Sinister

Chapter Four

Leighton shoved her hands underneath her thighs, worried that someone might catch sight of her nails. She had tried painting them the night before but they had smudged when she slept and were already chipping.

Karen sat beside her daughter, hair pulled back into a ponytail in an attempt to combat the stifling heat. After reading a few pages of her magazine, Karen would stop to fan herself with its pages. Ads for cologne and clothing brands waved at Leighton as Karen sweated.

Leighton looked around the office, wincing as the clock against the wall continuously ticked. Each sound made her head pound while her eyes started to sting after staring at the bright yellow walls. She hated yellow.

Leighton leaned back in her seat and pressed her head against the wall, closing her eyes and slipping her hands to her ears. All she wanted was a few moments of silence, of blankness. But every time she closed her eyes she heard Jack's laugh, felt Tate's touch, watched Rudd collapse to the ground.

She grinded her teeth together and sat up again, lifting her weight to the tops of her toes in an effort to un-stick her thighs from the chair. Although she couldn't quite pinpoint why, Leighton didn't like wearing clothes that revealed too much skin. For this reason Leighton was wearing a sweater in the middle of June. She was quickly overheating.

Her eyes wandered to the clock again and she froze along with its hands. The only thing that seemed to keep time was her thrumming heart paired with her lungs' desperate gasps for air. The clock had stopped.

Leighton looked around slowly, eyes becoming dry. When she noticed the dark figure in the corner of the office she jumped, her bones jarring in her body. He was here. Tate. Leighton shook her head roughly, hands shaking as her mouth popped open.

Tate smiled as he tossed a black pebble up and down in the air, his lips blue. Tate's entire body seemed to be coated in a layer of frost, his tattoos gleamed under the fluorescent lights. Leighton tried to meet his eyes but they were focused on someone else. Her mother.

Horror filled her. Tate didn't speak, he glided forward as his lips stretched into a grin, the skin cracking, eyelashes dusted with snow. Leighton was the only one who noticed as Tate dropped the stone into her mother's lap and reached his hand towards the centre of her chest.

Leighton tried to move, tried to call out but her tongue was frozen along with the rest of her body. Terrified, Leighton watched as frost crept up her shins and covered her fingers. Tate cast her an awful sidelong glance before he started to draw the light out of Karen's chest.

"No!"

"Leighton Connors?" Leighton almost jumped out of her own skin. Her eyes cut to the place she had seen Tate to see the space void. He hadn't been there. She had imagined everything. A shiver passed through her.

A wiry looking nurse stood at the door, smile frazzled. It seemed like the heat was getting to everyone. "Are you ready to go in?" Before Leighton could answer Karen squeezed her knee and told her to enter.

Feeling stuffy, Leighton tried to swallow and followed the nurse down the yellow halls to the office at the end. The hallway seemed to stretch on forever and Leighton couldn't quite trust the floor underneath her. The door at the end opened and a woman in her late fifties stood behind it, dark hair cut into a bob that must've kept her cool.

The woman smiled wide, teeth too large for her mouth. "Leighton, it's been a while. How are you?" The woman held the door open for Leighton, inviting her in. Leighton mumbled a half hearted everything's fine as she passed before shuffling into a plump chair.

Dr. Rook settled in behind her desk and smiled pleasantly, brown skin creasing at her eyes and mouth. "Are you still taking your medication?"

Leighton wondered how good Dr. Rook was at deciphering lies. "Uh, yeah."

The doctor's pen scribbled across her notepad and Leighton fidgeted. "What about sleeping? Anything abnormal there?" So far Dr. Rook was two for two.

"I'm fine," Leighton cleared her throat and amended. "I sleep." Leighton hadn't slept soundly since the day of Rudd's funeral.

Dr. Rook didn't look up from her scribbling. "Nightmares?"

"No," Leighton was sure her voice squeaked. The fan in the corner of the room blew a gust of cold air down Leighton's back and then swivelled in the opposite direction. She shivered and burrowed into her hoodie.

"Can I turn off the fan?" Leighton asked. Dr Rook answered with a soft nod.

"Your mother said that you've been spending a lot of time in your head," Dr. Rook prodded, "any reason for this?" Leighton shrugged as she returned to her chair, feeling better now that the air wasn't cold.

"I've been thinking about college," Leighton lied, "All of my―uh my friends are going and I'm not so I guess I just... and I'm not sure what I'm going to do with my summer and... I guess I've just been thinking."

