by Eileen Cook
I did get a few things out of the situation, even if there was no dad or trip to our nation’s capital. I got a standing appointment with a counselor to get at the root of my “issues,” and the development of a full-blown anxiety disorder complete with panic attacks.
Drew forgave me. I felt bad that she’d tried to do this amazing thing for me and I’d ruined it. She felt bad that her plan had blown up so publicly in my face. Or maybe she felt bad because my life was so messed up that I had to make up an entire parent. Either way, we never talked about it much after that. We moved on. But I knew she never forgot.
I wasn’t sure we’d move on from this. If Drew discovered I’d lied again, she wouldn’t forgive quite so easily. She might finally decide she’d had enough.
Or maybe I’d had enough. Maybe the only way to make the life I’d been wishing for a reality was to do something big. If destiny was going to try and keep me here, I was going to have to do something bold to change it.
I jumped up and crossed the room with jerky steps to the set of World Book Encyclopedias, pulling out the L volume with a shaking hand. I flipped through, and the typed note was tucked in between the pages describing the Lindbergh kidnapping.
ARE YOU IN? Y or N?
My pen hovered above the page for just a split second and then I circled Y. I slammed the book’s cover shut and put it back on the shelf. One step closer to my new life.
Four
Regret, unlike satisfaction, isn’t hard to get. And by the time I got out of bed the next morning, I knew that I’d made a huge mistake. I’d tossed and turned all night, the sheets twisting tightly around me. There was no way I could go through with this. The fact of what I’d done filled my guts with wet, heavy cement. I wasn’t the kind of person who would do anything to get what I wanted. Or at the very least, I didn’t want to be the kind of person who would sink this low.
As soon as I was out of the apartment, I looked over my shoulder to make sure no one was around the bus stop and then whispered into the phone when he picked up. “I’ve been thinking. I’m not sure I want to be mixed up with this. I can’t do it.” I held my breath, waiting for the reaction.
He was silent for a beat. “Are you kidding me?”
“You don’t need to worry. I won’t tell anyone. You do whatever you need to, but I don’t want to be involved.” My tight chest loosened.
He barked out a laugh, shattering my fragile sense of relief. “That’s a shame, because you’re already involved. It’s too late to back out. Things are already in motion. If I were you, I’d make sure I had an alibi for tonight.”
I stared down at the phone. He’d already clicked off. I was screwed.
Five
Four days after I left the note at the library, I trudged through the lobby of my apartment building after my double shift at the Burger Barn. The stench of bacon grease and burnt coffee had soaked into my clothes and hair. The lack of sleep over the past few days was catching up, my eyes were gritty, and my legs felt as if they were tied down with weights.
The back wall of our lobby is covered in 1970s gold-flecked mirrored tiles, and there’s a sofa covered in some kind of moisture-resistant fabric. The whole apartment building has a worn, past-its-“best-by”-date look. I yanked open the creaky fire door that led to the hall and waved to the closed door of apartment 103 as I went past. Rumor has it Ms. Kowlowski sits on a kitchen stool in her daisy housecoat and slippers looking out her peephole and keeping track of who comes and goes all day long. I guess everyone has to have a hobby.
If I were struck blind, I’d know I was home by the smell. Our apartment building was a toxic mix of moldering hall carpet, the curry Ms. Baskhi cooks in her apartment, stale laundry stink wafting up from the basement, and my mom’s addiction to Febreze. Mom is convinced there is no problem that Febreze can’t solve. It’s like a magical fairy dust that she sprays on anything that doesn’t actively move away from her. We might have had a sofa we found out by the dumpster, mostly no-name brands in our cupboards, and closets full of clothes that other people didn’t want, but dammit, our place smelled like a fresh-rain-soaked lavender field in Southern France.
I heard the TV before I even unlocked our apartment door. My mom likes the volume loud enough that you can practically see the sound waves as they move through the room.
