Dead Ringers: Volumes 1-3

by Darlene Gardner

  Three people are in front of me in line. Adair and Max alternate waiting on customers, rushing about filling cups with soda, stuffing hot dogs into buns and taking pizza slices out of the oven. When I’m second in line, Max’s gaze zeroes in on me. His grin is instantaneous.

  “Hey, gorgeous,” he calls over the head of the chubby kid in front of me.

  “Hey, bullshitter.”

  He throws back his head and laughs, showing off perfect white teeth that call attention to the black of his hair.

  “Why aren’t you on rides?” I ask.

  “J-Rod quit.” He’s referring to Jorge Rodriguez, who has been telling anyone within earshot how much he hates working at the food booth. “Concessions was short-handed so I volunteered to change jobs.”

  Nobody does that. Rides are the way better gig.

  “Can I order?” The chubby kid proceeds to do exactly that: Two hot dogs, one piece of pizza, a large soda, fries and a plate of churros.

  The kid pays Max, then steps aside while Max goes to fill his order. Adair appears at the window. Lucky me.

  “A hot dog and fries, please.”

  Adair leans forward until her head’s halfway out of the booth and bares her teeth—not in a smile. She looks maniacal, like the clown who was holding the syringe in the forest. “Sure thing, skank.”

  “Really? You can’t think up a better insult than skank?”

  “You better be careful,” she hisses. “Didn’t you think I’d find out you were out to lunch with Hunter today?”

  She doesn’t seem to know Max was also present at lunch. I’m not about to tell her.

  “I’m not afraid of you.” My voice is as low as hers, although not as menacing. That would be hard to pull off.

  She clenches her jaw, and a vein throbs in her temple. “If you don’t stay away from my boyfriend,” she whispers, “I’ll give you reason to be afraid.”

  “If he’s your boyfriend, why was he having lunch with me?”

  “Excuse me, Adair.” Max appears at the window with a cardboard tray filled to overflowing with the chubby kid’s order. Before Adair leaves to get my food, she gives me the death glare.

  “Are you gonna eat all that, bud?” Max asks the kid.

  “I like food,” the kid mumbles before he takes the tray and shuffles away.

  Nobody is behind me. The time’s not right to quiz Max about what he said in my driveway, though, not with Adair in hearing range. “Can we get together tonight after closing?”

  I’m expecting Max to make a quip like depends on what you have in mind. Instead Adair appears at the window with my order and stands close enough to Max that their shoulders touch. “He can’t. Max already asked me to hang out.”

  Adair slaps the plate with the hot dog and fries on the counter, a smirk on her face. It’s obvious she’s trying to make me jealous, silently threatening to steal my boyfriend because she thinks I have designs on Hunter. Never mind for a minute that Max isn’t my boyfriend.

  There has to be more to the reason they’re spending time together than that. It’s too much of a stretch that Max just happened to make Adair’s acquaintance mere days after trespassing on her dad’s private property.

  “Okay, then. I guess I’ll see what Hunter’s up to tonight.” I’m not sure who I’m trying to rattle more, Adair or Max. Neither of them look happy when I take my leave.

  I’m not really planning to seek out Hunter, but then suddenly there he is about ten yards away heading for the concession stand. The yellow arcade T-shirt highlights the blond in his brown hair and shows off the muscle tone in his chest and arms. He looks about as far from bad news as you can get.

  He’s almost past me before I unstick the heart that’s in my throat and find my voice. “Hey, Hunter.”

  He stops walking, his head swiveling as though he doesn’t know where the voice is coming from. Finally, he focuses on me. “Jade. I didn’t see you.”

  Story of my life.

  “What’s up?” he asks.

  My tongue’s in danger of knotting. But now that I got him to stop, I realize I do have something to ask him. “I got the impression at lunch that you and Max knew each other.”

  His eyes narrow and glisten. “Nope. That guy’s an asshole.”

  “I wouldn’t go that far.” My defense of Max is automatic. When did that happen? “Besides, you gotta admit the thing with your last name is strange.”

