When a white-haired woman, a grocery bag looping her wrist, gives me a look, I realize I’ve been sitting here long enough for her to go into the store, buy what she needs, and return. As she gets in her car, I get out of mine.
I push a cart through the aisles, gaze skimming from shoppers to shelves. The music seeping from hidden speakers seems too loud, the people’s voices shrill and demanding. The air smells of rotting vegetation, of turned milk, of fish. I grab a few things—bananas, pasta sauce, green olives—so my cart won’t be empty. No Gia in any of the aisles, not even after I make a second circuit of the store. And is it my imagination, or is that woman standing at the cheese display looking at me? Is the man by the eggs staring? And what about the woman behind the deli counter?
This is preposterous, seeing specters in everyone. None of these people know me, know what I did. I leave the cart at the end of an aisle and, in the Barnes & Noble café three doors down, order a large latte in a to-go cup, but I sit at a table in the back. All I smell is coffee; all I hear are soft murmurs.
Maybe whoever is doing this left the ribbon to make sure I knew. Maybe they feared I didn’t get the necklace. Maybe—maybe they can go fuck themselves. If they know what I did, aren’t they being foolish by provoking me? I got away with it once, yes? I’m a hell of a lot smarter now. My bravery feels ready to shatter into a thousand pieces, but it’s all I have right now. I sip my latte. Swallow. Repeat. When the cup’s half empty, I’m feeling good. Strong and confident. I will not let them win. I will not—
“Heather? Heather Cole, is that you?”
The speaker moves into my line of sight. Are you kidding me? It’s Gia.
I don’t have to fake the shock. I feel it in my jaw and my shoulders. On shaky legs, I rise, hoping what feels like a pleasant expression is indeed one. In black leggings and a scarlet sweater, she looks even younger than she does online. Her hair is loose, hanging to her shoulder blades in a glossy curtain. And she’s still got me beat in the curves department.
“I can’t believe it,” she says. “I haven’t seen you in forever, but I knew it was you. You look exactly the same. Only taller.”
“You do, too.”
“Only not much taller.”
We hug and I smell lavender. Not perfume, maybe conditioner or lotion. She keeps hold of my arms, just below the elbows, a moment longer.
“What are you doing here?” she says. “Do you live close?”
Her voice sounds genuine and there’s no artifice in her smile, but it’s way too soon to tell anything.
“I live in Edgewater, over the bridge on Route Two.” I tip my head in the correct direction.
“I think I know where that is. We moved here a few months ago; I’m still trying to figure out my way around. We, meaning me and my husband, Spencer. Wild, right? Both of us ending up here? Of all the places in Maryland we could’ve moved to. Have you lived here long?”
“About ten years. Do you have a few minutes? Want to sit down?” I say, indicating the empty chair.
The corners of her eyes crinkle slightly. “I do and I’d love to. Let me grab a drink first. Do you want something else?”
“No, I’m good, thanks.”
There’s no line and she orders her drink from the barista, makes a quick sidestep to the bakery display and points, glances over at me, and points again. When she returns to the table, she has a steaming mug and two cinnamon coffee cakes.
“If you don’t like them, I’ll eat both,” she says. “Spencer teases me because I have a huge appetite and eat more than he does.”
“I love them,” I say, which isn’t a lie.
“So—”
“So—”
We grin, and for a moment we’re nothing more than two old friends.
“So, where to start? How are your parents?” I say, picking off a piece of streusel crumb that melts on my tongue.
“My dad passed away three years ago—cancer—but Mom is fine. Healthy and happy. Matt—you remember my brother, right?—he still lives in Maryland, too, in Bel Air, with his wife and their four kids.”
“Four?”
“Right? I never thought he’d ever have one, let alone more, but he’s like father of the year now. Kind of funny. Makes me feel old, though.”
“And you?” I say, even though I already know.
“No, Spencer and I decided early on before we got married. What about you?” She glances down at my hand, my ring.
“No kids. Yes husband.”
