Bam! I collide with something solid. Not something. Someone. The air whooshes out of my lungs. I gasp for breath as I look up into the shadowy face of a human barricade.
It’s the guy calling himself Max Harper.
A terrible theory grips me. It was impossible to tell if the person chasing me is male or female, but it must be Adair. She and Max are in this together, plotting to recapture me and take me back to that clown.
My heart squeezes with panic.
“It’s okay, Jade.” His hands are still wrapped around my upper arms. “It’s me. Max.”
I wrench away from him, stumbling and almost falling to the sidewalk. I need something—anything—to defend myself. I reach into my shorts pocket and pull out my only weapon.
“Really?” Max balances his hands on his lean hips. “The keys again?”
I need to buy a pocket knife, at the very least.
“C’mon, Jade. I thought we were past this. Put the keys down.”
“Not on your life,” I choke out past my clogged windpipe. I’m not sure of my next move. Becky’s car is behind me, but so is Adair. If I don’t do something fast, though, Max and Adair will have me cornered. “I won’t let you and Adair get away with this.”
“Adair? What are you talking about?”
“She’s chasing me.” I check the dark expanse of sidewalk and street behind us. There’s no sign of Adair, no sign of a shadowy figure, no sign of life.
“She can’t be. I dropped her off at her house five minutes ago, and that’s miles from here.” He sounds like the epitome of reason. Like Becky. And Roxy. And everybody else who doesn’t believe I vanished back in February.
“If you’re trying to make me think I’m crazy, it won’t work.” My breaths are ragged. “Somebody was chasing me!”
“Calm down.” Max waves the air with his palm. “I believe you.”
He’s trying to win my trust by agreeing with me. But I can’t trust him. I can’t trust anybody. My heart feels like it’s going to pound through my rib cage. “Don’t pretend you’re my friend.”
“Friendship has never been what I want from you.” He quirks an eyebrow and takes a step forward.
Really? He’s flirting with me now? I back up as heat that I want to attribute to anger flashes through me. “Stay away from me.”
“Relax. I’m on your side.”
“You’re a liar.” It’s probably not the smartest thing to say, considering the street remains dark and empty of life, but I won’t continue playing this game with him. If he tries anything, I’ll put my keys through his eyes. Reaching into the back pocket of my shorts with my left hand, I take out the missing person flyer, unfold it and extend it to him. “Here. Explain this.”
He takes the paper and gazes down at it, lines creasing his forehead. I can’t tell for sure under the artificial light, but it seems like his face turns even paler than usual.
“So you’re the one who was snooping through my backpack,” he says.
“It doesn’t matter where I got the flyer. What matters is you’ve been lying to me.”
The moon peeks out from behind a cloud. Max looks almost inhuman with his midnight black hair and alabaster skin, like one of those impossibly good-looking mannequins in a clothing store. He indicates the duplex with a nod. “I’m renting a place right over there. There are some things I should tell you, and I’d rather not do it in the middle of the street.”
“You’re crazy if you think I’m going anywhere with you.”
“Suit yourself.” Max walks toward his duplex, taking the flyer with him. The message is clear that I need to follow if I want answers. I hesitate for the space of a few second before I head after him, clutching the keys tightly in my hand. The right side of the dwelling has a porch light on. Max heads for the left unit, which is mostly in darkness. He lowers himself onto a bench spacious enough for two.
The duplex isn’t spooky at all, unlike the funhouse or the cabin in the woods. But there are no homey touches. No doormat imprinted with the word Welcome. No flowers in a hanging basket. No sun catchers on the windows. No nefarious clown lurking in the darkness.
I join him on the bench, careful that our bodies don’t touch. “What do you need to tell me?”
“I didn’t decide to try to get a job in Midway Beach until I’d played tourist for a few days.” His gaze zeroes in on me with that narrow focus. “Until I heard about what happened to you.”
“Why would anybody in town tell you about me?”
He stretches his long legs in front of him, as though we’re discussing nothing more serious than the weather. “I talked to people, asked questions. You of all people should know how gossip spreads in Midway Beach. When I found out about you, I started to think I was on the right track.”
My head was starting to hurt. “You’re not making sense.”
My heart beats three times before he answers.
“You’re not the only one who went missing and lost hours.” He pauses for long moments before he continues. “I think what happened to you happened to me, too.”
###
INVERTIGO
Volume Two of the Dead Ringers serial
www.darlenegardner.com
CHAPTER ONE
It’s after midnight on a night so dark the stars have disappeared, and I’m alone with a guy about as trustworthy as a crossroads demon who doesn’t reveal the wish he’s granting is in exchange for my soul.
Smart, Jade. Real smart.
Outside the duplex apartment Max Harper is renting in my hometown of Midway Beach, North Carolina, the quiet is so absolute it seems only the two of us are awake. I’ve been trying without success to figure out what Max is up to since I met him almost a week ago.
All he had to say to lure me to his dark porch is that he has a gap in his memory from when he was a missing person. Exactly like mine.
“Oh, come on.” It’s time to let him know I’m not a complete idiot. “You really expect me to believe you lost hours, too?”
