by Hannah Jayne
“Sorry,” she breathed.
The adults went back to staring at each other around the dining table, and Riley went back to poking at the spaghetti on her plate. It was cold, and the cheese had congealed with everything else, so each time she stabbed a fork into it, the whole thing moved together.
“I’d like to get you out as soon as possible,” Deputy Hempstead said. “There hasn’t been a breach in security as far as we can tell, but I’m not in the business of sitting around and waiting for things to happen.”
“How long?” her mother asked.
“End of the week at the latest.”
Her father nodded and poked at his dinner. “Yeah, I think that’s advisable.”
“We’ve already alerted the FBI and they’re actively searching for new identities for each of you.”
Riley’s head snapped up, her fork clattering to her plate. “What?”
“Our location and our identities have possibly been discovered, Ry. We’re going to have to change them.”
Riley felt her mouth drop open. “You mean move?”
Her mother forced a smile. “A new life. A new life! I won’t have to deal with flu season after all.”
Riley felt her mouth drop open. “Dad—Mom, you studied so hard to become a nurse. You can’t just leave! You can’t just leave in the middle of the school year. The kids are going to wonder what happened to you. Dad, you can’t let this happen! Mom worked so hard.” Her heart was beating hard, the few bites of pasta that she had eaten sitting like a cold, hard fist in her gut. “Tell them, Dad.”
Her father’s fake smile mirrored her mother. “Who knows? Maybe our new house will have a swimming pool.”
“A swimming pool is supposed to make up for you dragging me out of my life? I don’t want to move. I don’t want to run away. I don’t want to be someone else!”
“Riley—”
“How do we even know they care about us anymore? They’ve probably moved on or at least forgotten and don’t care about us.”
Her father pressed his lips together, the muscle in his jaw jumping. “That’s not how it works, Riley. These kinds of people don’t just forget things.”
Riley could feel the sting of tears behind her eyes. She felt them break over her cheeks too, but by that time, she didn’t care. She would have to leave. She would have to leave Shelby and JD and school.
“I’m not leaving,” Riley said, standing. “You can’t make me go. I’ll stay here. I’ll stay with Shelby’s family.”
“Even if that were possible, Ry, if you were to stay, we couldn’t ever contact each other.”
The realization hit Riley like a fist in the gut. “Ever?”
“We can’t have any links. We can’t have any ties from this life that could be traced. Which means, when we go—”
Riley’s cell phone started to blare again and she instinctively went to at least pick it up, but her dad pinned her with a look. “Not now.”
“But it’s just Shelby.”
The deputy stared her down. “Your dad is right. You should probably give me your phone.”
Gail broke in. “Do you have accounts on social networking sites?”
Riley looked from her mother to her father, hoping that one of them would jump in.
“Everyone’s online,” she said slowly, licking her lips.
“We’ll have someone delete your pages.”
“What? Why?”
Hempstead’s cell phone went next, a curt, conventional ring. His conversation was just as curt and conventional. Riley strained to hear, but his side was mostly “uh-huhs” and “yeses.”
“The FBI has secured new identities and a new residence for you.” He smiled as though he were telling the family something positive. Riley gaped, expecting her parents to jump up, to protest, to say they appreciated it, but everything was going to be just fine.
No one did.
Riley launched herself off her chair. “So that’s it, we’re moving? I have to give up my cell phone and my Tumblr and everything and we’re moving? Where? Why? Nothing happened. You said that there isn’t any threat.”
“I said there hasn’t been any threat yet. That doesn’t mean that there won’t be.”
Her father stood up. “Riley—” He reached out for her, but she dodged his arm, feeling hot tears pricking behind her eyes. She looked up at him, anger coloring her cheeks.
“Didn’t you even think about us? Your family?” The tears started to fall, hot and heavy. “I don’t want to move. I don’t want to run away or be someone else again. I want to be normal and do normal things!” Her voice was getting high and sharp. No one ever yelled in their house, but Riley didn’t care. “I’m not going to move. I didn’t ask for any of this!”
Riley’s mother stepped in, the set of her jaw stern. “None of us did, Riley. There wasn’t any choice.”
Riley’s breath was coming in short bursts that pushed against her chest. “You could have chosen not to lie to me.”
Her father took a steadying breath. “You didn’t know any different. We thought it would be easier—and safer—for you.”
“But my life—you ruined my life! I can’t do anything. I can’t go out for cheerleading—”
“And your father and I can’t see or talk to our family. It’s been hard on all of us, Ry. We had to leave our home and nearly everything in it in the middle of the night. We could only take what we could carry. I wasn’t supposed to take the birth certificate.” Her voice broke on the last words. “I shouldn’t have. We were the Spencers from California. Your father ran a print shop. I was a stay-at-home mom and you were Riley Allen Spencer.” Riley’s mother gave Riley a half smile as tears rolled down her cheeks.
“And I wasn’t named after your friend or your family. I was named after a dead baby.” A sob broke in Riley’s chest. “And now you’re going to make me do it again.”