“Skye, you have to watch this.” Mom waved wildly for me to join her. She was still wearing her uniform smock from the Stop and Shop. She must have gotten her nails done on the way home. They were a bright red with a crystal embedded in the thick polish at the tip. My mom lives to BeDazzle everything.
I dropped onto the sofa and tried to figure out what had caught her attention. Ghost Hunters, I guessed, based on the night vision shots with people faux whispering, “Did you hear that?!” every two seconds.
“See the guy on the left, the one with the thick glasses? He can feel the vibrations of the dead.” Mom chewed a wad of mint gum with her mouth open. My mom sees dead people. And angels. And auras. She believes in aliens, fairies, the Loch Ness monster, Bigfoot, and in all those online scams that promise you millions of dollars if you simply click “like” and post a picture of a stack of money on your wall. I used to think it was cool that she saw magic in everything. Then I grew to hate it. Then I hated that it bothered me even more.
“Wow,” I said in a flat voice.
She glanced over, scowling. “If you could be bothered to watch, you’d see it’s true. He predicted a child died in that house, like, a hundred years ago, and when they researched it—he was right.” She pointed at me with one shiny fingernail like she’d made a critical point.
I sighed. It never once occurred to her that the show might actually lie.
“I think I have a bit of that ability too. It’s more than psychic readings: it’s a sense of those who have been lost.” Mom sipped loudly from a can of cola. “There are times when I’m in a place and I can almost feel a humming in my skin, like electricity. They were saying human spirits are basically made up of energy, so that would explain it.”
I barely managed to avoid rolling my eyes. “You don’t feel ghosts,” I said, stealing one of the stale Chips Ahoy cookies from the bag in front of her on the coffee table. I had to nip this in the bud or she’d spend the next two weeks wandering around making up stories about the dead people she saw every place we went. It would be like the time she had to wear sunglasses all day and night because the brightness of people’s auras was blinding her. She’d fallen down the stairs to the basement because it was so dark she hadn’t seen that our neighbor had left his laundry basket outside his door. She’d sprained her wrist on that adventure and had to take a week off of work. Unpaid.
It was bad enough that my mom was convinced she was a psychic. I’d grown up with her reading tarot cards in our living room to people who never seemed to wonder why, if she was capable of seeing the future, she didn’t make some investments that would lead to us living better. If she’d picked Apple stock years ago, we’d be living in a mansion by now.
Mom leaned back, pouting. “Oh, and you know everything, I suppose. Just because you treat psychic readings like a joke doesn’t mean everyone does.” The first time my mom found my tarot cards, she’d been thrilled. She thought it was great we could have this in common. Once I convinced her it was nothing more than a scam, she was appalled. She felt I was courting “dark forces” by pretending. At least I admitted I was pretending. My mom actually believed she had some kind of special abilities. I wasn’t sure which was worse—to know you were a liar or to believe your own bullshit.
“I don’t know everything, but I know no one has ever scientifically proven psychic skills,” I said.
“Of course it doesn’t work with all that negativity and skepticism.” Mom waved off my logic. “There has to be a supportive atmosphere.”
“Reality doesn’t require emotional support,” I pointed out. “It just is. You don’t see gravity asking for validation.”
“You�
��ll see; they have a scientist interviewing him in the next section.” She crossed her arms over her chest.
I was willing to bet that any scientist on this show had obtained his degree from a school he’d found advertised in the back pages of a comic book.
The program broke for a commercial for our local news. “Tonight we’ll be bringing you some breaking news—”
Mom rummaged through the pilled crocheted afghan looking for the remote. “You want to watch a movie after this?”
The picture on the screen stopped my heart. I grabbed her hand to keep her from clicking it off. Oh shit. This was it. No more theory. This was really happening.
“The Bonnet family has filed a missing person report on their seventeen-year-old daughter, Paige. Paige hasn’t been seen since Thursday, when she didn’t return home from her classes at Pine Hill High School.” The anchorwoman’s face attempted to fight through the Botox filler to look concerned.
“Do you know her?”
