“Hell, yeah, I believe you.” He stares straight into my eyes. “Something’s happening here. Something bad. We need to figure out what it is. And then we need to stop it.”
CHAPTER TWO
It’s nearly one a.m. when I pull Becky’s car into my driveway and slip into the house. Nobody greets me this time, not even our cat Beelzebub. The living room where my mother waited up for me a few days ago is still and silent.
My mind’s buzzing like a locust horde.
I agree with Max that something bad is happening in Midway Beach. Home’s no sanctuary, though. Not with my mother back on the scene. It’s weird that she’s asleep if she’s so worried about me. Weirder that she asked Max to watch over me.
But then she’s not exactly level-headed. I mean, she did try to off herself last fall for reasons unknown.
The hell with it. I don’t care how late it is. It’s time I knew why.
I slip off my shoes, pad down the hall and push open the door to the bedroom she used to share with my stepfather. The sheets on the queen-sized bed rustle. Mom sits up, pushing the hair back from her slack face. The room smells faintly of the floral-scented perfume she sometimes wears. “Jade? Is something wrong?”
“Yes.”
She fumbles for the switch on the bedside lamp. She finally finds it and turns it on. The bed sheet drops to her waist. Her nightgown is cotton, not flannel like the other night. Much more sane clothing for a warm, summer evening.
“What is it, honey?” Her words are slow and slurred, but she seems concerned, like any other mother would be if one of their offspring crashed their bedroom during snooze time. But how many other moms would fall asleep before their teenage daughter arrived home safely?
“Didn’t you even wonder when I’d get home?”
“Not really.” She seems confused by the question. “Max said it wouldn’t be long.”
“And you took his word for it and hit the sack?”
The house is quiet enough that the pause before she answers seems to stretch forever. “Well, yes. But I wasn’t asleep. I was listening for you.”
I’m not sure I buy that. But then, it could be true. She never seems wide awake, not even in the middle of the day.
“Why would you believe anything Max says?” I try to keep my voice down because Suri and Julian, my sister and brother, are asleep a few feet down the hall. “You just met him.”
This time she answers immediately. “His eyes. They’re kind.”
“What?”
“The eyes are the window to the soul.” She acts like the eye-soul thing is an accepted truth.
“But you’re paranoid! Why would you trust his eyes?”
“We’ve already gone over this, Jade.” She speaks in her usual monotone. “I’m on medication.”
“That doesn’t mean you’re cured. It’s crazy that you trust a complete stranger enough to ask him to watch out for me.”
Mom moves over and pats the empty space she’s created on the bed. “It’s late. If you really want to talk about this now, might as well get comfortable.”
I hate it when she sounds like the more rational one. I sit stiffly on the very edge of the bed and wait.
“Max likes you.” She doesn’t seem worried that Max and I might have been doing something other than talking tonight. Not that we were. Max didn’t even make a move on me during the walk to Becky’s car. He’s a big tease. All talk, no action. “And he works at the carnival. He seemed like the perfect person to ask.”
“Why ask anybody?”
The bedside clock ticks three times before she answers. “You know why.”
“Would you stop saying I’m like you?” I lower my voice to a loud whisper. “No way would I ever try to kill myself.”
Mom shakes her head, her face scrunching up. “I never tried to kill myself.”
“The cop who took my statement said you did.”
“Officer Wainwright? He shouldn’t have been talking about me.”
“Well, he was. He told me you jumped off the bridge, the one over the marsh.” My words hang in the still, silent air.
“He’s right, but he’s wrong, too.” My mother also whispers. It could be because she doesn’t want to risk waking Julian and Suri. Or she could be ashamed. “You know about the car crash.”
“Yeah.” It’s about the only thing I do know for sure happened in the weeks before Mom split. I could only learn so much from eavesdropping on my mother and stepfather arguing. “Wainwright said you jumped off the bridge because you survived the crash.”
