by Sherri Smith
“You sure about that, Bailey? She’s not very nice to you. How do you know she didn’t just use you to get to Lucas?”
“I know because we were friends before that.”
“Before when? Lucas has been living in this building for a while now.”
“Whatever. Maybe she did use me in the beginning. I don’t care because I used her too. Then we became real friends, and people are a lot nicer to me at school now that I’m BFF with Mads. Now I’m popular. I can get people things.”
“By stealing from tenants?” So it had been Bailey coming into Lucas’s suite, not Russ. Not Mimi. One of these little bitches lathered me up in my sleep, probably Madison with her long purple nails, who equated a manicure with honoring the dead. She likely told Lucas afterward, as if it were a twisted day at the spa with her future “auntie sister-in-law,” or maybe she framed it as a friendly, caring gesture, like she’d given me a makeover that would win over all the boys, hoping my brother would stop looking so queasy when she sucked on his chest. “Listen, Bailey, I know what it’s like. I wasn’t very popular in high school either, but then I left Wayoata and saw that there’s a whole world out there and none of this high school nonsense matters.”
“Oh, OK. Guess I’ll just let you go, then. I’m sure you’ll just let me come and live with you in Chi-ca-go.” She overenunciated “Chicago,” let the syllables ricochet around the room like a spray of bullets. “Do you think I’m retarded like your mom?”
“Bailey, think about it. Do you really want to live in the room next to a girl who killed her own sister? Who’s letting her brother take the blame for it?”
“Madison didn’t kill Joanna. We did it together.” She held her arm out. The bracelet was back and tied so tight it carved a little valley in her chubby wrist. “See this? I took some of her hair that day and made these. One for me, one for Madison. We’re, like, binded forever now. We did it together. And Ben’ll be fine. He really will.” Then she added airily, giving me a little-darling smile, “He likes the simple things in life. All it took was a pair of sneakers to get him to drive as far as he could to use Mr. Haas’s bank card.” And here I pictured the hot pulses of the Taser, the drag of a hunting knife, the glint of Madison’s teeth as she clamped down on his skin, making Lucas spill out his PIN number. “Of course the idiot goes to where his grandparents live to do it. I don’t care. Ben’ll probably even enjoy prison, surrounded by all those dudes. Far away from Mommy, who won’t let him be a guuurrrl.” Another haw-haw laugh. “Don’t worry, we’ll smuggle in some lipstick for him.”
“But why? Why did you and Madison kill Joanna?” I needed to keep her talking. The pain in my side was getting worse, sharper, like acidic bile was gathering inside the wound. My mouth was going cold and numb, and I didn’t know how long I could keep this conversation going. Behind my back, my hands were scrambling for something. I picked up a short, rusty nail. Fucking great, so I could kill her by tetanus poisoning eight days from now.
“We didn’t mean to kill her! Madison just wanted to give her a bad haircut because she was so stuck up. She was always, like, flicking her hair, acting like it was so precious.” Bailey mimicked the act with her own thin, greasy hair. “We told her Abby wanted to meet her, and then I was just supposed to knock her out, and she’d, like, pass out, and Madison’d, like, hack it off. Joanna was supposed to wake up in Dickson Park all half bald. She’d prolly have amnesia, and have no idea what happened. I had to hit her hard enough for the amnesia.” Something, maybe a wisp of regret, passed over her face. Obviously she’d had this amusing slapstick head bop in mind, like cartoon birds were going to turn up and encircle Joanna’s head as Madison cut her hair off.
“But she was strangled. So it wasn’t an accident.”
She rolled her eyes, angry that I’d pointed out this minor indiscretion. “She woke up halfway through. She was mad and started yelling at Madison. Calling her all these shitty names, saying she was gonna tell on her, so Madison had to shut her up. It’s so stupid how everyone thinks Joanna is all great now that she’s dead. You know what? Joanna deserved it. She was not friendly. Not friendly at all. She thought she was gonna be this huge star in New York and made sure everyone was so impressed by her. Then she starts going after Madison’s man? Like, seriously? Joanna knew Mr. Haas was off-limits.” Mr. Haas—she retained this formality, this respect. Had they called him Mr. Haas the entire time? “Even after Madison tried, tried, like, really hard to give her a chance, to humble her before, y’know? Joanna still walked around like she was the shit.”
