by Mary Malcolm
I laughed at her candor. “Yeah, it kinda does.”
“Yeah.”
I petted Ellie’s nose. How could someone have invaded our space like that? This didn’t feel like a Peeping Tom. This felt targeted, scary.
“You do have two guys fighting over you, though.”
By this point I couldn’t deny it. I agreed that against all logic, Eli liked me. “I don’t get it.”
“Well, John’s totally your type,” she said. “Sweet, artistic, finding his footing.”
“Eli, though. What the hell?”
“Eli’s a dreamboat.”
“He’s an overconfident bully who probably only wants to conquer me.”
She shook her head and the bed rocked. “That wasn’t what I saw. I think he genuinely likes you. And I think that just like he’s not your type, you aren’t his. It’s confusing. For both of you.”
“He is a hunk, though.”
“Yeah,” she said, dreamily.
“Yeah.” I paused a beat before asking, “Want to take a road trip?”
She perked and sat up. “Where are you thinking?”
I sat up too. “Not too far from here. Elmer, where I was born.”
She frowned, unable to mask her disappointment. “Why do you want to go there?”
“I’m trying to find some footing.” I grinned, mirroring the words she’d just said about John. “I have no idea who I am. If I can see where my parents were from, where I came from, maybe that’ll make me feel something.”
“Plug you in,” she finished, pout disappearing.
“Something like that.”
“Sure. Do we tell Dolores?” She patted my elephant.
“No way. She’ll find some reason to tell me it’s a bad idea and that I need to find connections where I am. You know, the same old blah blah blah she always gives me. The same reason she’s told me never to go back to Arkansas.”
“Would it help you to go?” she asked.
“Maybe. No. I don’t know, it might. But I don’t think it would hurt.”
Ana shrugged. “So Elmer, huh. How far away is it?”
“Two hours.”
“We should get showers and hit the road.”
****
I went back downstairs while Ana took her shower. “You heading out?” I asked Eli. He stood in the living room stuffing his wallet back into his pocket.
“Yeah. I received a call about another possible suspect in the Winters case. Will you have a chance to look over Bonnie Kent’s notes today? I might have more for you tonight.”
I wore the same pants as yesterday, and I had stuffed the notes firmly in my pocket that morning, right next to the doodle I’d made at work, but I didn’t want to tell him as much. Besides, I was way too keyed up to look at them right now. Maybe later. “Sure, not a problem.”
“I’ll give you a call later then. Is that okay?”
“That’s fine.”
“Listen, Lucy, about last night…”
I waved my hand. “I appreciate you comforting me. It was nothing, I know you were just being a friend.”
A storm of emotions played across his face before he reined it in. “That’s what I was going to say.”
It wasn’t, but he held himself so straight and earnest, even if his words weren’t real, he wanted me to think they were.
Ana came down the stairs. “You ready?”
“In a minute.” I turned back to Eli. “So, anything else?”
He frowned. “Ready for what?”
“Going to the store,” I said, lying, though not sure why. “As you saw we’re pretty much out of groceries. So, anything else?”
“No. Just be careful today.” He looked to Ana and she took the hint, heading into the kitchen. “You don’t know if someone is trying to hurt you. I want you to stick close to home, play it safe. I’ll check on you later tonight, make sure everything is okay.”
“I don’t need—”
“You need protecting more than you realize, Lucy. Mostly from yourself.”
This time I frowned. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means your aunt is right. You trust people too easily. You tell them about your secret, about your past, and you don’t think about what they might do to you.”
My eyelids narrowed and lips thinned. Who was he, and where did he get off treating me like a child? “Listen here, Captain America. I know you think I need you to swoop in and rescue little ol’ me, but I’ve managed my life and my secrets for twenty-two years, and I don’t need you to be my savior now.”
He shoved his fists into his jacket and went to the front door. “I’ll tell you what, then. Why don’t you protect yourself next time someone comes creeping around your house in the middle of the night?”
“Maybe I will!” I shouted, but it was too late. The door slammed.
Chapter Nine
Officer Len walked around the room, pausing in front of the two-way glass. He took a sip from his coffee and leaned against the wall. With his legs crossed like that he reminded me a lot of an Asian Eli. I wondered if he had some Mrs. Len at home that he drove crazy the way Eli did me. “That was about two weeks ago?”
“Yes.”
“Was that when the two of you stopped talking?”
“Not quite. Remember I told you Ana and I were going to Elmer that day?”
****
The drive to Elmer was quiet, the road fringed mostly with farmland and the occasional small town. As windy as it had been the day before, the weather cleared into a somewhat sunny and beautiful eighty degrees. My disposition, however, stayed dark, and I maintained an odd animosity toward the happy sun.
“Wanna talk about it?” Ana had taken the first part of our journey behind the wheel.
“Uh, nope.”
“I heard him leave.”
“I’m sure the whole house did.”
She checked the GPS and turned left onto an old country road lined with barbed-wire fences. Cows dotted the fields, and dust kicked up onto the front of her white Escalade. Another reason I wanted her to drive. I drove a beat-up ten-year-old sedan. She believed in luxury through and through. One of the many benefits of being paid to be pretty.
