Videos of Tyler.
Not videos of you.
No offense.
I’d definitely watch videos of you.
I smacked myself in the forehead with the phone. Oh my god, stop hitting send! Before I could figure out a plan for damage control, he wrote back.
Best series of msgs ever.
Thanks.
My fingers hovered over the screen, and my mind raced through a dozen possible responses, but I didn’t type any of them. After a long pause, Nathan texted again.
No more videos. That I know of.
But how are you? You okay?
I let myself fall back onto the pillow. Did Nathan know anything about the money in Tyler’s locker? I didn’t want to bring it up over text—I wanted to see his face when I asked him.
Or maybe I just wanted to see his face.
Lots of questions, I wrote. Can we talk? A blast of nerves shot through my stomach, and I couldn’t quite tell if I was excited or terrified. In person?
Sure, I guess so.
Tomorrow? Here? Or I can come to you.
Another pause, and then he wrote back: In a hurry, huh?
I buried my face in my hands. This whole exchange had been beyond humiliating. Before I could tell him to forget the whole thing, he wrote:
Tomorrow might work. Your place. If I can.
Great, I replied, trying for casual. See you then.
My mom dropped me off at school the next morning, and I walked through the parking lot with the carousel ticket clasped in my fingers, turning it over and over until the paper felt soft as fabric. I was on the lookout for Leigh Barry, the only Leigh I could find in last year’s yearbook. It wasn’t much to go on, but I was going on anyway.
A car horn sounded, and Eric Bowling pulled up beside me in a little blue Geo Metro that must have been twenty years old. He rolled down his window and hooked one elbow out.
“Well, well, well! Exactly the person I was looking for!”
I kept walking.
“I wanted to talk to you,” he said, driving slowly alongside me. “You know, about yesterday. The incident”—he managed to italicize the word with his voice—“by the lockers?”
He waited for some response. I offered none.
“You know which incident I mean?”
I stopped walking and turned to him. “Yes. I know which incident you mean. The incident was fairly memorable to me.”
“Anyhow,” he went on, “I think we should talk. I’ve taken the liberty of preparing some research for you to look at.” He glanced around to make sure no one could hear us. “It’s to help you figure out your next step. You know, as you move forward with your powers.”
“What is your problem? I do not have . . .” I dropped my voice to a whisper. “I am not some kind of superhero.”
He smiled. “Isn’t that exactly what a superhero would say?”
“You are infuriating. Has anyone ever told you that?”
“Oh, yes,” he said. “You, personally, used to tell me that all the time.” It didn’t sound like an accusation, but still, I felt a pang of guilt for not doing more to stay in touch with Eric. “Now back to the subject at hand. There are a lot of things you should consider.” He reached into his backpack and pulled out a three-ring binder. “I thought about what happened to you, and I decided what you basically did was See the Past.” The phrase “See the Past” got verbal capitals and its own hand gesture. “So I made a list of some local experts who can do that, in different ways. I also pulled some articles and information about each one.”
“You did all that last night?”
“Sure. You can take a look if you want.” He offered me the binder.
I started walking again.
“Or I could just tell you.” He pulled the car forward to keep up with me. “There’s that famous psychic, Denise Chambers? She used to live in Phoenix, but I looked for her in property sales records and figured out that she lives in Virginia now. Not far from here. She wrote a ton of books about how she helped the police by communicating with murder victims. And there’s this other woman, Rebecca Tattenbaum; she runs an antique shop on Capitol Hill, and rumor has it the building is haunted—”
“Sorry,” I said, cutting him off. “Thanks but no thanks.” I ducked between two parked cars and made a beeline for the main doors.
I spotted Leigh Barry at lunchtime, eating at a table with a couple of other girls. Anxiety curled in my stomach as I watched them. If there was anything I hated more than talking to people, it was talking to new people. I reached up and tugged at my hair. Tyler had always acted like talking to people was easy. It was supposed to be easy. I mean, it was called small talk. The word “small” was right there in the name. So why did it feel so massive and unmanageable instead?
