Veiled (Ada Palomino 1)

“I mean, I know I normally do. We all do.” I glance at Dex. “It’s just that I feel like one is repeatedly seeking me out.”

“The guy from your dream?” Perry asks.

“No,” I say carefully, though now I’m wondering if he’s a fucking ghost too, finding some way to invade my brain. “No, this guy I met yesterday and . . .” I trail off and scrunch my eyes shut, pressing the heel of my palm into my forehead. “Never mind. He can’t be a ghost. Dawn Knightly introduced us. I mean, he drove a car and everything. You remember seeing that old Mercedes outside yesterday.”

“Yeah,” Dex says. “Sweet ride. But even ghosts need cool cars.”

“No. No, he’s not a ghost then. I just thought . . . I don’t know, I ran into him here and he said some cryptic shit and then pretty much disappeared.”

“Into thin air?” Perry asks.

“No, just when I was ordering my food. I guess he could have walked off. I don’t know, there was just something so odd about him. A feeling, something familiar, but I can’t put my finger on it.”

“Do you know his name?” Dex asks.

“Yeah, Jacob. He’s a family friend of the Knightlys.”

Dex’s eyes nearly bug out. “His name is Jacob?”

I frown. “Yes.”

“What did he look like? How old was he?”

I shrug. “I’m not good with ages. Maybe mid-fifties?”

“That’s impossible then,” Dex says, shaking his head and I have no idea what he’s talking about.

“Well impossible or not he was about dad’s age, maybe a tad older. Tall, red hair, really cool eyes, like amber glass, face looks like it’s been beaten up a few times but still handsome in a weird way.”

Dex is on his phone, frantically typing in something.

“What is it?” Perry asks, peering over his arm to look at the screen.

Dex holds up his finger, motioning for us to wait, then he shoves the phone in my face. “Was this the guy?”

I take the phone in my hand, staring at the picture. It’s a black and white photo, grainy, but in it is Jacob, smiling with a cigarette in one hand and a drink in the other, wearing what looks like a horrible checkered suit.

“Yeah, that’s him. Who is he?” I ask, handing it back.

“Are you sure he looks exactly like this?” Dex asks.

“Yes,” I reply testily. “He looks like that. No different. Who is he?”

“He’s Jacob ‘The Cobb’ Edwards. One of the world’s most famous band managers.”

I nod. “Cool.”

“No,” Dex says. “Well yes, cool, but also not cool because this photo was taken on the infamous Hybrid tour. In 1974.”

I try and do math. It’s not my strong suit.

“That was forty-two years ago and he was definitely fifty-something back then,” Dex goes on, back to scrolling. He pauses. “Oh. Right. So aside from the fact that he should technically be in his nineties, he’s also dead.”

“What?” Perry and I say in unison as we both look at his phone.

There on the Wikipedia page for Jacob Edwards is his picture, plus his birth date in 1919 and his death date in 1975. It says he died in Prague during Sage Knightly’s European solo tour when a crypt collapsed on him.

“I’m remembering it now,”’ Dex says slowly, looking off into the distance, “just the mythology of the band, how the curse that befell them, the deal with the Devil, didn’t really end on the first tour. People say Jacob was doing some weird voodoo shit down in that crypt and we all know how weird voodoo shit turns out.” He pauses and looks at me. “Except for you Ada, but you can imagine it ain’t good.”

“So he’s a ghost after all.”

“A ghost that our neighbors can see,” Perry muses, “let alone hang out with.”

“So he faked his own death then?” I guess.

“I think we need to talk to the neighbors,” Dex says, starting to walk down the sidewalk.

Perry and I follow. “So you can harass Sage about music rights?” Perry questions with a quirk of her eyebrow.

“Kiddo, I always have an ulterior motive.”

***

Though during the drive back to my house the conversations in the car turned to lighter topics, such as the music video Dex was creating for an up-and-coming band called Only Mostly Dead, the minute we pulled in behind my dad’s Taurus in the driveway, silence fell between us.

As the three of us walked up the stone path to the front door, The Knightlys’ house looked as empty as it had earlier—no cars in the driveway, no lights in the house, no noise.

I really wasn’t sure what was going to happen. To be honest, the fact that Jacob either faked his death or was already dead, wasn’t too much of a concern. If anything I just wanted to know what his comment had meant, the one about the young having courage. That wasn’t a throwaway line. That meant something and it meant something for me.