But there was no point in guessing about Becky. The chest meant that Nieve knew where Becky was, and that Nieve had kept her a secret from Abigail. When did Nieve send the chest overseas? The same day that she’d given Abigail the key, lying on her bed in the trailer, dying? “Take this. Keep it with you. I don’t have anything else to give you.” Those were Nieve’s last words, pretty much. Until now, Abigail had always thought they were strange and wasted words. She’d always thought that Nieve might have said something more meaningful, more beautiful.
Abigail swallowed, her throat tight. She propped the candle against the door. It flickered into the wood. She felt for the clasp of the chain. She needed the key. Where was the small lever to undo it? There. Was that—
The candle toppled. Shite. The carpet was burning.
In a panic, she started pounding the smoldering carpet with her bare hands. Damn it. The flame died, but not before it singed her.
Tinkling. Footsteps on broken glass.
Panic turned to terror. Her imagination hadn’t betrayed her, after all. She jumped to her feet. The noise had come from the kitchen. Someone was in the house. She tiptoed through the hall, stood behind the kitchen door, and peered through the crack with one eye. The back door was open. A dark figure was running across the back yard and jumping the fence.
Abigail bolted in the opposite direction—out the front door onto the street.
She didn’t stop running until she reached a brightly lit bodega. A bunch of teenage boys stood in front of the door. Hoodies, bagged beers, drawn faces. They stared at her as she breathlessly called a cab. She stared right back. Funny: boys like this didn’t seem so scary now. She wouldn’t even know how to give them a scariness score.
WHEN ABIGAIL ARRIVED AT the house, Melanie was watching Two and a Half Men in the living room. She laughed along with the soundtrack. “Where have you been?” she asked Abigail without diverting her eyes. “I cooked Pad Thai.”
For a moment Abigail wondered if the Alien Lizard was into dope, too.
TV and Pad Thai.
“I don’t want to eat.” Abigail planted herself in between Melanie and the screen. “I don’t understand how you can—Hey. I’m talking to you.”
“There’s some left in the fridge,” Melanie replied in a neutral voice. She tilted her head. Abigail’s imagination was not her enemy here. Melanie was trying to see past Abigail to watch the screen. Melanie was truly oblivious to how her stepdaughter was a frazzled wreck.
With a shudder, Abigail hurried from the room and past her father’s den.
Tonight, for once, the door was ajar. She caught a glimpse of him, sitting at the desk, head in hands. Abigail paused. She could feel the rage building. She would go in and confront him. She’d go in, any second now, and say: “Hey, I wanted to see Becky’s things, touch them, learn from them and you tossed it all out, like some old rubbish. Why?”
Or: “Hey, I found Nieve’s chest. Which means Nieve knew where Becky lived all along. Which means you’re a liar.”
Or: “Hey, I want an explanation. Do you hear me? I have a right to know what’s really going on. What is your wife’s problem?”
That’s what she would have said if her father hadn’t looked up.
He spotted her fidgeting. His eyes hardened.
Abigail muttered a “sorry” and skulked her way upstairs. Melanie hadn’t lied (she never lied). Grahame wanted to be left alone. And that was fine. Right. Because Abigail had learned something tonight. Grahame would never help her fill in the gaps. Who needed him, anyway? She’d never relied on anyone for answers and she was not about to start. She would wash her hands of her father, as Stick’s father had washed his hands of his flesh and blood. She would find out everything she wanted to know without asking Grahame a single thing.
And without telling him a single thing, either.
The next morning at breakfast, Abigail refused Melanie’s wobbly offering. “I don’t like poached eggs,” she said. She shot a glare at her father, hunched over his own untouched plate, his freshly shaved face inscrutable. “In fact today, I’m going to go looking for Marmite.”
“Mar-what?” Melanie clucked her tongue. “I’ll never understand that accent of yours. Will it fade, do you think?” She cleared away the uneaten eggs and tossed them in the bin, then refreshed Grahame’s coffee. “And goodness, you’re morphing into Becky. Breakfast is at seven … Look at you, coming down late, so sullen.”
