I knew the baby’s father for a number of years and arranged for his wife to be my domestic. When I realized their baby had been taken from them without their consent, I came up with a plan to return the baby to them. I told them what to say to the Stocktons, and I arranged for them to have a car to leave Sexton with their baby.
No one else knew of the plan.
Lisa Evans
Jon put the note back on the desk and left the room. He’d decide what to do about Lisa some other time. He had to make sure Ruby was gone. He didn’t think Lisa would’ve killed her, but he needed to be certain. There was a chance Ruby was hiding in the house somewhere.
Besides, looking for Ruby distracted him. And he needed the distraction.
He went through the entire house, opening closets and cupboards and small spaces Ruby couldn’t possibly have crawled into. He checked the garage, went back and searched the house all over again. Then he gritted his teeth and returned to Lisa’s bedroom. Ruby wasn’t under the bed or in the closet or anywhere else. She’d probably heard the shot, saw Lisa’s body, and run.
But wherever she ran to, it wasn’t to the authorities. Lisa had been undisturbed since her death Tuesday morning. Maybe even Monday. There were ways to test how long a person had been dead, but he was no expert. Dead was dead.
He went to his bedroom and sat on the bed. He could leave, he thought, walk to the greenhouses in the morning and grab a lift with a trucker. He could make his way to Matt’s, slowly, cautiously. Someone would have to tell Gabe his mother was dead. Jon had told Miranda about Mom, after all. By now he was a pro.
The problem was Ruby. If Jon could be sure she’d truly gotten out, then he could leave, too. But how could Ruby have managed that? Even if she’d gone back to White Birch, to her family, she’d be picked up by a guard and punished for running away. And if she were still in Sexton, the same thing would happen.
She couldn’t have been caught yet because she would have told the police about Lisa. But she would be caught. It was inevitable. And once she was, the police might decide she was responsible for everything. Notes could be destroyed. Suicides could be called murders. Why would a claver have helped a pair of no-good grubs? Ruby must have been in on it, helped grab the baby, then killed Lisa and run away.
She was Jon’s responsibility. In some ways, she was Jon’s friend.
He would have to tell someone about Lisa. He would have to stick around, hoping no one suspected him, until Ruby was found. And once she was, he’d have to protect her. If he survived all that, and he wasn’t sure he would, he could leave Sexton.
But he couldn’t protect Ruby unless he protected himself first.
He walked back to Lisa’s room and stared at her. She was trying to protect everybody. If Ruby had stayed in the house and called the authorities, she might have been fine. If he hadn’t come home, he’d be fine. Everybody would be fine. But he’d come home and Ruby had run, and decisions had to be made.
He went downstairs and found the address book. It was nine thirty. Too late to call people, but he didn’t have a choice.
The first call Jon made was to Dr. Goldman. It was nice to pretend he could be kept out of things, but that option no longer existed.
“I apologize for calling so late,” Jon said, “but there’s something I have to tell you.”
“Is it Sarah?” Dr. Goldman asked. “Have you heard something from Alex? Is Sarah all right?”
“She’s fine,” Jon said. “It’s Lisa. She killed herself.”
“Are you sure?” Dr. Goldman asked.
“Yes sir,” Jon said. “She shot herself. I came home and found her.”
“Oh, Jon,” Dr. Goldman said. “I’m so sorry. Does Gabe know?”
“He’s not here,” Jon said. “He’s with Miranda.” He paused, trying to decide what he had to tell Sarah’s father, what he could avoid telling him.
“Dr. Goldman, Sarah’s fine,” he began. “But she’s with Alex and Miranda and Gabe and the baby. Miranda’s baby was alive, and we found her and got her back to them.”
“Sarah did that?” Dr. Goldman asked.
“We all did,” Jon said. “Lisa, too. Lisa left a note saying she was completely responsible, her and Alex and Miranda. She says she knew Alex, but she didn’t say anything about Miranda being family.”
“You’re going to have to call the authorities,” Dr. Goldman said. “I would do it for you, but I think it would be better if you make the call.”
“Yes sir,” Jon said. “I’ll make that call right now.”
“I’ll be there in fifteen minutes,” Dr. Goldman said.
