Deep Betrayal (Lies Beneath #2) (21 page)

“Anything you’d like to talk about?”

“You mean like a confession?”

“Well, if you’d like to go up to the church we can, but I was thinking more like a conversation.”

“Oh. Okay.” I fingered my necklace absentmindedly, trying to think of a good explanation. “Let’s just say I’ve let some things get a little out of hand.”

Father Hoole shifted his weight and looked out across the lake. He was right. This might be easier if we didn’t look at each other. “I see. Maybe you could define ‘out of hand.’ ”

“What if I told you I was hearing voices?”

Father Hoole’s shoulders relaxed. Apparently he preferred this question to the direction he thought our conversation was going. “Ah. Well. The prophets heard voices.”

“They heard God,” I said.

“Fair enough. Are you hearing God?”

I shook my head and kicked at the seagull who’d lost out on the meal. “I seriously doubt it.”

“Are the voices coming from a place of love?”

“Exact opposite. They sound angry.”

“Ah. Common misconception.” Father Hoole leaned forward and rested his forearms on his knees, his fingers clasped together. His khakis were frayed at the bottoms. “Anger is
not the opposite of love. The opposite of love is indifference. Indifference, neglect … these things can do terrible damage to a person. Apathy can suck the life right out of someone.”

Apathy? Maris and Pavati could be described in many ways, but apathetic was not one of them.

Father Hoole sat back again and folded his arms across his chest. “Find out what the voices care about. If it comes from love, I wouldn’t worry too much about it.”

In the distance, I saw Calder approaching us slowly. “I’ve got to go, Father.” I pointed to Calder. “Some friends of mine are coming up for the week. We’re meeting them at the ferry in a few minutes.”

“Ah, well, you have fun. I think I’ll sit here for a while longer. Oh, but hey, how’d you get Mrs. Boyd to make you a coffee? Isn’t she closed today?”

“I guess I was just being pushy. I didn’t know she wasn’t open.”

He eyed the seagull that was now tugging at the laces on my boot. “Huh. Maybe I can convince her to make me a cup. So we’ll see all the Hancocks at Mass next Sunday?”

“Um, yep?”

“I’ll take that as a yes.”

I dropped my empty cup into a trash can and jogged over to Calder, who slipped his fingers through mine. “Who’s that?” he asked.

“Father Hoole. He noticed we weren’t at Mass. Dad still hasn’t come home. Have you seen him?”

Calder squeezed my hand and looked out across the lake. “I heard your mom saw Jason in the water last night.”

“You
did
see him!”

“Do you think that was smart to tell her?” he asked.

I thought of my mom crying into the morning hours. “Jury’s still out on that one. By the way, it was Sophie’s idea to tell her. She thinks Mom will feel better … eventually … now that she knows.”

“I’ll see what I can do to help that along,” he said.

About fifteen minutes later, Zach’s familiar blue van rolled up to the ferry dock.

“That them?” Calder asked.

“That’s them,” I said, trying to muster up some enthusiasm. It seemed like an invasion, this other part of my life arriving uninvited. Not like I owned the town, but it still felt weird. And it made me nervous to have them here—now—with crazed mermaids on the loose.

Calder rubbed my shoulder, trying to relax me. “Come on, babe,” he said. “Get it together. You’re muddying up.”

“Right,” I said. “Happy thoughts.”

He kissed my hair, and it must have improved my color, because he groaned quietly under his breath.

The sliding side door opened, and Jules practically fell out of the van. Rob tumbled out behind her, laughing and pushing her. Jules ran toward me, yelling, “Lily! Lily! We made it!” but Rob held back to talk to Phillip at the driver’s-side window.

For a second, Jules’s excitement stripped away my fears and made me laugh. “Did you think you wouldn’t?”

She rolled her eyes in an exaggerated way and pulled her dark hair into a ponytail. “Phillip was driving the last hour. It was a leap of faith,” she said.

I hugged her. “You seem to be in one piece.”

“Barely.”

Rob came up behind her, his face tense—hopefully he was embarrassed by his behavior the last time I saw him. “Hey, Lil.”

“Hey, Robby. You remember Calder?”

“Yeah. How you doing, man?”

Calder didn’t answer. His attention was on Jules. “So you’re staying on Madeline?” he asked. “What side?”

“I don’t know,” Jules said. “Phillip said it’s past a marina and a golf course. There’s room for you two if you want to come stay at the house.”

