03 – Stakeouts Lead to More Questions

“They were staring and snickering and Penelope looked at me like I was crazy for knowing so much about your… your… body.”

“That’s rough buddy,” Erika said without a single note of sympathy in her tone.

She sat in her pickup truck, dipping chicken nuggets into sweet and sour sauce while listening to her newest phone contact rant over speakerphone. The lights were out, the engine was off, and she was parked well down the road from her house. Just around the corner where most of her truck would hopefully be hidden, yet still close enough that she could see the Corolla in the driveway.

She had to hope that the dark October night combined with fake Leah not expecting her to be here would keep her suitably hidden.

“Wheeler came over and asked where you were and I just… I panicked. I didn’t know what to say and then I’m pretty sure I started saying way too much and the whole class was staring by the end and—”

“What did you say?” Erika asked as she took a sip of her diet cola. “People were looking at me a little weird when I got back.”

“I’m not going to repeat it!”

“Why not?”

“It’s… crude.”

“Dude, all you had to say was that I was complaining of some rough cramps. That’s it. End of line. Break it off there.”

A long moment of silence followed, which Erika used to check for any messages. Carter was supposed to be spying on the fake Leah from inside the house, just in case she didn’t take the car when she left. Given the late hour, he might have fallen asleep on the job.

It was only a quarter past midnight. There were just under two hours before fake Leah was supposed to go meet someone and that was assuming they weren’t meeting in the afternoon.

“Why didn’t you tell me that in class?”

“Thought it would be obvious. Didn’t know you were so—”

“No! Beth! Wait—”

Daniel’s voice cut off with the sound of a short scuffle. A moment later, a younger, feminine voice spoke on the line.

“Who is this?”

Erika, loudly, slurped down some of her soda, right next to her phone. “Who’s asking?”

“Oohh, a lady~,” the new voice said, her tone teasing. The voice went slightly muffled as its owner turned away from the phone. “Thought you were gay.”

“ᴵ’ᵐ ⁿᵒᵗ— ˢʰᵉ’ˢ ⁿᵒᵗ ᵐʸ—”

“Whatever, lover boy.” The voice came back in force. “So, you the reason my bro has been all red-faced and asking about periods?”

Erika let out a loud laugh. She couldn’t help it. This was the whole reason she had called him up. A distraction. Something to keep her thoughts off her family. “He didn’t…”

“Oh he did. Me and mom. Right in the middle of dinner. I think you must have bewitched him to get him to do that. Make a fool of himself.”

“Bewitched?”

“Like, he isn’t normally like that. An idiot, yes, but not like a drooling idiot. Or maybe you just bewitched him into talking to you because I thought he was gay.”

“ᴳᵉᵗ ᵒᶠᶠ—”

There was another short scuffle but the younger sister emerged victorious once more. “Or… if not that… He didn’t get you pregnant, did he?”

“ᴮᵉᵗʰany!”

Erika just laughed, eating a few French fries like they were popcorn as the muffled fighting started up once again.

“Hi,” Daniel said. “It’s me. Dan again. My sister got the phone from me.”

“I figured. Bethany, is it? Charming one.”

“Ah hah… Ah… no. She thinks she’s cute but she’s not charming in the slightest.”

“ᴴᵉʸ!”

“Sorry about that bewitching nonsense. Don’t pay her any attention. My family is a bit strange.”

“Really? Strange how?”

“You wouldn’t even believe the half of it.”

Erika snorted as she leaned back in her seat. The old pickup didn’t have comfortable padding in the slightest and the fraying fabric was so thin and flimsy from having worn away that it might as well have not existed. She was practically sitting on raw springs.

She stared out the window at the Corolla, once again checking to see if Carter sent a message. With a call going at the same time, it was possible that she could miss the quiet notification and accompanying buzz. He hadn’t sent anything yet.

“Try me.”

Daniel took a deep breath and let it out slowly. He didn’t answer right away. Instead, there was some rustling and the echoing thump of a door closing. He must have been getting himself some privacy from wherever his sister had ambushed him. Only after another breath did he finally speak.

“My parents think my Uncle Burt turned into a ghost and murdered his wife. Now, for some reason, it is their responsibility to hunt down ghosts and make sure that doesn’t happen to anyone else.”

Erika wasn’t sure what she had been expecting. Perhaps something mundane, like his sister was hyperactive or had an overactive imagination. Or maybe something slightly less mundane, like the older brother could freeze an object in time or could retroactively leave a room before he actually left.

