Copycat

by Hannah Jayne

  And then she felt it.

  The pepper grinder.

  The knife caught Addie’s forearm as she jammed the grinder into Spencer’s eye. She felt the cool slice of blade against flesh, felt the drops of her own blood as it bubbled and pooled. But Spencer dropped the knife. He rolled up on to his knees and Addie kicked out, catching him where she didn’t know—she didn’t stay to find out. She was on her feet while he was hunched, hands pressed to his eye. He was grunting, breathing sharply, letting out a guttural moan that set Addie’s teeth on edge.

  She ran.

  She vaulted across the kitchen and yanked the door to the garage open, slamming her bloodstained fingers against the garage door opener.

  Her fingers slid.

  Spencer was at the door.

  Addie kept running, pulling open the door to the vintage Mustang that her father had bought and that Addie had studiously avoided until that moment. She vaulted herself in, slammed the door lock down just as Spencer reached her, an ugly mask of hate and rage on his face. His left eye was red, bulging and bleeding tears. His fisted hands slammed against the driver’s side window.

  Addie was shaking, teeth chattering, a weight on her bladder.

  Her heart thundered in her chest, the lump in her throat almost choking her.

  “Keys, keys.” She fumbled, trying her best to block out Spencer clawing at her on the other side of the glass. He was still pounding, his screams muffled, his face distorted by the streaks of blood on the glass.

  The keys were in the visor.

  As Addie fed them into the ignition, her brain slammed with memories, with anxiety and terror.

  She had to drive.

  She had to try.

  “Gas…uh, parking brake.” Her lips felt chapped and raw. The heat inside of the car was stifling, choking—and Spencer was punching, his knuckles blood red and cut.

  Addie turned the key.

  The engine sputtered and purred.

  She yanked the gearshift and felt for the gas pedal with her foot, hands tight on the wheel.

  Spencer punched.

  The driver’s side window buckled, a spiderweb of cracks on the glass. Addie dove to get away from Spencer, steering wheel in hand.

  The wheels screeched.

  The car lurched.

  She heard the sickening thud of body against metal but barely had time to register it. The car vaulted backward though the garage door, crashing in a brilliant burst of twisted metal, buckled wood, and dust.

  Forty-Five

  Addie was crying, her whole body shaking, the car coming to a rest in the middle of the street as her foot slid off the gas and she collapsed over the steering wheel. She could barely make out anything through the flood of tears, through the buckled, bloodied glass. But she could see Spencer on the garage floor, his body bent, crumpled.

  He wasn’t moving.

  “Addie! Addie! Oh my God, Addie, what happened?” Colton dashed in front of the car, yanked on the driver’s side door. Addie froze, hands still locked on the steering wheel, teeth chattering, tears falling.

  “Addie!” Colton ran to the passenger side, wrenched open the door.

  She blinked at him. “Colton?”

  His eyes were soft, brows knitted in concern. “Are you okay? What happened?”

  She slowly turned to look out the driver’s side window, the dripping blood turning her stomach, the image of Spencer in the background haunting. “I…Spencer, he…” She erupted in a fit of sobs, her shoulders shaking, her chest aching with the effort. She hiccupped and sputtered, snot and tears running down her cheeks.

  “Spencer was trying to kill me. He was trying to kill me and I…I think I…I hit him with my car.” She yanked her hands off the wheel like it was a poisonous snake, staring incredulously at the dash. “I don’t know what I’m doing, I don’t know what I did.”

  Colton stared straight ahead, swallowing slowly. “You hit Spencer with your car?”

  “He was trying to kill me, Colton. We have to get out. We have to call the police. I think he killed Lydia, too—I think he’s crazy. Colton, come on.”

  Colton shook his head, carefully, slowly. “You hit him with your car?”

  Addie had her hand on the door handle, was trying to force the thing open when she head Colton’s low, maniacal laugh. Something cold and dark slithered down her spine, settled in her gut.

