One Kick

by Chelsea Cain

  What the hell?

  “Don’t freak out,” he said.

  “Where am I?” Kick asked.

  “At my house,” Bishop said.

  She was in a bed. Kick started to sit up again.

  “In the guest room,” he clarified. His hands were on her shoulders again. “You suffered a concussion. I’m supposed to wake you up every hour to make sure you’re not dead. You’re not dead, are you?”

  “No.”

  “I’m going to shine this light in your eyes,” Bishop said. “The last time I did this you tried to kick me in the teeth, and I’d rather you didn’t do that again because I’m tired and my reflexes are slow.”

  He held a penlight up and hesitated. “Okay?” he said.

  “Okay,” Kick whispered hoarsely.

  Bishop turned on the light and Kick winced as he shined it in each of her eyes.

  “Your pupils look good,” he said, switching off the light. He dropped the penlight in his robe pocket, sat down in a chair next to her bed, and picked up a book that was open on the armrest. “Go to sleep,” he said, not looking up from the book. “I’ll see you in a few hours.”

  • • •

  “Where am I?” Kick asked.

  “My house, in a guest room,” Bishop said. “You suffered a concussion. I’m supposed to wake you up every few hours to make sure you’re lucid. Are you lucid, Kick?”

  “No,” she said.

  Bishop held up a thick silver pen. “This is a penlight,” he said. “I’m going to turn it on and shine it in both your eyes. Don’t kick me.”

  “Why would I—” Kick winced as the light met her pupils.

  “Good,” Bishop said. “I’ll see you in a few hours.”

  • • •

  Kick opened her eyes and looked around.

  “You’re at my house,” Bishop said. “You suffered a concussion. How do you feel?”

  “Like some asshole keeps waking me up,” Kick said.

  “Look at me,” Bishop said. He held up a penlight. “This is a—”

  “I know,” Kick said.

  Bishop shined the light in both her pupils.

  “Okay,” Bishop said, clicking the light off. He turned around and started walking away, and Kick sat up on her elbows.

  “Where are you going?” she asked.

  “It’s morning,” Bishop said over his shoulder. “Congratulations, you lived through the night.”

  The moment Bishop closed the door, Kick sat up and threw off the covers. She was wearing pajamas. They were white with tiny yellow flowers—pants and a short-sleeved top with a scalloped neckline. They were not hers. Waking up in someone else’s clothes was not definitely an item for the Worry Book, but at the moment Kick was more concerned with the fact that she had found herself in someone else’s house. She touched a tender spot over her forehead and winced. She remembered the feeling of heat, waking up in the grass, faces, fragments. The knot on her head was the size of a grape. The last thing she remembered was . . . She grabbed a handful of her hair and smelled it. No vomit. Just a musky-scented shampoo. She looked at her hands. They were clean. No blue powder. No dirt. Even the remnants of her blue nail polish were gone. She wiggled her fingers. Her right hand felt stiff.

  She did not remember bathing. She did not remember changing her clothes.

  But she couldn’t go down that road. That road led to the Worry Maze.

  Kick wished she had a throwing star, a fishing knife, anything.

  “Ha!” Kick said.

  She sounded like a lunatic, but sometimes if she made herself laugh it would calm her down. Laughing lowered cortisol levels, released endorphins, and boosted oxygen levels in the blood. It was science.

  She tried again. “Ha!”

  It wasn’t working. Her cortisol levels felt about the same. She swung her legs off the bed, got on the floor, and did a hundred sit-ups.

  Her head felt like it was going to explode, but her brain was better. Her heart rate was up. She felt the warm burn of her muscles working.

  She was ready.

  Bishop had said she was in a guest room. Looking around, it made sense. The king-size bed and clinical design screamed expensive hotel room. She spotted her phone on the bedside table and reached for it. The screen was dark, the battery dead. She didn’t see a charger. There was no landline in the room.

  She hadn’t talked to James since the night before. He was probably frantic by now. She had to find a phone.

  Kick tucked her own phone into the waistband of her pajama pants and crossed to the door. It was unlocked. She cracked it and listened. She could hear what sounded like the faint cry of seagulls.