“No,” Jon said. “Thank you, but I’m better off if you stay away. Sarah’s better off, too. If I need you, I’ll call.”
“I don’t like leaving you alone,” Dr. Goldman said.
“I don’t like being alone,” Jon replied. “But it’s better if I am. I’ll tell them I called you. Don’t lie about that. Just about Miranda.”
“I’m here if you need me,” Dr. Goldman said. “And, Jon? Your mother would have been proud of your helping Alex and Miranda. Very proud. Don’t ever forget that.”
“I won’t,” Jon said. “Thank you.”
Alex had told him he had special obligations. Mom would expect him to protect the people who hadn’t been given the same chances he had. Miranda, Alex, Ruby.
Well, he was a claver and a soccer star, and that used to count for something. Jon made his next phone call.
“I’d like to speak to Mr. Hughes,” he told the domestic who answered the phone. “This is Jon Evans. I was a friend of Tyler’s.”
Jon waited nervously until Mr. Hughes came to the phone.
“Yes, Jon,” he said. “What is it?”
“I’m sorry to call so late, sir,” Jon said. “And I’m sorry I never had a chance to tell you how bad I felt about Tyler.”
“You weren’t at his funeral,” Mr. Hughes said. “A lot of people noticed that.”
“My mother died,” Jon said. “In the riots. I’m really sorry, Mr. Hughes, but I couldn’t handle it. Tyler, I mean. Tyler’s funeral.”
“I didn’t know,” Mr. Hughes said. “I’m sorry, Jon. These are terrible times.”
“Yes sir,” Jon said. “Mr. Hughes, my stepmother killed herself. I’m here, at our home, and I just found her. I called Sarah’s father, Dr. Goldman, and he told me to call the authorities. I’m sorry, sir. I thought you’d know who to call.”
“Are you sure it’s suicide?” Mr. Hughes asked. “Where are your grubs?”
“We only have one,” Jon said. “I don’t know where she is. But Lisa, my stepmother, left a note. It’s something about this other grub we had. I don’t know what it means.”
“Give me your address,” Mr. Hughes said. “I’ll call the police and tell them to come. I’ll come, too. You were one of Tyler’s closest friends, Jon. If you’re in trouble, he’d want me to help.”
“Thank you, sir,” Jon said. “That means a lot.”
“Keep calm,” Mr. Hughes said. “This is a terrible tragedy, but you’re a strong young man, and I know you’ll get through it.”
Jon thanked him again and hung up. He didn’t feel like a strong young man. He felt like a weakling, a liar. But then again, he’d been a weakling and a liar for years now. He knew how to be a weakling and a liar, and he knew how to survive.
For the moment that would have to be enough.
Thursday, July 30
He told the same story to everyone—Mr. Hughes, the police, Luke, Luke’s father, Ryan, Reverend Minter, the people Lisa worked with, the people at her funeral. Each time he told it, he knew he was lying, but with each time it sounded more and more like the truth, even to him. He grew comfortable with the lies, more comfortable than he’d ever felt lying about Julie.
He told them he’d come home from the soccer match too keyed up to stay at home. He wanted to celebrate, and the best place to do that was White Birch. He caught the last grub bus in Sunday night, and after that, he admitt
ed with chagrin, he wasn’t too sure what had happened except that it involved a lot of potka and any grubber girl he could find.
Mr. Hughes, the police, Luke, Luke’s father, Ryan, Reverend Minter, the people Lisa worked with, and even the people at Lisa’s funeral laughed at that. Getting drunk and enjoying yourself with grubber girls was what claver boys were supposed to do in White Birch. No one was expected to remember all the details.
School was out until September. So Jon stayed in White Birch an extra night, an extra day. The potka didn’t run out, and neither did the girls.
But by Tuesday evening he’d run out of money for the potka and the girls. Besides, Lisa might be worried. So he took a claver bus to Sexton and made his way home.
As soon as he got there, he passed out. If he had given it any thought, and he wasn’t sure he had, he must have figured that their grub had taken Gabe to the market. Lisa would have been at work.
