Paranoid

by Lisa Jackson

  Harper was already on her phone in her room, the door only slightly ajar, and Dylan was heading to his when she stopped him. “We need to talk,” she said. “In the living room.”

  “About what?” He didn’t seem surprised and didn’t argue, just walked down the hall in his bare feet.

  “This.” She pulled the sock with the money out of her pocket and noticed his jaw tense. Not surprise. Anger. She’d thought he would be shocked and he definitely wasn’t. “Sit.”

  He dropped onto a corner of the couch.

  “Want to explain?” she asked.

  “No.” Rebellion flared in his eyes.

  “Well, you’re going to or I’m going to expect the worst.” She emptied the sock and dropped it and the damning bills onto the coffee table. “Talk.”

  “Geez, Mom, it’s not what you think.”

  “Which is?”

  “That I’m selling drugs, right? Isn’t that what you think, why you brought up the Xanax?” He rolled his eyes. “I’m not that stupid.”

  She resisted asking, “And just how stupid are you?” Instead she said as she sat in a nearby chair, “Convince me.”

  He hesitated, looked out the window, and sighed through his nose as Reno trotted into the room to take his spot in the bed near the fireplace.

  “You said you were broke, that you needed money to pay off the kid that was hassling you?”

  “Schmidt,” Dylan supplied.

  “Right. You borrowed a hundred dollars from me because you owed him some ‘gambling debt.’” For emphasis, she made air quotes.

  “Yeah! And I’m paying it back! Geez, Mom, didn’t I help you with the security system? Didn’t I say I’d mow the lawn and do whatever stupid job you have?”

  “But you already had money. More than enough. This money.” She pointed a finger at the uneven pile of small bills. “Where’d you get it and don’t . . . don’t even say anything about saving it from your birthday or whatever. Everything you take in goes to some kind of equipment for either your computer or your game system or something.”

  “It’s my business.”

  “And mine.” Trying to cool off a little, she said, “So what’s going on, Dylan? What’re you into?”

  “Not drugs!” he yelled, then more calmly, “Okay?”

  “Then what? And don’t try to convince me that you’re into some online betting, because I’m just not buying it.”

  Arms folded, foot bouncing nervously, he didn’t answer.

  “I’m not the enemy, you know,” she said.

  “Then why are you acting like it? Interrogating me?”

  “Because I’m scared, Dylan. You’re doing something behind my back, something you don’t want to talk about, something you want to keep hidden. So I’m worried that you’re in trouble.”

  “I’m not.”

  She hadn’t heard Harper come out of her room nor walk down the hall, but she showed up and stood half in the hallway, half in the living room. “Tell her,” Harper said, staring at her brother.

  “What?” He was shaking his head, his eyes round.

  “Tell her that you help kids on the side, y’know, with computer stuff.” She was staring directly at her brother. “Admit that you’re a geek, probably the best one in school.”

  Dylan was as white as a sheet.

  “So you do what you did this afternoon for Mom or for Mr. Tallarico after school—you fix computers and kinds of electronic stuff. For other kids.” She came into the room, stood near the fireplace.

  “But—”

  “Tell her, or I will,” Harper said, her gaze still firmly holding his. “Well, fine,” she said and finally turned her attention to Rachel. “He’s kind of got this side business going; it’s not that big of a deal, but word is getting around, and he helps kids get their gaming systems or computers or whatever working again.”

  This didn’t sound right.

  “He’s done stuff for me, with my phone when I couldn’t figure out an app, and he’s helped Lucas and Xander, and my friend Julie, lots of kids.” She waved a hand as if to include the entire student body of Edgewater High. “Sometimes it’s behind the parents’ backs. Like a kid got a cell phone from a friend or whatever.”

  “Stolen.”

  “No!” She shook her head fiercely.

  “Uh-uh.” Dylan was in quick agreement.

  Rachel was trying to piece it all together. “Is that why the Schmidt kid was on your case?”

  Dylan nodded, glancing at his sister as if she would back him up.

  “How?” Rachel asked.

