A Million Shadows

by Janci Patterson

  Twenty-seven

  On the way to the gas station where Aida said to meet her, I had Kalif text Damon the apartment address. Then we pulled through a back alley and changed our personas. We picked a couple in their twenties—me with long white-blonde hair and Kalif with a spiky, messy cut.

  From what I could tell, the gas station was three or four blocks from Aida’s apartment. When we pulled into the parking lot, Kalif pointed her out—she stood outside the gas station slurping a soda, dressed as a teenage guy in skinny jeans with his hair spiked at awkward angles.

  “You’re sure that’s her?” I asked.

  “Yeah,” Kalif said. “I’ve seen the persona before.”

  He didn’t give me other details, but when I pulled up alongside the guy, he came over to the window and offered Kalif his hand. I reached across the car to check as well. Sure enough, it was Aida.

  I unlocked the door and let her climb in the back, then pulled around the side of the gas station, where we’d be out of view of the street, and parked.

  “Have you heard from your mother?” Aida asked.

  I shook my head.

  “We need to find her,” Aida said. “She’s a danger to herself.”

  I unbuckled my seatbelt and eyed Aida. Just a few months ago she’d sent my mother to be executed. Now she was worried Mom might die by her own hand?

  “If she’s headed to your apartment,” Kalif said, "we have an opportunity to find her.”

  “She might wait for me there,” Aida said. “I can intercept her, and bring her to meet you.”

  “No,” I said. “She doesn’t trust you. If she’s looking for you, it’s probably to hurt you. I’m the one who has to talk to her. It makes more sense for me to go to the apartment, except . . .”

  “Except Dad’s also on our tail,” Kalif said.

  Aida put her hand on the back of my seat. “It was him, wasn’t it?” she asked. “Poking around at the hospital.”

  Kalif nodded.

  “It would be dangerous even if he wasn’t. What if your mother burned the place down with you inside?”

  I had a sudden picture of myself, trapped inside a burning building, flames rising around me.

  But burning down an apartment building could kill so many other people, and wasn’t an effective way to ensure Aida’s demise, if that’s what Mom wanted.

  This was personal. If she was going to kill Aida, she’d kill her while looking her in the eye.

  “No,” I said. “I don’t think she’d go that far.”

  “I could wait,” Aida said, "in your body. You could tell me what to say.”

  I shook my head. I’d have to give her my hand signal for that, and I wouldn’t. Not under any circumstances. My parents hadn’t even given those up when the Carmines tortured them. “It has to be me,” I said. “She doesn’t trust anyone else.” She might not even trust me. But I was her daughter. If anyone could intercept her, I could. “But we need to talk about what happens after I get to her.”

  Aida looked resigned. “You mean that once you have her back, our deal is off.”

  “Actually,” I said. “I mean the opposite.”

  Aida’s brow knit in confusion.

  I turned around in my seat to look her in the eye. “You’ve helped us so far, keeping my mother safe. And I appreciate it. But I’m tired of running, and I’m tired of hiding. I think if we all work together instead of fighting each other, we’ll have a better chance of finding real safety. Of not spending the rest of our lives running in fear.”

  Aida watched me, and she seemed to be following. This was the test of the plan. If I couldn’t convince Aida, I’d never be able to convince my mother.

  “I’d like us all to work together again,” I said. “You, me, Kalif, and my mom. But this time, no secrets. This time, we’re all on the same side. Because we’re all in danger, and we all need each other’s help.” I took a deep breath, studying Aida’s stoic expression. “Are you in?”

  Aida nodded. “Jory,” she said. “I’ve been trying to work with you since before you broke your parents out. I never meant for anything to happen to you, and I wouldn’t have put your parents in danger like that if I’d known that they were innocent of all those murders.”

  She seemed sincere, and what she said was mostly true. She hadn’t done anything to hurt me or my parents since she’d found out the truth—though I had a hard time overlooking that time she walked away while Mel had his hands on my throat. And if she’d always suspected that Kalif was in contact with me, she hadn’t been trying all that hard to make it up to me until recently.