“So what do you do now that you’re a grown-up?”
I watch her closely when I say, “I’m a child psychologist.” There’s no sign of anything amiss, though. Her expression remains naturally curious. “And you?”
“Physical therapist.”
So we both work with broken people, helping patch them back together. Curious, that. The conversation spirals into all the minutiae you cover when you haven’t spoken in years. We eat our cake and drink our coffee in between. She sits forward, forearms resting on the table. No disinterest, no drumming fingers, no obvious signs she wants to be anywhere else. And no animosity.
“Are you and Rachel still friends?” I say, when there’s a lull.
“No, we fell out of touch after high school. You know how it goes,” she says with a small shrug. “You start to go in different directions, make new friends.”
Not sure if it’s my imagination or if there’s a sudden change in the air. A heaviness of time and memories.
To hell with it. “Should we talk about serial killers or tell ghost stories, like old times?”
She’s taking a sip when I say it, and after she chokes it down, she says, “I completely forgot about all that.”
“Light as a feather,” I say.
“Stiff as a board.”
Her eyes are wistful. Becca’s name lingers on my tongue, but I don’t want to let it out yet.
“Cell Block Tango” starts playing from her purse, and she pulls out her phone with an apologetic grimace.
“This has been great,” she says, silencing the music. “But I’ve got to get going. We’re going to dinner tonight with one of Spencer’s coworkers, so I need to shower and stuff. But I’m serious about getting together. What’s your number?” Her fingers hover over the screen.
I hesitate again. It makes perfect sense for old friends to exchange contact info, but is she too eager for it? I clear my throat and give her my number; she texts so I have hers. We hug again and she squeezes my hand.
“I’m so glad I ran into you. I’ll check my schedule and send you some dates for dinner. Deal?”
“Deal.”
We’re still smiling when she walks away. I let mine fall once she’s out of sight and sit with my empty cup, tracing a fingertip around the lid. What are the odds? I came here to find her and she finds me instead? It doesn’t feel right. But I sensed no dishonesty whatsoever. She’s either an incredibly good actress or she’s genuine. And I’d bet money she’ll send me dates for dinner. Her voice was too earnest for lip service. Besides, what better way to keep an eye on me than to keep me close?
I pick at the skin of my thumb until a small piece rises, a skin periscope, and scrape it with the edge of a nail, enjoying the blood and the sting. Anger floods my veins, not a wall-punching surge but a steady wave, filling every cell. No matter how this ends, it wasn’t my doing. Whoever it is, they didn’t have to send the necklace, didn’t have to turn back the clock. It’s been almost thirty goddamn years. I crush my cup, leaving bloody smears on its waxed surface.
I hope like hell Gia isn’t the one doing this. Because I like her.
I fucking like her.
* * *
I turn up the radio while I drive home so I don’t have to hear my thoughts. The mail is still in the mailbox—no check for Ryan. No Ryan in the kitchen or the family room either. Halfway upstairs, I hear his voice in his office, so I keep quiet. The last thing I need to do is screw up one of his job prospects. In our bedroom, I exchange my jean
s and V-neck for a slouchy sweater and leggings but leave my makeup on in case we decide to go out for dinner. Ryan’s voice draws near then away again. He’s pacing, which means I was right, a business call. The bane of being self-employed. Your job never stops, not even on a weekend. I stand just inside our bedroom door, not listening to him, but not not listening either. His voice moves farther away. The hallway’s empty. His office, too. Craning my neck over the railing at the top of the stairs, I see a shadow moving across the wall, hear the soft tap of sock-clad feet.
His voice rises and falls, pauses, then sounds again. The shadow approaches and retreats as he moves the length of the front hallway. He’s taking care to speak softly. A little too much care. The word furtive pops into my head, and although I feel like a sneak, I take two steps down, slow and quiet.
“Okay,” he says. “No, it’s fine.” Silence as he listens, then, “I completely understand. Thank you for getting back to me, I appreciate it.”