  “Something I did for him didn’t work and he . . . he wanted me to fix it right then and there, so I cut class and met him, but I didn’t have all the right equipment. I wanted to bring it home and he was pissed off—er, mad at me. Said he’d already paid and . . . and so . . .”

  “But why wouldn’t you tell me?”

  “Because you freak out about everything, everything. You’re a walking basket case.”

  Rachel protested. “I’m not—”

  “Seriously, Mom,” Harper said, “it’s like we can’t tell you anything or you’ll go all . . . weird and hyper and suspicious.”

  “Is that true?” Rachel said, turning to her son. Beyond him, through the window, she saw Ella Dickerson in her yard, down on her hands and knees, pulling weeds. “Am I that bad?”

  Dylan swallowed and glanced at his sister before meeting his mother’s eyes. “We just don’t want to, you know, upset you.”

  She wasn’t certain she was getting all of the truth, and she was suspicious that they’d somehow both worked together, double-teamed her with the story, but part of it was right.

  “We hear you, Mom,” Harper said softly, and for the first time since she’d entered the conversation, her daughter seemed totally sincere. “At night, when you have those dreams. We hear you walk around, talk to yourself, even scream sometimes.”

  Her heart sank. The last thing she wanted to do, the very last, was worry her children.

  “It’s not your fault,” Harper was quick to add. “I—we know that, but it’s . . . scary.”

  “Yeah,” her son put in. “Kinda freaky, Mom.”

  Her heart squeezed painfully. “Oh. God. I don’t want to ever . . .” Rachel felt horrible and wanted to apologize all over the place, but she couldn’t help but wonder how this conversation had turned around, to the point where instead of dealing with Dylan’s obvious lies, she was now feeling as if she’d failed as a mother. She looked from daughter to son. For once they seemed absolutely sincere. Still she was suspicious. Even now they might be hiding something. But what? “Okay. Well.” She slapped her hands onto her thighs, then stood. “This has been . . . enlightening. And maybe we should all work on being more truthful.”

  “And calm?” Harper suggested.

  “Yeah. That too.” Rachel felt that this would be a group hug moment if her life were a television sitcom or drama, but as it was, Dylan said, “Can I go now?”

  “Yeah. But no more secrets and no more cutting class. You can set up something here, or meet kids before or after school.”

  “Okay. But can I have my money back?” he asked.

  “Yes. Sure. It’s yours,” she said, “except for the hundred dollars you owe me, right?”

  “Right,” he said, scooping up his money and heading to his room.

  “Thanks,” she said to her daughter, but didn’t feel the relief she’d anticipated.

  Harper nodded. “You’re welcome, but, Mom, really, don’t go through my room again, okay? And don’t tell me you didn’t, cuz I know you did. I can tell. Besides, we’re not having any more secrets. Right?”

  “Right.”

  “And going through my things, that’s like illegal, right? An invasion of privacy or something?”

  “Not illegal.” Rachel shook her head and tightened the band that was holding her hair away from her face. “But next time, I’ll let you know.”

  “No. Not another ‘next
time.’ I need my own space. I’m almost—”

  “Eighteen, I know. And from that point on you think you’ll be totally independent. But you’ll still be living with me.”

  “Or Dad. I could live with him.” Harper elevated her chin just a fraction.

  Rachel’s heart twisted, but she hid it. “Yeah, that’s always an option.”

  “Or get an apartment.” A little more defiance.

  “You think you could afford one?”

  “With a roommate.”

  Uh-oh. Where was this going? A roommate like Xander Vale? Rachel didn’t go there. No reason to give Harper any ideas that she might not have come up with on her own. “And you’d need a job, maybe two jobs to make ends meet, on top of juggling school, so you should probably wait. It’s a lot cheaper here.”

  “But it’s like I live in a prison.” Harper flung out her arms dramatically. “You won’t even let me go to a concert. Because you don’t like Xander!”

  “I don’t know him.”

  “Exactly!” She reached into her pocket, read a text on her phone screen, and repeated, “A prison.”

  Rachel gave her a you’ve-got-to-be-kidding look. She couldn’t wait until Harper was living on her own and learning the real lessons in life, but not yet; she was still so young, naive in so many ways. So she said, “You’re right, it’s a prison and I’m the warden.”

