Some Laneys Died: A Skipping Sideways Thriller

by Brooke Skipstone

  “OK.” I almost ask why he’s sorry, but maybe I don’t want to know.

  “I thought you were flying to Alaska.”

  “I was, but Jag met me in the airport and persuaded me to change my flight.”

  “Does your mother know?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Well, I’m glad you stayed. I’d be dead now if not for you.”

  “If not for me, you wouldn’t be in this hospital. I’m so sorry.” I grab his hand.

  He squeezes my fingers. “I know you’re feeling guilty, but you trusted me to help you. I appreciate your faith in me. And maybe if I hadn’t been there, they would’ve gotten bored with Bailee more quickly and killed her. Who knows? The fact is, you saved us both, and I can’t thank you enough. You’re one tough son of a gun, Laney. I’m proud to know you.”

  A nurse enters with food for Gus.

  “I’ll let you eat. I want to see Bailee.”

  “Did they get away?”

  “So far.”

  He nods. “Take care of yourself. And Jagger.”

  I leave and head for the nurse’s station. “Can I see Bailee West?”

  “And you are?”

  “Her sister.” I show my ID.

  “Let me check.” The nurse walks down the hall. After a minute, she returns. “You can see her. She’ll probably be discharged tomorrow. Where are your parents?”

  “One’s in Alaska, and the other is in Chicago.”

  “Is there an adult family member in town?”

  “No. I’ll get at least one of them back by tomorrow.”

  She nods. “OK. Come with me.”

  As we walk, I ask, “Is she going to be all right?”

  “Yes. Several contusions, dehydration, sore muscles, but nothing her body can’t deal with. Her mind is another story, however. She’s going to need lots of therapy.” She opens the door for me. “Bailee, you have a visitor. Your sister, Laney.”

  She turns her head toward me—bruised face, puffy eyes, tangled hair. “My sister, Laney,” she says, followed by a wide smile. “I’ve been waiting for you.” She holds out her hand.

  I run toward her and pull her hand to my lips, covering it with kisses and tears. The nurse leaves. “I’m sorry I didn’t get to you sooner. Gus said they were planning to kill you tonight.”

  “That’s what they said, but it doesn’t matter. We’re together now.”

  “How did they catch you?”

  “Because I tried to rescue Gus. I waited in the trees since Wednesday night, hoping to find you. Late Thursday Gus found the blind. I saw Caden shoot him with a dart. I attacked Caden, was just about to cut him when Garrett jabbed me. I’d never seen him before. Caden had always worked alone. They took us back to the trailer at the same time.”

  “Gus told me to tell you he’s sorry.”

  She nods. “He’s a good man. They forced him to . . . do things to me. He refused even after they tortured him. But when they started hurting me, he cooperated.”

  Gus has always been a gentleman. His eyes have never wandered when we’ve talked. I can’t imagine the guilt he must be feeling. And the anger. My heart aches for him. “How’d you get them to do an Amber Alert? Who reported you?”

  She clears her throat then smiles. “I drove to the trailhead and parked. Left my driver’s license in the cup holder. Found a rock and bashed in the side window. Wrote ‘Die Bitch’ on the windshield with blood out of my fingertip.”

  “You’re kidding.” She shakes her head. “You are so awesome.”

  “I’m not finished. Then I called the police with a cheap phone I’d just bought. I screamed about seeing two guys pull a girl out of the car and push her down the trail. They asked my name. I gave them one. They wanted me to stay by the car, but I said one of the men might have seen me, so I had to go. I ran into the woods and climbed a tree. I saw some cops walking around, but I stayed hidden. The next day they issued the alert.”

  I shake my head in wonder. “How’d you know I’d look for you?”

  “You said my name before you died on Wednesday. You knew who I was. I never knew your name before then.”

  “When did you first see Caden?”

  “Three years ago on the Fourth of July, my parents camped near the lake in Falls Park. I rode around the loops on my bike. Caden dared me to a race along that trail. I said no. Weeks later, I had dreams of crashing on the rocks and someone helping me up. Then I felt a shot to my leg. Next thing I knew, I was tied to a chair in darkness being tortured.”

