A Million Shadows

by Janci Patterson

  “Don’t worry,” the cop said. “I’ll stick around and drive you back after you make sure your friend is okay.”

  That caught Mom’s attention. She squinted at the back of the cop’s head, then looked at me.

  She was putting it together. After all, what officer had nothing better to do than ferry random people around all day?

  I stayed perfectly frozen. Being locked in the back of this car awaiting Mel’s intentions could only be made worse if my crazy mother knew what a fix we were in. I had no way to know how she would react.

  I could see the cop appraising me in the mirror. I hadn’t responded to his offer, because it was so ridiculous it barely merited a response.

  Still, I needed to play along, to buy time while I thought this through. “Thanks,” I said.

  The corner of the officer’s lip quirked up. He met my eyes in the rearview, and I knew that he knew.

  “Took you long enough,” Mel said, dropping the voice of his officer persona into his home voice.

  Mom grabbed the arm rest. “What?” she said. “How—"

  Kalif had told me he’d seen a cop car drive by when he was posing as parking enforcement. “He was already waiting with the cop car,” I said. “That was his plan. He was going to wait for you to kill Aida. And then, with her out of the way, he was going to pretend to arrest you and give you over to the Carmines. They’d definitely execute you then, for killing their daughter. And Mel could be the hero who mended his ways and pretended to work for them until the next time he felt the urge to stab someone in the back. And then I called 911, and he saw the emergency vehicles, and that gave him the perfect opportunity to sweep in.” I glared at Mel in the mirror. “Did I miss anything?”

  Mel arched an eyebrow at me, turning down another side street. He was moving us away from the main streets, toward a warehouse district.

  I wondered if he had a place ready to hold us until he could transfer us to the Carmines, or if he was only looking for a secluded place to kill us.

  “I wasn’t expecting you,” Mel said. “Catching the both of you together is even better, though. You were being more effective at tracking me than I would have expected.”

  I heard another low thump from the trunk. From the way her head turned to listen, I could tell that Mom heard it, too.

  “The three of us, you mean,” I said. “Or do you really think you can get Kalif on your side after you’ve had me killed?”

  Mel glared at me in the mirror, but he didn’t respond.

  Mom’s hands twitched, and her eyes flitted around. I could see her taking the same stock I’d already taken. The doors. The grate.

  We weren’t going to get out of the back of this car—they designed these things to hold people, which was why Mel had used this persona to begin with.

  Our best bet was to wait until Mel got us to wherever we were going and try to jump him. But he would no doubt be armed, and we weren’t, and I wasn’t confident we could get away once he had a gun trained on us, once we were no longer on the road.

  Mom was beside me, Damon was in an ambulance and maybe dying, maybe exposing a blank face to hospital doctors, adding one more rare case of missing facial features to their incidence reports. Kalif was locked in the trunk, and from the sound of the thumps, tied up and barely able to move enough to alert us to his presence.

  That left one person who could help me. I’d pushed the panic button, so I could only hope Aida was moving toward us, but since I hadn’t been able to communicate with her, I had no way to warn her about what she would find.

  And I didn’t have her number.

  But I knew someone who did.

  I leaned back in my seat, made sure Mel was looking at the road, and took another glance at the phones lying under his seat.

  On the far one, I could see the black scribbled label, written in Kalif’s handwriting.

  Mom.

  If Mel knew it was there, he wouldn’t have left it lying around for me to find. I had to get it without him seeing me.

  I looked back up at Mel, and he met my eyes. And as if he’d read my mind, he said, “Put your phones where I can see them.”

  I took my phones—the one that I used to call Kalif, and the one I’d been using to communicate with Damon—onto the ledge behind me at the base of the rear window.

  He looked at Mom. “You, too,” he said.

  I wasn’t sure if Mom had a phone, but she produced one, and set it next to mine.