“I believed you, Jade.” He draws out the first vowel in Jade, like I’m some sort of super model instead of an ordinary eighteen-year-old horror-movie addict who only turns heads when she’s shrieking at blood and gore.
“That’s different.”
“How so?” Max shifts on the bench until we’re almost touching. I know it’s my imagination, but the temperature skyrockets. “You haven’t shown me a missing person flyer with your face on it.”
“You didn’t show me yours, either! I had to find it.”
“So you did go through my backpack!”
“Only because you’re keeping secrets!”
“I just told you about missing time.” Max’s face is in shadows since the only light is from the other side of the duplex, but he gives off the vibe that nothing’s more important than me believing him. “Will you at least hear me out?”
It’s either that or run screaming into the night like I’m pretty sure my mother would. But Mom’s the paranoid schizophrenic, not me. No matter what my summer carnival co-workers claim.
“I’m listening,” I say.
The porch light at the other apartment flickers, then goes out, plunging the bench into blackness. As though the night’s not dark and creepy enough already. When Max stands up, I can barely make out his shape. “Come on. We can talk inside.”
I don’t think so. I’ve seen that movie where the sister of the Olsen twins trusts the wrong person and ends up trapped in a house with all the exits blocked.
“Why don’t you turn on the porch light instead?”
“Can’t,” Max says. “It’s burned out, too.”
My eyes have adjusted to the darkness well enough to see the hand he’s extending, as though I need his help getting up from the bench. I get ready to stand up on my own.
He keeps his hand outstretched. “Afraid to touch me?”
“Like hell!” I place my hand in his, and his fingers wrap securely around it so we’re palm to palm. His skin’s w
arm enough that I can cross vampire off my list. The tingling where we’re connected is my new worry.
He pulls me to my feet and over to the unlocked door. And then we’re inside, with me wondering whether I changed my mind about coming in or whether he changed it for me. He flips a switch that turns on a lamp. This close, he seems taller, his shoulders broader, his build not so slender. He smells good, too. Like fresh air. The regular rise and fall of his breathing is the only sound in the duplex.
I’m heading for serious trouble—even if Max isn’t a homicidal maniac or a shapeshifter.
“You can let go of my hand now.” My lungs aren’t working nearly as well as his. My breath sounds short and my words shake.
“I like holding your hand.” His thumb draws a lazy circle on the soft underside of my wrist. His eyes are blue yet look dark in the dim light of his apartment. “I like just about everything about you.”
About the only useful thing my mom taught me is to beware of strangers. Max still qualifies even if together we did stumble across the corpse of the Black Widow who poisoned her rich, elderly husband. Not exactly a get-to-know-you moment.
I yank my hand from his. “I already said I’d hear you out.”
“You sound like you don’t believe I’m into you.” He dips his head closer to mine, and his warm breath caresses my face. “Want me to prove it?”
My heart’s beating so frantically, I can hardly get my head to shake. Pathetic. Especially since I’m also having trouble putting space between us. I’ve got to get a grip.
“I want you to tell me,” I say, annunciating each word clearly, “what happened to you when you were missing.”
He straightens to his full height, which means he’s not actually going to kiss me. I am not disappointed. It’s so not cool to lust after somebody who reminds me of a crossroads demon.
“That’s a little harder,” he says. “Like I told you, I don’t remember much.”
“What do you remember?”
He nods toward another part of the duplex. “You want anything? A drink of water, maybe?”
For the first time, I look around. The heart of the duplex is one long, narrow room with no division between the kitchen and living room. An open door off the living area leads to what must be a bedroom, but I won’t let my mind go there. If the bedroom’s as modest as the rest of the apartment, I’ve got my answer to what kind of a rental place a carnival worker can afford. Because, of course, that’s the only reason I’d be interested in Max’s bedroom. Groan.
“The only thing I want is for you to stop messing with me.”
He plops down on a well-worn sofa, leans back and crosses his outstretched ankles. The flowered pattern of the fabric and the poor lighting makes him look shrouded in darkness. It feels safer to remain standing.
“There’s not much to tell,” Max finally says. “I remember pretty much what you do. I was walking home at night, and somebody hit me from behind. I must have blacked out, because from there the details are foggy.”
Since Max already knows that’s what happened to me, his story could be complete horseshit. He could be trying to trick me into giving him details about my abduction, although I’m not sure what his ulterior motive would be.
“And?”
“And two nights later I somehow ended up at the same spot where I disappeared.”
“This was in Greensboro?”
“Yep.”
“Did the police investigate?”
“They did. My mother made sure of that. That flyer you found in my backpack, she plastered them all over town. She managed to get on just about every local TV news show, too, pleading for information.”
“Did anything come of it?”
“Nothing.”
“What about the cops? What do they think happened to you?”
“They pretty much lost interest when I reappeared,” he says. “I couldn’t tell them where I’d been or who’d taken me. They thought I was out on a bender. You know, drugs, booze and rock and roll.”
While I’m letting that sink in, he asks, “Aren’t you gonna sit down?”
