Don't Look Now

by Michelle Gagnon

  Saying a small prayer, Peter inserted the key into the lock and turned it.

  A click as the bolt gave.

  Peter exhaled, and paused. This was it. Now he was officially crossing the line into breaking and entering.

  Feeling like he was stepping off a cliff into a void, Peter opened the door and entered the apartment . . .

  . . . and blinked in surprise. He was standing on the edge of a large living space. Light streamed through the floor-to-ceiling windows at the far end of the room; they showcased an incredible view of downtown. All that, he’d pretty much expected.

  What took him by surprise was how plush everything was. Rather than a sterile environment heavy on chrome and steel, the floor was covered by thick Oriental rugs. Furniture his mom would kill for, lots of Louis XVI chairs and velvet divans. Brocade curtains draped in heavy folds along the windows.

  It looked like something out of a museum; not at all the decor he’d envisioned for Mason. Which made it seem much more likely that he lived with someone.

  Peter strained his ears as he stepped into the room. He counted out a full minute, then took another step. And another, until he was next to the large couch in the center of the room, facing the window. From this vantage point he could see a kitchen, separated from the living room by a raised island lined with wooden barstools. To his right, a door led into a dining room. Through it he saw an enormous mahogany table that appeared to be cowering beneath a massive chandelier.

  “Damn,” he whispered. The rooms could have been lifted directly from the lifeless pages of an interior design magazine. There were no framed photos around, not even the random stacks of papers found in meticulously upkept houses.

  He went quickly into the dining room. In addition to the massive table, there was a matching sideboard and glass cabinet packed with silver serving dishes and china. Peter shook his head, trying to imagine Mason at the head of the table carving a roast. He just couldn’t get a handle on this guy.

  The door at the far end of the dining room opened into a foyer. Three doors led off it. Opening the first, Peter discovered a master suite with an enormous bed that Napoleon would have felt right at home in. He repressed a snort and checked the next room: bingo. A library, not unlike his father’s; lots of leather-bound volumes lined the shelves. Peter scanned the titles: Dickens, Chaucer, Shakespeare. All the classics, along with histories of wars he’d never heard of.

  A laptop sat on the desk at the far end of the room. Peter hustled over to it and cracked the case: a password box illuminated as the screen flared to life.

  Which shouldn’t matter, unless Mason had taken more care with his computer than he had with his apartment.

  Peter rummaged through his pack again and drew out a flash drive, then inserted it into a USB port. The computer hummed as the program loaded. It was a deceptively basic spyware program; with it, Peter would be able to open a mirror image of Mason’s computer on his own, shadowing all his activity. Peter had fine-tuned it to make sure that unless Mason spent a few days digging through code, he would never know it was there.

  A ping signaled that the program had finished loading. Peter tucked the drive back into his bag and checked the time. He’d been inside for five minutes; staying much longer would be pushing it. He’d have to come back another time to install the other toys in his arsenal. Although if he was lucky, the spyware program would provide enough information that he’d never have to risk this again.

  A minute later, Peter was charging down the stairs. He was about to tear into the lobby when some instinct caused him to pause. He opened the door a slit and peeked through.

  His heart nearly stopped. Mason was standing five feet away. Thankfully he was looking up, focused on the elevator display. At the sight of his familiar profile, the sharp nose and prominent chin, Peter felt himself quail.

  As quietly as possible, he eased the door shut and stepped to the side of it, closing his eyes. The elevator chimed, followed by the sound of doors sliding open. Footsteps, then they closed again. He waited another full minute before checking again.

  The lobby was empty.

  Saying a silent prayer of gratitude under his breath, Peter trotted through the door and back onto the sidewalk.

  He was so relieved at having gone undiscovered, he didn’t notice the black SUV idling at the curb behind him.

  Noa sat in the passenger seat of the van. The clock on the dashboard read seven p.m.; they’d left the Oakland house during rush hour, and spent forty-five minutes in stop-and-go traffic.

