The Last Day of Emily Lindsey

by Nic Joseph

  Her face settled into my hands, and I saw her swallow, her eyes coming to mine. Just like she had the first time I came, she looked directly at me, and the cloudiness went away.

  “Emily, I know you can see me,” I said. “You’re okay. You’re safe here in the hospital. Nobody can hurt you.”

  Dan Lindsey had returned, and I felt him step closer, but I didn’t look up at him. The shaking had subsided almost completely, and Emily leaned back, staring up into my eyes.

  I couldn’t believe it. It was working.

  Simpson echoed this. “What are you doing?” he asked. “Whatever it is, don’t stop. She’s calming down.”

  Sure enough, Emily rested her head in my hands, and her breathing began to slow down. Dan Lindsey looked like he wanted to protest, but he stopped when he saw how she was reacting.

  Emily had stopped making noise altogether now, and she relaxed back against the bed, her face resting in my palms. I started to step back, but her expression changed, and she began to moan again in pain, so I stepped closer, cupping her face. It was an odd, intimate gesture, her skin soft against my fingertips, and I looked back over my shoulder at her husband, who seemed to be more shocked than angered.

  I kept my hands on her face and sat down on the edge of the bed. We were just inches apart. Emily was almost silent now, staring into my eyes as her breath escaped her in pants.

  I saw what was about to happen way too late. As I held my hands up to her face, my sleeves slipped down a few inches, the edges of my scars suddenly visible. Emily looked down and stared at them, curiously, blinking a few times before looking back up into my eyes.

  I jumped up quickly, stumbling back, yanking my sleeves down. She started to moan again, but her eyes never left mine as both Simpson and her husband rushed toward the bed.

  Chapter Twenty

  Then

  Gumball was trying to hide it, but she was upset.

  She was really, really upset.

  She stood in the back of the elevator, clasping her books to her chest, glad that nobody could see her face. If they could see her, she was sure they’d know immediately. They’d ask her what was wrong, why she didn’t seem like herself, or what they could do to help.

  And she wouldn’t be able to lie, at least not well. Her expression would give it all away.

  And then they’d know.

  They’d know what she was doing, how she was planning on doing it, why she was doing it, and when.

  Gumball watched as the numbers slowly increased as the elevator ascended to the fifth floor.

  Breathe.

  She didn’t get upset easily—she knew by now that there wasn’t much use getting upset and stewing over things for days and days. She tended to address problems with the other kids upfront, quickly, and with an eye toward resolution. She was different from her sister in that way. She liked things tidy, simple, clean. Her sister was a tornado of emotions and actions.

  Still, today, Gumball was having trouble keeping her cool.

  She liked Jack—she even liked him a lot. He was a smart boy, and he was passionate, traits she had a hard time ignoring. But the truth was, he’d tricked her into helping him. He knew it, and she knew it.

  If it wasn’t for Brat…

  That wasn’t to say that she wasn’t curious about what went on up on the eighth floor on June 2. She always had been. The children spent plenty of time up there for weekly assemblies, but that one day was still a big mystery. Part of her felt like there must be a good reason why she and the other kids were kept from whatever it was that happened up there on that day.

  All that aside, she was willing to go along with Jack’s plan. Until he told her what she had to do.

  She had to break into Mother Beth’s office to find the gate key.

  It had been an odd process of elimination, one that she hadn’t seen coming and that had been over before she’d really realized that it had started. Perry had done the drawing, so he was out. Lill and Jack had some sort of plan to get the stairwell key, and Jack said he already had something planned for Brat.

  So that left Gumball.

  She’d wanted to protest, but she stayed silent when Jack said she should do it. She was a part of the team now, and she wanted to contribute.

  She was just so nervous.

  Gumball tried to calm down as she walked with the other children out of the elevator and down the hallway.

  The plan was simple—Gumball was to head to class and then fake a stomachache. On the way down to the nurse’s office, she’d go by Mother Beth’s office. She had to time it just right—Mother Beth was out of her office at the same time every day, and she was out for no more than fourteen minutes and as few as eight minutes.

  Gumball was going for six.

  She looked down at the drawings in her hand. Perry had actually done a really good job. Gumball had heard about what happened in class. If Mother Beth were to see it now, she’d definitely know that it was a picture of her office.

  Gumball walked out of the elevator and headed toward her classroom. As she walked past Mother Beth’s office, she took a quick peek inside. Sure enough, Mother Beth was hunched over her desk, looking at a stack of papers. Gumball averted her gaze and kept walking until she reached her classroom. Walking inside, she took a seat near the front of the room and pulled out her notebook.

  And then she waited.

  The waiting was the hardest part. Mother Mary was leading the class, and she was talking a mile a minute about ecosystems. Gumball kept her gaze on the clock above the woman’s head. She had to time it perfectly.

  The good news was that she didn’t have to work too hard to pretend that she wasn’t feeling well—her stomach was flipping over with nerves, and when she put her hand on it and leaned back in her seat, it wasn’t entirely for show.