When he came to, it was night and he found he was alone. He searched for the grub, for Lisa, for Gabe, and found only Lisa, dead in her bedroom. He’d called Dr. Goldman first, because he lived nearby. Then he called Mr. Hughes.
Yes, he’d seen the note, but no, he didn’t know what it meant, or where Gabe was. Maybe the grub had run off with him after she found Lisa’s body. Maybe Lisa had sent him away with the grubs she’d mentioned in her suicide note.
No, he didn’t know the grubs. All he knew about them was that when Lisa had gotten her promotion, she’d been told she could have a private greenhouse and another domestic. Lisa had told him she found the perfect girl, someone who could work in the greenhouse and help with the housework as well. Lisa seemed very interested in the grub, to the point that she had Jon visit her in the hospital a couple of times. So at some point, he must have learned her name was Miranda and she was expecting a baby.
Miranda was dropped off at their home after she’d had the baby, which had died. Deformed, Jon remembered. Deformed and dead. This was after the riots, and Lisa’s greenhouse had been delayed, so they sent Miranda back to White Birch, leaving them with just one domestic, Ruby.
He didn’t remember Lisa seeming upset about anything, except training Ruby. And he didn’t remember Lisa mentioning that she knew Miranda’s husband. Now that he thought about it, he knew Miranda had a husband, because Lisa had mentioned that Miranda would go back to him. He didn’t remember the husband’s last name. Why should he? Who bothered remembering their grubs’ last names?
He’d known Lisa since he was a little boy, and he’d lived with her for three years. It never occurred to him that she would violate the laws, do anything that might put him and especially Gabe at risk. He didn’t know anything about the Stockton baby or who the Stocktons were. He’d been in White Birch getting drunk and having as many girls as he could.
Jon made it through the funeral, listening to everyone saying how brave he was and how difficult they found it to believe that Lisa would do something like that. Not the suicide, he knew, although that was included in their shocked remarks. It was that she had turned against the clavers, helping out grubs based on some long-ago relationship. Everyone knew what animals grubs were. Everyone knew that baby would have been much better off with clavers. Now that baby was lost and so, presumably, was Gabe, kidnapped by the grubs, lost to Sexton forever.
Jon nodded and agreed with them and said how shocked he was, too, how sad at Gabe’s disappearance, and how guilty he felt because he hadn’t been home, hadn’t talked Lisa out of that crazy plot. And all of them, even the police, told Jon it wasn’t his fault, that Lisa had been keeping many secrets from him, that if a claver boy couldn’t go into White Birch and have a good time, what was the point of this whole crazy world?
Jon said he didn’t know, but he would always feel terrible about what had happened, and all of them said that proved what a good boy he was, how brave and honest.
Luke skipped the funeral. “He feels responsible somehow,” Ryan told Jon. “If he hadn’t told you about the grubber baby, none of this would have happened.”
“He shouldn’t blame himself,” Jon said. “I’m the one who told Lisa. If anyone’s to blame, it’s me.”
Ryan shook his head. “It’s not your fault, either,” he said. “Those grubs probably had something on her. It wouldn’t surprise me if they murdered her and forged that note.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Jon said. “Nothing matters. Dead’s dead.”
Friday, July 31
The days leading up to the funeral had been punctuated with phone calls. But now the house was quiet, and the ringing of the phone startled him.
“Jon Evans?”
“Yes.”
“This is Sergeant Hawkins at the police station. We found your missing grub.”
“I’ll be right there,” Jon said, hanging up the phone.
He raced to the bus stop, but when he didn’t see any buses coming, he began running to the station. It wasn’t until he was almost there that he realized he could be running into a trap. Sarah’s father wasn’t the only one who knew Miranda was Jon’s sister. Ruby knew, also. And if she’d told the police, they could be waiting for him.
I’m a claver, Jon thought, rehearsing his arguments for the police. She’s a grub. There’s no proof Miranda and I are related. Ruby was lying. All grubs lie. Or maybe, to be charitable, she misunderstood something Lisa had said. Or maybe she was making it all up because she hated Lisa, hated Jon.
The important thing was what had she done to Gabe. That was what the police should be concentrating on. Where was Gabe?
