Fractured Legacy: Aicil Paranormal Files #1

Chapter 12

Jonah

I shrug on a jacket while I wait for Kaylyn to change. Within ten minutes, she comes bounding down the stairs in a pair of black pinstriped pants and a dark blue button-up blouse, with her hair pulled into a low ponytail. She pulls on a black leather blazer and flip her hair over the collar.

"You're staring at me again," she says, narrowing her eyes. "Like the first day of work. Still not good enough for you?"

For some reason, I suddenly want another beer. "You look surprisingly professional."

"Ah," she jams her hands into her coat pockets. "Just as shocking, then? At least I've still got that going for me."

Outside, Kaylyn heads straight for her car, but I corral her toward mine instead. "I'm driving, and you're riding with me. I have more questions before we barge into your childhood home."

"Always have to have it your way, don't you?" Kaylyn says it with a touch of humor in her voice, but I didn't see a hint of that humor in her expression. She scuffs the bottom of her shoe against the driveway pavement and climbs into my car. "It's about fifteen or twenty minutes from here, near Brown Ridge."

Brown Ridge? I shift the car into reverse and back down the driveway, pausing before pulling out onto the country road. I figured she would have elaborated by now, but she's silent. "You really expect that I know where Brown Ridge is?"

"Oh," she seems to snap back to the present. "It's about ten miles east on Route 54."

My road let out at the highway, so I turned right and headed east. "So, your family lived in the house until you and Cole left for college, and no one ever talked about what happened?"

"Yeah."

I wait again, hoping that I won't have to pry every detail out of her, but Kaylyn shows no signs of opening up on her own. "You're still close with your parents? They don't live far away, right?"

"Yeah, they got divorced the year Cole and I moved into an apartment together. But... aside from Cole, I was never that close with anyone, not even my family. And now the dream is so real, I wake up every morning believing that my parents are dead, and I somehow fucked up."

My hand moves to my chest where my mother's pendant normally rests.

"Your mom?" Her voice comes out so quiet, I can barely hear it over the sounds of the road. "Was it an accident or...?"

I glance over, then back at the road. "Car accident. Nothing paranormal, but...." It's unfair to ask Kaylyn to open up about her past when I can't do it himself, but I've never discussed my suspicions with anyone, even Dad.

"But?" Now seemingly alert enough to jump on that one little word, it's Kaylyn's turn to pull for the full story.

"I think she knew it was coming." I glance over again. "She always promised to make me a pendant, but she never found the right materials."

I take a deep breath and lower my hand to the shifter, preparing to slow the car to follow the exit into the residential zone. "During finals week of my first semester, I got that pendant in the mail. I thought she'd finally made one, so I didn't think much of it. There was a bad snowstorm, and I had to go home two days late because the airports in Alberta were closed. The day after I was supposed to be home, she and Dad were driving home from the store. The roads weren't too bad where they were, but she hit a slick patch. Mom was good at driving in bad weather, and she got the car under control, but an SUV came up on them. The SUV was speeding, and once it hit the ice, it lost control and hit the driver's side of the car."