by Hannah Jayne
Riley’s heart slammed. Stepping over the threshold into the house—her own house—seemed like an admission of something, a willingness to acknowledge that from that moment on, her life would never be the same.
Both her parents flanked her, ushering her into the room. She settled in the easy chair, her parents settling on either side of her. The birth certificate—Jane Elizabeth O’Leary’s birth certificate—lay on the coffee table in the center of the room, in the center of everyone, but nobody acknowledged it.
“Riley, this birth certificate you found is yours. Your mother and I are your parents. Your real name is Jane Elizabeth O’Leary. Our real names are Seamus and Abigail.”
There was a brief pause; Riley assumed it was to let her absorb what she already knew.
“So why am I Riley? Why are you Glen and Nadine?” Her eyes skidded over the birth certificate. “Why are you just telling me this now?”
“Fourteen years ago—back when you were still Jane, we lived just outside of Granite Cay.”
Riley shrugged, her hands clasped in her lap. “OK, so?”
“There’s a large Irish community there. You’re Irish.” Her mother’s cheeks pinkened. “We’re all Irish—the three of us. Your father was a woodworker. He made beautiful furniture. It’s what his father did and his father before him back in Cork.”
“Ry, I worked for a man who ran a large import-export business. He did remarkably well and was well-known in the American-Irish community as well as in communities back home. Families sent their children—kids about your age, maybe a little older—out to Alistair Foley. He gave them jobs, let them earn some money and learn a trade.” Riley’s father’s eyes darkened. “At least that was what he said he was doing.”
“Your father found out that Alistair was bringing kids in, but he wasn’t letting them go back.”
He nodded. “Right. At first we thought he was just making the kids he brought over work in the furniture store for free. That’s what he said; that they worked for free, at first, to pay off his ‘investment’ in them. He paid their airfare over, the kids’ living expenses while they were here, clothing, food. It seemed reasonable. The kids didn’t complain.”
Riley’s mother cleared her throat then shifted her weight on the couch. “But these kids were never able to pay off their debt. In a sense, Alistair owned them. He brought them into this country as his nieces and nephews and then he exploited them.”
Riley cut her eyes to her mother then back to her dad. “So that’s why we moved away? That’s why you changed my name? So your boss wouldn’t make me work for free? That’s—” She wanted to say it was dumb. It was ridiculous to be afraid of your boss. But one look at the consternation and fear on her parents’ faces let Riley know that there was more—so much more.
“Alistair was trafficking in kids and young adults. He made money off them and threatened them if they ever told or tried to escape. He forced them to do illegal things and—he hurt them, Ry. Sometimes—sometimes the kids would just disappear. He’d say a kid that disappeared got a great new job somewhere or that he went back home.”
Riley’s mother crossed herself. “But they never made it home. Your father uncovered this, honey.”
“I didn’t have proof initially. At least not enough that could convict Alistair. But I brought it to the police anyway. I thought I did it without Alistair’s knowledge, but things got out of hand.” Glen pressed his palms against his thighs, and Riley could see that there was a slight tremble in his fingers. It made her nervous. “Alistair had his hands in a lot of pots.”
“The police promised they would take him down.”
Riley gulped. “Did you have to do some kind of sting operation, Dad?”
Glen chuckled. “Nothing so exciting. I knew Alistair was laundering his trafficking money through the furniture store. I was able to get proof that he was embezzling, cooking the books, but still not enough for the trafficking conviction.” He shrugged. “Most of the kids were too scared to talk.”
“So he’s just free? We’re hiding and he’s free?”
Riley’s mother shook her head. “They were able to make some of the embezzling charges stick. But that only gave him a short time in prison.”
“Long enough for us to get most of the kids somewhere safe.”
“Most of them?”
“Alistair had a lot of people working under him, turnip. Even some in the police department.”
Riley felt the dread well up inside her. She shook her head.
“No, no, I don’t believe this. This is crazy. Are you trying to teach me a lesson or something? So I’ll call you every time I—”
“I know it sounds crazy, Ry. And believe me, your mom and I hardly believed it ourselves.”
“Once they had enough evidence, they took Alistair into custody. Your father was a key witness.”
Riley brightened. “Yay, Dad. So you took down the bad guy.”
Her parents exchanged an uncomfortable look. “Sort of. But not everyone was happy. We got death threats.” Her mother drew a hand through Riley’s hair.
“But it’s over, right?”
“Alistair came to see me after he was released. He told me that since I had taken his children, he was going to take mine.”
Her mother was holding back tears. “We wouldn’t even take a chance of that happening, Ry.”
“But couldn’t you just pay him off or get him back in jail?”
“Even if we had the kind of money Alistair was used to making, it wouldn’t have been any help. He didn’t want money. He wanted revenge. He wanted you.”
Her mother looked away. “He came for you one night.”
“Alistair?”
“Alistair’s men. Or the men above Alistair, we never knew. I was working then. I used to be a librarian. I went to work that night and you stayed home with your father.”