“I jumped because somebody was chasing me.” Mom hugs herself and rubs her hands up and down her arms. “Or at least I thought somebody was chasing me.”
Earlier tonight, after I parked down the street from Max’s duplex and got out of the car, I could have sworn somebody was following me. I’d started to run, with my heart pounding so heavily I almost became a rare teenage heart attack victim.
“I should explain.” Mom rubs the back of her neck and shifts her position on the bed. I’m sitting less than a foot away, but I’ve never felt so distant. “Everywhere I went last fall, I saw a black car. At the post office. The gas station. When I was showing houses.”
On my way to Wilder Woods, I’d been sure Mom was tailing me in her blue Chevy. I’d ignored the double yellow line and passed two cars in an attempt to ditch her. Only it wasn’t her.
“Did you get a look at the driver?” I ask.
“Not then. But wherever I went, I felt eyes on me. Not kind eyes, like Max’s. They were evil eyes.”
The clown holding the empty syringe in the forest had evil eyes.
“I know that sounds paranoid.” Mom rubs her forehead, like she’s trying to erase the thought. “My psychiatrist thought so, too, and changed my medication. And for a while, everything was okay.” She pauses. “Then it got worse. Much, much worse.”
“You started imagining the black car was following you again?”
She nods, and her hair falls in her face. She doesn’t bother to brush it back. “One night, I stopped at the grocery store for milk. It was late, and the parking lot was almost empty. I was getting in the car when I heard footsteps behind me.”
In the coastal forest, I’d wielded my car keys like a weapon when I heard Max walking through the underbrush.
“A man was coming toward me. A big man dressed all in black.” She’s describing the prototypical bad guy in a horror movie. “He could have wanted to ask me something, like for directions, but I didn’t think so. I got in the car and I drove away like a bat out of hell.” She takes a breath, as though the story’s taking a toll. “In my rearview mirror, I saw a black car. So I stomped on the gas.”
“And then you crashed,” I finish when her voice trails off. “On purpose.”
“No. Not on purpose.” She shakes her head so hard, her hair swings out of her face. “I lost control. The car, it swerved off the road. And then the tree... the tree was in front of me. I thought I was dead, but the air bag saved me.” She’s talking faster than usual, as though the memory is pummeling her. “I sat there, stunned, the wind knocked out of me. A car pulled up. Him. Somehow I got out of the car. Then I was running toward the bridge. The man, he chased me, shouting for me to stop.”
She pauses, as if the story is draining her energy. I don’t know how much of what she’s telling actually happened. She seems sincere, though, like she believes every word. No harm in going along with her.
“Was it the man from the parking lot?”
“I thought so.” Her voice rises and keeps rising. “He was getting closer and closer. I couldn’t get away. I couldn’t outrun him. So I jumped.” Her entire body shudders, and she hugs herself and rocks back and forth. “It was high tide. Otherwise, I’d be dead.”
“What about the man? Did he jump in after you?”
“No.” She stops rocking and takes a few deep breaths. “I never did find out who it was. By the time the cops came, he was gone. “
“Who called the
cops?”
“An anonymous good Samaritan, they said.”
“But you didn’t believe that?”
“Not then. But I didn’t know why anyone would be after me.” She kneads her forehead like she’s still trying to come up with a reason. “I knew I wasn’t well. It felt like there was so much pressure on my brain that my mind might collapse.”
She could be describing my headache when I was tied to the chair in the coastal forest.
“Then why didn’t you listen to Dad and get on stronger meds?” I immediately regret the slip. Even though I have his last name, Zach Greene is my stepfather and not my actual father.
“What are you talking about?”
“I heard you arguing.” I couldn’t make out everything, but I’d heard enough to know the argument was about her medication.
“He was against me going on anything stronger,” she says, her eyes large in her pale face. “He said the side effects were too risky. That if I gave it time, things would get better.”
No. That’s not right. It sounds like she’s trying to lay the blame on someone who isn’t around to defend himself.