  Mom must have come to the same conclusion I had about getting out of the backseat, because she leaned toward the grate, eyes fixed on Mel. “You made a mistake coming back here. You should have run months ago.”

  Mel actually laughed. “Honey, one of us is driving the car, while the others are stuck in the back. So unless you have a gun back there, you’ve definitely been outmatched.”

  I glanced at Mom. If she’d had a gun, she’d have used it back at the apartment, but from the way her jaw set, I was willing to bet she regretted not taking the time to steal one. Mel had probably planned to have Mom cuffed and searched to avoid that, but I’d messed up his plan.

  Too bad I hadn’t messed it up to our advantage.

  I stretched my feet under the seat and kicked the phones to the side without looking at them. Mom’s eyes flicked down once, but then she looked back up at him. Either she hadn’t seen what I was doing, or she was covering for me.

  If it was the latter, I was glad she had at least that much self-preservation left in her.

  I used my heel to drag a phone in my direction, then leaned closer to the grate, reaching down with one hand while keeping my eyes on Mel’s in the rear view.

  “Where are you taking us?” I asked.

  “Doesn’t matter,” Mel said.

  My hand locked around the phone, and I pulled it up to my knees and looked down at it.

  This was the phone that had vibrated when I called it. Kalif’s link to me, not to Aida.

  I tucked it under my knee and reached again. My fingers met with the keys, then brushed the edge of another phone.

  “You’re not going to kill us,” Mom said. “You’ve never managed it before, and you won’t now.”

  Mel shook his head. “Keep telling yourself that.”

  It was all I could do not to roll my eyes. The two of them sounded like children, but at least Mom was keeping him distracted.

  And I dearly hoped that she was right.

  I lifted the second phone up to my knees and stole a glance down at it.

  Bingo.

  I leaned my head against the side door, putting the headrest between me and Mel, so he wouldn’t see that I was fiddling with something in my lap. Mom glanced at me once, then avoided looking at me again.

  At least she had the good sense to work with me when we were cornered.

  There in the call history was a phone number—there were several recent missed calls, all within the last few minutes, all from the same number.

  Aida, trying to get a hold of Kalif.

  I turned off the vibrate, then opened a text message. Mel posed as a police officer and trapped me and my mom, I wrote. He’s got us prisoner in the back of the car, and he’s taking us through a warehouse district. I think Kalif is locked in the trunk. I hear movement, so if it’s him, he’s alive.

  I held my breath while the text sent, but it appeared to go through.

  A few seconds later, a response came through. Following the tracker. On my way.

  Bringing Aida down on us was a risk, much more so where Mel was involved. After the help she’d given me, I was fairly certain she’d take my side in most other situations. But where Mel was concerned? I couldn’t predict what she would do. Before she found us I needed to ensure she would act in my interest, and not in his.

  I dialed Aida’s number, muted the phone so Mel wouldn’t hear her pick up, then switched to speaker. “Why did you stay around here?” I asked. “Is it because of your family?”

  Mel was silent, and for a moment
I thought maybe he wasn’t going to let me bait him.

  But then he nodded. “You didn’t think I was going to abandon my son.”

  I was pretty sure he was referring to Kalif, but I wasn’t going to miss the opportunity to dig at him. “Right. He looked pretty young. Is he six? Seven? That would be a hard age to lose your father.”

  Mel managed not to glare at me, but I could see his jaw tighten. For the con artist that he was, he’d always been terrible at concealing his own pride, his own anger.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said.

  Mom leaned back in her seat. “Sounded to me like you do.”

  I angled myself behind the seat back again and shot her a grateful look. She didn’t know about Mel’s family, but she was willing to play along.

  “And your wife,” I said. “She’s pretty. I’m guessing since she displays your home face on her wall she has no idea what you are. Or what her son likely is. You couldn’t abandon them, could you? He’s going to start shifting soon. And he’ll need his father to show him the ropes.”

