by Jamie Mason
“I really don’t think he’ll hurt you. Or your mother. I still believe that.”
“But what does that mean? What if you’re wrong? You won’t be there. I don’t even know if he’ll be there, or if he’ll come back at some point. What am I supposed to do? What am I supposed to say? What about my mom? She must be freaking out right now.”
Marcelline cast around in her suddenly empty head for something that sounded reassuring. That’s what she was supposed to do as the grown-up, as a woman speaking to a child. But fatigue was sand in the gears. She couldn’t think. “I don’t want you to worry. Whatever happens, nobody’s going to leave you to figure this out by yourself. Okay? I promise. You’re not going to get dropped off without a plan. It won’t happen.”
“I don’t know what I’m going to do.”
“We’ll think of something.” Marcelline turned into a strip mall with a big drugstore for an anchor. “I promise. Okay?”
“Okay.”
• • •
Marcelline felt like a traitor to women everywhere. It didn’t matter what she looked like. This was bigger than that. Owen’s want shouldn’t be a tool for her to use.
But she remembered the fear pounding through her when she ran away from him four years ago. All she’d had was flight that day. Every other option had been trimmed away.
His suspicion was dangerous. His weak point was terrifying. Owen had never left her with the impression that disillusionment was anything he’d be willing to float for very long.
Whatever came after disappointment, and how soon, or for how long, or to what end, she didn’t want to find out. Not then. Not now.
This time she had the truth and the Flinck to try to soothe him. But she didn’t exactly look as she did before. She watched her scar flex in the mirror under the flickering fluorescent lights of the drugstore’s restroom. She’d bought a few things to cover up the days of adrenaline and far too little sleep. She washed her face and set to work.
Keeping a steady hand for a smooth eyeliner sweep was difficult on a regular day. Tired and wound tight made it almost impossible. She smudged the bold stripe at the corners of her eyes with her ring fingers. She pulled back from the mirror, blinked, and decided it looked okay. Okay had to be good enough. She needed to get back to Carly.
Carly had stayed in the car with the painting because they both didn’t want it to be left alone out in the open. Which was absurd. The more she thought of it, the worse she felt. What was Carly going to do if there was a problem? And why would there be a problem?
Paranoia had seeped into their waiting, and they were both trying to plan for every bad thing that could possibly happen—Carly by babysitting an inanimate object and Marcelline by painting her face as if it would level a playing field that clearly wasn’t. There was no controlling this, only rolling with it.
Marcelline crooked an arm around the bottles and tubes and their wrappers and plowed the whole lot into the plastic shopping bag. She had a last look at herself and didn’t feel as familiar with the reflection as she should. She scratched a tousle into her hair to stand in for something that looked like being at ease. It would have to do.
• • •
A mist of sweat surged over Marcelline’s body and she broke into a run when she saw no silhouette in the passenger side of the car. Carly was gone. Marcelline flinched automatically to check the back seat for the painting.
It was there, disguised in its bland bundle, and with a sting of guilt for what should have been her first concern, she turned a sweep for Carly. But like the painting, Carly was there, too, absolutely fine. She came across the blacktop with a small white bag from the party-supply place that bookended the run of stores at this end.
Marcelline’s heart surged, then paced down from booming panic to a merely headache-making bang.
“What are you doing?” She met Carly halfway so that she was close enough to hear a lowered voice.
“I’m sorry! I had to go to the bathroom. I picked the closest place. I could still see the car from the counter. I was only away from it for a minute. Everything was okay, so I bought some gum. My stomach hurts. I thought it would help. Do you want some?”
Marcelline had a hint of old pennies on her dry tongue. “Yeah, thanks.” She took the gum. “Come on. We should get going.”
• • •
“You should let me go in with you,” said Carly.
They’d taken the long way around the town and now sat in the car, with the air-conditioning running, backed into the last row of yet another shopping center. Marcelline wanted the open view in these last few minutes before going into the little sub shop to talk with Owen. She didn’t want him sneaking up on them. He was presumably already inside. His silver car sat out front in a casual display of not-at-all-bothered. Her stomach rolled at the sight of it.
But she cut her eyes at Carly and smiled in spite of the nausea. “You’re going to be my bodyguard?”
Carly was all out of humor. “No. But I’m part of this. I want him to remember that.” She swallowed and looked down at her hands in her lap. “I want you to remember it, too.”
“Hey, I’m not forgetting that. How could I? I was out of options before you did what you did this morning. You’ve been great. You’re very brave.”
“I don’t know if it was good. Maybe we should just give it back?”
“Jonathan doesn’t get to win. He let people die over this.”
“I didn’t mean to give it back to him. To the museum.”
“Oh.” Marcelline took a turn at averting her eyes. “Yes. That’s an important point. And my answer to it isn’t very good. It’s not the noblest way to go. But this one painting, it’s the least of the collection. It’s not really one of the ones they care about getting back. I mean, I’m sure it would be welcomed, but . . . it might give me my life back. I’m not getting anything for it. Not money. Not anymore.”