  Gumball saw Mother Mary’s gaze dart toward her, but the woman didn’t say anything. The second hand seemed to crawl around the clock, and Gumball bit her lip as it approached nine forty-five.

  Go.

  “Mother Mary?”

  The woman stopped talking and looked over at Gumball, concern on her face. “Yes?”

  “I’m not feeling well. Is it okay if I go—”

  “Yes, of course,” Mother Mary said. “Go see the nurse. Do you need someone to go with you?”

  “No, I’m fine,” Gumball said, standing quickly and grabbing her notebook. She turned and raced out of the room, afraid that everyone could see the word liar printed on her forehead.

  Mother Beth had the exact same routine every morning. Her first class was at 10:00 a.m., and by then, she’d already had at least two huge mugs of coffee. She left her office around nine forty-five to run to the bathroom and stop by the main office, where she’d head inside to turn in her paperwork from the day before. She also spent a few minutes chatting with the other mothers there for approximately eight to ten minutes.

  Then she headed back to her office for a few moments to gather her things before heading to class.

  As Gumball rushed toward her office at nine forty-five, she hoped that they’d gotten it right. If she got there and Mother Beth was still at her desk, Gumball would keep walking and head to see the nurse.

  The hallway was empty, and she moved quickly toward the door, which, from twenty or so feet away, she could see was still closed.

  As she walked up to the door, she struggled to breathe normally. She slowed just a bit as she came to the glass, and she took a quick peek inside.

  Empty.

  Gumball stopped and looked behind her. The hallway was still empty. She put her hand on the door handle and fully expected it not to move as she pushed.

  But of course, the handle spun easily, and the door pushed open.

  It wasn’t until that moment that Gumball realized she hadn’t really been planning on following through. Tha
t she was hoping that the door would be locked. Or that something else would get in her way.

  But as she stepped inside, she knew there was no turning back. She pushed the door closed behind her and took a deep breath.

  Go.

  Gumball flipped to the back of her notebook and pulled out the sheet of paper with Perry’s drawing on it. He’d had to start over when Mother Beth confiscated the first one, but after that, he’d finished quickly. Gumball examined the drawing in her hands, once again impressed by how good it was.

  Jack had circled every place where the key could be and numbered them in order of likelihood.

  Only seven places to check, and then she’d be out of there.

  Gumball rushed over to the desk and opened the top drawer. It was filled with receipts, scraps of paper, and Post-it Notes with scribbles.

  She shut it and walked quickly over to place number two—the brown-and-black vase on the filing cabinet behind the desk. She rifled through the contents. There were paperclips, trinkets, but no key.

  She kept moving through the rest of the areas that Jack had circled on the page. Underneath a corner of the carpet. In the bottom drawer of the filing cabinet. She looked in the next place and the next until she’d looked in five out of the seven places.

  But there was no key.

  Gumball clenched her fists tightly and spun around the room.

  It didn’t make sense. They’d plotted it out so well. The key had to be there.

  Gumball was scanning the drawing again, looking at the last two places she hadn’t checked, when she heard a noise in the hallway.

  It was rapid footsteps, getting louder by the second, and she knew she needed to hide. It couldn’t be Mother Beth, could it? And even if it wasn’t, Gumball knew she needed to get out of sight in case whoever it was looked in the office.

  Gumball raced across the room to the other side where there was a small closet. Opening the door, she stepped inside, leaving it open just a crack. If Mother Beth did come in and if she had any reason to go in the closet, Gumball knew she was finished. It was barely large enough for her to fit standing completely upright—there’d be nowhere for her to hide.

  With her hand on the doorknob, Gumball peered through the crack and out into the office. She had to stifle a gasp when she heard the door open and Mother Beth walked into the room.

  It hadn’t even been five minutes!

  Gumball’s breathing had turned into a near wheeze, and she placed a hand over her mouth.

  She wasn’t going to make it. There were still at least nine or ten minutes left before Mother Beth had to be in class. It was way too long to stand quietly in a closet without the ability to take a full breath.

  Calm down.

  There were only two places on Perry’s map left.

  Would she even have a chance to check them?

  She watched as Mother Beth sat down at her desk, picked up a file folder, and began flipping through a stack of papers. She uncapped the thick pen that she kept around her neck and leaned over the papers, marking them every now and then. Gumball wondered if it was the assignment from earlier that week.

  It was so quiet in the room, Gumball worried that the sound of her breathing would carry out into the office. She removed her hand and opened her mouth wide, letting the air slide directly—and quietly—in and out of her lungs. She gripped the doorknob tightly. She was glad to be able to see Mother Beth, to know what was going on out there, but part of her wanted to pull the door closed and sink down on the floor.

  Mother Beth leaned back in her chair and held a piece of paper up in front of her face. She had a half smile on her face, and she seemed to like whatever it was that she was reading. Gumball watched as Mother Beth stuck the other end of the pen in her mouth and chewed on it. Gumball grimaced. She always thought that was a disgusting habit.