Abigail blinked. She wasn’t sure what she was feeling. Sullen? Melanie had moved beyond 10/10 scary. Abigail thought of Camelia, more torn up over Billy’s pathetic betrayal than Melanie was over her stepdaughter’s suicide. Trapped was more like it. Frightened, maybe. Was there even a 7 A.M. breakfast rule? Now, still? And how could she mention Becky’s name like an afterthought? Typically, Grahame seemed neither to notice nor care what Melanie said.
“Can I be excused? I’d like to go shopping.”
Grahame nodded without looking up.
Abigail left the kitchen and walked straight to the front door, slamming it behind her.
HER FEET WERE BLISTERED and throat parched by the time she made it to Juvie. An hour and a half under an unforgiving LA sun: half on roads with no sidewalks. No doubt her neck and arms would turn a fiery red. She could already feel the burn. No choice but to walk. Most of her money had been spent on taxis the day before except a jumble of small bills and coins. The American change in her pocket looked and felt like play money compared to pounds: slender, green, and worthless.
New Beginnings, the sign outdoors read. She almost laughed.
She hadn’t noticed it before. She’d hopped out of an expensive car when she’d last arrived. Just like New Life Hostel, right? Same euphemistic bollocks all over the world.
She pressed the buzzer at the front of No Beginnings Detention Center, gave her name, and pushed the huge, heavy steel gate.
“I’m here to see a boy called Joe,” she muttered to the guard at the reception.
“Joe?”
Abigail thought back to the last time she visited with Becky. “Dixon, Joe Dixon.”
“Ah, Joseph Dixon. Have you scheduled a visit?”
“Ach …” Abigail couldn’t believe she’d come all this way to be stopped by petty bureaucracy. “No, I haven’t. But he knows me. I’m Abigail. I’m Becky’s … sister.”
The guard looked up at her from above his glasses. That look. She was powerless scum again. “You need to schedule with us first. Are you on his list?”
“No, I’m not on his shitey feckin’ list—” She broke off, biting her dry cheek.
But the guard smirked. He scratched his head. “That accent … Are you Scottish?”
She looked up, hopeful. “Aye?”
His smile widened. “The only country on earth where a local drink outsells Coca Cola. And I don’t mean Scotch.”
“Heh. Good ol’ Irn Bru.” She tried to smile back. She felt her lips crack. What she’d do for a slug of the orange fizzy drink right now. Made from Iron girders, so the adverts joked.
“Do you ever go to the Barras in Glasgow?” he asked.
“Only if I wanna get stabbed.” The Barras market was as depressing as it was hilarious. Only there, only in Glasgow, would stall owners try to woo passing customers by proclaiming: “DVD’s only a pound: as advertised on Crime Watch!”
The guard peered at her over the rims of his glasses. “My mother is from a place called Pollok. Heard of it?”
“Pollok! Hell yeah. I have a friend from there.” The word “friend” was a lie: Billy was from Pollok. And Pollok was the ugliest, most impoverished, and most dangerous part of the city. More murders than people, Billy once boasted. But she was getting somewhere with this guy; the right kind of small talk could cut through red tape, no matter how thick.
“Edna McGowan.” He smiled.
“McGowan, aye.” Abigail upped the accent-charm. “McGowans are well-known. There was one in my class.” Not so much of a lie, this time, exc
ept that the word “class” implied school. Stacy McGowan had lived at No Life Hostel when she was sixteen. The same Stacy McGowan had died at No Life Hostel when she was seventeen.
“My mum’s dead now, but I have cousins,” the guard went on. “Rab, Jennifer, Chuggy … and Rhona, not sure which ones are McGowans.”
Abigail nodded. She furrowed her brow. “Right … I might know Jennifer …” Of course she didn’t know any of them.
“Really! If you see her, tell her hi from Uncle Jack.”
“I will do,” Abigail said quietly.
He was already buzzing her through the door.
