An eerie intensity comes into Mrs. Shum’s eyes, and she smiles. “You’d better tell me exactly what happened.”
“Please,” I say. “Just let me go. I know you didn’t have anything to do with what happened to Emily. If we go to the police together, I know they’ll understand.”
“Understand what?”
“That Dr. Shum killed Emily. That you were afraid of him and so you helped him cover it up.”
“Is that what you think happened?” Mrs. Shum smiles, and in the moonlight, her teeth look small, white, and very sharp. “God, you girls are so stupid. You think because you’re young and beautiful, you can have anything you want. You think your generation is smarter because you know all this technological crap. You even think you discovered sex.” She shakes her head. “You girls don’t know anything.” She glances over her shoulder and yells. “Ray! Over here!”
My heart beats so loud and fast I think it will drown out my voice, but I hear myself say, “It wasn’t Dr. Shum, was it? It was you, wasn’t it?”
“That bitch. She had him so bewitched he thought he was in love with her—that he’d leave me for her.” She shakes her head. “But I forgave him, Paige, because that’s what married people have to do if they want to stay together. They forgive and forgive and forgive. Sometimes it’s exhausting.”
I search her eyes, but in the darkness, they’re nothing more than black holes in her face. She’s crazy. And she’s going to kill me. The only chance I have is to get away from her. I jerk my arm from her grasp, fake right, and then go left. She snarls in rage and then something hard cracks against the side of my skull and everything goes black.
THIRTY-NINE
Jalen
We’re at Walmart when my cell rings. A quick glance at the screen tells me it’s Paige. I almost answer, but then, before I weaken, I let the call pass into voicemail. By now her mother has arrived and Paige Patterson is no longer my responsibility. Even if she’s sorry, it doesn’t change things. What illness allows someone to see the future? I still hear the scorn in her voice.
I shove my cell back into the pocket of my shorts and try not to think about her.
Next to me, my uncle pushes our shopping cart slowly down the aisle stocked with toothbrushes, toothpaste, and mouthwash. He picks up a bottle of amber-colored Listerine and swirls it around before setting it down on the shelf. He does the same with a bottle of Scope. When he moves to the generic mouthwash, I check the cell and see she’s left a message. Before I can play it, Uncle Billy turns to me with a package of dental floss in his hands, and I pocket the phone again.
“This one has the best price,” he says. “If you’re looking for floss.”
When I shake my head, he resets it on the hook and we move slowly forward. I don’t bother asking him what we’re doing in the dental aisle or question him when we wander into the pharmacy section. I have shopped long enough with him to know that he takes the long way to wherever he’s going. To try and hurry him is like talking to a wall.
We move through sporting goods and into hardware. As Uncle Billy lingers over a pair of bolt cutters, I pull out my phone. With my back to him, I play the message.
It hurts to hear her voice, but I play it several times anyway. She’s sorry. She wants me to call her. But what is she most sorry about? Calling me a liar? Ridiculing my uncle? Breaking up with me?
I pick up a flashlight, turn it over in my hands. I should be relieved that things between us are over. I don’t have to choose anymore or worry about how liking her—how possibly falling in love with her—will put her in danger. Probably right now she’s having dinner with her mom and they’re making plans for her to go back to New Jersey. Probably by now she’s remembering all the reasons she belongs there.
“What’s that?” Uncle Billy peers over my shoulder. When he sees the flashlight, he nods in approval, “I liked that one, too. You’ll need a battery.”
“Uncle, I don’t need a flashlight.” I start to put it back, but he stops me.
“Maybe you do,” he says. “Sometimes you don’t know if you need something until it finds itself in your hands. Why don’t you get it, Jalen?”
“Because it costs money?” I try and keep the sarcasm out of my voice, but my mood is dark and Uncle Billy is an easy target.
“You have to learn to trust your instincts.” He takes the flashlight from my hands and puts in the cart next to the bolt cutters.
I look at him in surprise. “What do you need those for?”
Shrugging, Uncle Billy smiles, as innocent as a monk. “I don’t know.”