  The silence inside was oppressive; no one had said a word yet, which was strange. There was usually a lot of banter and story swapping.

  Unable to help herself, Noa glanced again at the mound of garbage bags lining the back of the van. The kids were all hunched well away from it, even though that forced them to squeeze together uncomfortably. But clearly no one wanted to come in contact with the dead guy.

  “Nearly there,” Zeke said in a low voice.

  “Good.” Noa sat back in the seat and closed her eyes. They’d decided to leave the body in Modesto. Crystal was originally from there, and she knew about a deserted farm outside town with its own access road. She claimed that no one ever went there, so the body probably wouldn’t be found for a while. And by then, there would be nothing to tie them to it.

  We’re dumping him out like garbage, Noa thought to herself. Exactly what he’d called them, trash. It wasn’t comforting. The whole thing felt dirty and wrong. When she’d joined Zeke a few months ago, and they’d expanded his operation into Persefone’s Army, she’d felt like she was starting something positive, helping kids like her who’d been horribly mistreated.

  Now she worried that they were becoming just as bad as the people they were fighting. Her mind flashed back to the crab pots at the Rhode Island lab, one of P&D’s more gruesome methods for disposing of their victims. Bile rose up in her throat; Noa swallowed hard to choke it back.

  “You all right?” Zeke glanced at her with concern

  “No. Not really.”

  “Yeah, me either.” He kept his voice low as he said, “I still can’t believe Turk did this.”

  “I can,” Noa said darkly.

  “You know,” he continued, “they messed him up badly when they had him.”

  “They did bad stuff to all of us,” she retorted.

  Zeke shook his head. “Not like that. He was part of the project early on, when they were just mucking around, seeing what they could do.”

  “They didn’t infect him, though.”

  “No. They infected his twin sister instead.”

  “What?”

  Zeke kept his eyes on the road as he continued, “The two of them got snatched off the street at the same time. I guess the Project hadn’t managed to get many kids who were related, never mind twins, so they took their time with Turk and his sister. They wanted to see how the treatments would affect kids who were genetically similar. So they tested her and used him as a control.”

  “A control?”

  “They did everything they could think of to her, but he was more or less left alone. If we hadn’t gotten him out, they probably would have started in on him next.”

  “What happened to her?”

  “She was too sick to save.” Zeke’s fingers had gone white against the steering wheel. “Turk didn’t want to leave without her, but we made him. I don’t think he’s ever gotten over that.”

  “She had PEMA?” Noa asked.

  “Yeah. And they tried a bunch of stuff with her, drugs, surgery . . . she was a wreck.” Zeke frowned as he continued softly, “It was one of the worst things I’ve ever seen.”

  Noa had read Project Persephone’s files, and knew all about the terrible experiments they’d been conducting. She couldn’t even begin to imagine how Turk must’ve felt, leaving his sister in the hands of those monsters, knowing that in the end they’d kill her. “Still,” she said in a low voice. “I can’t stop thinking that this makes us a
s bad as them.”

  “No,” Zeke said firmly. “Not even close. For one thing, this wasn’t you or me.”

  “Yeah, but we’re still responsible.” Noa stared out the window. They were passing through farm country, but at this time of year the fields were barren, the grass brown and dead. “I never should have suggested capturing one of them.”

  “Look, we knew going into this that it wasn’t going to be easy,” Zeke said. “And that we were probably going to make mistakes.”

  “I didn’t know that,” Noa mumbled.

  Zeke laughed. “Hell, I can’t believe it’s been going as well as it has. We’ve saved how many kids so far?”

  Noa shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  “Forty-two, and that’s not counting how many know to be careful because you put the word out on the web. That’s not nothing, Noa.”

  Noa wanted to tell him that it wasn’t enough, and didn’t even begin to make up for things like Turk’s sister. Instead, she said, “Thanks. That helps.”

  “Yeah? Good.” He grinned, then added ruefully, “I’m glad it’s not just Peter who can make you feel better.”

  Noa fidgeted, wondering if he’d guessed that she’d just been thinking about Peter. “What do you mean?”

