by April Henry
When the killers are all looking the other way, Parker slips out of the store.
He’s about ready to check out the AT&T store when he looks across the hall. How could he have been so stupid? If Moxie is trapped in here, he knows exactly where she is.
Keeping clumps of people between him and the killers, he slowly moves toward the Van Duyn candy store. He ducks inside. A section of the white counter has been flipped up. He checks behind the cash registers. No Moxie. With his bound hands, he eases open the door at the back of the shop. Once he’s inside what turns out to be a small workroom, he uses his foot to gently close the door behind him.
At first, the room appears to be empty. His heart sinks. Then he takes another step and catches a glimpse of red. Moxie is tucked on the far side of the marble worktable that sits in the center of the room. Judging by the empty brown paper candy cups strewn around her, she has polished off at least a dozen candies.
From behind the finger he holds to his lips, Parker whispers, “Moxie!”
“Parker!” Her eyes go wide. She jumps to her feet and hugs him. With his hands bound, he can’t return the hug. When her slender arms go around his waist, his eyes get wet. He angrily blinks away the tears. Why couldn’t his little sister be outside and safe? Instead she is only a few yards away from a dead man and killers with guns.
When she steps back, she tilts her head. “What’s happening, Parker? Why are you tied up?”
He taps his finger against his lips again. “We need to be really quiet, Moxie. There are bad men outside. Did you see them?”
“I wanted a free candy sample, and then there was all these loud noises!” She holds her hands over her ears to demonstrate. “Everybody started running. The candy lady pushed me in here and said I had to be quiet and hide. And she said I could have all the candy I wanted.”
Moxie’s only experience with death has been a robin that bounced off their living room’s floor-to-ceiling windows that look out over Lake Oswego. That day, she begged Parker to make the suddenly boneless bird fly again. How will she react when she sees what’s outside this room?
He can’t let that happen.
His eyes go to the marble-topped worktable. It holds empty gold cardboard boxes of various sizes, white wrapping paper, and stacks of ruffled brown paper cups. And a large knife, presumably for cutting up samples.
If he cuts his zip ties and the killers find out, they’ll kill him. Screw it. He grabs the knife and manages to slide the blade, pointing toward him, between his wrists. With a few contortions, he saws through one of the loops. A few seconds later, he’s free.
Now that he’s found Moxie, what should he do? Going back into the hall is clearly not a good option. He has to keep her as far away as possible from the men with guns.
He turns in a circle. The ceiling is made of white acoustical tiles held on metal rails. Even if he could get her up there, the tiles don’t look strong enough to hold Moxie’s fifty pounds.
What about the cabinets under the counter? He opens a door, revealing boxes of candy. The shelves are about eighteen inches apart, a couple of feet deep, and maybe about four feet wide. Even if he wanted to hide there, there’s no way he’d fit. But Moxie’s built like a sprite.
“Okay, Moxie, right now we’re going to play a game. We need to hide even better from the bad guys. And if we are really, really quiet, they won’t catch us.”
“I’m good at hiding,” Moxie offers.
“That’s why you get to hide first,” Parker says. “But you can’t come out unless you hear me tell you to.” He imagines a future where he’s dead. “Or the police. But no one else.”
He can see Moxie thinking about this, her head tilted to one side. What are the chances that she will actually stay hidden, that she won’t get bored and come out, even if he leaves her with a stash of candy?
And then Parker thinks of a solution, because it’s the same trick that always works on him. “Forget it,” he says, turning away. “I don’t think you can do it. The minute you get in the cupboard, you’re going to want to get out again. Or you’ll make a noise. You’re not old enough. You’re not patient enough.”
She tugs at his hand. “I can do it. I’ll be really, really quiet. I’ll be like a teensy little mouse.” She pinches her lips closed.
He eyes her, his expression fake-dubious, which echoes his real internal doubts. His mom always talks about sugar highs. How long until Moxie is literally bouncing off the walls?
Still, he opens the cupboards, and pushes boxes out of the way, and has her slither back on her belly.
