“You can’t take those papers.”
“Why not? It’s clear they don’t belong to you.”
“But what am I supposed to do? What about my brother?”
One bead of sweat dripped down his face, and he wiped it away impatiently. “You have my condolences.”
“You can’t do this.”
Without responding, he pulled his phone out of his pocket and dialed. “Yes, hello. This is Dr. David Brightman. I want to report a trespasser in my office.” He listened briefly. “This person came in for an appointment, but she began behaving erratically and is refusing to leave.” He leaned back against the wall as he gave his address, right beside the spot where his keys had once hung, but he didn’t appear to notice they were missing. “Thank you very much.” He hung up, his expression fierce. “Go now, before the patrol car arrives.”
I stood frozen for a few seconds, unable to do anything but stare at him. Then I lunged toward him, with some half-formed thought that I could physically wrestle the papers from his jacket.
Dr. Brightman reached into his pants pocket, pulled something out, and tossed it to me.
It was the deck of tarot cards he had bought last week—the sniper’s cards. Even as I realized what I was holding, the light from the open doorway became blinding. The shadow of a man with a rifle emerged, a dark blur against the brightness, moving rapidly toward me. I stumbled backward and tripped over the coffee table, the deck of cards falling from my hands and scattering across the floor as I landed, a bolt of pain lancing through my hip and shoulder.
He’d used them as a weapon against me.
I looked up at Dr. Brightman, my right side throbbing, trying to see through the headache that gathered like a storm behind my eyes. “Please,” I managed. “This is my only chance to help my brother.”
“I’m sorry,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper. “But this is my only chance to help myself.”
“Touching the derringer might kill your visions, but it might just kill you too.”
The muscles in his jaw clenched. “At this point, I’ll take one or the other.”
Now I could hear sirens in the distance. Pedestrians on the sidewalk looked curiously through the open door as they passed. I lurched to my feet and shoved everything on the table into my backpack. Then I stared at Dr. Brightman with as much defiance as I could muster.
I was careful not to touch him as I walked out the door.
CHAPTER 17
I STAGGERED DOWN THE STREET TOWARD WHERE Eric had parked, but before I had gone more than a few steps, it became clear that something was terribly wrong. The world around me was tinged with gallstone yellow, as though I wore amber-tinted sunglasses. I rubbed at my eyes, but I couldn’t clear them, and soon I was squinting hard against both the light and the color. When I reached Eric’s car, I could barely make out his hazy form sitting behind the wheel.
I opened the passenger door, and the sun overhead grew blinding, so bright that I had to cover my face with the back of my hand. Silhouetted against the burst of light, I saw a healthy, robust version of Eric’s dad holding the car door while two little kids climbed inside. They laughed and pushed each other, and he pretended to kick their behinds to get them in the car. I thought, perhaps, that one of them was me.
I crumpled to the curb and sat there for a moment, breathing heavily.
Eric came rushing around to my side of the car. “Are you okay?”
I shook my head. “I don’t think so.”
“God, Megan, you’re bleeding again!”
He dug through the glove compartment for tissues as I wiped vaguely at my nose with my fingers. The blood wasn’t red; it was a deep burnt sienna. I stared at it, dazed, until Eric waved the tissues in my face. I took them gingerly, afraid of what would happen when I touched them. But nothing did.
Eric helped me into the passenger seat. “What’s going on?”
“I think it’s happening to me. What happened to Dr. Brightman.”
He squatted down next to me. “What do you mean?”
“I’m getting too sensitive. Losing control of what I see.”
“And he let you walk out of his office like this?”
Tears buzzed behind my eyes. “Oh, Eric,” I choked out, “I have something to tell you.”
Eric didn’t say a word as I described what had happened in Dr. Brightman’s office: what I had seen, what Dr. Brightman had done. But his body language spoke volumes. He reared back in shock. He stood and paced the sidewalk beside the car. And finally he shoved both hands into his hair and slumped down onto the curb.
