“Hey, there, Lizzie.” He rubs my mother’s shoulder as he passes her and stops in front of me. “Jade, honey! You look more and more like your beautiful mother every day.” He smiles at Adair. “Speaking of beauty, I’m surrounded by it.”
Adair giggles. “Hey, Mr. Guerard. You’re a charmer.”
“I try to be.” Uncle Landon focuses on me. “How have you been, Jade?”
“Where have you been?” I’m not about to forgive him for abandoning my stepdad as easily as my mother has.
“We should get going, Landon,” my mother says before he can answer. “Jade, Julian’s in his room and Suri spent last night with a friend. She’ll be with her all day. You’re working tonight, right?”
I’m so miffed at her for interrupting that I don’t answer.
“Jade?” she persists. “I asked you a question.”
“Yeah, I’ll be at the carnival if you want to stop by and lurk in the shadows.”
“Good to know.” She picks up her purse, her expression innocent.
Uncle Landon crosses to her side, like they’re a damn couple. “Catch you later, girls.”
“Have a great day, sweetheart,” Mom addresses me before beaming at Adair. “Nice seeing you again, Adair.”
“You too, Mrs. G.” Adair gives my mother a jaunty wave.
The comment my mom made a few minutes ago about bygones could apply to what Adair did to me, but the hell with that. As soon as I hear the door open and close, I say, “You can fool my mom with your Miss Innocent act but not me.”
“And here I thought both of you were bat-shit crazy,” Adair spits out, her perpetual sunny smile gone.
“Don’t talk about my mother that way.”
“Why not? Everybody knows she’s nuts. The same way they know you’re nuts.”
“That’s funny.” I tap a finger against my mouth. “Some people only believe I’m nuts because of what you told them.”
After I lost those forty-eight hours, multiple friends let me know they heard Adair warn Hunter that I was having a breakdown. Supposedly she’d convinced him there was a danger that I’d become violent. Within a week, Adair was going out with him herself.
Adair’s stare is cold. “I only told the truth.”
“What are you doing here, Adair?” I demand.
“I want to know what you said to Hunter yesterday.”
“What I said to Hunter? Is that a joke?”
“Listen to me, bitch. I won’t let you steal my boyfriend.”
I take a few steps toward her. “You mean the boyfriend you stole from me?”
“Hunter was never your boyfriend. You went out with him once.”
“You were my friend, Adair.” My hands clench at my sides. “You knew how I felt about him. You slept with him, anyway.”
“I won’t apologize because Hunter likes me better.”
“You threw yourself at him.” I’d heard from a half dozen people who’d been at the party where they hooked up that Adair was on Hunter like a tick on a deer. “What guy turns down sex?”
“What guy wants to go out with a nut job?” she shoots back.
Nut job, nut job, nut job.
I open my mouth to refute her but the denial dies on my lips. “Get out of here, Adair.”
“I’m not finished.” Her face is pinched and hateful. “I want to know what you said to Hunter yesterday at the arcade.”
I shake my head and mutter, “I can’t believe I went out to your dad’s cabin to check on you.”
“Is that why Hunter didn’t come to the cabin? Because you went instead?”
“You were there?”
“Of course I was. It’s where Hunter and I...” She doesn’t finish the sentence, but it’s easy enough to fill in the blanks. The cabin is where she and Hunter get it on.
“Nobody was there at eight o’clock.”
Nobody, that is, except the guy with the black hair and the suspicious story.
“I left before then.”
Hunter worked the early shift at the arcade yesterday. Adair must have stuck around only until she figured Hunter wasn’t coming.
“So what did you say to Hunter?” Her glare is as hot as the Carolina sun.
“Why don’t you already know? Doesn’t Hunter share things with you?”
“What did you say to him?” she demands.
“I said I can’t believe he’s going out with such a slut.”
