Dead Ringers: Volumes 1-3

by Darlene Gardner

  “Are you actually going to work?” I change the subject mostly to get her to stop talking about my stepfather, but I really do want to know.

  “Why wouldn’t I go to work?’

  I look up and down the hall to double-check that Suri or Julian aren’t around and whisper. “Because of the voices.”

  She leans so close that I can see she hasn’t plucked her eyebrows in a while. “They went quiet, but you still need to be careful.” Her eyes bore into mine. “Are you being careful?”

  “Sure.”

  She touches my cheek and then she’s gone, her heels clicking on the laminate floor as she leaves the house.

  Uncle Landon’s in the kitchen wearing a Hawaiian shirt with flowered swim trunks and reading the Wilmington News. My stepfather started getting the newspaper delivered to the house shortly before he held up the liquor store. Suri’s at the dishwasher cleaning up after herself.

  “Morning, Jade.” He looks at me over the newspaper. I wonder if there’s anything in there about the roller coaster car leaving the tracks. Even though Wilmington’s an hour away, the paper has some stories out of Midway Beach. I don’t read the print copy, but I have looked up some stuff online.

  “Morning.”

  “It’s nine-fifteen!” Suri announces before she whizzes by me, her bare feet slapping on the floor.

  “I told her she had to wait till nine-fifteen to wake up your brother,” Uncle Landon explains. “We want to get to the water park when it opens at ten. Want to come with us?”

  “No thanks.” I cross to the refrigerator and take out Greek yogurt and a carton of OJ.

  “You dropped something.” Uncle Landon puts down the newspaper and bends over, straightening with the white envelope clasped between his fingers. “What’s this?”

  “Nothing.” I get a glass out of the cabinet and pour myself some OJ.

  “You sure about that? It looks like Zach’s writing.”

  “It’s a letter from him, okay?” I snatch it out of his hands, crumble it up and toss it in the trash. “It’s not like I’m gonna read it.”

  “Probably wise,” he says.

  “Mom wouldn’t think so. But then she doesn’t know what kind of person he really is.” It occurs to me that Uncle Landon never verified that. “Does she know?”

  “I didn’t tell her,” he says. “But I’ve got a good idea of what’s inside that letter.”

  If he thinks I’ll ask him to explain, he’s even nuttier than my mother.

  “Zach’s worried that you haven’t enrolled in community college yet,” Uncle Landon says. “That’s what your mother said.”

  Good thing I didn’t read the letter, then. “Save it. I don’t need another lecture.”

  He puts up a hand. “Hey, I wasn’t about to give you one.”

  The text tone on my cell goes off. It’s in my shorts pocket ’cause you can never be too far away from your phone. It’s from Max.

  Any ideas?

  The message doesn’t need to be longer for me to figure out what he means. He wants to know whether I’ve come up with any other Ringer candidates or if I’ve thought of someone else we can quiz about the runaway roller coaster car. The coaster repairman we tracked down yesterday wouldn’t talk to anyone on advice of the construction company’s lawyer.

  “Who’s that from?” Uncle Landon asks.

  I give him the raised eyebrow. “A friend.”

  Still thinking, I text back.

  The next message comes almost instantaneously, but it’s from Maia.

  Guilt $$ from Dad. Up for the mall?

  Yet another text tone. This time it is from Max. Pick u up so we can think together?

  As tempting as that is, I’ve got to give it a pass. I send a few more texts, scarf down my breakfast, change my clothes and tell Uncle Landon I’m going to the mall with Maia.

  If somebody knows something, it should be the biggest gossip in Midway Beach.

  An hour later, though, I get the impression Maia invited me to the mall to pump me for information.

  “So the last car just broke off?” She’s wearing one of her cutest outfits, a short white skirt with a turquoise tee and matching canvas flats. Her long, silky black hair—for once, without a chrysanthemum—cascades down her back and swings while she walks over the mall’s gleaming tile floor.

  “Yep. It made a groaning noise and then it was gone.”

