She gave the door a good hard knock again. They stood another couple of minutes at the kelly green front door with no answer. Della reached back and twisted her ponytail, the hair band from the Camaro’s glove compartment again.
On the drive here, Chase had tried to start a conversation, but she’d avoided it. She was still stuck on the possibility that Chase might actually know her uncle.
“We have choices,” Chase said and took a few steps back to look up.
“What kind of choices?” Della asked, fighting off the wave of disappointment as well as the overwhelming sadness—the same one she’d felt when they’d been here yesterday. Was it the home? Or was it the ghost?
“We could go inside and see if we find any pictures that might tell us for sure if Natasha Owens is our girl.”
“I think that’s called breaking and entering,” Della said.
“Just entering,” he said. “I saw an upstairs window that’s open. And we’d hear if a car pulled up.”
She considered Burnett’s parting words about Chase being a wild card. But the temptation lingered.
“It’s not as if we’re going to steal anything,” he added.
She backed up and looked up at the second-story window, raised a good four inches. Oh, hell, what was the worst that could happen?
You could get caught, arrested, and then for sure your dad will pull you from Shadow Falls.
Her mind flashed an image of Natasha and Liam. Okay, was that the ghost? Or was it just her accepting that sometimes you just had to take risks? “Let’s do it.”
Chapter Twenty-three
“Or maybe we shouldn’t do it,” Della added a second later, when she realized what they were about to do was really a crime. And at seventeen she could be tried as an adult.
Chase cut his eyes to her. “Do you want to wait outside?”
“No,” she snapped, feeling as if he was calling her a coward.
He looked around and tilted his head to the side as if to confirm no cars were coming.
“Then let’s do it.” He leapt up, caught the windowsill, let go with one hand, and then lifted the window up. Only after he’d climbed in did she jump up.
She caught the windowsill and Chase offered a hand. She ignored it and pulled herself into the room. A game room. A large brown leather sofa cornered the room and a large television sat in the other. A treadmill and a set of weights were set to the side, which she hoped explained why the scent of human was so strong.
Music, a Dido song, piped into the room from two speakers in the ceiling. Della looked around at the nice interior, feeling the sense of sadness even stronger in here than outside. She glanced around for any personal photos, but other than a few prints of wildlife, nothing hung on the wall.
Chase walked to the door, slowly opened it, and started moving down the hall. Della, feeling like a criminal, crept behind him. He appeared to be heading down the stairs, but her gaze shifted to the hall wall that was lined with what looked like family photos.
“Look,” Della whispered, still feeling edgy. Her gaze shifted from the two parents—one American and the father looked at least part Asian—to a young girl. Natasha. Her heart sang a little victory song.
“It’s her,” Della said. “I knew it.”
“Okay,” Chase said. “Now we know her name is Natasha Owen. Let’s see if we can find her bedroom and see if there are any clues in there that might help us.”
He moved to the first door on the right and opened it. A bedroom. Decorated in soft cream colors, the room looked devoid of personality. The bed appeared freshly made or perhaps never slept in. Guest bedroom, Della surmised, and both she and Chase stepped back at the same time. The door made a slight clink when he shut it.
The next room he opened sent a warm wash of emotion over Della. Painted and decorated in bright purple with whitewashed furniture, it had teen written all over it. Even the bedspread, a brighter purple, screamed that this room had been lived in by a young person. Someone who loved life and lived it with gusto.
This was it. Natasha’s room. Della knew it.
Three pairs of shoes were scattered around the room, jeans and some blouses were piled in one corner as if the last time Natasha was here, she hadn’t been sure what to wear and had changed clothes several times.
Had she been going on a date? Or going out for pizza with her friends? Oddly, standing in the room, Della felt bits and pieces of Natasha’s personality seep into her pores. A few CDs were on the dresser. She loved music. Maybe even to dance.
Pushing the crazy thoughts away, she started doing what they’d come in here to do: to see if they could find any clues.
The bed wasn’t made, as if the world had stopped the day she had gone missing—or as her parents saw it, the day she died.
For one second, Della remembered how her mom hadn’t touched her room after she left for Shadow Falls. Was that a sign of love?
On the bedside table was an eight-by-ten photo of Natasha and two other girls, all laughing and capturing a moment of happiness, of friendship.
Della moved closer to the picture and thought of her two friends Miranda and Kylie. Were these Natasha’s best friends? Had they too been devastated at what they thought was her death?
Picking up the frame, Della recalled the few friends she’d left behind in her old life. Oddly, they hadn’t been nearly as important to her as Miranda and Kylie.
Pulling herself out of her past, she noted another picture of the three girls with graduation caps sitting on all of the girls’ heads. Natasha was older than Della had originally thought. That, or she’d finished school early.
She put one picture down to pick up the other. Natasha’s face drew her attention. There was something … almost familiar about it. And it was more than just having seen it in the photo with Chan and her aunt.
The sound of Chase opening drawers and rummaging through things behind her called her attention. She got a big sensation that they were intruding on the parents’ personal shrine to their daughter, and she put the picture back down, almost wishing she hadn’t even touched them.
She glanced back at Chase. “Don’t move things around too much,” she said, sensing the mom or dad came in here often and had memorized the placement of all their daughter’s things. Things that told of her life.
“I’m just looking for anything that might give us something to help find her.”
Della didn’t know what that something would be, but being here felt right, almost as if the ghost had led them here. On top of a dresser was a picture of a man. Dark hair, slanted eyes. Della was almost certain it was the same man in the family photo that hung in the hall.
Funny how Natasha looked more Asian than her own father. Luck of the draw, Della thought, remembering how she hardly looked Asian.
All of a sudden, behind the soft music and lyrics, came the sound of a car moving down the road. “Someone’s coming,” she said.
“I know,” Chase said.