Finally we make it to the crafts aisle. While he peers closely at the two different shades of yellow yarn, I move a few steps away and pull out my cell. I’ll listen to her message one more time and then delete it. However, when I unlock my screen, I dial her cell instead of my voice-mail box. I start to sweat when it rings. Just what am I going to say to her? That I forgive her? That I don’t want us to break up?
When the phone rings into voicemail, it turns into a non-issue. I hang up. She didn’t even ask me if I called the police and turned in her father. She simply assumed I did it. If our situations were reversed, I would never have thought the same of her.
Uncle Billy holds both shades of yarn in his hands. There’s so little difference between them that I can’t understand why he can’t just pick one. I loosen my grip on the phone. “Why don’t you buy both of them?” What I really mean is hurry up.
He shakes his head, replaces them both on the shelf. “Neither is right.” He pushes the cart the length of the aisle and then disappears around the corner. I follow more slowly, reminding myself to be patient. He doesn’t get out of the house much, and besides, where is it I so badly want to be?
He finds a wig of blonde hair made for a doll. I pretend not to notice the tremor in his hands as he squints at it through the clear cellophane wrapping. “The hair isn’t long enough, but it’s better than the yarn.” He places it in the cart and then spends a good amount of time picking out a bag of feathers before he ambles out of the department.
I try calling Paige again when he stops to pull a small pink sandal off a shelf of infant shoes on clearance. Once again, her cell rings a couple of times, and then her voicemail picks up. I regret immediately calling her. What’s she going to think when she sees two missed calls from me?
And then I start to worry. Why isn’t she answering? Before I even think about it, I take the sandal out of my uncle’s hands and drop it in the shopping cart. “Come on,” I tell him. “We need to get going.”
“Just one more stop,” he says, and my heart sinks.
We pass shelves of popcorn and peanuts and then reach the far right corner of the store. There’s soda here, too, and I fake interest in a six-pack of Coke as Uncle Billy shuffles off to buy a couple of bottles of wine. It isn’t his favorite drink, but it’s available. I feel my shoulders sag as the real reason for this shopping trip becomes clear.
For me to watch just makes it more painful for both of us, and so I pull out my cell again. I stare at it, thinking hard what a third call will mean. It will say I forgive her and, even more than that, that I have feelings for her. Am I ready for that? My father gave up everything to be with my mother, and although I think he’s happy, I wonder if I can do that.
I put the phone in my pocket, but start replaying that final scene between us. I think about how coldly I turned my back on her when she implied that there was no kind of illness that would give a man the ability to see the future. I got angry at her, but beneath it was shame. I didn’t have the guts to tell her the truth. I let a lifetime of family secrets seal my lips. In protecting my uncle, I sacrificed us.
I accused her of having no faith in me, and yet I haven’t really trusted her either or else I simply would have told her. My uncle is an alcoholic.
My heart starts to race as I call her. With each unanswered ring, my level of anxiety rises. I squeeze the phone more and more tightly, willing her to answer. I t
ell myself that she probably has turned it off or she’s in a bad cell zone or that maybe she’s figured out I’m not the guy she thought I was.
But then my gaze drops to the flashlight half-buried in the items in our cart. Of all the items in the cart, it’s the only one I’ve chosen. And although I protested about the money, I didn’t put the flashlight back, either. Or insist Uncle Billy leave the bolt cutters. Trust your instincts, Uncle Billy told me. Something inside is telling me that Paige needs me.
I stride over to my uncle and grab the first bottle of wine I see. “We need to go. Now.”
He looks at me and then nods as if he’s been expecting this all along. In the store lighting, his black eyes shine silver, like moonlight on water.
“I’m ready,” he says.
FORTY
Paige
I am falling through darkness so black and deep it swallows my scream. From somewhere above me, I hear Emily call, Paige, and then I am on the ground. The pain radiates in my head, throbbing to the beat of my heart. I can’t move. Lying here, I realize now what a mistake it was to go so deep into this underground cavern. How angry my parents are going to be.
Emily slips her arm around my waist, comforting me. She’s lying behind me, cradling the length of my body with hers. Wake up, Paige, she says. It’s time to wake up.