“Okay. Now it’s time to make it so that no one can see you.” He begins stacking boxes in front of her, starting at her feet. If it were him, he’d feel claustrophobic, but she doesn’t make a sound, just watches him with her bright blue eyes.
“But where are you going to hide, Parker?”
“Oh, don’t worry. I’ve got a really good place picked out.”
Her brows draw together. “But where?”
“It’s a secret,” he says, putting a last stack of walnut fudge in front of her face. As soon as he does, he’s sorry that he hasn’t kissed her or touched her one last time. “Are you good in there?” He tries to keep his voice from sounding strangled.
“Yeah,” she whispers.
“And remember, don’t come out until you hear me or the cops, okay?”
“Okay.”
He thinks of another tactic to keep her hidden. “I’ll bet you that I am the better hider. I’ll bet you five dollars.”
“I’m going to win!” Her voice is muffled by the boxes.
“We’ll see about that.”
He starts to close the cupboard door, then worries that won’t leave enough fresh air. He leaves it ajar a careful half inch, then picks up all the wrappers and puts them in the trash. He doesn’t want any of the killers coming in and wondering where the person who ate them went. The papers are so light, as flimsy as his and Moxie’s chances of surviving this.
The door to the workroom doesn’t have a lock. But he won’t go back outside. Instead, he turns off the light and settles himself in the corner behind the door. In his hand, he clutches the knife.
THE BIGGEST SECRET EVER
4:39 P.M.
In Culpeppers’s storeroom, no one is talking. Grace is back to whimpering and rocking. Amina is checking her phone. Javier and Cole both have their eyes closed. Javier’s face is twisted with pain, while Cole looks exhausted, his head tipped back against the wall.
Miranda’s eyes are drawn to her photo thumbtacked to the bulletin board above Cole’s head. She’s one of a couple of dozen sullen faces. After Amina caught Miranda, she grabbed her wrist when she tried to run. Amina isn’t that big, but her grip was like a ring of iron.
And this was where Amina took her. This very same room. When she was here a month ago, Miranda thought it was all going to end. Finally. She would be arrested and her parents would find out about everything. The lying. The stealing. And the rest. She was filled with shame, but also relief. Instead of calling the police, though, Amina snapped Miranda’s photo and then banned her from the store. Back then, Miranda told herself that she was lucky. And she hasn’t gone near Culpeppers since, at least not until today.
Now her head hurts worse than it had when she was trying to get coffee, which was when? She checks her phone: not even an hour ago. Earlier she was freezing, and now sweat is pouring off her. Yesterday, Matthew called off their meeting without explanation. If this whole nightmare hadn’t happened, she would have met him by now. He would have traded her some Oxy for the items she stole, and right about now she would be starting to feel good again.
Last summer, OxyContin started showing up at parties. It was a prescription drug, made in a factory someplace. That meant it was safe.
And the first time Miranda took it? It had been like falling in love. Like figuring out the biggest secret ever. She still remembers sitting in the backyard of some guy she went to school with, his pa
rents gone and a party all around her, a party where normally she would have felt anxious the whole time. It was Matthew—Matthew Scout, although she didn’t know his full name then—who had given her that first pill. It wasn’t long before euphoria filled her. Miranda felt energized and mellow at the same time. It wasn’t like pot, which made her paranoid. Or alcohol, which made her talk too much and then made her cry. Oxy just made her feel good. A half hour after swallowing that first pill, she had been relaxing against Matthew’s shoulder.
It turned out that lots of people in her high school play around with Oxy. People from every sort of group—the burnouts, the geniuses, and even the girls who were wicked-good softball players who were going to get college scholarships—they’ve all tried it. But only the rich kids have the money to keep doing it, which makes it more cool. Because it’s so expensive, this big rich drug.
The one problem is that even though Miranda lives in tony Lake Oswego, she isn’t all that rich. Hasn’t been since her dad left her mom. Her dad still buys her things, but he doesn’t give her that much cash. And Matthew might have handed her that first pill free, as a favor, but he couldn’t afford to keep doing that.