She reached out to clasp Carly’s forearm and was relieved that she didn’t pull away. “Carly, I hope you understand. I lost everything. If Owen will take it, I’ll have a chance. Do you think that’s terrible?”
“No. Not terrible. I get it.”
“I hope so. I made a mistake when I met Jonathan. I was wrong. We should have just turned it in. But doing it now doesn’t undo almost any of it.”
“It’s okay.”
“It’s lame. I know it is. And I’m sorry.”
“Sometimes lame is okay. Sometimes it has to be.” Carly twitched a crooked, sympathetic smile into her cheek. Then she tried to get paid for it. “But you should let me come in with you. It’s only right.”
Marcelline was impressed with Carly’s bargaining instincts. “I have to talk to Owen alone. There are things he’s going to want to talk about, and it’ll look like I’m not willing to do that if I bring you in.”
Marcelline checked the clock. She should go. Her heart wound up again for another hurtling gallop.
Carly knocked it back to her. “Okay, but I could come in and just stay for a few minutes, then come back out to the car.”
Marcelline hesitated, and Carly brought the rest of her argument in a high-colored rush of persuasion. “It will be good. I can help. If I’m there, he’ll have to calm down. What’s he going to do? Kill you when he knows I’m here? You’ll be safer. I’ll be safer.”
Marcelline had to go. They had to go if it was going to be a they.
“I don’t think he’s going to kill anybody in a sandwich shop, but okay. You can come in. Say your piece. Or just be there. I’m not going to tell you how to handle this.” She smiled at Carly. “You’ve shown you know what to do.”
Carly smiled back. A real one, a worried one, but brave. It bruised Marcelline’s clanging heart.
Marcelline cleared tears from her throat. “All right. Let’s at least put the painting in the trunk.”
Carly snapped straight in her seat, ready to bolt. “Okay. I’ll do it.”
Their eyes met. The air felt charged with
two sets of nerves pumping electricity into the closed space.
“Go ahead,” Carly said. “Pop the trunk. And check in the mirror. Your mascara, it’s kinda . . .” Carly waved her finger vaguely eyeward on Marcelline.
She pushed the button to open the trunk for Carly, already out and unbuckling the garment bag, and then dug into her purse for her compact. She’d been sweating though she’d pointed the air conditioner straight at her face. A sooty snowfall of mascara flakes sprinkled her cheek ridge. Swiping helped some and smudged some. She wet the tip of her middle finger on her tongue to fix it.
The trunk lid slammed closed. The dark shape of Carly coming back around to the passenger side sent her shadow through the window.
A red car streaked in from the left across the windshield.
Carly screamed, “No!”
Jonathan’s car bucked on its front tires and squealed to a stop to keep from running her over. Carly had dashed out into the lane, just beyond the nose of Marcelline’s car.
“Carly, no!”
Marcelline was blocked in. Her thoughts slowed down. Parked cars on either side. Jonathan dead ahead. He opened his door and stepped out onto the asphalt.
The only open vista was behind Marcelline—beyond the sidewalk, the strip of grass that separated the people from the parking lot, and then the road beyond.
It was conditioned into every driver that it was off-limits. A bright green suggestion. But it wasn’t impossible. And the curb, too, again more of a guideline, a cement caution, not insurmountable. Literally. The only way out was behind her, past the back windshield, out past the back seat now empty of the Flinck. It was in the trunk. Loose. Unprotected.
It wasn’t very art-reverent of her that she’d see it smashed to splinters by backing into suburban traffic outside a shitty little strip mall before she’d let Jonathan have it again.
She dropped the car into drive, revved the engine, and lurched up a few feet toward Jonathan’s car. She saw him jump back, unsure if she would plow it through or not.
Marcelline stopped hard and waved her arm at Carly, who stood frozen in the scene, shocked white and tear streaked in front of her stepfather. “Carly, go! Go!”
Marcelline wasn’t entirely convinced he wouldn’t run her over, if only in his race to catch up with the painting.
She shoved the gear selector to R and jammed her foot down over the accelerator. Her car shot backward, popped the curb with a horrible thud and clang. She fought the wheel over to point the nose off the sidewalk and ground the car back into drive.
Her last look into the parking lot showed Jonathan scrambling back into his seat and Carly, gape-mouthed, at Marcelline, seeing her suddenly out on the road and leaving her.
“Carly, run!”
She checked the mirror again as she roared away.
Carly did.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
* * *
She ran with not a question in her head as to where she would go.
Marcelline was out of sight, with John screeching off behind her before Carly was halfway across the parking lot. Owen’s car was a silver smudge as she passed it, and she hit the restaurant’s door, pulling up barely enough to keep from crashing right through the glass.
She flung it open, and every head snapped up to the urgent rush of her into the room.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Owen said.
She stopped herself, hands slapped onto the table as brakes.
“You have to help her.” Carly was gulping air.
“Would you like to have a seat?”
“No! We have to go! He’s chasing her!”
Owen turned toward the growing attention of the amazed staff behind the counter. “Would someone please bring her a Coke.” He swung back to Carly. “Clearly, we’re not going anywhere until you tell me what you think is going on.”
“He’s chasing her!”
