Cavallo sticks his head in the door. “Kayla, I’m gonna need you to come with me.”
A pink slip summoning me to the counselor’s office appears during Life Skills. What if Miss Jones is still trying to find my school records? What if she asks why no one in North Dakota has been able to produce them?
I’ve always been bad at charades. I forget that I’m not supposed to talk and end up giving the answer away. Maybe today is the day I lose this game I’ve been playing.
The class titters when I walk up to the front. At the doorway, I turn around and survey my classmates, like it might be the last time I ever see them. Happy waves.
I take a deep breath and put one foot in front of the other until I reach the giant smiley face on Miss Jones’s door. She looks up. The smile on her face is plastic, even more unbelievable than the poster.
“Please, sit.” She motions to the chair wedged between boxes of college brochures.
I sit and focus on my knees.
She leans forward and folds her hands on the desk. “I wanted to check in with you and see how the new semester is going. Is anything too easy? Too hard?”
I shake my head. “It’s fine.”
“Good. Have you made friends? I see you with Happy and Adrian a lot.”
I shrug.
“They’re good kids,” she says wistfully, as if she isn’t only, like, seven years older than us.
I shrug again.
“So.” Her fingers tap against the fake wood top of the desk. “I heard a rumor that Lawrence proposed to Angie.” She lifts her right hand and rubs the back of her neck. “Is that true?”
This is why she called me out of class? She wants me to dish? Tell her how last weekend Lawrence kneeled down in front of Angie and produced a paper saying he got his GED? How he popped a ring out of his pocket and the whole restaurant gasped? How Angie cried? How her face twisted when she saw me in the corner—like I was a bad omen for her happy marriage?
No such luck, Miss Jones.
I shrug a third time.
She sighs. “You should probably get back to class.” Her face contorts into that plastic smile, but her eyes look like she wants to cry.
—
Angie has the flu. Mom and Mrs. Morales sit at a table in C&J’s covered in bridal magazines. They coo over every page. The wedding has been set for mid-April, and even though she’s the most junior member at the florist, Mom will be doing the flowers. Mrs. Morales insisted. Every surface in our house is covered in practice bouquets of various colors.
They make me sneeze.
“That neckline is gorgeous. Look at the beading.” Mom points to a page. Mrs. Morales leans in to inspect it. Rosie grips the back of her chair and pulls her feet up until she’s hanging.
“This is boring,” she whines.
I sit with my chair pushed back from the table. My legs and arms are crossed. I examine my chewed-down-to-a-stub nails.
I feel all the eyes focus on me. I look up.
Mom shows her teeth in a wolflike grin. “Betsy, why don’t you take Rosie to the park?” Mrs. Morales nods enthusiastically.
The kid is gone in a flash through the flapping kitchen doors. A second later, she reappears, one arm in her pink puffy coat.
Her clammy fingers wrap around mine. “Let’s go, Betsy.” I glance at Mom. She smiles like an angel looking down on me from heaven.
When I stand, Rosie almost yanks me off my feet. “Come on!” She hops up and down like she has to go to the bathroom.
I follow her outside. She releases me, takes off running, and leaves my sight. I jog to catch up.
“Hand,” I say automatically when we reach the curb. Her eyebrows knit, but she takes my outstretched hand and allows me to usher her across the street.
I sit on a bench. Rosie tears off to the play structure. “Betsy, watch!” she calls, and flies down the slide.
A basketball game is happening on the other end of the park. Seniors I recognize from school shove one another and wrestle for the ball. One backs away from the melee. He gives me the San Justo head nod.
“Betsy!” Rosie calls again. I ignore her. The angle of the winter sun turns the sky a dusty light blue. I unzip my jacket, close my eyes, and try to suck its weak rays into my pale skin. It’s quiet. Almost peaceful. I feel some of the tension ooze out of my muscles.
I don’t know how long my eyes are closed. Maybe I even fall asleep. Car doors slam behind me and bring me back to the world. I open my eyes. The basketball players drive away in dented, rusted hand-me-downs.