  The phone in Mother Beth’s office rang, and she picked it up.

  “Hello?” she said into the phone.

  Gumball watched as the woman listened for a bit before responding.

  “That won’t be necessary. She’s too new. I don’t see any reason for her to participate this year, and I don’t know who gave her the idea that it’s her choice.”

  She waited again.

  “I’m not changing my mind. Tell her that she’ll have to wait until next year.”

  With that, she hung up the phone. Mother Beth continued to read the paper she’d been holding, but she seemed agitated now, upset. Gumball wondered just what it was that the person on the other end of the line had been asking for.

  Gumball watched as Mother Beth continued to make marks on the paper, and she almost let out a sigh of relief when she finally put the pen down and pushed her chair back.

  Please don’t come to the closet. Please don’t come in here.

  But Mother Beth had just realized that she was running late, and she rushed out of the room in a hurry.

  Gumball waited a few moments before finally opening the door and stepping out, taking in a huge breath of air.

  She couldn’t believe how close that had been.

  She looked down at the last two places on Jack’s list. Jack had seemed so confident that the key had to be in one of the places he’d circled. Gumball would actually feel bad going back and telling him that he was wrong. There were two options: on the floor against the wall behind the filing cabinet in the corner of the room, or beneath the small rug at the foot of Mother Beth’s desk.

  She took a deep breath and rushed over to the filing cabinet.

  She shimmied it forward just a little and then leaned forward and let her fingers trail along the dusty floor behind it. She grimaced, feeling the dirt bunnies as they danced between her fingers, and she was about to give up when she touched something cold, hard, and small.

  And incredibly key-like.

  With a gasp, she pulled the object out and let out a startled laugh.

  Jack had been right.

  His crazy plan just might work after all.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Now

  As I drove toward Lara’s house, my mind was still on Emily and her face as she sat in the bed. I’d had the same feeling I did when I first went to the hospital on Sunday night.

  Like behind her blurry, unfocused eyes, she could see me.

  Really see me.

  And only me.

  I was learning that there was a lot I didn’t know about Emily Lindsey of Carmen Street Confessions. The angry letters had surprised me—they went far beyond typical hate mail or rogue internet comments. These people really hated Emily.

  And in some cases, it seemed like they had a reason to.

  I found a spot on the street two doors down from Lara’s.

  She’d called me the night before to see how my visit had gone before dropping the bomb that she was having a small get-together for Kit’s birthday the next day and that “I could come if I wanted.”

  “On a Wednesday?” I asked. “I was planning to bring his gift by this weekend.” She was silent for a moment, and I felt the need to continue. “I was going to call and make sure that was all right.”

  Lara sighed. “We have the play this weekend, and then we’re going out of town,” she said. “It’s summer, so we figured we could get enough of his friends to come.”

  “What friends?” I asked.

  “Look, we’re having the party, and I just thought I should tell you.”

  I didn’t bother to get upset about the last-minute invite or her obvious reluctance. There was no way I was going to miss his party.

  As I got out of the car and shut the door behind me, I saw two girls race around the house, screaming with laughter as they tore through the front yard and looped their way back around to the back of the house. Who were these kids? I knew that Kit didn’t have that many friends, and I wondered whos
e idea it was to invite so many people over.

  I walked through the back of the house and immediately saw Lara laughing next to a tall woman. The woman saw me first, and her eyes narrowed, and she said something to Lara. From a distance, I could see her lips asking “Is that him?” and I knew that Lara had been talking about me.

  And for a moment, I let myself imagine that the friend had recognized me because Lara had said something like “My ex-husband is a tall, built, hot detective. You’ll know him when you see him.”

  “Hey,” I said when I got to Lara. “Thanks for letting me come by.”

  “Yeah, of course,” she said.

  That was the thing about Lara. She could be so abrupt on the phone, and she’d avoid me for days or weeks, but when she saw me, I saw the softness in her eyes, could see that she had a hard time saying no to me. I shouldn’t take advantage of her intense pity on me, but I didn’t have enough pride left for that.

  “What a turnout,” I said.

  She nodded. “There are so many people here who I don’t know,” she said. “Greg has a big family, and it seems like everyone brought somebody.”

  The conversation was dead before it started, and we rocked back and forth for a moment. Before I could say anything else, she spoke again.

  “Kit is inside,” she said. “Feel free to go in, though I think he might be playing.”

  I nodded and hesitated for a moment. I hadn’t seen her in months, and I wanted to ask her how she was doing, have her ask me, do the little small talk, because it seemed like the chances for it were so few and far between, but her crazy friend just stared at me, ready to fight by all appearances.

  “Hello,” I said, but she didn’t say anything, just continued to stare at me with a challenge in her eyes. “Okay,” I said and looked back at Lara. “Thanks,” I said before turning to walk into the house.