“But things didn’t get better,” she continues. “Zach tried to be supportive. He even pretended to believe the man had been after me.”
Like Max claims to believe I’d been abducted, taken to a field, tied to a chair and injected by an evil clown.
“I couldn’t stand it, though.” Mom rocks back and forth again. “If something like that could happen once, it could happen again. And if it happened again, what if you or Suri or Julian were with me? I couldn’t bear that. So I left.”
There it was. Finally. In stark language. The reason she’d abandoned us.
She’s trying to excuse herself, but there is no excuse for what she did. She quit. On her family. Something dark and angry rises inside me. “And I’m supposed to be okay with that?”
She reaches across the bed to touch my arm. I jerk back and jump to my feet. She looks very small sitting on the bed with her arms wrapped around herself.
“It’s true,” she says, her voice trembling. “I left to keep you safe.”
Yet, since she’s been back, I’ve felt anything but safe.
“So why didn’t you stay away?” I choke out.
“Because the danger, it was in my imagination.”
I can’t listen to any more of this. Without another word, I pivot and leave the room. My mother’s voice trails after me, sounding shrill and a little bit desperate. “I mean it, Jade. The meds are working again. I’m back in control.”
I keep walking. In control doesn’t come close to describing how I feel. Especially because too many parts of my mother’s story parallel what’s happening to me.
CHAPTER THREE
The hospital where Hunter is a patient is the same one where my stepfather worked as an MRI technician for fifteen years. Happier days. Now he probably hammers out license plates while wearing an orange jumpsuit. At least the hospital layout is familiar.
I hurry through the main lobby past the check-in desk and push through double doors leading to the elevators. When I called earlier this Saturday morning, the receptionist told me Hunter’s condition had been upgraded from critical to serious and that only family members could visit.
If the hospital is that uptight about visitation, makes you wonder why a patient’s phone extension is the same as his room number.
I summon the elevator, my gaze darting up and down the hall to make sure security’s not poised to descend. My cell vibrates. It’s Becky. Again. Still annoyed I didn’t return her car in time for her dentist appointment. Still making sure I’m picking her up.
Heels click on the tile floor while I’m firing back a text. I lower my head and angle my body toward the wall, the better to hide my lack of a visitor pass. A short, dark-haired woman in a white lab coat starts to breeze past, then stops.
“Jade, honey! Is that you?” It’s Cora Barnes, who used to work with my stepfather. Since I last saw her, she’s regained every pound she lost. She hugs me like we’re best buds, squeezing tight. She smells like pancakes and maple syrup. “What are you doing here? Please tell me nobody in your family is sick.”
“My family’s fine. It’s a friend of mine.” I don’t plan to give details, but she’s looking at me expectantly. “They rushed him here last night. He was having convulsions.”
“Oh, dear. That doesn’t sound good. Is this a close friend?”
“Yeah, it is.”
Can’t blame a girl for being optimistic.
“I hope he recovers.” Cora rubs one of my shoulders, compassion oozing from her. Her gaze zeroes in on my face. “How are you?”
“Fair to partly cloudy.” I bite my lip, but it’s too late to take back the words.
Cora blinks rapidly. “Your father used to say that all the time.”
“Stepfather,” I correct. I wonder what’s worse, a stepfather who’s a convicted felon or a biological father who split rather than take any responsibility for me?
Cora wipes tears from under her eyes. The blinking didn’t work. “How is he, Jade?”
I don’t know, I think. “He’s doing his time,” I say.
“I keep meaning to get out there and visit him, but I couldn’t stand seeing that dear man in a jail cell.” Tears actually well in her eyes. “Such a gentle soul he has.”
The owner of the liquor store might have a different take on that.
“The whole thing is so out of character,” Cora continues. “I still can’t believe he’s guilty.”
“There was a camera.” My voice is flat. “The police have video.”
“Video of your stepfather with an unloaded gun,” Cora points out.
“Doesn’t matter if the gun’s loaded. It’s still a felony.” I repeat some legalese I wish I didn’t know.
