Maybe Jag is touching them now, or maybe we’re sleeping in his bed, waiting for another round after breakfast. I’ll probably never know for sure. We aren’t connected, just barely acquainted. On the other hand, I saw my alternate self after she had sex with Eddie, and I’m certainly not entangled with him.
What made the difference?
The articles about the twin girls.
After the first story, I drove away from Marissa’s only to return and make nude videos. A return I don’t remember.
The day after the next article appeared, I saw a universe where I had sex with Eddie then skipped back to my room after dying in Garrett’s truck.
The next day I was almost assaulted by Caden. I found out the girls were strangled, and I saw Bailee in the store. The next day she went missing.
The girl who looks like me. The girl who fell over on a chair in the same blind I did five minutes after her.
She has to be Gibbs’ daughter, the one she saw riding a bike, the one who wasn’t aborted. But how can she be in my world? How could I have seen her in Cabela’s?
I slip on a t-shirt and boxer shorts then brush my teeth. As soon as I open the bathroom door, Gibbs calls out from the kitchen, “Are you too tired to talk a little bit?”
“I might fall asleep in mid sentence, but we can certainly try.”
She hurries down the hall and walks with me to my room. I put my dirty clothes into a drawer while she zips my suitcase closed and sets it on the floor. She stares at me, her lips open then pressed together then open, like she can’t decide whether to say something.
“Whatever you want to ask, Gibbs. It’s OK.”
She throws me a lopsided smile. “Do you have butt dimples?”
I feel my face flush. “Yes.”
“Can I see?”
I turn around and lift my shirt. I look over my shoulder and see Gibbs cover her mouth. “Do you?”
“Yes.” She turns and lifts her shirt. Both of ours are deep and set wide.
One day at our neighborhood pool, two guys said, “Love your dimples,” as they walked by. At first, I was confused. I was only twelve and had no cheek dimples, much to my dismay since I loved Dad’s. I had noticed the dents on my lower back but never heard them called dimples. I ran over to Mom and asked her what they were. She called them dimples of Venus and said they were a sign of beauty. I asked if she had them. She said no.
“Some boys said they loved them.”
“Really? How’d that make you feel?”
“Embarrassed.”
“You’d better get over that quickly because you’re going to have lots of boys giving you compliments.”
“Like you did?”
She tightened her mouth. “No. I never experienced that pleasure.” I was about to ask why when she told me I should go swim with my friends. I’d forgotten that scene. Now it makes sense. My dimples were another item in the list that kept us separated.
I turn around and face Gibbs.
“Does your mother have them?” asks Gibbs.
I shake my head.
She hugs me. “How is this possible?”
“We’ll try to figure this out.” I release her and find my phone. “I need to show you a picture.” I find Bailee’s and enlarge it. “Have you ever seen this girl? Does she look like the one riding her bike past your campsite three years ago?”
Gibbs takes my phone and touches the screen. “Yes. Who is she?”
“I saw her yesterday afternoon from a distance at Cabela’s. Then during lunch today I received an Amber Alert with her picture. She’s missing near the same park I was in when you called me yesterday.”
“She’s missing?”
“Yes.” My pulse quickens. “I think she’s the daughter you had with Dad.”
“How? I had an abortion.”
“Yes, but another version of you didn’t. In another universe, Dad chose you instead of Mom, and you gave birth to Bailee.”
“In another universe? What do you mean?”
“I’ll explain tomorrow. I don’t think I can stay awake much longer.”
“But there should be two of them.”
“Two Bailee’s? Why?”
“Because I was pregnant with twins.”
Every nerve on my head tingles. “Twins? How do you know?”
“Before the procedure, the doctor did a sonogram to see how far along I was. She told me.”
The lights flicker off then on.
“Shit!” says Gibbs. “The power’s going out.”
My bedroom light flickers rapidly then dies. We are in total darkness.