My lungs take in a deep breath of chilly air. I almost feel okay today.
The empty space where the basketball players’ cars were reveals a black sedan. With tinted windows. Just like the one that followed me and took my picture. It sees me and rolls away unhurried down the street and around the corner.
As I watch it go, I realize something that makes my pounding heart stop cold in my chest. Rosie’s feet aren’t tromping through the sand or up the play structure.
“Rosie?” I jump up. “Rosie?” I spin to all four corners of the park. A puffy pink coat lies cast off on the grass.
“Rosie?” My voice is high-pitched. Desperate.
I pound up to the top of the oiled-wood platform of the play structure. The slide reflects the sun into my eyes. The park is still. Dead.
“Rosie?” I whisper.
My feet carry me down to the sand. I force them to move one in front of the other in the direction the car went. My head goes dizzy. Spots of black appear in my vision. My hands are wet. I look down at them. They’re covered in blood. I rub my eyes, smearing the blood onto my face. I stagger to the bench. My chest heaves. An animalistic scream leaves my mouth. I curl into a ball and force the world to go black.
“Betsy?” A soft, warm voice. And crying. Crying in the background. “Betsy?” the voice asks again. I shove my hands behind me. My eyelids flitter. They’re too swollen to snap all the way open.
Adrian leans over me. I shriek and pull myself into a ball to protect my soft belly. Adrian steps back. That’s when I see Rosie standing behind him, clutching her coat and sniveling. I uncurl and look around. He’s not taken me to the shack in the desert. I’m still in the park. Alive.
“Do you want me to get your mom?” Adrian asks. I shake my head. He glances at Rosie, who’s taken two steps forward and is peering down at me. “She has a favorite hiding spot over there.” He points to a narrow space between a blue metal trash can and a prickly evergreen bush. “When she couldn’t wake you up, she ran home and got me.” He looks at me accusingly. Blaming. Judging.
Now that the burst of adrenaline is fading, I feel cold. Rosie still stares down at me. Her eyes and mouth are set in a look of curiosity. I lift my head to see what’s so interesting to her.
I grab the sides of my jacket and slap them across my chest. There’s a rip in the cheap fabric of my shirt. In my panic, I must have snagged it on something. The ragged slit runs from my neck to the now-exposed left cup of my bra.
I peer up at Adrian, and his eyes move slowly to my face. I can’t read his expression. It’s blank. Too blank. It’s the look of someone pretending not to know what they know. I sit up and turn my back to him. Tears course down my face. I can’t stop them, and I can’t stop him from seeing.
“Let’s go, Rosie.” He doesn’t take her hand. He walks away. She follows, pink coat dragging on the ground behind her.
—
A chipped, off-white diner mug of hot chocolate with something spicy added to it steams in front of me. I can’t force myself to not drink it. The cup shakes as I bring it to my lips. My hands are clean. They were never bloody. Not today, at least.
I’m in a booth, alone, with my jacket zipped as high as it will go. Mom sends worried glances in my direction. She’s still surrounded by magazines, but Mrs. Morales has abandoned them to serve a laughing couple seated against the wall.
My eyes won’t focus on anything. My ears feel like they’re underwater.
Distorted, whalelike sounds surround me. My feet are numb. My fingers tingle.
I don’t see Adrian until he’s sliding into the booth across from me. I look at his face, familiar and alien at the same time. Stray dark hairs poke out between his eyebrows. His nose has a patch of blackheads on the tip. His left front tooth slightly overlaps the right. His lips are chapped.
“Feel better?” he asks. I don’t know if it is a true inquiry or a demand. Feel better.
I nod but push myself hard into the back of the booth, like he might jump over the table and grab me by the throat.
“Good.” He stands up. He takes a step. Then he turns around. “Oh,” he says. “I think you dropped something in the park.”
I slap my hand against my empty pocket. Oh. My. God.
Adrian’s face changes. This is not the faux-concerned Adrian from the park. This is the Adrian I’ve been expecting.