She jumps up from the kitchen chair, her hand inadvertently hitting the coffee cup and knocking it over. She closes the distance and looms over me, shaking her finger in my face. “This isn’t over, bitch. If you cross me again, it’ll be the last thing you do.”
“Are you threatening me?”
She shoves a finger into my breastbone, and I bat it away.
“What do you think?” I can smell the coffee on her breath. “Even somebody as crazy as you should be able to figure that one out.”
She storms out of the kitchen and through the house, slamming the front door behind her. Brakes screech as Adair pulls her car out of the driveway and speeds off down the street. Strange. Adair’s older sister was speeding last year when she lost control and hit a tree. She’d been lucky to escape with her life. Back when we hung out, Adair was always lecturing whoever was driving about going too fast.
The entire scene had been out of character. Even when Adair said something mean, it was in that molasses-sweet voice. But then, I’ve known for a while now that Adair is hiding her true nature.
To think I was actually worried that whoever took me to that forest had gotten Adair, too. I mean, really. That’s the definition of a nut job.
CHAPTER EIGHT
When I report for work the next afternoon, it’s all over the carnival that Adair and Hunter are taking a break.
“It was totally his idea,” Maia tells me.
She’s the reason the news has spread. Maia’s working at the arcade tonight, but the two venues are close enough that she can dash back and forth when she’s on break. The gossip is so juicy that she seems to have forgotten she was angry with me.
“He’s tired of her shit,” Maia is whispering, but the carnival hasn’t gotten cranked up yet so I can hear her fine.
I’m using sanitizing wipes on the Kiddie Land motorcycle ride, my first assignment of the day. I pause and give Maia my full attention. I had the pretty strong impression she only talked to Hunter on an as-needed basis. “Hunter told you this?”
“Adair did.”
“Adair used those words? That Hunter was tired of her shit?”
“She should have. She texted him that she was at her dad’s cabin. When he didn’t come out to be with her, she let him have it. I guess usually he takes it. This time he didn’t.”
“I’m surprised she told you that.”
Maia adjusts the yellow chrysanthemum in her hair. “Why’s that?”
“She’s usually pretty secretive.”
Maia shrugs. “I guess she needed somebody to talk to.”
So she picked the biggest gossip in Midway Beach?
“Did Adair seem... different to you?” I ask.
“Hell, yeah. I’ve never seen her so mad in my life.”
Not counting this morning in my kitchen, I’d never heard her raise her voice.
“But then, she’s never been dumped before,” Maia adds.
“I thought you said Hunter and Adair were taking a break.”
“Taking a break is what guys say when they don’t want their girlfriend to go ballistic because they’re dumping her.” Maia wrinkles her nose. “Why are you so interested in Adair anyway? Are you still hung up on Hunter?”
Like I’m going to admit that to the Mouth of Midway Beach.
“Of course not.” Time to switch subjects. “How long is your break, anyway? Don’t you need to be getting back?”
She pulls out her cell phone and checks the time. “Shit! I’m outta here.”
She takes off running in the direction of the arcade, weavi
ng her way through the sparse crowd. At this time of the late afternoon, people are still enjoying the sun and the sand and the ocean. Business won’t pick up until after dinner time.
I wipe down another miniature motorcycle, spending extra time on the rubber horn. When I straighten, I glimpse a flash of turquoise through the Fun Slide and the Dragon Wagon.
The same shade as my mother’s suit.
“Son of a bitch.” I jog toward the entrance to Kiddie Land and spot the woman in turquoise walking briskly away from the carnival. This time I’m not imagining things. Even from behind, I can tell it’s my mother.
If she truly believes I might be schizophrenic, why is she keeping tabs on me? Could it be that I was right in the first place? That she thinks her enemies might now be mine? Of course, Mom never had any enemies. I’m the only one who does.
The blood rushes from my head when I realize how irrational that sounds. I walk over to the motorcycle ride on wobbly legs, sink into the stool beside it and lower my head beneath my heart. Mom isn’t the only one who thinks something is wrong with me. After I lost the forty-eight hours, Aunt Carol made an appointment for me to see a psychiatrist but I refused to go.
