Copycat

by Hannah Jayne

  Thirty-Six

  Addie stepped into the police department vestibule feeling immediately uncomfortable and—guilty? I have nothing to feel guilty about, she scolded herself.

  Except that you’re the reason Lydia is dead. You’re the reason Maya is lying in a hospital bed somewhere.

  No.

  Maya was at home. Addie had heard her voice and she was fine.

  If you could consider someone nearly made a hood ornament by a Dodge fine…

  Addie paused, something needling at the back of her neck.

  How did she know it was a Dodge that hit Maya?

  She didn’t.

  But Colton did.

  Addie turned, palms pressing against the glass, craning her head and staring out for Colton. She yanked the doors open, nearly taking out an officer on the walkway.

  “Hey, relax, kid!”

  “I’m so sorry—I was looking for my friend. Did you see him? He was driving a red car.”

  “What kind of car?”

  Addie blinked. She didn’t know. She didn’t know what kind of car had been parked in front of Colton’s house for the last year and a half. She shrugged, feeling immediately stupid. “A red one.”

  The officer looked over his shoulder, gaze sweeping the empty lot. “I don’t see a red car out here.”

  “Thanks,” Addie said in a low voice choked with embarrassment.

  What did it mean that Colton knew what kind of car hit Maya? The bell had rung after Maya went down; the car was long gone by the time the students filed out onto the lawn. Addie’s stomach dropped.

  The smell in Colton’s car.

  Swampy.

  She knew that smell.

  It was coming from the journalism room.

  It was coming from Lydia Stevenson’s body.

  Addie turned around, stared through the glass of the police station doors. She watched the officers inside hustling around, her stomach churning. What should she do? She couldn’t walk into the police station and accuse her next-door neighbor of murder.

  Colton’s car smelled. Lots of people had smelly cars, but that didn’t make them murderers. But he knew—or possibly knew—the make of the car that hit Maya even though he said he hadn’t seen the accident. And where would he have gotten a Dodge anyway? Addie may not have known the make of Colton’s car, but it was red. And his mother drove a fancy minivan that was always kept shiny black. His father? Addie didn’t know except that it was a white car.

  I’m being stupid.

  This isn’t about me, she reminded herself. It’s about Lydia.

  Lydia, crumpled on her desk, long hair hanging over her arm, skimming the dirty linoleum. Each time the image flashed, it seemed to burn deeper into her, boring a spot in her soul and making her stomach sour.

  I had nothing to do with Lydia’s death.

  Unless it really was a copycat.

  “Can I help you?”

  Addie blinked at the police officer who appeared in the vestibule before her. She was hanging on the door, rocking forward on one foot. Then, she smiled. “Addie Gaines, right?”

  Addie pumped her head. “I’m...I’m here about what happened. At the school that night.”

  Officer Chadwick stepped aside and ushered Addie through the door. “Come on in.”

  Addie glanced around the department. In the Gap Lake books, the police department was state of the art even though Gap Lake was basically a resort town. There were always officers working and a bank of computers and the occasional petty thief handcuffed in one of the waiting rooms. But the Crescent City police department was different. It was part doctor’s waiting room, part principal’s office. Coke machines blinking in one corner. Coffee machine with a stack of Styrofoam cups in the other. Bank of fluorescent lights buzzing overhead, and four desks that looked like they might have been new right about the time Addie was born. Officer Chadwick went to the nearest desk, pulled out a chair for Addie, and sat across from her.

  “What can I do for you?”

  Addie pulled her purse into her lap, feeling the edges of the latest Gap Lake book through the soft leather. “Well, I think I might have some information about Lydia Stevenson’s murder.”

  Officer Chadwick’s expression was unchanged. “Go on.”

  Addie cleared her throat and pressed her knees together. “Have you ever heard of the Gap Lake Mystery series? They’re books.” Addie pulled her copy out of her purse and slid it over the desk.

