by Barry Lyga
Her father glanced over at her. “She’s up now. Yeah, I’ll tell her. Love you, too.” He slipped the phone into his pocket and came to her bedside, taking her hand. “Mom sends her love.”
Her mother would be looking after Whiz. Pulling him out of school and bringing him to New York would be a headache none of them needed. “I bet you had to have someone tie her down to keep her from getting on the first plane here.”
“Pretty close. How do you feel? Should I get the nurse—”
“No. No, I’m okay.” She winced as she adjusted herself into a sitting position, putting the lie to her words. But the pain—while significant—wasn’t overwhelming. “Has there been any—”
Dad’s frown told her everything she needed to know, but she pressed, anyway. He told her what he knew from the news: that the police believed Billy Dent had escaped the city. The FBI had once again placed Billy at the top of its vaunted most-wanted list. He was considered armed and dangerous; there was a nationwide 1-800 number for information about him, and every news story emphasized that, if seen, he was not to be approached.
As for Jazz: They were circulating photos of him, too. He was considered “potentially armed and dangerous” but also “wounded and scared.” Once again, no one was to approach him.
Connie wanted nothing more than to approach him. To hold him. To be the anchor she knew she was and could be for him. She replayed their last conversation over and over. She had given him an ultimatum, a recklessly stupid thing to do in this situation. Jazz wasn’t thinking straight. Threatening him with the end of their relationship was supposed to shock him back to reality, make him see how dangerous his current course was. Instead, it had sent him scurrying into that same dark, safe, lonely bolt-hole he’d been living in when she’d first met him. He’d withdrawn completely. Gone dark.
He always thought he knew best. He was so confident of it that he would risk his life over and over, supremely assured that, in the final analysis, he would be proven right.
She fisted tears away. Her dad pulled a chair over and put a gentle hand on her arm, away from any of the bruised or slashed exposed flesh. “Is the pain that bad? I can call the nurse and get some more painkillers.”
“No. No, it’s not that.” How could she explain it to her father? It wasn’t just that he hated and feared Jazz. Even if it hadn’t been Jazz—if it had been a quiet, shy, respectful black guy—her father still wouldn’t understand. He would tell her that no boy her age was worth crying over. He would tell her that true love doesn’t start in high school. When I was your age, he’d said many times, I had no idea what I wanted or needed. You know why? Because I didn’t even know who I was yet. If I’d met your mother when I was seventeen, I wouldn’t have even spoken to her.
Usually, at this point, Mom interjected: Don’t flatter yourself, honey. I wouldn’t have given you a second look if you were on fire.
“When can I get out of here?” Connie asked. A mighty and all-consuming urgency bubbled up from the same place as the tears. She had to get out of this hospital bed, out of the hospital itself. She needed to do something. The rest of the world was hunting Jazz and Billy; Connie knew Jazz better than anyone else in the world—she should be out there, too. On crutches or in a wheelchair, if that’s what it took, but she knew she could contribute. Yes, Billy had tormented her, terrified her, but she would hunt him now, if she could. If that would finally resolve Jazz’s torture, then that’s what she’d do. Billy scared the living hell out of her, but for Jazz, she would happily confront him again.
If I kill him, Jazz had said, all too calmly, he’s dead.
I have to do something.
“I want to go home,” she said.
“What?”
She favored her father with the most piercing stare she could muster; she’d practiced it for months in a mirror, teaching herself how to lock eyes with someone and not blink for minutes at a time. It was very unnerving, she knew—Jazz had used it on her in the past.
“Home,” she said. “I want to go. Today.” It had come to her along with the resolve: Jazz was headed back to Lobo’s Nod. It had to be. There was no other option. It was his only strategy. He knew the Nod, and he had the Hideout there, his ramshackle, run-down sanctum in the woods, where he could recuperate and make plans. He would feel safe there. Surrounded by a building of his own design, he would be able to start over and figure out how to mount a rescue mission for his mother.
Only Connie knew about the Hideout. Not even Howie knew.