There’s nothing wrong with me, I insisted. The same thing I said to my mother when she advanced the theory that I could be taking after her.
“Hey, Jade,” Becky calls. “Are you okay?”
I make my lips curve upward and lift my head, intending to tell her I’m fine. The words never make it past my lips. Walking alongside Becky is a guy with black hair and pale skin who’s wearing the orange T-shirt of a carnival worker.
Not just any guy. The guy from the coastal forest.
“You don’t look so great,” Becky says. “Want me to get you some water or something?”
It’s too much of a coincidence that the dark-haired stranger who was skulking around the coastal forest one day turns up at the Midway Beach carnival the next. From the half-grin on his face, he knows that.
“No, I’m good.” I struggle to appear normal. “Just resting up before the rush.”
“Okay.” Becky isn’t convinced, but she won’t call me out in front of a stranger. “Jade, this is Max Harper. He’s gonna be on rides. I’m showing him the ropes. Max, this is Jade.”
In the daylight, he looks even better than he did last night in the gloom. His body is lean but surprisingly muscular. His black hair is thick, his cheekbones sharp and his eyes a clear blue. His nose isn’t quite as perfect as Hunter Prescott’s but his mouth would be better if not for his smirk.
Max Harper’s blue, blue eyes meet mine and dance. “Nice to meet you, Jade.”
So that’s how we’re going to play this. “I’m surprised I haven’t seen you before. Are you from around here?”
“Nope. Came here for the job.”
A job that pays minimum wage. Like that makes sense. “Where are you staying?”
“I got me a place.”
Not many people our age have enough money to rent something while making so little. “With a roommate or by yourself?”
“By myself.”
“Where is it?’
Becky laughs uncomfortably. “What is this, Jade? Twenty questions. Give the guy a break.”
Max winks at me, the same way he’d winked when I drove away from the cabin in the forest before he’d blown me that kiss. “If you’d like, you can come over sometime and see it yourself.”
I meet his gaze. “I would like.”
“Great.” His smile, not a half-grin this time, lights up his face. “I’ll get back to you on that.”
“You be sure to do that.”
Behind Max’s back, Becky lifts her hands and raises her eyebrows in the time-old gesture to indicate she doesn’t know what’s going on.
Neither do I, but I intend to find out.
CHAPTER NINE
By the next night, I’m sick of hearing about how hot the new guy is. It’d be different if somebody had the scoop on him. His eyes resembling the color of the Caribbean doesn’t count.
“Can we talk about something besides Max Harper, Becks?”
The carnival’s closed for the night, and we’re walking along the boardwalk headed for a party taking place under the pier. Once or twice a week, word spreads like a zombie infestation that the gang is gathering. Maia’s usually the one announcing the news. Today, I heard it from everybody except Maia, but that could be because she remembered she was mad at me.
“How about that Black Widow?” Becky asks.
Constance Hightower didn’t show up for a court appearance this morning in Wilmington. Speculation is rampant that she’s run off with what money of Boris’s she can get her hands on. The media is reporting the children of the late, lamented Boris Hightower are furious that Constance was let out on bail. They’re afraid she’ll get away with murder.
“I’m sick of hearing about her, too.”
“Okay, then let’s go back to Max. I’m still trying to figure out why you invited yourself over to his place when you’d barely met the guy?”
“I already told you, I want to see what he can afford on our measly salary.”
“Because you’re thinking of moving out of your house?”
“That’s right.”
“I don’t buy it.” She has to take three steps to my two to keep up with me. “Living with your mom sucks but you won’t have the money to move out while you’re going to community college.”
“Who says I’m going?”
“You’ve gotta go,” Becky wails. “If your grades are good enough, after two years you can transfer to UNC and we can still be roommates.”