AFTER AN OVERLONG STAY at the water fountain, she sat opposite Joe in the visiting area. His left arm was in a large plaster. He wore a sling. Injuries aside, he looked a lot better than he had the last time. His face had color.
“Hi, Joe,” she said. “How’s it going?”
“Broke my arm,” he said with a dull grin.
“Sorry, I should’ve—”
“I was just being stupid,” he interrupted. “I deserved it.”
Abigail searched his eyes. They were clear, but the voice was off. He must have been on painkillers. “Do you remember me?”
“Yes, of course I do. Abigail. From Scotland.”
“You know about Becky?”
“Yeah.” He smiled sadly. “What a waste.”
Abigail swallowed. “Are you okay?”
“I am.” Nothing flickered behind that attentive gaze. “I mean, even with the broken arm, I’m feeling pretty good. You?”
“Fine. Listen, I was just wanting to find out more about Becky. Do you have any stories or photos or anything? It’s just that I didn’t know her—”
“Stories?” he interrupted again. “Let me think. I met her out on the streets. She liked my graffiti. She asked me if I wanted to join. They were wrong, you know.”
“What do you mean?”
“They had it all wrong. She was unhappy. I’m not surprised she killed herself.”
“What the hell?” Abigail spat. “Are you—” She stopped.
He shrugged. His vacant smile remained intact.
Goosebumps rose on Abigail’s arms. She didn’t know Joe very well—at all, really—but the kid she’d met the other night, the kid Becky was so desperate to rescue, was not the kid sitting in front of her. I’m not surprised she killed herself. It was Melanie déjà vu. He’d taken off his mask as the Alien Lizard Stepmom had done back in the laundry room. Only in Joe’s case, the true face was a mask, the same mask Melanie usually wore.
“So, do … um, do you have any photos or letters?” Abigail asked. She wanted to get the hell out as quickly as possible.
“No.”
“Have you seen Stick? Heard from him?”
“Matthew? No, he phoned after she died, said he missed her. They were close, those two. When they weren’t hanging out together, they’d be texting or chatting on their phones all day.”
Matthew. So now he was going all formal on her. Had to be prescription painkillers, right? Or maybe the room was bugged and he was paranoid. He’d been a lot more fidgety before. Nobody was that good an actor; she’d been around enough desperate or drugged people to know. The stare was blank, but focused. On her. The mask was reality. She turned away uncomfortably and looked out into the quadrangle. Last time she’d peeked through that window, boys had been laying into each other with knives. Now they were sitting calmly on benches, chatting.
“Quiet here today,” she commented.
“It’s amazing. You can make anywhere pleasant, anywhere, with a bit of positivity.”
Abigail whirled back to him. This was Joe, wasn’t it? This was the Juvie, wasn’t it? Not only had Becky promised to spring him from this place—which wouldn’t have been so hard, by the looks of it—she’d committed suicide by way of reneging. The memory of Nieve’s funeral flashed through Abigail’s mind, of being trapped against her will. Maybe this was an act. Maybe he’d planned something to honor Becky. “Have you been painting?” she asked carefully.
“Nah.”
“They didn’t give your stuff back?”
“Oh yeah, they did, but … I’m thinking of doing an apprenticeship.”
“An apprenticeship? With a painter?”
“No.” He laughed. “Plumbing. Honest work. I’ve got leaflets.”
“Right.” Abigail took a few quick breaths. “So you’ve not heard from Stick?”
“Beg your pardon? I missed that. Your accent.”
“Matthew? Have you talked to him?”
“No, I’m through with him.” He stood and extended a hand. “I should go back to my room. It’s really cool of you to visit, though. Thanks.”
Abigail didn’t return the handshake. She accidentally knocked a chair over as she fled the room. The guard buzzed her through.
“What’s going on here?” she hissed. Her fingers drummed the counter.
“I know, right?” the guard said. “It’s great. Something in the water. Last few shifts have been the best I’ve ever had.” He retrieved the phone Abigail had relinquished and handed it back to her with a laugh. “Pollok, Glasgow! Who’da thought it!”
