“I can look that up for you.” Employee of the Year Stacie puts down the stack of movies she’s holding. She turns to the computer. “There’s a number of versions. I’ll see what’s in.”
“Oh. I don’t want to trouble you,” says the guy. “You look busy. But perhaps this young man can help me. But thank you”—he leans forward and reads the name tag on her flat chest— “Stacie, is it? Thank you.”
“It’s no trouble at all.” She moves to the computer and types madly. Before he can say anything else, she taps the screen, “Classics. Is the one with Kenneth Branagh in it the one you want? Or Mel Gibson? Let me show you.”
The man looks back at me once as he follows her across the store.
Something about the way he walks… I can’t quite place it, but he seems familiar. When he glances back at me, I look down and get busy separating the comedies from the dramas.
“Now that was weird,” says Stacie when she comes back.
“Weird how?” I ask.
“The movie he wanted was right on the shelf. But he didn’t even pick it up.”
“Happens all the time,” I tell her. “Folks come in wanting one thing and find something better. Sometimes something recommended by people like you. Who know the stock.” I can’t help making the dig.
It’s like she doesn’t hear me. She taps Finding Nemo against her chin and looks toward the big picture window smothered with posters. “Like, he just said thanks. Then took off.” She slips the movie in among the stack of others waiting to go out on the floor. “But first he asked your name,” she says. “Like you weren’t wearing a name tag. Oh. You’re not.”
I ignore the superior look spreading across her face and look toward the door.
A chill creeps across my shoulders. Now I remember that walk.
I remember the quiet of that day it snowed. The harsh sound of the shovel on the driveway. The guy walking to his truck after my mom was finished yelling at him.
Stacie is blathering on about privacy and store policy as I shove past her. She gives a little squeak when I tread on her foot.
I barge through the doorway past a skinny punk and his girlfriend who are on their way in.
I scan the sidewalk and the parking lot.
I can’t see the guy anywhere. I hang on to the door handle, feeling its cold edge cut into my palm.
The guy’s gone.
Mom said she would report him to the police if he showed up at the house again. But I bet she’d never thought he’d turn up at my work.
But that was him. I know it.
Which, in my book, makes him a stalker.
Chapter Four
DJ sits on my bedroom floor with his back against the bed. He throws a yellow tennis ball against the door. Good thing Mom’s at work. She’d be on my case about the noise in a flash.
“I can see why you’d be freaked out, dude,” he says as the ball lands back in his hand. “What say we turn the tables on the guy?”
“Turn the tables how?”
“Give the guy a piece of his own medicine.”
“Taste. It’s a taste of medicine,” I say. “You’re mixing metaphors.”
“Thanks, Mr. Shakespeare. Taste then,” he says. “How about this? We follow him.”
“That makes us as bad as him, doesn’t it? Mom called it stalking when he showed up here. It’s stalking when he tracks me down at work. So it’s stalking if we follow him.”
“What I’m planning is called a stakeout. Stalking! Your old lady is a drama queen. So the guy wants to shovel your driveway. Pick up a movie or two. Doesn’t make it stalking.”
“Feels spooky though.”
“That’s because you have no curiosity. Why he would want to come within a hundred miles of you and your mom is what I wonder.”
“Me too.”
“So let’s check him out.” DJ reaches out to catch the ball, but this time he misses. “Suss out what he wants,” he adds, as he watches the ball roll under my bed.
“Leave it,” I tell him.
He bends down to peer at the crap I know is there. Lost underwear. Candy wrappers. The manila folder I took from Dad’s desk. “It’s no big deal,” I tell him. I’ve got another ball somewhere.”
Ignoring me, he kneels down with his butt in the air. I hold my breath as he sticks his arm under the bed and gropes around. He comes back up right away holding a cobwebby balled-up sock, a couple of pencils and a cd.
I grab for the cd with relief. “What’s that?”
“Raffi.”
“Shove it back quick. Leah’s been on about it for months. I swore up and down I didn’t have it.”