Becky had been accepted to UNC less than a week after I’d been offered the scholarship. We’d sent in our applications for housing at the same time, requesting each other as roommates. For a solid week, we’d planned how to decorate our dorm room, right down to the horror movie posters on the wall.
All our plans had blown up when senior year grades came out and UNC took back my scholarship and with it my future.
“Let’s not talk about college,” I say.
“Okay. We’ll discuss college later. After we finish talking about Max.”
“We weren’t talking about Max. You were. I think we should talk about Porter McRoy. Any progress on that front?”
“None. Talk about shy. I can barely get a word out of him. No wonder I didn’t notice how cute he was until senior year.”
“Maybe he’ll be at the party.”
She noisily blows out a stream of air. “And maybe one of the helicopters on that ride in Kiddie Land will take off and fly.”
“You might have to ask him out.”
“Possibly. But it would mean so much more if he asked me.” Becky bumps my shoulder playfully. “Isn’t that what you’re hoping will happen tonight with Max?”
Since Becky introduced us yesterday, our paths haven’t intersected. Somehow Becky’s figured out the main reason I suggested going to the party under the pier is that I heard Max would be there. It’s not exactly a lie to confirm I’d like some one-on-one time with him.
“Okay. Yeah.”
“I knew it!” Becky exclaims. “Was it really so hard to admit you’re hot for him?”
Becky almost never tries to pry things out of me. Because I tell her everything, there’s no need. I’d like to spill about Max lurking in the forest, but something holds me back.
“This is so great.” Becky claps. “So you’re over Hunter?”
This, I couldn’t mislead her about. “I wouldn’t go that far.”
“Max is just as good-looking as Hunter, and he’s never gone out with Adair,” she points out.
Max is talking to Adair when we arrive, though. It’s low tide and the two of them are standing in the sand beside a pillar amid a dozen or so teenagers, her blonde head cocked toward his dark one. In the forest, Max claimed he didn’t know Adair. Yet it doesn’t look as though they’re strangers.
Some of our friends are drinking
beer, but I’m not even tempted. Why waste calories on something that’s both illegal and bitter tasting? Becky’s driving. She snags us a couple Diet Cokes.
“Let’s make sure Adair doesn’t get your man before you do.” She grabs me by the hand and heads straight for Adair and Max. I hear pieces of conversations as we weave through the crowd, most of them about the missing Black Widow. Becky turns back to me when we’re halfway there with a mischievous smile on her face. “Watch this.”
Her meaning becomes clear pretty quick.
“Hey, Max, Adair.” Becky doesn’t let go of my hand until we’re standing in front of them. “I’ve been looking all over for Hunter. Have either of you seen him?”
“I don’t even know who Hunter is,” Max says, answering Becky but keeping his eyes glued on me. A corner of his mouth elevates.
“Adair’s boyfriend,” Becky says. “Do you know where he is, Adair?”
Adair’s smile looks frozen. “No clue.”
“So it’s true you two are taking a break?” Becky asks. “I’d heard that but I didn’t know whether to believe it.”
“It’s true,” Adair says, still in a voice that sounds dipped in sugar.
“What kind of a break?” Becky asks. “I mean, are you seeing other people?”
“Why do you need to know that?” Finally. The sugar’s dissolving.
“I don’t need to know, but Max might.”
He laughs, a rich sound that rumbles like the ocean waves. “Nothing’s going on between Adair and me. Right, Adair?”
“Right,” Adair says. What other response can she give? “Jade, can I talk to you for a minute?”
Before I can say anything, Adair grabs me by the upper arm and guides me away from Max and Becky. She gives me the evil eye from her lofty height.
“You’re not fooling me, bitch,” she bites out. “I know you put your little friend Becky up to that.”
“Up to what?”
“Don’t play dumb with me. You must have your eye on Max yourself.” She laughs. “Poor pathetic Jade. Go for it. But know this. If I want Max, I can have him. Just like I have Hunter.”
Dead Ringers: Volumes 1-3 Page 5