“Oh my god. I can’t even . . .” He sat up straight. “Wait, are you okay? I mean, do you need to lie back? Can I . . . do anything?”
I shook my head, sending a jolt of pain down my neck.
“But . . . hold on.” Eric shook his head, his face a picture of confusion and anger. “You mean Brightman’s going to hand over all the evidence? Tonight?”
I managed a small nod.
He threw up both hands. “You have to stop him!”
“Can’t,” I gritted out.
“Of course you can!”
“You don’t understand.” My throat felt tight and painful, and my whole body tensed. “I only wanted to find out what happened to him. Tyler. To put the pieces back together.” I leaned my head back against the car seat, tears leaking from the corners of my eyes. “And I’ve done that. I know what happened. And now I’m . . . broken. Maybe forever.” I held both hands up in front of me, turning them front and back. “What if I can’t even have a normal life now? What’s going to happen to me?”
Eric squatted down beside me again. He rested a hand on my knee. “You’re right,” he said. “This sucks. And you might not want to hear this right now, but I’m the only one here, so I have to say it.” He paused. “This is your hero moment.”
“Oh my god!” I cried. “No more. Let that go.”
“I’m just saying . . .”
“You don’t even like superheroes!”
“I like you,” he said. “And this is the moment when you rally. When you dig deep and overcome.”
My chin sagged to my chest. “But why? To achieve what?”
“There’s this other little thing I came across in my superhero research. It’s called revenge. You go all Kill Bill on Dr. Brightman’s ass!”
“What am I supposed to do, authenticate him to death?” I demanded. “Even if I got the papers back, what would I do?”
“Hand them over to the police! Say that you found them in Tyler’s things. Tell them the senator knew that he had them, and he would have done anything—including kill someone—to get them back.”
I thought about that for a moment. “Except he didn’t kill someone to get them back.”
“What do you mean?”
“Senator Herndon didn’t hurt my brother to get those papers back. He did it to protect Emma. And his own father, in a way. To protect his family.”
Eric scoffed at this. “To protect himself.”
“No, wait.” I held up a hand. “Listen. Maybe the way to get to Herndon is through his family. I can go talk to Mrs. Herndon—get her on my side.” I stopped and looked at Eric. “Even if I can’t prove he killed Tyler, maybe I can prove he’s been hiding the real derringer. Make sure he faces some kind of justice for what he did.” A thought occurred to me, and I smiled a self-satisfied smile. “You know what? Tyler wanted to take Herndon down—play Booth to his Lincoln. Well, maybe I can do that. And I’ll take him down with Booth’s own gun.”
“Okay, that’s dark hero stuff, but we can work with it.”
“So I have to talk to Mrs. Herndon tonight. Before the senator gets those papers back.”
“There’s one small problem with that plan,” Eric said. “You suck at talking to people.”
A sarcastic comment rose immediately to mind, but I swallowed it. He was right. I rubbed my face hard with both hands, then reached up and slapped the ceiling of the car in
frustration.
Just like that, the vision was back, slamming into place around me like the blade of a paper cutter. Eric’s dad was in the driver’s seat, and he was singing classic rock. Off-key. I yanked my hands back to my chest, dizzy and breathless, and he disappeared. I could see Eric’s face again, the fear in his eyes. Then darkness closed in around me, telescoping my field of vision down to a tiny, bright point. I fumbled desperately for Eric’s hand.
“This might be the moment when I rally,” I said, “but it’s also the moment when I pass out.”
And the world went black.
Through the darkness, I could hear voices. Boys’ voices. Arguing.
“We have to take her to the hospital.”
“And tell them what?”
“How about ‘She’s passing out and bleeding all over the place’?”
“If we take her there, she’s stuck. For hours. Maybe days. Let’s make sure that’s what she wants.”