  “You know what I mean!” She actually looked up from the screen.

  “Yeah, I do. I remember saying the same thing to my mother and I’ll give you the same advice she gave me: ‘Deal with it!’”

  * * *

  He was late.

  Again.

  Annessa walked through the old school with its unused classrooms, forgotten hallways, and dirty windows, many of which had long been boarded up. St. Augustine’s elementary, once filled with laughter, shouts, and running feet, was now quiet, deathly quiet, empty and cold, smelling of disuse.

  Her husband, Clint Cooper, had bought the place, along with other properties in town. Since she’d moved back to Edgewater to deal with her ailing parents, he’d thought it would make her happy to purchase some of the “historic” places around the area, to “revitalize” a town that had suffered with the times. To that end, Clint had purchased a farm outside of Astoria; a sawmill not far from Astoria; the old cannery on the waterfront; and St. Augustine’s, which consisted of this school, a small church, and an attached hospital.

  “Let’s make Edgewater a destination, y’know?” Clint had said, thinking he would please her. “We can turn the old school into a hotel, the chapel a restaurant, and maybe condos in the hospital.” He’d been on the deck of their penthouse, smoking a cigar, the lights of Seattle shining a bright backdrop. As he’d told her about his plan, he had grown enthusiastic. “How about refurbishing the Sea View cannery into a mall loaded with quaint shops? Condos too, being as it’s on the river, great views, fantastic wildlife! I know the building would have to be razed, but we can go off the footprint, make people think it’s just as it was. The history of it all, the jobs it created, and then there’s that murder that took place. Adds to the mystique, y’know.”

  “I was there,” she’d reminded her husband, who was drawing on his cigar, the tip glowing, smoke coiling over his balding head. “No mystique. It’s horrible.”

  “People like horror.” And off he’d gone, dreaming of building something unique.

  What he didn’t realize was that she didn’t care about Edgewater. So the town was dying, so what? Yeah, she’d go back, look after Dad now that Mom had passed, but it was temporary. Or that had been the plan. Her plan. But where she’d seen duty her husband had glimpsed opportunity.

  A mistake.

  And being here now, in the old school, was a little unnerving. She walked into what had been a bathroom for primary students, with its low sink and row of stalls. Girls’ bathroom, she thought. No stained urinals still hugging the walls. She caught sight of her reflection in the dusty, cracked mirror. Tall and slim, her hair glossy and almost black, her eyes, with the aid of colored contacts, an intense turquoise. Still attractive. Even wealthier than she had once been. Far wealthier.

  And lonely as hell.

  No children.

  Grown stepchildren, and young stepgrandchildren who didn’t know her and didn’t care to.

  An aging lion of a husband who cared more about his latest golf score, his next development, and the figures in his bank accounts than his trophy wife.

  Clint just had never “got” her. Didn’t understand.

  Never would.

  Thirty-two years was a helluva age difference. For God’s sake, she was avoiding her twentieth high school reunion and he was collecting social security! A thought that hadn’t occurred to her fifteen years ago when she’d been swayed by his money and Clint, at fifty-five, had still been dashing, trim, and worldly and . . . and it had all been a load of crap.

  So here she was, waiting for a lover who didn’t care any more for her than her husband did.

  Disgusted with herself, she heard the steady drip, drip, drip of a pipe that hadn’t quite been turned off, and she walked into the hallway again, remembering wearing uniforms and running out to the play yard, where there had been a covered area, a tetherball pole, four-square courts, and a few pieces of aging and probably unsafe equipment. Now, as she peered through a locked door, she saw only rubble in the open area where she’d once screamed and laughed.

  Her first eight years of school, well, nine, counting kindergarten, before she’d been enrolled in public school. Edgewater High.

  Twenty years past.

