A Million Shadows

by Janci Patterson

  “Makes sense for your mom to be the one who left second,” Kalif said, “Because otherwise the first nurse would have noticed she wasn’t there.”

  “As long as they weren’t both shifters,” I said. “Someone could have come in after my mom.” The possibilities were the same as ever: Damon, Aida, Mel, Kalif’s grandparents, the other contacts the Carmines had reached out to. For a moment, I understood the impulse to cut into shifters’ faces, to mark them. I wanted to put house arrest anklets on every last one of them, to track every movement they made.

  “Where is your mother in all this?” I asked. “It has to be her. She finally double-crossed us.”

  Kalif sat back in his chair, speaking quietly. “Or someone else got to her.” He dialed his phone one more time. I could hear it ring over and over again. Aida didn’t answer. She still hadn’t responded to the text, either.

  Kalif put a hand on my arm. “Let’s keep our minds open, okay? My mom could have grabbed her immediately if she wanted to. Your mom could have left at any time. Something changed. We have to figure out what that was.”

  I nodded. “Find the tapes of the exit to the psych ward. We need to figure out where they went.”

  We traced the nurse we thought was my mother through the hospital, and out the doors into the parking garage. I swore. “She could have gone anywhere from there. That tells us nothing.”

  Kalif checked some records. “It tells us that she left before her shift was over. The real her clocks out hours later, after your mother’s disappearance has been discovered.”

  I nodded. “Okay. Okay. So that nurse really was there, on duty. Or else the second shifter waited around and finished up her shift, and that nurse is dead in a ditch somewhere.”

  It could go either way. Nurses’ movements would be easy to track, because they made notes on computerized charts as they went from room to room, plus they were rigorously scheduled. Impersonating her during her shift would be a risk, but not a ridiculous one.

  Kalif searched through the security vids. “Let’s see if we can find when she arrives. If we can track her backward we can see if she did anything suspicious before going to your mother’s room.”

  He started another tape, one that showed an image of the checkpoint that led in and out of the psych ward. The receptionist behind the desk had to buzz people in and out. A few visitors went in, and I took mental note as they came and went. I was so focused on looking for the nurse that I didn’t notice the woman with the walker at the security desk until she hobbled out of the frame.

  “Back it up,” I said.

  Kalif paused, and then reversed.

  My eyes widened as Laura shuffled back into the frame, scooting her walker along as she went. In one hand she held a bouquet of lilies. I’d always thought of them as funeral flowers.

  Kalif swore. “That’s your neighbor.”

  “When is this?” I asked.

  “Half an hour before your mother was found missing.”

  I watched as Laura talked to the woman behind the desk. She gestured toward the door to the ward a couple of times, and the woman shook her head. In the end, Laura left the flowers and moved away.

  I hadn’t told the real Laura what hospital Mom was at. She might have figured it out, but there were more likely possibilities. “Your dad met her,” I said. “He talked to her. He could easily have worked up a persona. He’s using the walker to cover his limp.”

  I wondered if he’d done something to get Laura out of the way, or if she’d been home bound enough to satisfy him that he wouldn’t get caught in the act.

  “Those flowers she left,” I said. “I wonder where they are now.”

  Kalif paused. “You’re worried about a note?”

  “If your dad sent a threatening note to my mother, she’d have split. There’s no question. She probably found a way to get a nurse’s uniform and a mask, so she’d be able to get out in a hurry if she needed to.”

  Kalif stood. “That’s our lead, then. We need to get our hands on those flowers.”

  When we arrived at the hospital, Kalif assumed a nervous persona and set up his laptop one waiting room down from the psych ward, where he could continue to look through the security records and still be nearby if I needed him.

  I found a bathroom whose door wasn’t in the direct line of the security cameras and changed into my apartment persona—the one that had been seen by the paramedics, and the doctor in the ER. I worked some tears into my eyes, then checked under the stalls for listeners before I practiced straining my voice to sound like I’d been recently hysterical. It would be a careful balance, being upset enough to garner sympathy but not so upset as to put the receptionist off.

