Death and the Girl Next Door

by Darynda Jones

  Unfortunately, I couldn’t come up with one on such short notice. I hadn’t expected them to find out so soon, and I couldn’t tell them the truth. They would have called their psychologist friend from Los Lunas in a heartbeat. So I lied. I told them I skipped because I forgot to study for a test.

  “Okay,” Grandpa said, turning against me in a disappointing instant, “ground her for life. But for heaven’s sake, Vera, don’t take the girl’s phone. I don’t think she’d live through it.”

  I laughed at the thought. Grandpa, all bark and no bite. But I had to watch out for Grandma. That woman could put the shrew in shrewd when she wanted to. Thank goodness she didn’t want to very often.

  My phone vibrated in my pocket. I took it out and flipped it open, then squinted as I tried to decipher the text from Brooklyn through my broken screen.

  “Sup? R u toast?”

  I smiled and texted her back. “Bear not in cave yet. Pray 4 me. Pray hard.”

  As I closed my phone and stuffed it back into my pocket, I scanned Principal Davis’s office. Even though it never met the standards of the school’s administrative assistant—she fussed about it constantly—it had always been fairly organized. But not today. Books, newspaper clippings, and scraps of paper with scribbled notes engulfed his desk in a huge, mountainesque formation.

  I realized the books were old Riley High yearbooks. A couple were open and written in with thick black marker. With curiosity piqued, I eased up to get a look at what the stalwart principal had been up to. Just as I scanned to a face in a crowd he’d circled and starred, the book slammed shut in my face.

  I leapt back in surprise.

  “Find anything interesting?” Mr. Davis asked.

  With a hand on my chest, I said nonchalantly, “Not really. Are those old yearbooks?”

  He took a moment to get situated in his chair before answering. Principal Davis was a tall man, dark and broad. He could charm a snake one minute and send the toughest football player at Riley High home in tears the next. But I’d always liked him. I hoped this meeting wouldn’t change that.

  “Yes, Ms. McAlister, they’re old yearbooks. I didn’t mean to startle you. I just have a couple of questions, then you can go.”

  I sat in amazement. “You mean, I’m not in trouble?”

  “Should you be?” He set a piercing gaze on me, one I knew would come in handy if a Riley High student was ever suspected of international espionage.

  “Oh, no,” I said with a light giggle, trying my best to sound utterly innocent of any wrongdoing. Like, say, skipping. He must not know yet. “I was just kidding.”

  He eyed me momentarily before asking, “What do you know about that new kid, Jared Kovach?”

  No way. Why on earth was he asking me about Jared? “Oh, Jared? Well, not much, I’m afraid. I just met him a couple of days ago.”

  “I see. I saw you talking to him. It seemed like you two were friends.”

  “Well, we are. I mean—”

  “Do you know his parents?”

  “Not personally. Is he in some kind of trouble?”

  His gaze slid surreptitiously to the yearbook he’d slammed shut before returning to me. “He hasn’t attended a single class since the day he arrived. I just thought maybe you knew something about his situation.”

  “His situation?”

  “I can’t get hold of his parents. The number he gave has been disconnected.”

  “Oh, right.” I was trying desperately to stay one step ahead of him, but it was hard to outrun a bear, especially on uneven ground. I considered doing the fetal-position thing and playing like a rock, but he might think that odd. “From what I understand, his parents are having some problems.”

  “What kind of problems?” he asked, clearly intrigued.

  “Mr. Davis, I’m not sure I should be answering for Jared.”

  “I can assure you, Ms. McAlister, anything you say will be held in the strictest confidence.”

  “I understand, but I just don’t know that much. I mean, all he said was that his parents were having problems and—” I tried to think up an excuse for his absences, any excuse. “—and they were trying to work things out, and he just wanted to be with them. That’s probably why he’s been absent.”

  I couldn’t tell if Mr. Davis was biting or not. He tapped a pen on his desk and sized me up with a hard stare. Without warning, he shot from his chair and held out a hand. “Thank you for coming in, Ms. McAlister.”

  I stood and watched his huge hand swallow mine in a firm shake. “No problem.” With as much tact as I could muster, I looked down at the yearbook then back.