23
Gibbs uses the light on my phone to find the door. “Stay here. I’ll come back with flashlights.” As she disappears down the hallway, I feel my way to my suitcase, lift it up, and set it on the bed. As soon as I unzip the top panel, something leaps out.
“Shit!” I jump back and bump into Gibbs as she returns to the room with a flashlight. We both see a cat on top of the drawers.
“I was wondering where you were.” Gibbs picks up the bronze tabby.
My heart is still thumping against my chest. “It jumped out of the suitcase.”
“She must’ve gone exploring before I zipped it up.” She offers the cat to me. “This is Penelope.”
She purrs as I take her. So soft and gentle. Did I save the cat? Or did the power outage? Would anyone have known she was in my suitcase if the electricity had stayed on? I can imagine the three of us looking frantically all over the house for Penelope tomorrow, even wondering if she’d escaped outside. Possibly crying at her loss, when all the time she lay right next to us, patiently waiting to be discovered and freed.
There’s something symbolic about this sequence of events, but I’m too tired to decipher it now.
Gibbs opens an LED lantern on the boards and gives me a flashlight. “Get dressed. You can help me outside.” Gibbs takes Penelope and leaves my room.
I put on my leggings, socks, snow pants, and fleece and walk back to the kitchen to find my boots and jacket. Gibbs returns in thick overalls.
“Should we wake Dad?” I ask.
“No. We got this.” She puts on her boots. “The power went out a few days ago. I helped Sean, so I know what to do. He’s got to get some sleep.”
I follow her outside where snow still falls in a foggy mist. I see a three-quarter moon veiled by thin clouds trying to shed some light on us before we enter the garage. The cold bites my face, and my fingers ache. I forgot to put on gloves.
“Be careful in here,” says Gibbs. “This place is a pigsty. The shop lights won’t work in the cold, so we have to use our flashlights.”
She walks along a path of boxes, tools, and shelves until she finds a large square yellow something and lifts it. “Damn, that’s heavy. Grab those extension cords on those hooks. I’ll take this generator.”
I move out of her way as she grunts back to the door with her load. I find four coiled electric cords and try to stick my arms and frozen fingers through the loops. After knocking a few tools off their hooks onto the concrete floor and kicking unknown containers, I exit the door.
Gibbs sets the generator down near the steps leading to the house then turns a few knobs and flips a switch before pulling a handle and cord. After several yanks, the generator coughs and spits then runs smoothly after Gibbs pushes in a plunger. I’m amazed. Do all Alaskan women know how to do this?
“Give me two cords.”
I do, and she plugs them into the generator before uncoiling the loops.
“Open both doors, but watch for Penelope.”
She follows behind me, laying cord under the door before she closes one then the other.
She holds the end of one cord in her hand. “Drop those cords and follow me back to the heater. You’ll need to hold the flashlight for me while I plug the furnace into this one.”
During the next ten minutes, she shows me how to connect the generator cords to the furnace, water pump, hot water heater, a
nd heat tapes, which run along water pipes under the floor and down into the well. She finishes by connecting a lamp in the kitchen.
We look at each other across the halo of light and smile. “Welcome to Alaska,” Gibbs says as the furnace kicks on. “Half of that hot air goes under the house to keep the pipes from freezing. The wood stove can heat most of the house but not underneath.”
“How often do you have to do this?”
“We’ve done it three times in the last two weeks. Something fails, and they have to send a crew from Fairbanks. Usually takes four to six hours. That generator will run longer than that. Come. I’ll show you how to add logs to the fire.”
I follow her into the living room. She holds a lever on the right side of the stove.
“You need to flip this forward before you open the door.” She pushes the handle. “Then open the door just a little so the draft will force the smoke up the flue and not into the room.” She demonstrates then opens the door. “Grab a piece of wood.”
I remove a piece from the pile in the iron holder.
“Now hold it from the back, keep it level, and push it inside. And don’t touch the stove opening ‘cause it’s hot.”
