The Reaping (The Fahllen #1)(50)
Author: M. Leighton

Shaken, I hurried back to the hotel. As soon as I was ensconced in the privacy of my room, I punched my home number into the cell phone. Then, as my thumb hovered over the green call button, indecision struck me.

My first instinct had been to call Derek, but that action was fraught with consequences, consequences that I wasn’t ready to deal with yet. Reminding myself that I am smart and capable, I hit the disconnect button. I was going to figure this out on my own. Once I found out the identity of the man, it would surely lead me to some explanation as to why I was seeing the girl from the Darkness feeding off his blood.

I spent the rest of the evening scouring the news channels for local deaths and tales of tragedy. Though there were many gruesome stories, none detailed a man hit and killed while jogging.

I walked down to the lobby for a newspaper, thinking there might be a small chance I was witnessing something that happened yesterday or the day before, but there was nothing.

Reclining on the bed, I dialed Mr. Allsley’s number once more, but got his voice mail again. This time I didn’t leave a message.

I flipped to another local news channel and settled in to watch television until I heard from Mr. Allsley. I was kind of stuck until I could reach him.

I must’ve drifted off to sleep, but I woke quickly when I heard a man’s voice saying something about a local man by the name of Byron Allsley. I blinked my bleary eyes at the television and saw a reporter standing alongside some railroad tracks.

“…Investigators believe that Allsley was out for his daily run when the train came upon him. A spokesperson from United Railway denies any knowledge of the dysfunctional warning system at this crossing, stating that all the quarterly diagnostic reports for this location checked out.

Allsleywas reported missing last night by his wife of nineteen years, Alicia Gaither Allsley, who has refused to comment at this time on whether or not the family will be seeking any kind of settlement from the railway…”

His words faded into the background when the screen switched to a picture of Mr. Allsley. My heart stuck in my throat as I looked at the handsome, olive-skinned face of the jogger I’d seen get crushed and eaten that afternoon.

Find Byron Allsley first.

I had thought I was supposed to find Byron Allsley first, as in before I went in search of my sister, but what if I was supposed to find him first, as in before someone else did, someone like the girl from the shadows? And why was she out of the shadows?

I thought of her, how much she looked like me and why I was seeing her. Was she really my sister or…someone, something else? Why was I linked to her? I mean, there was no question about our connection. I could feel it, like she was the other side of the coin, the yin to my yang. Was that a twin thing or something else?

Then I thought of my elemental powers and wondered about how I always saw her in the mist before, like she traveled in water. At least that had been the case until yesterday, when I’d seen her with Mr. Allsley. Why the sudden change? What had happened?

I had no answers, only the sinking feeling of inevitability. Was that my fate as well, what she was doing and seeming to enjoy? Would I soon be joining her?

A shudder ran through me followed by that steely sense of determination. I would either find her or find out what happened to her. And, aside from Derek, there was only one person I could think of that might know—my mother.

********

My luck took a turn for the better the next morning. After locating a library that would allow me to avail myself of their internet access without a cavity search, I was quickly able to come up with an idea of where my mother might be. And I was closer to her than I thought.

If it was, in fact, my mother that I had found, then she was going by her maiden name, Reilly, rather than Porter and she hadn’t moved from the town of my birth. It would take me about two hours to travel the distance from my current location to where she lived in Mansfield, Ohio.

Ready to get some answers, I got right on the interstate and headed southwest. As the highway miles sped by, I was plagued by doubts about whether or not I was doing the right thing. I mean, my father had gone to great lengths to make sure that my mother never found me. And obviously she hadn’t been very much help to my sister (as evidenced by the statement in her letter that Grey was already gone…to wherever). Plus, if Derek was right and someone made a deal, it made the most sense that the dealmaker was my mother. Was she really the person that I wanted to seek out for help?

I was getting off the exit in Mansfield before I could change my mind. I probably wouldn’t have turned back anyway. The fact was, I needed some help and she might be able to give it. End of story.

I had no trouble finding Maple Street. It had a wide median with trees planted all along its length, maples I assumed. When I reached the three hundred block, I slowed to look for number 306. When I found it, I parked across the street and cut the engine. The house looked nothing like the kind of place where a ruthless, wheeling-and-dealing person would make their home.

It was adorable. Small and white, the structure looked like a dollhouse with its decorative gables and cozy front porch. The front door was green, as were the winter-empty flowerboxes. With its white picket fence, all it needed was smoke rising from the chimney and apple pies cooling on the window sills to fulfill the perfect cliché.

I watched it for well over an hour, debating my next move. I mean, if I went to the door, what would I say? “Hi, I’m your daughter, one of the two that you traded for a new car or a bigger house. Where can I find my sister?”

Fate took that awkward conversation right off the table, however, when the front door opened and a woman emerged. Her hair was much shorter than in our pictures, but I’d have recognized her anywhere. My mother had aged beautifully, changing very little other than the length of her hair.

I slid down in the driver’s seat and watched as she walked down the sidewalk, through the little white picket gate, and got into a black Volkswagen parked at the curb. When she started the car and drove off, I started my own engine and followed her.

She parked in front of a brick building that had the old world appeal of a whole-in-the-wall rare book store. It even boasted an old, yellowed sign declaring it was FIRST EDITION. In smaller letters beneath that was JANINE REILLY, OWNER.

I watched discreetly as she walked to the front door and unlocked it, disappearing inside. Though she kept strange hours, it appeared that my mother was the owner of a small bookstore, a fact that didn’t really surprise me, what with the names she’d chosen for me and my sister.