“Shhh.” I waved off whatever she was going to say so I could listen.
“Judge Bonnet’s daughter has run away in the past. While police don’t believe Ms. Bonnet is at any risk, they, along with her family, would like her found as soon as possible to confirm her safety. Police are asking that if anyone has information about Paige Bonnet, or her whereabouts, to call the hotline number below. Stay tuned to tonight’s broadcast for any developing leads.”
“She’s pretty. Is she in your class?” Mom leaned closer to the screen, inspecting Paige’s picture before it turned to another commercial for laminate flooring.
“Yeah, I don’t really know her.” I tried to swallow, but all the saliva in my mouth had evaporated. Paige was really gone. I knew exactly what happened to her. However, I wasn’t going to be calling any hotlines. Oh god, what had I done?
Mom rubbed her temples as if she were trying to pull a message from the air. “I have this bad feeling that someone did something to her.”
“You don’t have a feeling,” I snapped. I jumped off the sofa. I couldn’t stand to be in the living room anymore. The air felt too hot and close.
Mom’s eyes widened. “I didn’t mean to upset you, it was just a flash, like a vision. It might not mean anything. You know how these things come to me.”
“It wasn’t a flash of anything.” I grabbed the remote off the cushion next to her and jabbed the button so the TV clicked off. I didn’t want Paige’s face to pop up on the screen again like some kind of freaky missing-girl jack-in-the-box. “You shouldn’t talk about things you know nothing about.”
Mom grabbed the remote from my hands. “What in the world is wrong with you?”
“A girl is missing; don’t you get that? You making stuff up, or having magical feelings, or wanting to consult the great beyond for advice, doesn’t help.” I bit off the rest of what I was going to say. It wasn’t going to make a difference. What was done was done.
“Seems to me you have a sense something is wrong too.” Mom sniffed dismissively. “Or someone needs to get some more protein in her diet because she’s getting a little cranky.” Her voice came out in a singsong tone.
I stormed out of the living room and slammed my bedroom door. I’d convinced myself that I wasn’t really involved, that I was more like a bystander, but that wasn’t completely true. I’d known this would happen when I left my answer in that book. I’d thought waiting was bad, but this was worse.
My heart raced and adrenaline Ping-Ponged around my system. I wanted to pace, but my bedroom was barely large enough to hold my twin bed and the card table that I used as a desk. Holy shit. Paige Bonnet was actually missing.
I took a few deep breaths in and out. The police were looking for her, but it was clear from the news report that no one believed anything bad had happened to her. She’d cried wolf too often, taking off for spring break, running away to stay with some guy she met on a Christmas ski trip. She might be a judge’s daughter and from the right side of town, but she had a reputation for being a wild child. No one would look for her seriously. Not yet.
Getting them to do that was my job.
Six
I shifted in the seat, which had been designed with anything other than the human butt in mind. The waiting area for Mr. Lester’s office was all glass. As people streamed by on their way to class, I could tell they were all looking in and wondering what problem brought me there this time. I slunk down in case Drew went by. She’d managed to get an open slot first period, so unless she felt like coming early, she should still be at home tucked into bed.
Mr. Lester and I went way back. All the way to the “dad incident” of grade eight. This morning when I told his secretary I needed an emergency appointment, she looked me up and down with her overtweezed eyebrows arched, trying to tell if I simply wanted to get out of class, or if I really needed help. After a beat, she let out an exhausted sigh and told me to take a seat.
The original plan had been that I would go to the cops, but I’d known from the start that wouldn’t work. I hadn’t argued because I knew Pluto wouldn’t want to be second-guessed. I shifted again in the seat. I was sweating, and the plastic of the chair was making it worse.
Despite what Pluto thought, the cops wouldn’t listen to me. My brain stuttered on the name Pluto. I was still trying to get used to it. He’d insisted on fake names. And it wasn’t just his name. Pluto had come up with an entire alternate biography—down to his hobbies and hair color. Everything about him was a lie, and it was my job to keep those lies straight, even in my own head. I was to forget everything real and replace it with what Pluto dreamed up so that the two could never be confused. It was probably a good idea. Not that I had any clue—I wasn’t exactly a criminal mastermind. What I did know was that while Pluto might be right about names, I was right about the cops.