  “Colton?”

  “I’m sorry,” he said, hand clamped over his eyes. “I’m sorry but that’s just…it’s just so funny, isn’t it?”

  Addie gaped. “What are you talking about?”

  He wiped a tear from his eye. “He was supposed to kill you. He was supposed to kill you because your dad bankrupted him and fucked up his family’s life. Sorry…” He pat a hand on Addie’s shoulder. “It wasn’t really about you, it was more about your dad, but, dude, you don’t even drive and you hit him with your car.”

  Addie knew she should get out of the car but she was riveted, horrified, eyes glued to Colton, whose skinny shoulders shook as he giggled. “Man. This wasn’t part of the story but”—he shook his head—“I really couldn’t have written it better myself.”

  “What are you—?”

  The laughter stopped and Colton’s eyes flashed. There was still humor in them, but it was nothing short of psychotic. “I’m the writer, Addie. You write fan fiction.” He licked his lips. “I’ve decided to write true crime.”

  Addie’s whole body seized up, heat burning the back of her neck.

  “Wh…what are you talking about?”

  “I’m talking about a great story, Addie. I’m talking about a great crime—really, with all the details that really make a book sing, you know? And you, you were my hero.”

  Addie swallowed, her saliva going down like broken glass.

  “It was a lot easier than I thought, really. Talk to Spencer a little bit, turn the screws. You know the reasons people kill, Addie? Oh, you probably do.”

  Addie ground her teeth, her jaws aching. She cut her eyes away from Colton to the keys dangling from the ignition. Colton did too and snatched them out, tossed them out the open passenger side door.

  Addie sprung.

  She threw her weight against the driver’s side door hoping to hit the handle, and it lurched open, scraping against the street. She landed on her hands and knees, chest and chin scraping the ground, ripping at her jeans and palms, but she didn’t care.

  She was running.

  Addie sprinted back to her house, yanking open the door, clawing for the phone. Colton was so close she could hear his breathing, hear his heavy footfalls. He threw his arms around her waist, grabbing her in a bear hug. Addie went down hard, Colton on top of her.

  “This isn’t how it was supposed to go!” he seethed, rage turning his face a deep, blotchy red.

  “Tell me then, Colton, tell me how it’s supposed to go.”

  Colton pressed his knee to the back of Addie’s neck. She scrunched her eyes shut, letting the tears flow over her nose and onto the marble floor.

  She just needed time.

  “You read the story,” he hissed into his ear, hot breath singing her cheeks. “Crystal was drowned, just like our little Lydia.”

  Addie’s whole body seized up. Lydia’s limp form flashed in front of her eyes, the way her arms hung, her body a broken carcass, the life snuffed out.

  “You?”

  “You said it yourself. Authors need to research.” Colton was lording over her, keeping her pinned, his voice a terrible, writhing hiss. “I needed to know how it felt. How it really felt when a soul left a body. And you know what?”

  Addie shook her head, afraid to open her mouth.

  “It was bliss.” He drew out the word and ice water flooded Addie’s veins. His lip quirked downward. “Then I ran into Spencer.” He shook
his head. “So much rage in one little person, you know.”

  “Because you killed his girlfriend?”

  Colton snorted. “No! He was knocking her around anyway. Kind of a fun little circle. Spencer got flaming mad, and whacked her a time or two. She came to sweet, harmless ole me, cried on my shoulder. Earned my trust.” He batted his eyelashes. “I did him a big favor. She was always threatening to tell.”

  “You’re sick. You’re as sick as Spencer. And you tried to move in on his girl. And then you killed her.”

  He rolled his eyes. “Spencer didn’t care about it at all.”

  “About her. She was a person.”

  “He dug it, though. He kind of got obsessed. It was his idea to drop her in the journalism room. The idiot had some good ideas. But you were the one he really wanted. You were his prize. And I was, of course, willing to help. I loved watching you squirm. I hacked into your computer and sent you all those messages. I even put up those pictures just to mess with you. Genius locking you out of your own site.”

