Ghost Girl by Becca Marien (great book club books txt) 📕

a deep drag from it. The Streets where slick where they met the blurry head lights of passing cars and traffic lights. Evelyn Castor sat in a parking lot leaning against a light post. The rain fell around her in a steady sprinkle. Her disappearance took time to put together.

In the weeks that she had left, she transferred money into a new account with her new social security number and new ID Gone was her blonde locks died a dark brown. She had cut everyone off one by one, changed her clothes, so everyone would believe she was sad and had run away. When the truth was much darker for her sad little quiet town. A town where no crime really ever happened and surely a teenager, one with her whole perfect life ahead of her, did not get pregnant. She sighed and stopped her smoke out.

This wasn’t her. She couldn’t change every aspect of her when she was alone. She was still that girl who didn’t want to go places by herself. But now she needed to. She took a few self-defense classes, bought a gun, pepper spray and a taser.

She was starting to like the dark now. It was easy for her to move around unseen. She could stick to the shadows. She pulled the pack of smokes from her pocket and set it on the cement surrounding the light post along with a lighter. There, some other poor sap could use them.   

She patted the post twice before walking around her black sleek, dark tinted window car. She climbed in, turned the engine over and messed with the heat controls. She was wearing thin jeans, soaked through shoes, and a thin hooded jacket. She took off her damn jacket and dropped it onto the leather seat next to her. Sure she missed her parents. Olsen and even Olive.

Yes she felt guilty for not telling Olsen why she left. But she knew no one would understand. After all, she wasn’t even eighteen yet. Not old enough in the eyes of most to raise a baby. She put the car in drive and drove towards the two bed two bath house that she had rented.

She needed to find a job, so she had money if she needed to run. She couldn’t live off of the money she stole from her parents forever. She pulled into the garage, and waited in the car until the garage door had finally closed. Guided by the light of her head lights she flipped on the garage light, and unlocked the door that headed right into her kitchen. She pulled off her shoes and socks and dropped them on the floor.

She turned off her car and popped her trunk open. She grabbed as many bags as she could carry and headed inside. She did another trip and closed the trunk. She headed inside, shutting the door with a foot. She put the food away, leaving out dinner.

She pulled out pots and pans and started cooking. Once everything was on simmer she sat on a bar stool and pulled up the internet browser. She needed a job, and she wanted one now. She wanted to save up as much money as she could before the baby got here. She didn’t know anyone, so she couldn’t work when the baby was born.

She wrote down a few promising offers, closed her lap top, and went to stir her dinner.

FIVE

 

When Victoria woke up from her nap she hurried down stairs to ask Deven if she heard any news. Finding Deven gone and the phone gone, sent her in a wave of rage. She plugged in the phone and reached for her cell phone. No missed calls or texts. Just wait until she got her hands on him for doing this.

The nerve of that man. She scrolled through her numbers to call him, but the door was knocked on. She hurried over to it and yanked it open. Olsen and Olive, her daughter’s friends stood there.
“Hi guys, come in.” She led the way to the kitchen, “You hungry?”

“Starved.” Olsen nodded at Olive.

“I just have to use the bathroom real quick.” Olive Nodded at Olsen and quietly jogged upstairs.

“Where’s Mr. Castor?” Olsen noted the half eaten sandwich.

“Your guess is as good as mine is dear.” She opened the fridge. “What are you in the mood for?”
“A sandwich is fine.”
“I have some left over potato salad if you want it.” She dug around the fridge, “Barbequed beans.”

“Sounds great.” Hurry up, O.

“How are your parents doing?”

“They’re good I guess.”

“Do you want your potato salad warmed a little bit? It’s cold.”

SIX

 

“It’s not her.” Deven sighed with a bit a relief.

          Someone’s daughter was dead, but not his daughter. The coroner pulled the sheet over the poor girls head. The two of them where similar in shape and size but-

“That’s Evelyn’s bracelet.” Deven pointed out.
“Are you sure sir?” The officer asked, “Many girls have charm bracelet’s.”
“Not like this.” He unhooked it from the girl’s wrist, “See? EC. Her Mother and I gave it to her for her sixteenth birthday.”
“So how did it end up on a dead girl’s wrist?” Muttered the officer.

“That’s what I want to know.” Deven looked at the bracelet in his hand, “Maybe she dropped it and the girl found it.”

“Or it was planted on her.”

“What do you mean?” Deven asked as the cop took it and put it in a baggy.

“We called you here to identify the body because she is similar to the description that you gave us of your daughter. Someone killed this girl, and put her bracelet on her to throw us off.”
          Deven watched as the officer handed Evelyn’s bracelet over to a woman in a lab coat. He watched as the woman left the room. He turned to face the officer.

“So what does that mean?”
“It means someone has your daughter, and they don’t want us to find her.”

 

SEVEN

 

“What did you find?” Olsen questioned, as he pulled away from Evelyn’s home.

“She didn’t take any of her clothes, or her purse. But here’s the interesting part.” Olive turned in her seat a bit, “Her browser history on her desktop is swiped clean and her laptop is gone.”
“So what does that mean?”

Olive held up Evelyn’s journal, “I’m hoping that this will tell us.”
“Start reading it.”

Olive opened the journal and began to read. She skipped through the pages, hoping to find something useful. She shut the book frustrated.
“Nothing?”
“I need more time in her room. I didn’t want to seem suspicious.”
“Well, a second visit would definitely make you seem suspicious. We shouldn’t even have visited in the first place. That was our one shot.”
“Well, what about her locker? Her car? Where did you guys go to be alone?”

“Evelyn’s browser history being cleared give me all the answers I need.”
“Answer being what?”

“She left of her own accord.”

“Well, at least she’s not kidnapped.”
“What don’t you get Olive,” Olsen shouted, “She left us willingly. We would of never down that to her.”                           

“Hey,” She reached over and put a hand on his, “We’ll find her.”

 Olsen glanced down at their hands, and then flipped his over and laced their fingers. Olive couldn’t help but wonder if this was what they would have been like. What if Evelyn wasn’t ever a factor? He would have chosen her. But Olsen wanted Evelyn.

He secretly craves a touch that only she could give. He now wanted to find her more than ever. He wanted to confront her and demanded an explanation. He wanted to hear what she thought was a good reason to run away from everything they had. He wanted to ask her face to face to see if her eyes looked guilty, or sorry even.

How dare she do something this selfish. They could have worked out everything together. Olsen made sure Evelyn new that. Didn’t he? Had he not spelled it out for her?

Did she not feel safe talking to him? Had he made her feel that way somehow? And what about the pretty girl sitting next to him? He spared her a glance. He hadn’t talked to her in months.

And here she was, offering him a comforting touch when he had turned her away. At the drop of a pin, she was there for him. But that was Olive for you. She was drawn to the darkest deepest parts of someone to shine her light. To make every monster go away.

He should have been with her. He should have told her yes. Because the truth was he loved her. But he didn’t want to be her first. First love, kiss, broken heart.

 He couldn’t be that for her. So he settled for Evelyn. Someone he knew who would chase her dreams before giving him a second thought. Evelyn was safe. But he had fallen in love with her on the way, and now he loved two very different girls.

Evelyn was the girl who he could turn to with no judgment. Olive was the girl who wanted him to love the darkest parts of himself and the girl who got away. So who was he supposed to love more?

EIGHT