  Got it. 1977.

  “You can get a pass back to class from Connie.”

  “Oh, okay. I’ll let you know if I hear anything.”

  His smile held more suspicion than sincerity. “You do that.”

  As I left the office, I wondered how I was going to break the news to Glitch and Brooklyn that we would be skipping again today.

  ELLIOT

  “So this is the library.” Glitch turned in a full circle, taking in the Riley’s Switch Public Library, recently remodeled and modernized. Softly muted colors added to its quiet ambience. “Nice.”

  “Yes,” Brooklyn said in a teasing tone, “and they have books, too. They’re made of paper with words inside and you read them.”

  He turned to her in disbelief. “Surely you jest.”

  She snorted and socked him on the arm for good measure. He rubbed his shoulder and smiled to himself, clearly enjoying the attention.

  “Is it just me,” Brooklyn said, gazing thoughtfully out the glass doors, “or is that reporter guy following us?”

  We turned back for a better look. Sure enough, a white van with the Tourist Channel’s blue logo sat idling out front.

  “I’ve been seeing that van a lot lately,” I said, my suspicions growing.

  Before we could discuss that fact further, my grandmother’s best friend, Betty Jo, spied us from behind the circulation desk and brightened.

  “Okay, guys,” I said in a low tone as Betty Jo headed toward us, her large body lumbering across the thick carpet, “remember the plan.”

  “Got it,” Glitch said, lowering his voice to match mine. “Should we synchronize our watches?”

  “Hi, Betty Jo.” I couldn’t help a quick kick to Glitch’s ankle. He cursed under his breath as Betty Jo pulled me into a hug.

  “How have you been, precious?” Before I could answer, she asked, “Are you out of school?”

  “Well, not especially,” I hedged, uncomfortable with lying to my grandmother’s very best friend, the woman who helped both my grandparents through the roughest time in their lives, my parents’ disappearance. “We’re doing research for a school project.”

  “Oh, wonderful. How can I help?” She clasped her hands in a prayer position, ever ready, willing, and able to help on school projects.

  “Does the library keep old copies of the Riley High yearbooks?” Please, oh please, oh please, oh—

  “Sure does.”

  Yes!

  “We have them all. They’re in the special collections area. I’ll get the key.”

  “Thanks so much,” I said with an excited smile.

  “Not at all, darling.” We looked on as Betty Jo circled the desk to retrieve the key.

  “I wish I had someone who thought of me as a precious or a darling,” Glitch said almost dreamily.

  Brooklyn snorted again. “There are just so many things I could say right now.”

  Glitch’s mouth narrowed to a thin line of annoyance as Betty Jo hurried back with the key. “Okay, it’s right over here.” We followed her to a special room at the back of the library. “I’ve already signed you in. Let me know if you need any help.”

  As Betty Jo left the room, I turned and spotted the yearbook. “There it is—” I pointed to the top shelf. “—1977.”

  “So, what are we looking for?” Glitch reached over Brooklyn, jumping to grasp t
he book she was struggling to reach. When he landed, he wrapped a hand nonchalantly around her waist as though to make sure she didn’t fall.

  I’d started noticing all kinds of these little touches, details I always just dismissed as the everyday remnants of close friendship. After all, didn’t he do the same to me? But the more I thought about it, the more I realized his attention to me was just that: the everyday remnants of close friendship. His encounters with Brooke were much more deliberate and happened much more often. When on planet Earth did his feelings for her morph into downright infatuation? He’d had a bit of a crush on her since she moved here in the third grade, but it seemed to have evolved. I wondered if Brooke knew.

  As soon as he landed, Brooke snatched the yearbook from him and sat at the round table that took up most of the space in the closetlike room. She seemed completely oblivious of Glitch’s advance. Probably a good thing at the moment.

  With a mental shrug, I dropped my notebook and sat beside her as she thumbed through the pages. “I really don’t know for sure. But the way Mr. Davis was guarding it … wait.” She’d turned the page to find the words IN MEMORY OF ELLIOT BRENT DAVIS headlining a memorial layout for a Riley High student who had passed away. I quickly scanned the collage that had been put together to honor him. Both candid and professional shots bordered the main photograph of Elliot Davis. It was a studio shot of him holding a football, and I realized who Elliot Davis had to be. “This is Mr. Davis’s brother.”

