Ginny narrowed her gaze on her. “So, you knew what Penni had planned?”
“No!” Gianna vigorously shook her head. “Nooo!”
Ginny threateningly closed her eyes to thin slits.
“Okay, I might have,” she conceded, then stared at her pretend watch. “Look at the time. I’m going to be late. I wouldn’t worry about it. Probably one of Chris’s lame friends trying to be cute.”
Chris’s shoulders went back. “Why does it have to be one of my friends that did it?”
“Because my friends aren’t lame.”
Ginny laughed as her roommate escaped being drawn into an argument with Chris about his friends.
Chris’s face grew serious after Gianna left. “I’m sorry if one of my friends wrote the note. Don’t tell her I said so, but they are lame and several of us were pretty wasted last night.”
“It’s fine. It was just a joke. I hope none of your friends drove home last night?”
Chris and most of his friends lived about forty-five minutes away.
“They stayed at a hotel. I’m meeting them for lunch. You want to join us?”
“No, thanks. I have plans this afternoon,” Ginny said, getting up from her stool. “You mind asking them if any of them left the note?”
“Sure thing. I’ll text you on my way home.”
“I’d appreciate it.” Ginny went to a kitchen drawer to open it and take out a box. She set it on the counter in front of Chris, who looked at it in surprise. “Happy birthday!”
“You shouldn’t have!” Grinning like a kid, he opened it, then took out a gift card, a beach towel, and sun lotion. “You gave me a gift card to Tidal Wave City?”
“I need to tell you something as a friend.”
Chris held his presents as if he had never seen any of them before.
“Dude, you need to get some sun.”
* * *
Ginny had just sat down with Lily after working with Kaden in his home studio when Chris’s text came.
“Is something wrong?” Lily asked, snuggling next to Shade as he sat down beside her on the couch.
“No.” Ginny didn’t want to mention the note to Lily or Shade. “I thought Rachel, Cash, and Greer were supposed to be here tonight?”
“They’re under the weather tonight; that’s why we decided to stay longer, so that we can travel back together.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.” Ginny had noticed that Greer looked ill soon after they had prayed for Cole.
Ginny asked Lily if she had any pictures of Beth’s children. All the children of The Last Riders would come to the club occasionally for breakfast or lunch with their parents.
Asking her youngest son to hand her the cell phone, Clint climbed onto her lap to watch his mother as she showed the pictures to Ginny.
“These are from the haunted house that Stud and Sex Piston turned their house into and invited all of us. The Last Riders and Destructors all pitched in to make it a party that none of the kids would ever forget. They even made Stud’s man cave in the basement into a graveyard.”
As Lily talked, she swiped the screen with her thumb, showing the pictures of the haunted house they had created.
“How many of the children had nightmares?” Ginny wouldn’t have gone down to that basement with the lights on, much less with the dim lighting that was captured in the pictures.
“Here’s the one I wanted to show you with Chance and Noah.”
Taking the phone, Ginny laughed. “They were Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde?”
“Let me see?” Clint popped his head up from Lily’s shoulder.
About to hand him the phone, Ginny took another glance and chills went up her arms.
In the picture, there was a mirror hanging on a partial wall at the staircase. Ginny thought she could make out a shadowy reflection in the mirror. You couldn’t get a clear image of his features; they seemed distorted, as if the mirror had been cracked. From the dark lighting in the picture, you couldn’t even make out his hair color.
Frissons of fear and excitement had her raising the phone from Clint’s clutching hand to show Lily the picture. “Who’s the man in the mirror?”
Lily looked at her phone then frowned. “I don’t see anyone.” Placing it in Shade’s view, she asked him.
Shade looked at the phone intently then at her. “I don’t see anyone either.”
“May I see it again?”
Lily lifted the phone over Clint’s head to give it back.
Glancing at the mirror again, she had to close and open her eyes several times before she admitted to herself that she must have been mistaken. The mirror was empty.
“It must have been a trick of the light.” Making light of what she was almost positive of seeing, she gave the phone to Clint. “The boys are too cute. May I have a copy?”
“I’ll text it to you.” Lily reached to take the phone from Clint, but the boy resisted.