Dead Girl in 2A (ARC)

by Carter Wilson

  “I know, Jake. I know things aren’t okay.”

  “I don’t just mean with us. I mean with me. I’m in a situation here, and I’m not sure how it’s going to end.”

  Hesitation on her end of the line. “What does that mean?”

  “This last year has been…” What’s the word I’m looking for? “Inevitable.” Yes, that’s it. Because it has been, hasn’t it? “And it’s all culminating here, in Denver.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  I stand, needing to pace.

  “There are things you don’t know, because I don’t even know. My past, my forgotten memories. The time when I was a kid that I don’t really remember. I’m getting answers now, but there’s a price with that. Maybe a steep one.”

  “Okay, you’re scaring me. Please tell me what’s going on.”

  “I’m not trying to scare you. I just want you to finally know the truth, at least as much as I understand it.”

  “Okay, what’s the truth?”

  “The truth is all I want is to be with you and Em.”

  She’s crying now. Stifled sniffles on the other end of the line. The sound of her crying is as unique as her fingerprints. So distinct and heartbreaking every time I hear it.

  “Then why are we going through this?” Her voice cracks.

  Here is what I’ve never told her. “Because nearly a year ago I went to visit a man.”

  “What man?”

  “I think we knew each other a long time ago. From the time I don’t remember. He doesn’t remember either. But he wants to. Desperately.”

  “Why haven’t you told me this?”

  “Because I’m scared.” No, Jake. That’s not the entire truth. Tell the truth. “It’s…it’s more than being scared. After the accident, I hit bottom. I’ve never wanted to change the past more than after Em got hurt.”

  “But you can’t, Jake.”

  “I know I can’t. All I can control is where I’m headed, but I felt like I was even losing my grasp on that. I felt like I could no longer take care of my family.”

  An exasperated sigh. “We don’t exist just to have you take care of us. We all take care of each other. That’s how it works.”

  “You’re right, I know,” I say. “But you might feel differently if you’d been the one driving that day.”

  Silence. Then, “Okay, I get that. But what does this have to do with this man?”

  “He…asked me to participate in a kind of therapy.”

  “What kind of therapy?”

  Oh, just some unlabeled drugs and a hypnotic children’s book about death.

  “He calls it ‘the program.’ It turns out to be something I was part of when I was a kid, and he’s continuing the research. He thinks it will restore our memories. And…well, there’s a deeper element to it. This program is also supposed to make you realize things about yourself. Become more… I don’t even know how to say it. You. Unlock your potential, he said. I was only following part of it at first, and I did start to change. You noticed the changes. I had more of a sense of people around me. Deeper feelings. More…intuition. And then the accident happened, after Em was hurt. I don’t know. I got desperate. I felt like the only way I could take care of her was by becoming a better version of myself. So I started following the rest of the program.”

  “Which means what?”

  I just say it before I change my mind. “It involved taking some drugs. Drugs the man gave me.”

  “What do you mean? What kind of drugs?”

  “I’m not sure.” Which is the truth.

  “Is he a doctor?”

  “That’s how he presented himself. As a doctor in a medical office here in Boston, running a kind of clinical trial. But I found out later he’s not that at all.”

  “Jake.” She’s trying to control her voice; I can hear it. “Are you telling me your mood swings, your recent memory issues…our separation…are all because you’re on drugs?”

  “Not on drugs,” I answer. “I’m not taking meth or anything. These are… Fuck, this is so hard to explain. These are drugs meant to help me, and they’re not the reason for our separation.” As long as I’m telling her the things I’ve been holding back, might as well fire off this one. “We’re separated because you blame me for what happened to Em, and you don’t know how to move past that.”

  “That’s not true. I—”

  “It is true, and it’s okay. I understand. I can’t say I wouldn’t feel the same way in your position. All I can do is try to grow, and that’s what’s happening.”

  “Tell me how you’re growing,” she says. “Because I’m really struggling here. I’ve only seen things fall apart in the last year, so tell me one thing that Jake Buchanan has done to grow. Because, shit, maybe at least something good is coming of this.”

  I press on with the truth. “My book,” I say.

  “What book?”

  “My novel, the one I’ve been working on for nearly a decade and still don’t know what to do with it.”

  “What about it?”

  “The whole thing. It’s written. In my head.”

  “That’s great.” Her voice is flat.

  “You don’t understand,” I say. “I have it all outlined in my head. Start to finish. Every chapter. I see it. I don’t even need to write down notes, I see it so clearly. I’ve never had anything like that happen before. I was going to start writing it, and then I got the call for the memoir job.”

  “So, this is another thing you never told me.”

  “Abby, I—”

  “And your novel isn’t more important than your family.”

  “I know it’s not. That’s not what I’m saying. I want to be with you and Em.”

  “Then be with us, Jake. It’s not hard. We’ve done it for years. Come home.”

  “I can’t. Not yet. Things have happened here.”