Ana pulled the Escalade into the parking lot of a small country store and hopped out. “I’ve got to pee. Do you need anything from inside?”
“Something to drink. Maybe some chips?”
Once she was inside I checked the GPS. We were about twenty minutes outside of Elmer. That means this area was once home.
I was three when we left Elmer. I didn’t expect to remember any of this, but it looked somewhat familiar. I wondered if I had my ability even back then. More than likely, maybe something I was born with. The country store wasn’t like anything I remembered, but something about the area clicked.
I stepped out of the SUV and walked around the back. Across the street was a farm with a long dirt driveway that led to a two-story white house built into a hill. A green tractor sat alongside an old swing set overgrown by weeds. It seemed like too much of a coincidence that we would stop so close to something familiar, but I couldn’t shake the feeling I’d been there before.
Maybe I only wanted to feel like I’d been there before.
I hastened across the road and drifted down the driveway. Distantly, I heard Ana call my name, but I kept going as if drawn. A gray truck was parked in the driveway. I stalled. Then, pressing forward, I laid shaky fingertips on the tailgate. A memory filled my mind: an older man and woman stood by the truck; a large tree grew in the front yard with a tire swing hanging from one of the branches. Children were everywhere—some running, some on the tire swing, some playing on the swing set in the distance. My parents, clear as day, argued with the older couple. “She shouldn’t be here,” they said. “She needs to live a normal life.”
“That wasn’t the agreement,” the man said. “You knew what you were agreeing to.”
“We knew what we thought we were agreeing to,” my mom sai
d, fists by her sides. “This isn’t any kind of life for anyone.”
I shook my head at the memory, not sure I understood, or even if I’d remembered it correctly. Nothing like that ever happened before. Goose bumps raised on my arms.
“What are you doing?” Ana was out of breath and her cheeks pink from trying to catch up.
I didn’t want to tell her what I’d remembered, not until I knew what it meant. “This place, I thought I knew it, but I must have been wrong.” I couldn’t trust that memory. It didn’t make sense.
She tilted her head like she wanted to ask more, but held back. “We’re close to Elmer. Let’s get back to the car and see if we can find anything out there.”
“Okay.” In the yard was a stump where the large tree had once been. As we turned to go, a curtain wavered on the second story. If someone saw us, they were gone.
****
According to the sign posted at the edge of town, Elmer had a population of 401. Driving around the square it was hard to imagine even that many people living in such a small place. Which meant tracking down my family should be easy, or at least finding someone who knew them.
Ana’s Escalade pegged us as outsiders and drew plenty of stares, something I hadn’t thought about when we decided to take it. Still, in this day and age, it wasn’t like this was some old western town where outsiders were never seen or welcomed.
“Where should we start?” I glanced around the town that time forgot. We’d parked in front of a pharmacy, then decided to walk around the main square to see if I recognized anything. As typical as this town appeared from the outside, now that we stood in the middle of a sidewalk it seemed much too quiet. The people we’d seen while driving in had all disappeared. Swallowed by the craggy sidewalks.
“Let’s go into the pharmacy. Maybe mosey around a bit, buy some water,” Ana said in her best Western accent. I know she wanted to keep things as light as possible, and I loved her for it.
“Alrighty, pardner.” I tipped an invisible hat and opened the door so she could enter first. She gave me a curtsy, and I returned a bow.
A bell above the door jingled, but no one came to see who was here. “Think they’re being robbed?” Ana whispered, loudly.
I laughed, but more out of nervousness than anything. My skin crawled a little as we walked around, but I couldn’t explain why. There were no customers, no music, no movement. “Let’s take a quick look and get out of here. This place is giving me the heebie-jeebies.” I’d never been in here before, I knew immediately, but I didn’t want to tell Ana. This was as much her adventure as it was mine, and who was I to take that away?
In one of the aisles, a woman wearing a blue smock was placing boxes of aspirin on a shelf. Val, her tag said.
“Excuse me?” I asked. “Do you know where we can find some water?” Like I wouldn’t know where to find water in a pharmacy.
Her face paled as if she’d seen a ghost. She backed away and into a display case behind her. Some of the items tumbled off.
“Here, let me help.” I reached forward.
“No!” She threw herself on top of the items to pick them up.
Ana and I exchanged looks. “Water?”
“We don’t sell that here,” Val said absently, but still didn’t take her eyes off me.
To my left was a wall cooler full of all sorts of beverages, but since water had been more a cover than anything, after the way she acted toward us I could have come parched from the desert and still not wanted to stick around this place. “O-kay.” I hoped Ana understood my let’s get the hell out of here look.
“So we’ll be going,” she said, not only getting my look but taking the lead.
The poor woman was still shaking and on her knees when we left.
Outside we walked past a few stores before speaking. “That was strange, right?” Ana asked me, slowing, then stopping completely at the library.
“Ohmygod, so freaking strange. What was her deal? Did you see the way she looked at me?”
“Like you were a ghost?”
“Like I was a ghost! Man, my skin is still crawling.” And on cue my goose bumps grew goose bumps.
