Cross Trail Middle School Chapter 14
“James, do you have a second?”
Gabriella stopped him as he got into headquarters a little while later. And while he technically did have a second, he was also exhausted, overheated, frustrated, and wanted to take a few minutes alone in the dark before he had to do anything else.
But he was also the captain, so he should keep working. “Yeah, what’s up?”
“This was at Cross Trail Middle School, right?”
“Yeah.”
“So there’s a story about a ghost in the auditorium there,” she said, looking almost nervous.
Why did Gabs look nervous? It was just him.
“The teacher we met there, Mr. Lopez, he said the same thing,” James said. “Why? Are you familiar with it?”
“Yeah,” Gabriella said, playing with a lock of her blonde hair that had fallen out of its ponytail. “I didn’t go there, but I went to junior high with some kids who did and they’d tell the story to try to scare us. Not that it did, since we had the monster in the girls’ bathroom at mine and-”
“What?” James interrupted sharply.
She waved him off. “Don’t worry about it. It was a story Harriet Zhang made up to get back at Sarah McDowell and it spread. Harriet told me herself that she made it up.”
He wasn’t sure he was fully reassured. “Right.”
“Anyway, supposedly it was a guy who killed himself in the auditorium. I’m not sure if it’s bullshit or not, but I can look into it.”
“That lines up with what we heard,” James said. “I was actually going to ask you to look into it if you got a chance. Thanks.”
“Sure.”
She still didn’t look quite right as she stood in the kitchen doorway, shifting her weight from foot to foot. “Gabs, what’s up?”
“Nothing,” she said quickly. “I just should’ve thought of it yesterday.”
“No, it’s fine. Don’t worry about it.”
“Right.”
They were silent for a second. “So what is it really?”
She sighed. “I feel like maybe I encouraged Penny to do this by telling her stories about what we do here.”
“Were they stories about summoning ghosts and how awesome it is to break into a school and do it late at night?”
“No, but-”
“No, I get it,” James said, before she could continue blaming herself. “I was feeling that too and Celia threatened to kick my ass. So I’ll just pass that threat onto you.”
She laughed. “Oh, by the way,” James said. “Mr. Lopez said to tell you hi.”
Gabriella lit up more than he would have expected from the idea. “Mr. Lopez from the high school?” she asked. “He was my homeroom teacher the whole time I was there. He’s so great. He really, really helped me.”
James was capable of doing the silent math in his head to reach the conclusion that Mr. Lopez had been her homeroom teacher when her father died at the beginning of high school. And based on Gabriella’s reaction to him, James suddenly liked him even more than he already had.
A moment later she left to do some work and James went into his office, resisting the temptation to close the door. He had a headache and hadn’t taken his lunch break yet, so he was taking it now. Yeah, he should probably eat, but he’d deal with that after. For now, he fell back on the couch, sinking into the worn cushions.
He was relieved that Matt had been upfront about not wanting a relationship for reasons that had nothing to do with James having a meltdown in a trendy Rhode Island night club. Because now he couldn’t convince himself it was his fault without wallowing in self-pity. And even beyond the idea of everything that had happened, he just didn’t want anything either. He had too much that needed his attention right now.
He could feel her hand in his hair and he took a deep, slow breath, trying to imagine that sensation dissolving away as he let it out. He was over it. He had to be over it.
He didn’t know he’d fallen asleep until Gabriella was shaking his shoulder. “What?” James asked blearily as he sat up, getting his bearings.
“Sorry,” she said. “I wanted to let you sleep but you mentioned having a staff meeting this afternoon.”
“Thanks,” he said, shaking his head.
He glanced at his watch and swore. It had only been an hour, thankfully. But that was his lunch hour and he hadn’t intended to spend it sleeping, he’d had a few things he wanted to finish.
“I found some more information for you,” Gabriella said as she followed him out of the office and into the kitchen. “The story’s true, someone committed suicide in that back hallway in the eighties. Edward Clayborne. He was eccentric, but seemed harmless. At least according to the few things I could find.”
“Well, if that was him, Edward Clayborne was pretty pissed off last night.”
He put a pot of water on the stove to boil, then sat on one of the bar stools. “It might be him, it might not be. But that can happen with spirits if they’re stuck somewhere for too long. They deteriorate.”
“That’s probably it,” Gabriella said. “There isn’t much else available through public sources, but I can keep digging. Madelyn might have some ideas too.”
“Thank you,” James said, eyeing the pasta pot. “Actually, I might wait and make this later. Unless-”
“I’d love some,” she said quickly, before he could finish.