  She probably should have gone to Lila’s reunion meeting, but the truth was she couldn’t stand the woman. Nor had she felt any different twenty years ago when Lila had been jealous of her and her father’s money. And for her part, Annessa, studious, hadn’t liked the flinty blonde who had flitted from one boyfriend to the next, always looking for someone a little more popular or wealthy or cool or whatever. Lila had flirted with just about any boy, or man, for that matter, as she’d always gone for someone older.

  In that regard, Annessa had been surprised when Lila had settled on Luke Hollander. He wasn’t wealthy and he was only a couple of years older and no longer a football star. Yet, Lila had set her sights on Rachel Gaston’s brother and become Rachel’s best friend.

  For a while.

  Anyone with any brains could see that she was only using Rachel to get close to Luke. Probably Rachel had known it, too, because their friendship had seemed to fade with time.

  Annessa smiled at that. Well, who could blame Rachel? Lila had become her damned stepmother-in-law.

  Sick.

  Using her key, she unlocked a door to the school yard and stepped outside. It was twilight, the gloom settling in.

  The area was completely enclosed, two sides blocked by the wings of the old school. The third boundary, directly across from where she stood, was the old chapel, now crumbling under a sloping roof, its tall spire and silent bell tower knifing into the dusky sky. The final wall of the school yard was a high wooden fence with a locked gate leading to the parking lot of the hospital.

  She remembered third grade when she’d fallen from the monkey bars and sprained her ankle. Sister Mary Rosarius, the meanest nun in the school, had hustled her through the gate and along a covered portico to the hospital, all the while muttering that Annessa would be fine, that she shouldn’t be a baby and should stop crying. “Oh, now, don’t blubber. Say a prayer with me,” she’d ordered, walking fast, the skirt of her habit swishing with her strides. “Hail Mary, full of grace. The Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou amongst women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus . . .”

  Annessa hadn’t prayed and she hadn’t stopped sobbing.

  Now she stepped into the yard, where a few insects buzzed in the coming night and a lone security lamp offered dim, uneven light over the tufted dirt where once there had been grass. Shards of broken glass glinted in the bald pa
tch of earth.

  She’d spent many hours here, laughing and playing and scheming with her friends. She remembered the bells in that spire tolling for mass, or to signify the end of the school day. Father Timothy had been the principal, and though there were a few nuns employed at that time, most of the staff were laypeople.

  She recalled . . .

  Scraaape.

  What was that?

  She froze.

  Was it a shoe scuffing the earth behind her?

  Whipping around, Annessa expected to see him crossing the patchy yard, a devilish smile slashed across his jaw, his mischievous eyes sparkling.

  But the space beneath the porch was empty. Devoid of life. Quiet and still. Grimy windows dark.

  Jesus.

  Her nerves tightened. She licked her lips. Eyed the entire yard, with its misshapen pieces of broken equipment and shadowy areas where blackberries and weeds had taken root. Her throat was as dry as dust.

  They’d gone too far this time. These clandestine meetings always had an edge to them, a little bit of danger that made the sex all the more potent. Cheating on their spouses wasn’t enough; they each liked a little more adrenaline in their bloodstream.

  But this—what they’d planned tonight—had crossed a line.

  Another line, she reminded herself as a bat flew toward the old tower.

  The hairs on her arms lifted and her pulse pounded in her ears.

  “Are you here?” she whispered.

  She waited.

  No response.

  Just the wind rustling a piece of paper that danced across the broken concrete walkway.

  Annessa was already tense.

  She’d read about Violet Sperry’s death, seen the report on the news, heard gossip in the coffee shop.

  All she knew was that Violet had been killed by an unknown assailant, murdered in her home. Here in sleepy Edgewater, where the news was so slow that the local paper had to dredge up the fatal accident that had taken the life of Luke Hollander. Her insides turned to ice. She’d been there that night, in the cannery. The noise. The confusion. The sounds of firecrackers booming, or had it been real gunfire? Along with the steady click of pellet guns, the shouts and screams. She’d witnessed Luke go down, seen him bleed out, thought his sister, Rachel Gaston, had actually shot him until she realized she hadn’t been sure. Hadn’t the spark from the real gun been off to Rachel’s side . . . or had she been mistaken? She hadn’t been certain then, and she sure as hell wasn’t now.