Dark Halo (An Angel Eyes Novel) by Shannon Dittemore

there.”
    “I don’t think anyone has ever made it from Central Oregon to the coast this fast, girl, and considering we’re driving a wind-up toy, that’s saying something.”
    “Be nice. Slugger’s been good to us,” I say, turning the key. “We’re almost there.”
    We turn out of the ranger station, and I push the gas to the floor. Slugger groans, but mile marker 177 comes into view and my heart stammers. One more mile. The curve here is wicked sharp, so I take my foot off the gas, and that’s when Bellwether rises in the distance.
    The lighthouse is a haze of Halloween colors against the night sky">
    Kay leans forward, her nose inches from the windshield. “Criminy. That’s spooky at night.”
    I’m silent, but I couldn’t agree more. And then the trees obstruct our view. Mile marker 178 flies by, and I swallow against the fear that’s stuck in my throat. I can’t . . . I can’t . . . I don’t even know how to pray.
    A gap in the trees opens up, and the keeper’s house comes into view. Like everything else, it’s swabbed in a haze of moist fog. The moonlight catches it, transforming the white house into something ghostly. A lawn and white picket fence surround it all, but shadowed as it is, the house is far less welcoming than it was on the website.
    And yet there’s no place on this planet I’d rather be.
    Jake’s here.
    I’m sure of it.
    The house is still several hundred yards up the road, but I pull off the freeway and park Slugger against the mountain.
    “You’ll have to climb out on my side, Kay.”
    I stand on a thin strip of dirt between my car and the freeway. All is quiet. The road beside me is empty. Beyond it is a cliff face where evergreens grow out from the rocks, jutting over the sea.
    “Hey, Elle?” Kay’s sitting in the driver’s seat now. “Before we storm the castle, what do you want me to do with these?”
    She’s holding the pages of Ali’s journal in her hands. It’s a good question. I don’t know what I’m going to find here, and I don’t want to carry in a bunch of cryptic and possibly incriminating evidence. “Put them in the glove compartment,” I say, kneeling down next to her, handing her the keys. “If this goes, you know, bad . . .”
    The moon has painted her face white, like the cliffs here, like the road, and with her eyes wide and her hair pulled into two high knots she looks like some sort of manga superhero.
    “Knock it off, Elle,” she says. “It’ll be fine. We’ll be fine.”
    “Okay, but you have to figure out what those papers mean,” I say. “Get them to Canaan if you can, or Helene, but if you can’t—”
    “I promise to do my best Sherlock Holmes impersonation, okay? But let’s talk about now. I don’t think we should go in all guns blazing and stuff. We need to have a plan.”
    “Yeah,” I say. “I thought about that.”
    “And?”
    “Well, I don’t have one I was hoping forinow. I mean, what do we know? Nothing. It’s really hard to come up with a plan for nothing.”
    “Okay, well. We don’t know anything, but what are youthinking? That he’s at the bakery here or up the road at the lighthouse?”
    “I don’t know,” I say, feeling very, very unprepared. “There’s no way to know.”
    “What about those eyes of yours? Can’t they help us out a bit?”
    “I don’t know,” I say. “Without the halo, I don’t have any control over what I do and don’t see, but . . .”
    “But you could try.”
    “Yes, I could try.”
    “Okay, then that sounds like a plan,” she says, stepping out of the car. “I’m good with plans.” She closes the door quietly, but when she steps away, her Snuggie tears. It’s gotten caught in the door. “You know, maybe I should leave the Snuggie here?”
    “You know, maybe you should.”
    She strips it off and leaves it on the driver’s seat, closing the door once again with as much silence as she can muster.
    “All right,” she says, taking my hand. “I’m