***
“As I’m sure you’ve all heard already, we have a new case,” James said at the staff meeting about twenty minutes later. “And because I’m required to disclose this, you’ll be shocked to hear that it involves mine and Gabriella’s family.”
Absolutely nobody looked surprised, but James was pretty sure the news had already gotten to the whole team. Even if Graham hadn’t been here last night, there was no way that Madelyn hadn’t told him, so he just watched James expectantly.
“I’m going to take the lead on it,” James continued. “And pull in anyone who’s free at any given time, so I appreciate your flexibility in advance.”
Flexibility in advance? Where the hell had that come from? Thrown off now, he shook his head slightly. “Anyway, this is at Cross Trail Middle School. It’s in Leominster, up by the Sterling line. A small group of students in a summer-to-after-school drama program decided to go ghost hunting and summoned a spirit there.”
Bradley opened his mouth to say something and James gave him a warning look. Yeah, whatever he was about to say was probably deserved, but this was James’s niece they were talking about. So he wasn’t going to tolerate it. Something else flashed over Bradley’s face and for a second he looked like he was hurt before going back to his usual attempt at neutrality.
Maybe James was just seeing things in the glare of the sunlight coming in the window, but again he was thrown.
“There’s a, um-” He shook his head again. “Sorry. A, um, story at the school. Gabs knows it better than me, I didn’t go to school in Leominster. But there’s supposedly a ghost haunting the auditorium, a volunteer who died there in the eighties. That last part is real, but he’s not necessarily the ghost.”
“I’m going to look further into it later,” Gabriella said. “I couldn’t find much earlier.”
“What you got already is helpful, don’t worry,” James said. “If you have anything on your list that you think might be more pressing, let’s talk about it. Otherwise, if you could move this to the top, I’d appreciate it.”
This wasn’t just because it was their family, he reminded himself. Whatever this was, there was no guarantee that it wasn’t still out there, putting an entire school at risk.
“Got it,” she said.
“So that’s the legend behind it,” James said. “And maybe that’s the source, or maybe it’s just providing the energy or the cover for it. That happens sometimes. Sometimes it’ll be a coincidence that a location with an existing urban legend is where something similar happens. Other times it almost, like, manifests this reality. I don’t know if we’ve had any cases like that since I’ve been here, but it’s a possibility.”
Bradley and Gabriella exchanged a look, which was weird. But he was tired, so maybe he was just reading too much into everything everyone did at the moment. James looked at the few notes he’d taken for the case. “We have the ritual, statements from the kids, and the one that was caught by the spirit did confirm that he didn’t lose any blood. And some photos of the scene and some EVPs that I can’t quite sound out, but I’d be interested in your opinions. I can send those to everyone’s emails, just so you have them. I have no idea how long this is going to take. And I won’t expect anyone else to put in extra hours for it, you’re all already overdoing it. We can rearrange things as necessary.”
He was quiet for a second as he looked down at his notes, which seemed so tiny and insignificant as he remembered the way the kids had screamed over the phone line as he and Madelyn raced to the school.
“Is there anything else?” Amelia prompted.
“What? Um, yeah, just a couple things.”
James got through the few housekeeping items on his list, barely thinking about the words as they came out of his mouth. Then they were done and he could escape to the safety of his office for a few minutes to figure out the rest of the day.
Of course there was a knock at the doorframe about thirty seconds after he’d sat down at his desk. Madelyn was standing in the doorway. “Hey, Mads,” James said, hoping he didn’t sound as irritated as he felt bad about feeling. “What’s up?”
“I just got some information from the Frederico family, so I can go hang up the cameras there this afternoon if you want me to.”
It was scorching hot out, there were ladders involved, and he couldn’t remember if this was an indoor or outdoor case. But he did remember the intensity of the ghosts. And since they had both been on this case last week before the Frederico family took their sweet time getting this information to Madelyn, he didn’t need to feel bad refusing. “No, I’ve got it,” James said. “I’ll go this afternoon.”
“But-”
“Madelyn, I’ve got it.”
It came out sterner than he’d planned for it to, and he could tell that it registered as she took a step back. “Sorry,” he said immediately. “I’m sorry. But I’ll do it, okay? I have to run a couple errands this afternoon anyway, so I’ll already be out.”
“Okay,” she said, and James hated himself for how small her voice was.
He’d tried to hurt her and she’d been afraid of him. And now, even as he tried to keep her safe, he was scaring her again.
“Mads, I’m sorry,” he said again, keeping his voice soft. “That didn’t come out right. I’m a jerk. But I’d prefer to do that part, okay? And then you take Mr. Frederico’s interview? So he can finish telling you about his mother’s house?”
