by Mary Frame
I turn. It’s Jared.
“Tabby is out there practically talking in tongues. You think you could give the poor girl a break?”
“Fine. Leave me here, all alone, sick, uncared for,” he presses the back of his hand to his head, “unloved.”
“I think you’ll survive.” Jared turns toward me. “Are you ready to go?”
“Yeah.” I stand. “I hope you feel better soon.”
Outside, Tabby is sitting on the lawn with her legs crossed.
“What are you doing?” I ask.
“Trying to find the Zen because I hear sibling-cide is frowned upon in these parts.”
“Right. Carry on.” Jared guides me toward his car, his hand on the small of my back.
“You think she’ll be okay?” I ask when we’re driving down the road.
“He’s always overly dramatic when he’s sick and it rubs off on Tabby, since she has to deal with it.”
“You’ve seen this before?”
“He gets sick at least once a year. So yes. Every time.” He smiles at me.
We’re quiet while he directs his car toward Ruby’s.
I can’t help the curiosity zinging through me about what Troy said. The thought Jared might have any kind of feelings for me is simultaneously thrilling and terrifying. I mean, obviously, since the whole make-out thing, I can tell he’s physically attracted to me. At least somewhat. Enough to stick his tongue down my throat. But could it be something more than that? How could it be more than that? He doesn’t even know me. Not the real me. Would he feel the same if he knew the truth?
~*~
After Jared drops me off, I open the shop and deal with a few customers. There are also some more shipments to unpack. I’ve been replacing our more popular items as we run out, keeping track of the profits and the bestselling items for when Ruby returns.
A couple of tourists stop in and I give one a reading.
Then I sort through the mail, which is mostly a stack of invoices. But there’s one odd piece of mail. A postcard.
I pick it up, wondering if it’s for me or the real Ruby. Maybe it’s from Ruby, although I’m not sure they have postcards at ashrams.
On one side is a picture of Roseburg, the largest town only an hour or so away. On the other side, there are only five words.
The first word is my name. Not Ruby’s name, but my real name, written in sharp script. Charlotte.
Underneath, a very clear, seemingly innocuous message.
We’ll see you soon.
And then underneath that, a smiley face.
It’s not signed, but it doesn’t matter. I would know the handwriting anywhere.
Mother.
My eyes travel over the card, taking in details. The postcard isn’t stamped.
They were here. Or they sent someone here with this message for me.
Denial is futile.
I scramble up the stairs to the computer to review the video, even though I have a sinking feeling I know what I’ll find: a whole bunch of nothing. Heart pounding, I replay the tapes from the night before, fast forwarding through the boring bits and stopping only when there is movement. I go through the tapes twice. Nothing. Just flashes of Mr. Bingel and the boys in their yard, a couple of customers I recognize, and then the mailman dropping off letters. They must have somehow gotten the postman to deliver it without a stamp.
I could find out.
It’s about lunchtime anyway, so I lock up the store, flip over the sign that reads Out to Lunch, and walk toward downtown.
The post office is across from the boardwalk, right on the main drag. It’s one of a dozen storefronts. The entire expanse of shops features a barber sharp, a restaurant, a jeweler, a used bookstore, and more. The post office itself is small, a single counter over which one employee hunches, filling out paperwork, and a narrow room extending back with a wall of mailboxes.
“Hi.” I smile and wave at the person at the register, and I recognize him as the same man who delivers my mail every day. His name tag reads Roger.
“I was wondering if you could help me . . .” I trail off, not really sure how to ask what I need. I really should have thought this through more.
“Yes?” he asks after a few long seconds.
“If someone wanted you to deliver something without a stamp, how would that work?”
He frowns. “If you want to mail something, you need a stamp.”
“I know, but . . . well, I got a postcard in the mail today, and it wasn’t stamped.”
“Maybe someone put it in your mail slot.”
“I don’t—”
I cut myself off. Now he’s looking at me like I’m crazy. I don’t want to tell him I used video surveillance to rule out that possibility.
I glance behind the counter to where the mailbags are.
“Could you show me how the whole mailing process works?” I try.
His eyes brighten. “Well, sure. It’s pretty simple actually. We have a truck that brings in shipments every day. I sort it here and then divvy it up into the different routes. We have two trucks. I take the north side and my co-worker Carla takes the south side. And that’s about it.”
“So if someone were to, say, slip an unstamped piece of mail into one of the delivery bags from the truck, would it be noticed?”
He pauses with a frown. “Well now, I’ve never thought about that. The distribution center is in Roseburg. That’s where everything is scanned for postage before it’s sent here.”
I nod. “Right. Thanks for your time.”
I walk back home, mulling it over. They could have easily slipped their postcard into either the post office or the mail truck, or the delivery truck even. The fact that they took the time to send it without the postage stamp is telling.
They want us to know they are close, that they could appear at any time.
CHAPTER TEN
Jared picks me up at five, once the shop is closed, and we go to the sheriff’s office to pick up the case files.