  “Oh, my gosh,” Brooke said, leaning in closer, “you’re right.”

  “He looks just like him,” Glitch said, hovering over us from behind.

  I tapped the page with my fingertips. “And this is the page Mr. Davis was looking at. I remember. He’d circled a face with a—”

  “Lorelei,” Brooklyn interrupted in a hushed whisper. Her finger slid up to one of the photos bordering the main picture. In it, a crowd of students stood around the flagpole of the old high school. They were laughing, as though in disbelief, and I realized it was a shot of Mr. Davis’s brother. In what must have been some kind of a prank, he and some friends had chained themselves to the pole and were holding a sign I couldn’t quite make out.

  But they were laughing, too. Every student in the photo was laughing, except one. A boy. He was standing closer to the camera yet apart from the rest, his stance guarded, his expression void, and then I saw the unmistakable face of our newest student.

  Jared Kovach.

  I felt the world tip beneath me, my head spin as I stared unblinking.

  “It can’t be him,” she said.

  But there was no mistaking the wide shoulders, the solid build, the dark glint in Jared’s eyes.

  “It can’t be him,” she repeated.

  He had the same mussed hair, the same T-shirt with the sleeves rolled up, the same arms, long and sculpted like a swimmer’s. The only difference I could see in this picture was the tattoo. Two, actually. Wide bands of what looked like a row of ancient symbols encircled each of his biceps.

  “It just can’t be, right, Lorelei?”

  He was just as breathtaking, just as surreal. And somehow, it made perfect sense. I swallowed hard and asked, “What if it is him?”

  “Lor,” Glitch said, shaking his head, “that’s impossible.”

  “Maybe it’s his father, or even his grandfather.” Brooklyn glanced up. “Lots of kids look like their grandparents.”

  “Think about it,” I said. “Think about all the things he can do.” I studied the photo again. The caption below it read, Taken the day we lost our beloved brother and friend.

  “What if it is him and he was there the day Mr. Davis’s brother died.” I thought back to what Cameron’s father had said. “Cameron calls him the reaper. Maybe he really is.”

  “Is what?” Brooklyn asked, pulling away from me.

  In hesitation, I pursed my lips. Then I said it, what we were all thinking. “What if he really is the grim reaper?”

  “Then wouldn’t you be dead?” Glitch asked, suddenly angry. He’d set his jaw, and I could tell he’d slipped into a state of denial. Heck, I’d considered moving to that state myself, but the facts were hard to dismiss.

  First the vision, then the accident, the fight, the gunshot wounds that didn’t faze him, didn’t leave a scratch, and the way he’d rolled out of the bed of Cameron’s truck and landed solidly on his feet when he escaped. And just the way he walked, the way he moved. So ethereal. So dangerous.

  “Nothing about Jared is normal,” I said. I looked up at Glitch. “Or Cameron, for that matter. He’s different. You said so yourself. Always has been.”

  Glitch offered me a sardonic smile. “Okay, so if Kovach is the freaking grim reaper, then what the heck is Cameron?”

  I certainly didn’t have the answer to that. “I just think we should at least consider this a possibility.”

  “Yeah, a crazy one.” He raked his fingers through his spiked hair.

  “You weren’t there, Glitch. You didn’t see what I saw. What kind of entity can stop time?”

  Glitch’s face softened. “Lor, you said it yourself. You had been hit by a truck.”

  “And I don’t have a single bruise to prove it.” Despite my best efforts, I was getting frustrated.

  “Have you looked at your ribs?”

  “Do you honestly believe a delivery truck would only bruise my ribs? I told you how that happened. I was being torn through a tiny sliding glass window.” After a moment, a shocking realization burrowed into my thick head. I eyed him, dismayed. “You don’t believe me.”

  Guilt lined his face as he tried to convince me otherwise. “I didn’t say that.”