“You liked my impressions then.” Riley’s dad’s smile was wistful. Then he swallowed slowly, his neck corded and strained. “They came that night. Pounded down the door. They were like animals. There wasn’t time to get out. I locked you in the closet.” He hung his head. “I’m so sorry, Ry.”
Riley felt her eyes widen. “The nightmares. The claustrophobia.” Her lower lip started to tremble. “I remember. It was you.” Her vision darkened and she was back in her nightmare, back in that closet, straining to see through those slats. She heard the thud. It was her father’s body on the ground. The acrid smell of blood… Riley doubled over, heaving.
“I’m so sorry, Daddy.”
“They left your father for dead. We contacted the police and left that night. We left everything behind. We stayed in a hotel until the authorities could get us situated with new identities, new jobs—new lives. You were Riley Allen. We were the Spencers. The O’Learys didn’t exist anymore.” Riley’s mother splayed her hand on her chest, her eyes brimming with tears. “We didn’t exist anymore.”
“So, you had to rename me?”
Riley’s mother shook her head. “We didn’t have a choice.”
“The Witness Protection Program gave our family new names, new identities, new birth certificates, social security numbers—everything. But the identities you assume with the program are real people. Or they were.”
Her mother put in, “Riley Allen Spencer was a baby boy. He was born on your birthday—at least the one we’ve been celebrating for the last thirteen years.”
Riley stood up and then sat down again, feeling the intense need to hyperventilate—or possibly pass out. She could see the worry in her mother’s eyes.
“Are you OK, hon?”
Riley nodded. The action was rote; she wasn’t sure if she’d ever be OK again.
“I need to get to school.” She stood, her parents jumping up on either side of her.
“Actually, Ry, you don’t need to go to schoo
l today,” her father told her. “You’re already so late.”
“Your father is right. It’s probably better that you don’t.” Her eyes went over Riley’s head and locked on Riley’s father’s. Riley was beginning to hate those looks—her parents exchanging them when they thought she wasn’t looking, over her head. They may have told her the truth, but all these silent conversations let Riley know that what she was told was just the tip of the iceberg.
“Why don’t you change into your sweats? I can make you a grilled cheese,” her mother said. “You love grilled cheese when you’re sick.”
“I’m not sick. I’m going to school.” Riley shook her head. “I want to. I want to—to process this.”
I know who I am at school.
Riley’s mother wrung her hands in front of her.
“Maybe Riley being around her friends—having a normal day—would be better for her. It’s not like there has been a breach of security.”
More silent conversation. Riley watched her father suck in a deep breath before he turned to her, his eyes clouded and locking on hers.
“You cannot mention this to anyone, Riley. It is incredibly important that you go to school today and act as if nothing—none of this, none of us”—he spread out his arm, indicating the whole room—“ever happened.”
Riley’s throat itched. She stood, grabbed her backpack, and hiked it up on her shoulder. “Like this never happened,” she repeated. “Sure.”
• • •
Classes had already started when Riley’s father let her out in front of Hawthorne High. She turned, watching him drive away, watching his taillights fade into the distance before turning back to the sprawling school buildings. Without students milling about out front, their cars thudding with sound as they pulled into the lot, the school seemed ominous—although really, nothing about it had changed.
Nobody questioned Riley when she picked up her late pass. She walked down the silent hall, each step making her heart beat a little more smoothly, making her breath come a little more normally. My school, Riley thought. I belong here. I’m Riley Allen Spencer and I’m a Hawthorne Hornet and I’m a junior. I’m not Jane Elizabeth O’Leary. I don’t know who Jane Elizabeth O’Leary even is. She doesn’t even exist.
“Miss Spencer, so nice of you to join us.” Mrs. Halloran greeted every late student the same way, and it was comforting to Riley. She went through the expected rush of heat on her cheeks and took her seat, letting Shelby hiss to her what she had missed.
“A total snoregasm,” Shelby said. “And where were you yesterday? I called you a thousand times!”
Riley opened her mouth but Halloran cut in with a sharp look. Shelby looked away for a half second before hissing, “And by the way? You’re just in time for a freaking pop quiz.”
“Thank you for catching Miss Spencer up, Miss Webber,” Mrs. Halloran said as she came down the aisle, sliding Riley’s test paper onto her desk. Riley swallowed, feeling the butterfly wings start to flutter in her belly.
This is good, she thought. This is normal. I always get butterflies before a test.
Nothing happened at home. Nothing happened. Everything is regular.
Riley poised her pencil over the paper, her eyes skimming over the subject matter. Red Badge of Courage. OK, OK, I totally know this.
For the first time this morning, a smile broke across her lips. She zipped down the page, penciling in answers, glad they weren’t buried in her brain under every question she had about her parents, about Jane. Then she went back to the top of the page and stopped. Top line. Top question: NAME.
The word throbbed on the page. Riley looked around. Every other student was writing, heads bent, pencils scratching.
Because they knew who they were.
The thought sickened—and terrified—her.
“Is there something wrong, Riley?”
Mrs. Halloran’s eyes were on her, but Riley couldn’t force her mouth to move. She shook her head and wrote the words—the name Riley Spencer.