I’ve never been inside a police station before. My shoulders tense as we walk through the door, even though the building itself is innocuous enough. Nondescript brick lines the outside and hard carpet the inside, which is accented with furniture that looks like it survived the eighties with only a few scrapes and dings to show for it.
I meet the chief for the first time, who is entirely too excited to see me.
“I’m so pleased to have you here.” The chief pumps my hand so hard my teeth nearly rattle. “You’ve been a real asset lately with everything going on.”
Chief Sanders is an older gentleman, a bit rotund in the middle, with a perpetual smile on his face and a white beard. I bet he dresses as Santa Claus every year.
I wish I could see it to prove the theory, but I’ll be long gone by then.
His desk is cluttered with paperwork. At the corner sits a framed photo of his family, him with his wife and a few grown children.
I smile and make small talk, but it’s hard. All I can think about is that damn postcard.
Finally the chitchat ends, and we get the file and head out.
As we’re driving to Jared’s, my mood must be tangible.
“Is everything okay?” he asks.
“Everything is great.” I smile and ask him about his day, anything to get him talking so I don’t have to think about what I’m going to tell Paige.
He talks about looking at a map of the incidents to try and find a connection, but I only partly listen. The postcard is burning a hole in my back pocket, like the words are embedding themselves into my skin.
See you soon. With a smiley face!
Like they’re welcome. Like they’re normal. Like we’re some kind of ordinary family that’s been separated briefly but actually wants to be around each other.
This is just like them.
Always pretending.
“Hey, is that a mechanic?” I cut Jared off midsentence when I spot the building. From what I can see as we drive past, there
are a few bays for oil changes and such and a ton of junked-up cars in the rear.
“Um. Yeah. I saw your car parked down the street. Does it need work?” he asks.
I nod slowly.
What I need is a different car to leave town with to help throw the parents off our track. I wonder if I could get some kind of trade for a vehicle that’s actually running. Anything to get us out of town.
“It’s no big deal. Sorry I interrupted you. You were saying?”
I pay attention this time, and I agree to go over the information with him after dinner tonight.
When we get to Jared’s, Paige is already inside. She’s in her room doing her homework.
Jared goes into his room to change out of his uniform.
Perfect. I need to get this over with.
“Paige.” I shut the door behind me.
She’s lying on her belly on the bed with her books and notebooks spread out around her. She looks like such a normal teenage girl.
And I’m here to ruin it all.
She smiles at me, but the smile drops when she sees my expression. “What’s wrong?”
I pull out the postcard and hand it to her.
She reads the words quickly and then flips the card over, looking at the picture with dismay that mirrors my own before she flips it back over to the words.
She scrambles to sit up on her knees and throws the postcard on the bed. “This sucks.”
“That about sums it up.”
“We have to leave.” Her voice is laced with resignation and tears.
“I’m sorry, Paige. I know we hoped the phone call and the rose were flukes but this is sort of irrefutable.”
“I know.” She crosses her arms over her chest. “What are we going to do?”
I’ve been thinking about this all day. “We have to prepare to leave, obviously,” I say. “As soon as possible. But . . . we need a reliable form of transportation.”
It would have been easier to leave from Tabby’s house, if we had stayed there. Instead, I forced us over to Jared’s not only to get involved in the investigation—because I probably could have managed that from anywhere—but also to try and make Tabby happy. I’ve gotten way too soft.
I push the thoughts away. There’s no changing it now. “I have an idea. They’ve got to be watching and waiting for us to bail. Why else send us these messages? I’m thinking we’ll have to do a middle-of-the-night exit, but we need to prepare and be careful. We can’t just bolt. That’s what they’re waiting for. I’m keeping the cameras up and I moved one of them to cover the street, to see if any suspicious vehicles or people are keeping an eye on the house. We need to figure out where we’re going to go. It would be nice to have a destination in mind. For once.” I rub my eyes, exhaustion overwhelming me. I wish we had passports or something. Maybe then we could go to Fiji. “I want to come up with a plan, something to mislead them. Something to make them think we’re going one way while we actually go another. You know?”
“Um. How are we going to do that?”
I sit down on the bed next to her. “I have no idea. We’re probably safe here at Jared’s for at least a little while. He has a security system, and he’s a cop. I don’t think they’ll do anything while we’re here.”
“Then we should stay here forever,” she says with a weak smile.
She knows as well as I do that’s never going to happen. I shake my head.
“I don’t understand how they found us.” She wipes her eyes. “Can we at least stay until summer break? That’s only two weeks.”
I look at her tear-streaked face and nod. “We’ll plan for after school ends, it’s a Friday. We have to pretend like everything is normal until then.”
She nods, her mouth set in a straight line. “I have a school dance that night.”
“Maybe we can leave right after the dance. That would be the perfect time. If they know you’re going, they’ll know I’ll have to pick you up. We just need the car. Then we can leave straight from there, pack the car earlier . . .” My mind is running through possible scenarios, trying on ways to show them one hand while the other is putting an ace up my sleeve.
