“Oh shit.” I jump back, my shirt pulling off my face, and bend over, gasping, hands on my knees. “Oh shit, oh shit. Oh thank fuck.”
Aimee comes running into the room. “Are you OK?” She rests her hand on my back. “Ian, talk to me,” she urges when I don’t respond right away.
Straightening, I turn to her, cupping my palms over my mouth and nose. A sick laugh escapes, muffled in my hands. I lower my arms. “Dead possum.”
She tries to peer around me. I grasp her shoulders, backing her away from the laundry room. “It’s not pretty.”
Aimee presses a hand to her chest. “For a moment . . .”
“Me, too.” I briefly close my eyes, urging my insanely beating heart to chill out.
She hugs me, resting her cheek on my chest. My eyes burn. I turn my face up to the ceiling and squeeze my eyes, staunching the flow of tears I don’t want to deal with, because right now, I need to deal with the mess in the other room.
Aimee releases me. “Let me help you clean up.”
I shake my head. “I’ll take care of it.” Opening the lower cabinets, I search for garbage bags.
“I’ll go sort the mail, then.”
She turns to leave and I stop her with her name. “Thank you for coming.”
We share a sad smile and she leaves the room.
Locating the bags, I pluck out a few, using one as a makeshift glove. The animal doesn’t go neatly into the trash bag and I have to stop every minute or so to leave the room and gulp fresh air.
This is not how I expected to spend the day. Al sent an e-mail this morning, confirming the new deadline Reese told me about. He wants my photos by tomorrow morning. I’ve narrowed ten thousand down by three. Seven thousand more to go and I’m beyond exhausted, thanks to jet lag and the lack of sleep. Lacy better get here soon.
I dump the remains in the outside trash and mop the floor.
Aimee returns and glances around the small room. “How did the possum get in here?”
“I’m not sure.” I inspect the walls, looking behind the washer and dryer, and find a hole. “Back here.” I show Aimee. “He must have chewed his way through and couldn’t figure how to get back out.”
“Poor guy.”
I put away the cleaning supplies and wash my hands.
“I tossed the newspapers and swept the porch,” Aimee says.
I close the supply-closet door. “Any word on Lacy?”
She shakes her head. “I just got the answering machine at her house. What now?”
I glance at my watch. “I guess we wait.”
Raking both hands through my hair, I walk down the hallway and out the front door. The screen door slams behind me, banging against the frame before it settles. Planting hands on hips, I stare down the empty drive. A random car passes on the road every couple of minutes, but none slow and turn down the drive.
I might as well make use of the time and fire up my laptop. There are images to edit and an essay to write. I turn back to the house.
“Hello, Ian.”
I jump. “Shit.”
Sitting on the old wicker chair is Lacy Saunders. I blow out a long stream of air. She scared the bejesus out of me. Where did she come from and how did she get here?
She smiles and her lavender eyes sparkle. “Lovely day for a chat, isn’t it?”
CHAPTER 24
IAN, AGE THIRTEEN
Ian woke up in the station wagon’s front passenger seat groggy, disoriented, and with drool smearing his right cheek. The car coasted along the highway under a midnight-blue sky. Yellowish-orange road reflectors winked under the headlamp beams. He could barely make out landmarks beyond the swatch of triangular light, and what he did see was unfamiliar.
Ian sat upright, adjusting the grip of the seatbelt across his lap. He wiped off the saliva from the side of his face with the back of his hand, and in his mind, played back the day’s events. He’d been at an invitational track meet in Boise. His dad hadn’t made it. Shocking, Ian knew, but this time Stu had a legitimate excuse. His flight had been delayed, so his mom picked him up after school and they drove straight to the meet.
Everything was going fine. He medaled in the 400 m and 1600 m. His mom seemed happier than her usual self, almost normal as she cheered him on from the sidelines. Afterward, she treated him to a celebratory dinner before heading home.
But they didn’t seem to be headed in that direction now.
It had been dusk when they returned to the car, his belly full and quads aching from the record-setting race he’d accomplished. They should have been home by ten. The digital numbers on the dashboard clock glowed an aquamarine 11:56.
