Aaliyah had told him about that book—non-fiction, but written like a novel, about the old Chicago World’s Fair and that serial killer, H.H. Holmes, who operated during it. It had actually sounded pretty cool when she described it. Now, faced with his own mystery, not so much.
“So we have to come back with some kind of artifact? How are we going to manage that?”
“We stop off at the store on the way back. Shredded Wheat was introduced at the Fair. But I can get that near home. Better if we spot an antique or thrift store where I can find something to pass off as an old tonic bottle, since Holmes posed as a doctor, or some bones or a poker I can say he used to tend his personal crematorium or maybe an old skeleton key.”
“Stop.” He held up a hand for reinforcement. His head was pounding again, and after he’d beaten the headache back to a dull roar, miraculously falling asleep in the nurse’s office after making the plan with Aaliyah.
“You okay?” She looked at him closely. “You don’t look so good.”
“Thanks.”
“No, I mean—”
“I know what you mean. I have a headache. I think I’ll feel better when we find my mother.”
Now she looked really concerned. “You do understand that might take a while, right? Especially if she doesn’t want to be found.”
He didn’t say any of what he was thinking, but just nodded and moved around to the passenger side of the car. If he was wrong—hell, he hoped he was wrong. He hoped and prayed.
He put the address his aunt had given him into the GPS, and they didn’t talk for a while, letting the phone speak for them. After a minute or two of that, Aaliyah reached over to turn the radio on. Beyoncé’s “Crazy in Love” came on, and Aaliyah sang along with more passion than skill. It made him smile for probably the first time that day, especially when she nudged him, trying to get him to join in. Like that was going to happen.
They made it in fifty minutes, most of it accompanied by Aaliyah’s sing-along mix. Or, at least, that’s what he figured it was. Beyoncé, Sia, Nicki Minaj, Jesse J, Ariana Grande, Taylor Swift, and Katy Perry. Every once in a while, there was a male voice in there. She sang along to every single song. He didn’t.
He did, however, sit up straighter as they got to his mother’s complex. There seemed to be three buildings, each resembling a three-level motel more than a block of apartments. The buildings themselves were putty-colored stucco with darker brown doors. Dirt Brown. A matching brown railing with narrowly spaced slats to keep people from falling through circled the second and third floors. Aaliyah’s car bounced, canted, and resettled as they hit the craterlike potholes in the parking lot.
Building 3562 was the first one on the left. They pulled into a parking spot near the building. If it was reserved, there was nothing to indicate it. They were still early enough that most people were at work. They ought to be gone by the time most returned home.
The mailboxes for the place were all clustered together in front of the central building, outside rather than inside so that all the mail person had to do was pull up, open up the boxes, shove the mail in and be off.
Jared and Aaliyah headed for them, but they were no help at all. The only thing on the mailboxes was the unit number they represented. No names.
“What now?” Aaliyah asked.
“Reconnaissance.”
She put her hands on her hips. “Seriously?”
“Yeah, why?”
Her face darkened, her good mood from singing along to the music gone now. She cocked her head at him, “If we go skulking around here without a plan, we’re going to get into trouble.”
He rolled his eyes. “No, we won’t. We’ll pretend we belong.”
She chewed her lip and didn’t look at all convinced, “This place isn’t that big. Probably everyone knows each other.” But she grabbed for his hand. “Maybe if we look like a couple out for a walk.”
“Which we are,” he said.
He could feel the tension in her grip, and he didn’t get it. He stroked her hand with his thumb and walked her toward his mother’s building. A couple of the dirt brown doors had something hanging on them–one a wreath with white and pink flowers, another a quilted “G,” probably to symbolize the occupant’s last name. He could rule those out.
Aaliyah pulled out her phone and started swiping and typing.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“Making a list. We can cross off 1E and 2D.”
Great minds thought alike. They strolled like they had no particular place to be, around the side of the building, then to the back where the same brown iron railing partitioned off the narrow balconies on the second and third floors, each just large enough for a couple of folding chairs and a single small table, which two of the units had, one on the first floor and another on the third. One unit had nothing but an ashtray precariously balanced on the railing. Others held clutter—children’s bikes, toys, planters in various states, drying towels or laundry. Only two units had nothing at all.
He was betting on those.
“Great,” he said, staring up. They’d stopped to gawk and so that Aaliyah could make her notes. He saw the vertical blinds on one of the sliding doors sway as though someone had just been there. It was the one with the ashtray as the sole accessory. “Well, we can narrow it down to two anyway, assuming she hasn’t decorated yet.”
“One, actually. 1E had the ‘G’ on the front door, so I’m guessing 2F is her unit. But what now? I should have thought of this sooner, but how does knowing help you?”
This was the part of the plan he didn’t want to involve Aaliyah in. He didn’t want to be involved himself, but he could see no other option.
“Now we knock,” he said, hoping it would be as simple as that, but knowing it wouldn’t be. “You can wait in the car if you want.”
She gave him a don’t-be-stupid look.
Sighing, he took her hand again and they finished their walk around the complex toward the front. Together, they climbed the stairs and stopped at the door to 2F. There was a bell, and he tried that first.