  Still, she hadn’t been overtly working against me, from what I could tell. And over the last few days, she’d had plenty of opportunity.

  Now for the second part. “Here’s the thing,” I said. “We’re pretty sure that Mel knew what alias you were using to get your apartment.”

  Aida hesitated. “I did that on purpose, so he’d be able to find us.”

  Kalif stared at her.

  I put a hand on his arm. We had to lay aside how crazy it was for Aida to want her murderer husband to find her and her son. She’d always had a blind spot when it came to him, which was exactly what made this next part of the plan so hard to pitch.

  “But if that’s the case,” I said, "then Mel will have known where you were before this. He could have come for you at any time, but he didn’t.”

  “That’s because my parents know about the apartment,” she said. “He must have been too afraid to contact me there.”

  I gave her a look. “If Mel wanted to get in touch with you, he would.”

  Aida’s lip gave a microscopic quiver.

  This woman was either the world’s best actress, or the most messed up person I’d ever met.

  Quite possibly, she was both.

  “My point is,” I said, "he knew where you were, and he was the one who pointed my mother straight at you. He left a message for my mom, purposely giving you away. Why would he do that, do you think?”

  Aida looked up at the car ceiling, which on her hipster persona looked oddly appropriate—until I saw the area under her eyes tighten.

  She was trying not to cry.

  Kalif unbuckled and turned around in his seat, looking at her. He spoke plainly, but not harshly. “He sent Jory’s mom there to hurt you, Mom. You have to face it.”

  The look Aida gave him looked surly on her male face. “No,” she said. “He was delivering her to me. He wants me to turn her over to my parents, so we can bargain for your father to come home.”

  I froze. “You talked to him?”

  Aida shook her head. “No. I don’t have to. He’s my husband. I know how he thinks.”

  I thought about what Kalif said, about how his parents had never actually been married. About how Mel was, in fact, married to that other woman, legal identity or not.

  We might all be masters of deception, but Aida was best at deceiving herself. At this point, I figured Mel was laying a trap, hoping to catch as many of us in it as he could, and then using the lot of us to bargain with the Carmines by himself, without Aida’s help.

  If he had to, I imagined he’d even sell her out to strike a deal with them.

  “And you think it’s possible to make a deal with them,” I said. “You think you can really get them to agree to overlook those murders he committed.”

  Aida looked down at her hands. “Yes,” she said. “If Mel brings your mother in, they’ll cut a deal with him, as long as he’s willing to fall in line and work for them from then on.”

  I stared at her. The Carmines might see themselves as peace keepers, but that was just another kind of deception. Without real shifter laws and government, they were nothing but vigilantes. Really well organized vigilantes with a ton of power, funding, and information, who wanted everyone to act docile and toe the line.

  Actually, that sounded like most governments, now that I thought about it.

  “And what now?” I asked. “Do you want to l
et him do that?”

  Aida put a hand on my shoulder, loosened her tear ducts, and let a single calculated drop escape. “No. I told you I would protect your mother, and I will. I know she’s not a murderer. What happened to your father is partly my fault. I won’t let the same thing happen to your mom, I swear it.”

  My own lip quivered. I wanted to believe her. She was offering me what I wanted more than anything: allies.

  But I couldn’t trust her completely. Not yet. Not because of what happened in the past, but because of what I was looking at right now in her eyes.

  Brokenness. Aida wouldn’t be ready to really work together until she could face the truth about her life, and own it.

  “And what about Mel?” I asked.

  Aida’s face darkened. “I’ll find him, and I’ll make him see reason. He owes me, after these last few months. After . . . what you two found. And the closer I am to him, the easier it will be for me to protect you from him.”

  My heart sunk. No, Aida wasn’t ready. She was still delusional. And from the sunken expression on Kalif’s face, I could tell that he knew it, too.