But ghosts?

“Did he turn into a ghost before or after killing the wife?”

“Before. I think I only met him like one time but we still went to his funeral. Aunt Heather was there, very much not dead.”

“Huh.”

“Yeah. Like I said, weird right? But because my parents are quite insistent on that and have taught us all to ‘look for the signs’ of hauntings,” he said. The finger quotes were audible over the phone. “She thinks that because ghosts are real, magic must be real too. Every single thing that happens is witchcraft until proved otherwise.”

“Lots of kids think magic is real.”

“She’s turning fifteen next month. Hardly a little kid.”

“Huh.”

Erika almost leaned her head back against the truck’s headrest only to remember that she was supposed to be keeping a lookout over her street. She stopped herself and focused, scanning up and down all the sections of the street illuminated by house lights and street lamps. The Corolla was still there and no sign of anyone out and about.

There was a message from Carter. He was still awake and Leah was out on the couch watching television. Nothing amiss yet.

Erika moved the phone to her lap so she would feel the vibration if he sent another message.

The conversation seemed to have died off. To be fair, talking about family murder—even if one didn’t know the victim all that well—wasn’t exactly the best topic to jump into. She could hear Daniel doing something on the other end. Fidgeting, probably. That went on for a good five minutes while Erika considered what he had said.

Ghosts… Witches. Those weren’t something she would have thought were worth considering. But then again, she had no idea what was worth thinking about.

What was a witch? What was a ghost?

For that matter, what, if anything, was she or Carter or this fake Leah? The things they could do were outside the norm, Erika well knew that. But she didn’t think that any of them were the ones doing the things. It was the world that worked like that. They just knew how to exploit it.

Like someone who had developed a skill for picking locks. The lock was there. The method to manipulate the tumblers existed. All they had to do was do it.

Would someone call her a witch? Carter?

And what about this fake Leah?

Figuring that Daniel wouldn’t be able to continue the conversation, and having something she was interested in, Erika asked a simple question. “Do ghosts possess people?”

“Oh no,” Daniel said with a long groan. “Not you too.”

“Just curious,” Erika said. “Are there other…”

A buzzing on her lap had her glancing down at a text message from Carter. He hadn’t left his room but he could hear the television turn off. Another message came through before Erika even finished reading the first. He heard the front door open and close.

Erika looked up just in time to see the lights of the old Corolla turn on. The nearest main road was in the opposite direction. She still tensed as the car backed out of the driveway, worried it would head toward her.

It didn’t.

“Hey, it’s been nice chatting,” she said as she started up the pickup. “I’ve got to go.”

“I swear, I’m normal.”

“I don’t know, sounds like you’re protesting a bit too much,” Erika said, slowly following after the Corolla’s taillights. She left her headlights off for now. Once they reached a main road, she would have to turn them on. Hopefully, then she would be able to blend in with what little other traffic there was at one in the morning. “But I’ve got some things to take care of for now. Later man.”

“See you in class?”

“If I don’t have anything better to do.”

With that, Erika hung up on the call.

Immediately, her mood turned morose. Her thoughts turned away from the awkward boy and toward what she was doing. “Is that what happened to you, Mom? You got possessed by a ghost?” she grumbled as she kept a careful distance from the car ahead of her.

Possession, now that it had come up, almost made sense. Erika wasn’t sure if she believed such things but that email she had found did mention a church. Could she be heading out to try to get an exorcism? That…

That would be ideal. It would mean that fake Leah wasn’t actually a fake. She was just… possessed. Then again, if demons or ghosts that could possess regular humans existed, would they really seek out exorcism?

And if being possessed was what allowed her to pull off similar tricks as Carter, what did that mean for either of them? Was Erika possessed and just didn’t know it? It seemed ridiculous that she wouldn’t know it but…

Well, everything was just speculation based on an odd comment.

Upon reaching the main road, Erika had to hurry out after the Corolla, flicking on her lights in the process. She hoped that the red pickup wasn’t all that noticeable in the smaller car’s rearview mirror. If the maybe-fake-maybe-not Leah did notice, she hadn’t taken any kind of evasive maneuvers. Erika followed her right onto the expressway going north, toward the heart of Chicago.

It was where Leah got off the expressway that gave Erika the inkling of knowing where they were headed.

That email had said to meet at a church. It hadn’t specified which and Chicago was home to a great many church buildings of varying notability. Erika could list two. Maybe three if she strained; the Walker family had never been a religious one. But the Old St. Patrick’s Church was one of the few she could name.