Leigh didn’t look particularly intimidating. She wore a rose-pink cardigan over a ratty gray band shirt—the kind that was genuinely worn out, not the kind most Westsiders seemed to have, the ones that cost more because you bought them prefaded. Her pale hair hung down her back in two long braids, and when she laughed, she turned her face toward the ceiling and let out an oversize “Ha!” I waited for her friends to leave before approaching her table.
“Um . . . hi! Leigh, right?”
Behind her rectangular glasses, Leigh’s eyelashes were so pale they nearly glowed. “That’s me.” She flashed a bright smile. “What’s up?”
She had no idea who I was. Not a promising beginning.
“I’m Megan. Megan Brown? I’m—”
I watched the surprise and recognition move across her face, and her smile collapsed. “Oh, you’re Red’s sister.” She looked around, as though hoping for reinforcements. “Are you . . . I mean, is there anything you need?”
A double scoop of the salted caramel ice cream from Larry’s, I thought, but I stopped myself. Go along to get along. I mustered a smile. “No, thanks.” I’d been practicing a few smooth, casual questions about Tyler that I could ask, but now that the moment was upon me, my brain was having trouble sending signals to my mouth. I sat down next to Leigh and pulled the ticket out of my pocket. I turned it so she could see her own name on the back. “Do you recognize this?”
She let out a little hum, and her hand went to her mouth, but I could see that she was smiling. I’d found the right girl.
I slid the ticket across the table toward her. “You guys were friends?”
Her mouth went hard. “I thought so.”
“What happened?”
She let out a harsh laugh. “Um, the baseball team’s senior prank happened.”
A few months ago, Tyler and his teammates had broken into the school and set up a Slip ’N Slide, complete with sprinklers, right outside the principal’s office. But what did that have to do with Leigh?
Leigh stood and reached for her backpack. “Anyway, if you want to know more about it, talk to Bobby Drake.” She spit out his name like bad milk. “I’m sure he’ll brag for days.”
“Oh, god,” I shot back without thinking. “Please don’t make me talk to him again.”
She stopped with her bag over one shoulder and stared at me for a second. Then she busted out a laugh and sat down again.
“Listen,” she said, “it was my own fault. I helped them get into the building. Red said it was no big deal. And I believed him.” She sighed and picked up the carousel ticket. “He just lit things up, you know? Like Christmas every day.” Her chin crumpled, but she didn’t cry.
Her emotion washed through me. Then I remembered: Bobby had said that Leigh’s dad used to work here.
“The prank . . . did your dad lose his job over it?”
One harsh nod from Leigh. “Because he took the blame for the missing access key. He covered for me.”
I thought about the roll of money in Tyler’s locker, and the pieces fell into place in my mind. He’d been saving the money for Leigh, because he felt bad about her father. I unzipped my backpack and took out the roll of cash.
“When
I found that ticket, it was attached to this.” I held it out to Leigh, but she recoiled as though I’d offered her a spider. I tried again. “Seriously. I think he meant it for you.”
She pushed my hand away. “Yeah, he tried to pay me off months ago. And I told him I didn’t want his guilt money.”
“I’m sure he wanted to do what was right.”
“No, Tyler just wanted to be the good guy. He couldn’t accept that this time—he wasn’t. He was the bad guy. And he couldn’t talk his way out of it. Or buy his way out of it. But that’s how all of you think.”
I shook my head. “All of us?”
“My dad took this job in the first place so I could go to this amazing school.” Her voice was laced with sarcasm. “But it didn’t take me long to figure out that everyone who goes here is, like, Richie Rich, and they have no concept of what real life is like. Or they feel sorry for me.”
“I don’t—” I began.
“Save it.” She shook her head. “Do you even realize how messed up this place is? I mean, sixteen-year-olds get cars that cost more than my dad used to make in a year. And those weekly assemblies where they announce who got into what fancy college? It’s like they’re actually trying to rub it in.”
