The Escape

by Jayne, Hannah

  7…ISH was the response.

  Avery groaned and tried another fruitless call to Fletcher’s cell, which went directly to voice mail. She bopped her phone against her side and thought about school, about hateful, snotty Kaylee’s face.

  She knew Fletch had nothing to do with hurting Adam. She knew she certainly didn’t either.

  “Screw this,” she said, sliding her phone into her back pocket. “If Fletch doesn’t want to clear his name and Dad doesn’t want to clear Fletch’s name, then I will.”

  She took the stairs two at a time, cast a sideways look at her munched-up bike, then hopped onto her father’s, pedaling hard once she hit the street.

  Adam’s house was in the same neighborhood as Avery’s and Fletcher’s, just set back a little farther at the edge of the woods. She glanced at her phone when she reached Adam’s house. The flickering “Low Battery” readout popped up first, right above the time—5:17.

  She had no idea what she would tell Adam’s mother when she opened the door. I’ll just tell her that I let Adam borrow a book or something in homeroom… Maybe I could just…

  Avery rang the bell before she realized how stupid her plan was. What mother was going to let Avery paw through her dead son’s stuff? She was about to turn and leave when the garage door startled her. She hugged the outside wall and watched Mrs. Marshall’s blue Volvo back out slowly.

  Avery stared, hidden behind a decorative, swirly pine tree. She watched Mrs. Marshall pause before turning her car around and zipping for the mouth of the street. Avery dove underneath the garage door just before it closed.

  • • •

  Fletcher hated when his mom talked about him like he wasn’t even there. She was on the phone with Dr. Palmer, who didn’t have a free appointment until the end of the week, saying things like she was “concerned” and that Fletcher “seemed upset” while he sat fifteen feet away.

  She could have been talking to him. She should have been. Fletcher knew how Dr. Palmer would respond. It would be something about compartmentalizing trauma and creating a stable environment. Consistent and comfortable.

  He looked around the sparse house. “Consistent and comfortable” wasn’t how he would describe it at all. His mother was always nervously flittering around, and even though they had been there for five years, it had never felt like home. There were no pictures on the walls, no family heirlooms, no backyard graveyard of old bicycles. His father wasn’t at this house, and neither was his older sister, Susan.

  Fletcher bit his lip.

  He knew that his dad’s and Susan’s absences had nothing to do with the half-empty house. He knew it was because of him. That was another memory he didn’t want to revisit: the way blood poured over Susan’s lips, their mother in between them, her hands glossy and red.

  Fletcher had wondered then what was wrong with him.

  Now, though the bandage was off and his stitches were out, his head still throbbed. The doctors at Dan River Falls Community Hospital had said there would be no lasting damage, but Fletcher didn’t believe them. Otherwise why wouldn’t his memories be coming back to him? They weren’t becoming clearer as time wore on. If anything, the events of that day were getting darker, grainier, and grittier.

  Fletcher glanced at his mother who had turned her back, her voice dropping to a low murmur as she spoke to Dr. Palmer.

  He knew. His mother was making plans to send him away. He felt as if the bare walls of this stupid house were closing in.

  His heart smacked against his rib cage. His breath was coming in tight, shallow puffs. It was getting harder to breathe.

  He had to get away.

  He had to escape the doctors who were coming for him.

  They would surely arrive any minute. They thought he was crazy, those doctors in their white coats. They were going to prod at his brain and make him remember. He didn’t want that.

  How could his mother betray him? She was practically begging them to take him away. She looked over her shoulder, then looked away, obviously ashamed at being caught.

  There was no time. Fletcher would have to go now, right now, if he wanted to escape. If he wanted to be free, he couldn’t be at home when the doctors came. And he had to find out who had killed Adam. He had to do it now.

  Twenty-four

  The light in Adam’s garage clicked off after the door shut. Avery stood up, her eyes adjusting to the darkness.

  The two-car garage was empty, but the walls were lined with shelving and all manner of storage boxes and sporting goods—canoes, a sled, a hockey stick, a soccer goal. Adam had been naturally athletic. Avery swallowed back a lump and went to the door.