Ash blows from the red, glowing embers as I toss the wood inside, but the back end sticks out of the door.
“You need to grab the back end again and push it all the way in. It’s not hot yet, so it won’t burn you.”
Heat pushes against my face and eyes as I bend down to lift the wood. A little smoke stings my nostrils as I force the piece in farther.
“Do two more,” says Gibbs.
The next two go in more easily, and she closes the door.
“You have to let the wood burn a few minutes to get rid of any remaining moisture.” She points to a gauge on top of the stove. “Then when the temperature gets above this mark, you can flip the handle back.”
We watch the new wood burn.
I wrinkle my nose. “I smell like a campfire.”
“As does everyone who burns wood. Can’t help it. Hey, you’re doing good for a cheechako. Thanks.”
“A what?”
“A newbie from the Lower 48. During my first winter up here, I stayed inside for two months, scared of the cold. But I got over it. Now twenty below is nothing. Kids walk to school wearing sweats and tennis shoes. The cold, like most everything else, is what your mind wants it to be.”
I laugh. “Until you freeze to death.”
She tilts her head down, causing the yellow, horizontal light to cast stark shadows across her face. “Which I hear is kind of like falling asleep.” She pauses and folds her arms, hugging herself. “I always get a little scared going to sleep by myself. I know it’s crazy.”
I reach my hands toward the fire. “Sometimes you can’t help what your mind tells you. It doesn’t always cooperate with what you want.”
“Boy, that’s the truth.”
We stare at each other, the drone of the generator purring just outside, and I feel an even stronger connection to her. I suspect she’s had strange visions and dreams too.
I see Gibbs in an entirely new light. It’s twenty below outside, snowing, and the power went out at nearly six in the morning after she’d been up all night. Yet she took care of the problem without a complaint. And without Dad.
So many layers to this woman.
“Are we done outside?” I ask to break the spell. “I’m burning up in these clothes.”
“Yeah.”
We walk back to the kitchen. I hang my coat and fleece on a hook by the door and put my boots on the rack against the wall. When I turn around, I find Gibbs in her panties and thermal top pushed up to her belly button—all her other clothes in a pile by her feet.
“I left my PJs in the bathroom,” she says, hugging her stomach.
I can’t tell if she’s embarrassed or making an excuse to stand in her underwear. Then she drops her arms, and I notice a slight bulge just above her panty line. I can’t help staring. Dad had convinced me Gibbs wasn’t pregnant, but that looks like a baby bump to me.
She walks over, her fingers touching her bulge. “You seem surprised.”
I try to shake my head, but I can’t unlock my eyes from her belly. “No, it’s just . . . I didn’t expect it to be noticeable yet.” I force my eyes up to hers. “How far along are you?”
“About twelve weeks. It shows more now because I’ve been pregnant before.” She turns so I see her profile.
“When did you see a doctor?”
She hesitates. “I haven’t. My car’s been dead for two months, so Sean’s had to take me everywhere.”
“Then how do you know you’re . . .”
Her eyes flash up to mine. “Because I’ve been pregnant before. I’m puking in the morning. My breasts don’t fit into my bra.”
“How do you know the gender?”
“I did a baking soda test. And a couple of others. Plus I ordered a blood kit on Amazon. Sent it back two days ago, but I know she’s a girl. I’ll get the results soon.”
“You should see a doctor.”
“I’m not ready to tell Sean yet.”
“Won’t he notice . . . the bump?”
“Not if I don’t show him.” She pulls her top down and walks to the bathroom.
I’m so tired I feel dizzy, but so many things swirl in my mind—twins, Bailee, Gibbs, pregnant or not . . . and I’m dying of thirst. I open the refrigerator and look for bottled water or a soda. I find none, but do see a bottle of Moscato on the top shelf next to orange juice. I glance back at the bathroom, then remove the bottle and find a glass in a cabinet. I pour in some wine and drink it. The swirling thoughts slow just a little. I pour more wine then return the bottle.