  The mall’s almost empty. The building was renovated a few years ago, with skylights and lots of greenery. Not such a great idea. When the weather’s nice, the temptation is to leave your shopping dollars behind to spend time in the sun.

  “I heard you switched seats at the last second,” Maia says.

  No use denying the truth when a dozen other people can verify it. “You heard right.”

  “Good thing you switched.” She nudges me, shoulder to shoulder. “I like my friends in one piece.”

  That’s it? She’s not gonna come up with a conspiracy theory?

  “Lots of people know I make a dash for the last car,” I say to give her ammunition.

  “Bet you won’t do that any more.” Maia’s head swings sharply to the right. She points to a little black dress in a window display. “Not bad, but I’ve seen cuter.”

  I’m not interested in the dress. “You don’t have a theory about why it happened?”

  She gives me a blank look. “On why what happened?”

  “The coaster crash.”

  “Oh, that. It was because the attachment mechanism was defective,” Maia says. “That’s what the Wilmington News said.”

  I should have checked for myself what the media had to say. Uncle Landon was hogging the newspaper this morning, but it’s easy enough to look online. Of course, you can’t believe everything you read. The late Stuart Bigelow might still be alive if he didn’t have a habit of making up stuff to improve his stories. Or if his wife wasn’t so nasty.

  “You were playing musical chairs to sit by Max.” It’s not a question. Maia really is plugged in. “Max saved your life.”

  I hadn’t thought of it that way.

  “Now that’s a dress!” Maia veers away from me, heading straight for a store too rich for my bank account. She stops in front of a headless mannequin wearing a clingy red number. “I’ve got to have it!”

  The price tag hangs in full view, the number high enough to make me do a double take. “Can you afford it?”

  “My dad can.”

  “He didn’t give you a limit on how much you can spend?”

  “Are you kidding me?” She hunts through the rack of dresses for her size. “The more I spend, the less guilty he’ll feel about blowing me off to take his new girlfriend to the Bahamas.”

  Maia doesn’t sound hurt, but then she never does. Since her parents divorced a few years back, her dad has been dating non-stop. He’d never make time for her if her mom didn’t go out of town on business every few weeks, Maia says. She must be used to it by now.

  She holds the red dress against her body and examines herself in a store mirror. “If this fits, I’ll need new shoes and a new purse.”

  A couple hours later, Maia’s dad is almost a thousand bucks poorer. Not that poor applies to anyone who lives at Ocean Breeze. Otherwise, they wouldn’t market the houses there as estates.

  “Did you hear about Heather?” Maia says as we walk through the mall laden with packages. I’m carrying half of her purchases. All I bought was a sundress on sale that Maia said made me look like I have more up top than I actually do.

  Heather is the waitress who got the call about the bomb threat. I went through high school with Heather and her silly friend Ashley, and after graduation I’m just now getting them straight. “What about Heather?”

  “She quit her job at the White Pelican. She says she’d rather travel.”

  Who wouldn’t?

  “I hear she’s booking a cruise to Alaska and a twelve-city tour of Europe,” Maia says. “If I could stand her, I’d think about ditchi
ng the arcade and joining her. I’m sure I could get my dad to pay.”

  But who’s paying for Heather’s trip? I seem to remember that Heather is headed for community college. That could be because she didn’t make the grades to get accepted elsewhere, but it could also be because her family can’t afford four years of traditional college. Wonder how I can find out whether her parents are well-off. In the meantime, Heather zooms to the top of my list of Ringer candidates. It’s not a perfect fit because of her hysterical reaction to the bomb threat, but she could have been putting on an act.

  “Let’s do lunch.” Maia suggests.

  “Sounds good.” It’s half past twelve, and the food court is in sight. Unlike the rest of the mall, it’s busy, even quasi-crowded. “I like that Chinese place where you order by the numbers.”

  “Forget it. We’re not eating at the food court when my dad’s treating. Let’s go to that seafood restaurant near the bridge.” Maia starts to breeze by the food court, then comes to a full stop. “Oh, my God. Is that Becky with Porter McRoy?”

  Becky and Porter sit on the same side of a table for four, close enough that their chairs are touching. Plates of food are in front of them, but they’re too busy staring at each other to eat.