A cold sweat broke out across Ian’s body, adding another layer to the crust that covered him from the meet. He didn’t have to wonder who was driving the car. The music blaring through the speakers gave her away. His mom didn’t listen to the Eagles. It must have woken him up, and as the lead singer crooned, Ian feared this night would be one of those crazy nights, like the one last year when Jackie met the biker at the motel and Sarah had to drive them home, shaken and disturbed under a cloak of starry-skied darkness.
Ian covered a yawn. He’d stayed up late studying for a test, then spent the late afternoon at the meet. Take his exhaustion from both, top it off with a full belly and the gentle vibration of the station wagon’s tires on the road, and Ian had conked out before they exited Boise’s city limits. He’d missed when his mom had phased out. He’d missed his opportunity to have Jackie drop him off at home.
He watched the road, waiting for a signpost to appear. He wanted to know where they were and the direction they were driving. Luckily, he didn’t have to wait long. A skinny post flashed by on the roadside. Ian swiveled in his seat, following the sign until it faded in the night. 93 SOUTH. They’d been driving for almost two hours. They had to be in Nevada by now.
He settled back into his seat. “Where are we going?”
“You’re awake. About time.”
“The music woke me up. It’s too loud.”
“It’s been loud,” Jackie scoffed.
“I was tired. I stayed up late studying last night.”
“Not my problem.” She huffed exactly like Marshall’s older sister. This wasn’t the first time it occurred to Ian that he and Jackie bickered like siblings, even more so as Ian grew older. Here’s the thing about his mother’s alters: they didn’t age. Jackie would always be seventeen. One of these days, Ian would be the adult and Jackie still a teen. He doubted Jackie would ever respect his authority.
“I have a test tomorrow. Take me home,” he said at the same time it hit him that they were in Nevada. The state that never slept. “Never mind, just drop me off at the next town.” They passed a sign a bit ago. Wells was sixty miles ahead. He’d find an all-night diner and call his dad. He should be home by now.
“No can do.” Jackie shook her head. “I need you.”
Ian crossed his arms tightly over his chest. “You don’t need cow dung from me.”
“I do this time. You have to keep me awake.” She opened her mouth on an exaggerated yawn.
“Pull over and sleep in the car.”
“We don’t have time.”
“Scared you won’t be you when you wake up?”
She blew out a puff of air in annoyance. “Don’t be a dumbass. Sleep has nothing to do with me being here or not.”
“Then what’s the big deal? Go to sleep . . . or, I know, let’s turn around and go home. What a concept.”
“The big deal is that we’ll miss him. He won’t be there when we get there. Since I can’t control this”—she tapped her head—“I don’t know when there will be another chance to go after him.”
Traces of fear tiptoed across Ian, leaving his hands and feet chilled. She better not be meeting that bounty hunter again. “Go after who?” he risked asking.
“My stepfather.”
His hands fell onto his lap. Ian’s mom never discussed her childhood. Her years at home with
her parents were a mystery to him. “I didn’t know you had a stepdad.” A stepparent was like a real parent, wasn’t it? Surely tonight couldn’t end up the way it had last year with that bounty hunter forcing himself on his mom.
“There’s lots of things you don’t know about me. But here’s the only thing you need to know about Francis—that’s his name, by the way. He can’t stand it when I call him that. He gets real mad.” She let out a low whistle of dismay. “Francis”—she said the name through her nose, sharp and nasally, snickering—“had a deranged way of showing me how much he detests that name. He said he did it out of love. But Frank”—her voice drops, deep and guttural—“is what he wants me to call him; he’s not a nice man. You best remember that, Ian, no matter what goes down tonight, Frank is a bad man.”
In the shadows, Jackie shivered. She drove them for another fifty minutes before taking the exit at the interchange in Wells. From there, they drove east on I-80 for two hours.
Throughout the drive, Ian pinched his arms to keep himself from falling asleep. He fretted about the science test he’d miss in the morning and his father not finding him in bed when he arrived home tonight. He was probably there by now. Ian thought of Mrs. Killion and what she would assume about him when he didn’t show up after school tomorrow to help Marshall clean the horse stalls. She’d invited him to stay for dinner. Ian worried about his mom and what Jackie was getting her into. He needed to stay awake for Sarah. When Jackie subsided and his mom resurfaced, he’d need to show her the way home.