I glanced at Calder, and then Jules was begging. “Please, Lily? We’ve got to catch up.”

“That sounds like a great idea to me,” Calder said.

“I’d have to ask my mom,” I said, hedging.

“She already said it was okay,” Calder said.

I looked at him, silently asking,
She did?
But Calder wasn’t looking at me. He was staring directly into Jules’s eyes, her pupils dilating.
Hmmm
. So it was Calder’s idea to invite us to the house—not Jules’s—and Rob wasn’t exactly comfortable with the idea. He shifted in his shoes and scowled at the ground. What was Calder’s angle?

“The van’s kind of crowded,” Rob said.

“That’s okay,” Calder said. “We’ll find our own way there.”

Phillip came over as the ferry crew started loading cars. “Hey, Hancock!” He gave me a big hug.

“They’re going to stay at the house,” Jules said.

Phillip’s eyebrows rose. “Oh yeah? Hey, that’s awesome! My uncle’s got a ton of room, and it’s easy to find. Take
Middle Road until it Ts. Hang a left and we’re on the lakeside. I’ll park the van at the end of the driveway.”

“Between Chebomnicon Bay and Big Bay Point?” Calder asked.

“Um, I guess,” said Phillip. “I only know the roads.”

“We’ll find it,” Calder said. “No problem.”

“Guys! We’re loading!” yelled Zach, now in the driver’s seat. Colleen waved at me through a back window.

“See you in a bit, Lily,” Jules said. “We’re cooking out. Don’t be late.”

“Absolutely not,” I said, and Calder raised a hand to wave goodbye.

Zach tentatively pulled his mom’s van onto the ferry and followed the crewman’s direction to even out the weight. The ferry groaned as it rubbed against the black rubber bumpers lining the pier.

“That boy’s a nervous wreck,” Calder said.

“That makes two of us. But you should cut him some slack. It’s his first time taking a car on board.”

Calder shook his head. “What’s the worst that could happen?”

“Oh, I don’t know, Maris hijacks the ferry and pulls them all out of the van and down to the bottom of the lake.”

He grabbed my elbow. “My God, Lily, that’s brilliant.”

“Brilliant?” I snorted. “It’s my worst nightmare.”

“No, it’s genius. You know how to catch a fish?”

“With bait?”

“You got it, babe. We want to catch Maris, and that van is the biggest can of worms I’ve ever seen.”

* * *

Later that afternoon, I was zipping a sundress, purple high tops, and a faux-fur shrug into a large waterproof bag. Calder watched me with amusement.

“What?” I asked.

“You’re serious? That’s what you’re packing?”

“It could get cold at night.”

Calder shook his head and added a pair of shorts and one of my band T-shirts to the bag, sealing it shut with duct tape.

The rich, tongue-coating smell of melted chocolate wafted upstairs. As soon as we’d got back from the ferry dock, Calder had, as promised, “helped” Mom deal with our revelation about Dad. In his usual way, he’d convinced her that Dad would come back soon and that baking would speed things along.

Five minutes later, she’d given in to a compulsive desire to feed people. Already there were six dozen peanut butter cookies cooling on the counter, and the oven was full of brownies, their molten crusts splitting, releasing an aroma that made me want to stay home.

“Why can’t we just take your car over on the ferry?” I asked.

“Swimming is faster. And cheaper,” he said.

“And wetter,” I added, grousing at the bag. I still couldn’t figure out how we were going to explain our soaking wet arrival. No doubt Calder could make it look good. Amazing, even. I was going to look like a drowned rat.

“True, but I want to test something out. You wanted to help. Let’s see how talented you are.”

“I told you. I’m not going to help you use my friends as bait.”

“Think of it as you getting to help me stop Maris from killing anybody else.”

“It sounds better the way you say it, but I still don’t like it.”

We came down the stairs and Sophie looked up from her book.

Calder said, “When the brownies cool, tell your mom that Lily and I have gone to look for your dad. Tell her we’ll be back sometime tomorrow.”

“Where are you really going?” she asked.

“We’re going over to Madeline to have dinner with Lily’s friends.”

“What’s the big deal? Why don’t you just tell her that?” she asked.

“She’ll want to send food,” I said. “We’re traveling light.”

“You’re swimming over?”