No answer. He hadn’t expected one.
The apartment felt empty. He didn’t know how that was possible, but he sensed it nonetheless.
He reached for his wallet and his school ID as Aaliyah tried the bell again.
“What are you going to do?” she asked.
“Watch.”
He slid the ID into the tight space between the door and the frame and wiggled it downward. Aaliyah gasped and looked around.
“Don’t do that,” he hissed. “Just cover me. Look normal, like we’re using a key.”
Aaliyah let out a harsh breath. She moved in closer to cover him, but her body language was stiff.
He gave her a confident smile, but she was really worried and wasn’t having any of it. He had to make the door thing work. He and his friend Cal had done it a couple of times at his place when he’d locked himself out, but that was no guarantee he could do it again on a strange door.
Ah ha! He felt the click and the give and whipped the door open, dashing inside with Aaliyah on his heels. She shut the door softly behind them, but then knocked him in the shoulder with unexpected force, surprising him an extra step forward.
“Did you even think?” she started on him. “Let’s say the cops don’t get called for a random white boy skulking around the neighborhood, but maybe you’ve noticed, I’m black. If I were a black boy or wearing a hoodie, the cops would be here by now.”
Jared was stunned.
“What?” he said, brilliantly.
“Never mind,” she hissed. “Do what you came here to do and let’s get out. I have a bad feeling about this.”
She turned away from him, looking around. He felt like Aaliyah had punched him in the gut. Was it really like that? He’d never considered—
He reached for her shoulder, and she shook him off.
“I’m sorry,” he said, meaning it.
“Just get it done.”
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She’d shut him out, her back to him. He wanted to argue, but he knew it would only make things worse. So he did what he came to do, first scanning to see where to start. It didn’t take long. The apartment opened straight into a living room with a small kitchen to the left behind a half wall that served as a breakfast bar. His mother had no other eating surface or even room for one. Maybe she could put a table in the living room, but it was really just big enough for the old couch he recognized from Aunt Aggie’s basement and a small coffee table. The television was wall-mounted, so that didn’t take up any space at all. Beyond the living room, also to the left, was a doorway he guessed led to the bed and bath.
“Do you want to take the living room and kitchen?” Jared asked. “I’ll take the bedroom.”
“Okay,” she said, the word bitten off at the end like taffy. Or as though what she really wanted to bite off was his head.
He turned for the back of the apartment while she headed for the kitchen.
“What are we looking for?” she asked, her voice deadened.
It stopped him temporarily. “Anything with a schedule, addresses, phone numbers, passwords … I don’t know, really.”
“Great,” she said, though clearly it wasn’t.
He hoped he could make things up to Aaliyah when this was all over. Nothing so terrible had happened … yet … but her sense of impending doom had infected him, spreading like a disease.
He hit the bathroom first, fixated on his toothbrush theory. His heart broke when he saw it slotted through one of those built-in ceramic holders with a depression for a cup in the center and holes for two brushes at the front. Her toothpaste lay across the top in place of a rinsing cup. He’d never taken an inventory of Mom’s stuff, but if anything was missing, he couldn’t see what. Deodorant, make up, a hairbrush, it was all lined up on the counter under the light switch. If she’d taken off, she hadn’t stopped home first.
He tried not to make too much of that. None of this was irreplaceable. If Mom could leave her kids behind, surely she could leave her toothbrush.
He headed for the bedroom, where there was also nothing much. A metal frame and a mattress made up the single bed. He wondered where Mom had expected him and Emily to sleep. Maybe one would take the couch, but the other? He kept looking. The closet held clothes, and a duffle bag with an air mattress inside, which solved one mystery. There was a dresser that had seen better days, probably another hand-me-down from Aunt Aggie, like the couch. He recognized the laptop sitting on top of the dresser. It was pretty distinctive with the Eiffel Tower sticker on the cover.
This was what he’d come for. He checked Mom’s drawers in case they hid anything he hadn’t thought of, feeling really creepy when he got to her underwear drawer, but there was nothing there. Or, nothing he didn’t expect. Except lace. He tried not to see that. As far as he was concerned, Mom wore mom-panties. White. Cotton. Boring.
He didn’t waste any more time on the bedroom, but brought the laptop to the kitchen. Maybe he could interest Aaliyah in the search, engage her intellectual curiosity, and she’d ease up. Maybe if they found something …
She did look toward him as he set the computer on the breakfast bar, but she didn’t make eye contact. Her attention was all for the computer, but when he opened it and pushed the power button, she asked, “What are you doing? We can’t go through it here. We’ve been here too long already.”
She went to the window and slitted the blinds so that she could look through them. The second floor ought to have a pretty decent view of the parking lot.
“Anything?” he asked.
“No,” she admitted. As though it wouldn’t already be too late if there was anything.
The login screen appeared, and Jared typed in Mom’s password, praying for the computer to boot quickly.
Before it finished whirring he clicked to open her e-mail program and her browser. He wanted to check those other unread Facebook messages and to see whether the cooking class guy had responded further. The wait for things to open nearly killed him. Aaliyah sat still and stiff at his side.