His concern for his mom kept him rooted to the seat rather than sneaking to a phone booth when Jackie stopped for gas. It kept him engaged in idle conversation with Jackie as they drove, not because she’d get upset if he didn’t do as she asked. Rather, he didn’t want her falling asleep at the wheel either. She’d kill them both and that would suck.
Mostly, though, it was his love for his mom that kept him alert in the passenger seat. She’d recently told him that no matter what she did or where she went, she did it because she loved him. She would always love him. Ian had memorized her pledge as though the words had been tattooed on his forearm. He felt the same for her.
It was almost three in the morning when Jackie slowed and turned into a truck stop in West Wendover. For the past hour, Ian had been fighting to keep his and Jackie’s eyes open. The change in speed and engine tone woke him as though he’d guzzled a can of Mountain Dew. Adrenaline poured through him. He blinked at the flashy neon signs lining the boulevard he swore could be seen from outer space. This was Nevada, after all. He’d never been, but his dad had regaled him with stories.
Jackie coasted through the large parking lot, weaving around rigs parked for the night, and backed the station wagon into an empty slot that afforded them a view of the entire lot as well as the road. She turned off the ignition and unclipped her belt.
The engine settled with a few pings and a sigh, and the vinyl seat creaked as Jackie shifted, stretching her arms overhead.
“Now what?” Ian asked.
“Now we wait. He should be here soon.” Jackie yawned, but she didn’t settle back and close her eyes. She leaned forward, her chest pressed into the steering wheel, and kept her gaze on the lot’s entrance.
“How do you know he’ll come?”
“We found out he stops here every time he makes the drive to Reno. He sleeps for three hours, then hits the road so he’s in Reno by nine.”
Ian wiped his damp palms on his athletic shorts. He bounced his knees and cracked his knuckles, pretending boredom to hide the nerves. What did Jackie have planned? He’d asked earlier and she wouldn’t tell him, simply replying, “You’ll see.”
He reached for his backpack in the rear seat. Intent on distracting himself, he removed his camera, set it on the seat between them, and took out his science textbook.
“What are you doing?” Jackie asked, annoyed.
“Studying.”
“Now? How can you focus on that?”
Ian jutted a shoulder. He flipped the pages to the periodic table and glanced at Jackie from the corner of his eye. She gnawed on her index nail. “Are you scared?”
Jackie blew a raspberry. “No.”
Ian didn’t believe her. He looked at the book on his lap and tried to study.
Twenty minutes later and not one more element memorized than he knew, the air inside the station wagon thickened with tension. Jackie leaned forward, squinting at a large rig pulling into the truck stop, her lips moving. Ian glanced from Jackie to the truck and back and realized she was mouthing the license plate number.
The truck cruised around the lot, gears low and rumbling, and pulled into a space that gave them an unobstructed view of the rig, about thirty yards from where Jackie had parked the station wagon.
“Is that him?” Ian whispered.
“Yes,” Jackie said, reaching under the seat.
Ian shoved the textbook off his lap. It thudded on the floor. He picked up his camera, shouldered the strap, and turned it on. The camera whirred to life, the lens expanding and retracting as it set itself on autofocus, the noise loud inside the car. But it was another sound that froze Ian, chilled him to the bone. Beside him, Jackie checked the magazine chamber of a semiautomatic pistol. His dad’s gun. The one that should have been locked up inside the safety box in Stu’s desk. The one Jackie should not have known about.
“Wha—What are you doing?” Ian choked on his words.
“Fulfilling a promise.”
She slammed the magazine into the well in the handle. Sweat sheened her forehead. Her hands trembled, making the gun shake. She settled the weapon on her lap and looked coolly at Ian. Under her tough, hard-as-steel exterior, Ian saw her fear. But he also noticed her resolve. Whatever she had planned, she’d see this through. He had to stop her.
“You don’t want to use that, Jackie.”
