by Vivi Barnes
Sam gestures at me, and I follow her down the hallway to Maggie’s open door. She’s sitting on her bed, her forehead scrunched as she stares at her phone. The room is pretty and clean. It reminds me of a little girl’s room, pink and ruffly with stuffed animals on the bed. Well, one side does. The other side is more normal for a teen, with a red and gold bedspread and a lava lamp. Interesting contrast. I wonder what Sunny thinks of all the ruffles and stuffed animals.
“Hi, Maggie,” Sam says brightly. Maggie’s eyes snap up to meet us, her face grim.
“What do you want?” she asks, her voice tinged with both tears and suspicion. She shoves her phone under her legs.
“We just wanted to see if you’re okay.” Sam walks in and perches on the other bed, opposite Maggie. “Is there anything we can do for you?”
Maggie doesn’t say anything, but her gaze moves to me. A weird sense of recognition jabs at me, like I’ve seen her somewhere recently. And unlike Jen’s icy glare, Maggie’s eyes are empty, like her soul has already fled her body for another host.
I think I prefer Jen’s glare.
“Z’s going to be okay,” I tell Maggie, and it sounds weak and lame.
“Well, that depends on the MRI,” Sam says. I look sharply at her. Why would she give Maggie more grief?
Maggie’s face pales. “MRI?”
Sam nods. “I mean, hopefully he’s okay, but I don’t know…”
Maggie looks down at her lap, a tear slowly rolling down her cheek. The girl is a tear factory, that’s for sure. “I have to go see him,” she says so softly, I wonder if she’s talking to us or herself. She wipes the back of her hand across her cheek. “Right now.”
Sam nods and stands, patting Maggie’s shoulder. “I’m here if you need me.”
She steps out, and I follow. As soon as we get to Sam’s room, I turn to her but she holds a finger to her lips. About two minutes later, Maggie walks by. The sound of a motor starting outside draws us to the window, and we watch as her little white car drives away from the warm lights of the house.
“Why did you do that?” I ask Sam, expecting Sam to laugh as she usually does. But Sam’s expression is unusually serious.
“I didn’t mean to hurt her,” she says calmly. “But if I didn’t say something drastic, she would just sit there forever, drowning in her tears. Nancy’s at the hospital still and can keep an eye on her. Z needs us to figure this out before someone ends up killing him.”
That one word shocks my heart into action. “So now we check her room?”
She nods. “Exactly. Sunny isn’t home right now, either, so this is probably the only chance we’ll get.”
Sam takes my hand and pulls me down the hallway, keeping her back against the wall like we’re sneaking up on somebody, Mission: Impossible style. We couldn’t look any more obvious if we tried. Thankfully, nobody walks by.
Sam opens the door and pulls it closed behind us, locking it quietly. She flips on the light and goes to Maggie’s desk while I move to her dresser. The only contents in the drawers are clothes, neatly folded and stacked. I run my hand along the bottom of each one, fully expecting to find a diary and kind of hoping I don’t, but there’s nothing. Sam closes the desk drawers and heads toward the closet while I get on my knees to look under the bed. In the far back corner are three boxes. I lie flat on my belly and pull them out. They’re all shoeboxes. I open the first to see a pair of sandals. This search is going nowhere. I flip the lids off the next two.
One has a pair of strappy silver heels. The other has a layer of tissue paper, and underneath are— Oh, boy.
“Um, Sam, get over here.”
Sam kneels next to me and stares at the assortment of pictures in the box. They’re all of Maggie, taken at a time when she looked a lot better than she does now. One in particular catches my eye—Maggie is leaning against a rail, wearing a blue knit hat and gray coat. Beautiful face full of life, her curly hair shining, her eyes glowing and happy. Her gaze is on whomever had an arm around her, but the photo has been cut down the middle and only the arm is showing. I pick up another photo and another—in all of them, the person on the other half is missing except for the occasional hand or glimpse of clothing.