  Chadwick nodded slowly. “I’ve heard of these. Not really up my alley.” She dropped her head and leaned in. “Don’t tell anyone, but I’m kind of a romance gal.”

  Addie felt herself flush and then Chadwick let out a low chuckle. “What? You thought I was a guns and ammo girl? Some of us in blue have a heart.”

  She tried to smile, tried to feel light, but everything weighed heavily on her. “I heard someone on the news say Lydia’s killer might be a copycat.”

  Officer Chadwick raised a single eyebrow, but nothing else about her expression changed. Addie cleared her throat, wrung her hands. “If so, the copycat is basing his kills on these novels.”

  A slight head bob from Chadwick.

  “And I think that person is contacting me.”

  Now Chadwick narrowed her eyes. “What exactly do you mean?”

  Addie pulled out the pages she had printed up and slid them across the Formica table. “This is everything. And…he’s…” she looked over both shoulders, feeling both ridiculous and paranoid. She was in a police station; she should feel safe. But she didn’t.

  “He said he’s watching me. I said I was going to the police and—”

  “Addison?”

  Addie turned in the hard metal chair, her eyes meeting Chief Garcia’s.

  “Mrs., um, Chief Garcia. How’s Maya?”

  The chief nodded. “She’s going to be fine. May I ask what you’re doing here?”

  Addie cleared her throat again even though it felt raw. “I think I have information about Lydia’s death and maybe about who hit Maya.” She licked her lips and dropped her eyes. “And why.”

  Chief Garcia’s eyes were sharp, but she offered Addie a small smile. “Thank you, Officer Chadwick. I can take over from here. Addie, why don’t you come to my office?”

  Addie smiled to Chadwick and trailed behind Chief Garcia, who walked at a fast clip, her boots sharp thumps on the scuffed linoleum. She took a sharp turn into her office and gestured for Addie to come in. Addie started, stopped.

  Detective Garcia was sitting there, staring at Addie.

  Thirty-Seven

  “Hi, Mr.…Detective…Garcia.”

  He nodded, his lips pressed in a hard, bloodless line.

  “Can I get you something to drink?”

  Addie stood there, dumbfounded. It was a stupid question but she had no idea how to answer. The Garcias seemed to be studying her, watching her every move. Would a guilty person want a drink?

  “Um, no, I’m okay.”

  “How about you have a seat then?” Chief Garcia gestured to a chair and the detective pulled it out for Addie. She sat down, arranging the papers on her lap, their edges cool and damp from her sweating palms.

  “Why don’t you tell us why you’re here, Addison?”

  She licked her lips, then licked them again. “Uh, well it’s about Lydia. Lydia Stevenson? You know we—”

  “You found the body. Yes, we know.”

  The body.

  Again that word struck Addie, hit hard at her soul. Lydia Stevenson was simply “the body” now.

  Addie swallowed again, wishing she had asked for that glass of water. “Well, her death kind of mimics these books that everyone is reading…”

  “The Gap Lake mystery series. We’re aware,” said Chief Garcia.

  Addie felt her eyes go round.
“So you know that it looks like a copycat—”

  “That’s one theory,” Detective Garcia said. “Not a great one.”

  Addie blinked. “What?”

  “Addison, the Gap Lake mysteries are a series written for teens. The murders aren’t realistic, and not done well enough to pull off in real life.”

  Addie’s tongue felt heavy in her mouth. “So you don’t think—”

  “Why are you here, Addison?”

  She spread the pages on Chief Garcia’s desk. “I’ve been talking to someone who says they are R. J. Rosen, the author of the books. Not talking…emailing and text messaging mostly. The first message said there was going to be a ‘surprise’”—she made air quotes—“for me after I posted the first story. The only surprise that came up was Lydia Stevenson.”

  Addie waited for Chief Garcia and Detective Garcia to say something, to react. They didn’t.

  “I know it doesn’t sound like much, but then he wanted me to post something else—and then when I didn’t, he said I’d be sorry.”