Erika slowed down and allowed the Corolla out of her sight. A risk to be sure. If Erika pegged the wrong location, she would lose the fake Leah entirely right here. That said, she wasn’t sure there was much of a choice. While there was traffic in Chicago despite it being half-past one, there wasn’t enough that Erika thought she could tail from close enough without being noticed. Especially on the smaller streets.

It was with no small relief that Erika noted the Corolla parked off the street around the side of the Old Church. Erika didn’t go near it. She stopped well in advance, pulling over next to a newer building adjacent to the park across the way from the church.

Then, she looked at the passenger seat. After knocking the empty bag from her meal into the footwell, she opened up a fresh purchase from this afternoon—one bought just after telling her possibly fake mother that she would be out at another party all night and to not expect her home before morning.

Erika hefted up a camera. A fancy camera that cost far, far too much with a telescoping lens jutting out an arm’s length. She barely knew how to use it properly. Originally, Erika thought a pair of binoculars would be all she needed but, after a thought, decided it might be good to have some kind of evidence on hand. While ninety percent of its features were likely going to waste, she had played with it before getting hungry and calling up Daniel. She could mostly focus the lens and had figured out rapid picture-taking.

At the moment, she was focusing on the Corolla in the distance. The pickup’s windshield was a bit grimed up for this kind of work but Erika figured leaning out the window would be more noticeable. The dark didn’t help much either and she didn’t know if the camera had any kind of infrared mode. She still managed to get a good frame of the back of the Corolla, the dinged-up trunk, and the license plate. The interior light was on and someone was rummaging around in the glove compartment but it was just a shadow at this distance.

Erika zoomed in on the distant car as the shadow inside flicked off the light and opened the car door. The figure stepped onto the sidewalk and started walking toward the front of the Old St. Patrick’s Church. Toward Erika’s car, though she was parked far enough down the road that she didn’t feel in any real danger of being discovered. Zooming in, she snapped a picture right as the figure walked under the streetlight at the intersection.

Erika stared at the digital screen of the camera with a deep scowl on her face.

Last she checked, her mother was not a suave man with jet-black hair, a thick goatee, and a retro suit that probably cost more than their entire house and all its contents. He even had a fedora—or some similar hat—and somehow managed to avoid looking like a creep with it on. Based on his facial structure, Erika might have thought that he was Carter all grown up.

Neither she nor Carter knew their father. Only that they both had the same father. Which was a fairly upsetting revelation. It meant that, after Erika had been born, their father disappeared only to show up nearly seven years later just to have another kid. Given their mother’s former profession, perhaps that wasn’t all that odd. Still not something Erika liked to think about all that often.

Scanning back to the car, Erika zoomed in and double-checked that she hadn’t accidentally found the wrong car. The license plate numbers weren’t different. The car was the same old Corolla that she had seen a million times. That dent in the trunk was familiar, intimately familiar. She had put it into the car after accidentally hitting the gas instead of the brakes while still learning to drive.

The man continued around the corner and toward the large front doors. Before he headed up the few steps, he paused and looked around.

Erika’s heart leaped into her throat. She went utterly still while wishing she could duck down below the dashboard.

He didn’t look at her. His head stopped before even glancing in her direction. He turned and started walking across the street. Closer to her but not toward her.

Finally feeling like she could breathe again, Erika turned her camera in the direction he was heading. The little park that sat across from the church. This late at night, it was devoid of people.

Except for one person, seated on the bench under a lamp. A woman dressed as a stereotypical nun, complete with a long black and white habit. She held a cigarette in one hand, its trail of smoke visible in the windless night. The look on her face was devoid of life. Like she wished she was dead. Her eyes didn’t even flick toward the man as he approached and took a seat on the same bench.

He started talking first. She responded. He said something more. Erika snapped several pictures but the topic of the conversation was too quiet to hear even after working up the courage to crack open one of her truck’s windows.

She should have bought a parabolic microphone along with the camera. She just hadn’t thought about it. As it was, it was lucky that they were meeting outside at all. It was another thing she hadn’t considered, that they could have met inside the church. There would have been no way she could have slipped inside unnoticed.

Erika sent off a text message to her brother, asking Carter to do another check around the house just in case her mother had somehow simply loaned out the car to this bearded man. This man who… might be their father? Erika couldn’t think of any other reason why someone with familial similarity would have been inside their car.