“Where are the other halves?” Sam whispers. She brushes the tissue paper aside and lifts out a long white jewelry box. I take it from her and open it. “Holy shit,” Sam whispers, giggling nervously. She lifts the stack of half-pictures that are tied with a pink ribbon. The one on top is Jack, wearing dark aviator glasses and looking like he’s kicked back in a chair. I untie the ribbon and fan the pictures in my hand, my stomach churning at the sight of Jack in each one. All different pictures taken on different days.
“Obviously, we can see which half Maggie values most,” Sam says quietly. She fits two halves together—Maggie perched on Jack’s lap. My stomach churns to see it. “Creepy,” Sam adds.
But it’s not the picture that has my attention now.
Familiar gold swirling letters line the inside of the empty jewelry box: A&P.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
JACK
Something’s been chewing at the back of my mind ever since Liv left, but I can’t figure it out. I run through the conversation with her, but it slips around my mind.
Maggie shows up a few minutes after Nancy left for the night.
“Hey.” I put my phone aside and turn off the TV. With as much technology as they put into hospitals, you’d think they’d offer more than three network channels plus the Home Shopping Network.
“How are you feeling?” she asks quietly, not moving from the door.
“I’m okay. Didn’t Liv and Sam tell you I’m going home tomorrow?” I cough and groan as the pain shoots through my side. The more I try not to move or cough, the more my body decides it must.
She moves closer. “They told everyone that, yeah. But—” A tear runs down her cheek as she stares at me.
“But what?”
“Sam told me about your MRI.” She sniffles, taking a tissue from the box next to my bed to blow her nose. “I am so sorry.”
MRI? It’s on the tip of my tongue to tell her Sam is full of it, but then Sam wouldn’t have said it if there wasn’t a good reason.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” she asks, her hands twisting. I notice her chest is moving faster. Oh, shit. Maggie, what are you up to?
I smile at her and pat the side of my bed. “Nothing. Come sit down.”
She perches on the mattress, her eyes fixed on my T-shirt. I lift it up to give her a full view of the horrible-looking bruise on my ribcage and the bandage that covers my surgery. She reaches out with a finger as if to touch it, but I drop the hem back down. “That looks really bad.” Her voice is shaking.
I wince, pretending the pain is getting worse. “Yeah, it is.”
Another tear. I take her trembling hand. “You look worried.”
“I don’t like to see you in pain.” Her gaze drops, her eyebrows pinching slightly.
“I know you don’t,” I tell her. “You would never hurt me. But it’d be really helpful if you could tell me who did.”
Her lips part slightly as she stares at me.
“You can tell me, Maggie,” I say softly. “I won’t hurt you or yell at you, I promise. Who did this? Frank?”
She gasps slightly at his name, but she doesn’t take her watering eyes off me. I reach up to wipe a tear with a finger. Her eyes widen, and she lifts her own hand to touch mine. The moment feels so sappy, but so necessary.
“Someone almost killed me.” I wince again, grabbing at my side, causing her to gasp. “And whoever it is won’t be happy that I’m alive. He might be outside the door right now, waiting for me to fall asleep so he can strangle me.”
Her hand lifts to her mouth, her eyes wide with fear. Her sweater sweeps back on her arm, and I notice a flash of jewelry on her wrist. My attempt to be the pathetic patient fails as I reach out to clasp her hand. “Where’d you get this?” I ask, unable to stop
the rough words once they’ve escaped my lips.
She yanks her arm away. “Nowhere. I’ve had it.”
She’s a terrible liar. “Maggie,” I say in a calmer voice. “Did you go in my room to get that bracelet?”
“No! I didn’t steal this from you. It’s mine.”
“Who gave it to you?”
Her eyes skip guiltily away.
“That bracelet is the one that was sent to Liv,” I tell her. “Maybe you found it on the floor in my room or something—”
“No!” She jumps to her feet, her chest moving quickly now. “It’s not yours. It’s not hers.” She almost spits the last word.
My heart is racing as fast as my thoughts. Maggie’s totally gone off the deep end. I wouldn’t be surprised if she pulled out a doll with Liv’s face and a pin in it.