  “Is that it?” the detective asked.

  Addie shook her head. “No. He said I would be sorry and then someone hit Maya with their car. She was wearing my jacket.” Addie was crying now, her nose running, hiccupping as she tried to speak. “Don’t you see? I’m the reason Maya got hit and I might be the reason Lydia died and remember the photos I told you about? The ones from my blog?”

  Chief Garcia came around her desk and engulfed Addie in a hug. “Honey, none of this is your fault.”

  The detective leaned forward, his jaw still set. “None of this is about you, Addie.”

  She blinked. “I just…I…”

  He tilted his head. “Are you still talking to R. J. Rosen now?”

  Addie sniffed and shook her head. “I told him I didn’t want him to contact me anymore. I said I was going to the police.”

  “And did he respond?”

  “He said things were going to get worse for me.”

  Detective Garcia gathered Addie’s pages up with a swipe of his big hand. He straightened them and gave her a tight, unamused smile. “We’ll look into these emails and we’ll look into this R. J. Rosen character.”

  “Thank you,” Addie said. “Thank you.” She looked from the detective to the chief. “I’m so, so sorry about Maya.”

  Chief Garcia put her hand gently on Addie’s shoulder. “Thank you for that, but Maya’s going to be just fine. As a matter of fact, she’s a little too fine. The doctors want us to keep her home for the rest of the week.”

  Addie tried to smile. “I bet she loves that.”

  “She’s already commandeered the downstairs couch and built a wall out of junk food. It’s possible she thinks sugar rebuilds broken bones.”

  ***

  Addie zipped her coat up to her chin, crossing the police station parking lot and stepping onto the sidewalk. Her father was on his way to pick her up, but Addie decided not to mention her stop at the police department. She told him she was at the coffee shop across the street and when she pushed the button, waiting for the light to change, she saw the car from the corner of her eye. Navy blue, parked in the police station lot. There was someone in the front seat but the sun visor was down, and the breaking twilight blacked out the whole front window.

  Addie’s heartbeat ratcheted up the second the driver flicked on his lights and started the engine. Hairs pricked at the back of her neck and she lost her breath when she heard the crunch of tires spitting out gravel.

  “Oh God.” She spun around, cornered. If she stepped back into the police station parking lot the car had a clear shot at her. If she stayed where she was—the car still had a clear shot.

  Addie flapped her hands, willing herself not to cry. “I don’t even know what kind of car that is,” she muttered to herself. “I don’t even know—”

  The car shot out of the lot and Addie darted across the street. Horns blared. Tires screeched. She cleared the street and the curb, and she had her hand on the knob of the coffeehouse when someone grabbed her from behind.

  Thirty-Eight

  “No!” Addie’s scream was primitive, guttural. She clamped her eyes shut, her hand sliding off the doorknob as her attacker pinned her against his chest, swept her feet off the ground.

  “Addie, Addie, baby, it’s okay, it’s me. It’s your dad.”

  She stopped struggling, letting his deep voice wash over her. Her heart still slammed against her ribs, her mind spinning, not letting her relax, not letting her breathe.

  “Addie.”

  Morton Gaines steadied Addie on her feet, turned her around to face him. His hands were soft, his lips pulled into a worried line.

  “What’s happened, hon? You darted into the street. You ran into oncoming traffic.”

  Addie could barely hear for the rush of blood in her ears. She shook her head slowly, not trusting herself to talk. Her father wrapped his arms around her, and Addie slumped against him, loving the calming steady thrum of his heart. She didn’t know that she was crying, but tears were spilling over her cheeks, her whole body pulsing with adrenaline.

  “I think I’m…I just…I don’t know anymore, Dad.”

  Addie’s father slung his arm around her shoulders, gathering her to him and helping her walk. He opened the passenger side door and helped Addie in, leaning over to buckle her belt. By the time he got into the driver’s side and turned the key, Addie was spent. She was slumped, every bit of energy leaving her body. The anxiety she usually felt while riding with her father was sapped; her legs felt heavy, her body felt weak. She leaned forward and rested her head on the dash, barely registering when the navy blue Dodge pulled out from behind them and passed.