Mr. Lester was a better choice. First off, he was a huge believer in woo-woo, which meant he’d already be inclined to believe my story. He always talked about signs and trusting your gut. He wore a bracelet made of woven leather and rocks that some shaman gave him when he went to California on a meditation vacation. A man willing to wear magical rocks as an accessory was exactly the person I needed to disclose the whole thing to. Secondly, the cops would listen to him when he came forward. They could ignore me, but they wouldn’t take the chance with a school official. Lastly, as much as I teased him about his bracelet and motivational posters, he was one of the few people in this town I trusted. He’d help me. Even if he didn’t know exactly how he was accomplishing it. I’d volunteered in his office for years, and while I wouldn’t say we were friends, he liked me.
Another minute slowly ticked past. “Do you know how much longer he’ll be?” I asked Ms. Brew.
She looked up from her ancient computer monitor, mildly shocked to still see me there. I was willing to bet she was surfing some TMZ site and reading diet secrets of Kate Middleton instead of working.
“His phone meeting should be over soon,” she said, then resumed ignoring me.
I flicked through the brochures on the table. Support groups for LGBTQ students, info on how to identify addiction, and a helpful top ten list on how to deal with bullies. First bell rang, and the halls emptied out as everyone else hustled to class. A part of me wanted to forget the whole thing and go to history. Once I talked to Mr. L, there would be no going back. If I walked away now, I could avoid being involved any more than I already was.
Not that I was involved, I reminded myself for the thousandth time since I’d seen Paige on TV. If anything, I would help the situation resolve more quickly. There was no point in feeling guilty about it. Paige would be home safe and sound before she knew it. She would have been abducted regardless of what I did. It wasn’t like it was my idea—the entire scheme had already been planned, down to the tiniest detail, before I knew a thing about it.
There had been a spreadsheet, for crying out loud; it was going ahead with or without me. I just had to do this small thing and then I’d have the money I
needed for New York. Drew, and everyone else, would never know I’d lied, and I’d be out of this town forever as soon as the graduation ceremony ended. It would be worth it once it was over. Besides I couldn’t go back in time and change anything. Paige would be fine. More than fine. For people like her, everything always turned out.
I rested my palm on my belly and took a deep breath to ensure I was using my diaphragm the way Lester taught me freshman year when my anxiety had been really bad. Lester was always on me to stop imagining the worst. To focus on what really happened, not some worst-case scenario. Paige had disappeared Thursday after school. Now it was Monday morning. Basically four days. That was little more than a long weekend. I crossed and then uncrossed my legs. Paige would be found, there would be a tidy ransom, and then she’d be home. Easy peasy. Depending on how you looked at the situation, it wasn’t even really a crime, more like a political statement.
“Skye?”
My head jerked up. From the way Mr. Lester and the secretary were looking at me, I sensed he’d said my name more than once.
“Sorry.”
Mr. Lester winked. “The way you were ignoring me made me think you’d decided to go back to calling yourself Candi.”
I smiled weakly at his lame joke because that was what was expected.
His face morphed into his somber expression. “You needed to see me right away?”
Deep breath. Showtime. This was my last chance. I could burst into tears and plead panic over looming graduation, let him talk soothingly to me for a half hour and then walk away, or do what I’d promised.
“I need to talk to you about Paige Bonnet.”
Seven
Mr. Lester’s brows furrowed at the mention of Paige’s name. “Of course.” He stepped to the side so I could go into his office. I’d spent so much time in this space, I knew it like it was an extension of my own home. The back wall was floor-to-ceiling dark IKEA bookcases filled with books and odds and ends like a signed Lions football helmet and a stone Buddha. His desk and a large filing cabinet were tucked into the corner.