not going to know about
the dream, but she had to tell him something because she was afraid
that Diana and Madelyn would unintentionally let some beans
spill.

“
He told me his name,” Edie
said. “It’s Tristan Lockhart.”

Mason’s hands tightened around the steering
wheel. “What else?” he asked through clenched teeth.

“
I know what he looks like.
He showed himself in a mirror.”

Mason turned his head toward the driver’s
side mirror, and then toward the rearview mirror. “Is he here,
now?” he asked, like he was gearing up for a fight.

Edie checked out the mirrors too. “No,” she
said.

“
Why didn’t you call me?”
His tone was soft, which made it worse.

Edie told him the truth. “Tristan said if I
did, he’d hurt you. Those weren’t his exact words, but I
understood, well enough.”

They’d been going at a steady pace behind
Madelyn, but now Mason decelerated, and then turned off onto a dirt
trail away from the main road. He parked the truck next to a set of
eerie-looking woods; the trees were leafless and covered in snow.
He didn’t turn off the engine and she was glad. She was afraid that
some monster would leap out from the woods and they wouldn’t have
time to bolt.

Mason turned toward her. “Edie, don’t ever do
that to me again. I don’t care what he threatens to do to me. I
refuse to let myself be…cowered…by some ghost.”

Edie stared into his warm, hazel eyes.
“Mason, you know what he’s capable of. He tossed you across Diana’s
room. He’s getting more powerful, I can sense it. And he’s scared
of that sanatorium, for some reason.”

Mason was shaking his head. “Edie, he’s
playing a trick on you, I know it.”

“
No, I don’t—”

“
Please, Edie,” he said,
cutting her off. “Please just trust me on this. If you care about
me at all, please, please don’t go to that sanatorium.” He cupped
her cheek with his warm hand. “Please, Edie, do it for me. Don’t
go.”

Edie nodded acquiescence, even though she was
planning on betraying him. She’d have to keep it to herself. She
couldn’t tell Diana or Madelyn. Maybe Tristan was messing with her,
playing tricks and deceiving her into thinking he was scared of
Grimsby Sanatorium. Yet she wasn’t going alone; Jules and her GPS
ghost hunters would be there. It was silly to assume that Tristan
was the only ghost in town.

There had to be others and Edie needed to
talk to them; to gain some insight into the ghost world and find
out how to be rid of Tristan Lockhart, once and for all. Yet she
didn’t know anything about contacting the dead. Jules was more
experienced at that than Edie was. So she’d wait and meet up with
Jules on Saturday. And hunt some ghosts.

Edie just hoped that Mason wouldn’t find out.
Or if he did, he’d forgive her. She couldn’t lose him, but she
couldn’t just sit and twiddle her thumbs, either, waiting for
Tristan to break up with her.

She felt something wet against her lips and
realized that Mason was kissing her. She kissed him back with
fervor because deep in her heart, she was worried it was their last
kiss, and she wanted it to be an experience Mason would never
forget.

He pulled his lips away first, panting.
“Damn, girl.”

She smiled triumphant. If Mason had been
thinking of breaking up with her, hopefully the realization that
he’d miss out on kissing her would dispel any idea of a
separation.

That was the plan anyway. But plans had a way
of going very, very awry.

Chapter 17

Edie spotted Madelyn’s Beetle parked safely
in the student lot and breathed a sigh of relief.

She and Diana had made it to school. Edie
had feared for their safety (and still did) because she knew what
Tristan was capable of doing.

She knew that he wouldn’t just leave on his
own, and her demands that he leave would amount to nothing. She
didn’t know any other ghosts and had no contacts within the ghost
community. Going with Jules to the Grimsby Sanatorium, to
investigate, seemed the most logical choice. She hoped that some
poor, disembodied soul would be able to shed some light on how to
detach a ghost, who was hell bent on destroying not only her life,
but everyone else’s, as well. That was the real horror: Tristan
didn’t discern between friend and foe. He attacked anyone because
it was fun. Well, soon, hopefully, his playtime would be over.

Edie had managed to attend an entire day of
classes without being accused of sleeping with her teacher, being a
witch, attacking another student and generally causing the collapse
of western civilization. The school had seemed pleasanter without
Rochelle and Ravenna there. Rochelle was still suspended, and
Ravenna was still recovering from her near miss with Death.

That was what Edie called the cloaked and
hooded man, who’d just whooshed out of thin air in front of
Ravenna’s car. Edie knew that Tristan had conjured up the
spectacle, but he’d meant to kill Ravenna. So he’d summoned Death
in all his horrific glory.

It terrified Edie that Tristan could do that
from a distance. When it’d happened to Ravenna, Edie hadn’t even
been around. And Tristan was only getting stronger, not weaker. In
the beginning, he’d spoken to Edie, unseen. Now he could appear in
mirrors. And he’d gotten in her head, made her dream that debasing
scene. Edie hated to admit it, but the memories of what she’d
dreamt, excited and scared her at the same time.

She was no prude. She thought about sex.
Tristan knew that she was a virgin. She didn’t know how, but he
just did. It sickened her to think that Tristan had been her first;
though, he, in his web of lies, had assured Edie that her innocence
wasn’t ruined. There wasn’t any way for Edie to check accurately,
and she wasn’t going to the doctor. She chose to believe Tristan.
She was still a virgin. Besides a ghost couldn’t have sex. It was
impossible. But he’d done a lot of things that she wouldn’t have
believed if she hadn’t seen it for herself.

If Edie was to have sex anytime soon, it
wouldn’t be with some maniacal phantom. It’d be with Mason. No
wait, that’d be weird. The three of them? No, no, way. First, she
needed to get rid of Tristan, and then she could have a true
relationship with Mason. She was sure that he was thinking the same
thing.

Brazen, she asked Mason, “Are you a
virgin?”

He almost lost control of the steering
wheel. It was after school, and they were heading to the movies for
their first official date. She’d been expecting Tristan to conjure
up a snowstorm and prevent their happiness, but he was pleasantly,
although confusingly, absent. He hadn’t bothered Edie at school,
either. Even Russell had kept his distance from Edie, which if she
were being honest, hurt her feelings.