  I walked to the psych ward slowly, taking several deep breaths near the security cameras so anyone watching me would think I was steeling myself to deal with family drama. Probably no one would be paying attention, but after seeing Laura on those tapes, I couldn’t be sure.

  I walked up to the receptionist—a man this time. It was probably good it wasn’t the same person who was here when my mom turned up missing. The less connected this guy was with the drama, the more likely he was to help me out.

  “Hi,” I said. “I’m Amber. My mom left today, but I thought she might have abandoned some of her things here.”

  He nodded and asked me a series of questions—last name, Mom’s birth date, the day she’d checked in. When I passed his quiz, he didn’t even bother looking up Mom’s records in the computer.

  “Your mom didn’t check out,” he said. “Did you receive a phone call?”

  “I know she’s missing,” I said. “That’s why I thought she might not have taken her personal things.”

  The receptionist made a note. “Have you heard from her?”

  “No,” I said. “I told the doctor I’d call if I did, but I haven’t been able to reach her.”

  He looked apologetic. “A police report’s been filed. It’s mandatory, because we were required to hold her for seventy-two hours.”

  “I understand,” I said. “I know it’s serious, and believe me, I want her to get treatment more than anyone.”

  He nodded. “Security is still trying to figure out what happened.”

  I hoped they didn’t try too hard. If Aida was no longer throwing the Carmines off the hospital trail, they wouldn’t be able to miss an escaped mental patient with a hospital record of scars exactly like Mom’s, and they wouldn’t be quick to forgive the potential exposure.

  I really hoped Aida’s frantic cover was the reason she wasn’t answering her phone.

  “I’m not here to accuse anyone,” I said. “Can I just have her things? Unless the police needed to take them for evidence?”

  “No,” the receptionist said. “Let me just check with the nurse, and then I’ll get them for you.”

  “Thanks,” I said.

  It took long agonizing minutes, but then a nurse—not the double my mom had used—came out with an opaque plastic bag. Sticking out of the top was an array of baby’s breath and lilies.

  “Thanks,” I said. “I’ll call when I hear something.”

  The nurse looked like she wanted to talk, but I took the bag out of her hand and turned around quickly, and she didn’t stop me from leaving.

  I made myself return to the bathroom before I inspected the bag. Inside were Mom’s jeans and her shoes, though her shirt was gone. I remembered her sleeve soaked in bile, and hoped they’d just thrown it away. I wondered if they’d had to cut it off her in order to pump her stomach.

  Attached to the lilies was a small card, in an envelope that had already been opened. I pulled it out and looked at the tiny handwriting.

  See you soon.

  The note was signed Shanna Remorre. I squinted at the card. That name didn’t mean anything to me. I carried the bag down the hall to ask Kalif if he recognized it, but found him rushing toward me, his laptop tucked under his arm. “We have to go,” he said, beckoning me toward the front of the hospi
tal.

  Against my will, I froze in place. “What’s going on?”

  He stepped close, speaking low in my ear. “The computer activity,” he said. “Your mother accessed the internet from the nurses’ station.”

  “And?” I asked.

  “She looked up my mother’s address.”

  “What?” I asked. “How would she know where she lives?”

  “I don’t know,” Kalif said. “But she had the name that my mom’s using as an alias.”

  My skin went cold. “Shanna Remorre.”

  Kalif shot me a look. “How did you know that?”

  “It’s the way Laura signed the card.”

  Kalif’s grip grew tight on my arm.

  “Ouch,” I said.

  He let go. “Sorry. But Laura had to have been my father.”

  I rubbed my forehead. “Why would your father lead my mother to your mother?”

  “I don’t know,” Kalif said. “But her phone just keeps ringing and ringing. I can’t get through.”