  I bow my head in shame and rub her hand. “I dreamed I sat outside the blind, listening to a girl moan. I was too scared to help her.”

  She squeezes my fingers. “For years, all I remembered about that day was riding my bike then skipping rocks across the lake. I couldn’t understand the nightmares.” A tear slips down her cheek.

  I wipe it off. “What time of day did he want to race?”

  “Late afternoon.”

  “We were camped at the lake on the same day. Mom sent me to look for Dad. Caden offered to help me find him. I said no, but later I kept having dreams of being strangled and . . . molested.” I hold her hand.

  “We both died at the same time at the same place by the same boy, but in different universes.” She brings my hand to her lips and kisses it.

  I wipe my cheeks. “Our skeletons were found last week.”

  “Really? I didn’t know that.”

  “The police had no idea who they were, but thought we might be twins.”

  “Different versions of Caden killed us more than once.”

  “Were you hunting me or Caden?”

  Her eyes harden. “Both. Him first, then you.”

  “On Wednesday in the blind, you said, ‘How many times do I have to slit your throat?’ And when I died, you said ‘not again.’ How many times have you seen me die?”

  “Twice. That Wednesday and last Friday.”

  I knew something had happened to me. I left Marissa’s house and drove to the park because of the two girls being found. “Why were you at the park that night?”

  “I was driving home, restless, not sure what to do. I went by the park and had the strangest feeling that Caden was there. I saw a car parked at the trailhead and found the blind. He had his hand around your throat when I cut him. But you’d already died.”

  Then I skipped back inside Marissa’s house to the Laney who never got into her car. Just like I’d skipped back to my bedroom after Garrett wrecked the truck.

  I touch her cheek. “What made you think you had a sister?”

  “Because I had the same vision of some other girl in a tent being tortured. I couldn’t stop feeling guilty. And I couldn’t stop feeling like someone was missing in my life. I’d always wanted a sister. I found information about vanishing twin syndrome and how the surviving twin feels. I felt the same way, so I asked Dad. He told me Mom had what she thought was a miscarriage at twelve weeks, but it turned out one of the fetuses had died. The tissue eventually was absorbed by the other fetus. In one universe you were born instead of me. In another, I was.” She reaches for the cup of ice water.

  I give it to her. Bailee was born after Dad chose Gibbs instead of Mom. Gibbs was pregnant with twins. So she had Bailee in one universe and me in another. Or Bailee lost her twin with Gibbs, and I lost mine with Mom. Which was it?

  I take her cup and add more water. “Gibbs said she aborted twins. But in another universe, she didn’t.”

  “Who’s Gibbs?”

  I stare at her as my neck tingles. “Your mother. Maybe our mother.”

  She frowns. “Our mother is Hannah. I’ve never heard of Gibbs.”

  A gush of heat fills my chest. “But . . . we look like her.”

  “We look like Dad’s mother. Haven’t you noticed?”

  “She died years ago in a car accident.”

  “She’s Grandma to me and very much alive.”

  I feel dizzy and grab her bed to keep from falling. “But my arms are l
ong like Gibbs’.”

  She coughs a laugh. “Haven’t you seen Dad’s arms? Hairy and long like a monkey’s.”

  My mind swirls. “I’ve never noticed. I’ve been away from him for three years. My own arms grew longer a few years ago. Do you have butt dimples?”

  “Sure. So does Dad. And a toe thumb.” She holds up her right thumb, which bends almost horizontally backward at the first joint. “Let me see your thumbs.”

  I hold them up.

  “How far can you bend them back?”

  I try, and they bend back as far as hers. She grabs one hand.

  “And this thumb is bigger than it should be. Looks like a big toe. Hence, toe thumb.”

  Both of my arms feel like they’ve been asleep, numbed from no circulation, then moved violently. Blood gushes in and every nerve burns. “We have the same parents.”

  “Duh! That’s why we’re twins. What’d you think?”

  I pull her face to mine and kiss her.

