Taylor went back to bed and let out a sigh, thinking back on the Halloween party earlier that evening. Brianna had billed it as the party of the year. Her dad and stepmom were away on a cruise, and she had raided their liquor cabinet. Virtually everyone from Kingston High was there and in costume, including a few crashers from another school. She and Hayley had gone as the Olsen twins and had lacquered on layers of mascara and eye shadow, never once letting on to their parents that they were going to sneak their first drinks that night. In the end, it wasn’t as exciting as she had thought. Watching a few drunken teenagers act stupid and throw up everywhere wasn’t exactly her idea of fun. She switched to soda pop early in the evening.
Around midnight, it became obvious that her best friend, Beth Lee, had seen better days. Despite the fact that it was Halloween, a quasi-holiday, they still had school the next day. The four of them—she; Hayley; Hayley’s boyfriend, Colton; and Beth—had decided to leave even though it looked like the party would rage on for hours.
Taylor knew she was going to feel like crap in the morning. The only solace that came to her at that moment was fleeting. She figured Beth, who had a lot more to drink, would look far worse. The irony of that, of course, was that Beth Lee didn’t give a crap what anyone thought about her.
She just didn’t.
Taylor burrowed back under the heavy blankets and turned to the wall that separated her room from her sister’s. With her free hand, she swiveled the plastic cover away from the spot where there had once been an electrical outlet. The outlet cover in her sister’s room was already open.
“Something’s happening, Hayley.”
Taylor heard a shifting of sheets and felt the vibration of her sister as she rolled closer to the wall.
“I know,” Hayley answered. “I’ve been thinking about it since we got home. Something’s up. Brianna was in rare form at the party and Beth’s definitely gonna be grounded for life, but it’s more than that.” She hesitated before saying it out loud. “The last time I felt this was when Katelyn died.”
Just inches apart, Hayley faced her sister through the hole in the old plaster-and-lath wall. Her head was on a cloud of goose-down, a pillow that accompanied her on every sleepover she’d ever been to. Hayley was a mirror image of her sister. Winter-white skin. Long, messy blond hair. Blue eyes. At sixteen, the girls had a bond greater than mere sisterhood, greater than twinship and all that comes with being so, so close to another human being. The sisters also shared an ability to somehow see letters in signs or headlines rearrange themselves into words that revealed important messages. It always creeped them out a little when that happened. Even more unnerving, in the direst of circumstances, just by touching certain objects they could conjure images and memories that were not their own. They never told anyone about those incidents. Who would believe them?
And while they didn’t understand it and were certainly unable to control it, the girls were digging in deep to find ways to accept whatever it was. They saw it as more than the ability to sense something; it was the ability to decipher what was happening now, and sometimes what had happened in the past, in a way that others could not. It was as if they were able to catch a whisper from the wind.
Freakish? Sure. Different from others? Absolutely. Whatever it was that passed through them bound them closer together and shut out others, including their best friend, Beth Lee, and Hayley’s boyfriend, Colton James.
As the rain pelted the rippled windowpanes and the wind scraped a dead branch from an overgrown rhododendron against the espresso brown siding of house number 19, the Ryan sisters talked into the early morning hours.
All without uttering a single word.
THE 911 CALL CAME IN AROUND 2 A.M., the time the bars closed—always a busy hour for the Kitsap County law enforcement communications center in Bremerton, the region’s largest city. The comm center’s dispatcher on duty was Sally Marie Butterworth, a twenty-eight-year-old mother of two who liked working nights so that she and her husband, a navy yard pipefitter, never had to put their son and daughter in what they considered “prison for tots,” or the local daycare center.
Sally had taken a number of 911 calls that Halloween, including a doozy about a tipped-over jack-o’-lantern that had ignited a two-alarm blaze and torched five cars at the Mariner’s Glen apartment complex off Jackson in Port Orchard. A call from Chico had buzzed through around eleven o’clock from a woman who was suspicious about a homemade treat:
CALLER: My daughter brought home a popcorn ball that I think might be laced with something.
SALLY: Is your daughter ill?
CALLER: No, ma’am, she’s not. I wouldn’t let her eat it.
SALLY: What makes you think the popcorn ball has drugs?
CALLER: I just don’t trust the person who made it. She’s total trailer trash. (Slightly muffled) Amber Marie, get that cat off the stove!
SALLY: Why don’t you throw it away?
CALLER: (Long pause, the tinkling of ice cubes in a glass) I guess I could do that. Good idea.
Sally Butterworth disconnected the line and her eyes rolled upward in their sockets to the ceiling. She hated being called “ma’am” by someone who was probably her same age. She also wondered why people didn’t just use common sense. The way Sally saw it, if she had a dollar for every idiotic call she received, she would already own that candy-apple red Nissan Juke she’d had her eye on.
The line buzzed again. Sally set down her Aquafina, adjusted her headset, and answered:
SALLY: What’s your emergency?
CALLER: It’s really bad, I think. My friend is all bloody. Really, really hurt. Help me. Help us. This is really bad.
SALLY: Tell me your name and where you’re calling from.
CALLER: Brianna Connors. I’m at 2121 Desolation View Drive in Port Gamble. Can’t you just Google Map me or something?
SALLY: Help is on the way, Brianna. Can you tell me your friend’s name and what happened?
CALLER: Her name is Olivia Grant. She’s an exchange student from England. I don’t know what happened. She was fine. Really. We were all at my house for a Halloween party. During the party, I went upstairs to check on her and to switch costumes. She was asleep on my bed. She didn’t answer when I said her name. I figured she was drunk, so I went back downstairs again. When I came back to my room again after everyone left, she was on the floor and she wasn’t moving. And then I saw the blood.
SALLY: Where is the blood?
CALLER: All over. I don’t know what happened to her. I think she’s been cut up or something. It’s super nasty.
SALLY: Who else is there? Your parents?
CALLER: My dad and stepmom are on a cruise. My boyfriend’s here. You want to talk to him?
SALLY: What is he doing?
CALLER: Watching TV, I think. I dunno. Just send someone.
SALLY: Can you check to see if Olivia’s breathing?
CALLER: I already checked. She’s not. I don’t think she is. Hang on. . . . Drew, she wants you to check to see if she’s breathing.
BOY: (In the background, but audible) I’m not going to do that. She’s your friend and it’s your bedroom, Bree.
CALLER: You are a lot of help, Drew.
SALLY: Brianna, are you still there?
CALLER: Yes. I hear the sirens. Do you want me to stay on the phone?
SALLY: No, you can hang up. Law enforcement is there. The ambulance is a minute behind the police.