“It proves he never intended to hurt anybody,” Cora says. “I keep thinking there must be a good reason he did it. Money problems, maybe.”
A week before my stepfather robbed the liquor store, he’d found a wallet stuffed with five hundred in cash in a store parking lot. He’d turned over the wallet and all the money to the store’s customer service department.
“Maybe his reason is that he’s a selfish asshole.”
Cora gasps. “Jade! You shouldn’t say such things. No matter what your father did, at heart he’s a good man. And he needs his family now more than ever.”
The elevator arrives, saving me from making more sarcastic remarks. Like how my stepfather’s family needs him at home instead of behind bars.
“I’ll catch you later,” I tell Cora before the elevator door slides closed and shuts out her disappointed face.
At the fourth floor nurses’ station, a middle-aged woman in royal blue scrubs takes notes with a phone cradled to her ear. I hurry past her down the hall toward Hunter’s room. A tall, balding man in a white lab coat raps sharply on one of the doors and disappears inside. Its Hunter’s room.
Loitering in the hall is out, but there must be somewhere I can wait. I walk until I reach the open door to a lounge. I’m about to enter when a female voice says, “I can’t imagine who would do such a thing to Hunter.”
Stopping short, I peek around the door frame. A man and a woman in their forties, likely Hunter’s aunt and uncle, sit next to each other. She’s dressed in a suit that was probably designed by someone like Oscar de la Renta. He’s in jeans and a casual shirt.
I pull my head back before they spot me, leaving a dilemma. Announce myself or eavesdrop?
“Your sister warned us livin’ with Hunter would be rough goin’,” the man says with a broad southern accent.
Eavesdrop, I decide.
“Jackie certainly had that right, but things have been going so well lately.” The woman sounds vaguely British, as though she sticks out her pinkie while she’s drinking tea. No online dating site would match up this pair. “I thought the trouble was behind us.”
“You’re forgettin’ the bo
y has a talent for actin’. Yeah, he seems like the perfect nephew. But he’s mixed up in somethin’ real bad if somebody’s poisonin’ him.”
My initial hunch was right. Hunter was poisoned!
From TV cop shows, I know the best suspects have both motive and opportunity. If Hunter bought something at the concession stand after he talked to me, Adair and Max have both. Adair, because she’s steamed that Hunter might be into me. Max, because he’s no fan of Hunter’s.
“What the hell are you doing here?” The loud, shrill voice belongs to Adair. Her clunky sandals make thudding noises on the tile floor as she hurries toward me down the hall as fast as her short, tight skirt will let her.
I straighten to my full height, but it’s still five or six inches short of hers, more if you count the heels on her sandals. “I came to see how Hunter’s doing.”
“You have no right to be here.” Adair’s face is red and not because she spends too much time in the sun. “I’m Hunter’s girlfriend.”
“So you’ve said. Over and over.” My next words will probably set her off, but I can’t help myself. “Doesn’t make it true.”
“You little bitch.”
“I thought I was a skank.”
“You’re brain dead if you think I’ll let you take Hunter from me.”
I’m not positive I want Hunter anymore, but Adair doesn’t need to know that. “Try to stop me.”
The slap catches me flush against the right side of my face. My head whips at a ninety-degree angle. Stinging pain blurs my vision. Shock rockets through me. Adair slowly comes into focus, wearing a hateful, self-satisfied smirk.
“What’s the matter, Jade?” she asks in a singsong voice. “Slap got your tongue?”
I hurl myself at her, flattening her against the wall. Adrenaline courses through me in a white, hot rush.
“Let me go, you nutjob!” she shrieks.
“Not until you get what’s coming to you.” I hardly recognize the snarling voice as my own. My hand rears back to throw either a punch or a slap, I’m not sure which.
And then strong hands grip me just below my shoulders and yank me backward, away from Adair. I struggle to break free, but whoever has me won’t let go.
Dead Ringers: Volumes 1-3 Page 10