  “Ouch.” She pulls my hands away. “Careful with my neck.”

  “I’m sorry. I’ve been . . . confused about a lot of things the past few days.” She smiles, and I see her creases in her cheeks. I touch them. “Why do you have dimples, and I don’t?”

  She points at my chest. “Why do you have bigger boobs than me?”

  We laugh then stare at each other, smiling. How much sister fun have we missed?

  “Who’s Gibbs?” she asks.

  “Dad’s girlfriend before he married Mom. He kept having affairs with her until Mom divorced him.”

  “Really? Well, maybe my Dad just never got caught.”

  I tell her the history between Gibbs and Dad and the first miscarriage. “Gibbs thinks you’re her daughter. Hell, I even thought I was her daughter. I showed your Amber Alert photo to her. You and I both look like Gibbs did in tenth grade. She thinks she’s pregnant now with my sister, but she’s had several false pregnancies before. The truth is she’s probably not pregnant, and neither one of us is hers. She’s already fragile. She won’t take this information very well.”

  “Then don’t tell her.”

  “Don’t tell about you?”

  “Don’t tell I’m not her daughter. I’m not even supposed to be in this universe, so what difference does it make?”

  “What about Mom? What do we tell her?”

  “Do you think your mother will be happy I’m alive?”

  “I don’t know.” I hug myself and pace. “She hasn’t been very happy with me lately. I remind her of Gibbs. She definitely wasn’t happy when I asked about my twin. I’m supposed to bring Dad back to her.”

  “Where is he?”

  “In Alaska. I was taking a nap before I skipped back here.”

  “Skipped? That’s what you call it?”

  “Skipping sideways. What do you call it?”

  “Bubble surfing. Every universe we make is a bubble in the foam. I surf from one to the other.”

  “I like that. When did you start?”

  Her eyes turn cold and empty. “After I got locked up for cutting Caden a year ago.”

  “What happened?”

  “After that Fourth of July, I stopped playing sports. Stopped caring about school. Screwed around, literally. Smoked weed. Just became an angry bitch. My parents had no idea why. Hell, I didn’t know.”

  She looks at me, shakes her head, then turns away.

  “I became Caden’s girlfriend.”

  My heart skips. “What? How?”

  She looks at the wall. “I remembered him asking me to race, but after that . . . I never saw his face in my nightmare. He gave me drugs. We had sex. But it got more and more violent. The last time he choked me, and just before I blacked out, I realized who he was. I’d felt that hand on my throat before. When I woke up, I cut his face and his arm before one of his friends stopped me.”

  She turns toward me. “I got put into the detention center. Technically, I’m still there, but I figured out how to surf, so I haven’t been back for the past year. That’s a rough place.”

  I see lines on her forehead and dark areas under her eyes. She’s very thin.

  “What do you want to do after you’re released?” I ask.

  “Hunt and kill every version of Caden.”

  She notices my flinch.

  “I’m sorry, but this time was the worst. I . . . I almost gave up, but then I knew if I did, you’d find the version of me who stuck it out. I didn’t want to miss that.”

  I touch her face. “I’m glad you’re alive. We have a lot of time together to make up. We can’t let Caden ruin the rest of our lives. We have to move past him.”

  “OK. How do we do that?”

  “I’m not sure. First, I’ve got to think of a way to get Dad and Gibbs down here.”

  “Aren’t you with them? All three of you will fly down here to meet us? How will that work?”

  My stomach drops. How would one version of me walk off the plane and see another version of me with Bailee and Jag? And then I realize how long I’ve been away from him. “I need to get back to Jag. He’s been in the waiting room all this time.”

  A nurse enters with food. “Here you are, Bailee.”

  “Thank you,” she says. “I’m starving.”

  The nurse elevates Bailee’s back and slides food over her lap.

  Bailee takes a bite of mashed potatoes and nearly swoons. “Yum. Under normal circumstances I’d offer you some, Sis, but I’m going to eat everything. Even the stale Jello.”

  “That’s OK.”

  “Go see Jag. Where’d you find him?”