Dust flies off the jewel case as he slaps it against his knee. “That Leah’s a nice kid,” he says. As if that has anything to do with anything. He throws the cd on my bed, and as he gets up he chucks the sock at the wall. It just rolls down and falls to the floor. “So, you wanna check out the guy?”
“How are we going to do that?” I ask.
“So obvious.” DJ shoves me out of my desk chair, sits down and starts typing. “Canada411,” he says as his hands hover over the keyboard. “Let’s get his address to start with. Phone number, too, would help. What’s his name?”
When I don’t say anything, he looks up at me. “Well?”
“I know it. Course I do,” I tell him. I knew the guy’s name the other day. But right now it’s like everything in my head is erased.
“I should know it too,” says DJ. “I read it in the paper.” He lowers his voice. “It’s weird. Reading about someone you know. Especially when the guy… you know the person it talks about is…”
“The dad of a friend of yours? Is that what you’re after? Or do you mean dead?”
He gives a mock shiver as he turns back at the monitor. “Gave me the chills. So. The guy’s name?”
Maybe it’s psychoso…psychosomatic. The memory loss. I knew the name of the guy who drove over my father like he was just a little bug. But I can’t remember it. I must have blacked it out. There’s a term for it—selective something. Selective amnesia. That’s it.
There are a lot of other things I wish I’d blacked out. Hearing the news. Waiting in the cold hallway at the morgue while my mom had to… Standing in a huddle in the pouring rain at the cemetery. I thought funerals held under dripping black umbrellas only happened in the movies.
I slump onto my bed.
DJ turns around to look at me. “Hey, dude. We need the name.”
I lie back and stare at the ceiling. I swipe my arm across my face. But the tears keep coming. I try to take a breath. “I know it. I know I do. But I can’t remember.”
“Shit, man.” DJ is looking in my direction, but not at me. His legs bounce up and down, so I know I’m making him nervous. Last time he saw me cry was in elementary school. I had wiped out on my bike after I tried to ride it down the playground slide. Don’t try that at home.
“I’ve forgotten,” I tell him. I haul myself up and sit up with my back against the wall, my arms wrapped around my knees. I keep my eyes on my feet.
“I guess I could google it or something,” says DJ. “But that would be kind of”—he frowns and scratches his head—“cold, I guess. Was it Karlsen, maybe? Or maybe his first name was Karl. Something like that?”
“Klausen. That’s it. Bryan. With a Y. I remember now.”
It’s all there in the newspaper clippings stuffed into the folder under the bed. Out of DJ’s reach. I don’t want him poring over the clippings.
“Okay. I’ll start with Klausen.” DJ types, then turns and asks, “Surrey or Delta, do you know? Where he lives?”
“All I remember is that the guy was on his way to pick up his own father to take him for a doctor’s appointment.”
“Ironic,” says DJ. And types some more.
It takes me a couple of seconds to figure out what he means. Then I get it. The man who killed my dad—he was on his way to visit his own dad. Who is still alive, I guess. Part of me wishes his father
had died. Give him a taste of his own medicine.
But I wouldn’t wish that on anyone.
I roll off the bed and swipe my face with a corner of the sheet.
“Eleven Klausens in Surrey and Delta,” says DJ. I’m glad he’s still got his back to me. “We need more info,” he says.
“Cameron!” My sister’s voice is followed by the sound of her footsteps on the stairs. Hey, Cam!” Leah bursts into the room. “What’re you doing?” She climbs on my bed and bounces a few times. She treats every room like her own personal gym. “Hi, DJ. What are you guys doing?” she asks again between bounces.
I shoot DJ a look, but he’s not even looking my way.
“Leah. Glad you dropped by,” he says. “We need to ask you something.”
Leah and I speak at the same time. “What?” she asks as I yell, “No!” The last thing I need is DJ saying anything to set the brat off bawling about Dad. Or letting on what we’re up to.
When I kick the desk chair, it spins around so hard DJ almost falls off.
“What the heck?” he yells.