“Honey…” Her dad had that look he got when he was about to tell her how “impractical” or “capricious” something was. “Baby, you need some more time before we go gallivanting off on an airplane. You can’t just—”
“I’m not in any danger. Dr. Cullins said so. I have some broken bones. So what? People travel with broken bones all the time. I can use crutches. I’ll be fine.”
He shook his head, and she knew the volley of excuses and rebuttals was about to accelerate; it was a game she was too familiar with, living in her father’s house. But before he could speak, her cell phone rang.
BLOCKED, said the screen.
Jazz, Connie thought, and swiped to answer.
“Hello, Conscience,” said Mr. Auto-Tune.
She stared at her father, for a moment unable to understand why his expression was one of confusion and irritation, not shock, but then she realized: Of course. He couldn’t hear Mr.—or, possibly, Ms.—Auto-Tune. He was annoyed at Connie for answering her phone in the middle of their conversation. If only he knew.
He had to know.
Get the police, she mouthed to him.
“Conscience?” Mr. Auto-Tune said. Connie thought maybe there was a touch of bemusement in the voice, but it was difficult to tell. “Are you so beaten up you can’t talk?”
“I’m here,” she told the voice, then hit Mute. “Dad, go get the cops.” When he raised his eyebrows and moved not an inch, she growled, “Go! Seriously, Dad!” He paused as though he didn’t believe her for a moment, then hopped up and darted out the door.
Mr. Auto-Tune had been talking the whole time, but Connie had caught only pieces of it. Have to keep the call going so the cops can trace it. She unmuted her phone and just flat-out interrupted:
“Why the Auto-Tuning?” she asked. “I already know who you are. You’re either Billy or Samantha.”
The voice was silent for a time. Then: “You’re a very smart girl, Connie. And lucky, too, to survive your recent… travails. When you dropped off the fire escape, did you think you would survive, or were you just so desperate to get away that even falling to your death seemed preferable?”
“What’s the difference? It worked.”
“There are entire oceans of difference between the two.” Even through the flat inflection of Auto-Tuning, she caught a note of disapproval. “If the former, you’re optimistic. Hopeful. If the latter, you just surrendered to the inevitable.”
Keep the conversation going. Keep it going. Dad, where are you? “Why don’t you turn off this stupid Auto-Tuning thing? I want to know if I’m talking to Billy or Sam. Did you feel it when I kicked you in the balls, or did Billy just tell you about it later?”
“Bravado lacks a certain element of verisimilitude when it comes from someone who, not long ago, was pleading for her life.”
“I’m ready for round two,” Connie said with a bravery that surprised her. The only way she ever wanted to see Billy or his twisted sister was on a morgue slab.
“I’m sure you think you are, but you’re one step behind, Connie. That game is over.”
“Too bad. I was just getting good at it.” Dad! Come on!
“All games end, Connie. Hat and Dog have concluded their business in New York. And so have you. So has Jasper. It’s time for everyone to come home, don’t you think?”
“So you can use me for a hostage? I don’t think so.”
That tinny, reverberating laughter. It had given her a headache before, and it was
no better now. “Your days as a hostage are quite over, Connie. You’ve fulfilled your service. Your utility is at an end. Pawns are always sacrificed before game’s end. When next we meet, you will witness your last vista, hear your last cry, weep your last tears. You will take your last breath.”
Connie shivered and closed her eyes, pressing herself back against the pillow. For a moment, she’d been back in that horrible little apartment, bound to that chair, Billy Dent looming over her. The threats weren’t idle. She knew that. Billy had cut open her neck and would have done worse if he hadn’t gone off to rescue Jazz. She’d been a blade’s width from death already, and only luck had saved her.
“If I’m not important anymore,” she heard herself say, “then why are you even bothering to call me?” There. It was out there now.
“Because I find you interesting, Connie. I admit a certain weakness toward you. You fascinate me. Outsider. New. Black girl. Forcing yourself into the inner circles of popularity in a town like Lobo’s Nod. Dating the local outcast, but still maintaining your clique status.”
“Need lessons in social interaction?”
“When you die, Connie, it will be ugly. I promise you that. And I also promise you that I will be a little sad at that moment. But only a little bit.