  “In the hunting blind section at Cabela’s.” She raises her brows. “I’ll explain later.” I grab her hand. “Don’t go anywhere without me, Sis.”

  “Same to you, Sis.”

  I kiss her cheek, leave the room, and find Jag stretched out asleep on the floor. I lie down next to him and touch his face. He saved three lives tonight. Strong. Unafraid. Smart. Beautiful.

  I push my hand through his hair then kiss his lips before I surf back to Alaska. My mind ignores the rough carpet glued to concrete and moves to the new, soft sheets on a sagging mattress in Dad’s house.

  28

  I wake up to screaming outside my bedroom door. Someone knocks a chair over in the kitchen.

  “I’m having a miscarriage!” yells Gibbs. “You need to drive me to the hospital.”

  “You’re having your period, dammit,” Dad barks back.

  I sit up and check my phone. It’s ten o’clock at night. I almost leave my room before I realize I’m still naked. I scramble to put on clothes.

  “Why can’t you believe I’m pregnant?” Another chair crashes to the floor. “I’m having cramps, really hard ones.”

  “You always have cramps during your period. The last time you claimed to be pregnant, your period started the same way. The doctor told you what was wrong.”

  “She lied! I had a miscarriage.” Her voice cracks. She’s weeping. “Why won’t you help me?”

  “Gibbs, come here and let’s talk this through.”

  “No more talk!”

  I hear a door open and close then another door open. She went out through the mudroom. After another minute, I hear the snow machine start. Does she plan to drive herself to Fairbanks? Pulling on a sweatshirt and running out of my room, I find Dad peering out the window. I stomp into my boots and run outside.

  “Gibbs! Don’t go!”

  She places one knee on the seat and looks back at me, no helmet on her head, no bib. Just a jacket over her pajamas. I move toward her, but she turns her head toward the driveway and takes off. After watching her for a second, I run back inside.

  “We need to follow her.”

  “Let her go. She’ll race around for twenty minutes then come back. She’s done it lots of times.”

  “No, she won’t. She talked to me about killing herself.”

  “When?”

  “This afternoon. After we came back from our ride. She’s pr
obably heading for the lake.”

  “Why there?”

  “Because she wants to drown herself. Please, we need to follow her.”

  “Shit.” Dad puts on his coat, and we both climb into the truck.

  “We have to hurry.” I feel like I’ve been running after her, and my lungs hurt. “What started this?”

  The engine whines as he turns the key. “I found two bottles of pills in her drawer while she took a bath. You were sleeping. When she came back to our room, I held up the bottles. She yelled about me going through her things and not trusting her.” He backs the truck and turns down the driveway. “Then I noticed blood running down her leg. She blamed me for causing a miscarriage, and it went downhill from there.”

  “What pills?”

  “Xanax and Adderall.”

  “Why the Adderall?”

  “Because she stole the bottle from Jaylinn at the restaurant. That’s really why she got fired. Jaylinn had her son’s pills in her purse. She called me today.”

  Dad turns right onto the road then drives toward the lake. He climbs over the berm the road plow left and pushes through deep snow. The back end slides then the wheels spin.

  “I can’t drive any farther. We’re gonna have to walk.”

  He leaves the truck running with headlights on, illuminating the road. We find Gibbs’ trail and walk on it to avoid sinking in deep snow with every step. Still, it’s hard to move quickly. The short trees on the shoulders have bent over from their snow load until their tips are hidden. Even though it’s cold out here, I feel sweat dripping from my armpits as we struggle to hurry. I try to walk in Dad’s footsteps, but his stride is longer than mine.

  We round a corner into darkness, the lights shining into trees on our right. He turns on a flashlight. I use my phone light and try to stay close to him. The trail veers left and descends onto the frozen lake. Her trail is much deeper now. We see the snow machine headlight up ahead in the middle of the flat expanse, the engine rumbling.

  Dad shines his light toward it, and we see Gibbs jumping on the ice.

  “Jesus H Christ,” says Dad. “She’s out of her mind.”