“If there was any other way, turnip…”
Riley felt herself flinch. Even her father’s pet name for her—usually so reassuring, annoying but reassuring—sounded wrong. Did the FBI tell him to call her that? Is that what the real Riley Allen was called? She shuddered, the tears coming harder.
“I’m sorry, Ry-Pie.”
The adults moved around the room doing things Riley couldn’t focus on. She sat there, silent, pressing her thin shoulders back against the cool wood of the high-backed dining room chair. Shelby called three more times; Riley only knew because she switched the phone to vibrate and shoved it under her leg as she sat, staring. Eventually, her mother came and patted her on the back, saying something in the soothing voice she used when Riley was sick. Riley let her heap some more spaghetti onto her plate. She eyed her father, and he offered a small smile then went back to eating. She wanted to look away from him but couldn’t tear her eyes away. She stared at his bent head as he ate.
Riley’s cell phone went again, this time thudding wildly as it flopped onto the ground.
“Sorry,” she breathed. She glanced down at the readout, her eyebrows going up. It wasn’t Shelby this time; it was JD. Riley looked around the table and knew she didn’t dare answer.
Deputy Hempstead carefully set down his knife and fork, lacing his fingers together. “Your service is going off tomorrow. I’m sorry, Ry, but it’s safer this way.”
“And one day I’ll understand,” Riley muttered under her breath.
“What was that?”
“Right. Cell service off tomorrow. Can I at least tell my friends they can call the house or is that taboo too?”
The muscle in her father’s jaw jumped and Riley knew the answer.
“So that service is going off too. What am I supposed to tell my friends?”
“You’re not going to tell them anything, Ry.” Her father’s eyes were dark and fierce, and Riley felt her heartbeat speed up. “Unde
rstand?”
She didn’t but nodded anyway.
“I won’t be your handler at your new location,” Deputy Hempstead said.
Riley stared at her spaghetti. “It doesn’t matter. I’m not moving.”
Gail cleared her throat and put her hand on Riley’s. “Jane—”
Riley snapped. “Don’t call me that! I’m not Jane—I’ve never been Jane! My name is Riley.”
“Calm down, Riley.” Her father was standing, his cheeks flushed. He, more than anyone Riley knew, hated confrontation. “It’s going to be OK.”
“I know this can’t be easy, Riley”—Gail carefully enunciated her name—“but you really don’t have a choice. You’ll make new friends—”
Anger bubbled under Riley’s skin. “This is not about my friends, Gail, this is about my life.”
“Riley Allen Spencer! Gail is a guest in our home. You will not speak to her like that.” Her father’s eyes were sharp, his nostrils slightly flared.
A tense silence filled the room.
“Why don’t you go up to your room and get a few things together?” Riley’s mother may have been talking to her, but she didn’t look up from her plate.
Riley stomped up the stairs and slammed her bedroom door. She flopped on the floor and yanked out her laptop, staring at the throbbing cursor on the search engine bar.
She started this.
She could finish it.
Before she could consider how she was going to finish the ordeal, her phone blasted again.
“My God,” Riley grumbled. “Shel?”
“Uh, no, it’s JD. I take it you haven’t seen the news.”
Riley pulled her hand over her face, thumbing away the last of her tears. “That’s a weird hello.”
“Turn on the TV, Ry. Channel eight.”
“Fine.” Riley cradled the phone against her shoulder and flicked on the television. The smiling, perfectly coifed anchor people grinned out at her. “What am I supposed to be looking at? I kind of don’t care if it’s supposed to rain tomorrow—”
The anchor woman’s smooth expression immediately dropped into one of practiced sympathy, and the little Hawthorne High Hornet icon filled a box over her right shoulder.
“A Hawthorne High student was the victim of a hit-and-run today at the intersection of West and Falia. The car, described as a late model dark-colored sedan, was traveling east when it struck the female student.” The anchorwoman looked down at her papers but Riley already knew the name she was going to say. “Junior Shelby Webber is in critical condition.”
The picture switched to a uniformed officer standing behind a podium, a doctor to his left as they somberly restated the facts—an unidentified sedan, high rate of speed, victim in critical condition.
Riley sucked in a breath. “Oh my God.”
The officer kept talking, blathering about a number to call if you had any additional information while the picture changed again. This time it was the intersection at West and Falia—just a few blocks from where JD had picked up Riley hours earlier. Riley’s chest tightened as she saw students and teachers huddled behind a yellow-taped police line, but it was what was in the intersection, strewn like forgotten garbage, that made the bile rush up the back of her throat: the crushed bumper of the blue sedan, the red smear of blood on the concrete, and Riley’s backpack, the color sullied from a drag across the street.
Riley didn’t remember dropping the phone or slamming the television off. She didn’t remember anything as she bent over the toilet, retching.
Tim had been driving a sedan.
Was it black? Blue?
He said he was her brother. He said he wanted to help her.
Riley stifled a sob.
Shelby had Riley’s coat, had her backpack—and didn’t look all that different from Riley. Riley flushed the toilet and rinsed out her mouth then sunk to her knees. The tears started again, and she crumpled to the floor, her burning cheek cooled by the chilled tile. A shudder ran through her body. Her teeth chattered. She pulled a bath towel from the bar and snuck under it, pulling her knees up to her chest.