And that was before he showed her that if you crushed up the pills and snorted them, you felt even better. And the next thing Miranda knew, if she didn’t have any in her system, she felt terrible. She cashed seven thousand dollars in savings bonds her aunts had given her for birthdays, money meant for college. She sold her phone and told her dad she lost it. She sold her leather jacket. She sold her mom’s camera, which hadn’t been used since the divorce. Matthew knows someone who has an eBay store, so Miranda has started shoplifting the things he says sell well. Anything just to stay in that happy place. Plus, it turns out that if you stop using, you feel worse than you ever have in your life. Like you have a fever. Like you’re going to start vomiting and never stop. Like your bones are being broken. Like she feels now.
“There’s a fix for that,” Matthew has told her. “You could just start using heroin. It’s way cheaper.” He does it himself and says it’s no big deal.
But so far Miranda has been saying no. If you use needle drugs, then you really are an addict.
“Look at this,” Amina whispers, and shows Grace something on her phone. At least it stops Grace from not-quite-silently crying.
Miranda pulls out her own phone. She texts Parker. R U out? Hiding w/ people at Culpeppers.
A few weeks ago, down in his basement, he had offered her a trade. Her time for his money. And she let him do whatever he wanted, knowing it would eventually make the pounding in her head go away.
Is Parker even alive to read her text? Probably not. When she shifts, she can smell herself, the acrid scent of fear. Miranda swallows hard against a roil of nausea.
Dear God, she prays, not even certain there is anyone to listen, help me. Help us.
WHAT THEY WANT ME TO BELIEVE
4:48 P.M.
A whisper from Amina breaks the silence. “Shouldn’t SWAT be here by now?”
Miranda, who has been texting back and forth with Parker, checks her phone. It’s been nearly a half hour since she talked to her dad. “He didn’t say exactly when.”
“What if they don’t come?” Amina asks. “What if they’re never coming?”
Miranda feels just as itchy and anxious, and it’s not only from the lack of Oxy. “Maybe we need to find another way out of here.” She points up at a rectangular vent set just under the white acoustical tile ceiling. “What about that?”
Javier squints. “I don’t think anyone could really fit in there.”
Cole also looks dubious. “That’s the kind of thing that only works in movies.”
“It’s still worth a try,” Miranda insists, even though part of her thinks they’re probably right. But they can’t just sit here waiting forever.
“I’m going to trade you,” she says to Javier, pulling out the bottom desk drawer. “Put your feet on this and let me have the chair.”
After raising the chair to its highest position, Miranda pushes the computer aside. With a grunt, she lifts the chair onto the desk.
“Can you hold it still for me?” she asks Cole.
After he grabs it, she clambers up on the desk, puts one knee on the seat, and then stands on the chair, touching the wall for balance. The bottom of the vent is now even with the top of her head. Tugging the grate free, she hands it down to Amina as she measures the space with her eyes. This close, it does look too small. Javier’s probably right. But she doesn’t want to give up.
Amina and Cole are on their feet, watching her. Javier’s propped up on his elbows, doing the same. Grace sits with her eyes closed, lost in her own little world.
Amina’s shorter and wider than Miranda. Even though Cole’s lanky, his shoulders are broad. Javier’s short and sturdy, and then there’s his leg.
But Grace is as thin as a thread.
And even if only one of them can escape through the air ducts, isn’t that better than none of them?
“Grace!” Miranda whispers, but the other girl doesn’t even twitch. “Grace!”
Cole nudges Grace with his foot, and that gets through.
With dull eyes, she looks up at Miranda. “What?”
“I’m not tall enough to see inside the vent. Can you trade places with me and look?”
“I guess.”
After Miranda gets down, she helps Grace take her place. Under her hands, Grace’s body feels stringy, just skin and bones and tendons.
Grace braces her hands flat inside the vent and then hops. She shakes her head. “It’s too dark in there. I can’t see.”