  “You didn’t have to.” I stood and strode out the door with the yearbook, searching my pockets for change for the copier. As Glitch approached, I turned to him.

  “Of course I believe you,” he said softly. “It’s just—”

  “Don’t worry about it.” Though the revelation hurt, I could hardly blame him. It was an incredible story. Seriously. Stopping time? Jared shot at point-blank range without a single bullet wound to show for it, then rolling from a truck going sixty only to land on his feet and sprint up a mountain? Yeah, incredible.

  “It’s not that I don’t believe you,” Glitch said, regret lacing his voice. “Please, don’t be mad at me.”

  His sincerity squeezed around my heart. So did his lost-puppy expression. He was such a cheater.

  “And besides,” Brooklyn said as she walked up, “when you’re mad at him, he totally ignores my insults. Those insults serve a social function. They reinforce the hierarchy of our little threesome here.” She opened her hands, indicating our merry band of misfits.

  “I’m not mad in the least,” I said, offering Glitch a half smile. “But when I prove I’m right?”

  He grinned. “Then I’ll be your love slave forever.”

  Brooklyn chortled, “You’re grounded forever. And a couple of days beyond that. How can you be anybody’s love slave?”

  “And just think,” I added as I turned to make a copy of the memorial page, “when your parents find out you skipped again today, they’re going to be even more upset. You may have to do yard work. Or worse,” I said with a soft gasp, “the dishes.”

  “That’s not funny.” Glitch’s grin evaporated. “If you’re gonna crack jokes, they should really be funny.”

  “I thought it was funny,” Brooklyn said with a shrug.

  “You think the Teletubbies are funny,” he said.

  I raised my brows. “He is right, you know. For once.”

  “I know,” she said, her tone flat. “I hate when that happens.”

  I wrapped a supportive arm around her shoulders. “Cheer up, kid,” I said, brushing a fist across her chin in jest. “Even a broken clock is right twice a day. It was bound to happen eventually.”

  “Of course,” she said, brightening. “I feel so much better.”

  “Here.” Glitch grabbed the yearbook, feigning annoyance
at the jokes made at his expense. “I have some change.”

  He didn’t fool me. He loved every minute of it.

  As he turned to make a copy, Brooklyn asked, “So what’s next?”

  That was a good question. I could only come up with one answer, the only trail we had to follow. “Don’t they keep all the old newspaper articles on eight-track tapes or something? We could try to look up the report on Elliot Davis’s death. Find out what happened.”

  “Good idea. We can see if there was anything suspicious about it. Not that we’d actually know if it were suspicious, but it wouldn’t hurt to check.”

  I nodded my head in agreement, then lowered it, almost afraid to ask my best friend’s thoughts on the matter. But I had to know. “So, what about you, Brooke? Do you believe me?”

  Brooklyn’s face split into a brilliant smile and she leaned into me. “With every bone in my body.”

  Relief washed over me. I needed Brooke to believe me. It surprised me how much I needed it. “And where do I stand?”

  “Stand?” Her huge brown eyes looked at me, confused.

  “Yeah, you know, in your social hierarchy.”

  “Ah,” she said, propping an arm on my shoulder, “the way I see it, we’re co-presidents, and Glitch there is on the bottom rung of the political ladder. He’s pretty much pond scum.”

  “Perfect,” I said as Glitch growled over his shoulder. “Nothing like a society with two heads of state and one poverty-stricken, uneducated, mentally ill constituent to back us.”

  “Exactly,” she said, polishing her nails on her blouse, quite proud of her governing hierarchy.

  THREE LAWS AND A SUBARU

  It took a while, but we managed to find a newspaper article on an ancient cell of microfiche that described the sudden death of Riley High’s star quarterback. He’d apparently died of an aneurysm while sitting in his car after school, waiting for his brother, Alan.

  Elliot Davis, the oldest child of James and Anne Davis, died moments after his brother found him. A later article explained that he spoke to his brother right before he died, but that Alan Davis was in shock and couldn’t tell his parents what their son had said. How awful his father must have felt. How awful Principal Davis must have felt as well, his older brother dying in front of him, so suddenly, so tragically.