He draws closer to the staircase, and I make a beeline for the bedroom. By the time he comes upstairs, I’m flipping through the stack of paperbacks on my nightstand. From behind he gives me a hug, pressing a kiss to my neck.
“Hey, babe,” he says.
“Hey yourself.”
“What do you want to do for dinner tonight? I was thinking maybe the Boatyard.”
“Not sure. Who was on the phone?” I say.
“Huh?”
“The phone? You were talking to…?”
“Oh yeah, Mike, talking about his kitchen. Didn’t want to bother you, so I went downstairs,” he says.
“Gotcha. How’s Karen?”
“She’s good,” he says, letting go. “Let me get a couple emails sent before I forget, and then we can figure out dinner.”
I stand there, tapping the spine of a book against my palm. He lied. Why, I don’t know, but that wasn’t Mike on the phone. Ryan was too professional. I know that’s not the way he talks to any of his brothers. I know him. I want to follow him into his office and ask again, but maybe I’m wrong. Maybe I’m so on edge I’m hearing things. This is Ryan, after all, and he has no reason to lie to me. No reason at all.
CHAPTER SIX
THEN
“Can you please get the jelly?” my mom said.
Becca jumped up from the kitchen table, where we were putting goldfish crackers in sandwich bags. Mom had eight pieces of bread spread out on the counter, four with peanut butter already smeared on.
“Thank you,” Mom said, bumping Becca’s hip with hers.
“Do you need bags?” I asked Mom.
“Sure.”
I pulled four out of the box. I didn’t get a hip bump, and it felt like a tiny punch in the stomach. Right that second I wanted Becca to leave. I was sorry about her crappy mom, but she couldn’t have mine. But that made me the worst best friend in the world, so I threw a goldfish on her side of the table and stuck out my tongue. She did, too, almost her normal self again.
Once Mom finished, we loaded the sandwiches in our picnic basket, along with a bunch of Hi-C Ecto Coolers, which she called the most disgusting drink ever. Me and Becca took turns carrying the basket and a blanket. It was bright and sunny today and not too hot.
We got to the field before Rachel and Gia and already had the food on the blanket when they got there. When we were mostly finished eating, Becca slurped the last bit of her drink. “Who wants to hear another story?”
“Can we talk about something else? You’ve been telling stories about her all week. And they’re all kind of the same. Somebody asks her for help and she does. Then they have to give something up like their eyes or a leg or something. They’re getting boring,” I said. It was partly true and partly not. I didn’t mind the stories that much, but I hated that she was all Becca cared about. Hated that Becca acted like she was real.
Rachel and Gia wide-eyed each other.
“This story isn’t the same at all, but you can leave if you want.” Becca’s voice was quiet, her words piercing.
She was my best friend in the world, but right now she looked like she hated me.
“I-I don’t want to leave,” I said.
Becca’s face was unreadable, Rachel blinked fast, and Gia frowned. All three kept staring at me, and my stomach tightened.
“Okay,” Becca said finally. “There was this town in the middle of nowhere, and there were three girls, older than us, who heard about the Red Lady. And they hated their history teacher. He was tough, and most of the time they failed the tests he gave them. Sometimes he’d give them a test on things he didn’t even teach. All the kids hated him, but the girls hated him the most because he accused them of passing a note in class and said they were cheating. They got Fs on the test and suspended for three days.
“They all got punished, too, so they couldn’t watch TV or talk on the phone for a month. But one girl got punished for two months, and every night she sat in her room, getting angrier and angrier. See, they hadn’t been cheating. She was giving her friend a tissue for her runny nose. The teacher even saw what it was when he took it, but he didn’t care. Since he thought they were passing a note, he pretended it really was one.”
“Jerk,” Gia said.
Who cared about a teacher and cheating? I played with my shoestring, flicking the plastic end against my shoe until Gia elbowed me.