“Oh, hey,” she interrupts my train of thought. “I heard something today that might be helpful to the case.”
“What is it?”
“Some older kids were hanging out at the bluffs, you know, by the castle? They thought they saw something or someone out there. They said it was a ghost, but you know.” She shrugs.
“Hm. Mrs. Hale also mentioned seeing someone out there.”
“Maybe whoever is playing these pranks goes out there to play pranks, too.”
“Thanks, Paige.” I give her a sideways hug. “You’ve done good.”
She smiles, but she’s not as thrilled as she normally is about contributing to these types of shenanigans. “Are you scared?”
“Of course I’m scared, I don’t want them to find us.”
She nods and then watches me, her eyes still bright with unshed tears. “Maybe you would be better off without me.”
“What? Why would you say that?”
“If you didn’t have to worry about me all the time, you would have gotten away from them ages ago. You’d probably be off somewhere, married or doing something you love instead of constantly running.”
I put a hand on her shoulder until she looks up at me. “Don’t say that. Don’t ever say that. I would not be better off without you. I need you, Paige.”
“Why?”
“It sounds so cheeseball, like something Danny would tell DJ and Stephanie while the laugh track is on pause.”
She smiles. “Say it anyway.”
“I love you, Paige. And I don’t love just anyone. You’re important to me.”
She hugs me, wrapping her skinny limbs around my waist. “I love you, too,” she says with a sniff. “You’re the best sister. I’m sorry we have to keep running away because of me.”
“If I were on my own, I’d still be hiding from our parents. They’re the bad guys here, Paige. Not you. Never you.”
She nods, seemingly mollified for the moment.
I leave her to her homework.
In the living room, Jared is sitting at the couch with a map spread open in front of him on the coffee table.
“Hey.” He stands when I enter the room. “Is Paige all right?”
“She’s fine.”
“I thought I heard her voice. She sounded upset.”
I watch his face carefully. Did he overhear what we were talking about?
“She’s okay.” I wave my hand dismissively. “Teenage girl stuff. What’s all this?” I nod toward the map.
“This is where all of the incidents occurred.”
I sit next to Jared and glance over the information. There are five red dots on the map. “They’re all pretty close.” Except for Ruby’s. I mean, it’s not too far—nothing in Castle Cove could be considered far away—but it’s definitely not on the same path.
I lean forward to trace a finger over the spots. There are Mr. Godfrey and Eleanor’s places. There are two more dots; one was a vacation home that is currently empty, but a neighbor reported the front door left open. There was no damage, just a roll of toilet paper unfolded all over the entryway. The fourth dot is more of the same. The owner is currently out of town for a few weeks.
“These are the bluffs. Where the castle is.” I point at a rounded section of the map that’s marked as a state park. The dots make a somewhat straight line, one less than a mile from the bluffs and the rest moving south, pretty close together.
“Yeah. The castle is situated about here.” He points, his finger millimeters from mine.
I turn toward him, thinking about how to present the information I have. “I feel like . . . there’s something there. Something happening at the old castle that might be connected to the incidents.”
He watches me for a few long seconds and then shakes his head. “You always surprise me.”
“What do yo
u mean?”
He rubs his chin. “Mrs. Hale called the station last week and reported seeing someone out there. They sent Troy to check it out, but it was only some teenagers messing around. They also reported seeing something.”
I nod. “Yeah.”
“So you think the same person who’s been trespassing in people’s houses every week could be doing what, exactly? Haunting the bluffs and impersonating a ghost in their spare time?”
“Well, maybe not. But do you think it’s worth looking into?”
He considers my question for a moment and then nudges me with his shoulder. “If you really want to hang out with me on a starry night next to the ocean, all you have to do is ask.”
“Ha ha. But seriously, we should check it out. Did anyone say what nights or what times they saw the night roamer?”
“No.” He shrugs. “But Mrs. Hale is usually in bed by ten.”
“When should we go?”
“I don’t want to leave Paige alone,” he says.
My heart does a little flip. The strange organ reacts oddly every time he talks about Paige like she matters.
He continues, “She wanted to stay over at Naomi’s on Friday. We could go then?” His eyes meet mine, the question lingering in his gaze.
“Um . . .” I hesitate.
“What? You have other plans?”
I smile and this time the motion isn’t so forced. “No.”
~*~
Despite my exhaustion, I can’t sleep. I can’t stop thinking about everything.
Our parents. Where are they? What are they going to do? Will they ever leave us alone?
And then there’s the leaving itself. Where are we going to go? Last time we ran off, we hid out at a seedy motel until we found a place to live. We might have to do the same thing again. I am not looking forward to scratchy sheets and junk food.
What will happen in Castle Cove when we disappear? Ruby will return, and they’ll find out I was lying all along.
What will Tabby think?
What will Jared think?