“Yeah, those assemblies suck,” I tried.
But Leigh wasn’t listening. “So I’ll tell you what I told your brother: I don’t want your charity. I feel sorry for you, for living in this privileged little bubble and having no idea what life is like in the real world.”
As she grabbed her backpack, I sat stunned, tears in my eyes.
She looked back at me, and I watched her realize that I was the girl whose brother had just died. Her shoulders sagged, and her face twisted into a wince. “Aw, fuck,” she said. “I’m really sorry. I’m really . . .” She dashed away without finishing her sentence, leaving me once again the center of curious stares from everyone in the room.
I shoved the money back into my bag. Leigh’s words stung, because there was truth to what she’d said. This school was an unforgiving place for people who weren’t on the “right track,” or who didn’t fit into the Westside mold. And no matter how harmless Tyler might have thought that team prank was, he had used Leigh. He’d hurt her, and he’d hurt her family. I understood why he’d been looking for any way to make it right. But even if that’s what the money was for, I still didn’t know where it was from, or how Tyler and Bobby had managed to “earn” more than four thousand dollars.
I watched Leigh’s braids flying as she disappeared through the cafeteria doors. I took out my art journal and did a quick sketch of her in pen: her head thrown back, laughing full out at the sky.
When Dad and I came home that night with Chinese takeout for dinner, Detective Johnson was sitting at our kitchen table.
Her leather jacket hung over the back of a chair, and a knotty black tattoo peeked out from under the cuff of her white dress shirt. My mother perched on a barstool, just back from her evening run, her hair in a sweaty ponytail and her posture rigid and stiff. Johnson looked up when I came through the door, and her keen eyes met mine.
I glanced at my bag, as though she could see the roll of cash right through the canvas. Should I tell Detective Johnson about the money? It felt disloyal, somehow, like ratting Tyler out, but on the other hand, why should I keep it a secret?
Mom turned and spotted me, and her body immediately relaxed. She held out a hand, and I walked to stand beside her.
“Detective Johnson is here,” she said unnecessarily.
“Detective Johnson is leaving.” The officer pulled on her jacket, and relief washed over me. “But I do have a question for Megan before I go.”
I sank down on a stool next to my mother, letting my bag thunk to the floor at my feet. Mom rested a hand on my arm. Her fingers were trembling, and I curled my hand around hers.
“We’re investigating the possibility that Tyler was at a party in northeast DC the week before he died,” Johnson said. “Not far from where his body was found.”
“A party?” I shook my head, confused. On one level, it made sense. Tyler at a party—that always made sense. Part of his plan to make sure I fit in at Westside—or at least got by—was to drag me to a lot of excruciating parties. But I’d never heard him talk about going to one in DC. “Is that bad?”
“Not necessarily. But if he went to that neighborhood regularly, to meet with friends, that might help us understand what Tyler was doing there the night he was found.”
“Did you know anything about this party, Megan?” my father asked. “You can tell us. You don’t have to protect him.”
I don’t? I thought. But that’s what he would have done for me.
But then I paused.
At least, I think he would.
Mom’s hand tightened in mine. She hated the police asking me questions. She might call that “being protective,” but to me, it felt like babying, as though she thought my poor childlike brain would be scarred by the harsh facts of the police investigation. Mom and Dad would shuffle Detective Johnson out the front door as fast as they could. But Johnson might know things about Tyler that I didn’t, and as long as she was still here, maybe I could do some investigating of my own.
“I went to some parties with Tyler,” I said. “Where was it? I mean, do you have the address?”
Johnson looked a bit suspicious, but she pulled up the information on her phone and showed it to me. “Well?”
I repeated the address in my head a few times so I would remember it, then shook my head. “No. It’s not familiar.”
Johnson cocked her head to one side and gave me the eye. “We’re looking for whoever sold him the drugs. Depending on the toxicology results, we may be able to charge them in Tyler’s death.” She stared at me for a few more moments, but when I didn’t speak, she just nodded and turned to shake my father’s hand. “All right. You have my number if there’s anything else you need.”