“Good-bye, Conscience.”
She bolted upright in bed, hissing in pain. “No! Wait! Don’t go!”
But the line was dead already.
Her dad chose that moment—that useless moment—to push breathlessly through her door with Detective Hughes in tow.
CHAPTER 26
Howie opened his eyes to the familiar, glorious sight of the delectable Uma Thurman, gazing saucily down at him from his ceiling. It was his own personal collage of Ms. Thurman, culled from photos discovered online, strategically covering most of the space above his bed.
Uma was tall. Howie, being of basketball-ish mien himself, adored tall women. Especially tall women with lots of pictures online. Especially tall women who, in pursuit of their art, had gone nude in something like a half dozen movies.
Howie loved women who pursued their art. It was a small thing, sure, but it made Howie happy.
Howie’s head throbbed as he swung his ridiculously long legs out of bed. The painkillers were wearing off, as was the nice dose of lidocaine Dr. Mogelof had injected into his scalp. He would have a scar, he was sure. Maybe more than one. To go with the scar on his midsection after the Impressionist had cut him open a few months back.
Maybe Mom was right. Maybe hanging around with “that Dent boy” would kill him.
Oh, well. Everyone had to go sometime, right?
For now, though, he had one more in an endless string of favors to execute for Jazz. Howie wrapped himself in a megasized robe and crept into the hallway. He called out for a parental unit—just in case—and received no reply. Good. He was home alone.
Mom and Dad’s bed was unmade when he stole into their room. He tried their en suite bathroom first. Medicine cabinet. Duh. Where else do you look for medicine? But other than Mom’s Xanax—the extra-large, economy-sized prescription—and Dad’s blood pressure meds, he came up empty. So he rummaged around in the cabinet under the sink, pretending not to see the boxes of tampons and maxipads and failing. Great Zeus, how many of these things does one woman need? It’s like her own personal feminine hygiene aisle under here.
He recovered some old cold medicine and a half bottle of cough syrup, but not what Jazz needed.
I’m going to need some stuff, Jazz had said the night before.
Of course you are. You always need something.
Painkillers would be nice—
Got ’em. In spades. Dr. Mogelof was very generous with my prescription. She underestimates my manly ability to shrug off pain that would kill lesser mortals.
But what I really need are antibiotics.
And I’m supposed to procure these how? My street dealer only has meth and crack.
Don’t be an idiot. Your mother hoards meds. You know it. I know it. She’s been doing it since we were kids. “Just in case.” I’m willing to bet she has a course of penicillin or a Z-pak stashed away somewhere. And I’m gonna need it, or my leg is going to blow up like a microwaved sausage.
With that disgusting image fully implanted in his psyche, Howie scrounged deeper into the darkest, cobwebbiest corners under the sink. He found an old blister pack of allergy medicine and several used-up toilet paper tubes, but nothing else.
Great.
Jazz was right, though. Duh. When it came to reading people and remembering things and drawing inferences from those two data points, Jazz was pretty much unparalleled. He knew when the pop quizzes were coming in school, based on how tired a teacher looked the day before. He knew how to avoid getting caught in the halls based on the bell schedule. And he knew that Howie’s mom worried obsessively about a medical emergency striking her genetic freak of a son at any moment, so she often talked Howie’s doctors into writing an extra script or two here and there.
Where did she keep the stuff, though?
As distasteful as it was, Howie realized he would need to prowl the dark and nameless tracts of his parents’ nightstands.
“Here there be dragons,” he muttered as he went back into the bedroom. Dad’s side of the bed was closest, so Howie cursorily examined the disarrayed jumble atop the nightstand—mystery novel, Sports Illustrated, iPad, iPhone dock—then delved into the drawers themselves.
To his massive, undying chagrin, he found a tube of “personal lubricant” that was a little less than half-full. Howie tried not to imagine how many parental sex sessions that meant. He pawed around, finding only stray business cards, some more paperback novels, and Dad’s collection of eyedrops. The man was petrified of dry eyes, apparently.