Leah bounces harder on the bed, like it’s a trampoline or something. “Ask me anything, I bet I know the answer,” she says. “Hey. Is this my cd?” she grabs it and starts bouncing again. “It’s my Raffi. Ask me a question. Go on, DJ. Make it a hard one.”
I hold my breath.
“What should you use to wash an elephant?” DJ asks.
I sigh with relief.
DJ knows Leah well enough that he’s not surprised when she answers his dumb question with one of her own. “Why would I need to wash an elephant?”
DJ clears the screen. “Murphy’s Oil Soap,” he tells her. “You know. The stuff people use to polish furniture. And the why of it is…beats me. I musta read it somewhere.”
“Hey, what about a snack?” DJ asks. He might be trying to distract Leah. Or he has a short attention span.
But maybe he’s just hungry.
It doesn’t matter which. I don’t want her to know what we’re planning. Whatever that might be.
Chapter Five
After a few days of thinking about this Klausen guy, I am seriously spooked. I’m suspicious of every back disappearing around a corner. When someone calls with a wrong number, I figure it can only be him. When Mom tells me we’ve got a new mailman, I dread getting home from school to see what has dropped through the mail slot.
Whatever this guy is doing, I still don’t want to think of it as stalking. There’s too much of that in the news— usually men stalking their ex-wives and girlfriends. It’s spooky when someone you don’t know is on your trail, especially if you don’t know why they’re following you.
Wouldn’t most people want to disappear if they’d killed a kid’s father—even if it was an accident?
“Let go of me,” whines Leah as I bring her home from ballet one day. “I wanted to walk with Selena.” She darts out from under the hand I’ve got on her shoulder to steer her along the sidewalk.
I let go and grab her hand instead. It’s as light as a bird, but I’m not letting go. “It’s not safe for little girls to be out on their own.”
“It’s not even dark. Let go, Cam! You’re hurting me.”
I ease up, but just a bit.
“Carry my bag then!” she says as she shoves it at me.
“Carry it yourself.” I grab her collar as a pickup comes around the corner. This one is red. The stalker guy’s is blue.
But people get new cars all the time.
“Cameron. I’m not a baby,” whines Leah. “I can walk by myself.”
I try to shake myself out if it. Maybe this is what paranoia feels like.
I don’t want to freak Leah out. When I let go, she struts away in front of me. I am tempted to put out my foot and give her a good shove. But I’d never hear the end of it. So I let her get far enough ahead that she can swing her ballet bag without thumping me on the leg.
“Mom’s home,” she says, as she runs past the Honda.
I bend down to inspect the muffler. Another inch, and it will be dragging on the ground.
“You really should get that car checked out,” I say as I follow Leah through the back door.
A chill runs down my back when I see who’s in the kitchen with Mom.
Across the table from her are two police officers. The one sitting down is a young woman. With all that bulletproof stuff she’s wearing, you might only know it by her gorgeous blond hair. The other cop is a guy. He is standing against the counter, watching his partner scribbling in her notebook.
“Why are the policemen here?” asks Leah. She dumps her bag on the table and leans against Mom.
Mom runs her hand across Leah’s hair. “Just asking a few questions. There was a break-in next door.”
“Today?” I feel that chill again. And a ghostly whisper in my ear, Stalker!
“Last night, very late we think,” said the young woman. “We wonder if you heard anything in the night.”
“How did they get in?” I ask.
“The downstairs bathroom window,” says Mom. She stares at the kitchen wall as if she could see right through it to the neighbor’s house. That window’s right opposite our basement door.
“Have you checked our place?” I ask.
“I’d know if anyone had broken in,” says Mom. “And I told the officers I didn’t hear anything unusual last night. What about you?”
“I was asleep,” says Leah. “I dreamed I had a pony and we kept it in the backyard. Can we get a pony, Mom?”
“Oh, sure!” I mutter under my breath.
“Let’s talk about that later,” says Mom, stroking Leah’s cheek as she frowns at me.