“Wait! I have a question for you.” I could feel my mother stiffen beside me as I spoke.
Johnson paused, her gaze shifting between my parents. Whatever she saw in their faces didn’t deter her. “Go ahead.”
“The police officer who found Tyler’s body,” I said, “why did he go into that building in the first place?”
“You don’t know?”
I shook my head.
“We got an anonymous call.” She shrugged slightly. “We’re investigating that as well. There may have been someone with him who was afraid to stay and face the authorities.”
It turned my stomach to think that somewhere in the world, there might be a person who knew exactly what happened to Tyler, who might even have been with him when he died. Someone who wasn’t coming forward.
My father stood, bringing the conversation to an end. “I’ll walk you to the door, detective.”
Mom also rose to her feet, formal and polite in every circumstance. “Thank you again for bringing Tyler’s things.”
“Not a problem,” Johnson replied. She gave me one last searching look before disappearing with my father down the hall.
I turned to my mother. “Tyler’s things?”
She picked up a clear plastic bag, the size of a kitchen trash bag. A jumble of random objects shifted inside as she set it down on the countertop. “Tyler’s personal effects,” she said. “Stuff from his car, and the things they found with his . . .” She trailed off. His body, I thought with a sharp pang.
“His cell phone?”
“Missing.”
I reached for the bag, then stopped myself as a thought occurred to me. “Wait, so if they’re returning all this stuff to us, does this mean they’re done investigating? Is that the end of it?”
She closed her eyes and shook her head. Her expression didn’t change, but the twitch in her cheek betrayed her.
You’re making it harder for her, I thought. I remembered the look on her face when she had told my dad about the support group, and how she’d walked away when he tried to comfo
rt her. She wanted to pretend all this had been an accident, and she wasn’t going to let us convince her otherwise. I bit down hard on the side of my tongue and said nothing. The two of us stood together for a moment, staring at the plastic bag.
Part of me thought, Let it go. But only part of me.
“Do you mind if I take a look?”
She opened her eyes again. “Go ahead.” I reached for the bag, but she took my arm. “You’ll talk to me, right? If there’s anything going on? Anything you need?”
“Sure, Mom.” I grabbed hold of the bag and edged free from her grip. “I’ll talk to you.”
Instead of going to my own room, I headed instinctively for Tyler’s. I sat down on his bed and upended the bag, spilling the contents out onto the quilt. All these things might hold his secrets: The True History of Tyler Brown in Seven Objects. Or they might only amount to a pile of junk. I pushed aside a blue sweatshirt and some crumpled receipts, and finally, at the bottom of the pile, I uncovered a wooden box with Abraham Lincoln’s head carved into the lid.
It was the same box I’d seen in my hallucination, when I had almost passed out by Tyler’s locker. My pulse sped up, and my mouth went dry. The box was real. And it had been with him when he died.
I sat staring at it for a few moments. It was far more elaborate than I remembered, and I felt drawn to it in a way I couldn’t explain. Ornate metal feet curled around the bottom corners of the box, and a brass clasp held it closed. The lid was intricately carved with curves and scrolls surrounding a central diamond shape, which framed Lincoln’s head. His face was in profile, like on the penny. He had the usual beard, but his hair was swept up and away from his forehead in a cool wooden pompadour. He looked like the James Dean of Abe Lincolns.
I reached out to run a fingertip over the scrollwork on the lid.
As soon as I touched it, a sharp heat seared across the center of my forehead. I jerked my hand back and rubbed at the pain, squinting at the box through narrowed eyes. I could hear my own breath, jagged and uneven, far too loud in the quiet room. My mind raced. What was going on?
Still gripping my forehead with one hand, I stretched the other out slowly. If I touched the box again, would the same thing happen? Before my trembling fingers made contact with the wood, I stopped myself. If this was really happening to me, I should proceed carefully. Methodically.
The Hidden Memory of Objects Page 5