The nurse walks in. “Everything okay?” she asks, noticing the tension between Maggie and me. “Young lady, visiting hours are about over. You can come back in the morning.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Maggie says contritely, backing away as the nurse comes to my side and checks the machines behind me. “I’ll see you tomorrow,” Maggie tells me from behind the woman. It’s like we were just talking about the weather, as calm as her voice is.
“Maggie, wait.” But she’s gone. Dammit. This is ridiculous—I’m stuck in this bed while Maggie goes crazy.
I tell the nurse I’d like to discharge myself. She tries arguing with me, then tells me her hands are tied until the doctor comes in again to sign off on my paperwork, which won’t be until morning anyway. Great. She putters around checking my vitals for way too long. I pretend to fall asleep as she moves about. As soon as the light in the room darkens and the nurse leaves, I’m up again, flicking on the light and considering the IV. I grit my teeth and rip the tape off my arm, then slide out the needle. It doesn’t really hurt. Even without the IV, it takes me longer than I thought it would to get into the change of clothes Nancy brought me—moving around with a bruised rib hurts like a bitch. I hate sweatpants, but at the moment, I’m glad for them.
I pull on my jacket, kind of sad to see it so scratched and torn from the accident. I’ve had it for a long time. I put my hands in the pockets, noticing something hard. I take a sharp breath as I pull out a bracelet—Liv’s bracelet. Now I remember—I’d put it in my pocket after Jen showed it to Nancy.
But if I have the bracelet…
Two bracelets were purchased. Two—one for Liv, the other for Maggie.
Shit.
I move to the side table to get my phone. It’s not where I left it.
I glance around quickly to see if it fell off the table or onto my mattress. No sign of it.
Maggie took my phone.
The world swirls around, and everything slowly falls into place. What an idiot I am. Maggie always in my room, pretending to need comforting when she was probably digging up whatever she could on Liv. She might’ve even stolen my debit card information to buy the bracelets. Put a wig on to make it look like she’s Jen. I can’t see her climbing up the window to Liv’s room, but I bet she knows who did it, and I bet I know who it is, too.
And she could’ve been the person on the inside of the house, helping Frank figure out how to hack into our accounts. That could make sense as to why mine was left alone, too.
My heart nothing more than a brick in my chest, I pick up the hospital phone and call my cell, but no one answers. It doesn’t go straight to voicemail—I’m sure Maggie can see I’m calling it. I dial it again and again, but she doesn’t answer. I don’t know Liv’s number from memory, so I call Sam instead.
“I need to talk to Maggie,” I say before she even says hello.
“She’s not here. Why, what happened? And what number are you calling me from?”
I look at the clock on the wall. Maggie left about twenty minutes ago. It only takes ten to get to Briarcreek from here. “Maggie stole my phone. Listen, I’m coming home now. As soon as Maggie gets there, you and Liv don’t let her leave. Keep her distracted or something. I’m going to call Nancy, too.”
Dead silence on the other end. “Sam?”
“Liv’s not here.” Her quiet voice makes my throat tighten. “She…she said you texted her to meet you.”
All the pain in my ribs disappears as my body goes completely numb. I lean against the bed. “Where?” I manage to choke out.
“I…I don’t know,” Sam says. “She just said you texted her to come see you alone, so I assumed she was going up to the hospital to be with you and ohmygod are you saying you didn’t? Z, are you there?”
“Tell Nancy,” I finally manage to say. “Have her call Jim and run a trace on my phone right away.”
“What are you going to do?” she asks quickly. “Do you want me to come get you?”
Good question. I have no car, no phone, and no way of knowing how the hell to find them. “Stay there in case she shows up. I’ll figure out something. You still have Liv’s number in your phone, right?”
I write down Liv’s number and hang up, then call her. It goes straight to voicemail. I leave a frantic message, begging her to call Sam and to go back to Briarcreek. I dial her again and again, but it goes straight to voicemail. I slam down the phone, jerking my hand back when it rings.
“Hello?”
