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Twenty-Three

Zee stretched her head toward her knee. Her ankle was up on the barre, and she moaned as her muscles eased into the extended position. Watching herself in the mirror, she wondered if she would ever regain the flexibility she had before she turned twelve and started to grow up.

Ballet wasn't her forte, and she wasn't enrolled in pointe classes. Her teacher was patient, and she was improving, but her heart was in hip hop and jazz. Ballroom turned her off unless she could dance with Percy. A soft smile flickered across her face as she switched legs and stretched the other way.

"Okay class, that's it till next week. Zena, awesome improvement over last week. I know you're frustrated, but you're getting your form back again." Madame Cherise praised.

Zena touched her nose to her knee before slowly moving back to upright. Raising on her toe, she moved her extended leg into an arabesque and then lowered it into position six to finish the move.

"Thank you, Madame." Zena tried to stay humble, but her pleased smile betrayed her. She walked over to her bag and pulled leg warmers over her calves. She didn't want to chill her muscles and it was frosty. She shrugged into a long cardigan and pulled the belt snug around her waist before heading out the door. The studio was down the street from the high school, where the gymnastics club practiced three nights a week.

She checked her watch and ran down the stairs. Lacey should be done with practice and they had just enough time to make it to Aunt Deanne's office. She started her all wheel drive Lexus. So much had changed. And now she had all her privileges back. Cell phone, laptop, driving, everything. The only thing missing was a way to thank her mother for calling her bluff.

Lace was waiting at the curb as she parked between two other parents. She stowed her tote in the back seat and swung in beside her, leaning forward to massage her right calf.

"Rough workout?" Zee asked.

"Yeah, but I've got my routines memorized for floor, uneven bars, and the balance beam. The vault is a given. I'm doing the triple twisting single layout flip. I wish I was as good at dance as you are. It's a real weak point. Connecting my tumbling runs on the floor is harder than it looks."

"I'm getting my flexibility back at the barre. Maybe we can work out something for you during our next cheer practice."

"Let's ask coach if she minds. I can use the same moves to spice up my tumbling runs for that too," Lace said.

"Don't look now, but that car, the black one, has been following me from my dance class. It pulled into the parking lot at the school, and now it's about a block back." Zee looked over her shoulder as she turned the corner toward city hall.

"Hurry up and park at the office. I want to see who's driving."

"Look, it's that same guy from the pep rally. Creepy jerk. Can you read the license plate?" Zee turned to study the man at the wheel. He looked like he was tall, his head barely missing the roof.

"I've got it." Lace tapped a sequence into her phone. "I love this notes app."

"I wasn't seeing things, was I? That was the same guy?"

"Definitely. I got a better look at him, even if he looked away from us as he passed us. He sure is shy."

Zee snorted at Lace's sarcastic comment. "At least we have his plate. I hope we can convince the police this isn't something they should ignore."

"Let's go in and see if Dad has anymore on the missing women from way back when. I want to know if we can find our ghost."

"And then we need to make sure we can get to Concord to pick up Sara at the airport too. I can't believe it's only three weeks till my Halloween Party."

Zee locked her car, as Lace pushed the glass door at the office open.

This weird man had turned up twice now. Who the hell was he?

"Mom?" Lace called out as she locked the door behind Zee.

"In the back, we've got Chinese again. We ordered the same as we did last time."

"Great, I'm starving."

Zee followed Lace down the hall into the kitchen. Walking over to her dad, she dropped a kiss on his forehead, before sliding onto the bench at the back of the table.

"How did practice go Tiger?" Uncle James' nickname for her twin was something she wondered about. How did she get it?

"Great, but let's eat. We need to tell you about the car that was following us."

"Really?" Aunt Deanne started pulling boxes of food out of the takeout bags.

Zee explained between bites of the spring roll she dipped into plum sauce. Then Lace, pulled out her phone and gave her dad the description of the car and its plate. Talk turned to figuring out who their ghost was.

"There are over twenty women who went missing in the correct time period within five hundred miles of us. Those are the ones who are still missing. One of the police departments I talked to suggested we get a cadaver dog out to search the grounds of the mansion." Matt Henderson said.

"Gross. But having a body found on the grounds would make it just that much scarier for my party," Zee said. She pushed her plate of stir fried vegetables away, as the thought took hold. Her appetite suddenly gone, she stood up to get some water.

"I went through all the obituaries and checked with the funeral homes statewide, looking for women who died in the two years after your mystery cousin was born." Deanne said. "I doubt any of them fit. None of them were buried without mention of their families. I don't think our ghost is one of them."

"I'm going to talk to the state troopers. I think they have a dog who could sniff a body out. Even this long after it was buried. Their noses are incredible," James said. "I'll find out if there are any legal requirements to make it happen. By Halloween we should know."

"God what a way to make me lose my appetite," Lacey said as she pushed her plate away.

"Leftovers for tomorrow," Deanne said. "It's kind of turned me off food right now. But I think that's the way to go. Get a dog out or maybe one of those ground radar units like they're using to find unmarked graves in Canada."

"We were talking about those poor Indigenous children in history class. There are some in the states too." Zee wanted to turn the conversation away from the ghost and a possible undiscovered grave at her home. Reality wasn't nearly as simple as a TV show made it.

"On another topic, I'm hoping to track down Anya's mother tomorrow. I spoke to her boss at the restaurant, and he's agreed to let me have half an hour with her. I'll see what I can find out from her about why her daughter is such a terror. And I'll let her know we're taking it up to appeals to get an injunction. It's sad that it means Anya might have to switch schools." Deanne told them.

"There has to be some way to get past this without kicking her out in her senior year," Matt said.

"Dad, she's getting worse. She's there before we walk into any class we have together. She stares at us, and she keeps muttering about us getting what's coming to us. I swear she's right out of her mind." Zee protested.

"Stick with Percy, or Lacey. She's a coward at heart. She doesn't like the odds, especially if Terry is around too. At least that's the way it's been since she first found Lacey in grade school." James picked up a mushroom with his chopsticks.

"Dad, how can you eat?" Lacey shook her head.

Zee held her hand over her mouth and got up thinking she might have to run for the bathroom. Dead bodies and food didn't work at all.

James Pemberton shrugged his shoulders. "I did an anatomy class in university before I figured out, I wanted law instead of medicine. We saw a few cadavers. Not much grosses me out anymore."

"That's it, I'm going to be sick." Zee darted up the hall and slammed the bathroom door behind her.