I struggled to open my eyes, to lift my head, but it was like moving through water. My eyes felt superglued shut, my mouth full of foam. I made a sound low in my throat.
“She’s awake!”
I felt the rush of air as they came close. Then a hand gently touched my hair. I cracked one eye open, flinching at the light.
“Quick, turn off the overhead.”
Finally two blurry faces came into view: Eric and Nathan. I glanced around. Even that tiny shift of my eyeballs hurt. I was on the big couch in Nathan’s family room. Nathan continued to stroke the top of my head. His vibrant colors were back—his shirt was a deep dioxazine purple, and the embroidered cat on the breast pocket was drinking a martini. With a smile, I instinctively reached up to touch it, but before I made contact, I remembered what might happen. I curled my fingers into a fist. Would I never be able to touch him again?
“Glad you’re back.” Nathan smiled. “We were worried about you for a minute there.”
I forced myself to speak. “I found out what happened to Tyler.”
Nathan’s eyes widened. He looked up at Eric.
“We hadn’t gotten to that part,” Eric said.
Nathan turned his attention back to me, and his fingers stilled in my hair. “Okay, what happened to Tyler?”
“Drug overdose.”
“But . . . you knew that.”
“Not self-inflicted.”
Nathan was stunned into silence.
As Eric filled Nathan in on all the details, I shifted on the couch, struggling to sit up without touching it with my bare hands.
“Gloves,” I said, remembering. “I think there’s a pair of gloves from Dr. Brightman’s office in my backpack.”
Eric found them for me. I slipped them on, their black silk sliding across my palms, and sat up straight.
“First things first,” Nathan said. “Let’s get you to the hospital.”
“The gala starts in a few hours,” Eric protested, “and when it’s over, there won’t be any evidence to back up her story. Thanks to Dr. Brightman.” His face twisted with concern. “And Megan, are you sure the hospital can help you?”
“No,” I admitted. “That’s why Dr. Brightman wants the gun so badly. He thinks touching it is the only thing that can help him turn off the visions for good. Burn them out of his brain or something.”
“Like going blind if you stare at the sun,” Eric mused.
A realization swept over me. “He said the derringer was personal. That it changed his life. Well, it sure as hell changed mine. Maybe it can help me too.” I didn’t mention the other half of Dr. Brightman’s theory: that he might not survive the intensity of the memories the derringer held. That the cure might be worse than the disease.
Eric’s face lit up. “Two birds with one stone, then. We help you, we stop him.”
We both turned to look at Nathan, whose face was serious. “If you really think this is what you need,” he said at last, “I’m in.”
“Yes!” Eric said. He jumped up, asked to borrow Nathan’s phone, and started typing away madly.
Nathan rolled his eyes. “Updating your mom, are you?”
“Why, yes.” Eric’s smile was surprisingly sly. “Actually, I am. And if you’ll excuse me, I need to make a call.” He took the phone and left the room.
“That was weird,” I said.
When Nathan and I were alone, I felt the temperature in the room ratchet up a few degrees. I couldn’t figure out where to look or what to do with my hands.
He sat beside me on the couch, so close I wanted to move away, and yet somehow not close enough. “I’m sorry about the other night.”
“You’re sorry?”
“No, I mean, getting drunk was really stupid. And showing up at your door like that, without even being invited?” He winced. “Awful. And as for the rest of what happened that night—”
“No, don’t apologize for that.” I squeezed his hand. “What happened with the cops? And with your parents?”
“I think it’s going to blow over,” he said. “The cops have no evidence against me. I was just the perfect candidate, in their minds. The ideal middleman.” He shook his head. “Mom and Dad . . . they’re freaked out, obviously. But they stuck up for me.” He smiled. Relief, almost palpable relief, glowed from him. “I told them the truth, about the parties. They were confused at first. But they weren’t disappointed. I even showed them the videos. I hadn’t done that before. Thought it would . . . I don’t know . . . hurt them somehow, to know I was in touch with Cedric. But it’s good. It’s all good.” He glanced at his watch. “We don’t have long to get to the theater,” he said. “What do we need to do?”