  So, do you tell her about Eaton? That he might be a part of everything, which probably means no more money other than the retainer he already gave you?

  She’s crying harder now. “What does that mean?”

  “The man who runs this program. He’s here. In Denver.”

  Abby’s frustration spills over, and I understand every ounce of it. But I don’t have all the answers, and those I have will probably only frustrate her more.

  “Come home,” she says. “We’ll get you more counseling. We’ll get us more counseling.”

  “I will, soon. But I need to keep moving forward right now. I need to remember. I think… I think if I can do that, I’ll be okay.”

  “Tell me where you are. Let me come get you.”

  “I need to do this on my own.”

  “Do what?” She’s shouting through her tears, and I don’t blame her. I know this is a selfish call, meant to somehow make me feel better despite how much confusion and pain I cause in the process.

  “I’m sorry,” I say. “I didn’t mean to upset you. I just wanted to tell you I’m sorry for everything. I love you.”

  “I love you,” she answers, but her tone sounds far removed from love.

  I end the call, regretting I placed it at all. I’ve only created more chaos and confusion around me.

  She texts.

  Come home.

  I will, I reply. I promise.

  I desperately want that to be true.

  I put the phone in my lap and close my eyes for a minute, trying to shut out the hurt. I don’t get there, but I manage to clear my head enough to do what I need to do next.

  Eaton.

  I pick the phone back up and dial him. He answers on the second ring.

  “Jake, I was getting concerned about you. I feared that after your…your incident, you might have decided to abandon our project.”

  “I can see how t
hat would concern you,” I say. “With the nonrefundable retainer and all.”

  “No, that’s not the issue. I just want to make sure you’re okay.”

  It’s hard to discern what the truth is behind his words, but I can tell the words themselves are empty.

  “Actually, Eaton, I’m not okay. Not at all.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that. What happened?”

  Time to call his bluff.

  “You know exactly what’s happening.”

  There’s a silence, one long enough to tell me Eaton is carefully considering what to say next.

  Finally, he says, “I’m not sure what you’re talking about.”

  “I’m sure you don’t.”

  “Tell me where you are. You don’t sound well. Perhaps you shouldn’t be alone.”

  “How do you know I’m alone?” I ask. “Maybe I’m at the police station.”

  “If you are, I hope they are helping you. You sound rather unsettled.”

  A swell of the rage I felt earlier at him rises in me. “I took the pills and read the book,” I say. “That’s on me. I chose to do that, because maybe I thought there was something to the program after all. But what happened last night and this morning? That’s on all of you, and now there’s one less of you.”

  “Jake, you need to calm—”

  “You’re part of this,” I say. “Deny it all you want, but I’m certain of it. And the program… People have died. You held me captive. Landis even threatened my family. I’m not going to be your guinea pig anymore.”

  I can hear his shallow breaths over the phone. “Like I said, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  I squeeze the phone in my hand. “I’m coming for you.”

  Then I disconnect, fighting the urge to smash the phone into a thousand pieces.

  Now what the hell do I do? I consider calling Abby back, telling her to take Em and stay in a hotel for a couple of days. But Abby probably wouldn’t do it anyway, and all I’d be doing is freaking her out more.

  I play Clara’s voicemail a second time, and then a third. I get chills with each listen, as if hearing the last recording of a dead person. Then I dial the Hotel Jerome and ask for her room number. The hotel operator transfers me, but no one answers.

  I’m suddenly frantic to talk to her, find out what she remembers, if only to provide me with forward momentum and to keep me from being swallowed by the thought that’s been creeping up on me for the last few minutes. The thought that now has its mouth around my feet and inches up along my legs, digesting as it crushes me.

  I fucking killed someone.

  My hand hits my coffee cup, which was sitting on the armrest of my chair. The cup hits the floor and the plastic lid bursts off, gushing my drink along the slate-gray tiles. I immediately kneel down to…to what? To scoop it all back in my cup? There’s nothing to be done, but here I am, on my knees, bowing before a Starbucks river.

  Then my chest tightens, like hands squeezing my heart until it has no choice but to burst. Accompanying this is a sudden inability to breathe.

  I suck in a breath, and it just stays there. Suck in more. Makes it worse. I can’t exhale. I’m vaguely aware I’m grabbing my chest. Panic consumes me.

  “You okay?”

  Well-worn Vans attached to the feet of a kid wearing a green apron. I look up. I nod. Of course I’m okay.

  I’m only dying.

  “Don’t worry about that. I can get it. Happens all the time.”

  Finally the air escapes my lungs and I let out a desperate moan. My hearts pounds with the relief I’m not going to take my last breath on the floor of a coffee shop. I breathe in slowly. Breathe out.

  “Thank you,” I wheeze.

  “You sure you’re okay?”

  I lift a hand and wave, as if it’s some kind universal indicator that all is just fine in the world. It seems to work.

  “I’ll go grab a mop,” he says.