  I heard another soft thud from the trunk, and hoped Kalif wasn’t hurting himself back there. If he’d still had a phone I could contact, I would have texted him.

  I glanced down at the screen of the phone in my hand. The call was still live, but I didn’t dare take it off speaker to find out if Aida could hear us.

  “You think you’re clever,” Mel said. “But, again, you’re the one locked in the back seat.”

  “You’re the one who can’t conceal his double life,” I said. “Or his murders. You think the Carmines don’t know about everything you’ve done? You think we haven’t been reporting to them for months?”

  Surprise registered on Mel’s face before it hardened again. And that surprise told me what I needed to know.

  He didn’t expect us to be working with them. And he didn’t need to know that we weren’t.

  “Go ahead,” I said. “Try to trade us with them. See how that goes for you.”

  Mel’s hands tightened on the steering wheel.

  I smothered a smile.

  That was his plan. And now I’d cast enough doubt that maybe he wouldn’t go through with it.

  My stomach dropped. Of course, in that case, maybe he’d just kill us all.

  I texted Aida. How far away are you?

  Almost there, she texted back.

  I truly hoped that she was. “Too bad Aida knows about your other family, now. I guess you can’t go home again.”

  Mel’s face tightened into a sneer. “You think I was ever going back to her? She was just a convenience. I hope she comes after you to save you. I’ve got a message for that bitch, and I’d love for you to be there to witness it.”

  I looked down at my phone, hoping Aida had heard.

  Hoping it was enough.

  Mel drove us past a gum factory, into an area lined with rental storage lockers. I looked out the back window, but I didn’t see Aida approaching.

  “You know, Jory,” Mel said, "you are clever. It’ll almost be a shame to kill you.”

  Mom’s words came out as a growl. “Try it.”

  Mel smiled again, like he was sure he had the upper hand. And I had to give him this: despite my efforts, he did. Mel turned down an alley between storage buildings, and I hadn’t seen another car in blocks. Even with the tracker, in a place like this, would Aida find us? There were so many buildings, so many alleys to turn down, and no witnesses, which I supposed was the entire point.

  Mel’s car began to slow. If he decided to drag us from the car, or even execute us through the grate, this would be it. We couldn’t escape.

  Maybe this time, he really had won.

  Mel drove slowly between the buildings, passing one row of storage after another.

  He slowed further, and I was certain one of these lockers was his—the place where he would stash our bodies while he negotiated with the Carmines.

  And then, as he rolled past another alley, an engine roared to life.

  We all looked just in time to see a green sedan barreling toward us at top speed. Just before impact, my eyes met Aida’s through the window.

  And then the world exploded.

  Mel hit the gas in an effort to avoid her, but Aida swerved, ramming her car right into the driver’s side door. The two cars crunched together, and rubber burned as we slid into the opposite building, the passenger side doors completely blocked by the brick side of an embankment of storage lockers.

  When the motion stopped, I unbuckled my seat belt, taking frantic stock of the car around me. Mom and I were now thoroughly trapped in the back of the car—a wall on one side, the still child-locked door on the other side partially bent by the front of Aida’s car. The grate between the front and back seats was still intact.

  And Mel, while his door was crumpled, still scrambled around in the front seat, unbuckling his own belt, crouching onto the seat, and reaching for his back pocket.

  Mom grabbed me, forcing me down behind the seat, and I hit the floor, not even sure if the seats were reinforced enough to stop a bullet. But as I crouched down, I heard a car door slam—and the only one that could still open was Aida’s.

  Mom shoved down on my head, but I couldn’t help it. I looked up at the last minute, and through the cracked glass of the window, found Aida with her gun pointed straight at Mel.

  “Don’t even think about it, dear,” she said.

  I couldn’t see Mel. I don’t know if he listened, or if he kept reaching for his own weapon.

  But I did see the dark, hardened expression on Aida’s face when she put her finger on the trigger and pulled.