My stomach flipped. “We don’t have tickets.”
“Can’t we crash?”
“Um, no. The president goes to these things.”
“Well, I think you might know someone who works there,” Nathan said.
Mom . . . right. Not a call I wanted to make, but I took out my phone.
My mother answered, sounding breathless and overwhelmed. “Hey. Is everything okay?”
“Can I still come tonight? To the gala, I mean. I’d really like to come.”
I heard her blow out a sharp breath. “I begged you for weeks to come to this event. I wheedled. I bribed. And now you want to come? When you’re grounded and I’m up to my ears in silent auction items? I’m sorry. The answer is no.” I heard someone talking to her on the other end of the phone. “Just a minute,” she told them. “Listen, I’ve got to go.”
“Sure, Mom,” I mumbled, and she ended the call.
Nathan looked at me expectantly. “Well?”
I shook my head.
He jumped to his feet and began pacing. “Okay, we can still do this,” he said. “What if we stop the senator before he goes into the theater? We can figure out what kind of car he drives—”
Nathan broke off when Eric came strutting back into the room, bouncing his head to music only he could hear. We watched him groove for a moment.
Finally Nathan spoke. “You planning to share the beat?”
“I’m gearing up for the big party tonight,” Eric said. “Practicing some moves.”
“A, it’s not that kind of party,” I said. “And B, we’re not going. We don’t have tickets.”
Eric did a spin with a little flourish at the end. “Yes, we do.”
I took several steps toward him. “Are you serious?”
“I am serious, and I am cised!”
Nathan shook his head. “Enough with the DC slang.”
“Then I am merely serious.”
“How did you . . . You were gone like five minutes. Do you know how much those tickets cost?”
“I do not, but apparently the members of the McLean chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution do, as they purchased an entire table two months ago. They have made room for us in their group.”
Nathan gave Eric a look. “You’re a member of the Daughters of the American Revolution?”
“No, but . . .”
“. . . your mother is,” I finished for him.
Eric pointed to me. “Correct!” He did a little victory robot dance, and Nathan covered his face in embarrassment.
“My mom likes me to have life experiences,” I remembered Eric saying. I got it now, after seeing what had happened to her husband. She wanted to guarantee Eric a lifetime of brilliant memories, no matter what came next.
Eric paused in his dance. “Speaking of the shindig, what exactly should I wear?”
“It’s black tie.”
“Perfect! I have exactly the thing.” Eric tossed the phone back to Nathan and headed for the door. “Give me five minutes to run home for my tuxedo.” He left, and Nathan and I were alone.
I thought for a moment. “I actually don’t have anything to wear.”
“Aha,” Nathan said. “Then perhaps Nai Nai Lee can be your fairy godmother for the evening.”
Nathan’s grandmother sat on her bed, hands folded in her lap, watching silently as Nathan’s mother pulled plastic garment bags out of her closet. Mrs. Lee handed the bags to me, and I hung them from the bedroom door. She opened the bags one by one, revealing a gorgeous palette of fabrics: silky manganese blues and naphthol reds, textured viridian and gamboge.
Despite the rich variety of colors, my eye was drawn immediately to a white dress with a black lace overlay. The fitted bodice was sleeveless, with a neckline that cut straight across from one shoulder to the other, and the back dipped down in a deep V. It looked like a gorgeous postcard from another time. Nathan’s grandmother gestured to her daughter-in-law to bring it over. She reached out a hand and touched the fabric, speaking to Mrs. Lee in rapid Chinese.
“She says she made this dress in 1965,” Nathan’s mother explained with a smile. “She wore it to the first party she ever attended at the office where her husband worked as a translator.”
The older woman touched the dress reverently, lost in the light of other days. Mrs. Lee asked her a question, and she responded with a nod.
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