  Too strange, maybe. I’ve been so preoccupied with what Max might be up to that I haven’t given much thought to Hunter’s claim that both his father and uncle are Prescotts. It’s either that or Hunter Prescott isn’t his real name.

  “Not as strange as the rumor that you and me are seeing each other,” Hunter says. “Did you know about that?”

  He could be changing the subject because he doesn’t want to answer any more questions about his name. Or he could be trying to figure out how I feel about the rumor. This could be my chance to hint at how I feel about him.

  “It’s one of the nicer rumors I’ve heard all summer.” Groan. Did I really say that?

  “So you’ve heard it, too?”

  “Just now from Adair.” And now I’ve gone and brought up my arch rival. Double groan.

  “Is that right?” Hunter doesn’t seem at all upset that Adair has gotten the wrong idea. “Maybe one of these days we’ll have to make good on that gossip.”

  The hope inside me rises like a helium balloon.

  “Catch you later, Jade.” Hunter points a finger at me and heads for the concession stand.

  I’m not sure what sort of overture I expected Hunter to make, but it wasn’t to leave me and seek out Adair. Although maybe Hunter’s just hungry. In case there’s more to it than that, I consider calling him back to tell him my theory that Adair is undergoing a personality change.

  “Yeah, right,” I mutter to myself. “Like that would win points with the nephew of a psychiatrist.”

  I take a bite of hot dog and discover it’s cold. Not a little cold. Freezing cold. So are the fries, courtesy of my not-so-friendly neighborhood concession worker. I pitch everything into a nearby waste basket and tell myself Adair considers me to be the competition. That makes me feel a little better.

  The rest of the never-ending night, I try to figure out how to convince Hunter I’d make a way better girlfriend than the bitchy Adair. By closing time, I’ve got nothing. The only way to end the evening on a high note is to retrieve my autographed copy of I Am Legend.

  After texting Becky I’ll meet her in fifteen minutes, I head to the steel-framed trailer that houses the administrative office. It’s on the far side of the carnival nearest the arcade, and it’s locked because everybody stores their stuff there. All the employees have the combination for the lock on the door. Once the trailer is open, I step inside onto the commercial tile floor. The lights are on, but the small office is empty aside from the calico cat rushing toward me and panting. She jumps, her paws on my leg, like she wants to be petted.

  “Hey, girl.” I reach down to stroke the unfamiliar animal, which has to weigh at least twenty pounds. “You know you’re not a dog, right?”

  The monstrous cat wags its tail. Weird, but our cat Beelzebub went through an identity crisis, too. And he got over it.

  The cat follows me to the desk where I find the book exactly where Roxy said it would be. The rip on the upper right side of the cover verifies it’s my copy. I clutch the book to my chest. Any employee could have come in here and walked off with it. Well, maybe they wouldn’t have recognized the book’s value. But it doesn’t seem smart for Roxy to give absolutely everybody access to the trailer.

  Why, if she had anything to hide, somebody might find it.

  The desktop computer is off, but the desk has drawers. With the gigantic cat panting at my heels, I yank open the top drawer. It’s filled with paper. I’m about to start rummaging through them when I notice a burnt orange backpack against the far wall with the rest of the employee belongings. It looks ex
actly like the backpack I’d seen in Max’s pickup at Wilder Woods.

  I’d bet my copy of I Am Legend that Max also has something to hide.

  The office is deathly quiet but from somewhere I hear the wail of an ambulance siren. Quickly I cross the trailer to the backpacks and kneel down. The cat makes a noise that sounds more like a bark than a meow and licks me on the arm with its scratchy tongue.

  “Down, girl,” I command. The cat obeys and sits at my side.

  I unzip the backpack and pull out some papers. The first one is a copy of the form Roxy insists all the employees fill out. Max’s home address is listed as Midway Beach instead of upstate North Carolina. Disappointing. In the section about who to notify in case of emergency, a telephone number is listed but no accompanying name. A bookmark juts out from my prized possession. I snag a pen from the bottom of the backpack and jot down the number.

  I flip to the second piece of paper and suck in a breath. Staring back at me is a black and white image of Max Harper with one word emblazoned above his face: MISSING. Spots swim before my eyes, and I blink to clear my vision.