“Yeah, I do.”
He tried another tactic. “Mom, please. You’ll get arrested.”
Movement outside caught their eye. The driver had opened his door. He lumbered down from the cab, muscles stiff from sitting for long hours. He stretched his hamstrings, then his quads. For a guy with a sedentary job, he appeared to be in good shape, his physique lean and defined. Twenty years ago, Ian bet he’d been built like his dad.
Jackie opened her door and got out of the car. She didn’t bother closing the door or hiding the gun. She marched straight toward the trucker. Whatever was going to happen would go down quickly.
Ian brought the camera to his face. He shot photos in rapid succession, the shutter clicking as fast as his heart pounded. He might not be able to talk Jackie out of her plan, but he could use the photos as evidence. Somehow, Ian would prove Sarah hadn’t brought him here tonight. It had been Jackie.
Ian leaped from the car and jogged after her. “Mom!” he shouted, giving it one last attempt. “Don’t do this. This isn’t something you want to do.”
Jackie swung a one-eighty, arm raised, and pointed the gun at Ian’s forehead.
He gasped and skidded to a stop, hands raised. A whimper escaped and a tear fell. “Please, Mom,” he whispered. “Don’t do this.”
“You can leave now. I don’t need you anymore.”
Her expression, the way she said the words—she looked and sounded like Sarah.
Ian shook his head. Tears blurred his vision. This woman was not his mother. “You told me once that whatever you did it was because you loved me. This isn’t how you’re supposed to show me that you love me. You have to stop.” Ian pointed at the trucker. “Killing that man is not what you want to do for me.”
“I’m not doing it for you. I’m doing it for Sarah. Know why?”
Ian violently shook his head, his lower lip trembling. He dragged a forearm across his face to clear his vision.
“Sarah’s weak. She’s a coward.”
“Sarah?” The trucker looked at her, mouth agape. “Is that you?”
Jackie held out her arms. “Here I am, Francis.�
� She sneered the name. “Miss me?”
He looked left and right, then pointed a finger at Jackie. “Don’t say that name around here. Now tell me, Sarah, why are you here?”
“It’s Jackie, you sick prick.” Her arm flopped against her side in exasperation over their name battle. She groaned with exaggerated irritation, then raised the gun again.
Frank parked his hands on his narrow hips. He smiled into the barrel of the pistol aimed at his chest. “You still using that hooker name? Fine. We’ll play it your way. Why don’t you put that gun away and join me inside? You can call me whatever name you like in there.” He thumbed at the cab behind him. “It’s nice and cozy, plenty of room for two people.” He held his palms a few feet apart and smiled, a thin spread of lips. “I have a big. Wide. Bed.”
Jackie fired the gun. Ian jumped, his hands covering his ears. Sparks and asphalt splintered in all directions at Frank’s feet. He danced out of the way. “What the hell is wrong with you?”
Ian’s hands shook as he brought his camera back to his face. He clicked away, the camera’s bulb flashing.
“Stop with the photos,” Jackie screamed over her shoulder.
Frank leered at her, making Ian’s skin crawl. That was his mom the trucker had in his sights.
“I still have all those photos I took of you, sweetheart. Trucking’s a lonely business. Someone’s got to keep me company on the long haul. Those pretty pictures make my nights seem—”
A shot fired and Frank screamed, jerking back against the truck. Blood splattered the side.
“Shit,” Ian said to himself. Shit, shit, shit.
He dropped his camera. It swung from his neck and smacked him in the chest. The lens would have shattered on the ground had he not thrown the strap over his head and shoulder when he got out of the car.
Frank clamped a hand over his bloody shoulder. “You bitch,” he shrieked.
Sirens pierced the air in the distance. Jackie fired again. Tremors racked her body and the shot misfired, blowing out Frank’s knee rather than his head. He collapsed, screaming like a gutted pig.
A trucker in a rig off to the right laid on his horn. It blared, waking other drivers. Headlights and spotlights flared on around the parking lot. Jackie turned and shot out the nearest truck’s headlight, the bullet zinging over Ian’s head. He dropped to the ground, panting, and covered his head.
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