Blood Witch_ Book Three - Cate Tiernan [51]
A middle-aged man was walking up the sidewalk toward the house. He dragged a fat dachshund behind him by a leash. As he caught sight of me coming around from the back of the house, he slowed and then stopped. His eyes were sharp with suspicion.
I froze for an instant, my heart thumping. I am invisible, I am invisible, I am invisible. I hurled the thought at him with as much force as I could.
A moment later his gaze seemed to lose its focus. His eyes slid aside, and he began walking again.
Wow. I felt a spurt of elation. My powers were growing so strong!
From his vantage point beside Das Boot, Robbie had seen it all. He opened the back door without a word, and I gently placed the box in the backseat. Then he slid smoothly behind the wheel, I got in, and we drove off. Over my shoulder I watched the little house grow smaller until finally we went around a bend and it disappeared from sight.
17
Treasure
“What’s in the box?” Robbie asked after a few minutes. He glanced at me. I had cobwebs in my hair, and I was filthy and smelled musty and dirty.
“I don’t know,” I said. “But it has Maeve’s initials on it.”
Robbie nodded. “Let’s go to my house,” he said. “My folks aren’t there.”
I nodded. “Thanks for driving,” I said.
The drive back to Widow’s Vale seemed endless. The sun dropped out of the sky shortly after four-thirty, and we drove the last half hour through chilly darkness. I was aching to open the box, but I felt I needed complete security to do it. Robbie parked Das Boot outside his parents’ tiny, run-down house. As long as I had known Robbie, they had never repainted their house, or repaired the walk, or done any of the usual homeowner-type stuff. The front lawn was ragged and in need of mowing. It was Robbie’s job and he hated it, and his parents didn’t seem to care.
I’d never liked coming here, which is why the three of us had usually hung out at Bree’s house, our favorite, or my house, our second favorite. Robbie’s house was to be avoided, and we all knew it. But for now, it was fine.
Robbie flicked on lights, illuminating the living room, its dingy floor, and the permanent odor of stale cooking and cigarette smoke.
“Where are your folks?” I asked as we walked down the hall to Robbie’s room.
“Mom’s at her sister’s, and Dad’s hunting.”
“Ugh,” I said. “I still remember that time I came over and you had a deer hanging from the tree in your front yard.”
Robbie laughed, and we passed through his older sister Michelle’s room. She was away at college, and her room was maintained as a kind of shrine in case she ever came home. Michelle was his parents’ favorite, and they made no effort to conceal it. But Robbie didn’t resent her. Michelle adored Robbie, and the two of them were very close. I caught a glimpse of a framed school picture of him up on her shelf, taken last year. His face was almost unrecognizable: his skin covered with acne, his eyes concealed by glasses.
Robbie flicked on a lamp. His room was less than half the size of Michelle’s, more like a big closet. There was barely enough space for his twin-size bed, which was covered with an old Mexican blanket. A large chest of drawers topped with bookshelves was wedged into a corner. The shelves were overflowing with books, most of them paperbacks, all of them read.
“How’s Michelle?” I asked, setting the box carefully on his bed. I was nervous and took my time unbuttoning my coat.
“Fine. She thinks she’ll be on the dean’s list again.”
“Good for her. Is she coming home for Christmas?” My pulse was racing again, but I tried to calm myself. I sat down on the bed.
“Yeah.” Robbie grinned. “She’s going to be surprised by my looks.”
I glanced at him. “Yeah,” I said soberly.
“Well, are you gonna open this thing?” he asked, sitting at the other end of his bed.
I swallowed, unwilling to admit how anxious I was. What if there was something awful in there? Something awful