When Facebook came up, she gasped. He might have as well. Despite the fact that he could see at least two messages that hadn’t been there before, neither were marked as unread.
There were no unread messages, according to Facebook … which meant someone had been reading them.
A crazy hope rose up. Maybe it was Mom herself. He exchanged a glance with Aaliyah. She was looking at him now in shock.
She opened her mouth to say something, but was stopped by a pounding at the door that made them both jump.
“Police! Open up!”
But they were hardly given a chance to follow instructions before the door crashed open and two officers stood in the entryway, guns out and pointed straight for them.
Twelve
Monday
Emily
There was a strange car waiting in the driveway when Emily got home. Jared hadn’t been on the bus this afternoon, so she was alone as she approached. She looked around to be sure, but they lived the farthest from the bus stop, and everyone else had made it home. It was just her out on the street.
Maybe it was a detective or someone coming to ask more questions about Mom. They drove regular cars, right? Not police cruisers.
She slowed as she approached the car, trying to see in through the windows before getting close enough that someone could grab her. She didn’t actually expect it to happen, but it was a possibility. Mom had drilled it into her since she was a kid—don’t talk to strangers, be aware of your surroundings, always be ready to run, yell, draw attention. She didn’t think anyone would try to kidnap her in broad daylight sitting in her driveway where all the neighbors could see if they happened to look, but she had a bad feeling nonetheless.
The car windows weren’t tinted, but the way the sun was reflecting off them, she really couldn’t see anything. So, she’d move fast, skirt widely around the car, outside grabbing range, and hope to get inside the house before anything could happen.
She was a few feet away from the back bumper when the driver’s door opened, and she sped up as she saw a strange man get out of the car. She was behind it, speeding toward the other side when he unfolded to his full height and towered over the top of the car. He was at least six feet tall, a full foot or more taller than her, with dark glasses and dark hair that started too high on his head and then went a little wild. Not gray, so not the guy Josh had seen with her mother.
“Emily?” he said.
That stopped her, but only because she was on the far side of the car now. A safe distance.
“Yeah?” she said suspiciously. He knew her name. Maybe he had a message from Mom. Or knew something about her. She couldn’t just bolt.
“I’m Jake Cassuary,” he said, as if that should mean something. When he didn’t see the reaction he was going for, he added, “Maybe your mother talked about me?”
She shook her head, her mouth too dry to speak.
“Oh, well,” his face fell, “I, uh, don’t suppose she’s home?”
His hands were clenched on the roof of the car so hard that if he was Superman, he’d have dented the steel.
Well, hell. The brief flicker of hope that he might know something died a horrible death, leaving her cold despite her long sleeves.
“I don’t know how to tell you this, but Mom’s gone.”
“Gone like to the store? I can wait,” He said, shutting his door and starting toward her.
That bad feeling kicked into high gear, and she backed away, rifling in her backpack for the keys she should have had out and ready. Her father had been the one to drill that into her; she should have listened.
“I have to go,” she said, still backing away. She didn’t know why she felt the need to say anything—be polite, make an excuse. Probably the polite thing had been drilled into her as well. Not the best survival skill when a creepy guy appeared out of nowhere. And there was something seriously weird about this guy
just showing up.
“But I’m not a stranger. I’m a friend of your mother’s from high school. It’s been awhile, but we reconnected online, and when she dropped out of touch, I got worried about her. Please tell me—gone where?”
Emily’s brows scrunched together. Mom had gone to school in Connecticut. They lived in New York, which meant this guy probably hadn’t come from across town. And he hadn’t been invited or he’d have known Mom didn’t live here anymore.
“Gone away,” she said. Ah ha, found the keys. She started to run for the front door, flashing a look over her shoulder to keep him in sight.
“Please, wait!”
She squeaked as he started to run after her, his longer strides eating up the distance, his hand outstretched as though to grab her.
She instantly gave up on the idea of the front door. Fumbling the key into the lock would slow her down, maybe long enough for him to catch her and push her inside and … No!
The Meyers were just a few houses down. Ms. Carla had said to come to her if she needed anything. She bounced off the front stairs as she hit them and veered for their house, running full out and resisting the urge to look behind her again, knowing it would only slow her down. It wasn’t until she was through the Meyers’ gate and pounding on Ms. Carla’s door that she had the chance to glance back. That Jake guy wasn’t behind her anymore. He wasn’t even in sight. With any luck, he’d taken off.
The door opened, and Emily was prepared to launch herself at Ms. Carla, but stopped short at the sight of her son, Andrew, staring down at her in surprise, as though he’d opened the door to walk through and not because he heard her pounding. He was dressed for work in the donut shop polo shirt and khakis, his hair pulled into a man-bun at the back of his head, keys jangling in his hand.
“Erica,” he said, “everything okay?” He looked beyond her, trying to see what had sent her running. Maybe it was her breathlessness. Or the tension she probably radiated.
“Emily,” she corrected, trying not to be impatient that he didn’t even know her name. Their parents were friends, but not them. Not even him and Jared, who was only a couple of years behind, but who he treated like a kid. “Can I come in?”
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