  It was open.

  She stepped into the Marshalls’ living room.

  The enormous room was lined with windows overlooking a huge deck that opened onto dense forest. Avery tiptoed through the room, taking in the lush beige-and-white furnishings. Everything matched. She picked her way through the living room and kitchen, then climbed the carpeted stairs, peeking in rooms until she found the one that had to be Adam’s.

  She recognized his backpack next to the desk, but it was like looking at a magazine photo, not a teen boy’s room. Everything looked posed. Stacks of books were arranged by size on the desk, and the bed was made so tightly it looked like no one had ever slept there. It was the kind of room that every parent wanted, but no kid would want to live in.

  “Okay, now to find a motive,” she whispered to herself. “Maybe Adam was in some kind of trouble? Maybe someone was mad at him…”

  She slowly pulled open his top desk drawer, surprised that everything inside was placed just as precisely as everything on top of the desk.

  Avery thought of her own room, which was a psychedelic mess of creativity and frustration that resulted in piles of cast-off clothing, books, and nice shoes tossed over in favor of sneakers.

  She pushed aside the notebooks and frowned at a wide, flat box. Popping it open, she startled at the contents—a series of knives, arranged smallest to largest, each equidistant from the next. Except for one. Avery fingered the velvet between a short, orange-handled hunting knife and a longer Bowie-type knife.

  Avery was vaguely familiar with the rest of the knives in the collection—a simple penknife, a pocketknife with a burnished leather–looking handle and glossy brass studs, and a small dagger with a carved dragon handle, the reptile’s eye a sparkling red jewel.

  Each knife was clean and looked unused, polished even.

  Was Adam a collector?

  Avery had no idea what Adam’s hobbies were, other than sports and Kaylee, but seemingly knife collecting—and an obsessive-compulsive bent toward organization—were important to him. She snapped a picture of the box and carefully put it back in the drawer, pawing through the next two and finding nothing of note.

  She went to his closet. His clothes hung in groupings by color and style—long sleeves with long sleeves, collars all facing the same way. The militaristic organization reminded her of her father’s closet.

  She fingered a row of soft flannels and dug through the pockets of his jackets, hoping to find the missing knife.

  What if he took it hiking with him?

  Her father had never mentioned finding any weapons—but then again, she thought angrily, he probably wouldn’t. If Adam had taken the knife, why hadn’t he used it to defend himself?

  She went through his bureau, poking through the neat stacks of clothing until she got to the bottom drawer. It opened slowly, the top of the drawer hissing over the thick stack of sweatshirts folded inside. Avery ran her fingers over them, then dipped to the bottom of the drawer, her fingertips landing on something papery.

  She pulled out a stack of hundred-dollar bills.

  Eleven of them, clipped with a paper clip and organized exactly as Avery would expect: each facing the same way, edges squared, a perfect rectangular stack. She carefully pulled out the sweatshirts and stared—the bottom of the drawer was lined with stacks of bills. There was a t
hick stack of twenties and another of tens. Avery was too scared to count them. She snapped a picture with her phone and frowned when the screen went black. Her battery was dead.

  A rumble came from downstairs. The garage door! She ran to the window, ducking low, hoping against hope that she was imagining the sound. But the dark blue Volvo was pulling up the driveway.

  • • •

  Fletcher slipped out his front door. He was so jittery that his hands and feet felt tingly.

  They’re not going to get me. They’re not going to get me.

  He clenched his fists and started to run. The sound of his regular footfalls reassured him.

  “Adam,” he whispered out loud to himself. “I have to find Adam.”

  Maybe Adam wasn’t really dead. Maybe this was all some big, horrible joke. The thought made Fletcher feel better. Maybe this was all just some elaborate prank.

  He still needed to find out what happened to Adam. If he did, then the police wouldn’t arrest him, and the doctors wouldn’t restrain him and shoot him up with drugs. He had to act quickly.

  Run, run!

  What was that? Who was that?