  Still, I needed her cooperation. We were going into her apartment, and she already knew too much.

  “Okay,” I said. “Here’s what you can do: stay out of this next bit.”

  She faltered. “What?”

  “You walk away right now,” I said. “Let me handle my mother. We’ll get her out, and away from both you and Mel.” I looked her in the eye. “You do this for me, and if we find him in the meantime—and there’s a good chance we will—I won’t hurt him if I don’t have to, and we won’t turn him in to the Carmines. We’ll contact you instead, and point you right at him.”

  I waited for Aida to refuse. Instead, she sat back in her seat, appearing to consider it.

  “I’ll back her up, Mom,” Kalif said. “We have resources you don’t know about.”

  Aida opened her mouth, and I waited for a snotty reply about how I was in over my head, about how I couldn’t hope to handle my mother or Mel without her. Hell, she probably would have been right.

  But Aida leaned forward, hands clasped in front of her, elbows on her knees. “Okay,” she said.

  Kalif narrowed his eyes at her. “Okay?”

  “Okay,” she said again. “You’re right. I’ve made a mess out of everything.” She looked up, but instead of talking to Kalif, she focused on me. “Just do me one favor.”

  I tried to imagine a favor I’d want to do for Aida, and failed. “What?”

  She reached into her pocket, then held out her hand. Inside was a small case that looked like a tiny cell phone, or a strangely shaped compact. “It’s a tracker,” she said.

  I stared at it.

  “I want you to carry it with you. It won’t trace you unless you turn it on. But it has a panic button. If you get in over your head, call for help.”

  I took the case from her. Kalif should be able to examine it and tell me how likely it was to work the way she said. And I could always toss it in a garbage can on our way if he thought it wouldn’t. “Okay,” I said. “Done.”

  “And one more thing. When you walk through the apartment door, head right into the kitchen. Inside the upper cabinet closest to the door, there’s a signal scrambler. Turn that on, and my parents won’t see or hear anything that happens in there.”

  Kalif shook his head. “They’ll notice. We can’t use that unless it’s an emergency.”

  “I think this qualifies,” I said. “But the last thing we need is to bring them down on us.”

  “I’ll cover for you,” Aida said. “Make sure they don’t see. But I won’t be able to keep that up forever, so as soon as your mom shows up, get her out of there, and turn the scrambler off as you leave.”

  I nodded. The idea of heading into a Carmine-watched apartment to confront either my mother or Mel—both of whom might be intending to commit murder today—was the definition of my personal hell.

  But what was my alternative? Let them all kill each other?

  “Thank you,” I said to Aida.

  She nodded to me, and opened the car door. “Call me,” she said to Kalif. “I expect to hear from you by tonight.”

  Then she got out of the car, slammed the door, and walked into the gas station.

  “I did not expect her to agree to that,” Kalif said.

  I shook my head. “Me either. Do you think I asked for the right thing?”

  Kalif nodded. “There was no way we could take her into this situation. If my dad shows up, there’s too much of a chance she’d side with him.”

  I squeezed his hand, and he squeezed back.

  And if nothing else, I was glad one member of their family could see things clearly.

  I turned around and buckled my seatbelt. Being around Kalif’s parents made my brain hurt. I imagined it was worse for him, because despite everything, he loved them. “Let’s find my mother,” I said. “And go. We can sort out the rest after we’re sure we’re away from your father.”

  Kalif nodded and buckled his own seatbelt, and I couldn’t help feeling that all the safety devices in the world weren’t going to protect us from what was coming.

  I tossed him the tracker. “Tell me if we should throw that thing out.”

  “Obviously we should,” he said. “Unless you think my mother will really help us.” He paused. “Though she probably planted other trackers while she was in here. If we really want to get away from her, we should switch cars.”

  I shrugged. “She knows where we’re going. We can leave the car at her apartment and call it in for the rental company later.”