  The cat makes its strange woofing noise and bounds over to the door as I hear the heavy fall of footsteps on the steel-framed steps. I fold the flyer and stuff it in the back pocket of my shorts before I jam the other papers in the backpack and rezip it. I stand up and whirl to face forward as the door opens and the cat greets Roxy.

  Roxy laughs and bends down to pet the animal before lifting her gaze to me. “I see you found your book.”

  From the corner of my eye, I notice the desk drawer standing open. Damn. Roxy follows the flick of my gaze. Double damn.

  In three strides she’s across the office and looming over me. “Were you looking through my desk drawer?”

  An ambulance siren drifts through the open door, sounding like it’s getting closer by the second. I hold up my copy of I Am Legend and pray my voice won’t shake. “Of course not. I was getting my book.”

  “I think you—”

  The siren blares, drowning out the rest of her sentence. It sounds as though the ambulance is directly outside the trailer. A revolving red light flashes through the window.

  “Something’s happening.” Grateful for any excuse to escape, I rush by Roxy into the night, intending to find a quiet spot to sort out what my discovery means.

  Outside there’s commotion. The ambulance, its lights still whirling, is parked on the narrow side street between the edge of the carnival and the arcade. The cop who took my statement is at the entrance, keeping the gathering crowd from entering. A guy who works at the arcade emerges, his mouth hanging open and his eyes glazed. It’s the same guy with the tattoos who was gossiping about me to Porter McRoy a few days ago.

  I reach out and grab his arm before he can pass me. “What’s going on?”

  “Bad stuff, man.” He shakes his head as though he’s in a daze. “Convulsions, vomiting, groaning. It’s like he’s dying.”

  “Like who’s dying?”

  “Hunter Prescott. I think the dude’s toast.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  The paramedics rush out of the arcade rolling a stretcher carrying Hunter as Officer Wainwright helps clear a path to the ambulance. Hunter is hooked up to an IV. He’s pale, gaunt and as still as death.

  A murmur travels through the crowd like a shiver. The revolving light on top of the ambulance sweeps over the boardwalk. Most everybody is a teenager. The Drama Queen Twins, our nickname for two former cheerleaders who make everything about them, cling to each other and sob. Maia is at the entrance to the arcade with some other employees, talking among themselves. Becky stands off by herself, shaking like a leaf caught in a sandstorm.

  I weave through the mass of humanity to my friend’s side. “Are you okay?”

  “Yes. No. I don’t know.” Her hand covers her mouth. “I saw it all, Jade. The arcade wasn’t closed yet so I went in to check if Porter was working while I waited for you. It was bad. I’ve never seen anyone suffer that much.”

  The ambulance siren pierces the night, sending a fresh stab of fear for Hunter through me. Disbelief, too. I’d seen him only a few hours ago, and he was perfectly fine.

  “Let’s get out of here.” I take an unresisting Becky gently by the arm and guide her through the crowd to the parking lot behind the carnival. The siren grows fainter and fainter and fades to nothing before we reach the car. Becky is still trembling.

  “You better let me drive.” I put out my hand for the keys and unlock the passenger door. By the time I settle behind the wheel and turn the key in the ignition, Becky’s hugging herself and rocking.

  “It’ll be okay, Becks. The doctors will figure out what’s wrong.” I’m trying to convince myself of that as much as her.

  “It was awful. Like he’d been poisoned or something.”

  In my mind’s eye, I see Hunter hurrying toward the concession stand. He’d said he needed to talk to Adair, but it’s not out of the realm of possibility that he’d ordered something to eat while he was there.

  Becky shakes her head. “But of course I know that’s ridiculous.”

  Is it? If Adair was that angry at me for hanging around her boyfriend, she could have been livid at Hunter. During lunch, Max’s dislike for Hunter had rumbled like the waves that roll into Midway Beach. Either one of them could have sprinkled his food with something.

  “What is it, Jade? You look like you thought of something.”

  The beginning strains of a Murder by Death song ring out. Becky’s ring tone. The song usually reminds me of how Becky and I share a love of indie rock. Tonight the band’s name conjures up other images. Becky clicks on the phone.

