Page 25 of Jett in Jeopardy

“Because of what just happened?” I asked. Not that I didn’t get it. After a car veered toward him and nearly being run down in the street, I would definitely get the impression someone was out to get him. Though, I still suspected it was someone’s idea of a sick joke.

“There’s been more than just this.” He finally turned to look at me, and I glanced away from the road to meet his haunted gaze. There was none of the wild, devil-may-care Jett I had seen in my bar over the last three years. The Jett next to me was uncharacteristically uncertain, scared, and it crushed me to see him like this. “Maybe whoever is doing this isn’t trying to kill me, but they’re definitely fucking with me.”

“What else has there been?” I asked, turning my attention back to the road.

“You know about the fire at our old place?” he asked, though it sounded more like a statement.

I knew about it. Hell, everyone in Oceanwind Square knew. Late last summer, someone had set fire to their house, but the police didn’t seem to have any leads. “You think someone burned down your house because of you?”

“I didn’t, not at first, but before the fire, someone had broken into our place and trashed it. All of us, Grier, Alistair and me, had our rooms wrecked, but mine was hit worse. They even slashed my mattress and stole my laptop, but just mine. Grier and Alistair didn’t have anything taken.”

“Nothing?”

He shook his head. “That was part of what was so weird. There were gaming consoles in the living room, both Grier and Alistair had computers, there were TV’s and other electronics throughout the house, but my laptop was the only thing they took.”

“That’s strange.”

“I didn’t think too much about it. I only used my laptop for school really, and it was summer. Anything personal I have on my phone. But things just kept happening.”

“You mean there’s more?” I asked, risking another look at him instead of the road.

His throat jumped, and he nodded. “When we moved into Oliver Mackenzie’s house, weird things started happening. School assignments I knew were completed or were close to being done would vanish from my computer and even when I backed them up. My things would disappear. Clothes, books, random stuff, and then my phone.”

“Did you think the same person who took your laptop from your old place is the same person taking your things now?”

He focused on plucking at a loose thread on the seatbelt over his lap. “Not at first. I thought—God, this going to soundsodumb—I thought it was the ghost of Oliver Mackenzie.”

He glanced at me, maybe gauging my reaction, waiting for me to tell him he was ridiculous. He wouldn’t get that from me.

After spending more nights than I cared to remember mentally begging for some sign from Ryan, just the feeling of his presence after I’d lost him, I wasn’t in a position to point fingers about what people should or shouldn’t believe in.

While I remained silent, he quickly added, “It wasn’t just because of my stuff going missing. Some nights, I swear I heard footsteps on the stairs or walking around on the first floor. One night, I saw someone, or the outline of someone, a shadow standing in my doorway. I tried not to move and pretended to be asleep. The shadow just backed away and disappeared into the darkness.”

“Did your roommates experience anything?”

“Sawyer said he thought he heard footsteps too when no one else was awake or at home. Grier thought we were making a big deal about nothing, and any strange noises were just part of living in an old house. Neither of them had any of their things messed with, but then Grier came home and surprised an intruder. It was too dark to see their face. When they charged at Grier, he fell back down the stairs and broke his arm and had a concussion.”

“Holy shit!” I hadn’t known about any of this, but then, why would I? I didn’t make it a point to pry into my patrons’ lives. I tried to remember the last time I saw Grier at the bar. It had been a while, but that wasn’t unusual. He hung out there a lot in the summer, but not nearly as often during the school year. Whenever I had last seen him, he definitely hadn’t had a cast.

“Finn and Greyson Mackenzie installed an alarm system at the house. A few weeks later, the police arrested someone robbing a different house in the neighborhood. We all just assumed the guy they caught was the same person breaking into our house.”

“But you don’t now?”

He shook his head. “Whoever was in our house never took anything major. The guy they arrested was loading up a fifty-five-inch TV when they caught him. Except for random shit in my room, whoever was in our house never really took anything. And then I found those pictures…”

I jerked my attention from the road back to Jett, still tugging on the seatbelt string. “What pictures?”

“Earlier this week,” he said, while my gaze drifted back to the road, “I found my old phone I thought had been stolen months ago. After I charged it to make sure it was still working, I found pictures of me asleep in my bed. Someone had been standing over me, right next to my bed, when they’d been taken.”

Unease slithered low inside me, making my insides clench. “I imagine you asked your roommates if they did it.”

“Yeah, but they didn’t. They thought it was creepy and I should call the police.”

“Did you?”

He shook his head. “The pictures were taken months ago. I doubted the police would do much, and we have an alarm system now.”

He hadn’t wanted to call the police after nearly being run down tonight, either. What was the aversion? One thing at a time. “You think all these things have been happening at your house over the last few months are connected to the car that nearly hit you tonight?”

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