“Stop yelling. And sit down.”
It felt weird to Carly that she had no inclination to do it. Her body didn’t betray her own judgment. Her legs weren’t trembling to fold into the seat just because he said so. Her hands didn’t want to fidget. She was freaking out and she was also fine.
Carly didn’t defy grown-ups and she didn’t hassle people, especially when she wanted them to do something. She wasn’t stupid. But she had exactly zero impulse to sit down at the moment. So she didn’t.
“Or you can just stand there, I guess,” Owen said, unruffled. “So you’re saying Jonathan just showed up and they drove off and left you here. With me.”
“She didn’t leave me here.”
“And yet here you are. Instead of her.”
“It’s not like that.”
“Tell me, how do you think Jonathan knew to be here? Are you suggesting I told him?”
She was surprised that she could be surprised today. She’d just taken it as a given that Owen would jump up and follow her out on the rescue mission. How did John know? “Maybe he followed you,” she said.
“Maybe he didn’t need to.”
“Marcelline didn’t tell him.”
“And you know that how?”
“She wouldn’t.”
“You’re a mind reader, too?”
“No, she just wouldn’t and she couldn’t have.”
“She didn’t make any calls? Send any texts? You were with her every second?”
Of course Marcelline could have. Carly knew very well that they hadn’t been together every second. She searched for the words to explain why she knew it hadn’t happened that way. Owen, helpfully, gave them to her:
“They’re playing you.”
Her spine pulled her straight to her full height. She looked down on this man. Huge. Dismissive. And completely wrong. She leaned in, her indignation burning up through her without catching on any checkpoints of embarrassment. “I don’t get played.”
He pulled back just a little. She marked it with a soaring recognition that it had been automatic for him. He couldn’t help it. He saw her.
The victory gave her the okay to sit down. Her legs were tired. This day was hard. She pulled out the chair and dropped into it. A girl with a ponytail under a logoed ball cap put a drink in front of her, and Carly took a long pull of the bright, cold fizz.
“You’re a regal little thing, aren’t you?” Owen said.
“She didn’t set this up.”
“You do realize I’ve been in this position before with the two of them?”
“I don’t know what happened before.”
“Right. You didn’t even know your times tables back then.”
“She didn’t do this. You have to help her.”
“But I don’t.”
“She’s a good person. It’s your fault if something happens.”
“I can promise that you’re testing the wrong string if you think I’m worried about it being my fault.”
“You don’t care if something bad happens to her?”
Owen blinked at her.
Carly raised her eyebrows to answer him.
He cleared his throat. “Everything about this looks like an ambush. They wind you up and send you in here. I bet you a million dollars we get a message soon telling us where to meet them.”
It was the only time anyone had said “bet you a million” that Carly believed there could be that actual bet, on his side at least.
“She’s only afraid of you. She thought you might take the painting or even hurt her.”
“Do you imagine that’s reassuring? Is there anything more dangerous than an animal that’s afraid?”
“Do you think I didn’t notice that you didn’t say you weren’t going to do any of those things?” Carly took a sip of her soda. The bubbles went all the way into her blood.
Owen played it like tennis. “And you think I should just take your assessment of the situation? You think it’s reasonable for me to forget what I know about Marcelline and her very bad judgment when it comes to this particular thing?”
&
nbsp; “But you don’t know it. You just wonder about it. Besides, don’t you have to buy it no matter what? Isn’t that your job?”
“All I have to do is say that it didn’t work out. Do you imagine anyone’s going to call me a liar?”
Carly looked at him over the lid of her tilted cup. The sweetness was outpacing the wet in the third sip. She wasn’t thirsty anymore.
She sighed. “I can tell that you like being different from everyone else. It’s your thing. That’s always your advantage. Well, almost always. Sometimes it sucks being a unicorn, doesn’t it?”
The idea she was having came with a pause here that she only sort of understood, so she took another unwanted sip for something to do while it worked in her.
He shifted just a little in his chair and tilted his head like he was bored-listening. But he was listening just the same.
“But it’s not working out the way you planned. And because it’s me sitting here and not her, you’re mad. You’re saying she’s being tricky. And that she might be planning to hurt you. You’re saying that she’s doing what you would do in this situation.
“So you’re different when you want to be, but when you don’t want to do something, all of a sudden, everyone’s the same.”
“Did you just call me a chicken?”
“No. Nobody wants to get attacked. I don’t blame you. But I don’t count. I’m just a kid, not a fancy loner guy.” She waved her hand at his slick blue suit to punctuate the point. “It’s easy for me to see how you’re different from Marcelline. She’s not going to attack you. She just wants to go home.”
“And what does Jonathan want?”
Carly thought toward John. There wasn’t much there. “I don’t know.”
“So you’ve known Jonathan for years and Marcelline for a few days, but you understand her more than you understand him?”
Carly found herself a sudden fountain of hot tears, not because it was true, but because she was tired and because it was frustrating not to find the words to explain why it made sense. What she knew about John was muddled with memories from both before and after she knew how to really look and listen. Everything she knew about Marcelline, even about how tricky she could be, Carly had learned the right way.