  “When did that happen?” Maia asks.

  I’m surprised she doesn’t already know. “The night of the bomb threat.”

  “And you didn’t tell me?” She seems offended.

  “That was only the night before last.”

  “Whatever.” Maia shrugs and resumes walking, juggling her packages from arm to arm. “If Becky wants to get mixed up with someone like Porter, it’s her business.”

  I have to hurry to catch up to her. She’s better at being a shopping beast of burden than I am. “What do you mean someone like Porter?”

  “Oh, nothing.”

  “You really won’t tell me?”

  “It’s just gossip.”

  “You thrive on gossip, Maia. You once told me it’s what makes life worth living.”

  “Rather dramatic of me, don’t you think?” She giggles.

  “I’m waiting.”

  “Oh, okay.” She keeps on walking but lowers her voice. “Ever wonder why Porter’s so quiet?”

  “Just tell me, Maia.”

  “Word is it’s because he’s always stoned out of his mind.”

  As much as I want Maia to be wrong for Becky’s sake, the gossip is probably true. Maia has a perfect pipeline of information. She works with Porter at the arcade.

  “Of course, knowing who we know, it’s pretty easy to get hooked up with some stuff,” Maia says.

  No joke. One of their co-workers at the arcade is the tattooed kid who talks and acts like he’s on a perpetual high. It’s no surprise he’s dealing, too.

  “One of these days, though, Hunter will get caught,” Maia declares. “It would serve him right for breaking up with me.”

  “Hunter?” I’m so surprised she brought up his name, I don’t point out that she’s been telling people since junior year that she broke up with him. “What does Hunter have to do with it?”

  Maia puffs out a breath. “Honestly, Jade. Haven’t you been listening? Hunter’s the dealer.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Thoughts about Porter and Hunter and Heather swirl through my head, making it impossible to focus on anything. After the gossip session and late lunch with Maia, I’m so not in the mood for an early dinner with Roxy. But I’d feel the same even coming off a hunger strike.

  Nothing will kill an appetite faster than the prospect of sitting across a table with the carny who wants you dead.

  “Thanks for eating at five.” Roxy isn’t that grateful. Otherwise, she’d have dressed for dinner in something besides her too-tight orange T-shirt. “We get really busy at the carnival starting around seven.”

  It’s quarter to five now. Mom is at the stove stirring store-bought tomato sauce while on another burner a pot of water starts to bubble. Uncle Landon’s making a salad, and I’m sitting on a tall stool beside Roxy. I expect hot demon breath to blast me whenever she talks.

  “No problem.” Uncle Landon speaks for my mother. She’s a lot more subdued than she was this morning, like she might have increased the dosage of her medicine. “We’re real glad you’re letting Jade here start her shift late.”

  Roxy offered before I could ask, adding some nonsense about looking forward to enjoying my company at dinner. She wouldn’t let Max start work late so he could be here, though.

  “Jade deserves some slack.” Roxy’s smile is cold, her lips curling like a reptile’s. “She’s a smart girl.”

  “Very smart.” Mom stirs in a circular motion, staring down into the pot. “She got a scholarship to UNC.”

  My stomach clenches. Surely Mom hasn’t forgotten the scholarship was taken away when my GPA plummeted after my disappearance.

  “Is that where you’re headed in the fall?” Roxy pivots toward me. Her hot breath smells like wintergreen gum.

  “No.”

  “Where are you going to college?” Roxy asks.

  “I’m not.” It’s not hard to take Max’s advice to offer as little information as possible when she’s asking questions like that.

  Mom looks up from her monotonous stirring. “When did you decide this, Jade?”

  “Nothing’s been decided yet,” Uncle Landon says. “Jade has until thirty days before class starts to enroll at community college.”

  He probably looked up the deadline this morning after I threw away that letter from my stepfather. I’d be miffed about that if I wasn’t grateful that he was taking the heat off me. The future is not something I want to think about.

  “College is important,” Roxy announces. Like I need a lecture on higher education from her.