  The door opened onto a hallway that extended in both directions. No sign of Bishop. The floors were wood, no rugs. Kick flexed her knees deeply, sank into them, and followed the hall left, breathing along with her movement. With no weapon, silence was her main advantage. It was Bishop’s turn to be startled by her. She passed closed doors, focusing on staying in the open hall, where she could see what was in front of her. She stepped with her toes first and rolled her weight back to her heels, ready to adjust to any floor creak.

  The hallway led to a light-filled room roughly the size of a high school gymnasium and decorated with mission-style furniture. One wall was almost entirely glass. Beyond it, Kick saw a wedge of stone shoreline and an expanse of dark-blue water with white gulls circling above it. Morning mist cloaked the opposite shore of evergreens, tiny homes, and docks.

  Kick recognized the silhouette of a Washington State ferry in the distance, about the size of a shoe box. Across the water, to the north, a faint city skyline was visible, the red light on top of the Space Needle blinking bleakly in the mist.

  She was on an island in Puget Sound.

  Kick twirled around, certain that she’d heard a noise behind her. But she was alone. The glass wall made her feel like a bug in a jar. She quickened her steps as she circled the perimeter, looking for a phone somewhere in all that gleaming wood, leather, and strong, masculine lines. Folded Pendleton blankets draped the backs of all the chairs. It was all very put together, like the guest room. There were fresh flowers, in three bouquets so big that they looked like they’d be more at home in a hotel lobby. Nothing was out of place. It gave Kick the creeps. She had as much chance of finding a landline here as she did finding a stain on the carpet. She didn’t see any personal touches. Even the art on the walls felt like some interior designer’s bulk order. She scanned outlets, hoping for a phone charger, but saw none. A blocky oak cabinet with hammered bronze pulls looked promising, but every drawer she checked was empty. Not just empty—clean, as if each drawer had been recently wiped out by a diligent housekeeper.

  There were no books in the room, no magazines, no half-empty glasses sitting on the coffee table, no coasters, or upholstery stains or any other indications of actual habitation.

  It was like a set, like it was all staged.

  The light changed—maybe the mist shifted. Kick’s attention returned to a series of framed images she’d just passed. They were so uniform and evenly hung, each matted and framed, that she had assumed they were more designer-bought art. She hadn’t even looked at the images themselves. But now the glare off the glass was gone, and she was drawn back to them.

  The dozen or so images looked to actually be enlarged snapshots. Kick glanced from one image to the next. Most of the photographs appeared to be of the same two dark-haired boys, at the beach, posing with a birthday cake, at a park.

  They had the same narrow gray eyes and large ears: brothers. One was older by a year or two. He smiled more than the other. The photographs went along more or less chronologically, the boys aging until they were roughly eight and ten years old. Then the younger boy dropped off. He disappeared. It was just the older boy after that, pictured alone, at age twelve, at age fourteen, going about the business of growing up.

  What had happened to the other boy?

  “The kid’s alive,” Bishop said f
rom behind her. Kick spun around, bringing her elbows in and planting her feet, ready to defend herself. Bishop strolled barefoot toward her, wearing black jeans and a black T-shirt with a stretched-out neck, his dark hair wet from a shower, his arms marked with her scratches. Kick expected him to question her, but he barely gave her a glance. He certainly didn’t look surprised to find her out of bed, wearing a stranger’s pajamas, standing in his living room. He swept a remote off an end table, aimed it at the sofa, and pressed a button. Kick let her fight stance ease as an enormous flat-screen TV elevated from behind the sofa. She was about to question him when a KING-TV breaking news logo appeared on the screen, followed by a photograph of Mia Turner. Stamped diagonally across the photo was a single word: Found.

  Found?

  Kick didn’t understand.

  “She turned up in a motel room in Tacoma,” Bishop said. “The room was rented yesterday afternoon by a fiftyish blond female. Housekeeping found the child alone in the room at checkout about thirty minutes ago.”