“Take as much as you want,” Gibbs says from behind me. “Sean hates it, and I’m not drinking anymore.”
I turn around and see Gibbs in her flannel pajamas. I take a drink. “My eyes feel like they’re going to fall out of my face I’m so tired, but my mind can’t stop thinking.”
“I know exactly what you mean because I feel the same way every night.” She reaches out her arms. “Come.”
I walk toward her until she puts her arms around me.
“Bailee was a twin?” I ask.
“So said the doctor. But she also told me that up to thirty percent of twin pregnancies end with just one birth.”
“Why?”
“One dies and is absorbed by the other. It’s called a vanishing twin. Supposedly, the twin who survives feels the loss forever.”
“But there’s a greater chance that you would’ve birthed both twins. Did the doctor tell you one fetus had already died?”
“No. Come to your room. You need to sleep.”
We walk down the hall and sit on my bed. I hear the generator run softly in the background.
“Send me Bailee’s picture,” says Gibbs.
I do.
Gibbs expands the image and touches the screen. “She’s in danger?”
“Maybe. Before I left school yesterday afternoon, I asked a man to check out a trail in the park where I saw Caden. He’s the asshole who was bothering me when you called during lunch.” I drink the rest of my wine and set the glass on the boards. “I think the same bad thing happened to both Bailee and me.”
“What bad thing?”
I can’t stifle a yawn. My mouth opens so wide I think my jaw will break. “I’m so tired.”
She scoots back on the bed, leaning pillows against the wall. “Lie down with me and tell me what you can. If you fall asleep, that’s fine. I’m afraid I’ll wake up Sean if I go to his room.”
She lifts the covers and slides her legs under. I crawl toward her and lie back on a pillow next to her.
“Something happened in a hunting blind,” I say, turning on my side, facing her.
“Tell me.” She strokes my head.
I tell her about Cabela’s and the dream I had listening to a girl dying while I did nothing. Later in mid-sentence, I stop hearing my words an
d imagine meteors streaking across the sky. I sleep.
* * *
I open my eyes to total darkness, my shoulders aching because my arms are tied behind me. I feel the cold metal of a chair against my bare skin. I am naked.
This is no dream.
My chest heaves, unable to breathe in enough air, and I try to stand, but my legs are fastened to the chair. My mouth is taped shut. Cold fingers press the sides of my neck, forcing my blood to push desperately against the barrier. Something is shoved against my pubis, pulsing, sending waves of vibration through my legs and into the pit of my stomach.
I try to twist my neck and free it from the grasp, but the fingers press harder. The intensity of the vibration increases. My entire body clenches as grunts of pain crawl up my torso in spasms only to be stifled by the hand around my throat. The lightning flashes behind my eyes turn the image inside my mind blinding white.
Then everything begins to fade—the pain, the light, the pressure.
Just before I pass out, the fingers release, and all sensations slam into my brain. A scream rages through my throat only to be muted by the barrier against my mouth. Tears pour out of my eyes.
The fingers tighten against my neck again. More pressure between my legs.
“Please,” I beg. “Please.”
A flash of light in front of me, to the side. Quickly covered and moved upward. A phone? The vibrations stop. The pressure is removed.
A halo of brightness illuminates a neck and chin in front of me. Someone peers at a phone for a few seconds, shoves it into a pocket, then stands. A rope is dropped over my head then tightened around my neck. I have to sit straighter in my chair to keep the noose from strangling me.
The chin is Caden’s, I have no doubt.
I hear footsteps on a plastic floor cover then a zipper opening and closing, flashing light inside from behind me. For those few seconds, I see a large vibrator on a chair in front of me, ropes on the floor, a backpack, and a long, thin tube with a grip handle on the end. The rope around my neck must go through a brace in the ceiling because I see it descend at an angle from above my head toward a brace behind the chair.
Some Laneys Died: A Skipping Sideways Thriller Page 18