The car hadn’t stopped once since leaving their house. While Erika hadn’t seen who got into the car back then, the timing with Carter’s messages back then meant there wouldn’t have been much time to swap out drivers.

Carter, not asleep despite the late hour, responded quickly. The house was empty. He even checked the master bedroom. Leah wasn’t there.

She wasn’t here either.

Curiosity welling, Erika slowly and carefully rolled up the window. She then scrolled down her phone contacts until she reached her mother.

Erika watched through the telescopic lens of her camera as the conversation between the bearded man and the nun stopped abruptly. She snapped picture after picture. Each frame showed a different state of the man moving to his breast pocket, pulling out the phone, glancing at the screen, and then finally bringing it up to his ear.

“Erika?”

Erika didn’t speak. That was her mother’s voice. A perfect inflection of slight worry that she had heard dozens of times. Was it just a coincidence that the bearded man had taken a phone call at the exact same time? Or…

Erika wanted to respond. To ask where ‘Leah’ was. Her mouth felt too dry to speak and her lips tingled with an unpleasant numbness.

“Is something wrong?”

The nun, seated next to the man, stared at him for a moment without moving her lips. He was talking in time with the words on the phone while the nun just watched.

“Erika, are you there? I’m going to be upset if you’re trying to prank me.”

The nun looked away from him, head turning slowly as if she were watching some fly buzzing through the air. Her head stopped in the distance, looking over the top of the Old St. Patrick’s Church. After a brief moment of holding that distant gaze, she turned her head once again, following that same invisible fly.

Erika snapped a picture of the nun staring directly into the camera.

Her heart pounded in her chest. Her breath hitched. Her elbow bumped the cellphone, knocking it off the armrest and onto the passenger seat where it clattered against the camera’s packaging.

Holding her breath, Erika pressed herself against the chair, trying to hold the camera as steady as possible so that there would be no movement. It was dark. She hadn’t parked under any lights. There were no lights on inside the car. She could barely see her own hands. No way somebody out there could see inside.

“What was that noise? Erika?”

Though her arms were trembling from the strain of holding the camera steady, Erika still watched as the man turned away from the phone, saying something to the nun. With that, the nun finally broke eye contact with the camera. She didn’t speak, she flicked her cigarette onto the ground and lightly rubbed the heel of her shoe against it. With that done, she looked at him and simply shrugged.

Had she noticed? Had she not?

Without the woman’s eyes on her, Erika quickly reached over and hung up the phone. As soon as the call disconnected, the man brought the phone down to stare at it.

The answering the phone at the same time as she had called could have been a coincidence. Hanging up at the same time definitely wasn’t.

He leaned back on the bench, staring at the phone but turning his head somewhat to speak to the nun. Holding up a hand, he stood and took a few steps away, looking like he was going to call back.

Not trusting her voice at the moment, Erika sent off a quick text, apologizing for the butt-dial.

She could almost see the way his eyes rolled as he lightly shook his head. Pocketing the phone, he turned back to the nun and said a few words. She spoke back—neither looked in the direction of Erika—and reached into the folds of her habit. The nun withdrew something rectangular, a book or perhaps a DVD box, and he handed over a small roll of what Erika had to presume was cash.

A drug drop? All that?

No. No way. No how. Things were far, far too weird for something as mundane as drugs. Even if her mother could fit in that man’s body as a disguise—which, not to be rude, such a petite woman wouldn’t have been able to pull off that stature—there was something more to this.

The nun and the man walked out of the park toward the church building. In front of it, they split. The man walked around the side toward the old Corolla while the woman went up to the main doors and disappeared inside.

Erika didn’t try to follow the Corolla as it pulled away, disappearing down one of the streets further ahead. She was shaken from that scare, still unsure whether or not that nun had noticed her.

She did send a text to Carter, asking for a return text when their mother got home. It would be about twenty-five to thirty minutes from here, assuming that car was headed straight home. If it wasn’t, then nothing actually mattered because it would be impossible to tell one way or another where it had been.

For a long few moments, Erika remained where she was. She looked over the photos on the camera. There were hundreds of them. She might have gone a little crazy with the rapid snap feature. Once back to her room, she could load them up on her computer and get a bigger view of the images to see if she noticed anything then.

But she wasn’t sure that she would. Tonight had been…

Had it been a success? A failure? She had learned things, that much was true. That much made it a success. But she wasn’t quite sure what those things she had learned actually meant.

But she had a few clues now. A few leads to follow.

Erika’s eyes narrowed as she stared in the direction of the Old St. Patrick’s Church.