Chapter 9 #5
The video cut to a shot of Tommy standing outside their house, looking fully like he’d seen a ghost moments before.
His face was pale; his eyes were wide as the moon.
He was visibly shaking and glancing back at the house like Dell’s ghost might have been waiting to pounce.
“It was for her money. We were going to stage an accident on our honeymoon ship. My mother was in on it—it was her idea, actually. Her campaign is out of money after years of embezzling the city’s money.
” The damning words spilled from his mouth like someone had turned on a hose.
Dell was smiling bigger and bigger with every sentence, both for the grave he was digging himself but also because she knew she’d put that look of horror on his smug face.
“The mayor’s office declined comment when asked, though the mayor is now under investigation,” the reporter continued. “While
Mr. Moratto denies involvement in Ms. Rodgers’s hospitalization, his plans raise serious concern over what may have happened
in their home this morning. This is a developing story.”
“Oh my God,” Patricia said, and held a hand to her mouth.
William stepped closer to the TV with a deep frown and looked up at it. “Andy, what is going on?” he said into his phone he
still held to his ear.
“Exactly what they just said, Dad. They were going to kill Dell!” Andy’s voice was audible through the phone. “We got a tip
from our PR team that the story was breaking. We need to make a statement.”
Everyone in the room was gaping at the TV. The visitors from outside the room had slowly leaked in while the story played
out at a loud enough volume to hear. Dell only now noticed Oscar and Lena had joined them.
Dell’s father bristled with anger. Dell felt it, even in her ghostly form.
“I’ll call you back, son,” he said to Andy in his customary even tone. One of the most formidable things about her father
was his ability to keep cool while boiling with fury. He lowered the phone only to immediately end the call and dial another
number. “Perry, it’s Bill,” he said, and marched out of the room.
“Who’s Perry?” Cole whispered from beside Dell.
“His lawyer,” she said with a hint of worry for the hellfire about to rain down on the Moratto family.
But the worry was short-lived. They deserved every bit of what was coming to them.
A scoff suddenly burst out of her. “I can’t believe I was going to marry him.
That—that—” The proper word to describe Tommy wouldn’t come to her.
Instead, she growled an aggravated sound and felt her body tense.
Her mother suddenly gasped. Dell turned to see her body in the bed moving. When she’d growled, her chest had arched up off
the bed and then flopped back down.
“Dell!” her mother shouted. “Oh, sweetheart, can you hear me?”
Dell turned to Cole, eyes wide in excitement. “Is this it? Is it happening? Am I about to wake up in my real body?”
Cole’s face was frantic with too many emotions to count. “Oh, um. I don’t—” He slid his hand from Dell’s and reached for the
rule book.
“Oh my God, did we do it? Did we fix things?” she nearly squealed, and gripped his forearm. She rose up on her toes to see
what he was reading, all the while keeping one eye on her mother, who was now leaning over the bed, petting her hair, and
holding her limp hand.
“Um, it would seem your strong emotion had some effect,” Cole muttered, and kept flipping pages.
As Dell looked up at him, another vision like the one she’d had of him in a forest hit her.
Except this time, he was in a room with dark walls, sitting by a fireplace in a thick sweater and sipping something caramel colored in a tumbler.
His cheeks were fire-kissed pink, and he was smiling at .
. . who, her? Again, it felt like a memory, but how could that be possible?
As the image floated in her mind, a warmth filled her like the sun hitting her face on a crisp day.
It left her feeling like she didn’t want to go.
The distant thing tugging on her heart wanted her to stay and figure out what she was seeing.
Why some unnamed part of her kept serving up images of him when all she wanted was to go home.
At the same time, Dell could feel an earthbound reality pulling her away. She glanced around the room at the hopeful looks
on everyone’s faces. They all wanted her to wake up—and she did want to wake up. Despite whatever mysterious anchor kept pulling
her toward the man in the corner only she could see.
Dell looked to Cole again, feeling forces pull her in multiple directions. “Well, see you in about sixty years when we do
this for real, I guess,” she said with a half smile.
Cole gave her a longing look, his eyes still swimming with emotion and wonder. He truly looked like he was going to miss her.
“Dell—” he started, but Dell snapped her eyes shut, half wondering if she needed to click her heels three times like Dorothy
but trusting whatever force had landed her in this in-between reality would pull her back over to the side where she belonged.
“Goodbye, Cole,” she said. “Thanks for the help.” She managed to keep the wobble out of her voice as she prepared to wake
up among the living.