“Right? So they wanted to get back at him, but they knew the Red Lady didn’t care about cheating or suspensions. She cared about important stuff. So the girls decided to make themselves believe the teacher had done awful things, sex things, to them. They wrote it down and read it aloud. They told stories over and over until it was like he really did it all. They pretended they were too afraid to tell their parents or anyone. And when they asked the Red Lady for help and she came, they wanted her to kill the teacher.
“But she knew the girls were lying. It made her remember how the villagers came to her for spells and then turned against her like that”—Becca snapped her fingers—“so instead of killing the teacher, she followed the girls. She wanted them to admit they lied, but they wouldn’t. So she’d hide underneath their beds and thump her stumps against their mattresses, press her bloody mouth against their favorite shirts, whisper their names.
“And they still refused to say they were lying. They told their parents what the teacher supposedly did and they called the police. The teacher was arrested, and it made the Red Lady angrier, because even though the girls were lying, everyone believed them.” She tossed a couple goldfish crackers in her mouth and brushed crumbs from her hands.
“All the kids were questioned,” she said, talking around the crackers. “And more girls said the teacher did things to them, too. The sheriff knew they were lying because their stories were either too messed up or too perfect, but he didn’t say anything.”
“Why not?” I said, tugging my shoelace again. Okay, maybe the story was a little interesting, but I still wished we were talking about something else.
“Because he didn’t like the teacher either, and no, I don’t know why. The Red Lady started showing up in his mirrors, too, and in the back seat of his car, and in the middle of the road. So he told everyone the girls were lying, but it was too late.
“He told the girls to tell the truth, but they said they were, and there was nothing else he could do. So the Red Lady left him alone, since he tried to do the right thing.
“She didn’t leave the girls alone, though. She followed one everywhere, breathing on the back of her neck, saying in her mind she was a liar and until she told the truth, the Red Lady was going to stay with her every minute of every day for the rest of her life. And if she wanted her to go away, all she had to do was look in her eyes. She was there when the girl took a shower, when she ate dinner, everywhere. And every morning the girl found streaks of blood in her room next to her bed, so she knew the Red Lady was watching her while she slept, but then it would just disappear.
“She couldn’t take it anymore. She begged the Red
Lady to stop, but all she did was laugh. So the girl jumped off a bridge and broke her neck.”
Gia gave a high-pitched squeak, Rachel a little hiss. Becca ate another goldfish. Chewed and swallowed slow.
“Then she did the same thing to the next girl, and she slashed her wrists in the bathtub. The third girl, the one whose idea it was in the first place, ignored the Red Lady for as long as she could. She thought she was stronger and smarter than the other girls. But one night she was driving, and the Red Lady showed up in the passenger seat, showing her bloody smile. The girl lost control and drove into a tree.
“She didn’t die, but she broke every bone in her body. In the hospital she kept screaming the Red Lady was going to get her, and she only stopped when they drugged her. She spent the rest of her life in a nuthouse, screaming anytime she was awake. By then, the Red Lady wasn’t even doing anything to her anymore.
“But when she was an old lady, the nurses found her dead in her bed, mouth full of dirt. See, the Red Lady never ever forgets. Ever. If she wants you to look in her eyes, if she wants you to see her, eventually you will. Even if you’re old and think you’re finally brave enough or safe enough to look.”
Rachel said, “Why didn’t they just tell the truth?”
“Because they told the lie so much they believed it,” Becca said.
Clouds moved over the sun, turning the day dark. I knew Becca’s story was fake, but I went all shivery.
“Can we go hang out inside instead?” Rachel said.
“We should sneak back in the house,” Gia said. “See if we hear anyone else like we did on Sat—”
Becca sat straight up. Gia turned bright red.
“You went there without me?” I said.
“Yeah,” Becca said. “On Saturday, when you went to your grandparents’ house.”
“Why didn’t you wait?” I said. This was different than when she and I had gone alone Friday night. We were best friends. We did stuff together without Rachel and Gia all the time. And they did stuff without me and Becca. But the three of them going without me? That felt wrong, really wrong. They’d never done anything without me before.
The Dead Girls Club (ARC) Page 9