He dangles the black monster in front of my face. “You have a pink phone,” he says. “I know because Happy wishes she had a sparkly pink phone just like yours.” He taps the monster on the table. “This one is black.”
I try to grab it, but he whips it away from me. He scrolls through the screens. “There’s only one number on here. One number over and over again.” He looks at me. “A number with a Washington area code. Who are you talking to in Washington, Betsy from North Dakota?”
He reaches into his pocket and pulls out his fish. He rubs it between his fingers. “I’ve been to Seattle. It’s a nice place. Rains a lot.”
He lowers his voice. “In the desert, you said you didn’t want another death placed on you. What did that mean?”
“Nothing. It meant nothing.” I can’t catch my breath. Did I say that to him? How could I be so stupid?
“Stay away from my family, Betsy.”
The black monster comes to life in his hand. He glances at it and places it on the table in front of me.
“You should answer that. It might be important.”
Adrian starts to walk away again, and then he turns and motions toward his heart. “Sorry about your shirt.”
It will be an undercover op to get Drake. Cavallo took me from the ice cream shop to the police station. I spent all afternoon describing Drake over and over again to a parade of sketch artists, cops, and special agents while Cavallo ran around flapping papers and yelling at those same people.
Now I sit in his office. It’s spare. A gray metal desk, a computer, neatly stacked manila folders. A sweating can of Coke and a ham sandwich in plastic sealed with a gas station sticker are brought to me, but I can’t eat. It’s happening too fast.
I can’t be sure that Drake will be there. It’s been a week since I dove out of his car. Has he still been going to McDonald’s, even though I haven’t shown? Jordan would have told him to pick me up no matter what. But would Drake care if Jordan got pissed at him for ditching me?
Cavallo charges in. “I’ll have an officer take you home now.” He moves back to the door.
“Wait,” I call out. “I’m not going with you? Drake’s supposed to pick me up at the McDonald’s.”
“It’s taken care of, Kayla. This isn’t my first time doing this. You’re a minor, and we can’t use you in an operation. And I’m certainly not using you as bait.”
“But I want to. I want to help. Please,” I beg. It’s the only thing that will make me feel better. Make up for my part in leading Drake to Shonda.
Cavallo’s face softens. “Kayla, we never know how these things are going to go down. I don’t want to be the one who has to tell your mother that the guy pulled out a gun and started shooting.”
“Please,” I whisper.
Cavallo sighs and crosses his arms. “Fine. If your mother agrees, you can sit in the back of an unmarked car on the other side of the parking lot. You don’t get out. You don’t say a word. You don’t do anything to interfere with the operation. If it looks like it’s going bad, you’re out of there.” I nod in agreement.
A uniformed officer is dispatched to Bluebird Estates to talk to Mom. Explain the situation, get her consent. She’ll consent. She’ll want to seem cooperative. She’ll do anything the cops ask.
When Cavallo comes back, he’s changed into his jeans and a black slicker. He’s all business. “Let’s go.”
He deposits me into the backseat of an old silver car. The driver is a hipster wannabe with a full golden beard and tight-legged, too-short pants. He ignores me.
We wait behind the bus at what was my usual stop in front of No Limit Foods. A girl—although she can’t be; she has to be over eighteen or what’s the point of me sitting in the cramped backseat of this car inhaling the cloying pine air freshener that hangs from the rearview mirror—steps out onto the sidewalk. She has my hair color, and it’s up in a ponytail that swishes as she crosses the street. Up close she looks to be twenty-five, but from the back, from a distance, I guess she could be mistaken for me.
We pull into a space near Elton’s station wagon. I won’t be able to see anything from here. I undo my seat belt and move forward until my head rests between the two front seats. Hipster cop glances at me and raises an eyebrow. I sit back hard and cross my arms.
He sighs and reaches under the passenger seat. “Here,” he says. It’s the first time I’ve heard him speak. He hands me a pair of heavy black binoculars.
My heart warms. “Thanks,” I say. He stares straight ahead again, like I’m invisible.
And we wait. And wait. And wait. Being a cop must be really boring. Everything had to be in place hours before Drake is supposed to arrive, in case he was checking things out.