“What about you?” The lady cop looks up at me. “Anything you know that might help us?”
For a moment I think of mentioning the stalker. But Mom doesn’t know about the video store. And maybe she’s already forgotten about the driveway.
One paranoid person in the family is enough. I shrug. “Nah. Can’t think of anything. Everything’s fine here,” I say in a voice that’s meant to show I’m the man of the house now. I can handle anything.
I wish I believed it.
Chapter Six
You’d have thought a visit from the cops would make me feel better. At least we’re on their radar. Not that anything’s about to happen, I tell myself over and over.
But I’m so shaky on Saturday that instead of dropping her off at Selena’s to play, I drag Leah along with me to the grocery store. I have to bribe her by saying I’ll buy Pop Tarts if she comes.
All the protective instincts I’ve developed lately are freaking me out.
Shopping was my job even before Dad died. Which means we get stuff Mom might never think of. And sometimes I forget what we really need.
“Have you got the list?” I ask Leah.
She pats her jacket pocket without answering. “Who would you rather be?” she asks as I pull a shopping cart from the rack.
“Who do I have to choose from?” I ask.
Leah shoves between me and the cart. She grabs the handles and wedges her feet up on the crossbars. “Push me. Come on. Would you rather be SpongeBob or Daffy Duck?”
I hate this game. It reminds me of our summer road trips. Mom with the map spread across her knees. Dad wearing his puke-yellow “traveling” sunglasses. Leah next to me in the back, loaded down with coloring books and boxes of apple juice, yanking the buds from my ears to tell me about something she saw out the window.
I might have missed that bear and her cubs crossing the road up near Jasper if it hadn’t been for her though.
“Well? Daffy Duck or SpongeBob?” Leah nags.
“I hate them both,” I tell her. “Give me someone else to choose from.”
One of her dragging feet slows us down. When I kick it, she tucks it back up under the cart. “All right then. What about the Black Stallion or Raffi?”
There’s an easy one. Hearing Raffi’s songs every day for the past seven
years is more than enough for me. So I say the Black Stallion. Leah has been working her way through the series for the last year. Mom or Dad read her a chapter each night. Now it’s just Mom. Leah hasn’t sucked me in yet.
“You can’t just say which,” says my bossy sister. “You’re supposed to say why. Can we get strawberries?” Before I can answer, she leans sideways to grab them from the display.
“Gimme the list,” I tell her.
She takes one hand off the cart to dig in her pocket. Then switches to the other. “It’s gone.”
“Outside, you told me you had it.”
She tips her head back to look at me. “I just remembered. It was in the other jacket.” It took my sister three tries to decide what to wear this morning. At seven, she’s already like those prissy girls at school agonizing over their hair and their nails. Like anyone notices.
“Well, you’d better remember what you wrote on it,” I tell her. Her printing is crap anyway. We’d never have been able to read it.
“Cap’n Crunch. Marshmallows. Cheese strings. Hawaiian Punch. Fish sticks. Builder Bob spaghetti…” She would keep going, but I lean forward and shove her up tight against the frame of the shopping cart.
“Ouch! Why’d you do that?”
“Get real. That’s a fantasy list, and you know it.”
“Well, I forget,” whines Leah.
“You’d better remember what Mom told you to write down pretty quick,” I tell her. I haul a bag of potatoes into the cart and lob in some onions. When I grab a head of broccoli, Leah squeals, “Eew! Mom didn’t tell us to get that.”
I pull a plastic bag from the roll and shove the broccoli inside. “Well, I love it.”
“That’s a lie.”
“Mom likes it then.”
“You just picked broccoli to be mean.”
I put one foot on the bottom rung and steer around a corner at a killer angle. I guess it’s childish. But DJ and I still fantasize about breaking into a store after dark and having shopping cart races up the aisles.
I’m going so fast, I have to swerve around a guy in the coffee aisle who is taking down one jar after another, reading the labels. I edge past him and watch him sideways while I pull down a can of Mom’s brand.
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