  The TV news went to a live shot of a motel. It looked drab but clean. The marquee touted free HBO and in-room coffeemakers.

  “She doesn’t appear to have been hurt,” Bishop added.

  Fiftyish. Blond. The description fit. “Josie Reed,” Kick said.

  “She checked in under the name Elinore Martinez,” Bishop said.

  Kick rocked forward on the balls of her feet. The hair on the body she had seen in the box had looked blond too. Adam Rice, Josie Reed, Mia Turner, the house explosion—they were all connected. If Mia had been saved, maybe Adam still had a chance. “We have to go there,” Kick said as the TV news feed went back to the studio.

  “Shh,” Bishop said. He put a finger to his lips and his eyes went to the ceiling. Kick listened. She could just hear the faint steady chop of helicopter blades.

  “That’s your ride home,” Bishop said.

  He had a lot of gall, dragging her up there, almost getting her killed, and then sending her packing. He couldn’t just make her come and go as he pleased. “What about Adam?” Kick asked.

  Bishop turned off the TV and tossed the remote aside. He looked drained, like he hadn’t slept at all. “He’s been gone four weeks,” he said. “That photo is ten days old. You and I both know what his odds are.”

  He didn’t care at all. Not really. She had been right about him. “Sure,” she said. “No one lasts longer than that.”

  The chopper was louder now, getting closer.

  “Your clothes have been cleaned,” Bishop said, “and are in the top drawer of the dresser in your room. You should probably get changed.”

  “Excuse me,” a woman’s voice said, and Kick and Bishop turned in unison toward the door.

  The woman fumbled to close the red robe she was wearing. She was not quick enough that Kick didn’t notice she was naked underneath it.

  “Sorry,” the woman giggled to Bishop. “I was looking for coffee.”

  “Try the kitchen,” Bishop said. “Through the door to your left.”

  “You two want anything?” The woman tucked her blond hair behind her ear and glanced at Kick, and as their gaze met Kick recognized her doe-like features, even without the ponytail. She was prettier without her uniform, or maybe that was just postcoital glow.

  “No, thanks, I only drink kava,” Kick said. “For anxiety.”

  The blonde disappeared down the hall, the robe fluttering open behind her.

  Kick leveled an incredulous look at Bishop. “The paramedic?”

  Bishop gave her a sort of half shrug.

  So he had not spent the whole night in a chair in the guest room after all. Kick felt like a fool for supposing that he had. “Thanks for pausing your one-night stand every few hours to make sure I was still alive,” she said.

  Bishop tapped his forehead. “You should get that looked at,” he said. “But if anyone asks, you fell. We were never in Renton. Our names aren’t in any of the police reports.”

  “Is that why you brought me to your house: so we could get our stories straight?”

  “I brought you to my house because you didn’t seem to want to go with your mother. I brought the paramedic here to help take care of you . . . and,” he conceded, “because I wanted to have sex with her. Now, go home to your dog.”

  He started walking away in the direction of the coffee and the naked woman wearing his robe.

  Kick had a hundred questions, so many that she didn’t even know where to begin, which was probably why the one she settled on seemed so random.

  “Whose pajamas am I wearing?” Kick asked.

  Bishop stopped, his back to Kick, and shook his head with a chuckle.

  Kick didn’t see what was so funny.

  The wall of windows rattled in their casements. Outside, branches bent in the wind and leaves swirled. Inside the room, everything was still. Kick could smell coffee brewing.

  Bishop looked back at her, over his shoulder. He was still smiling, but there was something about the smile that struck Kick as particularly joyless. “My wife’s,” he said.

  11

  SOMETIMES, KICK COULD MAKE herself disappear. It was a trick, like magic, based on gimmicks and artifice. Don’t make eye contact. It invited people to look at you. Don’t smile, don’t frown; it attracted attention. Keep your face still. Keep your head down. Never initiate conversation, but if someone talked to you, answer as briefly as possible. If everyone else was eating, eat; if everyone else was reading, read. Blend in.

  Toward the end, Mel could take her to air shows, to the community pool, to the mall. No one gave her a second glance. The most famous missing girl in America went unnoticed.