As it gets darker, I can clearly make out the usual people inside McDonald’s. The pimply boy leans on the front counter. More than anything I want to jump out of the car, run to him, and tell him Shonda will be okay. But I don’t know that. A shiver pulses through my body.
I was sad and angry about the first two girls, but Shonda is different. She’s a real person to me, not just a glimpse at the bus stop or a segment on the news. If she dies, it will be my fault for leading Drake to her. I will never forgive myself. If she dies, there will be nothing to stop me from going to Finn’s and taking something to forget. Then doing it again and again. There will be nothing to stop me from turning into my mother.
The fake me sits with her back to us in plain view of the parking lot. Since I haven’t shown for a week, Drake needs to see “me” when he first pulls up. Otherwise, he might keep driving. Cavallo doesn’t want to have to chase him.
A woman sits between fake me and the door. She’s dressed like everyone else—faded, old jeans, red hoodie zipped up to her neck—except she’s absolutely gorgeous. Her shiny dark hair, reaching almost down to her waist, is pulled back in a low ponytail. She has eyes like a manga character. She’s small, but I bet if she stood up, she’d appear as tall and leggy as a supermodel. She reads a well-worn paperback. Every male eye in the restaurant is focused on her.
She’s a cop.
The muscles in my arms shake from holding up the heavy binoculars. I put them down. Hipster has barely moved since we got here. I wonder if he’s asleep. I lean forward to check, and he eyes me in the mirror. I lean back.
The anticipation is exhausting. The sky grows even darker, and the amber lights that hover over the parking lot click on. My mind flashes back to lying on the cement, waiting for the man in black to show up. And he did. I just didn’t know it then. Drake could have done whatever he wanted to me that night. No one would have known. He could have left me in the woods to be found days or weeks or months later. But he didn’t. He could have been trying to gain my trust, make me like him. Make me go to him. Or maybe it was because of Jordan.
Or maybe it’s because I’m wrong.
I swallow hard.
The cop answers her cell phone. Her eyes flit to fake me. Every muscle in my body seizes up. Headlights bounce through the window. It’s the Camaro. He showed. I duck.
The cop puts her book and her phone
into her bag. She yawns dramatically. It’s a sign to the others outside. They won’t move in until she raises her arms and stretches, which she’ll do when she has confirmation that it’s Drake.
Something’s wrong. Both doors of the Camaro open at the same time. Two people get out. Drake out of the driver’s side and out of the other…
Jordan.
He sees fake me lit up in the window. His face explodes into a smile. I grab Hipster’s shoulder. “No. They can’t…” It’s too late. The woman cop lifts her arms over her head. I drop the binoculars.
Two marked police cars with lights on screech up to the McDonald’s. One stops behind the Camaro, and the other pulls up next to its left side. Four officers spill out with their hands on their holstered guns. Two approach Drake.
Two approach Jordan.
Hipster starts the car. We pull forward to the exit that will take us to Bluebird Lane. I push my nose against the window as we pass McDonald’s. Drake’s back is to me. His hands are spread on the Camaro. One of the cops pats him down.
Jordan is on the other side of the car. Cavallo has come out from the back of McDonald’s and is examining Jordan’s driver’s license. The car passing makes them both turn their heads.
Jordan’s eyes meet mine. I see something in his that makes my heart stop dead in my chest.
I’ve betrayed him.
—
Hipster delivers me all the way to my mother. She opens apartment 26 and wraps her arms around me. Hipster nods at us. Mission accomplished. He’ll sit in the parking lot for a couple of hours until Cavallo has everything wrapped up.
I let Mom pull me inside and hold me, rocking me back and forth. “I’m sorry,” she says into my ear. “Was it bad? Should I have told them no?”
I shake my head. She pulls away and looks at me. Really looks at me, like she’s never seen my face before. I should be in tears, wiping my nose with the back of my hand. But I’m not. It’s all too big. Shonda, Drake, Jordan. I’m feeling too much. Everything is shutting down.
The Truth Beneath the Lies Page 14