  “Hey, Mom.” Becky makes an effort not to sound freaked out. She listens for a while, then says, “Don’t worry. I’m getting ready to leave now. I‘ll be home as soon as I drop off Jade.”

  I put the car in reverse and back out of the parking spot. As Becky finishes the call, I’m navigating the dark streets of Midway Beach.

  “Don’t ask me how, buy my mom knows what happened at the arcade,” Becky says. “She wants me home. She kind of skipped worry and went straight to panic.”

  I’ve got a different worry. It involves whether Max and Adair are at his place right now plotting to wreak more havoc on Midway Beach. Since I’d committed the address I found on his employment papers to memory, there’s one way to find out

  Making my voice as casual as possible, I say, “How about I let you off at your house and get the car back to you tomorrow morning?”

  “No, no. That’s okay. I’m fine to drive now. And I have a dentist appointment at nine a.m. tomorrow.” Becky, in fact, sounds stronger by the moment.

  “I’ll get the car back to you in plenty of time.”

  “It would be easier for me just to drop you.”

  Max’s place is three or four miles from where I live, too far to travel by bike so late at night. There must be something I can say to convince her to let me have the car. “I’ll insist.”

  “You never insist on anything. What’s with you, Jade? You aren’t telling me something.”

  I’m not telling her a whole hell of a lot. I’m tempted to blurt out everything, but Becky reacts poorly whenever I mention anything to do with my lost forty-eight hours.

  “I’ll make you a deal,” I say slowly. “If you let me take the car, I’ll explain everything in the morning.”

  “Everything? Even what’s going on between you and Max Harper?”

  Something makes me take my left hand off the wheel and covertly cross my fingers before I answer. “Even that.”

  “Don’t make me regret this, Jade.”

  She does, though. After I drop her off, Becky walks up the sidewalk to her house, repeatedly casting worried glances over her shoulder.

  The address listed on Max’s employment form is in a section of town where tourists rent houses and condos by the week. The closer they are to the ocean, the more the vacation rentals cost. The place Max
is renting is in a duplex about a mile from the beach. One of the units is dark while the other has a porch light shining.

  I circle the block slowly, searching for Max’s white pickup truck or the blue Mazda Miata that Adair drives. I can’t spot either vehicle. To be on the safe side, I park three blocks from the duplex and skulk through the night, sticking to the shadows.

  Clouds obscure the moon, blacking out the stars the same way they did on the night I disappeared. The street is eerily quiet with no traffic or signs of life from the neighborhood houses. If a black cat slinked into sight, the scene would be set for horror.

  Thick bushes line the sidewalk, the perfect place for someone—or something—to hide. I brace myself for the unknown to jump out at me, like the clown did at the funhouse.

  “Stop it!” I chastise myself. “There’s nothing to fear but fear itself.”

  I grimace. Did I really quote FDR? Mr. Tannehill, who taught me A.P. history senior year, really should have graded me higher than a D.

  A faint rustling disrupts the quiet.

  Nothing is behind me except a plastic bag blowing end over end down the street with the wind. Was that the cause of the noise? Or was it a nocturnal animal moving through the night? No, wait. A street light casts a glow over a tree-lined yard. At the edge of the light is the shadow of a person, perhaps lurking behind a tree.

  Telling myself it’s someone out for a walk or possibly even my mother making sure I’m okay, I pick up my pace. After a few moments, I look back over my shoulder to make sure I’m not being followed. The shadowy form moves quickly through the yards, staying just out of the light, closing the distance between us. No way could Mom move that fast.

  Run! my mind screams. I pump my arms and churn my legs. My heartbeat reverberates in my ears. How could I have put myself in a position for history to repeat itself? I’m worse than the brain-dead girls in the horror movies.

  I really am Too Stupid To Live. But I want to live. Desperately.

  I was never the fastest girl on my high school soccer team, but I have decent speed. I risk another glance over my shoulder to see if I’m gaining ground. While I’m directly under a street light, whoever chases me is doing a great job of staying out of sight. I can barely make out the dark shape of—