Dr. Rook's eyes were sharp and small. The iris was so dark they were indistinguishable from her pupil. "Does this new found introverted behaviour stem from the death of Jack Norton or Rudd Muse?"

Dr. Rook wore yellow, how fitting. "No."

"Your mother tells me you don't believe they died of natural causes, would you like to elaborate on that thought?" Leighton wanted to scream. How much of her personal life had Karen shared with this doctor she could barely remember?

"No," Leighton replied evenly, unsure how close she had been to the doctor.

"You're dressed oddly for the weather," Dr. Rook noted, "Is there a reason for the sweatshirt?" Leighton wasn't sure what prompted the change in questioning. She tucked her hands into the long sleeves.

Her head jerked from side to side. "No, I just grabbed it." But that wasn't true. She had originally put on a tank top but a strange, hollow feeling had settled over her skin. Leighton had tried to breathe but somehow the light material was suffocating her.

Leighton watched as Dr. Rook wrote something else on her notepad, and grinded her teeth in frustration. When she noticed Dr. Rook's eyes on her she stopped. Was grinding teeth a sign of something? Leighton made the mental note not to anymore.

After a moment Dr. Rook set her notepad on her desk and leaned forward, eyes trained on Leighton's face. Leighton couldn't stop herself from biting her nails. "Miss Connors, nothing can get better without honesty. I'm not sure if you answered honestly once in this session."

Leighton did not have a reply.

"Quite frankly, Leighton, I believe you need to start taking your medication again and you need to socialise with people your age who understand what you're going through. There's a support group for young adults and I believe that you should consider attending. It's once a week in the town's community centre."

The idea of sitting in a circle with strangers and sharing her thoughts made Leighton want to bite all her nails off and disappear. "I don't think that's necessary."

Dr. Rook leaned back in her chair. "We can't force you to do anything, Leighton. You're eighteen so the responsibility of your health now falls to you and you alone. I hope you will consider my advice and try to get better."

"I feel better," Leighton tried, "really."

"Your mother is worried that you're becoming obsessed with the recent deaths in St. Hope. She tells me that you've become very paranoid lately. Is that true?" It was funny the way doctors asked question, like they didn't care which way you answered. They were supposed to be free of bias but in reality, they had already chosen the correct answer for you.

Leighton shook her head. "Not anymore than anybody else."

Dr. Rook leveled her gaze with Leighton's and held it for a lingering moment before sighing. "Well, please consider the support group and take your medication. I'll see you next month."

The hallway didn't seem so long to Leighton on the way back to the waiting room and when she found her mother waiting, Tate wasn't in sight. Leighton forced a smile at her mother and together, they made their way to the car.

As a sort of pat on the back for talking to Dr. Rook, Karen brought Leighton to Dante's Tavern intent on sharing a meal together. Leighton followed the waitress shyly as they worked towards a booth in the back of the pub.

Despite the crowd, Leighton felt comfortable in the warm setting. No matter where you sat in the restaurant you could hear burly laughter coming from the regular bar mongers and the casual babble of the evening news on the multiple television screens. Glass clanked and stools were scraped along the ground, creating a sort of background noise to the various mumbled conversations and the low music playing.

Leighton slid into the booth, opposite of her smiling mother. Two glasses of water were ordered before the waitress left, moving to serve another table. Leighton picked up the menu, feeling the grime that coated the pages from excessive use.

"What are you going to get?" Karen asked, eyes glued to her own menu as she debated her choices.

Leighton wasn't listening to her mother. Instead, she found her gaze travelling around the squat pub, taking everything in. It was strange to her, how much she liked the atmosphere, how much it drew her in. Without realising it, Leighton started to rise from her seat.

"Leigh?" Karen questioned, eyeing her daughter warily. "Where are you going?"

"I want to see if they're hiring," Leighton replied. Leighton couldn't remember consciously deciding to apply to waitress at Dante's Tavern but for some reason the idea made sense. This was where she was supposed to work.

"Okay," Karen said, voice peaked. "I'll order for you."

Leighton left the booth without another glance at her mother, moving across the pub whilst weaving her way through pushed together tables and wayward chairs. Her flip flops stuck to the floor, it sticky from all the drinks that had spilled over the years.