When Jon walked into the police station, he saw the police had been trying to find that out without his prodding. He winced at the fresh bruises on Ruby’s face.
“What’s she told you?” Jon asked. “I’m Jon Evans. It’s my half brother who’s missing.”
“I’m Sergeant Hawkins,” the police officer said. “I called you a few minutes ago, Mr. Evans. You sure this is your grub?”
Jon nodded. “Her name’s Ruby,” he said. “She used to look prettier.”
The sergeant laughed. “This is Officer Summers,” he said. “He’s been having a little talk with the grub about everything she knows.”
“Mr. Jon,” Ruby said, “I don’t know where Gaby is. I swear I don’t. I woke up with a terrible headache, and the gun went off and Gaby was gone. Honest. I looked all over for him and I couldn’t find him. I went outside to look, and I kept looking and looking, and I never could find him. You believe me, don’t you, Mr. Jon? You know how much I love that little boy.”
Jon could see the terror in her eyes. He only hoped no one could see the fear in his.
“Why don’t I take her home?” he said. “I might do better getting the truth out of her there.”
“Sorry, Mr. Evans,” Sergeant Hawkins said. “No can do. This little grub’s a runaway.”
“I understand that,” Jon said, the way a friend of Tyler Hughes’s would. “She ran away from my home, and that’s where I’ll take her back to.”
The sergeant shook his head. “Grubs don’t contract to people,” he said. “They contract to the enclave. She didn’t run away from you. She ran away from the enclave. Grubs that do that get punished. That’s the law.”
“What’ll become of her?” Jon asked, trying not to look at Ruby, at the bruises and the tears and the terror.
“Jail, until we got a truckful to send to the mines,” Sergeant Hawkins replied. “Once she gets there, well, a pretty girl like this one will keep busy enough.” He and the officer laughed.
“How long will that be?” Jon asked. “Before there’s a truckful?”
Officer Summers shrugged. “I’d say we’re about halfway there,” he said. “Enough potka, enough Sundays off, a couple of weeks maybe.”
“Please, Mr. Jon,” Ruby said. “I’m begging you. Save me.”
Officer Summers slapped her. “Keep your mouth shut, grub,” he said. “This is none of your concern.”
Jon didn’t want Ruby to
be sent to the mines. None of what had happened was her fault. But even more than that, he didn’t want Ruby stuck in a jail cell telling whoever would listen that Miranda was Mr. Jon’s sister, Mrs. Evans’s stepdaughter. By now Sarah was probably safe in Virginia and Alex was on his way to the town Matt had told them about. They were all right. But Jon wouldn’t be.
“What if I marry her?” Jon asked, almost as startled by the words as the policemen seemed to be.
“Marry her?” Sergeant Hawkins said. “Marry this grub?”
“Yes,” Jon said. “Right now.”
“I never heard of that,” Officer Summers said. “A claver marrying a grub. Can he do that?”
“I don’t see why not,” Sergeant Hawkins replied. “No law against it that I know of.”
“Fine,” Jon said. “Good. Give her to me, and we’ll get married. Then I’ll take her home and find out what she did to Gabe.”
“Wait a second,” Ruby said. “Maybe I don’t want to marry you.”
“So what?” Jon said. “We’re getting married. Let her go, Sergeant Hawkins. The church is only a couple of blocks away. Reverend Minter can perform the ceremony.”
“Not so fast,” Sergeant Hawkins said. “Yeah, you can marry the grub. No law against that. But you can’t take her home and act like nothing’s changed. You marry a grub, you can’t be a claver. It’s that simple.”
Jon wasn’t going to be a claver much longer if Ruby started talking. “Fine,” he said. “We’ll go the church, get married, go home, get my things, and leave Sexton.”
“You’d do that for her?” Officer Summers asked. “Give up being a claver for some little grub?”
“It’d be worth it to me to find out where my brother is,” Jon said. “Besides, she looks better in bed. Can we go now?”
“You can’t go back to the house,” Sergeant Hawkins said. “That’s the rule. You marry a grub, you can’t go back. Understand? I’ll go to the church with you, and we’ll find the reverend and he’ll marry you. Then you give me your claver ID badge and get the hell out of here.”
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