Calder winked at her, and Sophie lowered her voice so Mom wouldn’t hear. “When will you take me with you?”

“When you’re older,” Calder said.

Sophie stuck out her tongue and went back to her book.

Once outside and out of Mom’s view, I stripped down to my bathing suit and stashed my clothes in the bushes next to Calder’s. He was already in the water waiting for me with our watertight packages in a messenger bag strapped across his chest. “Come on,” he said. “Don’t be nervous.”

“I’m not nervous,” I lied as my chin shook and my teeth crashed together with a mixture of anticipation and uncertainty.

“Are you cold?”

“No. Now be quiet and quit harassing me.”

He waited patiently as I waded in until I was waist deep. I dropped under the waterline. When I stood up again, chin leading, my hair fell smoothly against my back and I was ready.

“Come on,” Calder said, coaxing me forward. His voice was deep and soothing, and I felt the hypnotic pull of his thoughts invading my mind. I saw myself in his arms, and I wanted the feel of it as quickly as I could make it a reality. I stared into his eyes and walked a few more feet, until I fell forward into the water and took ten long strokes out to him. He took me in his arms.

“Did you feel that?” he asked.

“Of course. You’ve done that to me before, remember? But you don’t have to. I’ll always come to you.”

“I wanted you to have a recent hypnotic experience to draw on. Now here’s what we’re going to do. What I did there, I projected my thoughts into you.”

“Like you did with Jules.”

He winked. “Right. In the air, the thoughts only go in one direction: out. In the water, it’s like osmosis; the thoughts go freely back and forth, from one mind to the next. But not with me and Maris and Pavati. Not anymore. But you …”

“You think it’s really
them
I’m hearing?”

“You said you’ve heard other voices before—not just mine and your dad’s. Who else would it be? We’re going to go out into the channel. I want to see if you can hear them, but I don’t want them to hear you. Receive; don’t project. Not yet. I want you to keep your thoughts completely blank.”

“How do I do that?” I couldn’t imagine how that would
be possible, particularly when I was out in the middle of the lake in the arms of Calder White.

“Picture your mom’s canvases.”

“Which ones?”

“The blank ones. Think big, white, and blank. Don’t try to put any pictures on them. Keep the canvas as clean as you possibly can.”

“I think I can do that,” I said. “For a while.”

“But at the same time, I want you to listen. You’ve got to listen without reacting. As soon as you react, it will be like slapping paint on the canvas. Don’t be afraid. Don’t get mad. Don’t get curious.”

“That sounds harder.”

“Very. But it’s important. Can you do that?”

“I’ll try.”

“ ‘Do, or do not. There is no try.’ ”

“You’re quoting Yoda?”

He smiled.

“Okay. I’ll do it.”

When we were an even distance from both the mainland and the Madeline Island shoreline, Calder looked at me with a serious look. “Exhale,” he said. “Blow it all out.”

“I’ll need air,” I said.

“You’re only doing it to relax. Blow everything out of you. Think blank canvas. Then fill your lungs and I’ll take you down. We’re going to go for a short time. Fifteen seconds. Obviously you won’t have any trouble with that. When I take you back up, you can tell me if you heard anything.”

I nodded, inhaled, and then slowly let everything out.
Once I’d pushed all the thoughts from my head, I inhaled deeply, and Calder took me down.

Blank
, I thought.
Blank canvas
. I let the canvas grow bigger, wider, pushing everything else from my vision. And then I was above the waterline again.

“Anything?” Calder asked.

“Nothing,” I said. “I guess you were wrong.”

“I’m not wrong,” he said. “We’ll go to another site.”

We swam north along the shoreline toward Basswood, and I could feel the tension building in his arms the closer we got.

“Would they keep the same campsite?” I asked.

“Your dad and I have already searched the most obvious places. Still no sign, but we’re habitual by nature, and you have an uncanny way of running into them.” He stopped with a nervous glance at Basswood. “Are you ready?”

“Yes,” I said, exhaling, letting the canvas expand in my mind until I was looking into clear, bright light. My head was a vacuum and the world was silent. Calder brought me under, and a tinny ringing filled my ears. And then one word:
Die
.

I must have flinched, because Calder had me into the air with such a burst of speed I choked on the water.

“Die,” I said. “They’re dying.”

He shook his head. “
Someone’s
dying,” he said. “It’s not them.”

“I don’t know. It sounds like they’re in pain.”