The bartender eyed her thoughtfully as she approached, her round face flagging her age. "ID please," he requested before she spoke. It was obvious she wasn't passing for twenty-one.

Leighton tucked her hands into her sleeves, feeling suddenly shy. The drive that had pushed her across the pub had vanished. "I uh, I was wondering if you guys were hiring?"

The bartender's eyes strayed from Leighton to a burly man on her right. Moments later, he was filling a tall glass with the pub's premium lager. "We might be," he replied evasively, "How old are you?"

"Eighteen," Leighton replied, trying her best to keep his eye.

"Have you ever bussed tables before?" he asked, seeming skeptical. With good reason too, Leighton had never worked a day in her life.

Leighton shook her head. "No, but I can pick up on things pretty well."

The look in the bartender's eye made Leighton's stomach clench. He had already written her off and she knew it. "Look, kid," the bartender started, tone drenched in pity. "I get that we all need money but―"

"I'm not going to college," Leighton blurted. "You won't lose me in the fall." It was enough to make him reconsider and eventually, she earned herself an application. Pleased, Leighton thanked the bartender and then started back to the booth, feeling proud.

"I don't know what's happening," a familiar voice grunted, "We've hit a complete dead end." Leighton slowed her pace, looking around until she spotted Officer McGuinty sitting with a few other deputies not too far away.

Holding in her breath, Leighton slipped into a table in hearing range and picked up a menu, pretending to be interested. Her heart was thumping madly against her chest as she raised the menu higher, hoping her mother wasn't scouting the restaurant for her.

"The kid was weird," McGuinty continued, "we found tons of these rocks in his room. Little black stones. They were everywhere. Piled on his desk, stuffed under his mattress, on his window sill. The Nortons had no idea what he had them for."

Leighton's heart seemed to still. McGuinty was talking about Jack, about black stones. She wracked her brain, something bothering her. In her mind she could see what McGuinty was referring to but she couldn't place where she had seen it.

"Are you alone?"

Leighton jerked her head upwards, slamming her menu to the tabletop. "What are you doing here?" she hissed, panicking. Tate slid into the chair opposite from her, his large body surprisingly lithe.

Tate shrugged, removing the ratty baseball cap from his head. He rolled his tongue over a lip piercing Leighton hadn't noticed before. "I like it here," he said simply. It was crazy how much he seemed to belong in the gritty atmosphere. Looking at him set against the background of the busy bar and mismatched furniture made Leighton think he had materialized out of the walls themselves.

"Did you come to help me?" Leighton asked, fingers clutching the menu hard enough to turn her knuckles white.

Tate's eyes were hard. "How do you know I haven't already?"

Unwillingly, her eyes travelled to the oval tattoo in the crook of his arm, the one with two diagonal lines through it, the one that he had got when her light had sunk into his skin.

"What did you do to me?" she asked, voice tight.

"Helped you," Tate replied, "Just in a different way."

Leighton felt like she was going insane. She looked around her, wondering if anyone had noticed that she was talking to a murderer. "You killed them," she stated, "Jack Norton and then Rudd."

Tate tipped his head forward making his brow bone cast shadows over his face. "Is that what you think?" he asked, voice gravel. "That I killed those people?"

"I don't remember them moving after you touched them," Leighton replied, almost breathlessly. She couldn't understand it, but being next to Tate made her want to lean in closer, to nod her head, to reach out for him.

Tate opened his mouth to reply but then snapped it closed, turning to stand with an arm outstretched to Leighton's mother. Leighton blinked, slipping out of whatever trance she had been sucked in to.

"Karen," Tate greeted, his all consuming aura gone. "It's nice to see you again."

Karen grinned, eyes sparkling like the sun hitting the ocean. "You too, how are you settling in to St. Hope? Is it everything you thought it would be?"

Tate's eyes fell to Leighton. "It's more."

Karen's face lit up. "Oh! I see you've met my daughter, Leighton." Leighton stiffened as her mother laid her hand on her shoulder and squeezed. "Did you get an application?" Without a word, Leighton nodded.

"It was nice seeing you again, Karen," Tate said. "And it was nice meeting you, Leighton." Leighton didn't reply, instead she let her gaze fall to the ground and took a half step backwards.

Karen didn't miss a beat. "Are you eating alone, Tate? We have room for another." Leighton looked to her mother, shocked. She had never invited strangers to their dinner table, never.