  It wasn’t his fault—his mother, she had—

  Put your head down and keep running. Keep running, Fletch.

  I had to protect him. I was protecting him.

  What the hell are you doing?

  Pain arced through his skull. It throbbed behind his eyes. He kept running.

  She wasn’t there—it wasn’t her—

  Don’t ever stop. I can’t ever stop.

  I didn’t mean to. I didn’t mean to. Oh God. Oh God, please, no, I didn’t mean to.

  Footsteps pounding. A ragged, metered breath. Sweat at his temples. The edges of his lips cracked and bone dry.

  “I’m going to give you something to make you feel better,” Dr. Palmer had said. “Something to maybe make you think a little more clearly.”

  He’d felt the doctor tug the sleeve of his shirt up. The cold bite of an alcohol-soaked cotton ball had swabbed his arm. He’d felt a prick in his shoulder. Then everything had gone dark.

  “Fletcher? Fletcher, can you hear me? It’s Dr. Palmer. You’re safe. We’re friends. Can you tell me again what you remember?”

  Fletcher stopped on the sidewalk when the images—memories, thoughts, whatever the hell they were—kept coming. He pinched his eyes shut and willed them to go away, then slammed his palm to the side of his head, trying to shake them out.

  “Something’s taking over my brain.” He whispered it like a mantra. “Something’s taking over my brain.”

  He was walking at a quick, clipped pace, unsure of where he was headed. He stopped and stared when the sidewalk abruptly ended.

  He was in a cul-de-sac. Fletcher was in front of Adam’s house.

  He heard the rumble of a car engine. It was Mrs. Marshall’s midnight-colored Volvo. He instinctively crouched behind a bush.

  He watched her back out and then was compelled to go forward, his sneakers crunching on the gravel driveway. The house looked mostly dark. But a flicker of movement caught his eye. A dark figure slowly edging open the door of one of the bedrooms.

  Fletcher squinted. The door that opened was in Adam’s room.

  Whoever was walking around inside was drenched in shadows and moving slowly, carefully, pausing every few steps to cock his head and listen. Fletcher held his breath. Who would be in Adam’s room?

  Adam was a middle child, with a college-age brother and a little sister still in grade school. Fletcher remembered Adam saying his dad traveled a lot.

  Was there a prowler in Adam’s house?

  He thought of the rocks hurling through his windows, the eggs, the graffiti, the searing notes in his locker and mailbox. Surely no one would do that to Adam’s family. He considered knocking or trying the door but dismissed the idea. If the person in Adam’s room was a cousin or a friend, what was he supposed to say? “Hey, I’m the kid the whole town thinks is a killer, and I thought it would be cool to drop in and say hey…”

  He cut his eyes to Adam’s window again and the figure was gone. Had he imagined it?

  No.

  Another flash of movement.

  Fletcher stayed close to the tree line, advancing toward the house. He still hadn’t worked out a plan to get inside when he heard the hum of an engine moving closer. Then the nip of headlights cutting through the dim twilight. He glanced over his shoulder at the dark blue Volvo and broke into a run, breath ripping through his lungs, sweat beading down his rib cage.

  He zipped across the front yard and bolted down the side of the house, hoping for a cut through to a side street or a thickened clump of trees. What he heard was a window scraping open and the scuffling of feet down wood siding—before the person attached to the scuffling feet landed right on top of him.

  “What the—” He landed facedown on the moist grass, the breath sucked from his lungs.

  It’s happening again, it’s happening again…

  An immovable weight against his chest. His arms and legs pinned. His whole body useless, betraying his brain, synapses telling him to move. Then the surge of strength that came from somewhere, that promised to make everything okay.

  • • •

  The first wallop caught Avery between the eyes. White-hot needles of pain sparked out across her forehead, and she pressed her face into her hands, sure she would only feel mealy mash where her skull had once been.

  “Owww!”

  Another bash, this one to the back of her head. This one far less painful because her thick ponytail took most of the blow.

  “Avery?” Fletcher’s voice was veiled in shock and horror.