  A dull ache formed at the top of my spine. “I don’t know who’s setting up whom here,” I said. “But we need to get to your mother’s apartment. Now.”

  Twenty-six

  We reached the parking lot and ran for the car. I took the driver’s seat so he could try calling Aida again. Her phone rang and rang. The disposables didn’t go to voice mail.

  He hung up the phone and sent another text message, but still she didn’t respond.

  I pulled through the parking lot. "“Give me the address,” I said. Kalif sat with his smart phone on his lap, the GPS giving me directions. I glanced down at the phone. Aida lived forty minutes away, which meant that anything could happen to her before we arrived.

  As I pulled onto the freeway, Kalif tried her number again with a different phone, but she still didn’t pick up. “I can try texting again,” he said.

  I nodded. “Or emailing? Maybe she had to ditch the phone.”

  He nodded and plugged away at the phone.

  I put a hand on his elbow. “Do you think something already happened to her?” I asked.

  He dug his fingers into his hair. “I don’t know.”

  As I drove, I realized we didn’t even have a plan, beyond getting to her apartment.

  “What do we do now?” I asked.

  Kalif shook his head. “I really don’t know.”

  I pushed down on the gas pedal.

  “Don’t get pulled over,” Kalif said. “I have a license on me, but you don’t, do you?”

  I didn’t. I took my foot off the gas and set the cruise control. I didn’t trust myself not to unintentionally speed.

  “Okay,” I said. “Let’s talk it out.”

  “Your mom is going to kill my mom,” Kalif said. “And my dad might want to kill them both.”

  I nodded. I wasn’t sure what Mel’s intentions were toward Aida, but he’d made his intentions toward my mother and me clear enough. “And the Carmines want to enslave us all, more or less.”

  Kalif nodded, staring at the dash.

  I tried to keep my focus on the road, when all I wanted was to hold onto him. “And I think they’re winning,” I said.

  Kalif looked at me.

  “I know you’re not going to love this, but whatever his intentions, Damon is right. They want us separated, because it makes us weaker. You and I are working together, but everyone else is still tearing each other apart.”

  Except Aida. As far as I could tell, she’d done exactly what she’d told me she could do. It was her asshole husband who’d come around to mess things up again.

  “You wish they’d cooperate with us,” Kalif said, "so we could face the real threat.”

  I nodded. “Do you think that’s possible?”

  “Not with my father. I wouldn’t trust him for half a second.”

  At least one member of Kalif’s family had a healthy outlook about Mel. Even if I could count on Aida in some circumstances, I still couldn’t count on her for that. “But your mother didn’t sell my mother out,” I said. “It looks like she actually did protect her. She’s been working with us, when she could have turned us in at any time.”

  “So you want to work with her,” Kalif said. “Really trust her.”

  “I think so,” I said. “What about you?”

  Kalif thought for a moment, which I had to give him credit for, given that we were talking about his mother. “I think you’re right. I think we can trust her, at least with some things. If we’re smart about it.”

  “I want more than that,” I said. “I’m sick of lying, of hiding. I want to convince my mom to cooperate with you and your mother. Then we’d have at least four of us working together again—plus possibly Damon. And even if the Carmines and their people still far outnumber us, at least we’d have that much to go on.”

  Kalif was silent. I pulled off onto an exit and switched freeways, following the GPS directions.

  “Do you even think that’s possible?” he asked.

  If you’d asked me yesterday, I would have said no. But the deeper into this we got, the more convinced I was that I couldn’t help my mother alone. If she wouldn’t trust anyone else—maybe not even me—then there was no way I could continue to cover for her.

  But above all, I didn’t want to lose her.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “But unless you have any better ideas, I think we have to try.”

  Kalif nodded. “I hate to say it, but I think you’re right.”

  My shoulders sank. Mom hated Kalif. She hated Aida. She blamed them both for Dad’s death.

  But if we didn’t all stop laying blame and start working our asses off to survive, not a one of us was going to make it out of this alive.

