Souls Apart (Book 1 in the Lost Souls Trilogy) (10 page)

He withdrew his arms. “Children?”

“You do want children, don’t you?”

“I haven’t thought about it. I guess.”

“Well, we can’t bring them up in a hut, can we?”

“I’ll try harder to find a job.
 
If I can get a job then you won’t have to
leave at all.”

Why wouldn’t he understand that I needed to leave? I
didn’t want to be like Mom, working menial jobs just to scrape by. I had the
chance to make something of myself and as much as I loved Eddie I wasn’t going
to let him stop me.
 
In a few years he
could start cheating on me and I’d be left with nothing. If he really loved me
he’d let me do this and he would still be there for me when I’d qualified.

“If you want to find a job then do it for you, not for
me.” I said.

I felt my pocket vibrating. I was getting a phone
call. It was Amber. “Hello,” I said.

“Charlie, are you with Eddie?”

“Yes,”

“Charlie, you need to come home.
 
The police are here.
 
They’ve found a witness. I think Eddie did
it, Charls. Please, come home. You’re not safe.”

“What makes you think that? What did the witness say?”

“Just come home – and soon.”

I ended the call and looked up to see Eddie looking at
me with a weird expression on his face. “That was Amber. I need to go home; the
police want to ask me some questions.”

“Ok,” he said, picking up his jacket.

As we walked through the cemetery he was being
strangely silent and then he pulled me towards a headstone. “Read that,” he
said.

I looked. It was Emily Gray’s resting place. “Why are
you showing me that?” I asked.

“Don’t you get any feelings from this at all?” he
asked.

“Should I?”

“That was you, Charls. You were Emily. You drowned. I
tried to save you but I couldn’t. You were kicking so much and so desperate to
get away from me that you fought against me so hard. I tried to pull you out
but I couldn’t stop you. Don’t you see? You wanted to get away from me that
much you’d rather kill yourself than stay with me.” His eyes filled with tears.

“That’s terrible. How do you know all this?”

“I just know. I thought you did too.” I didn’t want to
tell him I’d been snooping so I shook my head.

“Why are you showing me this now? You know I’m upset
about Mom.”

“I’m just showing you what happens when you try to
leave me that’s all.” His eyes were all dark again and I started to think that
Amber was right about him killing mom. He left me at the bottom of the hill and
I ran all the way to Amber’s.
 
I saw the
police car waiting outside. Amber was waiting at the window. She threw open the
door. “Charls, the police want to tell you what the witness saw. Come in.”

I sat down while Amber went to make me some strong
tea.
 
I rarely drank tea but Amber said
it was good for shock so I agreed to have some.

“Charlotte.
How are you feeling?” the police officer said. It was the same woman from the
other night.

“I’m ok,” I lied. I’d spent the last few nights crying
myself to sleep and dreaming about Mom and how she hadn’t deserved to die and
how unfair it all was.

“Listen, we’ve been questioning a few people who were
in the diner the other night and we have a report which we’ve decided to follow
up. We think it’s very significant.”

“What report?” I asked, taking the tea from Amber who
sat herself down next to me.

“It seems a homeless man saw something.
 
He said he saw a person wearing a dark hooded
cloak stabbing a bundle with a knife.
 
He
said he didn’t know what was in the bundle because he was standing too far away
but the man looked so frenzied he ran to get help, but when he got back with
his friends the hooded person and the bundle had gone.”

I looked at Amber. She’d lowered her eyes to the
floor. “So you think the bundle was my mom, right?”

The female officer nodded. “It makes sense.
 
It was in the right area and she did have
multiple stab wounds on her body. And we deliberately kept some things out of
the reports. We found your mom wrapped in blankets. That’s why we’re taking
this witness seriously. He couldn’t have known about the blankets because we
kept that detail out of the news.”

“Oh,” I started to cry again and Amber put her arm
around me.

“Do you have any idea who could have done this?” Amber
asked.

“We have a few leads, miss, but we’ll tell you more
once we’ve followed them up. If you two ladies need anything else then here’s
my card.”

Amber took the card. “Thank you,” she said before
letting the police out the door and closing it after them.

I grabbed Amber’s arm. “Oh my god; you were right
about Eddie. I don’t believe this.”

“I’m so sorry, Charls. When I got that vision I didn’t
for one moment realize it was your mom.”

“How could you have? Even if you had I wouldn’t have
believed you. Oh my god. What are we going to do?”

“We have to tell the police.”

“And tell them what? That the first time you met him
you got a vision of him wearing a hooded cloak stabbing a bundle.
 
You’re not Alison Dubois!”

“I know that but we can give them a lead or something.
Tell him he’s been too possessive over you or something.”

“I can’t see him again now, can I? But I can’t let him
know I know what he’s done either.”

“Go to see him tomorrow as normal and if things get
out of hand phone me and I’ll send the police.”

“You don’t even know where he lives and neither do
I.
 
I can’t get there on my own. I get
lost.”

“Don’t worry. We’ve got all night to figure something
out.”

She put her arms around me and we both snuggled up.
Both of us scared that we’d gotten into something way beyond our control. I was
scared for my life now.

-19-

I needed to be brave. I was going to college in just
over five weeks to study criminal justice. How ironic that my first case was
getting justice for my mom. Amber and I had spent most of last night coming up
with a plan and I was happy with it; although I was still scared. Eddie was
capable of murder; not just in past lives but in this one too.