  ***

  Addie awoke with a start the next morning. The sun was streaking through the windows, warm slashes across her face. If she just kept her eyes closed she could hover for a few more minutes in this half sleep, in this calm state where Lydia wasn’t dead, R. J. Rosen wasn’t contacting her, and she was back to being a closeted bookworm that no one paid any attention to.

  She rolled over onto her side and dialed Maya, counting the rings until, “Hello?”

  “Maya, you sound great!”

  “That’s good, because I feel crappy.”

  “Does it hurt much?”

  Addie heard Maya shift on her mattress on her end of the phone. “Sort of. But the really crappy thing is the doctors told my dad I should try to walk and do these stupid exercises. He showed up at the foot of my bed in sweatpants and a whistle this morning.”

  “He did not!”

  “No, he didn’t. But close. He brought donuts and made me go downstairs to get mine. Like a freaking animal.”

  Addie laughed, the action feeling so foreign but so good.

  “How you doing, Adds?”

  Addie wanted to tell Maya that she had gone to the police station. She wanted to tell her about the car in the parking lot, but something nagged at her. She didn’t want to dump on her donut-foraging best friend. “I’m okay.”

  “No, you’re not.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Because I know you better than you know you. Because I know that you’re still in bed and Addison Gaines is all ‘up with the crows’ or whatever like her dad. So if you’re still in bed…”

  Addie kicked off the covers and stood up. “You’re wrong, I’m actually up.”

  “Prove it.”

  Addie snapped a selfie and shot it to Maya.

  Maya yawned. “That’s a terrible selfie. Want to hang out today?”

  “I can’t. Work.”

  “I can’t believe you can go in to work when I’ve been through such trauma.”

  “I’ll manage. But I’ll call you later, okay?”

  Thirty-Nine

  “I’m glad you’re here,” Ella sa
id when Addie walked into the store that evening. “The Neanderthal vandals have struck again.” She jutted her chin toward the three mannequins at the front of the store.

  Addie rolled her eyes. Two of the mannequins were dressed in Bereman’s attire and posed in their factory-direct, supermodel stances. The third had her pants pulled around her skinny white ankles and her blouse scarfed around her neck. She was headless and “Class of 2020 RULES” was scrawled in Sharpie or eyeliner across her torso and down her arms, which had been yanked off and reattached to reach to the ceiling.

  “When did that happen?”

  “Somewhere between the afternoon rush and the late afternoon rush.”

  “We’re a boutique; we don’t have rushes.”

  Ella crossed her arms in front of her chest. “So you’re saying that my enormous sale of one bangle each to seven different teenagers was a distraction technique?”

  “Class of 2020 rules.”

  “Can you move her please? My back is still messed up. Can’t lift anything heavier than this pen.” Ella demonstrated with a blue ballpoint. “And I was supposed to be off exactly nine minutes ago.”

  Addie sighed. “With a commission haul from the bangles, I’d expect you to be halfway to the Bahamas by now. I hate going to the storeroom.”

  “I think you’re going to be okay.”

  Addie nodded. “Fine.”

  She cut through the racks of clothing and found the offending mannequin, throwing her arms around its narrow waist and dragging it backward. Even headless, the thing was a good foot taller than she was, and Addie had to wrestle it through the store.

  “You’d think they’d get smart and put mannequins on wheels, you know?” she said to Ella. Ella didn’t answer and Addie shrugged, sighing when she got to the double doors that led to the storeroom.

  She hated the storeroom.

  Everyone did. Even in broad daylight it was creepy, a weird, vast room shoulder to shoulder with naked mannequins that for some reason, Mr. Bereman refused to throw away. The mannequins were in all manner of disrepair: headless, armless, the occasional torso or disembodied head stacked on shelves or tossed in baskets.