The furnishings in the duplex are so sparse the only places to sit are at the table in the shadowy kitchen or next to him on the sofa. Like I want his nearness clouding my brain.
“No, thank you.” I want to groan at how prim and proper I sound, but I need to put my embarrassment on hold. Getting his story is too important. “If everything was foggy, does that mean you didn’t have a complete blackout?”
He nods. “I remember pieces, but they won’t come into focus. I remember pain in my head. Excruciating pain. A field with tall trees. A swampy smell.”
Ditto. I’ve been vague with Max about my missing forty-eight hours, but I’m positive I didn’t mention either the terrible headache or the field.
“Were you tied to a chair?”
He stops slouching and sits up straight. “Were you?”
I clamp my teeth together, which I should have done before I blurted out the bit about the chair. I hadn’t meant to reveal anything more until I was sure his experience mirrored mine. “This is your story time.”
“C’mon, Jade. We’re comparing notes here. You can’t drop a bomb like that and not give up the details.”
“You’ll get the details later,” I say. “If I think you’re not holding back.”
“Okay, fine,” he says. “I don’t remember a chair, but that doesn’t mean there wasn’t one. When you ran into me in Wilder Woods, I was playing a hunch. Coastal forests have swamps. I thought the field might be there.”
“So you weren’t scouting hunting locations?” I actually sound hurt. Sometimes I really can’t stand myself.
He shrugs. “I wasn’t getting into the whole missing person business with a stranger.”
“What about the rifle?”
“It used to be my Dad’s. Seemed like a good idea to have it along.”
Something about his story doesn’t compute. It nags at the back of my brain, but I can’t push forward whatever’s bothering me. “Wilder Woods is vast. Why pick that spot?”
“The cabin,” he says. “Seems to me I was inside one at some point.”
Although I remember nothing about a cabin, I hadn’t hung out in an open field for the entire forty-eight hours I was gone. Not when the low temperatures in February dip into the thirties. “Did you recognize that cabin?”
“I thought so,” he says. “But you know what they say, all cabins in the woods look alike.”
“Nobody says that.”
“Most people remember where they’ve been,” he says. “If I can get inside that cabin, something might ring a bell. I’m hoping your buddy Adair will invite me out there.”
Adair Adams is my former buddy, but I don’t bother telling Max that. Not again. And not while I’m sidetracked thinking about the invitations Adair extends to Hunter Prescott. The kind involving a bed and total disregard for my crush on him.
At the thought of Hunter, I can almost hear the sirens on the ambulance that sped away with him tonight. What could have caused his violent convulsions just hours after he’d sort of flirted with me at the carnival? Please let him live, I silently pray. Even if he changes his mind and decides to never talk to me again..
The text tone on Max’s cell phone goes off. He checks the message and lifts his eyebrows. “Hope you’re through interrogating me. Your mom wants you home.”
“My mom’s texting you?”
“She gave me her cell number at the police station,” Max says. “I texted her a while ago to let her know you were with me.”
“Why?
“Because you didn’t.”
“That’s not what I meant.” My mom met Max a few hours ago. Even medicated, like my mother claims she is, she should find it hard to trust a stranger. “Why did she give you her number?”
“She’s worried about you.”
“She’s delusional. She thinks I’m schizophrenic because she’s schizophrenic.”
&nb
sp; “She told me.” He sounds like we’re discussing nothing more important than when it will be high tide. “Why does she think that?’
“I don’t know. I mean, she doesn’t even know about the clow—” I catch my slip in time to cut off the word.
“The clown?” Max jumps on my mistake and leans forward on the sofa. “That’s the second time you’ve mentioned one. Did you see a clown in the forest?”
“Did you?”
“No clown. Other people. But I can’t remember their faces. I keep thinking I’ll run into someone in Midway Beach who looks familiar, but that’s not happening.” It’s the straightest answer he’s given me yet. He closes his hand around mine and that warm tingling spreads through me. I hadn’t even realized I’d moved within touching distance. “Now tell me about the clown.” He gently squeezes my hand. “Please.”
It suddenly seems silly not to confide in him. Maybe something I say will shake loose another piece of his memory. I moisten my lips. “I was tied to a chair with a hood over my head. An animal was crying. Not a dog. Maybe a big cat. Or a fox.”
I tell him the rest of it. The pressure making my head feel like it would burst. My thrashing to get loose. The hood coming off. The needle entering my shoulder. The clown holding the empty syringe before I blacked out.
Max says nothing for long moments.
Regret rises inside me like the crest of an ocean wave.
“You think I’m crazy.” I try to pull my hand free, but he holds tight. One tug from him, and I’m on the sofa plastered against him.
“You are not crazy.” He enunciates each word clearly.
Tears spring to my eyes. I blink them back. “C’mon. An evil clown sounds crazy even to me.”
“Clowns are people wearing funny clothes and makeup, and people can be evil,” he says. “I think somebody was in disguise so you wouldn’t recognize him.”
A shudder racks through me, at odds with the warmth coming off his body. “Then you believe me? About the clown?”
Dead Ringers: Volumes 1-3 Page 9