The initial interview had taken about an hour longer than it should have, since Mr. Frederico, the owner of the house, had insisted on including his mother’s house and its haunting in his statement. James and Madelyn had not been able to look each other in the eye as he droned on about ghosts that had probably crossed over thirty years ago from a house ten miles away from his.
Madelyn smiled. “Thank you for that honor,” she said, and to his relief, she didn’t sound scared or angry.
“Call him to set up the interview whenever you get a chance. But don’t feel like you have to rush.”
“Okay,” she said. “I also- nevermind, it can wait until later.”
“No,” James said, though he also wanted whatever it was to wait until later. “What is it?”
“I listened to the EVPs you sent and I didn’t hear any voices beyond the kids. There was some creaking and then some breathing that was definitely one of them. But nothing else.”
“That was my impression too,” James said.
That was it? She’d been hesitant to tell him that? Yeah, he’d messed up. But he still wasn’t going to have her go out and climb ladders in the heat when he could just take care of it, so he’d have to live with the guilt and be less of a dick next time.
She left and he attempted to rearrange his afternoon to fit in the cameras. Once he had it mostly under control, he opened the safety modules, doing his best not to nod off as the presenter’s voice carried on and on in a way that wasn’t entirely unlike Mr. Frederico’s. He was halfway through the quiz at the end of the video when Bradley came in.
“I’ve got a few things that need your signature,” Bradley said. “Not right this second, I can just leave them. Also, there’s fuck-all on those EVPs.”
He set a small stack of papers on James’s desk, then looked at the computer screen. “What the hell is that?”
“The safety modules,” James said.
“Since when do you care about those?”
Since his actions had nearly gotten Bradley, among others, killed. But instead of saying that, he just shrugged. “It’s important stuff to know.”
“I mean, I guess so,” Bradley said. “I don’t think anyone else has gotten them in yet.”
“The guy at Branch Relations said everyone else had them in already.”
“I doubt it, because everyone’s working on real work.”
It was like a bizarre, backwards reenactment of the fight they’d had over personnel forms last year. “Look, if there’s one thing in this pile of bullshit that will keep you guys safe during a case or- or an emergency or whatever, then I’ll do it. It’s fine.”
He could tell Bradley was about to keep arguing with him and James did not have the energy. So he took the forms and very quickly scrawled his signature on each one before thrusting the pile back at him. By some miracle, Bradley took the hint for what it was and took the pile with him as he left the room.
James sighed and tried to focus on the module. But he was interrupted yet again as he opened the next one by a phone call from McGovern.
“Captain,” McGovern greeted him. “I just wanted to touch base on a couple things if you have a moment.”
Not really, but apparently he did now. “Yeah,” James said. “Um, what’s up?”
“First, the training courses. Branch Services is still very interested in having Graham Becker teach some classes, both for video and live. And they’re open to pay, though they’ve informed me they are not interested in negotiating. How much did you say before?”
James opened his drawer and sifted through the papers in there until he found the scrap where he’d written down a number significantly larger than what he’d finally convinced Graham to actually give him. When he read it off, there was silence on the other end, just like he’d expected.
“I’ll bring that to them,” McGovern said. “They’ve got their own number in mind, so let’s see if we can meet in the middle.”
So, a negotiation? James was so glad Bradley wasn’t part of this meeting.
“Also, we’ve gotten a request for you to continue with the historical cases.”
James swallowed a groan as he looked at the multiple boxes of old cases still sitting in the corner of his office. That was how he’d met Meredith, with her delivering box after box of them from the Foundation. But she was gone and the boxes were still here, despite the fact that it had been a long time since they’d actually done one of those cases.
“I mean, I can try,” James said. “But we’re pretty swamped with recent cases.”
“It looks like you’ve been getting them in at a steady clip,” McGovern said. “So they’d like you to try to incorporate just a case or two each week. Just to work down the backlog.”
The backlog that was a century long? Yeah, that was going to happen. And the reason cases had been resolved at a steady clip was not because they didn’t have enough to do, but because he didn’t want his team overworking themselves, getting more hurt, or not being sharp in the field due to fatigue. So he was taking on as much of the work as possible. But maybe James could work on a couple so that it didn’t fall on the rest of the team. “Yeah, alright,” he said.
“Excellent,” McGovern said. “Put them into the system and keep us posted. And how’s the case from last night going?”
A few minutes later, James was finally off the phone. He grabbed two historical cases at random, one a haunted house in Townsend from 1957 and one from a restaurant that apparently did not exist anymore, but was crawling with supernatural energy back in 1981. He put the information into the system, added the cases to his to-do list, then tried to focus on the first part of this module.
Fuck it, he decided a few minutes later. He’d do these tonight and go check on the restaurant right now.