Humble her. Madison had set the hockey players on her own sister. “Uh-oh, SpaghettiOs?” It just came out, like a question.
Bailey nearly doubled over with laughter, the knife wagging back and forth against her leg. I hoped she might drop it, that I might even be able to kick it out of her hand. “Hilarious,” she heaved. Cheeks pink.
“So what does Madison think? That she and Lucas are gonna go off and get married? Have kids, live happily ever after? Because you have to know that’s not going to happen.”
“Maybe, maybe not. But they’ll always have apartment 1B, won’t they? And at the end of the day, Madison won. She got the guy. Not Joanna. For once, not Joanna, who had everything. Anyway I’ve gotta go.” Bailey came down on me, and I kicked and clawed, lost the nail, but her knife just kept coming, slicing up my hands as I grabbed at the blade, at my arms, into my legs as I tried to draw into the fetal position, and then again into my stomach, and I went still. I couldn’t move; I felt pinned to the ground. My lungs were twisting. Bailey stood over me, a black silhouette. Slowly, she drew the knife out and watched me, her head cocked as I emitted these strange, jagged rasps. I was either getting some air back or taking my final breaths.
She tapped her foot against my leg, and I didn’t move. Just play dead, I thought. Then I realized that I couldn’t tell if I was playing dead or actually dying. Finally, she turned and left. Switched the light off.
I needed to get up or I was going to bleed out in this mossy room. I was going to die in here. The girls would make it look like I just gave up and went back to Chicago. No one would even look for me for weeks. And Lucas would be chained up like a dog, dry-humped for who knew how many days, until he starved to death. Until Madison grew sated and bored? No. No way. I am not letting two fourteen-year-old psycho bitches kill us. No. My eyes slowly adjusted to the dark; all the little red lights on the various tanks were like runway beacons. I got up onto my knees, and realized that I should be in more pain than I was, then thought of the handful of Percocet I took how many hours ago. It was still in my system. (Thank God for a pill addiction.)
I tried to stand and slipped in my own blood; my arm shot from under me and landed on something under the hot-water tank. I dragged it out. A giant wrench, at least the length of my arm. I used it to stand up, like a cane. Its curved end wobbled. I could hardly pick it up, and so I saved my strength and dragged it behind me as I lurched forward, serial-killer style. It scraped against the concrete floor, but I knew they wouldn’t be able to hear me over the music. As I opened the door, the hallway light crashed into my eyes and wooziness hit me. I nearly toppled over in the doorway. I spit out a gob of blood.
A few more steps to 1B. I knocked on the door hard, with the wrench handle. A shadow passed over the peephole, and I could hear Madison say, “It’s her, Bailey. Good fucking job.”
Somehow, I lifted the wrench, held it up like a baseball bat. My pulse accelerated, and I could feel my blood jetting out even faster. My body started to sway, my vision rippled. Bailey swung open the door, and I smashed the wrench into her face. She staggered back; blood sprayed from her nose like a fine mist as she fell back into the small closet next to the door.
Madison, who was behind Bailey, started backing up. She bumped into the bed. Then onto the bed. Scrambled over Lucas, to the far side of his legs. I brought the wrench up, walked the length of the bed toward her.
“No, please don’t. I’m just s
o mixed up, Mia. I don’t know what I’m doing. I need help. My mom … she just loved Joanna so much more than me. They were going to leave me behind. Remember the things we talked about when I slept over? It was a cry for help. Taking those pills, a cry for help. I need help.”
I could see her hand inching toward her bag still on the bed, the stun gun. I brought the wrench down on her arm, and it cracked like a bird’s wing. Her purse went skittering across the room. She screamed and writhed around at the foot of the bed, the clot of sheets fell off and onto a trio of candles. The sheets went up in flames, as if doused in gasoline, and I thought of the stink of cologne. They’d been dousing Lucas, the sheets, the bed, in cologne.
I staggered toward Lucas; any second, that mattress was going to catch. My hands were on the dog collar, unhooking the metal buckle, when I felt two arms wrap around my abdomen, squeeze. White-hot searing pain as I was wrung out like a dishcloth, blood drained. Half lifted up, my feet scrambling.