  Kalif nodded. “Might as well keep this for now, then.” He handed the tracker back to me, and I shoved it into my pocket. “Let’s get this over with. We want to find your mom before my father does.”

  I nodded. Mom’s life had to be my first priority.

  Once she was secure, we could worry about everything else.

  We swung by a discount clothing store after hashing out a simple plan. If I was the one who needed to intercept my mother, it made sense for me to go into the apartment alone—but if Mel was looking to use this as a trap, he might just as easily be the one to show up first, and I had no idea what face he’d be wearing if he did.

  In the end, we decided that I would go into the apartment wearing Aida’s face, assuming that Mel was a greater threat than my mom, and he’d be more likely to want to use Aida than to kill her. My mother wasn’t exactly cold blooded—she’d probably want to confront Aida before hurting her, which would give me time to talk her down.

  In case that plan backfired, Kalif would act as my backup, wearing the persona of a plain-clothes parking enforcement guy and walking around inspecting the cars for parking stickers and monitoring the area. He’d be able to give me a heads up when anyone arrived—including but not limited to Damon, my mother, and Mel.

  We both wore an ear bud in one ear, with our cell phones on in our pockets. We’d be able to use the connection to give each other real-time updates. Hopefully I’d be able to find my mom, talk some sense into her, and get out. I didn’t need her to be emotionally whole yet—just functional and smart enough to flee with Kalif and me, and to begin to see that we all needed to cooperate or we were each going to die desperate and alone.

  Kalif and I circled the apartment complex once with the car. Damon didn’t appear to have arrived yet—if he was driving here from Sacramento, he might not arrive for a while, even if he’d left right away. If he was here, he wasn’t hanging around looking like a hooker, that was for sure. In fact, except for a man in a business suit who parked his car and ran up to a top-floor apartment, the only things I saw in the parking lot were a few empty cars.

  “Here,” Kalif said, handing me a key. “That’ll open the apartment.”

  “Okay,” I said.

  He parked the car in a visitor’s space near the entrance of the lot. It was on the far side of the complex from Aida’s apartment, so we could each
approach from opposite directions.

  “Number twenty-three,” he said, "ground floor.” He squeezed my hand.

  “Here goes.” I climbed out of the car wearing Aida’s face, and strode up to the building on the far side using Aida’s brisk, purposeful walk.

  I allowed myself one quick glance over my shoulder. Kalif strolled down a row of cars, making notes on a pad of paper he’d bought at the store.

  I focused on my gait as I moved toward the apartment. I didn’t know when I’d learned that Aida walked on the balls of her feet, her back rod-straight and her head held high, but I knew that I knew it. I had to dull my skin to keep my pounding heart from making me look flushed. More than anything, I wished we had a more complicated plan. All the research we’d done last time we’d rescued my mother—the codes and the eye scans and the carefully planned outfits—they’d all formed a sort of armor around me. Made me feel invincible. My sharp pants suit covered more of me than most of the clothes I wore, but I felt like I was walking in naked.

  As I hurried down the last row of apartments, I checked the numbers out of the corner of my eye, making sure not to obviously look.

  There it was. Number twenty-three. I stepped up to the door, breathing shallowly to keep from panting. Aida wouldn’t be nervous opening her door. If we hadn’t warned her, Aida wouldn’t have anything to worry about.

  I unlocked the apartment door, opened it, and stepped into the dark.

  Twenty-eight

  Using the light from the open doorway, I found the light switch on the side of Aida’s door and turned it on. As I did, I couldn’t help but remember Aida’s words about my mother possibly burning the building down around me.

  I’d said she wouldn’t do that.

  Would she?

  No. If my mother wanted to be sure to take Aida out, she’d probably steal a gun on her way. That would slow her down, and might be the reason we seemed to have beaten her here.

  But she might not wait for a hand signal to shoot me.

  Crap. If I’d had more time, I would have acquired some body armor.

  “I’m in,” I said to Kalif in a low voice. “I’m going to check the apartment.”