There’s a long pause. Then, “Z?”
“Maggie, where are you?” I try to keep my voice calm but it’s damn near impossible when all I want to do is scream at her.
“You know I wouldn’t hurt you.”
“Maggie! Where’s Liv? Where are you?”
“Don’t be mad at me, please,” she says, each word shaking like she’s already been crying.
I take a shaky breath. “I’m not mad at you. Where are you?”
“You can still save her,” she whispers. “You need to come back home. Where we were happy together.”
She hangs up. I call back, but now my number goes to voicemail. Damn it. I call Nancy myself and warn her about Maggie, asking her to get a hold of Jim Rush. Like Sam, she begs me to wait so someone can pick me up, but I don’t have time for that.
I’ve never sneaked out of a hospital before. Unfortunately, the nurse’s station is between my room and the exit. Several nurses are gathered around the desk, chatting casually. The fact that they’re laughing while Liv’s life is in danger makes me want to throw something. I look around and see another patient walking toward me. An older hippie-looking man with a long beard and a scarf around his head. I reach into my pocket and pull out my wallet. “Hey,” I whisper, waving a hand. The man moves his walker my way. “Want to make a quick twenty bucks?”
Two minutes later, the man is screaming in pain at the opposite side of the hall, causing all the nurses to run to his side. I move quickly out the double doors, trying not to look like I’m anything more than a visitor here. Nobody stops me, and I’m soon outside the hospital, sliding carefully into the cab that I’d called earlier.
I can feel the nerves pinching around my ribs as I give the driver my Briarcreek address, but only barely—fear really does dull pain. I don’t know what Maggie’s up to. She’s not capable of murder, I’m pretty sure, but whoever she’s working with might be. I replay in my head every conversation I’ve had with Nancy, with Liv, with Maggie. And there’s something that nags like a tiny marble rattling around my brain. Something Liv said she heard when she went to visit Denise about Derrick seeing hookers.
I jolt upright, ignoring the pain. The pieces finally join together to form an evil picture in my mind. How did I not figure this one out before?
Immediately it hits me—home where we were happy together—for Maggie, that isn’t Briarcreek. “Turn around,” I tell the driver sharply. “We’re headed to a different address.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
LIV
The huge Monroe Street house looms in front of me, nothing but a shadowy outline set back too far to be lit by the streetlights. It’s abandoned and has been for eight months. Makes
me sad to see such a beautiful house reduced to shadows. Even though there are dark memories, too, I can’t help but remember the warm laughter and family I found in this place, even for a brief time.
A soft glow comes from the front of the house. As I approach, I can see it’s from large white candles set on either side of the steps. The text from Jack at first said to come alone to the hospital right away, but halfway there I got another text telling me he’d checked out and to meet him at 1605 Monroe Street. I shiver slightly. What is he thinking, getting out of the hospital early just to meet me here? If this is his attempt at a romantic gesture…just, no. Something stirs inside me, a warning, where I can almost hear spooky music playing before the masked murderer comes around the corner with an ax.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” I say aloud. Saying it does nothing to keep the goose bumps from popping up all over my skin.
I step between the candles, noticing the door is already slightly open. A soft light spills out through the crack. Pushing the door wider, I notice a line of candles leading from the foyer and around to the living room. A little farther in and there are white rose petals scattered along the line. My heart beats uncomfortably fast, my steps echoing in the empty house as I move around the pillar to see where the candles and roses end. But it’s not Jack standing in the ring of candles.
Maggie is holding a single rose, smiling sweetly at me.
Oh, shit. “Maggie. What are you doing here?”
“Being romantic.” She waves her arms at the line of candles and roses. “Don’t you like it?”
“Sure,” I say as calmly as I can. The girl is clearly out of her mind. “It’s very nice. But where is Z?”
“He’ll be along soon. If you have to know, this wasn’t my idea.” She kicks at the trail of rose petals on the floor, her nose scrunched in disgust. I notice her voice is stronger than before when I saw her at the house. She isn’t looking as meek and afraid as she did before, either.