  “I don’t know. It just seems like you’re pretty hung up on him.” Zeke looked uncomfortable.

  “We’re just friends,” Noa protested.

  “You always say that.” He glanced at her, then back at the road as he asked lightly, “So nothing ever happened?”

  Noa flashed back to lying on a futon bed in Cody’s cold apartment. Peter on the floor beside her, his voice low and sleepy as they talked. A lock of hair kept falling in his eyes, and she had to resist the urge to brush it back for him. The next morning, he’d made her laugh over burnt toast and eggs. . . . “No. Nothing.”

  “Huh,” Zeke said quietly. “That’s good.”

  “Why is that good?” she asked, puzzled.

  “We’re almost there,” Crystal announced, suddenly poking her head between them. “The turnoff is about a mile ahead on the right.”

  “Great,” Zeke said, a little too brightly. “Stay close so we don’t miss it.”

  “Sure.” Crystal glanced into the backseat and shuddered. “I can’t wait to get rid of . . . it. It’s starting to stink back there.”

  “You’re sure this place is abandoned?” Noa asked, grateful for the change of subject.

  “Yeah, I’m sure. It’s been empty since I was a kid.”

  Noa resisted the urge to point out that Crystal was still a kid, barely sixteen years old.

  “There’s the turn,” Crystal announced.

  Zeke eased the van onto a long dirt driveway that wound off into a stand of trees. In the distance Noa could see the remains of a farmhouse, gray and slumped like some sort of dying elephant. A barn in even worse condition hunched a few hundred yards away.

  “So you grew up here?” Zeke asked.

  “Yeah, a few miles away. We used to come here to party.”

  “I thought you said people never came here.” The words came out more sharply then she’d intended, Noa realized, as a wounded look crossed Crystal’s face.

  “They won’t find anything,” Crystal mumbled. “There’s a well, or at least there used to be one. We can leave him in there.”

  “Good idea,” Zeke said. “Nice job, Crystal.”

  “Yeah, great,” Noa said, but she couldn’t bring herself to meet the girl’s eyes. We’re going to dump the guy down a well? This was turning into something out of a horror movie.

  The other kids started to chatter, palpably relieved that the worst part of the journey was almost over. Their voices grated on Noa, and she had to bite her tongue to keep from snapping at them. Suddenly all she wanted was to get away. The guy had been right. She should have run when she had the chance, and taken care of herself. She could have reestablished herself under a fake name in Canada somewhere, and gotten more freelance work for IT companies. Instead, she was the den mother for a group of kids who could kill someone and dump him down a well without blinking.

  “Noa.” Zeke had stopped the van. He looked at her across the seat, his brow furrowed with concern. “It’s going to be okay.”

  “You know what?” she said under her breath as she climbed out. “It’s not. There’s nothing okay about any of this.”

  Mouse was late as usual. Amanda sipped her tea, trying to repress a swell of aggravation. Of course, it wasn’t as if the kid had a watch. Still, she’d been waiting in the diner for over an hour, and all the caffeine she’d consumed had heightened the edginess she’d felt at the Coalition.

  She’d read the same page in the textbook that lay open in front of her at least ten times, and still had no idea what it said. Which was worrisome. She’d always been an excellent student, and practically had a photographic memory. But recently, Amanda was having a hard time remembering the most basic words. Last week she’d spent five minutes trying to describe something to Diem, who finally looked at her as if she were insane and said, “Are you talking about a parking meter?”

  Her grades were slipping, to the point where she was seriously concerned about passing all of her classes this semester. And her parents would kill her if she failed.

  Too much stress, Amanda thought, running a hand through her hair. She wasn’t sleeping well and had no appetite. Diem had recommended that she go to the medical center, brightly adding that she’d heard Ritalin was a wonder drug for studying. But Amanda hated the thought of taking any medication. Her brother had been a drug addict, and ended up dead because of it. She had no intention of following in his footsteps.

  “Hey.”