  Thirty-two

  The sound of the gun deafened me, and the world seemed to slow. The window exploded, and the bullet took Mel directly in the head, throwing him back across the seat. Mom pushed me down again, no doubt expecting Aida to shoot me as well, but even from my crouched position I could see Aida wrestling with my back passenger door, muscling it open even in its crumpled state. Another thump came from the trunk.

  Damn. Kalif. Had he taken the impact okay?

  “You,” Mom said, scrambling to climb over me, to get at her. She wore her home face, though whether from the shock of the impact or a desire for Aida to know exactly who was coming for her I couldn’t tell.

  Aida raised her gun, but I sat up, shoving Mom down behind me, and climbed out of the car to join Aida.

  “Don’t move,” I said to Mom. “I swear, if you don’t stop trying to kill her, I’m going to let her shoot you.”

  The words tasted sour in my mouth, and I wasn’t entirely sure that I meant them. But as Aida moved between me and my mom, gun still trained on her, Mom shrank backward, like she knew she was finished. All the bravado she’d shown to Mel dissipated, and, crouched on her hands and knees in the back of the cop car, she actually started to cry.

  “So that’s it then,” she said. “You’re going to sell me out, like everyone else.”

  I shook my head, motioning to Aida to lower the gun. And, miraculously, she did.

  And then I kicked the door to the cop car closed again, containing Mom in the backseat, so she couldn’t get at Aida.

  “No one’s trying to sell you out, Mom,” I said through the glass. “Not anymore.”

  I moved to the driver’s side door, and my stomach turned as I got a good look at the front seat. Mel’s body lay slumped across the bench, his face already washed blank —only flat flesh where his nose and other features had been.

  Now the only mark was the dark hole near the top of his head, where his left eyebrow would have been.

  Behind him, dark blood and pink tissue covered the passenger seat and window.

  I reached carefully through the broken window, avoiding the glass, and popped open the trunk.

  Kalif swung out of the trunk feet-first, his arms and legs bound, a gag tight in his mouth, a nasty bruise darkening the right side of his face.

  Relief washed over me. He was ali
ve. I helped him remove his gag, and Aida came around the car and threw her arms around him.

  “Are you all right?” he asked, and I didn’t know if he was talking to me or to her.

  “We’re fine,” I said. “We’re all fine.”

  My eyes drifted back to Mel’s still body, his blank face. Not quite all of us. “I’m sorry about your father,” I said.

  Aida untied Kalif’s wrists, and he leaned around the car, taking in my mother, still crouching in the back seat, and his father’s body.

  “I’m not,” he said.

  And I knew his reaction was going to be more complicated than that, but I also understood the need to not process it all right here in this alley.

  “We need to get out of here,” Aida said. “Someone probably heard the gun shot. The police may be coming.”

  “Yes,” I said. “We do need to get out of here. Someone find me a car that hasn’t been in a serious accident.”

  I fought with the door handle to Mel’s side of the car.

  “You’re not going to leave me here,” my mother said.

  “We’ll talk about that in a moment,” I said. “But first I’m going to get this body ready to go.”

  Aida nodded. “We need to hide it.”

  “No,” I said. “We’re not going to hide. Not from anyone.”

  I looked up at Kalif, and he nodded, like he was already following. Then he smiled. “Not anymore.”

  I nodded. “Okay,” I said to the lot of them. “This is what we’re going to do.”

  We had a large mess to clean up before we could get away from our mothers and check on Damon. First, Kalif and I stole a car from the back of a warehouse and got the body away from the scene of the crash, leaving the cars to whatever witnesses might discover them, whatever officers might drag them away. The only evidence left in them was a bit of Mel’s blood, and they weren’t going to find us through that.

  According to their records, we didn’t exist.

  We got far enough away to rent a van legally, load Mel’s body into the back, and ditch the stolen car near a forgotten building that was literally falling down after years of disuse.

  As I climbed into the driver’s side of the van, I turned back to Mom and Aida.