Emily’s here? She isn’t dead? I open my eyes to pitch darkness. “Emily?”
But I’m alone. I was dreaming, and now I’m awake. My mouth is taped shut and my wrists and ankles are bound together so tightly they have gone numb. Beneath my cheek, I feel the tight weave of carpet. I’m in the trunk of a car, racing through the darkness to a place where the Shums are going to kill me.
There’s a sudden flash of light and the sound of my cell. I try to wiggle toward it, but can’t get there in time. My head aches and tears of despair trickle onto my cheeks. Part of me wants to go back to sleep, to tell myself that none of this is really happening.
But it is, and I have to fight. Despite the pain in my head, I wiggle deeper in the trunk and then strike out, mermaid-style, at the corners, where the taillights might be. Every kick escalates the level of pain in my head. Worse, it doesn’t work.
I’m almost relieved when the car slides to a stop. The doors bang, and then the trunk pops open. Both Shums loom into my vision, dark silhouettes against a darker backdrop.
Something wet falls onto my face as Dr. Shum bends over me, struggling to get his arms under me. He’s silently crying, and in a way that makes it even worse than if he were rough with me. I try to flop my body out of his grasp, but he scoops me up. Through the duct tape, I start to sob, and immediately it feels like I’m suffocating.
“Dr. Shum is going to cut your legs loose, Paige,” Mrs. Shum says. “But if you try to run away, I’ll have to use this.” She holds up a tire iron. A small, mean smile forms on her face. “I’ve gotten pretty good with it.”
I look at the heavy metal bar in her hands and the light in her eyes and have no doubt she means what she says. As Dr. Shum cuts off the tape, I look around, desperately searching for a way out of this. We’re in some kind of empty, unpaved parking lot. It’s surrounded by trees and lit only by moonlight. In the distance, I see a mountain, rising like a great black wave.
“Stop crying,” Mrs. Shum snaps as Dr. Shum straightens. “None of this would have happened if you hadn’t decided to act like a hormonal teenager.” She hands Dr. Shum a bungee cord and tells him to wrap it around my neck. With my hands still bound and my mouth taped, all I can do is beseech him with my eyes. He avoids my gaze and hooks it on tight.
Mrs. Shum gives my shoulder a push. “Get going.”
We follow the unpaved road toward the mountain. A gate blocks us, but Dr. Shum takes out a set of keys and, with a creak and groan of rusty metal, we pass inside. The road narrows, becoming no wider than a bike path and then even that disappears into a trail so poorly visible in the moonlight that several times I step in the wrong direction. Dr. Shum pulls the bungee cord, which simultaneously stretches and tightens around my neck. Once, it gets so tight that I nearly pass out.
“Not much farther,” Dr. Shum coaxes, loosening the cord.
If only I can get him alone, maybe I can talk him into letting me go. We follow the curve of the towering rock mountain rising like a shadow out of the night. It comes as almost a complete surprise when suddenly we step out of the woods and into a clearing. The path merges onto a concrete one, and all at once I recognize where we are heading.
“That’s right, Paige,” Mrs. Shum says as if she’s read my mind. “We’re going to the ruins.”
I shake my head violently in denial, and the bungee cord jerks tighter. I feel my eyes bulge.
“Yes,” Mrs. Shum says. “You’re going to climb up there. You really don’t have much choice.” She taps me hard on the shoulder with the tire iron. “Dr. Shum may be a coward, but he’s strong as an ox. It wouldn’t be hard for me to bash in your brains and then have him carry you up the cliffs. In fact, it might be his penance, the cross he has to bear.”
She looks almost pleased at the thought, and I shake my head again and make that guttural, unintelligible noise that is supposed to say, No, don’t do this. I taste the bitter peel of chemical adhesive, but when Mrs. Shum raises the tire iron, I stop protesting and nod eagerly. Yes, I’ll do what she says. I’ll do anything to stay alive.
“I thought so,” Mrs. Shum says. “I thought you would want to live as long as possible. If you’re good, Paige, before you die, you’ll see things you never imagined.”