  Avery moved her hands so she could open an eye.

  “What are you kids doing?”

  Avery and Fletcher startled at the shrill tone of Mrs. Marshall’s voice. Her eyes, ice blue and piercing like Adam’s had been, darted from Fletcher to Avery and back again as she stood over them, cell phone clutched in one hand.

  “What are you kids doing here?” she snapped again.

  Avery and Fletcher looked at each other, dumbfounded. Avery had no idea why Fletcher was at the Marshalls, and she prayed that he wouldn’t tell Mrs. Marshall that she’d been inside the house.

  Fletcher started speaking first, winding the lie as he went. “I was just out walking—jogging—and I…” He shot a glance at Avery. “I saw Avery, and I guess I scared her because she took off running.”

  The hard look on Mrs. Marshall’s face didn’t change. She looked at Avery. “Avery?”

  Avery cleared her throat, hoping some miraculous story would tumble out.

  “I knew Avery was coming over to give her condolences,” Fletcher said carefully, his eyes never leaving Avery’s. “I thought I might catch her so we could do it together, but like I said, I guess I surprised her.”

  Avery nodded, relief flooding over her. “I wanted to see how you and your family were doing,” she said, the lie bitter on her tongue. “I wanted to tell you how sorry I was for your loss. You weren’t home, and then I ran into Fletcher. I got startled, I guess.” She pulled her feet up and dusted off her pants, shoving herself off the grass. “I’m really sorry to have disturbed you.”

  Mrs. Marshall’s demeanor seemed to soften, her blue eyes going glossy. “You both surprised me. That’s all.” She glanced down at the phone in her hand. “Sorry, we’re all very jumpy.” She shot a quick glance to Fletcher. “As you can understand.”

  It was then that Avery realized Mrs. Marshall had never actually looked at Fletcher. Sure, she had glanced at him for a beat but her eyes had flicked over him, as if unwilling to take in his face, his presence, for any longer than necessary.

  The sirens cut through their awkward triangle.

  “I’m sorry,” Mrs. Marshall said again. “I just heard the screams and called the police.” She turned and pushed her cell phone into the back pocket of her jeans, straightening the hem of her Windbreaker. She waved an arm over her
head.

  Avery’s stomach dropped low when she saw the flashing red-and-blue lights attached to the grill of the black GMC pulling into the Marshalls’ driveway.

  Twenty-five

  As they neared Fletcher’s house, the police chief turned on his blinker and gently guided the car to the side of the road. Fletcher could see Avery straightening in the front seat.

  “Dad, can you pull over more?”

  The chief turned on the emergency hazards. “We’re fine where we are Avery. Now…”—he clicked off his seat belt, the release of it like a shot—“care to tell me what you two kids were doing outside of the Marshalls’ house? Thank God I was able to call Blount off as backup, or we could have had a standoff.”

  Avery opened her mouth but her father held up his hand. “If you’re going to lie, save it.” He turned around in his seat. “Fletcher?”

  Fletcher had answered the same questions asked a hundred different ways for Chief Templeton over the last two weeks, but it was terrifying to be questioned while sitting in the back of a police vehicle.

  “We were—”

  The chief’s eyebrows went up. “We?”

  “Yeah, Dad, we,” Avery cut in. “Fletch and me, we wanted to see Mrs. Marshall.”

  “Why?”

  “We were looking for clues, okay?”

  Fletcher could see the back of Chief Templeton’s neck go red. “I told you—”

  “You stopped your investigation, Dad! What else were we supposed to do? Your impounded Fletcher’s car and searched his room and house. No one is out looking for the person who really did this!”

  Fletcher could hear the conviction in Avery’s voice. He didn’t know if Avery was right or wrong anymore. He didn’t know if there was a monster out there in the world or in here, in the car.

  Twenty-six

  Avery’s frustration was bubbling. She wanted to scream at both Fletcher and her father. She wanted them to stop talking and actually do something. She was tired of her classmates accusing Fletcher of murder and accusing her of being an accomplice. At least her father hadn’t heard that rumor yet.