It was because of her.
The sedan had wanted her and had hit Shelby instead.
Riley only lay on the floor a few minutes before the canned voice on her cell phone started her message: if you’d like to make a call, please hang up and dial again.
The second Riley—with shaking, weak fingers—mashed the END CALL button, the phone blared again.
“H—he—hello?”
“Are you OK?”
Riley swallowed then winced, her saliva like sandpaper running over her raw throat. “Did you find out about this on the news or did someone tell you? Do you know anything more?”
“No,” JD said on a sigh. “My mom saw the police tape when she was driving home. And I don’t know anything else about Shelby’s condition. But I’m about to find out.” A pause. “Ry, the blue sedan—that was the car that was following you, right?”
But Riley couldn’t answer. Guilty tears choked the words in her throat.
“Be outside the gate in twenty minutes.”
As JD clicked off the phone, Riley started to pace.
I need to tell them about Tim. He’s obviously dangerous.
If Tim was the one who hit her.
Doubts crept into her head; there were a thousand sedans in Crescent City. They really don’t know the color.
Why am I protecting him?
Riley went for the door and was on the top of the stairs when she heard the chatter downstairs.
“Does it really have to be this soon?” her mother was saying.
“It doesn’t really have to be, but it’s for the best. If you’re worried about Riley, she’ll adjust. Most teenagers get over it once they make some friends.”
Anger roiled in Riley’s belly. How dare Deputy Hempstead talk so dismissively about her? How dare he talk about her at all?
Riley pulled on a fresh sweatshirt and yanked her hair into a ponytail. Her eyes and nose were red and puffy, but there wasn’t enough makeup in the world to change that, and frankly, Riley didn’t care.
Maybe the accident wasn’t so bad, Riley told herself as she tried to breathe deeply. The news was always blowing things out of proportion. Even as she thought it, Riley knew it wasn’t true. She bit her lip and speed-dialed Shelby’s number. She heard the crackle of canned air on Shelby’s end.
No ring.
No dial tone.
Nothing but dead air.
THIRTEEN
The new house may have had crappy cell service and a just-north-of-nowhere area code, but it did have one major plus: the giant heap of dirt that cushioned Riley’s landing when she crossed her fingers, closed her eyes, and jumped out of her second-story window.
Before the jail break, her parents were pacing and murmuring things, and Gail and the deputy were studying something intently—probably a list of all the basic teenage amenities that he was planning on taking away from Riley “for her own safety.” Thinking of her parents’ betrayal vaulted Riley forward once her feet hit the ground. She kept to the wrought-iron fencing lining the estates, her lungs burning, the cold slapping at the tears as they ran down her face.
JD was leaning against his car when Riley made it to the front gate. He was bathed in a yellow glow from the streetlight above, looking very much James Dean. The image called up memories of snuggling on the couch with her parents, and Riley stomped it away.
“She’s at Crescent General and she’s out of ICU,” JD said, opening the door for Riley.
She dove inside, aching as the seconds it took for JD to get in the car and continue his story seemed to stretch on for eons.
“And? Do they know anything? Is she OK?”
JD started up the engine and floored the gas pedal. Riley could hear the tires spi
n, kicking up dirt and gravel before they caught hold of the road. Finally she could breathe.
“So?”
JD cleared his throat. “She’s stable.”
“Stable means not dead, right?”
“Hey.” JD awkwardly patted the top of her hand then put his back on the wheel. “Relax. She’s going to be OK. It’s going to take a while but she’s going to be fine.”
Riley pressed herself back in her seat, her body sagging, aching muscles protesting against any motion at all. “I’m just so scared for her.”
“It’s going to be OK,” JD said again.
Riley glanced over the console, examining JD’s profile. The moonlight illuminated his strong forehead and nose, showing off the stern set of his jaw. Riley stiffened again.
“There’s something you’re not telling me.”
JD shrugged, not taking his eyes off the road. “I’m telling you everything I know.”
“Who gave you the information?”
“Ry, I’m not the one who’s been lying to you.”
Riley crossed her arms in front of her chest, icy fingers of suspicion walking down her spinal column. “Who told you, JD?”
He blew out a sigh that was part exasperation, part exhaustion. “I dated Shelby’s sister for a while, OK?”
“Which one? Tru?”
JD guided the car over a smooth turn. “Yeah.”
“She’s, like, twenty!”
“Yeah, well, we dated when she was, like, seventeen.”
Riley gaped. “You were fourteen then! That’s disgusting.”
“I was fifteen, almost sixteen.”
“You’re older than me?”
“Eighteen two weeks ago.”
“Oh.” Riley sat back again. “Happy birthday.”
“Meaningful. Anyway, I called Tru and she told me about Shelby and the accident.”
“What about the accident?”
JD went back to that hard expression, staring directly out the front windshield, his hands gripping the steering wheel as if he wasn’t driving on a straight, freshly paved road.