  Amanda looked up to find Mouse staring down at her. She had on the same ratty jeans she’d been wearing last week, more holes than denim. Over them she wore one of Amanda’s old sweaters and a thick down jacket that Amanda had bought for her at REI—it was only a few weeks old, but already looked like it had been through a war.

  “Hi.” Amanda handed over a plastic bag and said, “I was going through my stuff to get rid of some things, and thought you could use them.”

  Mouse took the bag but didn’t answer. Internally, Amanda sighed. She’d given practically half her wardrobe to the girl, and had yet to get so much as a thank you. Of course, that isn’t why I do it, she admonished herself. Passing along old clothes was the least she could do.

  “You hungry?” she asked as Mouse slid into the booth across from her.

  Mouse nodded and tugged at her sleeves, a nervous habit that Amanda recognized. So Mouse was using again. None of my business, she reminded herself. It wasn’t her job to get the girl clean. They were working together to help save other kids. Although at some point, if Mouse seemed amenable, maybe she could gently refer her to a treatment program. . . .

  A waitress approached the table, looking less than delighted to see Mouse sitting there. They’d become regulars, meeting at the same diner once a week. Amanda always tipped well, but it didn’t seem to make a difference. Mouse usually smelled terrible, which provided the added bonus of keeping the tables around them clear so they couldn’t be overheard.

  Mouse muttered her usual order: a heaping stack of pancakes with extra whipped cream. Amanda bit her tongue. Once she’d made the mistake of suggesting that Mouse try some protein instead, maybe eggs or a sandwich, and the girl had just glared at her. Sighing, she asked, “So, how is everything?”

  “Fine.”

  By now, Amanda was acclimated to their monosyllabic, largely one-way discussions. She pressed, “I mean, did you manage to talk to any of the kids on the list?”

  Mouse shrugged. “A few. Everyone pretty much knows now, anyway.”

  “About the . . . guys?” Amanda scanned the diner quickly, keeping her voice low. No one seemed to be paying attention to them.

  Mouse nodded. She pulled a piece of hair into her mouth and started sucking on it, a habit that always turned Amanda’s stomach.
/>   She cleared her throat and said, “And no one has gone missing recently?”

  “No.”

  “Has anyone seen anything suspicious?”

  “No.” Mouse pulled the hair out of her mouth, studied the wet tips, and reinserted it before adding, “We think they’re gone.”

  “They’re not gone,” Amanda said impatiently. “They’re still collecting names. They wouldn’t do that if they were stopping.”

  Mouse shrugged as if it was a moot point.

  “Anyway, I’ve got some more for you.” Amanda drew the slip of paper out of her pocket and slid it across the table, feeling as if every eye in the room had suddenly homed in on her. Which is silly, she told herself. Paranoia. There was no reason for anyone to suspect her of anything.

  Mouse picked the paper up and tucked it into her jacket pocket. Watching, Amanda asked, “Aren’t you going to read it?”

  “Later.” The waitress came back and placed a round plate stacked high with four pancakes and an alarming tower of whipped cream in front of Mouse. The plate had barely touched the table before Mouse dug in with her fork, shoveling a huge bite into her mouth.

  “You’re not eating,” Mouse observed, chewing with her mouth open. Her eyes narrowed as she examined Amanda. “You look sick.”

  “I’m not sick,” Amanda grumbled. Why was everyone saying that lately? “I’m fine.”

  “Well, you look like crap,” Mouse said matter-of-factly as she piled more food on the fork. Whipped cream smeared the corners of her mouth.

  “Thanks,” Amanda said. “Really.”

  Mouse shrugged again, an action that comprised roughly half of their conversations.

  Amanda suddenly felt an overwhelming urge to get out of there, certain that if she spent another minute watching Mouse gobble down food, she’d vomit. “Here,” she said abruptly, pulling a twenty-dollar bill out of her wallet. “This should cover the check. I’ve got to go.”

  “Whatever.” Mouse’s hand darted out and seized the money, tucking it away quickly.

  “So . . . same time next week?” Amanda said as she stood.