  “This is stupid,” I said. “Everything about all of this is stupid.”

  Kalif drew a deep breath. “I know,” he said. “I just hope it’s not already too late.”

  Kalif picked up his phone and dialed his mother for the bazillionth time.

  This time, miraculously, she picked up.

  Kalif was quiet for a moment, listening. I could hear snatches of Aida’s voice through the receiver, but I couldn’t make out the words. Then he responded: “Seven,” he said. “And you?”

  He waited for Aida’s response before he continued. “Mom. Jory’s mom left the hospital and she knows where you are, and we think Dad does, too. Are you okay?”

  I gripped the steering wheel, fighting the urge to ask him to put it on speaker.

  “And have they found the hospital records?” He paused again. “Good. We’ll meet you there.”

  Then he hung up the phone. “She was with my grandparents. They don’t know about your mom yet. My mom just got away from them, so she can meet us at a gas station and we can bring her on board with your plan.”

  I rolled my shoulders back, trying to appear more confident—not to fool Kalif, but to convince myself that I had a shot in hell of getting Mom and Aida to agree.

  Kalif gave me the address of the gas station where we were going to meet Aida. We were halfway there when one of my cell phones rang in my pocket. I shifted to dig it out—it was the one with Damon’s name scrawled on it in black marker.

  I answered. “Hey,” I said. “What’s up?”

  “Just wanted to hear your gorgeous voice,” Damon said.

  I looked over at Kalif. He had his head inclined toward me. He was listening to all of this, but we couldn’t discuss it until I got off the phone.

  Damon coughed. “Okay,” he said. “I’m bored and wondering how you were doing on that lead.”

  “Lead is sidelined,” I said. “Something else came up.”

  “You need help with that? You and your boy toy seem like you’re in trouble.”

  My stomach sank. Did he mean in general, or right this minute? I kept one hand on the steering wheel and one on the phone, trying to decide how to respond.

  Kalif unbuckled his seatbelt to lean closer, and a warning light appeared on the dash, al
ong with a loud beep. I moved my finger to cover the phone receiver.

  Kalif buckled his belt again and mouthed "sorry" at me.

  “Where are you headed?” Damon asked.

  My heart paused. “What?”

  “You’re in a car, aren’t you? I can hear it.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “So I am.”

  “Not skipping town on me, are you sugar?”

  I didn’t like the possessiveness in his tone, like he’d be upset if I did that. “Going to meet someone. What of it?”

  “Need backup?”

  If he was my friend, he just wanted to help, and I was being extra paranoid. If he was against me, he’d want to worm his way in to spy on us. And I had no way to tell which was which.

  But I wanted to.

  “Yeah,” I said. “I do. I’ll text you the address, okay?”

  “Deal. Thanks.”

  I blinked. “For what?”

  Damon’s voice was wry. “For letting me grace you with my presence.”

  Yeah. I could consider the Carmine’s wedge effectively driven. “See you soon,” I said, and hung up the phone.

  “Okay,” Kalif said. “Tell me how this plays into the plan.”

  I sat back in my seat. “I want to know if we can trust him,” I said. “And the only way to know is to give him the chance to betray us and see if he does. Besides, if he’s working against us, it’s not a coincidence that he called now, right? He already knows something, possibly even where we’re headed. It’s probably a trap, but this way, we can make it into our trap.”

  Kalif took the phone from me, and tucked my hand in his. “You know how we’re going to do that?”

  “I’m working on a few ideas.”

  Kalif shook his head. “I think you might be the one who needs a shrink. Your delusions of grandeur are starting to get out of control.”

  I glanced over him, and the corners of his mouth were turned up in a smile. I hoped that meant his morale wasn’t as low as it probably should have been.

  “Are you with me?” I asked.

  He took my finger, retracing the ring. “Always,” he said.

  I smiled. All I could hope was that his confidence wasn’t misplaced.