  “Did you go to college?” I try for sweet, but the question has a sour edge.

  “I got pregnant right out of high school and got married.”

  She was married?

  “So you got a kid?” Uncle Landon focuses on her other startling revelation.

  A demon spawn, he means.

  “I had a miscarriage,” Roxy says.

  Mom has gone back to stirring the sauce. I’m not sure she even heard Roxy. Her expression is blank, like she checked out of the conversation. Uncle Landon looks uncomfortable. He breaks dry spaghetti noodles in half and adds them to the boiling water.

  I don’t want to feel sympathy for Roxy but can’t help it. Somebody has to say something. I guess it has to be me. “I’m sorry.”

  “My husband wasn’t,” Roxy says. “I lost the baby after he beat me up.”

  The shock of her statement closes off my airways. Out of curiosity, I’d Googled the Punch and Judy puppet sideshow and discovered the violent Punch liked to beat up his wife. Why would Roxy, herself a victim of domestic violence, give her dog and cat their names?

  “What a bastard.” Uncle Landon breaks the spaghetti more vigorously, although I think you’re supposed to boil them whole. One piece comes loose and lands on the counter. “You’re not still married to him, are you?”

  “He’s dead going on three years.” Roxy pauses. “Happiest time of my life.”

  So Roxy has layers. Firing questions at her so I can unpeel them wouldn’t be cool. Turns out I don’t have to. Uncle Landon gets Roxy to open up about herself while he and my mom finish making dinner.

  Roxy grew up an only child in Kingstree, South Carolina, and lost her parents in a house fire the summer after she graduated high school. When a traveling carnival came to town, she applied for a job. She met her future husband when she was assigned to work the roller coaster with him.

  “So you’ve been around coasters for a long time,” I say with as much nonchalance as I can muster. “Ever have one come apart like it did yesterday?”

  Mom’s head comes up. “There was a coaster accident yesterday?”

  I forgot I hadn’t told her what happened. She apparently hadn’t read the newspaper, either. “Nobod
y was hurt, Mom. It was during a test run.”

  “Was the coaster empty?” Mom asks.

  “I read something in the paper about that,” Uncle Landon says. “The story said employees were taking the test run.”

  “Were you on the coaster when it crashed, Jade?” Mom asks.

  “The coaster didn’t crash,” Roxy cuts in. “The last car detached.”

  “The last car is where Jade likes to sit!” Mom drops the wooden stirring spoon and wrings her hands.

  “I didn’t sit there yesterday,” I say. “Nobody did.”

  “Your enemies didn’t know you wouldn’t sit there!” Mom cries.

  “What enemies?” Roxy asks.

  “The ones the voices told me about.” Mom’s eyes bug out as she leans toward Roxy. “Did you see them tampering with the car?”

  “Nobody tampered with the car,” Roxy says. “It was an accident.”

  Yeah, right.

  “Like Julian almost drowning was an accident?” I blurt out, totally disregarding Max’s advice not to be confrontational. “I heard somebody told Julian it was no longer dangerous to swim by the pier.”

  “Who would do a thing like that?” Roxy asks.

  “Oh, come on!” I whirl to where my brother sits in the living room playing his Gameboy. “Julian!”

  He looks up.

  “Who told you it was okay to swim by the pier?” I ask.

  “Was it the enemies?” my mother asks.

  Julian shrinks back against the sofa. “Nobody told me anything.”

  “Because if it was the enemies,” Mom continues as if he hadn’t spoken, “I told you to stay away from them.”

  “Dinner’s about ready,” Uncle Landon announces in a loud voice. “Jade, could you get your sister?”

  I consider ignoring him, but I’m not accomplishing anything except agitating my mother and letting Roxy know I don’t trust her. Without a word, I get up and head toward the back of the house and my sister’s bedroom.

  “Suri’s not in the house,” Roxy says. “When I got here, she was playing hopscotch in the driveway.”

  The other day, our next-door neighbor Mrs. Smith noticed Suri and some of her friends playing with sidewalk chalk and showed them how to draw a new variation on the traditional hopscotch pattern.