  It’s all she had wanted ever since. A hiding place.

  It was harder now. Especially with the headache. Kick stood outside the charter terminal at PDX, hunched against a brick wall, far away from doorways and trash cans, waiting for James. There had been no kava on the flight back, not even Flight Attendant Barbie and her come-hither scowl. The bright sky made Kick’s eyes ache, and the roar of planes passing overhead was unrelenting. She stayed in the shade and tried to keep track of her surroundings. Eight other people loitered out front, most of them with roller bags, probably waiting to be picked up. They were all staring at their smartphones, so Kick had hers out, too, even though the screen was black. Hiding in plain sight, Mel called it.

  She didn’t have luggage, wasn’t wearing shoes, and was sporting a blunt-force injury to her forehead, but so far no one seemed to care. Such were the benefits of private air travel.

  By the time James pulled up in Kick’s car at the charter terminal at PDX, it was almost three p.m. Kick saw him coming a mile away, inching along, his right-turn signal blinking for no reason. He drove in the least gas-efficient way possible, alternating between paranoid caution and reckless endangerment. She stepped out of the shade and waved, and the car accelerated, swerved toward her, and jumped the curb with one wheel.

  James didn’t even acknowledge Kick as she climbed into the passenger seat, so she knew he was pissed. He didn’t like to leave his apartment, much less drive. He stared straight ahead out the dirty windshield, fingers twitching on the steering wheel. He was still wearing the TARDIS T-shirt.

  “Your turn signal’s on,” Kick said quietly.

  James gave her a withering look.

  Someone behind them honked.

  “Do you want me to drive?” Kick asked hopefully.

  “I thought you were dead,” James said, his hands fidgeting on the wheel. “I was up all night trolling police reports, calling hospitals.” His eyes darted to the rearview mirror.

  She had seen him like this before. But it didn’t usually come on this fast.

  “They’re following me again,” James said.

  “James?” Kick asked. “Did you take your medicine this morning?”

  Another jackass behind them laid on his horn, and James practically jumped out of his skin. Kick held her middle finger up over her shoulder.

/>   “I don’t feel well,” James murmured.

  Kick put a hand on his cheek. He felt clammy. His breathing sounded labored. His knuckles had gone white around the steering wheel. “I’m here,” she told him. She reached across his lap and unrolled the driver’s-side window, then settled her arm lightly around his slender shoulders. “Anxiety is a normal emotion,” she reminded him. “You’re safe. You are relaxed and calm.”

  James took a shaky breath, squeezed his eyes shut, and nodded.

  “You enjoy leaving the house,” Kick continued. “You enjoy open spaces.” They had done this so many times before, the affirmations rolled off her tongue like state capitals. “Say it,” she said.

  “I enjoy leaving the house,” James said, nodding.

  Kick took his hand, threading her fingers through his. The scars across his wrist quivered with his pulse. “Take a minute,” Kick said soothingly. “Breathe deeply.” She took a few long slow breaths to demonstrate. “Ready?”

  James nodded again.

  “Okay,” she said.

  She squeezed his hand and closed her eyes, and they inhaled together and started to scream—full-throated, openmouthed, at-the-top-of-your-lungs screaming. It felt like the car was vibrating, like the windshield might break. Primal therapy had never really worked for Kick. Screaming your head off was supposed to eliminate the hold of your childhood trauma. Mostly it just made Kick’s throat hurt. But James had taken to it right away. He could scream like his life depended on it.

  “Miss?” a voice demanded.

  Kick opened one eye and squeezed James’s hand, and they both went silent.

  An airport cop was crouched by the window. “You okay?” he asked Kick.

  She glanced at James. His fingers had loosened around the wheel. His breathing had slowed. The panic attack had subsided.

  Kick felt a rush of relief. “We’re fine,” she said.

  The cop was real, not TSA. He had a silver Portland Police Department badge and a Glock in his holster. It was probably a Glock 17. Short recoil, standard magazine capacity of seventeen rounds. A respectable 9mm.