  “Why me?” Addie squeaked.

  “Why not? But he underestimated you. We both did. Brava, Addie. You almost got to live. But in the Gap Lake books, Crystal had to die…”

  Addie gritted her teeth, digging her fingers into the grout between the tiles and kicking out hard. She felt her foot make contact, heard the clack of Colton’s head flipping back, his teeth smacking together.

  “But Jordan survives.” Addie crawled onto all fours, then was up on her feet, panting, heaving, phone in her hand. “The end.”

  Forty-Six

  Addie was laying in her bed propped up with pillows and painkillers while Maya lay at the edge of the bed, flipping through her phone.

  “You doing okay?”

  Addie tried to shrug, but she was bandaged from fingertip to neck so she offered a pained smile instead. “For almost being killed, yeah.”

  “Spencer is out of the hospital. He and Colton are being arraigned tomorrow. Murder for what they did to Lydia, attempted murder for what they did to you, battery for feeding poor Louisa rat poison and for trying to make me into a hood ornament. And of a crap car no less.” Maya shuddered then blinked, her eyes going glossy.

  “Are you crying?”

  “I can’t be a little emotional that two maniacs tried to kill my best friend?”

  “So much for your psychic powers. Could have saved us all a lot of trouble.”

  “Hey, I’m a sham and even so, who could have predicted that two kids would read a couple of books and terrorize their next-door neighbor?”

  “Okay, who wants raspberry cheesecake and who wants the salted caramel?” Morton Gaines held up two pints of ice cream and a couple of spoons.

  Addie handed Maya the raspberry and dug into the salted caramel.

  “You know,” Maya said, around a mouthful of ice cream. “It’s kind of nice having you around to wait on us.”

  “Well, get used to it,” Addie’s father said, “because I’m home for a while.”

  Addie’s eyes flashed. “Really?”

  “I’m taking a sabbatical.” He sat down next to Addie, throwing his legs up on the bed and crossing them at the ankle. “I thought I’d take some time to hang out and really get to know my daughter.”

  “Maybe teach her how to drive her car forward?” Maya said.

  “Maybe spend some time reading,” he said, pulling a Gap Lake mystery from Addie’s nightstand.

  Addie snatched the book from him, dropping it into the trash can with a loud thud.

  “No,” she said, between bites of ice cream. “I’m done with mysteries for a while.”

  Acknowledgments

  There are many working parts to writing—and choreographing—a novel and Copycat is no exception. I’d like to give my deepest thanks to Steaphen Fick of the Davenriche School of European Arts for dropping a chair on me and helping me choreograph my fight scenes, match weapons to characters, and for teaching me to take out a horde of angry zombies with a garden hoe.

  To the LeBoule crew: Julie Carver, Christina Britton, Deb McNaught, Victoria Phelps, and Rich Amooi. You have been my biggest cheerleaders when it comes to writing, but you were even bigger and cheerier when I was diagnosed with breast cancer just before this book was complete. Thank you for the meals, hand-holding, hugs when I got out of the house, and ridiculously long text strings.

  Also, a huge debt of gratitude to my summer students at the San Jose Writing Project’s Teen Writers Institute. You guys are inspiring, talented, and great at making sure I kept it real while writing and keeping me on my ever-loving toes. And thank you to Kate Flowers and Jeff House for bringing me the best victims—I mean students—every summer!

  About the Author

  Hannah Jayne decided to be an author in the second grade. She couldn’t spell and had terrible ideas but kept at it, and many (many) years—and nearly twenty books—later, she gets to live her dream and mainly does it in her pajamas.

  She lives with her rock-star husband and baby daughter and their three overweight cats in the San Francisco Bay area. She is always on the lookout for a juicy mystery, an exciting story, or a great adventure.

  Thank you for reading!

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