ABIGAIL REMOVED HER SHOES for the walk home. There were some patches of grass along the way. Mostly the hot concrete burned the soles of her feet. She tried walking on her tiptoes. Sometimes she jumped from one discarded newspaper or shopping bag to the next, a lone frog on a toxic lily pond. The burning was better than the pain she felt when her blisters rubbed against her shoes. As far as the thirst, she tried to ignore it. Eventually, her mind filled with the familiar haze of drudgery. No need to go back to Glasgow, at least. This was just as bad, possibly worse.
Only once did something catch her eye.
A freeway overpass. That freeway overpass. The one she’d helped vandalize.
The billboard—where Abigail had held the ladder for Joe, where she’d tried not to admire Stick’s photographs, where she’d cursed her sister’s name—was blank.
Well, not quite. It was glued over with an advertisement for life insurance.
GRAHAME STOPPED HER WHEN she staggered into the front hall. His eyes swept her body from head-to-toe. “Good God, where have you been? What have you done to your feet?”
She opened her mouth. Haven’t broken in my shoes, she wanted to say. All that came out was a croak.
“Why didn’t you use the car service? Or call us?”
Before she could protest, he was rushing her into the kitchen and sitting her down in a cushioned chair. He ran a basin of warm water and filled it with antiseptic, lifting her ankles and dipping her feet in it gently. “This may sting a little.”
“Ow!” She jerked her feet out with a splash.
“I need to take care of you, Abigail,” he said. “I didn’t take care of Sophie or Becky.”
My God. He’d actually said her mother’s name.
“You loved Sophie, didn’t you?” she asked, squeezing the words from her dry throat.
He drew in a quick breath. “Your mother was a handful,” he said. Once again, his tone became stern and distant. He grabbed a bottle of water from the refrigerator and handed it to her. “You’re going to need Band-Aids on those blisters.”
“Um … thanks.” She stared up at him.
“I’m heading out for a meeting.”
“Can I come?”
His eyes narrowed. “What? No. Why would you even ask?”
“I’m your daughter. You just said you have to take care of me.”
“Abigail, you misunderstand. I’m sorry. This is a business meeting.” He hurried from the kitchen.
Seconds later, the front door slammed behind him.
Abigail yanked her feet from the bowl. Melanie would have a fit if she walked in and saw this dripping mess, fouling up her kitchen. Good. Let’s see a fit. Abigail hobbled for some towels in the cupboard, wrapped her bloody toes, and then plopped back down in the chair.
Grahame was right. She did misunders
tand. He’d washed her feet, and then he’d washed his hands—of her. Just like Stick’s dad. The fathers around here made no sense at all. Not that she cared. She pulled Becky’s phone from her pocket and began to flip through the texts between Becky and Stick.
Stick: be there at 10
Becky: he’s watching my every move
Stick: sent you the file
Becky: i think Melanie was done
Stick: better move things to the house
Becky: this morning he begged me to keep away. cried.
Stick: tomorrow afternoon!
Becky: think someone’s been in my room
Stick: we’ll get him out. meet you at new begs at 7
Before that last exchange, they read like gibberish. All but one, the day before Abigail arrived, from Becky: he has a small box full of it in his den. he wants to do me. thinks it’ll help. I changed it. like the taffy.
Abigail chewed her lip. The first day, Becky had referred to Grahame’s den as “the torture chamber.” Was Grahame into …?
No, there was no point in going to such a dark place. Besides, she’d seen runaway girls at No Life abused at the hands of their fathers. None of what she saw here sounded the same warning bells. This was just plain creepy, for reasons she couldn’t begin to guess.
There was only one video on the phone, the one she’d made with Becky. But there were dozens of photographs, all of the graffiti she’d done—up to that that last one with Abigail, signed with a large A at the bottom. Sliding her way from image to image, she counted seven works of “art” altogether. They were all exactly the same: faceless young zombies.
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