  I’m still on my knees, collecting myself, steeling my mind against the reality of all that I cannot change, when two more feet appear next to me. They belong to a woman. Flats, not heels, in case she needs to run.

  “God, you look like hell.”

  “Hello, Elle.”

  Forty-Two

  Elle extends a hand, and though I can get up on my own, I take it. I take it as a lifeline I desperately need.

  She leans over and picks up my phone from the small table next to me.

  “Your signal registered a little while ago—I had nothing to go on until then. Figured they turned your phone off or took you somewhere with no reception.”

  “You were tracking my phone?”

  “I installed a hidden app months ago when you left your phone in your office and went to lunch. I figured I was the only one using the app, but they found us last night, didn’t they?” She looks around, apparently seeing nothing that alarms her. “I’m shutting this off.”

  She powers the phone down and hands it back to me.

  “They took me to a room—”

  “Not here,” she says. “Come.”

  Elle walks out of Starbucks, and I follow her to her car.

  “Let’s drive a few blocks. Enough to see if anyone’s following.” She pulls out and cruises down the nearest boulevard, changes lanes several times, then turns into a strip mall parking lot. “I was naive to think I was the only person working for Landis. I guess I was just reconnaissance, and those guys were security.” She parks, scans the lot for anything suspicious, then looks at me. “Are you okay?”

  I search her face, asking myself again how much I should trust her.

  “You were pretty quick to leave me last night,” I say.

  “What choice did I have? I wasn’t armed. I followed the signal as long as I could, then it dropped.” She nods to the back seat. “That’s where I slept, waiting to get a ping from your phone. I was about an hour away from going to the police.”

  “You slept? Lucky you.”

  “What did they do to you?” Her gaze tracks from my face to my neck. She squints, looks closer. “Is that blood?”

  I reach up, feel nothing. Look at my fingers. Slight tinge of pink.

  “Oh. Hell. It’s…it’s not mine. It’s—”

  We remain parked in the lot while I tell her everything that happened. The ride in the truck, the white room where they abandoned me for hours. Landis asking me if I killed his parents. I detail Clara’s voicemail.

  Elle absorbs everything with an ease that amazes me. “Okay,” she says. “But you still haven’t told me whose blood that is.”

  I tell her about the man I killed, who, for a brief period of time, I came to be aware had a name. Cason.

  “Is he dead?” she asks.

  “Oh…oh, yes.”

  “Shit. Where’s the gun?”

  “In my bag.”

  “Let me see.”

  I grab my messenger bag, open it up. She peers in.

  “We’ll need to figure out what to do with that. And you locked Landis in the room?”

  “Yes.”

  “How far away was that place?”

  I point down the road.

  “I don’t imagine he’s still in there. And the body…I don’t know. My guess is it’ll be cleaned up without leaving any trace of what happened. The logical thing is to go to the police, but if we do that, one of two things will happen. One, you’ll tell the whole story, and they won’t believe you. Then you’ll take them to the room and it will be spotless, and then they really won’t believe you.”

  “Or two,” I say. “We go to the room, and there’s a body in there with my DNA all over the place. And I have the murder weapon on me. There’ll be no way to prove self-defense.”

  I look out the window. A teenage girl in PINK sweats rushes from the Starbucks gripping a ven
ti something-or-other.

  “I just want to go back to who I was,” I mumble, knowing that’s not exactly true. I want to go back in time, but not back in person.

  “Well, you can’t, Jake,” she says. She makes me think of Abby, telling me I can’t change the past. “You can only move forward. Your choices are to go to the police or go find Clara. If you choose the former, you’re on your own. But I can help you find Clara.”

  Find Clara. That would make the most sense, I think. But it’s not my instinct. I want to make another stop before going to the mountains. A stop not too far from here.

  “We need to see Alexander Eaton,” I say.

  “Alexander…oh, the memoir guy.”

  Memoirs. The irony of that word truly hits me for the first time.

  “Yeah,” I say.

  “You still think he’s involved?”

  “He has to be.” I think about all the connections as I check them off on my fingers. “He calls me out of the blue and offers me a shit-ton of money to write his memoir. He’s the one who booked my flight out here, and somehow Landis knew my seat assignment. He tells me he was at the scene when Raymond Higgins went on his killing spree, the same Higgins who Landis put on the program. And it was in Eaton’s apartment where I had my first-ever childhood memory, trigging some fucked-up rage inside me. Yeah, I think he’s involved.”

  She nods. “Hard to argue those points. So we go see him, and then what? How does that help us? How does that help you?”

  “I don’t know yet, but I’ll figure it out.”

  Which is only partially true. When I called Eaton, I heard the vulnerability in his voice. The tinge of fear. I even told him I’m coming for you, as if I’m some kind of vigilante.

  Maybe I am. Maybe this is the true me that’s been building my whole life. The program enhanced my emotional awareness, but right now there’s only one emotion that’s spreading up through my chest, into my throat, infecting my brain. It’s the rage I felt earlier with Eaton.