There’re flashlights on phones, but Grace is going to need to brace both hands to jump. Even if she sets the phone down inside, it probably won’t light all the way to the end of the duct.
Miranda gets an idea. “Put your phone in flashlight mode and then try using your headband to hold it on your forehead. You know, like a miner’s lamp.”
“Okay.” Grace digs in her jeans pocket for her phone. Is there the tiniest spark of life in her eyes?
Grace presses the phone against her forehead with one hand and, with the other, pulls the headband over it. It works. For the first time, she smiles. Then she braces her hands flat inside the duct and jumps. But when she tries to pull herself up and in, there’s a metallic bang.
Worse than that, the space is clearly too small. Grace’s head and one shoulder fit inside the vent, but the other shoulder gets stuck outside, leaving her at a slant. Her feet kick in midair. Miranda grabs one ankle and guides her foot back onto the chair.
“Even if you could fit in there, they would definitely hear you moving around,” Amina says. “Then they would just shoot the ceiling.”
The light has left Grace’s eyes. “It doesn’t matter. At the end, there’s just a big fan.” She climbs down off the desk.
“Hey, what’s that?” Javier touches his own shoulder while looking at Grace’s.
They all follow his gaze. Getting stuck in the vent pushed Grace’s blouse down over her right shoulder. A Band-Aid half dangles from her skin, exposing a round, flat reddish lump just under her collarbone. The lump is topped with a half-healed incision. It looks like someone has inserted something the size of a large button just under her pale skin. Miranda’s already touchy stomach does another flip. It doesn’t just look like that. It is that.
Flushing, Grace pulls her blouse back up. “Nothing.”
“It doesn’t look like nothing.” Javier raises one eyebrow.
“It’s a chemo port,” Cole says with authority.
“Oh my God,” Miranda whispers, “Grace, do you have cancer?”
“I don’t.” Grace’s lips twist. “That’s just what they want me to believe. But I don’t even feel sick.” Her fingers rise to the side of her neck. “I just had this stupid lump on my neck—you know, just a random swollen lymph node. Like from mono or the flu. But they said it’s Hodgkin’s lymphoma. And they made
me get this”—she touches the spot through her blouse—“so they can pump chemicals straight into my veins.”
“My mom had one of those,” Cole says. “She got lung cancer even though she never smoked.”
“Then you know how they treat cancer.” Grace fixes her gaze on him. “Poisoning. Burning. Cutting. They basically try to kill you and hope that the cancer dies first.”
“When my mom got sick,” Cole says, “we did everything the doctors said to. Chemo, surgery, radiation. It all just made her worse. By the time she died, she weighed seventy-nine pounds. She didn’t even look like a person. She looked like a baby bird with a broken neck.” He closes his eyes.
Amina winces. “But a lot of people recover from cancer. And if the treatment lets you live…”
“But it’s not even a matter of dying. I’m not going to die.” Grace shakes her head in disbelief. “My m”—she makes herself say the word—“mom found this place in Mexico that treats you with plants. We were on our way there. It’s like ancient wisdom that works with your body, not against it. Chemo really messes you up inside. First of all, you lose your hair.”
“But hair grows back,” Amina points out.
“That’s easy for you to say.” Grace runs her fingers through her glossy brown hair, looking at Amina’s headscarf. “But that’s not even the important thing. If I did it, I probably could never have a baby. I’m only sixteen. I have a little sister. I love kids. Someday I want to be a mom.”
If you’re dead, you definitely can’t be a mom, Miranda thinks. Still, it is Grace’s life. “It’s your body,” she says. “You should be able to make choices about it.”
“Exactly! But when I said I didn’t want all those chemicals, the doctors kept insisting I’d probably be dead within two years. And that I would have a ninety-five percent chance of surviving if I did chemo.” She makes a face. “But of course they don’t make any money if you go to Mexico. My mom has been doing a lot of reading. Companies can’t patent natural cures. Which means they can’t make any money off them. Doctors won’t get rich telling patients to drink milk thistle tea.”