Tate smiled wistfully. "Thank you for the offer, Karen, but I ordered my food to go. Goodnight, Leighton." Tate inclined his head towards Leighton and took his leave, heading to the bar to collect a greasy paper bag filled with pub grub.

"What a nice boy," Karen mused, charmed.

Leighton turned away from her mother, wishing she knew how wrong she was.

"I almost took it all," Tom bragged, beaming at Leighton's mother. Karen smiled affectionately, running her hand along the back of his neck. "I was just a card away from winning the whole damn game." Tom leaned back against his chair, resting a hand on his overhanging stomach. He had eaten three servings of lasagna.

Karen pouted, "It's too bad you didn't win, hun. You're always so close."

Tom turned his kind eyes on Leighton. "I would've bought you something, Leigh, maybe a nice dress or some sort of makeup." Leighton smiled wistfully, trying her best not to show her dislike for both items. To her, it was enough that Tom was trying, it was more than her own father had ever done.

"Poker's a tough game," Karen mumbled, trying to be supportive. "I'm sure you'll win your next game." Tom was a regular at the Four Crooked Clovers, one of the few places in St. Hope to gamble. As a senior attorney, Tom had a lot of money to burn.

Tom happily accepted the kind words. "Thanks, K, maybe next time you'll consider coming with me, to be my good luck charm." Tom squeezed Karen around the waist making her blush and making Leighton slightly embarrassed.

"Who beat you tonight?" Karen asked, munching on the crust of garlic bread she had previously abandoned.

Tom frowned, "There was only a few regulars at the table, Norton wasn't there but I hadn't expected him to be. It was a new kid who one, young looking fellow but he was extremely quick."

"Beginners luck?" Leighton offered hesitantly. Tom grumbled his agreement.

"Speaking of good luck," Karen said, turning the conversation around. "Have you heard anything from Dante's Tavern?"

Leighton shook her head, picking at the edges of her sleeve. It had been three days since she'd applied and three days since she had seen Tate. The absence was almost enough to make her believe she had imagined him. Almost.

"Not yet," Leighton mumbled, chest heavy.

"I'm sure they will kiddo," Tom said, sending a smile so wide his cheeks became perfect spheres. Leighton politely excused herself from the table and made her way to her room, flopping onto her bed without changing clothes.

Leighton closed her eyes, listened as rain thundered down on the roof. The local weather station weren't hopeful for a sunny summer, neither was Leighton. The air in her room was damp and filled her lungs with a heavy feeling.

She tossed ideas around her head as she laid there, thinking about Jack Norton and Tate and Officer McGuinty and Dr. Rook and wondering what she was missing. Because something definitely was.

Leighton's eyelids fluttered as she thought, her forehead creasing as she became more confused. She knew what she had seen, Tate had killed Jack Norton and Rudd. Yet, why did the corner reports come back as natural deaths?

The black stones were another element Leighton had no home for. Officer McGuinty had said Jack Norton had been hoarding them, and she had seen one on Rudd's countertop. But where else?

Leighton sat up, clutching the side of her head and gently pulling on her hair. Thinking was useless if she was going to think in circles. Leighton stretched from her bed to her desk, grabbing her laptop and pulling it onto her lap.

She propped herself up against her head board as she waited for the computer to wake up, wondering why she didn't just go to sleep. The computer screen lit up, displaying a picture of herself with her parents when she was eight. Leighton made a mental note to change the background.

Opening an internet browser, Leighton typed in her school's website and started to scroll down the home page, finding tons of articles and posts about Jack Norton. She clicked on the first one, finding his school picture and a small obituary written underneath. The comments on the article all said the same thing, how much Jack was missed.

Frowning, Leighton went back to the home screen and scrolled downwards, sifting through the posts after Jack's death. Eventually, Leighton made it to posts about Prom and end of year exams. She moved down a little further and found what she was looking for.

Lacrosse Star Injured In Semi-Finals.

Leighton clicked on the article and started reading about Jack's accident. The blow to his leg had cost the school their spot in the championships and had cost Jack two scholarship opportunities.

Leighton looked to the date and frowned, checking twice. April twenty-fifth. Jack had hurt his leg nearly two months before the blood clot resulting had killed him. How was that possible?

The more Leighton thought the less everything made sense. The only thing Leighton had was the knowledge of who was responsible for Jack Norton's death. Tate had answers. And Leighton was going to start asking questions.