Rubbing them away, I took in the library’s facade. From where we stood, the building looked old but well maintained. It was small, though larger than one would expect from a town the size of Elmer. Unfortunately, it didn’t look familiar, either, but I thought maybe it would have records about my family, or the hospital where I was born or something.
“Ana, let’s check this out.”
The library was similar to the drug store in its quietness, but it didn’t feel as creepy. It was supposed to be quiet, being a library and all. Again, we didn’t see anyone as we entered, but we heard someone shelving books in the back so at least there were people here. “Where do we start?”
Ana glanced around the main room for only a moment before she pointed. “There’s a computer on that wall. I wonder if they have microfiche or however they do it these days.”
“Maybe.” Not like I spent a lot of time in libraries. Even in college when I was supposed to be researching, I’d usually find all I needed online. Plus, because of my memory, I didn’t have to worry about my notes or references because they were literally written in my head. The biggest struggle was muddying the facts enough to not come across as a plagiarist.
I remember Aunt Dolores during the weeks leading up to college. “You know you can’t tell them, right?”
“Of course.” I’d learned that the hard way in high school; I had no reason to try to relearn it in college. Once a lesson learned and all that jazz.
“Well,” she said. “You need to watch your work too.”
I frowned. In high school I’d had so much trouble adjusting to being around other students that I hadn’t needed to worry about whether my grades were good. For one, I didn’t do the homework. I’d take the tests, doing great on the parts I read and, of course, missing the parts I hadn’t, but never enough that I stood out either way. My work was so hit and miss that my school counselor finally called Aunt Dee in so we could all talk together.
“Lucy shows great potential,” Mr. Evans said during a conference between the three of us. “I think she could easily be a straight-A student, possibly even take some advanced classes in her second semester, but only if she takes some initiative.”
“My niece is doing as well as she needs to do,” Dee argued, much to the dismay of the counselor.
He tented his fingers and leaned forward on his desk. A slight man who wore button-up sweaters even when it was hot, Mr. Evans was in no way intimidating. He was also no match for Aunt Dolores, who was hefty even then, and carried herself with a confidence usually reserved for drill sergeants or dictators. “Ms. Carver, the support students have at home often reflects in their work, and hearing you say this tells me perhaps Lucy doesn’t have the support she deserves.”
“Are you saying I’m not taking care of my niece?” she demanded, standing up in a huff, visibly puffing out her chest. “She is happy, healthy, and not pregnant. She lost her parents only a few months ago yet managed not to miss a single day of school, not to mention the fact this is the first time she’s ever not been homeschooled. She’s adjusting to life in a new city, in a new home, in a completely new school situation and is managing to not go crazy or threaten to hurt herself or everyone around her.
“Don’t you dare tell me she isn’t doing just fine. It’s cardigan-wearing fruits like you who make kids think they aren’t good enough. She is good enough as she is. Whether she becomes a doctor or a janitor, she’ll be happy. She is doing better than most adults could ever hope to do, considering what she’s been through. So you can take your support at home and shove it up your—”
“Dee!” I shouted, mortified by most of what I’d heard, yet also surprisingly proud to hear her stand up for me like that. “Mr. Evans is doing his job.” I looked to him and felt immediate pity for the little man who had been redressed in such a humiliating way in f
ront of one of his students. “My aunt is right. I’m happy at home, and I love her, and I’m sorry I’m not doing as well in school, but this is my first time ever in a classroom. It’s strange and people are mean here. I don’t want to think that your only concern is my grades.”
“Of course not,” he said, cheeks growing pink and arms now crossed protectively over his chest.
Dee sat back down.
“Well,” I said, “I’ll do my best in high school and hopefully be better in college.”
“You can do as well as you want, Lucy,” he said, uncrossing his arms, shoulders relaxing. “I simply don’t want you to miss out on opportunities.”
“Then I’ll try harder.”
“Good enough for me.”
By the time I finished working harder to make Mr. Evans happy, I made close to straight hundreds.
“I’m just saying, you need to not stand out,” Dee warned. “Work hard, do your best, but please don’t think you need to be perfect. In fact, if you do your work perfectly you will raise suspicion, and that’s not something you need.”
I understood. Some days I worked equally as hard trying to fake bad work as I did making sure I turned in the right work.
****
As we searched the computers, I wasn’t sure what to look for, but again I hoped something would jog my memory.
“Look at this,” Ana said, after we’d searched for about a half hour. She pointed to her screen at a picture of a woman who looked identical to me.
“That’s not my mom.” I moved my chair closer. “I’m not sure who that is. Definitely not my mom.”
“No? She looks exactly like you. Y’all have the same high cheekbones, same almond-shaped eyes. Look at her. Your hair looks different, but otherwise you have the same everything.”
“Yeah, it’s kind of uncanny.”
“This is from a year ago. I wonder if she’s a cousin or something. Julie Ryan. Says she was presumed dead in a fire. Body never recovered.”
Over her shoulder, I read the article. “Fire broke out yesterday at the Voeller Institute, leaving twelve dead and sixteen others in local hospitals. Among them—” I scanned ahead. “Still missing and presumed dead, Julie Ryan—suspected of setting the fire—and three others.” I slowed down reading that part and scanned the rest quietly.