Bailey screamed, her voice thick and nasal, “Got her, Mads.”
“Hurry up,” Madison whined.
I struggled to find my footing as I was dragged backward and then thrown forward to the ground, my chin cutting against the tile. Bailey was on my back now, grunting. She grabbed me by the hair and started smashing my face into the floor. One, two, three dull smacks, like trying to break open a cantaloupe. My nose flattened back up into my skull. I couldn’t breathe, more blood, so much blood. I was being dunked into a puddle of it.
“Fucking kill her, Bailey!” Madison’s shrill voice cut through the air, like she was cheering on the quarterback at a football game.
I saw the stun gun under the bed. I twisted my body and swung my arm up wildly toward her face. I felt my stomach rip and let out a howl. My elbow connected with her already gushing nose. She fell back, taking some of my hair with her.
I started to crawl toward the stun gun, my fingers just grasping it as Bailey snatched at my neck. I flipped onto my back, pressed it against her neck, and pulled the trigger. She toppled down onto me. I felt all the air go out of my lungs. God, this girl was heavy. It took several attempts to roll her off.
I struggled to get to my feet. My muscles were seizing, something was clicking loose. I stumbled forward onto the bed, finished unhooking my brother. Stood, then sunk onto the floor. My body was giving out. Lucas rolled off the bed and started shuffling toward me, his feet still bound. He nodded toward the door. Let’s go. He tried to reach out behind his back and grab my hands in an attempt to drag me, trailer-hitch like. The mattress was on fire now too. The whole room was hot, so hot.
Madison jumped out of the flames and onto Lucas’s back, letting out some primordial growl. “You fucker. Where do you think you’re going?”
Lucas twisted forward, his neck corded; he snapped his head back into hers. Hard and fast, and Madison flung backward, hair whirling like a doll.
And then the room, the spinning, smoky room started to shrink down into a pinhole. I heard Lucas talking, the sound of his voice through the duct tape, but could not make out what he was saying. I felt a hand on my ankle.
A faraway sound of voices. Someone was saying my name over and over. Madison wailed little-girl hiccups of panic. “Help, help. He raped me.”
Then nothing.
27
DAY 16
THURSDAY
I woke up to a crackling jumble of senses: a bed, gauze, that antiseptic smell, and whatever was being fed through my IV. Lucas was there, sitting next to my bed, watching a muted baseball game on a TV someone had rolled in.
We were safe.
I tried to say something, but my voice was garbled, my throat sticky.
He heard me anyway. Stood, let the remote fall off his knee, and hobbled over. “Hey, sis.” He held up a mug of water and aimed the straw at my mouth. The ice water prickled down like shards of glass. My nose was packed with gauze, and I immediately started coughing. My abdomen felt like it was tearing.
“Hey, hey, take slow sips. Whoa, slow down, you bruiser. You’ve been out for three days. Don’t try to move.” I smiled at “bruiser.”
“You OK?” My voice was a nasally slur, but Lucas understood.
“Yeah. I’m fine. Don’t even worry about me, I was just really dehydrated and had some minor burns. My ankles were infected, but I’m taking antibiotics and they’re working. I’m good. You, on the other hand … fuck, Mia.” His eyes went watery; his face crumpled. “I don’t know what I would have done if I’d lost you. I don’t.” He shook his head back and forth fiercely, as if trying to dislodge the thought of it.
“They would have killed us both.” They would have had to eventually kill Lucas too. That little arrangement couldn’t have lasted much longer, and it wasn’t like they would have just let him go.
He tipped his head back to the ceiling, palmed his eyes. He looked wrecked. “I know. You saved my life.”
“Don’t cry. You’ll make me cry, and that will really hurt.” I could feel hot tears rolling down toward my ears, and the first tremors of full-out sobs budding in my flayed midsection, threatening to tear me open again. I tried to reach up, hold his face, this face I’d been searching for, but the movement brought a tidal wave of agony. It felt like three hundred pounds had just been set down on my chest.
“I should go get a doctor.”
“No, not yet. Just talk to me first.” He started to say no, but I cut him off, “Please?”