Mom’s nightstand was neat and orderly, with a stack of magazines squared to the perpendicular edges of the surface. Her alarm clock stood at a perfect right angle to the stack, positioned precisely in the cone of light thrown by her reading lamp. She needed to unclench something fierce.
Exploring within, he groaned at the sight of a pack of birth control pills. Come on! he mentally upbraided the universe. Stop throwing this stuff in my face! Parentals shouldn’t be going at it. Especially when I can’t.
Another tube of “personal lubricant,” this one a bright purple that somehow made it worse. But underneath a copy of Women’s Running, he hit pay dirt: a neatly organized (of course) tray, with a variety of amber prescription bottles, all made out in Howie’s name. Howie grinned and began pawing through them.
CHAPTER 27
Erickson had been standing guard outside Clara Dent’s hospital room off and on ever since the old lady had been brought in. When he’d moved to Lobo’s Nod back in October, he’d never imagined himself getting caught up in any of the Dent family nonsense. “That stuff ended years ago,” he’d confidently told family and friends. Lobo’s Nod had returned to its status quo ante, just another sleepy little burg in a sleepy little county, with the benefit of a terrific sheriff to learn from, a sheriff most likely ready to retire in a few years. The perfect place for a guy like Erickson to spend a couple of years, learning from and impressing the boss at the same time. And then, when the big man retired, well, who knew? Sheriff Erickson? Why not? Sheriff of a sleepy little burg in a sleepy little county.
Ha! Within days of signing on at the Nod, Erickson had witnessed a naked dead girl in a field, fingers chopped off. He’d caught Jasper Dent skulking around the morgue, slapped cuffs on the kid twice, been suspected of being a serial killer, and gotten caught up in the hunt for the real killer.… If Lobo’s Nod was sleepy, it was the fitful sleep of a colicky baby.
And now he was guarding the mother of the most notorious serial killer in the world. The hits, as Erickson’s mom loved to say, just kept a-comin’.
The guard duty wasn’t that bad, honestly. It was just boring. He relieved the previous guard, radioed to the office that he was on-site, and then commenced eight
hours of sitting on his ass, playing with his phone. Food was brought to him, and when he had to take a piss, a hospital security guard would spell him for five minutes.
Did G. William really think Billy Dent would try to contact his mother? Erickson had enormous respect for the big man, but he thought in this instance, the sheriff might be a few clams short of a chowder. Crazy was crazy, sure, but walking into a hospital in the town where everyone knew your face was just idiotic.
Shortly after he settled in for his latest shift, a nurse came by for the old lady’s usual vitals check. They did this every couple of hours. As best Erickson could glean, Mrs. Dent was in a “light coma” due to the twin traumas of a mild heart attack and a serious concussion. Separately, either one would have laid her up for a while—coming one right after the other as they had, she wouldn’t be waking up anytime soon. The docs were pretty confident she would recover; they just weren’t sure exactly when.
The nurse grinned at Erickson. He tipped his hat and said, “Evenin’, ma’am,” just like a cowboy hero. She ate it up, her grin widening. “I thought you were a deputy,” she teased, “but you sound more like a marshal.”
She was young—midtwenties maybe, a little younger than Erickson—and pretty, even in her shapeless scrubs. Glossy black hair and pale green eyes that made Erickson think of sour green-apple Life Savers. In the best, sexiest way possible, of course. Erickson surreptitiously admired the toss of her hips and the sway of her ass as she went into Mrs. Dent’s room.
If life were a movie, Erickson realized this would be the moment when he would turn back to the hallway and—violin sting!—Billy Dent would be standing there, bigger than life and ten times as crazy.
But life was life, not a movie, and the hallway was empty but for a couple of doctors.
When the nurse emerged, Erickson flashed her a smile. He considered the hat tip again but figured it would seem tired already. He settled on asking, “How is she?”
The nurse glanced around. “I’m really not supposed to tell you. But…” She bit her bottom lip very fetchingly. “She’s stable. BP isn’t bad. About as good as can be expected. She came in breathing on her own, so that’s good. And I’ve been monitoring her from the nurses’ station. She’s pretty stable. The doctors will know more later.”