By the time they got to the window, the car was pulling into the drive. “Shit,” Della muttered.
“No problem,” Chase said. “We’ll wait until he unlocks the door, then we’ll jump out this window. It’s going to be okay,” he said, as if sensed her near panic.
Sensed it correctly. Della’s adrenaline pumped like crazy. The thought of being caught sent bolts of fear coursing through her veins. And then she heard it. Not the driver in the car outside who had cut the engine off. The car was the least of their problems. What Della heard were footsteps. Footsteps moving up the steps from inside the house.
Someone was already inside the home. Had been there the entire time. Had they heard them? Were they coming to check?
Chase, obviously hearing it as well, looked back out the window.
“He’s not out of the car yet.” His voice barely reached her ears.
“So what do we do?” she replied in the same low voice.
“Plan B,” he said.
“What is it?”
He paused one second. “I don’t have a friggin’ clue.”
“Shit,” Della whispered again.
The footsteps thudded closer, down the hall, almost in front of the bedroom door. Nothing but a thin piece of wood stood between them and being caught as intruders.
Never had Della been this envious of Kylie’s gift of turning invisible. But wishing was going to get her nowhere—she needed a plan. She needed one fast.
“The closet.” She latched her hand around his arm and pulled him inside.
They had barely gotten the door closed and sunk down amongst a few shoes and clothes that had fallen on the floor, when the footsteps stopped. Stopped right outside the bedroom door.
Della pulled her knees to her chest. Darkness filled the small space. Her shoulder pressed against Chase’s. Needing more air to attempt to deal with the panic gripping her lungs, she took fast, and hopefully silent, breaths. The smell of perfume and shampoo, obviously Natasha’s, filled the air. Then Chase’s scent, spicy male soap and outdoors, filled Della’s senses. While she could barely see anything, she still shut her eyes. Tight. And prayed.
Don’t let them come in here. Don’t let them come in here.
The door clicked open and the footsteps entered into the room. Soft footsteps sounding like a woman. What came next? If the person belonging to the footsteps had actually heard them, wouldn’t she check the closet? Oh no. Why had Della chosen the closet?
Della’s insides knotted with the thought of having to explain to her parents why she’d broken into someone’s home.
Damn! Damn! She and Chase were going to get caught and this was going to be bad. Really, really bad.
The footsteps came farther into the room. Eyes still forced shut, she heard the person inhale, deeply. Chase’s lips came against her ear.
“If they open the door, we fly right through the window. Just keep your head down and watch out for glass. If we go fast, they won’t be able to describe us to the cops.”
Della opened her eyes. Light snuck through the small space where the door didn’t meet the wood floor. That, or her vision had adjusted to the dark and she could make out things—the clothes on the floor, the pair of worn tennis shoes in the corner. She shifted her gaze back to the door, preparing herself to run like hell if it opened.
She counted to three, thinking that was about the time a person would need to decide to check the closet.
One.
Two.
Three.
The door didn’t open.
The sound of the bed’s mattress sighing with weight added another layer of sadness to the song playing in the background.
Then came the heartfelt sob. A feminine sob. Not part of the music, but so much more emotional. It sounded like pain. Pure. Raw.
“Why do I keep hearing you?” the woman said. “Are you here, baby? Why can’t I accept that you are gone? Can you hear me? I love you. I miss you. Miss you so much.”
She’s not gone, Della wanted to say. Tears filled her eyes. While she ached for Natasha and her mom, Della couldn’t help but wonder if her own mother missed her.
Did her own mom ever walk into her room and cry?
Della didn’t realize she still held Chase’s hand until his fingers, laced with hers, gave her a light squeeze. Was he hurting for the woman, too? It felt as if he was trying to communicate to her that it would be okay.
But how could it be? The woman’s grief grew thicker, the air, even in the tiny closet, felt heavier. The feeling of injustice, of grief, wiggled its way into Della’s chest and made her insides feel crowded.
The music suddenly stopped and the sound of a phone ringing piped over the intercom.
The ringing became replaced with an electronic voice announcing: Call from Miao Hon.
Della’s breath caught. Surely she’d heard it wrong. But the message repeated. Call from Miao Hon.
Why was her aunt, Chan’s mother, calling Natasha’s mom?
Della let out a shuttered breath. She cut her eyes toward Chase, but he hadn’t seemed to put Chan’s last name together with the person who was calling.
The slight sound of the mattress rising filtered through the door. Then footsteps left the bedroom. The click of the bedroom door shutting reached Della’s ears, but it somehow sounded different. Distant. Too distant. Immediately, the closet seemed to grow darker. Instead of a hiding place, it felt like a prison.
Della turned to tell Chase she wanted to leave—she wanted out of there, away from the pain—but it wasn’t Chase sitting next to her.
Chapter Twenty-four
Fear was her go-to emotion, but when she went there, the fear faded into a whole different kind of feeling. Something that gave her butterflies in her stomach. Good butterflies.
With her shoulder against his, she stared at the guy, trying to understand. He had dark brown, almost black, almond-shaped eyes, smooth skin the color of coffee with lots of cream. His short hair was black and hung in loose curls over his brow. His features were … perfect, except for a scar that was still red over his left brow. Something about him tickled her memory bank, but she couldn’t quite grasp it. Yet she had the oddest desire to run her finger over the healing wound.
All of a sudden, another recollection whispered across what little brain power she had. She didn’t see everything, but had vague flashes of a fight, and she knew he had gotten that wound trying to protect her.
He stared at her with warmth and passion. She wanted to close the distance between them, but then she didn’t have to. He leaned closer, his mouth a whisper from hers. His light breath touched her lips.
He was going to kiss her.
Correction. He was kissing her.
No, not her. He was kissing Natasha.
He was Liam. And Natasha was kissing him back.