If she wasn’t anybody, she thought, she could be anyone.
But the name swam in front of her eyes. Her blood was pulsing again, this time through her ears and behind her eyes. She raised her hand.
“Mrs. Halloran? Can I be excused? I don’t feel so well.”
Shelby swung her head and grimaced. “You don’t look so good.”
Riley leaned over. “I feel horrible.”
“Are you ever going to tell me what happened?”
Mrs. Halloran strode down the aisle and handed Riley a pink hall pass. “Riley, you can go to the nurse. Shelby, you can get back to work.”
Riley felt dizzy and queasy the second she stood up. She edged her way out of the classroom, trying to remind herself how to walk. She picked up speed as she went down the hallway. When she got to the door of the nurse’s office, she stopped then abruptly turned around.
She pushed through the double doors outside the commons, letting the cool mist of the morning air break over her. She doubled over, huffing huge gulps, hoping that the excess oxygen would clear the gray blur from her head or, at the very least, wake her up.
No such luck.
Riley straightened, her eyes zeroing in on the visitors parking lot where a car was parked dead center. It was a dark blue sedan—nothing special, nothing sinister—and a man was sitting behind the wheel.
Riley’s heart started to thud. The air that she sucked in was zapped from her lungs. She squinted. Was the driver looking at her too?
No.
She was paranoid. The guy was probably someone’s dad, waiting for his kid to come out after being suspended or barfing in the biology lab.
He wasn’t a police officer, a detective, a criminal. He wasn’t one of “them.”
No one knew who she was.
Her pulse throbbed. Except for the man from last night. She shuddered. The man who didn’t exist.
She pressed herself against the doors, relishing the cold of the glass as it seeped through her T-shirt. It grounded her.
“I’m going crazy,” Riley muttered to herself.
She zipped her hoodie up to her neck and cut across the commons. When she heard the rev of a car engine, she forced herself not to look back, not to check if the blue sedan pulled out. She didn’t have a plan other than to move. Walk. Push one foot in front of the other. That was what she was concentrating on when the blue sedan pulled up right beside her.
ELEVEN
The sedan slowed to match Riley’s pace, and Riley’s mind went into hyperdrive. Stop. Run. Turn around.
“Riley Spencer?” The driver of the sedan leaned against his door toward her, his face shadowed by the sunlight breaking through the windshield.
Riley’s heart lodged in her throat. It wasn’t the man from the previous night.
It was Tim.
“I just want to talk to you.”
Riley slowed but sidestepped further away from the car.
“I know who you really are, Jane, and your parents are lying to you. They’re trying to brainwash you. I know because they did it to me.”
Riley’s parents’ words rolled through her head, searing like hot lava.
“They were forcing kids to work. They got caught. My stepdad, Alistair—”
Electricity bolted through Riley, and her head snapped toward Tim.
“Do you remember Alistair Foley, Jane? He blew the whistle. Come on, we need to—”
Tim reached out the window, his clawed fingertips brushing Riley’s arm as she snapped it away.
Immediately, her body took over. Her saliva soured and adrenaline shot through her system. Suddenly, her thighs were burning. Heart thundering. Eyes watering.
She was running.
It could have been her own scream or the screech of the blue sedan’s tires. Whatever it was, it tore through
her skull and blanketed out every other thing around her. All Riley knew was that the sidewalk was ending and the car next to her was chewing up the street. The car turned in front of her but the adrenaline coursing through her veins was still vaulting her forward. She jumped, the pads of her fingers digging into the hood of the car. The door kicked open and the driver was out as Riley scrambled over the hood. He lunged for her, his fingers lacing through her hair as it trailed behind her. She felt the sting of the pull, heard the strands as they tore out, burning her scalp.
She winced. Her feet hit the ground and another car screeched to a stop in front of her.
“Get in.”
Riley’s heart stopped when her feet did.
“Get in!” JD repeated, yanking her arm.
Somehow, she opened the door. Somehow, she sat down.
“Wha—how did you know?” Riley managed as JD slammed on the gas.
“Lucky guess,” he said, jaw set hard.
Riley slammed back in her seat and fumbled for her seat belt, her eyes checking the rearview mirror, catching the sedan behind them. The driver was staring straight forward. There was a deep frown cut into his face, and though his eyes were hidden behind dark glasses, Riley was sure they were boring through JD’s back windshield, trying to cut through her.
“He’s following us! What are we going to do?”
JD didn’t answer; he just drove. He cut across streets and turned down ones Riley didn’t even know existed. Within moments, the blue sedan dropped out of view.
Once they were going at a normal pace—obeying traffic laws and stop signs—JD turned to her. “Are you going to tell me what that was about?” His words were clipped, voice tinged with exasperation.
Riley was still struggling to breathe. She clamped a hand over her mouth, fairly certain her heart would pop out if she tried to speak. She looked at JD and tried to force her shoulders to shrug, but she was completely disconnected. She expected JD to grumble at her or kick her out of his car. Instead, he reached into the backseat and handed her a semi-warm water bottle.