“Only for a few minutes, OK? But stay still. I won’t cry if you promise not to move.” His bottom lip stiffened. His hand hovered above my face, like he was looking for an undamaged spot to stroke, then settled for tucking my hair behind my ear.
“Promise.” He was thinner, the shine in his blue eyes subdued. Clean-shaven. I hadn’t seen his face so hairless in years. I caught glimpses of him at twelve years old, which was probably the last time I’d seen him cry (that’s the thing with siblings—you never stop seeing the children you once were floating beneath your grown-up faces). “Thank goodness the flames missed your face.” A jab at his vanity.
He patted his smooth cheeks. “I know. This could be even more tragic.” He laughed, but it was a forced, hollow chuckle. We stared dumbly at each other for a few seconds.
“The last thing I remember was the bed catching fire, so what happened?”
Lucas pulled his chair in even closer, a miserable-looking scuffle and drag, tugged his gown to make sure nothing was showing, and sat down. “We got out just in time. The whole suite went up, and the fire spread to the first and second floors. The entire building had to be evacuated.” I wondered if that had cured the agoraphobe or if she was still there, smoke-blackened, stroking all her ashy gray cats.
“How did the cops know where we were?”
“My caretaker, Russ, told them. The second he woke up, he told a nurse I was in a vacant basement suite. I guess he’d finally noticed his daughter was acting secretive and hanging out a lot in the basement, and decided to have a look-see. Stellar parenting there. When he tried to confront his daughter, I could hear them in the stairwell. She attacked him with her Taser and hit him in the head with a hammer. After Russ saw me and didn’t come back … I thought I was done. The girls were starting to panic. I don’t know how much longer I would have had, Mia. Even before Russ showed, I think they were getting bored with me and starting to decide I wasn’t worth the trouble.”
“Bailey? Madison?” Suddenly I pictured Madison at the station, nibbling a frosty donut and sipping a chocolate milk as she gave her statement about Lucas kidnapping her, while some social worker nodded enthusiastically, believing every word.
“Alive. Both of them have been arrested. They’re facing a number of charges: murder, breaking and entering, assault, forcible confinement, the list goes on. I can’t believe anyone could hate her sister that much. I don’t know how much time Madison will serve, though. Her lawyer is already tossing around terms like ‘intermittent explosive disorder’ and claiming she isn’t crimina
lly responsible. Your cop friend, Garrett, told me that Bailey could be bumped up to an adult court because she’s fifteen years old. Do you know that girl wasn’t even in any of my classes?” Lucas shook his head. “I only knew her from around the block. I’d say hi, but I hardly noticed her.”
Bailey. All she wanted was to be noticed. I could see her in an interrogation room, pleased that she could finally hold people’s interest. She’d be coy about her answers, not wanting it to end. “You’ve been cleared of all charges?”
“Yes. Thank God. Mia, I really can’t tell you … you went to hell and back for me. I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for you. If you hadn’t believed in me.” His voice went thick, he gently squeezed my hand without the IV. Tried to laugh because he didn’t want to cry. “And now you look like hell.”
I gave him a scrappy grin. “Thanks, and yet all this gauze makes me feel so pretty. At least one of our faces was spared. Of course I had your back, Lucas. Always. Plus I’m the only one allowed to be MIA.”
“I am glad you weren’t though—MIA.”
“I didn’t want to believe it. I knew you wouldn’t have a relationship with a student, but then I found the hair and the journal. Still, I knew it was impossible for you to ever kill anyone. How did this happen? Tell me everything.”
Lucas took a deep breath, blew out. His lips looked painfully chapped. “I saw an entry in Joanna’s journal about a lake house, and something just went off in my head.” He snapped his fingers. “I drove out there one day, and I knew I’d been there before. It helped too that Mimi drew a friggin’ picture of it. Anyway, I didn’t do anything about it at first, but it just sat there, nagging at me, and then I would get so angry that we’d been paying for Mimi’s care, that I’m in debt because of it, that I tried to make more money gambling, and I knew you were paying for more than half. I know you tried to hide it, but I knew, and it made me feel like shit. And this whole time we could be related to the family who owns the Harold’s chain.”