The cliffs are in front of us now, blocking everything, even the moon. The thought of climbing up there, of what is waiting there, terrifies me. My legs shake so hard it’s hard to stand. But what choice do I have? If I stay alive, there’s always the chance they’ll mess up, and I’ll escape.
Dr. Shum cuts me free. I rub the raw skin on my wrists and flex my fingers. Mrs. Shum moves ahead of me, holding the bungee cord like the leash of a dog. She puts her foot on the first rung. “You try to pull me off, and you go over with me. Understood?”
I nod, but inside I’m wondering if falling from the cliffs and taking Mrs. Shum with me is the best option I have.
We climb slowly, steadily, with me sandwiched between the Shums. I think about my mother. How upset she’s going to be when she drives to the Shums’ house and I’m not there. I wonder if she’ll believe that I ran away. If some small part of her will be relieved that now she and Stuart can start a new life without me. Hope stirs in me when I think about Jalen, who will not believe the Shums and start asking questions.
He’ll look for me. I need to leave him clues, and so I wipe blood from my scalp and smear the sides of the cliff in places where hopefully Dr. Shum won’t notice.
The moon is high and visible once again as we climb onto the lip of the cliff. As we stand on the ledge, Mrs. Shum pulls me away from the edge as if she’s guessed I might take my fate into my hands and jump.
I delay again. Falling. Letting them drag me. Even pretending to faint. Dr. Shum carries me the last distance to the ruins. Cradled in his arms, I have a terrifying view of the grim set of his mouth, his broad nose, and his eyes that refuse to meet mine.
My bare shoulder scrapes rough stucco as we squeeze through the T-shaped opening. I hope I’ve left behind some blood or skin—something for Jalen to find. Mrs. Shum drops her backpack and extracts a flashlight. There’s a click, and then a cone of yellow light illuminates the pitch-dark, box-like chamber.
“Down there,” she says, pointing to the hole in the center of the floor.
Dread uncoils in my stomach and my legs start to tremble. There’s no way I’m going down there. It’s a death pit. I shake my head violently.
Mrs. Shum shrugs. “Your choice, Paige, but you’re going to miss something truly special if you don’t go down there. You see, when Dr. Shum did his structural analysis of the ruins, he noticed an interesting anomaly. The way the ruins sit in the cliffs, there wa
s room for another chamber beneath the one below us. So he did some exploring… I really should let him tell the story. Would you like to, Raymond?”
Dr. Shum folds his arms and looks down at the ground. “No,” he says, “I wouldn’t.”
There’s a long, poignant pause, and then Mrs. Shum sighs. “You always leave everything to me.” She draws a breath, as if she’s determined not to let this relatively minor detail bother her. “To make a long story short, Paige, there’s a false bottom in the si’papu, and underneath… well…you really need to see it to appreciate it. There’s a wonderful old skeleton down there and some of the best-preserved pre-Columbian pottery that’s ever been discovered. There’s quite a market for it—did you know that? The Chinese can’t get enough. But Ray was showing off, trying to impress the little bitch. He told her about it!” Mrs. Shum shakes her head. “I heard him! And so I hid in the ruins that night and waited. It didn’t take long for your little friend to show up.” She sighs. “I guess the hour for telling stories is past. Will you climb down into the basement chamber, or shall we just get on with it?”
No. No. No. I chew the gag, and to my shame, fresh tears stream down my face.
Mrs. Shum sighs. “Oh, Paige, there’s no sense dragging this out.”
I shake my head frantically. Through a blur of tears, I watch her take out a thick, plastic bag like the one she uses to keep clay moist. My heart sinks as I realize I’ve waited too long. My moment to escape isn’t going to come. I’m going to die.
“You must think I’m a monster,” Dr. Shum says, gripping my wrists together so tightly it feels like he’s crushing my bones. “But I’m just a man. Like all men, I am flawed. Mistakes are inevitable, and fate is a cruel master. But you won’t be forgotten. I’ll always remember you. You and Emily. My two lovely corn maidens.”
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