Arcadia's Gift(63)

I quickly told them about Cane’s state of mind and that he’d been drinking. Aaron still didn’t like the idea of me going after him, but he shut his mouth and didn’t try to talk me out of it.
“Are you okay?” Bryan asked, real concern showing in his eyes, brushing my skin with a loving coolness. I nodded, but the concern in his eyes fueled my guilt. I really liked this boy, but I kissed someone else not fifteen minutes earlier. Not just anyone, but my dead sister’s boyfriend. The cramping in my belly had nothing to do with the emotions of the other passengers in the vehicle.
At a stop light, Bryan reached over and grasped my hand. “Jesus, your hands are freezing!” He raised his hand to touch my burning cheek. “I think you have a fever.”
“I’ll be okay in a few minutes,” I replied. My trembling had nearly stopped, but I felt light headed. I guess when emotions were strong enough, they could affect my physical body, not just my emotional barometer. I made a mental note to ask Jinx about it.
When we got to the parking lot on the edge of the woods, Cane’s truck was parked at an odd angle and he was nowhere in sight.
“What an idiot,” Aaron muttered, running his hand through his hair. “You said he was drinking?”
I nodded.
“Okay, you girls stay here. Bryan and I will go look for him.”
Before I had a chance to protest, Monica piped up. “Who are you, Fred Flintstone? Cady and I are not waiting here like helpless little girls.”
“That’s right,” I added. “We can cover more ground if we split up into groups.”
Bryan didn’t look happy about it, but he reluctantly nodded. “There should be a flashlight in my glove box. I’ve never been here before, but I assume you and Aaron are both familiar enough, right?”
“Sure,” I nodded. “Give Aaron and Monica the flashlight. They can go deeper into the trees. If we stick to the trail that goes along the cliff base, we should be able to get along all right. When it gets closer to the Mississippi, the trees thin out, so that’ll give us some moonlight.”
The four of us climbed out of the car and set off down separate paths. My body was mostly recovered from Cane’s emotional freeze. I clung to Bryan’s arm as we walked as fast as I could in my dress shoes. Thankfully, it hadn’t rained in a while, so the ground was hard and dry. Still, I stumbled along in the dark.
“Cane!” I called out. “Where are you?”
In the distance I could hear echoes of Aaron and Monica calling out also. If Cane could hear us, he wasn’t inclined to answer.
A break in the trees ahead illuminated a fork in the path. To the left was a steep incline leading up to the trails along the rocky bluffs. The right path wound around the base toward the river. It was the same trail I’d walked the night of my sister’s death. I felt a little sick to my stomach at the memory and quickly stuffed it down into a back compartment in my mind.#p#分页标题#e#
“You don’t think he would have gone up there, do you?” Bryan asked.
I shook my head. “He’s not that stupid. The trails get rocky and it’s too easy to slide around. It’s not all that safe during the daylight, but at night, it’s treacherous.”
We continued on, calling out to Cane as we walked. I could still hear Aaron and Monica, but their calls were getting more distant. When we reached the clearing before the river, I stopped short.
“What is it?” Bryan asked.
I cleared my throat. “I-I just haven’t been back here, you know?”
“Is this…?”
I nodded, pointing a shaky finger toward the train tracks. “Those are the tracks. I was with some people sitting by those boulders over there. We were waiting for Lony and Cane to catch up. She was hit right about there.”
“I’m sorry,” he said, wrapping a comforting arm around my shoulders. “Maybe we should turn around and go another direction. Cane isn’t down this far.”
I stood silent looking ahead at the tracks. I don’t know why it never occurred to me to visit this place before now. I never believed in things like ghosts and spirits before, but meeting Jinx and discovering that I’m an empath suddenly had me questioning everything. Maybe there was something of Lony still lingering here. I sure as heck never felt her presence at home.
“Can you give me a minute?”
Bryan kissed me on my forehead and let go of my shoulders.
I could walk a little easier now that there was more moonlight visible. I drew my jacket tight across my chest, more for comfort than cold. The long, weedy grass gradually gave way to gravel which rose up a short bank to the gleaming steel tracks. To my left, I spotted an area where the grass was more matted down. I walked over and found a patch of gravel a shade brighter than the rest. This must be the place, I thought. New gravel to replace the stuff covered in blood.