I walked towards the bottom of the hill and he was
already waiting for me. He held out his hands and I cringed as he kissed me.
“What’s up?” he asked.

“Nothing. I guess I’m still a little upset about Mom.
The police have got a suspect.”

He put his hands in his pockets and walked slightly
ahead of me. “So who do they think it is then?”

“Some homeless guy.”

“That sounds about right. He probably had mental
problems. A lot of people like that end up on the streets you know.”

“I know.”

“So when will you find out?”

“I don’t really want to talk about it,” I said,
following behind him.
 
I knew he’d done
it.
 
He was only asking so many questions
because he wanted to make sure he was off the hook.

 
“You can’t keep
stuff like that hidden inside.
 
You need
to talk about stuff like that.”

“It makes me feel worse if I talk about it. Can’t we
talk about something else instead?”

He stopped still while I caught up with him and he
took hold of my hand. “We can talk about whatever you want,” he said.

“To be honest I’d rather just walk in silence, if
that’s ok?”

“Sure.”

It was a lovely, warm summer’s evening and I enjoyed
looking at the scenery as we walked to Eddie’s hut.
 
I could smell fresh cut grass and barbeque
and the birds were singing too.
 
It was
little things like this that helped me to stay sane. We walked through the
cemetery and I saw Emily’s headstone again. “How do you know so much about our
past lives? Have you had hypnotherapy or something?” I asked, curious to find
out how he knew.

He led me over to the headstone and we both linked
arms. “My gran told me about it. She was a psychic and she could tell anyone
she met who they were in a past life.
 
She was very gifted. She didn’t charge money for it either.”

“I wish I could have met her,” I said.

“You did.”

“What?”

“You’ve met her before in some of our past lives.”

I stroked his arm. “So we’ve been together in all of
our past lives, right?”

“Not all. In some of them I couldn’t find you.”

“How did you find me this time?”

“I didn’t. You found me. That’s why I think we’re
finally going to get this thing sorted.”

“What do you mean?”

“You must feel that there’s something special between
us?”

“I guess.”

“It’s such a powerful force but in the past I think we
didn’t know how to control it.
 
We let it
control us.
 
We can’t live without each
other but we found it hard to live with each other too.”

“Why did Emily leave you?”

He looked directly at me and I felt a sharp pain in between
my eyes.
 
I felt numb. “Don’t you
remember? Don’t you remember her at all?”

“No.”

“You’re so lucky. I have flashbacks all the time. You,
Emily, running so fast towards the lake and trying to swim across…”

“Why was she so scared of you?”

“So you do remember?”

“What do you mean?”

“You said she was scared. I didn’t say she was
scared.”

“Was she scared?”

He raised his voice “Too right she was scared! I’d
just found out she’d cheated on me. She said the baby was mine but how could I
believe her after finding out she was nothing but a cheating whore!” I swore
his eyes looked red again and I felt scared. He hated Emily and if she was me
then he must have hated me too.

“Why don’t you let it all go now, Eddie. That was all
in the past. Let her rest in peace.”

He seemed to calm down a little. “I know it’s all in
the past.
 
Like I said, this is our
chance to do it right this time.
 
You
found me so you must be ready to make up for your past mistakes.”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. He thought
cheating was worse than murder! “Maybe you’re right,” I lied. “Why don’t we go
into your hut, get something to drink?”

He smiled. “Ok.”

Once inside I relaxed a little, knowing that Amber
wouldn’t let me down with our plan. I just had to keep him happy for a little while
longer. He switched on the battery operated radio and we listened to some
classical music; it seemed to relax him. “I love this music,” he said. “It’s
been around for so long that I remember hearing it in other lives too.”

“I never thought of that,” I said, stroking his hair.
It felt strange, being here with him, knowing what he’d done to Mom; knowing
what he’d done to Emily (albeit in a past life but it was still him; his soul).
I still loved him; maybe that was something I couldn’t control; part of our
souls’ history, but at the same time I hated him. Little did he know that after
tonight I’d be free of him.
 
I just had
to pluck up the courage to tell him how I really felt. My heart started to beat
quicker. He sat up and moved his face closer to mine.
 
I had to go along with it for just a little
while longer. His lips were on mine and it felt so good; I couldn’t let him
know. His hands started to move across my body and I didn’t want him that way.
I pushed his hands away and he jumped up. “What’s wrong?” he said.

“Can’t we just snuggle tonight? I’m still a little
upset about Mom and everything.”

He shook his head. “How long are you going to keep
using that as an excuse? You just won’t admit you don’t love me anymore, will
you?”

“What’s with you? “

“I know all about you, Charlotte Perry.”

“What do you mean?”

“I know you’ve been seeing other men.”

“What?”

He sat back down and grabbed hold of my shoulders.
“You must be seeing someone else. You’ve gone all cold and distant. You’re
spending too much time with that tart, Amber!”

“Leave Amber out of this!”

“Just the two of you in that house! I bet you have all
sorts of men coming in.”

“What’s got into you? I’m not Emily, Eddie. I don’t
cheat!”

“All women are the same. A bunch of lying cheats.”

He picked up his jacket and walked outside, where it
had now gone dark and a little chilly. I had to keep him with me just a while
longer. I walked out and put my arms around his waist. “Eddie, don’t do
this.
 
My mom’s just died and I need
you.”